Baker Street Charterers

"He is a genius, a philosopher, and a profound thinker. He has a first-rate human mind. He is like a spider crouching in the center of the web, and remains motionless, but the web has thousands of threads. He knows everything in it. The slightest tremor is well known. He rarely does anything himself, but makes suggestions. His party members are numerous and well-organized. We say that if someone wants to commit crimes, steal documents, rob a family, or assassinate a person, he only needs to pass it on to the professor. In a word, the crime would be well organized and carried out. His henchmen would have the money to bail him out or defend him if they were caught. But the main men who commanded them were never caught— —not even suspected—”

Under the dim light, Watson took a pen and wrote the following passage on the paper, then paused, and continued to record——

"...But now, Holmes has the help of a great man, an elder who is more authoritative than imagined, and he has finally made substantial progress in the clues of this shocking case: Two of James Moriarty's most powerful aides were arrested, one of whom refused to admit the crime he committed and refused to reveal all the details, while the other was more cunning and tried repeatedly to use true and false lies. To fool the police. Fortunately, what they were facing was Sherlock Holmes, a consulting detective who has always brought observation and reasoning to the extreme, and he quickly broke through their weaknesses one by one."

Watson rubbed his eyes, looked at the lengthy paragraph in the notes, and remembered the smug look of the great detective in the past few days, so he couldn't help smiling.

Weaknesses... yes, every single one of them had weaknesses, including Moriarty.

And the weakness of Miss Marianne is that she is too loyal to bear anyone who slanders her boss. In her bones is the arrogance of a fallen nobleman and the hostility caused by the misfortune of her childhood. Sherlock Holmes hardly spends In one day, she got what she wanted out of the few words she couldn't stand.

The other one is much more difficult. Colonel Moran, an old fritter, is unwilling to treat himself badly or disclose accurate information. He will never hear a completely truthful word from his mouth. A very familiar set.The police can only detain him for the crime of injury at most, but they cannot obtain definite evidence.Even when they intentionally let him go and tried to follow him, not only did he not run away in a hurry, but he took more than half of the police officers for a walk around London—until Holmes made a bet with him.

A gamble about poker skill.

In this regard, Sebastian has always been very confident, and the occasional miss before was just because he fell into Amanda's beauty trick and thought it was harmless in his heart.But this time was different. When Holmes told him more confidently that he was not only inferior to him in skill, but also in poker skills, Sebastian finally couldn't help it.

Their bet is three questions. If Holmes wins, he must answer the three questions he asked truthfully.If he wins, then he can walk out here without worrying about being followed.

In his view, this is a slightly risky but actually very cost-effective deal.He looked at the big detective mockingly, and agreed.

The result is of course no surprise - if Holmes had lost, Watson would not have recorded it faithfully.In fact, the big detective won the first game easily, and they tried all the games in the next round, and the result remained unchanged.In Holmes' view, this kind of game relying on mathematical reasoning and logical judgment is really very simple, far less profound and ever-changing than music art.Sebastian is an arrogant gambler, but he abides by the gambler's principles. He answered Holmes' three questions.

The first question, "Was he still in London when we last met?"

Yes.

The second question, "When he sent someone to assassinate Nora Sharp, how did the other party escape?"

When the assassins found her, they only found that she had piled up the quilt and stuffed it with pillows, but she was actually sleeping in the attic. After hearing the noise, they quickly fled along the secret passage, and they had no time to catch her.

(Very well, apply what you have learned—Holmes nodded secretly.)

The third question, "Tell me where he's going?"

This time Sebastian was silent for a long time. In fact, he himself was not sure, because that one was really an unpredictable person.

He could only give a vague answer, "Get out of here."

Smart people do that.Avoid the limelight, go far away, and come back when the time is right, or never.

Holmes thanked him with a nod of his head, and left the police station.

He was not surprised at all when he heard the news of Sebastian's escape from prison the next day, he just smiled noncommittally and said, "Of course he would do that, you think you have to reveal the news about Moriarty?" After that, will he be safe?"

Even a cunning and greedy wolf knows how to avoid the most ferocious tigers and lions, fearing to be the one being hunted.

"Now, what should we do?" Barton asked.

"He is no longer in London," said Holmes, with the utmost certainty. "Now go and book the fastest train for Europe. See you at the station, Mr. Director."

"You want to go find him yourself?" Barton was stunned, and Holmes smiled confidently. "We took away his lair, uncovered almost his entire criminal group, and the whole of Britain is looking for him. Where else can he go? He He will definitely seek revenge on me, but here, it is impossible."

"Why don't we take the initiative to get out of this spider web, the losers who become angry will always find the creditors, we just need to wait for the good news."

Barton finally agreed with the idea, but asked one more question at the end, "So... what about her?"

"She's enough to surprise me," Holmes tapped on the pipe, and squinted his eyes comfortably in the lingering smoke. His deep voice seemed to flow through the quiet and soft afternoon Thames, and Barton could clearly hear the rare voice in it. With a gentle smile, "...I believe that it won't be long before we see this venerable lady again—at the end of the journey."

"We can find her now."

"No no, it's unnecessary. Moriarty is unsolved, the party is not clear, no one is safe. My friend, when this is over, all the old people will return... including your bliss Miss Bird."

Cough—the director coughed twice in embarrassment, and the tip of his ear was red when he turned his face away.

……

"On May [-]rd, we arrived in a small village in Meiringen, Holland, and stayed at the Great Britain Hotel opened by the old Peter Steiner..."

Watson faithfully recorded that memorable trip with a typewriter, and his fingertips could not help trembling slightly after writing this paragraph.

"The owner is a clever man who has been a waiter at the Grosvenor Hotel in London for three years and can speak excellent English. On the afternoon of the [-]th, at his suggestion, the two of us set out together, intending to cross the mountains Go to a small village in Rosenloy to spend the night. However, he solemnly suggested to us not to miss the Reichenbach Falls on the mountainside, and we can take a short detour to enjoy it..."

Yes, here it is.

It is indeed a sinister place.The snowmelt merged into a torrent, pouring into the abyss, and the spray was high, like smoke from a house on fire.The mouth of the valley where the river flows into itself has a huge fissure, and black coal-like rocks stand on both sides, the fissure narrows downwards, and the milky white, boiling water flows into the bottomless abyss, overflowing and splashing a torrent Flowing down from the gap, continuous green waves poured down like thunder, and the dense and swaying water curtain made a sound for a long time.

On the hillside, a trail was built around the waterfall, allowing people to enjoy the panoramic view of the waterfall, but the trail ended abruptly, and tourists had to go back the same way.They had no choice but to turn around and return.

"Suddenly halfway, I saw a Swiss boy running down the path with a letter in his hand. The letter had the seal of the hotel we just left, and it was written to me by the owner. The letter said, not long after we left, come I met a British woman who has reached the late stage of tuberculosis. She spent the winter in Davos Platz and is now traveling to Lucerne to visit friends. Unexpectedly, she suddenly coughed up blood, and within a few hours, her life was in danger. If a British doctor can help her She will be very pleased and ask me if I can come back, etc. The kind innkeeper Steiner added in a postscript that since the lady categorically refused to be treated by a Swiss doctor, he had no other choice but to shoulder the heavy burden himself. Responsibility, I promise, he himself will be virtuous to me.

"This kind of request cannot be ignored. It is impossible to refuse the request of a female compatriot who is dying in a foreign country. But I hesitate to leave Holmes. However, in the end we both agreed that when I return to Miami During Lingen, he kept the young Swiss messenger by his side as a guide and traveling companion. Holmes said that he would stop by the waterfall for a while, and then slowly climb over the mountain to Rosenlaue. I met him there, and when I turned away I saw Holmes leaning against the rock, arms folded, looking down at the rushing water.

"Unexpectedly, this will be the eternal farewell between me and him."

……

Holmes sat on a wet, mossy boulder, listening to the roar of the waterfall, his lungs filled with moist air, and his hair was beaded with condensation.But he didn't care. In this quiet and noisy place, he disregarded his image as a gentleman, and symbolically poured down the pipe, unable to light the fire. So he smelled the smell of tobacco and sighed contentedly.

If it weren't for the sound of footsteps behind him, this would really be a peaceful and harmonious landscape painting.

Sherlock Holmes put the pipe back into his pocket, turned his head following the voice, and greeted the visitor with a smile, "Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Moriarty."

Wearing an old-fashioned brown jacket, the professor with a shaved beard and a slightly pale face leaned on a cane and stood less than five meters behind him. He didn't look changed at all, and he still had a gentle academic smile on his face. The only difference was Only the black muzzle of his gun was pointed at him in his hand.

"Good afternoon, Holmes," said James Moriarty in his deep voice, almost drowning in the rapids of the waterfall, "it is a pleasure to meet you here."

Holmes shook his head, "Don't say that. In fact, I came here specifically to find you, as if you knew where to find me. Thank you for giving me enough of the world these days to appreciate and A very different and beautiful landscape in Great Britain, but the weather here is unbearable, dry, and too many sunny days—”

Moriarty's muzzle moved, and Holmes immediately stopped talking.

"I'm glad that you haven't changed at all after going through so much." Moriarty's deep eyes deliberately showed curiosity, probing, and he made his tone more gentle, similar to the one in his hand. Bingbing's cold and dark gun was out of place, "Actually, I really want to know, don't you want to know, how did I find you?"

"Probably because I am so eye-catching no matter where I go."

"Ha," Moriarty laughed suddenly. He seemed to really feel the emotion of joy, but it was extremely harsh to his ears. The other party's overconfident smile made him faintly feel a sense of joy. A bad premonition, and this premonition was realized in the next second——

He moved his fingers, and a familiar figure led another more familiar figure out of the shadow behind the boulder.

Sebastian Moran clamped a sharp and shiny dagger tightly around Nora's neck, and with a malicious smile, he whispered in her ear, "Say hello to your old lover." , dear liar girl."