[Sherlock Holmes] The Legend of the Nightingale

(Nightingale's notes)

When I walked into 221B Baker Street again, I had a strange feeling.Everything seemed familiar except that Watson was no longer in Baker Street: Mrs. Hudson opened the door, and Holmes stayed in his room.

"Dr. and Mrs. Watson will be here," said Mrs. Hudson, as she brought in the tea-tray. "Merry has been nagging you not to come back to London. Have you seen Mr. Lestrade?"

"He used his precious vacation to visit me in Manchester. He still feels a little guilty when he thinks of me. In fact, I am very grateful to him."

"But you haven't seen the Watsons for a long time."

"Why bother them. Holmes has sent me to London with no commentary, only on a curious case."

"To be honest, Miss Nightingale, Mr. Holmes thinks he is very smart, but in fact, sometimes..."

Mrs. Hudson slipped back into the kitchen without finishing her sentence, when Holmes' clear voice suddenly sounded from the stairs.

"Oh, Nightingale, you have finally arrived."

He himself was leaning on the armrest, gazing at us peacefully, and when I turned to look at him, he made a languid gesture of greeting with his free hand.

"Come to the point," I said hurriedly, "I have a dozen problems to solve in Manchester. McMurdo is working hard all by himself, and he can't reason at all. Iris is better than him. She has seen All sorts of people, manipulating them, self-taught. If you can solve a problem in 10 minutes, it’s better not spend the whole day.”

"It can be settled as soon as possible with a few words." Holmes shrugged, walked into the living room, and made a "sit down" gesture.The advantage of being a guest at home is that Holmes is much more polite.

"Are you still interested in dialogue plays?"

"Here we go again. Can you skip the classic introductory question and answer?"

"I think we've got a new play in London. Don't know if you'll like it, though most of the ladies in London will be terrified. It's not playing somewhere famous right away. Try to get it done. It's taken a lot of work from the director. It's more than average in terms of horror and impact. You've probably heard of the book, The Nightingale, by Bram Stoker, and it's called..."

"Dracula." I sighed. "That's a novelty. It's unbelievable. I kind of want to meet the man who made it into a screenplay. He's a brave man, but hopefully not reckless."

"It's the director himself. Pierce Schlesinger, he has a small troupe. If this bold move can be made in London, they can make a name for themselves. For this, Mr. Director paid a lot of money to invite Mr. and Mrs. Reginald to play the main role. Role."

"I kind of can't remember the actor's name."

"Balin Reginald and Catherine Reginald." Holmes showed a sarcastic smile, "To avoid the suspicion of malicious attacks, I will not express any further opinions."

"Is there a problem with the crew?"

"Yes. So far, this scene has been scheduled for more than half a year. According to the plan, the premiere will be a week later. Now it has entered the rehearsal stage. It was at this time that the director suddenly began to receive anonymous threatening letters."

"For this scene?"

"Nominally at least. Well-phrased, involving some nonsense that such vulgarity should be removed from the stage..."

"Oh no, I've read that book, and it has no shortcomings except that it makes people have nightmares at night."

"I don't care about that, Nightingale. For three days in a row Schlesinger has received letters threatening his safety to cancel the show, and he has no clue as to who might do such a thing."

"At least a person who has a sense of social responsibility but has taken an irresponsible measure to achieve his goal."

"That's a bit prettified, Nightingale." Holmes took out a folded letter paper from his pocket and handed it to me. "You can see for yourself."

"A threatening letter?" I was taken aback when I opened the letter.All the places without words have been smeared with black and red liquid, as if soaked in blood.But I know it's not blood, the color is not right, and the blood will not be so straight after it clots.

"That's a bit vulgar. Red ink? No, red ink with a little black ink mixed in. A child's thing."

I roughly glanced at the place where the words were written.I really don't want to repeat and write these polite but vicious words in my own notes.

"I understand."

"That's not the only interesting thing. Mr. Schlesinger found the first letter backstage after the last non-rehearsal rehearsal. It was in an envelope, sealed with wax."

"Fire paint?"

"I know what you're thinking. The other party wasn't stupid enough to leave any patterns or marks. What smooth surface did he use to press the wax on. All the director found was a round piece of red wax. Mr. Schlesinger was discreet , the seal was not broken when it was opened, and the envelope was brought in as good a condition as possible. I checked, but there was nothing but the traces left by Schlesinger when he read the letter."

"The letter said that if Schlesinger turned to the police or anyone else, he would take immediate action," I said, "but this director decided to come to you so soon."

"I appreciate this solution. The director assured me that it was impossible for anyone other than the crew to enter the backstage. From the crew, someone sent it in through a crew member. To some extent, this anonymous person has shown a little trick. Later, both letters were sent directly to his home. Maybe that person found that his previous method was effective in intimidation. But it’s not really safe.”

I meditated for a while.Count Dracula was lurking outside the window of the castle like a gecko, looking up at Jonathan in astonishment, his eyes glowing like fire in the dark night, revealing animal-like fangs, and then disappeared.The lights were all on, and the crew members applauded habitually.After the rehearsal, Director Schlesinger wanted to think about the script for the last time, and he was still sitting in the audience thinking after everyone else left.Before leaving, he went backstage to see if there was anything left behind, but found an unsigned letter that appeared mysteriously.He opened the envelope and was stunned by the blood color and round characters spreading on the letter paper.

"It's perfect," I blurted out. "I think I could write another play out of this story."

"Let's save it first. I promised Mr. Director to arrive at the theater before the rehearsal. There is plenty of time."

"..."

We rushed out of 221B when Mrs. Hudson came out of the kitchen and shouted in the hall that we should at least wait for the Watsons to come.

Mr. Pierce Schlesinger was a prim-looking man, with his aquiline nose and shrewd eyes who looked a little like Sherlock Holmes, but he shook our hands with an unsmiling, sullen look.I'm starting to wonder if it's the threatening letter that's upset him, or something went wrong in rehearsal, or something he wasn't happy with when we first met.But after talking for a long time, I found that Mr. Director is usually like this.He has a low voice, no tone, and no expression except for sometimes moving his bushy eyebrows. This feeling is very different from the theater worker I imagined.I thought they were all enthusiastic and imaginative—but considering that this serious person in front of me is the person who adapted the script of "Dracula" and fought for it to be staged, this stereotype may be just a Appearance.

"I've heard of you, Ms. Nightingale." Schlesinger pronounced the vowels very full with his stern accent, and my name was unexpectedly beautiful. "It's a pity that you went to Manchester, and we didn't have the honor to appreciate your demeanor."

God, it really is the guy who wrote the screenplay.It's a little too loud.

"My work is bound to be low-key, Mr. Schlesinger. What we are waiting for now is you and your crew. Now is it time to introduce us ladies and gentlemen?"

Just looking at the costumes of the actors, I can basically guess the characters.I have never been able to get all the names of the actors, except Reginald and his wife who I met once.The crew all refer to each other by their character names. My intermittent name memory disorder did not cause any loss. As long as I can call everyone's character name, I can do a job with ease.The gentleman who looks the most elegant is the hero Jonathan Harker, and the dark-haired woman with ancient Greek looks who always plays with him is the heroine Wilhelmina Morey, and her good friend is the blonde beauty Lucy vistra.The other two young men had both proposed to Lucy, Arthur in the more expensive dress, and Dr Seward in spectacles.I still have a third one in my mind, but Mr. Director felt that that role was too redundant, so he directly deleted this role from the script.Of course there is also an old man who is Professor Van Helsing.I can't do anything about the large group of supporting characters and extras.What makes me laugh the most is that Count Dracula is actually this guy Balin Reginald.He dressed up primly and looked the part, painted his face pale and put on a black cloak, and maybe I was the only one who was full of embarrassing things when I saw him.Although it's not good to vent your anger on others, when I heard that Catherine Reginald played Lucy, I still couldn't help myself to have some prejudices against her, not to mention that Lucy Westera is the character in this book. A character I dislike for no reason.I hope these trivialities don't affect my thinking.

As I just said, Schlesinger introduced us a lot, but I didn't remember any of them, maybe I didn't feel the need to remember them subconsciously.Holmes took his seat without any hindrance.After a brief conversation with Schlesinger, Holmes said to me:

"I think for the next week, we're going to watch all the rehearsals here every day."

The author has something to say: In this volume, the author started talking again, and some things need to be said in advance.The book "Dracula" involved later is very famous. It was first published in 1897, and this book was really very, very, scary at that time (although it is still very scary if you read the original seriously now), It is impossible to be on the stage of the drama right away, that is to say, I have skipped the timeline. I really want to advance the plot, so we pretend that we have not seen it.The story of Dracula written by the real Bram Stoker has been changed beyond recognition by movies like Thriller, so a very serious religious story has become a love story between vampires and humans. Fans of the original book Regarding this == But no matter how you say it, the script adapted by director Schlesinger in this volume still follows the original plot. The vampire Dracula went to London to hunt and kill, and the protagonists eliminated him with the help of Van Helsing.It's kind of nonsense to have to get involved in this drama, but I'm actually the one who brought private goods.Jeremy Bright once starred in Count Dracula in the play. Although he is a classic villain, the effect is recorded to be so charming that the ladies can’t wait to be attacked by vampires == This meme is so attractive, So... for now.I'll add what comes to mind later.