Detective Bennet [Comprehensive novel]

Missing Katie, her hair is light brown and curly.

Another family lost her fiancé, Eggie, and her stepmother, Doreen, has curly, light blonde hair.

Sherlock sharply noticed that Doreen's hair had been dyed, and the light brown dyed was exactly the same color as Katie's hair in the photo.

Katie, Doreen is 31 years old.

Both of them are thin. If they put on the same clothes, it will be difficult for unfamiliar people to identify who is who from the back.

"I will inquire around first, and then I will go to the T church where Katie disappeared to find out later."

Kelsey needs to be clear about whether Doreen was out on the day Katie disappeared.

Doreen claims to have been taking care of the housework.

Since there is no live-in maid, Doreen has to do all the work except handing over the clothes to the laundry.

Every morning, a proper breakfast should be arranged, so that the husband and stepdaughter can enjoy a delicious meal and go to work happily.

After that, Doreen will go to the nearby market to buy daily necessities.Because of the short distance, she was able to go home before lunch without needing a carriage.

Katie allegedly eloped with a man near T Church, which happened around 11:30 p.m.

According to the calculation of the distance between Katie's house, Doreen's house, and T Church, Doreen started from home at least at 09:30, and it took two and a half hours to complete the journey from her own home-Katie's house-T Church.

At 09:30 in the morning, the residential area around Doreen's house has a lot of people, and there may be eyewitnesses paying attention to Doreen's whereabouts.

"Okay then, go back to Baker Street in the afternoon to collect the news."

Sherlock is going to look for another clue, "I went to the nearby pharmacies and grocery stores to find out where Doreen bought the hair dye. I don't rule out another possibility. The hair dye was not bought by Doreen, but by someone else. For her."

Who's going to send Doreen hair dye?

Needing Doreen's 'help', it's logical to buy a must-have set.

four hours later.

Sherlock walked around the shops selling hair dyes near Doreen's house but found nothing, but found something in the drugstore around the bar opened by Freeman.

Last winter, the maid of Freeman's family came here to buy a set of hair dye, including light blonde and light brown hair colors.

The neighborhood never saw Freeman dye his hair.

His wife, Katie's biological mother, was dark brown.Mrs. Freeman was also not remembered to have dyed her hair a light shade.

Sherlock simply visited the Freeman's house again.

Freeman was not at home today, but he saw Mrs. Freeman and the middle-aged maid who went out with Katie on the day she disappeared.

Mrs. Freeman looked very haggard, and she seemed quite helpless about the disappearance of her daughter Katie.

"I shouldn't have allowed Katie to go out. From the moment she pretended to be crazy, she was determined not to listen to me, and she took the opportunity to elope with someone."

Mrs. Freeman choked up as she spoke, and her eyes turned red.

"Ma'am, you have to take care of yourself."

The maid Nita quickly handed over the handkerchief, "Miss will be fine."

Sherlock looked at the master and the servant. He had already learned from the neighbors that Nita, who was about forty years old, had worked in the Freeman's house for more than 20 years.

The light gray-haired maid did not impress her neighbors with dyed hair either.

Freeman's house is small, with three floors and four bedrooms.

There have been four people living there. Nita is still unmarried, and she is far more familiar with Freeman than Mrs. Freeman who remarried to London for five years.

"May I go and see Miss Kitty's room?"

Sherlock's reason is very reasonable, "You think she eloped with someone, I want to find evidence that may remain."

"can."

Mrs. Freeman agreed without hesitation, and led the way to the second floor, where she pushed open the unlocked room. "This is Katie's room."

The house was cleaned very well.

Nita said that she had just cleaned in the morning, and she would not be lazy just because the lady was not at home.

However, Katie's room is not only in a state of diligent cleaning by the maid, but also indescribably deserted.

With their own real estate in London and a family with a small business, what should a girl living here look like?

Generally speaking, girls in this kind of family can have some pocket money to satisfy their teenage preferences, such as purchasing accessories, perfumes, clothes and hats.

Sherlock failed to see such items at a glance, and Katie's dressing table only had a mirror and a comb.

The comb was exceptionally clean, not a single hair was left.And the comb teeth are spotless, no different from the new ones.

Mrs. Freeman explained from the side, "Before, Katie pretended to be crazy and deliberately broke a lot of things, cutting skirts, tearing off earrings, etc., and they didn't have time to buy them again.

Originally I thought that Katie would marry Billy soon, why not send everything to their new house in the future, who would have thought..."

Mrs. Freeman was so angry and impatient at the thought of her daughter eloping with someone that she couldn't speak again emotionally.

Sherlock nodded as if believing.

He came to the bookshelf, the only place in the whole room that was a bit popular - the books had been read, not brand new or erased.

The books Katie read were not obscure.

Knitting crafts, gardening, classic novels, etc., are all books that can be easily purchased on the market.

After flipping through all of them, there are a total of 67 books on the bookshelf.

There are two points that attract attention: First, the latest publication date stopped in October last year, before Katie's mango allergy rash symptoms.

Second, half of the books are in Italian.Mrs. Freeman said they were brought from Rome and bought when Katie's real father was alive.

"Can I temporarily take these books away for inspection?"

Sherlock asked Mrs. Freeman, paying attention to every moment of her expression, "I still don't know who Katie left with. Would that person have communicated with Katie through letters? After all, Miss Katie usually likes Where? Does she have friends her age who play well?"

Asked about this, Mrs. Freeman shook her head, "Since she came to London, Katie has made no new friends. The two girls she can chat with are both in Rome. They used to correspond, but those letters are also in Katie. Torn apart while pretending to be crazy."

Katie's so-called pretending to be crazy is really thorough.

Sherlock can't deny this, it's really hard to say who destroyed the letter.

Billy made it clear before that when he came to visit Freeman's house several times, his fiancée wore a veil and told him to leave.

After the rash on Katie's face faded, Billy communicated with her and heard the request for an early marriage.

A few more questions were asked.

Sherlock failed to get more clues from Mrs. Freeman and the maid, Nita, and asked the carriage to transport Katie's books back to Baker Street first.

Will the pile of books hold clues to where Katie is?

Walk out of Freeman's house and look back at the three-story building.The secret of Katie's 'disappearance' may be hidden in it, or it may have been transferred elsewhere.

In the afternoon, T church.

After some investigation, Kelsey could only find out that Doreen left home at [-]:[-] am on the day Katie disappeared, and no one has seen Doreen since then.

Bauer, the coachman who took Katie to Church T when she disappeared, had no contact with Katie and the Freeman family before.

Now Bauer will drive the carriage and take Kelsey along the route of the day again.

Katie didn't speak to him all the way that day, and the only few conversations were made by the maid Nita.

"Here, Nita said that Miss Kitty wanted to get out of the car to have a look at the new hat."

The coachman Bauer stopped the carriage at the intersection and pointed to the hat shop diagonally opposite, "Three days ago it was Sunday, and there were a lot of people shopping. After I parked here, Nita didn't accompany Miss Kitty into the shop."

Kelsey asked, "Where's Nita waiting? In front of the store?"

"No, Nita waited beside the carriage."

The driver couldn't see Katie's face clearly because she was wearing a mask, but Katie definitely gave Nita a cold glance. "That was an unhappy look, so Nita didn't follow him into the store."

10 minutes before and after.

Because the flow of people on the street blocked the view, the coachman failed to notice that the masked lady hadn't entered the hat shop at all, so she rushed to the intersection ahead and boarded another carriage.

"Soon, Nita noticed something was wrong."

The coachman said that at that time the street was congested and he couldn't drive to catch up. He and Nita abandoned the car and ran wildly, but they couldn't stop the masked lady from leaving.

What happened later, the coachman could no longer participate in it.

He sent Nita back to the Freemans' home, and was asked not to mention Katie's intentional escape.

Kelsey's investigation along the street failed to find the whereabouts of the masked lady, but through the descriptions of the merchants along the street, she pieced together the appearance of the driver who eloped with Katie in the carriage.

——This man is another missing person, Heller.

Back to Baker Street.

By the way, Kelsey received Watson's telegram from Paris at the post office.

""Heller, no such person".Well, Watson's message confirms that Aggie's missing fiancé is using a false identity and that there is no such thing as Heller. "

Two families, two disappearances.

Now that it is confirmed that Aggie's missing fiancé Heller was deliberately impersonated, so where did Billy's fiancée Katie elope?

Heller, who saves the beauty with a harpoon hero, is probably Freeman of the whalers.

Doreen, who has used hair dye, corresponds to Katie, who has been covering her face when she disappeared.

It is clear that the two disappearances have intersected.

Sherlock flipped through Katie's collection, "Mrs. Freeman's words and deeds show that she knows everything, and now there are good reasons to suspect that several people have conspired to commit the crime.

Last summer, Freeman pretended to be Heller to cheat Aggie's affection, and after he left, he was able to blow Aggie to no longer consider marrying. "

At the same time, Katie stepped into the trap of 'allergic and mentally insane'.

"The last time Billy and Katie communicated face-to-face was two weeks ago. Since then, everything including agreeing to make appointments for churches has been communicated through the maid Nita."

It was not difficult for Sherlock to understand why Katie did not get out of Billy's hands.

It was her parents who hurt Katie, even though they reorganized the family, but they had always been on good terms with each other in the past.

If the Freemans pretended to be submissive, or had a red face and a bad face, based on the parents' understanding of their children, they could always persuade Katie not to make trouble for a while.

Katie may even have reconciled with her stepfather and biological mother, just asking to get married and leave sooner.

And because she and her fiancé Billy are not in love, she can't tell Billy everything in detail.

Katie didn't tell the truth, thinking she would just leave the Freemans' house.

She thought her parents had compromised, but she didn't know that it was a trick.Freeman and others want to take this opportunity to realize that Katie is crazily eloping with others.

"First let Billy hate her because of Katie's madness, and then let her get sick of her because of Katie's trouble and escape from marriage. The next step is to procrastinate. After a long time, Billy will give up the engagement."

Sherlock had to say that Freeman and others thought very well, "The careful design to prevent Katie from getting married means that she probably also has an inheritance. Watson has already traveled to Italy, and there should be definite news in a few days. "

Now, the two detectives must find out where Katie is as quickly as possible.

Is Katie locked up at home?Or was it taken to Freeman's bar?Or somewhere else?

Sherlock said the Baker Street squad had split up.

At the moment, it is best to determine Katie's specific location first, break through and find someone in one fell swoop, and don't make a fuss and let Freeman and others transfer Katie.

into the night.

The Baker Street squad brought the latest clues.

"Mr. Holmes, you asked us to inquire about any abnormalities in Katie's house and Freeman's Bar since last winter."

Said the page, "One knocker at the window heard Katie's house always making strange noises in the early morning."

The window knocker is similar to a humanoid walking alarm clock.

In Victorian London, not every household had an alarm clock, and they would be woken up by someone knocking on the window on time in the morning.

Before dawn, the window knocker will start working.

On Christmas Eve last year, the window knocker heard a slight knocking sound of "dong dong dong" from the third floor of Katie's house at four or five o'clock.Later, Katie's neighbors more or less learned that she was ill, and the knockers thought it was Katie's discomfort.

"But I heard a similar sound last week, which made the window knocker feel a little strange. He listened carefully, and the knocking was rhythmic."

The little servant reported a set of numbers, "Knocking starts with one, followed by nine, and so on from the beginning: 1, 9, 2, 1, 2, empty, 1, 5. The window knocker I heard the same knocking sound for three consecutive days, but I didn't ask Freeman what was going on."

The less trouble, the better.

In the past two days, the person who knocked on the window did not hear the knocking sound again, so he put his doubts behind him.

Right now, the two detectives are attaching great importance to it.

1, 9, 2, 1, 2, empty, 1, 5.

What does the tapping sound in this rhythm represent?

Kelsey and Sherlock glanced at Katie's collection of books on the table, looked at each other, and came up with a guess in unison.