Baker Street Charterers

The right candidate in her mind?

Nora froze for a moment, she had never experienced a sweet and happy love, her energy was devoted to her work no matter in her previous life or present life, Elizabeth married the throne, and she married a profession.She had never met anyone who made her fall in love, so she felt embarrassed to say how to judge her husband at this moment.

Originally, she thought it was just a chat while waiting, but she didn't expect Holmes to ask a very tricky question for her.Nora lowered her head and thought for a while before she spoke slowly and uncertainly——

"If I would like a person, then he should probably be like this...stable, tolerant, patient with others, does not need too much wealth, in terms of treating children...I hope he can respect my opinion-about so .”

Holmes: "...you really don't admire Watson?"

"..." Nora looked at him speechlessly, "I thought you were just joking."

Holmes frowned. "A joke? No, of course not. As—as my partner, I think it is my duty to help you find a suitable candidate."

"..." Nora was dumbfounded. She stared at Holmes with strange eyes for a long time before she spoke in an unsteady tone, "Okay, okay—of course Watson is very good, he has the advantages I mentioned. , and there are only more advantages, but this does not mean that I will admire him. Maybe you haven't heard of it, and the person who can spend a lifetime with you more often is often not the right person in your mind. "

Holmes fell into thinking full of dialectical philosophical sentences.

Nora looked at him again with strange eyes. Holmes has given her a slightly abnormal feeling recently... She can't tell what is abnormal, but she can sense something wrong.

But Holmes has always been self-confident and can hide his thoughts. He doesn't want to reveal his thoughts, and no one can see what he is thinking.

The clock gradually approached three o'clock. After that conversation full of weird meanings, the two began to meditate or be in a daze with each other, until there were familiar footsteps coming down the stairs——

"Sherlock—" It was Watson.

He also came with a yellow and white long-haired dog, which staggered and walked awkwardly. Nora looked at Watson suspiciously. Was he really looking for the right thing?

Watson wiped the sweat from his face, "The dog you are looking for is Toby—Seders, where is McMurdo and the housekeeper?"

"Arrested by that Jones." Nora shrugged.

Holmes regained his senses, borrowed a lantern from the police officers downstairs, and beckoned them to follow him, climbing up the hole in the ceiling.

He illuminated the footprints on the floor with a lantern. "Look, is there anything worth noting?"

"The footprints of a child, or a woman who is not very tall?" Watson wondered. Haven't you seen this before?

"It's not the same. Look here. This is the footprint of the right foot, above the dust. Now I take off my shoe and socks and step on my own footprint on the other side—now?"

Nora didn't feel that Holmes's behavior was inappropriate at all. She bent down and compared the two footprints, and found something wrong: "Your footprints have all five fingers close together, but this one has five fingers loose. of."

Holmes nodded. "He stepped on the bottle containing the liquid, which went out through the window, leaving a smell and footprints. I think Toby can distinguish the smell--Watson, you go downstairs and take the dog away." open."

Watson went downstairs as promised, and Holmes signaled Nora to stay at the window, while he quickly climbed up to the ceiling again, murmuring that he didn't know what he was doing.

A moment later Holmes' voice was heard from the eaves: "Here is where he came out—the corner of the eaves! Watson, what's that dark thing down there?"

"bucket."

"Is there a cover?"

"Have."

"See the ladder?"

"No."

Nora poked her head out and found that Holmes was passing through the secret door. She slowly climbed down the water pipe at the back of the house, landed on the barrel with a light jump, and then jumped to the ground. He spoke a hundred times, "That's how he left, the tiles were loosened where he walked, and we found something more important-"

He spread his hand, and there was a small bag in the palm of his hand. It was a colorful bag made of silk and grass, with a few rounds of gaudy beads wrapped around it. The shape and size looked like a cigarette case, with six black wooden thorns inside. It was the weapon that had been found to kill Bartholomew.

The six poisonous thorns are all the same length, one end is sharp and the other is blunt, black and ominous.

"That's right, it's a special poisonous needle." Holmes put it away carefully, then raised his head and looked at the two with piercing eyes. "Guys, do you still have the strength to run another five, six or seven miles?"

Watson straightened his face, "I'm very interested, buddy."

Nora spread her hands, "You must not fall behind me, Watson."

Holmes laughed loudly, and beckoned Toby, "Come on, good dog, smell this." He stretched out a handkerchief dipped in that wood oil to the dog, and Toby sniffed it and slapped him on the spot. After a while, Holmes tied the handkerchief around its neck with a string, and led him to the barrel.The dog let out a low growl, and immediately turned his head and ran away.

The three followed closely behind.

The east began to turn white, the morning light was cold, and the surroundings seemed extremely silent.They ran until they came to a huge square house, which looked like a wasteland, with dense and dense trees, and the windows stared at them bleakly and gloomyly like ghost eyes.

Toby ran back and forth along the wall, barking ferociously, and finally stopped at a corner shaded by a young beech tree. Some bricks showed signs of looseness where the two walls met, as if someone had tried It acts as a ladder to step up.The three climbed over the wall together very tacitly. Originally, Watson was going to reach out to meet Nora after jumping off the wall. Unexpectedly, the only lady in the threesome was faster than him, and jumped up without hesitation after climbing the wall. After going down, Watson scratched his head in annoyance.

"Look here." Holmes pointed to the marks on the wall. "Here are the handprints of the man with the wooden leg, and there are faint bloodstains. Fortunately, it didn't rain last night, so the smell and clues are left here."

"It's not difficult to find the suspect by smell, but what I'm wondering is, Sherlock, how did you know so clearly about the man with the wooden leg?" Watson asked.

Holmes laughed complacently, "It's very simple, the obvious fact - there are two officers who are the custodians stationed in the prison, but accidentally discovered a great secret, about the treasure. The map of the treasure is a Drawn by a man named Jonathan Small, you should remember, the paper with the 'signatures of four' - oh, artistically dramatic title, very interesting."

"Based on this picture, the two officers—to be precise, one of them got the treasure and brought it back to England. It is not difficult to infer that the officer did not fulfill some of the conditions he promised before. The promise of the treasure. I can tell you that the time when Captain Morstan got the treasure map was when he went to work in the prison. And Jonathan Small did not take the treasure himself because he and his accomplices were both Served in prison and couldn't get out at all."

"This is just a speculation." Watson was not entirely convinced.

"But that's the only reasonable guess, isn't it?"

Nora was thoughtful, "According to this, Sholto lived a very comfortable and stable life for a few years after returning to China, until he received the letter from India and became extremely terrified, but why did he not No such emotion—I guess, because the people he deceived, have already served their sentences and are free?"

"I am more inclined to talk about the escape." Holmes continued to speculate. "If it was a normal release, Sholto would have known in advance, so that he would not be so panicked. Then, he has been wary of people with wooden legs, a White people, why white people? Because he misread a white trader before and injured him, the signed paper only has a white name on it, and the rest are Indians or Islam, so we can be sure, The man with the wooden leg is Jonathan Small, do you think I have a point?"

Watson nodded now, "Indeed."

"Then, Jonathan's purpose was very clear - to regain the treasure and take revenge on those who deceived him. I think he probably bought someone from Sholto's family as an insider - you remember that Sedes once said Yes, the servant who urged his father to bury the body that night, his name was—" Holmes paused.

"Ral," Nora said, "Ral Joda."

Holmes nodded, "That's the name. Mrs. Burnstone didn't have a good impression of him, and apart from the captain and a loyal servant who has died, no one knows the whereabouts of the treasure, including Small. Sholto When the news of his critical illness spread, he was afraid that the treasures would also be buried in the ground, so he ventured into the house and found that someone was not daring to go in. After the death, he was so angry that he rummaged through the house to search for it, and finally left a note It shows that someone has been there - it's not just murder, in his mind, it's also a punitive act of justice, and he thinks he's a chivalrous figure, so he left a clue."

"Jonathan can't, he can only wait and see what happens. He also knows that Sholto's son is desperately looking for treasures. Jonathan can't go up to Bartholomew's very high room alone with a wooden leg. He must be good at climbing Friends are helping him."

"His accomplice killed someone?"

"Yes, there are many traces of stomping in the house. It can be seen that Jonathan didn't think that his partner would kill someone at first. I speculate that he is probably a middle-aged man. He has stayed in the Andaman Islands for a long time, and his skin is very dark. According to the steps I told you earlier You can guess the height, he has a beard on his face, and Sedes has seen his face in the window, that's all I can say for the time being."

"That's a lot of clues." Watson looked at him with admiration. "I can assure you that Mr. Jones can't tell even half of it."

"And it is still impossible to judge whether the clues in his mouth are correct or not." Nora made up the knife.

Holmes laughed, and then asked Watson as if remembering, "Doctor, you don't have a gun, do you?"

Watson looked at him warily, "I only brought a cane."

"Well, that may come in handy," said Holmes, regretfully. "You and Nora are in charge of Jonathan, and I am in charge of the others. If he is dishonest, there is no need to show mercy."

Nora nodded with a serious expression, "Don't worry, I will take good care of Watson."

Watson: "..."