[Sherlock Holmes] Captured a detective

Chapter 59

Although I was not very hopeful, the heavy rain really stopped the next day, and there was no fog outside the door. It is usually foggy outside at this time, but the sun began to shine early this morning.

Fantine opened the door and took a deep breath. She was almost suffocated to death—the stench that should have been found only when standing by the Thames seemed to permeate the entire city of London at this moment.

"Oh, dear, what's the matter?" Fantine hastily closed the door.

"It must be due to the heavy rain." Jenny said sadly. She was standing behind Fantine, so she could smell it too.

"...What should we do, Mrs. Hudson?" Fantine really didn't want to go out at this time.

"It might be useful to make a mask, but...will there be anyone in the market?" Jenny worried that no one would sell things with such a smell.

"Certainly." Fantine was quite sure.

"Okay...hope the water doesn't go up."

It took a few minutes to make two masks out of Cosette's old clothes, and Jenny even sprinkled some perfume on them.The shape is a bit strange to wear, but I don't care about these.

The stinky London is still crowded with people as usual, because the only people who don’t smell out are the rich. Most people use scarves or other things to cover their mouths and noses and do things as usual... It’s all for life.Others don't even need to cover their noses...they're used to the smells.

The ground was so muddy that even wearing boots could not avoid splashing mud all over.Jenny hired a carriage and hired a street boy to bring everything home.

When John came down to breakfast, he wondered why all the doors and windows were closed, even the curtains were drawn, and candles were lit in broad daylight.But when he opened the door... all the mysteries were solved... tat stinks... Fantine silently handed over a mask...

The smell got worse at noon, so Jenny and Fantine not only closed the doors and windows, but also put half a lemon in each room and sprinkled some lemonade.

Sherlock was wrapped in his pajamas and sat on the sofa, his eyes following the movement of Janice's lemonade. When Jenny turned around, she saw Sherlock sitting there with a paralyzed face. Looking at her, Jenny was taken aback.

"Can I dry the quilt today?" Sherlock asked.

"..." You are not afraid of smelling the smell of the quilt when you sleep in the sun... Of course, Jenny thought about this.

"If you want, I can help you bake the quilt in front of the fireplace," Jenny suggested.

Sherlock frowned, not very happy, "I don't like the smell of soot."

...Don't you like the smell from the window?

Jenny finished complaining silently, and said, "Just change a bed sheet, sir."

Sherlock seemed to be waiting for Jenny to say this, and he jumped up and said, "Please, Mrs. Hudson."

Jenny called Fantine, lit the fireplace on the second floor, then set up chairs in front of the fireplace, and then took out Sherlock's quilt and spread it on the chair.After doing all this, Jenny suddenly found that Sherlock was gone.

"Mr. Holmes has gone out without a mask," Cossette reported.

Jenny: "..." What do you mean?It feels weird.

Jenny was surprised for a while and put the matter aside, she is still busy today.She and Fantine had bought a great deal, which had to be dealt with hastily.

"Dinglingling~" The doorbell rang.

"It's a delivery." Jenny asked Fantine to open the door, but soon she heard Fantine say at the door, "Who are you looking for?"

Jenny wiped her hands and walked out of the kitchen.Two men in black coats, top hats, and white gloves stood at the door. One was of medium height with a pot belly, and the other did not look like an Englishman. Both held their noses with white handkerchiefs.

"Who are you looking for?" Jenny asked, looking at the two men.

"Excuse me, does Mr. Holmes live here?" The potbellied man wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, and quickly put it to his nose. His accent was not like that of a Londoner, but more like a northern one.

"Please come in and talk first." Jenny let them in, and Fantine quickly closed the door.The fresh lemon smell in the room made the two of them finally exhale and took off the handkerchief.

"Does Mr. Holmes live here?" another foreigner asked again in English with a strange foreign accent.

"Yes, but he's not here now." Jenny wrote down their faces and replied slowly.

The two men suddenly showed disappointment.

"Did he say when he'll be back?" the man with the belly asked again.

"No." Jenny shook her head.

The two men exchanged glances, and the man with the belly wiped his forehead again with a handkerchief and said, "If it's convenient, we hope that Mr. Holmes can contact us as soon as he returns." He took out a business card and a gun from his pocket. pen, wrote a few words on the back of the business card, and handed it to Jenny.

"Of course." Jenny didn't look at the business card, but held it in her right hand.

The two men didn't stay any longer, and they left immediately after leaving their business cards.After Fantine closed the door, Jenny opened her right hand. Jenny didn't know the words written on the front of the business card. She turned it over, and the back of the business card read in English, "Grand Hotel St. Louis, Room 305, John Welaine."... ...feels like a pseudonym, but what does it matter to her?

Jenny put the business card in the box on the fireplace as usual, and then continued to sift the flour and rice. Today she was going to make some special biscuits and pastries as food reserves. For this purpose, she specially bought a lot of dried fruits: walnuts, almonds, sesame, Melon seeds, hazelnuts, chestnuts, pine nuts, raisins, peanuts...

"It's finished, Mrs. Hudson." Fantine poured the tea rice into a small bowl. There were already several such bowls in front of her, which contained tea rice, coffee rice, and cocoa rice respectively.

"Okay." Jenny separated the flour and rice, and then handed Fantine a clean sieve, "Sieve these too."

Two people work much faster than one person. Jenny boiled the sieved rough tea rice separately, then put all the boiled tea, butter, sifted fine sugar, and salt into the basin, and stirred until the sugar and salt were completely mixed. melt.Then she added flour, rice and tea into it and stirred. After thinking about it, she added some sesame seeds.

Stir the dough until it sets, Jenny pours out the dough (paste) and continues kneading into a smooth dough, then put the whole dough in a small clean bowl.

Likewise, Jenny and Fantine made some dough out of coffee and cocoa rice fractions, which they cooled by half-immersing the bowls in water.

"Mrs. Hudson, Mommy, I'm done~" Cosette ran in holding the notebook, copying was her regular homework every day, "Can I help?"

"Of course, honey, go wash your hands quickly, remember to wash them with soap." Looking at her homework with Cosette's hand, Jenny sent Cosette to wash her hands when she saw that there was no problem.

Cosette's strength was too weak, so Jenny assigned her the task of crushing walnuts, almonds, chestnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts and other dried fruits.Put the dried fruit in a clean cloth bag, smash it, smash it, smash it...

While the dough is cooling, Jenny is going to make some halva.

Fantine beat egg whites, and Jenny stir-fried the dried fruit that Cosette smashed, then put water, maltose, fine sugar and salt in a pot and boiled until bubbling, then poured into the beaten meringue.Jenny stirred vigorously, and Fantine took over when she was tired, and then added cream several times and mixed well.

Jenny placed the freshly fried crushed peanuts on an oiled iron plate, then poured some slurry on it, and gave it a quick kneading so that the peanuts were covered with sugar juice.Fantine put chopped walnuts on another plate, poured the remaining syrup into it, and kneaded it quickly.

Finally, shape the evenly mixed sugar into long cubes and set aside to cool slightly, then cut into cubes and roll with icing sugar.

The two moved quickly, and after a while they spread the candies on the table to cool down.It is really a laborious job to make this thing, and Fantine is exhausted just by beating egg whites.

"Take a break," Jenny said, deciding to do something different.

In another pot, fry the walnuts and white sesame seeds until fragrant, and Jenny brushed the iron plate with a thin layer of oil.Pour the fine sugar into the pot and add a little water. Jenny adds a piece of maltose to the pot and stirs constantly. When the sugar juice gradually becomes thicker, add cooked walnuts and white sesame seeds when the sugar color deepens. Jenny stirs gently to wrap the sugar Fill walnuts and white sesame seeds, then pour the contents of the pot into an iron plate while it is hot, and press it tightly with a shovel.Put the whole iron plate into the water, so that the cooling will be faster, and then cut into pieces after it cools down.

It's much simpler to do this, but it's sweeter than the previous kind of sugar, and it doesn't have a milky aroma.

After making the sugar, the previous dough was almost cold. Jenny and Fantine took out the dough and rolled it out. Cosette was in charge of spreading dried fruits on it. Sesame, finally brushed with a thin layer of oil, put in the oven.

Most of the candies and biscuits were made into square shapes for easy storage, but Jenny also asked Cosette to mold some round, heart and star-shaped biscuits for the sake of appearance.

Now the large kitchen table was covered with a clean cloth on which all the pastries and biscuits were laid out to cool for preservation.

The room is full of sweet smell now, and it smells very full.Fantine opened the windows and doors to dissipate the smell, and soon the stench from outside came in, and Fantine hastily closed the doors and windows again.

Jenny made a pot of tea, and took a break with Fantine.Cosette was holding the pot of boiling sugar, thinking that no one would see, she secretly dipped her fingers in the broken candies at the bottom of the pot and ate them all over her face, she almost licked the bottom of the pot, her behavior It greatly reduces the cleaning work afterwards.Fantine covered her face, my daughter is a little fool.

Neither Sherlock nor John came back at noon, and Jenny and Fantine ate two pieces of dry bread with tea for lunch, and then went on to make pickled fruit and jam.

Jenny bought a lot of fruits, cherries, strawberries, loquats, apricots... and two big mangoes that came across the ocean - Fantine had never seen this kind of fruit, if it wasn't for Jenny's confident face She bought two of them, and she didn't even know how to eat them.If you want Jenny to say, the greatest benefit brought by the colonies of the empire on which the sun never sets is that it has greatly enriched the dining tables of the British mainland...but it is so expensive~~~ especially those foods and ingredients brought from the heat.

Jenny felt that most of the money she earned in her life would probably be spent on "eating".

The green mangos from across the ocean are already ripe, so Jenny decided to use one for pickled fruit and the other for mango pancakes.She doesn't quite remember how to make this kind of dessert that doesn't exist now. Fortunately, it's not difficult to make. She recalled the taste and probably knew how to make it.

All the bottles and cans in the house have come in handy, and they look particularly fulfilling when stacked in the cabinet.

Jenny didn't forget the quilt that Sherlock was baking, and she went up to the second floor to check on it between making pastries.Anyway, the fireplace had been lit, so Jenny simply dried Sherlock and John's quilts and pillows and changed the sheets and pillowcases.

"Fantine, let's toast your quilts and mattresses together. Change the sheets and send them out for washing tomorrow. Anyway, there will be so much washing." Jenny folded all the changed linens and put them in the laundry basket.

"Okay Mrs. Hudson, but you don't need to send it outside for washing. I can do it. The sun is so bright that I don't need to buy vegetables tomorrow. I just need to get up early to wash." Fantine felt that there was no need to spend the money.

"But there are a lot." Jenny felt that washing at home was too troublesome.

"I can," insisted Fantine.

Jenny agreed to Fantine after thinking about it, and at most she could cook for herself tomorrow.