Baker Street Charterers

On the second day after the murder, various newspapers published the "Brixton Curious Case" one after another. When Nora walked downstairs in the morning, Holmes was sitting on the sofa, reading the reports and comments in the newspaper with relish. , and Watson carefully excerpted their clips, and it seemed that he seemed to enjoy it.

"Good morning, Nora." Watson greeted her.

"Good morning," Nora replied, "anything new on the case?"

Due to the recent poor business of the clinic, Nora had a lot of free time and was finally able to participate in the discussion of this complicated case.She poured herself a cup of black tea and listened to Watson and Holmes complainingly.

"No matter what the circumstances, Lestrade and Grayson will be the biggest winners in this case." Holmes lazily said, "If the murderer is caught, they will do their duty and succeed in the end. If the guy escapes, then they are Try your best but you're unlucky, and there will always be people to cheer you up."

Nora was very familiar with the police operation. She nodded with sympathy, and was about to say something when she heard noisy footsteps from the hall and downstairs, mixed with Mrs. Hudson's scream, "Sherlock ——!”

"What happened?" Watson couldn't help standing up.

"Detective Squad, the Baker Street Squad has arrived." Holmes said seriously. Before he finished speaking, a few street urchins came in, all dirty and serious and nervous.

"..." Nora looked at Holmes speechlessly. It turned out that Holmes would really use this trick in the legend.

Of course Holmes didn't care about their expressions. He looked at one of the waifs solemnly, "Wiggins, have you found him yet?"

"Not yet, sir." The child was a little frustrated.

"I didn't expect you to find him so quickly, but you must keep looking until you find him. This is your reward." He gave each of them a shilling.

The children dispersed, and their screams and cheers were immediately heard in the street.Facing the strange eyes from Nora Watson and Mrs. Hudson, Holmes cleared his throat and explained, "A group of such punks are more useful than the police. They are all very smart and can go anywhere."

When he said this, he suddenly paused, with a sneering look on his face, "It's true that whoever says it will come."

As soon as the voice finished speaking, the bell rang loudly downstairs. Not long after, the blond detective strode up and said excitedly, "Hey, man, congratulate me, I have already investigated this case and found out!"

Holmes was noncommittal, and his tone was unremarkable, "So you have found reliable clues?"

Gleason was very surprised by Nora's appearance here, but he was too busy to pay attention to her now, "Yes, we have already put the murderer in the cell."

"Who?"

"Arthur Charpentier, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy." Gleeson was very proud.

Astonishingly, Holmes was relieved. He sat down on the sofa and smiled.

"Perhaps you would like to tell how the case was solved?"

Gleeson took the cigar Holmes handed over, and slapped it on his thigh with great joy, "That idiot Lestrade thought he was smart, and he wanted to grab Draper's secretary Stangerson with all his heart. Just innocent. I'm sure he's got him by now."

Nora and Watson exchanged glances and sat down on the sofa.Holmes straightened his waist in interest, and said meaningfully, "Oh? Then how did you find the clue?"

Gleason hummed pretending to be mysterious, and glanced at Nora, "Are you sure you will keep this matter a secret, no one else will know."

Nora curled her lips imperceptibly, and Holmes noticed her little movement, and suddenly smiled lightly, solemnly, "Of course, Gleason, there is no one in this room who can keep more secrets."

"Okay then." Obviously he couldn't hide his over-excited emotions, and rarely entangled with Nora's gender, but said very quickly, "I'll tell you the truth—do you still remember the hat next to the deceased? ?"

"Of course," replied Holmes, with the utmost dignity. "I bought it at Underwood and Son's, 129 Camberwell Street."

Grayson was stunned for a moment, "It seems that you have noticed it too, where have you been?"

"No."

He breathed a sigh of relief, and then said like a lesson, "One should not ignore any opportunity, even if it seems insignificant."

"To a man of superior intellect there is no such thing as insignificant." Holmes smiled.

Gleason automatically ignored his words, "I went to the shop in Endwood and asked the owner if he sold any hats in this size, and he quickly told me that this hat belonged to Draper, who lived in Tokai Street in summer. That's how we got the address of Pontier's boarding house."

"Nice job." Holmes said seriously.

"Then I called on Madame Charpentier, and found her pale and worried, and her daughter in the room--very pretty, but red-rimmed and trembling when she spoke." Grayson said with a smug look. Smile, "None of these can escape my eyes. I mentioned Stangerson and Draper to them, and soon discovered that they had something to hide from me. It didn't take long for me to ask the truth—"

"Draper stayed here for three weeks, and he and his secretary, Stangerson, were traveling in Europe, and the suitcase had a Copenhagen travel sticker on it. According to her, Stangerson was a reserved and quiet person, while Draper was quite different. , dissolute and vulgar by nature. He got drunk on the first night, and was still awake at noon the next day. "

"Mrs. Charpentier's patience is nothing more than the temptation of gold coins of one pound a day. Her son Arthur needs to spend money in the naval service. She is not willing to lose that income, except for that one time - Draper attempted to insult Ellie. Si, she couldn't bear it and drove them away."

"And what happened next?" asked Holmes softly.

"Mrs. Charpentier's son happened to be on vacation at home, because he was irritable and loved his sister. She didn't say a word about it. She didn't expect Draper to come back soon. He was very excited and obviously drunk. He asked Alice eloped with him, said he couldn't spend all his money, grabbed her by the wrist, and dragged her to the door—"

Gleeson danced with excitement, "This pissed Arthur off, and he rushed into the house, only to hear the noise of cursing and wrestling, and he drove Draper out of the house with a stick, and followed him Get out. The next morning there was word that Draper had been killed."

"Excellent." Holmes yawned. "And what happened next?"

"I asked Mrs. Charpentier about her son carefully, and it turned out to be almost as expected. I went out for at least two hours and came back after they slept. Isn't that suspicious? I took someone to arrest him. He, he still has that heavy stick in his hand, a very thick oak stick."

"I think this woman's son followed Mr. Draper all the way to Brixton Street, and there was a quarrel, and Mr. Draper struck him with a club, which probably happened to be concentrating on his vitals so that he died, But it didn't leave any scars. It rained so much that night, and there was no one around, so Arthur dragged the body to the empty house. Those candle bloodstains and rings were all traps he left to hide people's eyes and ears. Evade the police."

"Well done, Gleason, you have made great progress, and success is almost at hand," sighed Holmes.

The detective was complacent, "I also think this matter was handled very neatly. The lieutenant wrote a statement. He said that he was followed for a while and was discovered, so Mr. Draper threw him away after getting into the carriage." Yes, he met a colleague on the warship as he was walking back, but when I asked him where the colleague lived, he couldn't justify himself - funny Lestrade, he got the wrong direction from the beginning, There will definitely be no gains, ha—"

As soon as he finished speaking, Lestrade walked in. He was completely different from his usual confident appearance. He looked bewildered and disheveled.When he saw that Gleason was here, he froze for a while, with a helpless and embarrassed expression on his face, fiddling with the hat in his hand, looking uneasy.

"Why are you here?" Grayson said proudly, "Have you found that Mr. Joseph Stangerson?"

"The secretary, Joseph Stangerson." Lestrade said softly, "At about six o'clock this morning, he was killed in the hotel in Halliday."

……

Things seem to be getting more and more complicated.

Next, Lestrade described his investigation in detail - he had been inquiring about Stangerson's whereabouts all night, and arrived at the Holliday Hotel in Little George Street at eight o'clock. Wake him up at [-]:[-], so he went upstairs to look for it, but he didn't expect to see a scene that made the detective feel sick——

Blood streamed out from under the door, and Lestrade knocked open the door immediately. The window was wide open, and next to him lay the dead body of a man in pajamas, curled up, dead, with stiff and cold limbs. The left side of his body was stabbed deeply with a knife, and the most strange and frightening thing was that the word "rache" was written in blood on his face.

Both Nora and Watson couldn't help being taken aback.

The murderer is undoubtedly the same person.Could it be that this so-called rache was not written randomly, but does it really represent the meaning of "revenge"?

If so, why did the murderer seek revenge?

Lestrade went on, "Someone has seen the murderer once, a milkman who happened to go into the alley behind the hotel, and he saw the ladder that was usually lying on the ground being erected, facing a window on the third floor. , the window was wide open, and a man climbed down without panic, and gave him a look that the child thought was a carpenter. He remembered a big man with a red face and a long brown suit Coat. After staying in the room for a while after the murder, we saw blood in the water on the face, which must have been washed hands, and there was blood on the bed sheet. It seems that he wiped the knife very calmly after the murder."

Everyone was not surprised by the description of the murderer's appearance. Holmes continued, "Have you found any clues?"

"No. Stangerson still has Draper's purse, the money has not been touched, and it is not a murder. There is only one telegram in the house, from Cleveland. The telegram is 'jh is now in Europe', Not signed. There is a novel on the bed, a pipe, a glass of water on the table, and a wooden box of ointments by the windowsill, with two pills—"

"That's it!" cried Holmes, suddenly excited. "That's it."

Everyone looked at him in astonishment.

"It's almost done. The last link of the reasoning has been completely confirmed." Holmes stood up, his gray eyes gleaming, and he couldn't help walking up and down with excitement, saying in a high voice, "This mess of threads has already been grasped. In my hand, of course, there are still some details to be filled out, but I have a complete understanding of the whole case—did you bring those two pills?"

Lestrade took out a small white box, "I brought them all. To be honest, I don't think they are of any importance."

"Doctor Watson." Holmes opened the box. "Come and take a look. Is this an ordinary pill?"

Watson looked up curiously. They were pearly in color, small and round, and almost transparent to the light. He immediately concluded, "They should be soluble in water, judging from their appearance."

"Yes, yes, of course." Holmes' eyes were astonishingly bright. He motioned for Watson to bring up the old dog downstairs, and mixed it with milk to feed it and drink the pill, as if he wanted to prove something.It's a pity that they waited for a long time, but the dog didn't respond, and Holmes had a very different expression on his face.

"It's impossible." He walked back and forth impatiently, "How could it be a coincidence, poison—I'm sure there can't be any fallacies in this inference—"

"Holmes," Nora said softly, "here are two pills."

He paused, immediately raised his head, pressed her hand very excitedly, let go again, turned around and picked up another pill, "Yes, you are right, I understand!"

He cut the pill in half, melted half of it in water, and put it in front of the dog with milk.Soon they saw the difference—before the unfortunate little creature had time to swallow the milk completely, it began to tremble and twitch in all its limbs, and it was not long before it lost its breath.

On the contrary, Holmes exhaled a long breath, relaxed his tense face and shoulders, "Sure enough, my inference is correct—one of the two pills in this small box is a highly poisonous drug, and The other one is completely non-toxic, I should have thought of it earlier."

Everyone was at a loss, only Nora showed a look of sudden realization.

"So you already know what happened?" Lestrade asked. "Then the murderer should have been caught earlier, so that he won't do another harm."

"There will be no new atrocities," said Nora suddenly. Holmes gave her a strange look and rarely agreed. "Yes, I'm sure—you ask me if I know who the murderer is, of course. He's the one to count. He's smart, brutal, and cunning, and has a competent man on his side--it must be said that I don't think the Official Detective is his match. An immediate name change is drowning in honesty, so I don't ask any of you for assistance, and I hope you don't stand in the way of my overall plan - no offense."

Gleeson and Lestrade blushed, dissatisfied with the contempt and sarcasm in the tone, but before they could say anything, they heard a knock on the door below. It was the waif Wiggins, "Please, sir, your carriage is downstairs."

"Good boy." Holmes said as he took out a pair of steel handcuffs from the drawer. Under the bewildered eyes of everyone, he dragged out a small travel suitcase from the room and fastened it on. above the belt, and at this moment the coachman came in.

Holmes didn't raise his head, and was busy on his knees. When he saw someone coming in, he immediately called out, "Hey, coachman, please help me fasten this."

The coachman's face was tense, and he walked forward reluctantly, and was about to extend his hand to help, when Holmes suddenly winked at Nora, and Nora took a step forward almost without hesitation, and slashed at him mercilessly. After touching the coachman's neck, she moved very quickly and skillfully. The coachman let out a scream, but did not faint because of his strong body, but staggered and nearly fell to the ground.Holmes immediately slipped the handcuffs on the coachman's hands, and jumped to his feet with a gleam in his eyes.

"Gentlemen," he said gravely and courteously, "permit me to introduce you to Mr. Jefferson Hope, the real murderer of Mr. Draper and his secretary, Mr. Stangerson."