Detective Bennet [Comprehensive novel]

This time there is no need to hire an external translator, Sherlock took the initiative to explain Watson's doubts.

"It started with the piece of paper that was sent to Baker Street. I received it on the day you went to redeem the ticket after the free lottery for the lucky number."

Sherlock took out the warning paper that he carried with him, opened it, and it said "There is no eternal luck. If you speak big, you will be backlashed."

Watson took it and looked at it carefully.He also learned a lot from the previous investigations.It can be distinguished that this paper is ordinary paper used in business offices in London, and the ink is also the most common black ink made in London.

Just talking about the content on paper seems like general talk.

It can be combined with the time and place of its appearance, and it is easy to connect with the maiden voyage of the Lucky One.

"Is this a metaphor that someone on the "Lucky" will have an accident? "

Watson recalled the situation after boarding the ship, and Sherlock kept observing the guests on board, and it turned out that it was not just a detective instinct.

Watson glanced at his pocket watch again. It was less than an hour before September [-], the ninth day of his cruise vacation.

"However, your journey has been safe these few days, and you haven't noticed anything wrong. The writing on the paper may be a prank, or it may refer to something else."

"You're right that nothing can be judged. So I didn't bring it up in the first place."

Sherlock mentioned the origin of the warning letter, which was packed in a blank envelope and handed to Mrs. Hudson by a newspaper boy.

After reading the content, Sherlock asked the Baker Street team to find out who sent the letter, and finally found a man with a slight Spanish accent.

The man was of average build, dressed in workers' clothes and a sports cap that barely covered the top half of his face.

The beard on the lower half of the face was not shaved, but the hands and fingers were unexpectedly clean, without the rough feeling of a manual laborer at all.

This is a little strange.

Watson speculated, "That man probably deliberately disguised himself. What happened next?"

"Before leaving London, there is no follow-up for the time being."

Sherlock thinks that he is not miraculous enough to lock one of the millions of people in London with just a piece of paper without fingerprints, and more evidence needs to be found.

If nothing happens all the time, or it can only be attributed to some people typing and playing casually when they are full.

In front of him, new clues appeared.

"This telegram tells us that someone on the Lucky One is in trouble.As for whose lucky value will be exhausted, I..."

Sherlock swallowed the "my Jerry" that he almost blurted out, "My respected Mr. Bennet, you have given us the current known situation."

Watson nodded belatedly. He almost forgot that he had heard Dr. Balker talk about the aliases of two detectives, Tom and Jerry.It turns out that J is Kelsey, so it is not surprising why the news was sent by telegram.

Looking at the telegram at this time, this line of words has become profound and complicated.

It is a pity that Watson has not read the novel mentioned in the telegram, so he cannot make a guess, but he thought of one thing. "Mr. Bennet took me as the recipient, is he just in case there are malicious people in the crew? The names of these two books are very similar to my past style. If you let me receive the letter, even if the ghost reads it It will not arouse their alarm."

"Meticulous Mr. Watson, you are right, and that is J's usual discretion."

Sherlock explained the hidden contents of the telegram, which did not mention who might commit the crime, but mentioned possible victims.

The two novels Kelsey mentions are nothing special, just plain cheap horror stories.It was published in a booklet, and there was no splash at all.

These two are specially selected because there are very few readers who have paid attention to them and can remember the plot and the name of the protagonist.

"The Lover's Dream of Atlantis mentioned by Jerry first, the story is simple. The protagonist is a British shipping investor. Let's sink into the deep sea together."

Sherlock then talked about the plot design of "Secret Love in the Sahara" pointed out in the telegram, "This story is written beyond words."

"Secret Love in the Sahara" begins with a letter.

A received a mysterious letter one day, which was a curse from the African desert, anyone who read the letter would be cursed.

If you want to crack it, you need to copy the spell and send it to the other five people, so that they will also be infected by the curse.Only when the number of people in a group of six is ​​satisfied can they enter the cursed land.Go there to find the source of the curse and cut it off to survive.

Afterwards, A sent a curse letter to five friends, and they organized a group to go to the African desert.

"Wait a minute."

Watson listened to this, and felt that A was a little hard to explain, "A still sent a letter to a friend knowing it was a curse? Did they communicate beforehand?"

"Who told you that this story eulogizes the nobility of human nature?"

Sherlock's eyes were clear, "Cheap horror novels, they are not all stories of truth, goodness and beauty. I have said it all, this story is hard to describe."

A deceived five friends, and was on the verge of danger several times after entering the desert.For example, encountering giant desert insects, such as getting lost due to lack of water, and finally encountering the ancient Roman headless man.

That is, the headless man recorded by Pliny the Elder in "Natural History".Monsters living in the Sahara desert in North Africa, they have no head, and all the five sense organs are grown on the chest.

Listening to Sherlock's A Desert Adventure, Watson still found it very interesting, so he couldn't help asking, "What happened next? How did it end?"

"The force value of the headless man is very high. A and the other five people were all killed. The group of six people was wiped out, and their bodies were swallowed by the ruthless desert."

Sherlock said the ending, "If you want to ask what this has to do with the title of the book "Secret Love in the Sahara", the source of the curse seems to stem from the love and betrayal hundreds of years ago, but no accurate conclusion is given in the story."

Why no conclusion?

Because the protagonist group is gone.

Watson was speechless for a while, but there is still such a novel!

On second thought, the quality of cheap horror novels for a penny is not high.Toilet reading materials, people throw them away after reading, or even use them as toilet paper without reading.

Analyzing from this perspective, Sherlock and Kelsey actually intensively read those novels, and wrote down the titles, characters, and plots of the books one by one. Such practices are hard to describe.

Watson must ask, "Mr. Holmes, why did you choose to read these books?"

"Inspired by people, reserve some stories that can be used as secret words. The quality of the stories themselves is negligible."

Sherlock was inspired by Joan Spada, who hid the secret of the Monte Cristo treasure in secret words related to the novel before she died, and handed it out of the prison in the form of a suicide note.

It's a nice way to whisper.

There are thousands of stories in the world, and cheap horror novels include all kinds of deaths and misfortunes.

When Sherlock and Kelsey were separated across the Atlantic, they reviewed the stories together by letter.Or competition who can make up a better version, or laughing and enjoying certain bridges together.

In fact, it doesn't matter whether the original story is wonderful or boring.Just because of them, the monthly mail package for two people is a heavy box.

What can Watson say about this?

Is it to praise the two people's enthusiasm, or to slander the two people for nothing?

Well, ordinary people don't understand the fun of detectives.

Watson turned his attention back to the telegram from Kelsey:

"The person Mr. Bennet is reminding us to pay attention to is a shipping investor who has received threatening letters. Not only him, but also his friends may have received letters. And we need to find this man."

"exactly."

Sherlock also added two points, "The man we want to find, the threat he received may be a mysterious force from Africa. In addition, if the danger hidden around the man cannot be dug out in time, he is very likely to die."

The protagonist of "Atlantis Lover's Dream" chose to live in the deep sea, but in the eyes of outsiders, he fell into the sea and died.

Sherlock guessed Kelsey's hint, "The way of death is very likely to be submerged in the sea and cannot survive."

"Oh! Then we have to hurry up."

Watson thought about the [-] VIP cabins, and he didn't know how many shipping investors were among them, and he wanted to find out from them whether they had received a threatening letter.

Four days away from the Florida peninsula, could the murder really be happening?

Sherlock can't be sure whether the murder happened, just as Kelsey hinted at Sahara's headless - so far, the threat letter is not fully known, and no conclusion can be made without a clue.

At the moment, Sherlock can only get the news.

Even if there is a code word to communicate, it is still not as good as two people communicating face to face.One is at sea and the other is on land, and the relevant clues are vague, which makes the investigation more difficult.

**

new orleans.

What Kelsey was about to convey was telegraphed to New York.

At present, she has no means to guard the telegraph to convey the news to the ship, so she can only ask Dantès who is ready to rescue the fleet, and ask him to contact the "Lucky One".

I would rather make a wrong judgment than miss it.

Although there is currently no conclusive evidence that Kang Tan, who received the threatening letter, will definitely encounter misfortune on the Lucky, and that kind of misfortune may affect the entire crew.

Kelsey still sent Sherlock the secret message, and even with a rescue team ready, she still hopes that the "Lucky" will reach the Florida peninsula safely.Comparing the wrong intuition with the casualty of someone, of course it is better to be at fault.

After the telegram was sent, it was to deal with the disappearance of Jules in front of him.

Before entering Fengshou Rubber Manor tomorrow, seek professional advice for one or two news.

A deserted manor, a paradise for ghosts, and a punishment for voodoo dolls.

These keywords led Kelsey to the famous voodoo wizard here.

In recent years, voodoo has gradually been allowed to be mentioned in public from being officially regarded as heresy.

'jingle jingle——'

While the wind chime was ringing, the wizard Tilan talked about the past of the manor.

"I'm sure there are no evil spirits or monsters there."

As a wizard, Tilan even denied the weird rumors at the beginning, "Four or fifty years ago, Oak Park closed down due to poor management, and the land was repaid and returned to the state government. The relatives of the original manor owner were unwilling to hand over such a land. A large piece of land, pretending to be a ghost and doing a lot of things."

Then there were rumors about the Ghost Paradise.

After the Civil War, those who tried to make the land their own died, but the strange legends spread from word to mouth became more and more outrageous.

Kelsey listened to Tilan's refutation of the rumors, and he also said that in July this year, the people who were preparing to bid for the manor encountered disaster after that.

"Several people came to me to exorcise demons with injuries."

Tilan shook his head slightly, "Those people set foot in Oak Manor, some fell from the stairs of the abandoned house, some saw ghosts after returning, some said they heard strange singing in the middle of the night, but I'm sure they didn't encounter evil spirits .”

Kelsey didn't understand and asked, "How are you sure?"

Tilan pointed to his eyes, "I can't feel any evil spirits. It wasn't made by spirits, it was artificially expelling them from the manor."

By feeling?

Kelsey couldn't even say that Tilan did something wrong. The person in front of him was a wizard, and he didn't speak with real evidence.

If Tilan really said that those people were entered by evil spirits, she wouldn't believe it, so it's better to ask something specific. "How many help-seekers have you and your companions encountered related to Oak Manor?"

"I know, what you're asking is how many people who went to find out about the auction of the manor's land suffered bad luck after the news was released."

Tilan seriously recalled, "From July 20th, people went to investigate the situation one after another. In the middle and late July, there were some rumors of ghost encounters. There were about [-] people. They came from different places, and all of them encountered ghosts. Bad luck."

Some of those people were as wealthy as Peavy and Ethel, and some came to investigate on behalf of their employers.

Regarding what they said about being haunted by evil spirits, Tilan once solemnly advised those unlucky ones to call the police and search the Harvest Oak Manor carefully to see if there were any criminals hiding.

But the local sheriff did nothing and just went through the motions.

Later, did those people still believe that the accident they encountered was not man-made or evil?The answer was unknown to Tilan.

"Those people left New Orleans one after another in early August. As for whether they will participate in the official auction in mid-October, we will only know one month later."

Tilan said that perhaps because of the rumors of hauntings spreading in July, few bidders came to the site in August for field surveys.

Kelsey sorts out the timeline.

At the end of June, Juul's notebook left the last entry.

In early July, the state government released news of the estate auction.

In early August, the four of Juul received threatening letters one after another, but they didn't take it seriously.

In September, Juul disappeared shortly after arriving in New Orleans.

After Bono received a threatening letter and came to find someone, Peavy, Ethel, and Quentin, who was still on the boat, will gather in New Orleans.

"I have another question."

Kelsey asked Tilan for confirmation, "For those unlucky investigators before, did anyone mention that they received threatening letters? Or were they warned that they would be punished by voodoo dolls if they approached the manor?"

Tilan was sure not, "I've never heard those people mention it, not a single one, and voodoo dolls can't punish people casually. In terms you can understand, the first rule of alchemy is equal exchange. With witchcraft To punish others, the greater the force, the greater the power the spellcaster will have to borrow, which cannot be exchanged at will."

That's weird.

Why did several people in Juul receive threatening letters?What's so special about them?

Or something special.

Occultism is prevalent at the moment, and the wave of prospectors who came in July left one after another because of the haunting incident, but the three of them, Jule, Pevy, and Ethel, were not afraid of what the threatening letter said.

Fearlessness may be the result of ignorance, but it may also be the result of knowing everything inside.

Kelsey had to consider the latter possibility. Will these threatening letters be written, directed and acted by themselves?If yes, what is their purpose?

In any case, I will go to Oak Manor to check around tomorrow morning to see if there is any trace left by Jules.

Kelsey was about to leave when Tilan asked her to wait.

Tilan asked: "What about you personally? Is there nothing you want to ask the gods to explain?"

Kelsey said matter-of-factly, "Sorry, I personally don't believe any of this."

"Even though I don't believe it, I can see that you respect different beliefs."

Tilan asked for a small wooden statue and put it on the table, "You paid too much for consulting fees, and I deserve it. I will solve your doubts once, so that we will not owe each other."

Kelsey looked at wood carvings, very abstract carving art.

She didn't push back on this trivial matter, and asked unquestionably about the recent concerns about the "Lucky Man", "The problem I was thinking about, can it be solved smoothly?"

The room fell silent.

Tilan closed her eyes, took the wooden sculpture with both hands, and raised it above her head.As if he had heard some revelation, he put it down gently.

1 minute later.

Tilan said: "On a stormy night, please look up at the sky. To the southwest, the stars will show the way."

Kelsey smiled and said goodbye.

She doesn't believe in the so-called blessing reminder.The simplest contradiction, how can people see the stars on a stormy night?