Detective Bennet [Comprehensive novel]

Kelsey moved out of the temporary place and rented a single room on the second floor of Montagu Street near the British Museum for sixty pounds for half a year.

Compared with Lestrade's five-pound-a-month two-bedroom apartment, the area of ​​this one-bedroom apartment was less than half, but the rent was twice as expensive, costing most of her bonus.

Expensive and worth it!

The rooms are equipped with private bathrooms, specifically flush toilets and bathtubs, which are not yet common in London.

In this way, after deducting the necessary daily necessities, there was only ten pounds left in the pocket.

Kelsey learned that a handful of money is never enough.The original estimate can be used for half a year, but for the comfort of the house, the plan cannot keep up with the changes.

She has not been idle, through newspaper job advertisements and on-the-spot observations of various industries in London, she wants to develop a stable way to make money.

First of all, ordinary clerks are excluded. Although academic qualifications are not valued, they can be hired after passing the company interview, but the disadvantages are obvious.The salary is low, and the high rent of a good house cannot be afforded.Long working hours and no free time.

If you want to earn more, you need a professional certificate for technical posts or public service posts.

It can be a university diploma or a professional qualification certificate.Either way, it won't be possible in the short term.

If you want less restraint, you need more gambling.

Kelsey also thought about playing with some financial leverage, but unfortunately, he had no skills, and the principal in his hand was not even a fraction of the account opening qualification.

Is it possible to act as a mysterious financial broker again, earning a commission with empty hands and white wolves?And in the crowd of the London Stock Exchange, it is impossible to be easy.

I didn't choose for too long, and soon found a job with more money, less work, and close to home.

Walking through the streets of London, you will find many bookstands and newsstands.

In the corners of every house were several thin pamphlets of poor quality.After a cursory scan of the cover titles, some are unremarkable and some are cloudy.

The low-quality thin volumes are scattered in a pile, and the covers of each volume are different.It is completely different from other newspapers and books, which are neatly piled up in a stack, which is clear at a glance.

On this day, Kelsey retrieved the "sincerity of reward" for solving the Ripper case, passed by the newsstand and saw a similar arrangement again, and couldn't help asking curiously: "Are those thin volumes old books?"

The stall owner shook his head, lowered his voice, and said mysteriously, "Don't say anything, look for yourself. The price is one penny a book. If you want it, I'll pick it up in my bag."

What is so mysterious?

Kelsey picked up the thin booklet, the poor quality paper couldn't be rougher to the touch.

Open the title page, the entrance is exciting.

A distorted picture of a mummy, the vampire beside the corpse is licking its bleeding fangs.

In 5 minutes, she quickly scanned through the twelve thin volumes on the booth.

Each volume has about ten pages, except for the cover, there are three or four illustrations, and three or four chapters of stories are serialized.It can be roughly divided into crime thriller, monster fantasy, gothic horror, ghost revenge and other types.

"Is there any more?" A thought flashed in Kelsey's mind, "Give me a copy of all the different volumes."

"Yes. There are a total of [-] copies in stock, five of which are finished, and the rest are serialized."

The stall owner saw that Kelsey paid five shillings happily, and was happy to introduce more. "These are collectively referred to as cheap horror novels."

Forty years ago, in the 40s, cheap horror novels were on the rise in Europe.

Now ushering in the genre's golden age, there are hundreds of publishers of cheap horror fiction in the UK alone.Not only in London, but in the whole of Britain, as far as the European continent, such thin volumes can be seen everywhere.

Thin volumes of serialized stories, printed once a week, cost a penny a copy.

There are about three to four chapters in each volume, and four to five volumes are the complete book.For more than a month, people can read a cheap horror novel from cover to cover for four or five pence.

The stall owner laughed, "These are very easy to sell, and the laborers can easily buy more than a dozen copies. A penny is too cheap, and there is no cheaper thing in the UK. To put it bluntly, toilet paper is cheaper than This book is much more expensive. Most people don’t buy toilet paper specifically, buy this book, they can read and use it.”

The words are vulgar, but they are in line with the current situation.

Unlike the later soft paper, the toilet paper sold on the market is still hard, and its use experience is similar to that of newspapers and advertising paper.The price of toilet paper is high, and only the middle and upper class can afford it, but many people don't have the money to care about the hygiene of paper, so they use household waste paper.

In a brief conversation, Kelsey has glimpsed the profiteering of cheap horror novels.

The thin volume is extremely cheap, but it fills up newsstands all over the world.

Taking London as an example, the middle and lower classes account for a large proportion of the population of 400 million. It is extremely conservative to assume that 30 people will buy such thin brochures.

Even a penny a book can be gathered into a tower, earning £250 a week.

After deducting the shoddy printing and sales channel expenses, and conservatively estimating again, the total net profit will be seven or eight hundred pounds.

Kelsey was secretly stunned, the above are all conservative valuations.Thinking that the sales of the booklets were not fair enough, she asked the stall owner again. "Can't you buy it? I mean the police came to raid or something."

"Open one eye and close one eye."

The stall owner shrugged, "Who made these stories irrelevant to the character of gentlemen and ladies."

Despite the popularity of cheap horror novels, which can be afforded by everyone from drudgery to aristocrats, they are rarely read or discussed in public.

This genre ran counter to the prevailing values ​​of the Victorian period, writing about bloody violence, brutality, and capriciousness.

The middle and upper class criticize such stories as absurd enough to corrupt people's hearts, and are unwilling to face the cruel reality that exists under the city's glamorous surface.

The stall owner said that he knew something, "When encountering a report, the police will raid the publishing house under other names, but they don't care much about the newsstand and bookstand.

Publishers pay some fines, who makes them earn more.However, there is no need to worry at all, the businessman is very smart, and has opened up layers of joints for decades to spread the booklets all over the continent.The industry joked that this is "one-half banned/book". "

Kelsey went home with a stack of thin volumes, studied them carefully, and checked the legal issues of cheap horror novels.

In the end, it can be summarized as follows: the law does not order to prohibit it, but the mainstream literature rejects it.For decades, cheap horror fiction has been a gray area of ​​being writeable, readable, and unspeakable.

However, the more banned the more popular.

It is also confirmed that writing cheap horror novels is currently the most suitable way to make money for her.

There are many publishing houses and newspaper offices in London, and many people are engaged in writing or media-related occupations.

The reason why Kelsey didn't immediately think of writing essays is simple. She rarely reads fictional novels.

The process of solving the case is tortuous enough, and the human nature faced is complex enough, why bother to read the fictional love and hatred in the rare spare time.

It is easy for her to explain crime analysis in detail, but it may take a long time to find her way to adapt to the mainstream literature of the Victorian period.

—until cheap horror novels came into view.

Unlike other literary creations, which require tedious review by editors, cheap horror stories have a low entry barrier and require a large number of monthly stories.

Her past experience in handling cases and the knowledge she has learned have become a huge material library, and she can also single-handedly arrange the illustrations in the book and study narrative skills.

Of course, there are obvious disadvantages in choosing this way of making money.

One-half of the book is banned, and the person who wrote it is not recognized as an author by society, let alone received positive comments from most people.

Are these important?

Kelsey shook her head, and took out what she had taken from Lestrade.Put the threatening letter away first, and then look at another piece of paper—the information of the person responsible for the Ripper's correspondence.

Finger tapped on the line "News Agency Editorial Assistant Mike".Perhaps from this person, "Devil's Joy" can be started.

**

London is always cloudy and cloudy.

When I went out, the sun was just right, and suddenly it began to rain.

"Oh no! Unlucky me, I forgot to bring my umbrella again."

Carrying several large bags of documents in both hands, Mike rushed to the eaves to hide from the rain, and turned sideways one after another with a frowning face, not wanting to get caught in the mud splashed by the carriage passing by.

There is no umbrella on a heavy rainy day, and the documents cannot be dirty, and I will not be reimbursed if I stop the carriage and go back to the news agency.

As the editorial assistant of the "News Agency", the largest newspaper in London, Mike's position sounds pretty good, but he has to do all kinds of hard work.

For example, when the case of Jason the Ripper happened, he had to rush to the front to unpack the unknown packages sent to the newspaper office.The editor-in-chief taught him what to panic about, but he was the only one who was the one to fight against the person wrapped in blood.

Poor him, on such a rainy day, he doesn't even have the benefits of a cup of rainy coffee.

At this time, a man spoke with a Scottish accent and greeted Mike with surprise.

"Mr. Mike, I didn't expect to see you here. Oh, how lucky I am. I've been struggling to get an appointment with you because of your busy schedule.

Sorry, sorry, I was so excited that I forgot to introduce myself first.I'm Andy Adair, and I'm here to ask you to review the manuscript.Can you give me a chance to buy you a cup of coffee? "

Mike was a little surprised.The visitor had a beard and a peaked cap, revealing short brown-red hair.Tall and slightly plump, he wore a jacket and corduroy trousers.

This kind of stunned young man who is not well-dressed is not like the candidate for the "News Agency", the largest newspaper in London.

I heard his name from nowhere, so I rushed to find him.But he only knew one thing and didn't know the other, he didn't have the right to review manuscripts at all.

Although Mike was very moved by the proposal of a cup of hot drink, he knew that he had no right to handle the manuscript.Just as he was about to excuse himself as usual, he heard the other party say a few words in a low voice.

"Someone recommended you and praised you as the most fair editor-in-chief in the industry. Editor-in-Chief Mike, can you give me a chance?"

The man named Andy Adair is Kelsey in disguise.

Like a fledgling youth, she actively recommends herself, "I am not contributing to the "News Agency", I am writing cheap horror novels, and I have drawn illustrations myself, please take a look at it when you have time. "

Mike was secretly delighted to be called the editor-in-chief, and his eyes widened immediately after hearing the last sentence.

"Shh! Shh!"

Mike hurriedly gestured to mute his voice. How did the idiot discover his second identity? "God, where did you hear that?"

Kelsey looked innocent, but thought in his heart, is this difficult?