[Comprehensive Classics] Detective Mary

After getting the exact news, the trip to France is imminent.

However, it is not so fast to go.Even if Mrs. Bennet gave travel expenses to the three sisters with the dream of "any one of the three daughters marrying a rich French man", Mary still had to settle all the affairs in London before leaving.

What's more, going abroad in the nineteenth century was no small matter.

Sherlock Holmes was alone, but he walked straightforwardly. Seeing the timing, he almost dropped the sentence "I will go to the place where the commotion happened first" and then left gracefully, but Mary couldn't do it.Not to mention anything else, she has two younger sisters with her!

There were no planes in the Victorian era, unlike the 21st century, where Paris can be reached in an hour and a half non-stop from London.To go out now, Mary and her two younger sisters had to cross the English Channel by boat, land at the port of Calais, and then arrive in Paris by train.

This is why Mr. Holmes said before that he went to France to track down clues, and he left for more than half a year, and a lot of time was wasted on the road.

I didn’t think it before, but it was really in the Victorian era that Mary realized how the increase in productivity had changed people’s daily life—she went back and forth like this, at least half a year, and returned after a year. Home is also possible.Therefore, if things can be arranged, Mary should arrange them as soon as possible.

Even with this awareness, when it's time to go out, the girls' families will inevitably be in a hurry.

Mary specially called Wiggins and his Baker Street Legion to help move things. Two or three street teenagers got together to make it even more lively. When they arrived at the port, several boys chattered. Catherine and Lydia were also worried because they were going abroad. Excited, it took a lot of time just to check the luggage. After Mary checked the luggage list and took out a few coins to give Wiggins and the others as a tip for running errands, the passenger ship's whistle was already roaring, urging all passengers to get on board quickly. up.

And boarding the boat was just the beginning. It took a lot of effort just to find my own cabin and put away my luggage.Lydia was lazy and didn't want to work, and couldn't help complaining while carrying the heavy suitcase: "What the hell did you bring, Mary, it's so heavy?!"

Catherine: "Ah, that might be a typewriter, be careful—"

Before she could finish speaking, Lydia lost her grip and the box fell to the ground.Catherine gave a shriek, and Mary turned away in a fright.

Fortunately, what was in the box was not a typewriter.The suitcase fell to the ground, the lid of the suitcase was thrown open, and a series of parts of the sniper rifles were tightly bound and firmly fixed to the suitcase.

If Catherine and Lydia had been present when Milton was chasing Colonel Sebastian Moran, they would have recognized that the disassembled firearm belonged to Colonel Moran, Professor Moriarty's right-hand man.Of course, even if the two little Bennet girls didn't know each other, they could tell it was a gun at a glance.

Catherine: "..."

Lydia: "..."

The two younger sisters looked at Mary in unison, and looked at her in horror: It's fine if you carry a pistol with you, what's going on?

Mary cleared her throat. "It's not mine."

Although this explanation sounds extremely pale, Mary is telling the truth.The gun was given to Mary by Mr. Mycroft.

Continue to pursue the conspiracy of Professor Moriarty. On the surface, it is a tit-for-tat confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty, but the detective must be inspired by the British government.The younger Sherlock Holmes walked gracefully, and the older one inevitably had to say a few more words.Mr. Mycroft, who appeared like a ghost and could not be ignored, once again took the time to invite Mary to have a cup of tea, and kindly chatted some words about safety, and finally brought out the box containing Colonel Moran's sniper rifle, please Mary Give it to Ms. Erin.

Mary was bewildered, but Mr. Mycroft, smiling kindly and intelligently, said that Lady Irene knew what to do when she saw the gun.

Therefore, this gun is indeed not Mary's, it is dirt seized by the British government, and then handed over by government employees to those who need it. Mary is just an errand.

As for whether the two sisters believe it or not, it has nothing to do with Mary!

She re-covered the box of the sniper rifle and locked it, then sat down as if nothing had happened under the watchful eyes of Catherine and Lydia, and said with a smile: "There is still a distance to Calais, why don't we open the letters."

When preparing to go abroad, Mary did not forget to say hello to the editor-in-chief Hall, and asked him to send the monthly "Beach Magazine" and letters from readers to Paris.Although transnational parcels are troublesome, reader feedback is an indispensable link in the creative process for Mary.

So before leaving this morning, before daybreak, the editor-in-chief Hall asked someone to stuff a big package into Mary's arms, saying that it was the reader's feedback for the first issue of "The Check Lady", and asked her to take the time to read it.

As soon as Mary opened the package and saw the envelopes that had been torn open, she knew that this letter was the same as the feedback in the final chapter of "The King of Carnival", and that Editor-in-Chief Hall asked his secretary to screen it in advance.

Did you hire a new secretary to do this kind of thing!While Mary was dumbfounded, she was also a little moved.The editor-in-chief Hall was afraid that some letters with radical words would affect Mary's creation, so he screened them and temporarily withheld those letters.He can completely not do that, and accepting negative feedback is also something the author should bear.But he was kind after all. Mary and the editor-in-chief never discussed this matter, but she understood.

Catherine and Lydia have also helped Mary open a lot of letters. The three sisters have reached a tacit understanding and have the most efficient way-take out the stationery and go through the content first, put the positive feedback together, and put the negative feedback together. Put them together and put the rest on the other side.In this way, each person is responsible for a part, and summarizes the general opinions of the readers.With more and more letters from readers, this kind of efficiency is much faster than reading carefully one by one.

Mary is personally satisfied with the story of "The Lady with a Check", and the editor-in-chief of Hall has given a vaccination in advance, so before reading the letter, Mary has vaguely guessed the direction of the reader's opinion.

Catherine got the good part, saying that "The Check Lady" is good, nothing more than still praising Philip Luther - more letters have begun to directly address her as Miss Mary - the story is still so novel, and there are three consecutive serials It can make people's eyes shine. This is by no means good luck, but God rewards this meal.What's more, an old lady directly said that Miss Mary is an angel sent by God to the world to tell everyone that women can also make a difference.

This kind of praise makes Mary can't help laughing. The old lady writes letters regularly. Although the opinions are not so reference value, which author is not happy to see someone praise him so much?

The discussion about the plot of "The Check Lady" itself also focused on the fact that Detective Luther finally pointed out the gender of the fraudster.And the words of the editor-in-chief of Hall became a prophecy-he said that reasoning and suspense are popular, but gossip is still people's nature.The female characters appearing in the first two stories are either victims or can be Luther's daughter, which can be said to be completely insulated from the emotional line.Now comes Big Trouble, a mysterious woman who's smart, sharp, and playing around with the cops.Before Philip Luther and Ms. Grace met in the first series, many readers asked curiously whether they would be together.

In addition, many readers also pay attention to the personal experience of Ms. Grace who has never appeared.A female criminal, across the United Kingdom and the United States, also has her traces in Europe, boldly forged checks, enough to be fake.How shocking this era is, Catherine took out a letter and read it face-to-face. The reader directly asked Ms. Grace if she was a cowgirl—the opening of the American West is in full swing. This guess is logical and at the same time Made Mary laugh out loud.

Many speculations are enough to prove that "The Check Lady" was very successful at the beginning, and may even be more successful than "The King of Carnival".

Of course, if there is praise, there must be abuse.

Lydia looked at the thick stack of letters in her hand with a blank face: "There are eyes but no pearls."

Mary laughed a few times: "Philip Luther is not the Queen Victoria printed on the pound. Some people like it and some don't. It's perfectly normal."

What's more, this is the result of editor-in-chief Hall's selection.That is to say, the unsightly abuse and unreasonable personal attacks have been filtered out.

Although there are many letters of objection, they are more unified than the lively voices guessing the plot.

Most of those who professed disappointment with "The Check Lady" tied the plot to Mary Bennet's gender.Talk bluntly about how a woman can do things like forge checks and trick the police.Either it is said that Mary's setting is offensive, or that women do not have this ability and courage at all. This is clearly the author's fantasy as a woman.

In the final analysis, it is the setting of Ms. Grace Mary Sue.

Mary scoffed at this, and liked to talk, what happened to Mary Sue, she boasted that the plot setting was reasonable, and the characterization was also said by the editor-in-chief Hall to have improved a lot.This means that in the eyes of the editor-in-chief, Ms. Grace is better than Howard and Pluto.Mary can accept faults in the plot, but just because she is a woman, she can't do what the prototype Mr. Frank Abagnale has done. Mary thinks this is completely prejudiced and not worth paying attention to.

And those who attacked Mary for being just a woman, sure enough, women can't write truly valuable works, and they still have to write about love, etc., Mary ignored them all indifferently.

On the contrary, the criticism from another angle aroused the discussion of the three girls.

"That's right," Catherine asked worriedly after reading the last letter, "What if, as everyone said, someone forged a check based on Ms. Grace's modus operandi?"

"Criminals can think of it, but banks can't think of it?"

Before Mary could speak, Lydia rolled her eyes greatly: "If someone can successfully forge a check according to the modus operandi of the novel, it proves that the forgery method developed by Mary and Editor-in-Chief Hall is indeed effective. Knowing that it is effective, the bank still If you don’t hurry up to make amendments and take precautions, then such a bank will deserve it even if it goes bankrupt.”

In fact, Mary felt the same way.

Financial cases are no more subjective than homicide cases, and acts like forged checks are entirely preventable.Just like what Lydia said, Mary did not take it seriously after she wrote it clearly. If someone used the same means to break the law, Philip Luther and Ms. Grace could not be blamed.

However, summing up all the feedback, it turned out to be better than Mary expected.The bad voice is concentrated on the characters and their own gender, which means that after writing "Serial Killer Chess Game" and "King of Carnival", no one has said that Philip Luther's story is slanted , Grandstanding.

I don't know if it's because the story itself is gradually gaining recognition, or if the attackers in this part have already attributed the reason to the fact that the author is a woman.But at least, these attacks were within Mary's expectations and she could accept them.

As for the last part of the letter...

Mary looked down at the few letters in her hand, some of which were poaching—trying to ask Mary Bennet to write for other magazines for a higher price.It is also bold to send directly to the "Seaside Magazine" magazine, perhaps because Mary did not expect that Mary directly gave the editor-in-chief Hall the right to read the letter on her behalf.There are also a few serious draft requests, which are short stories and editorial reviews, and the price is not high or low. They are interested in Philip Luther's topicality and gradually gaining fame. Mary thinks that this part can be carefully considered.

On the last envelope, there was a name Mary was very familiar with: Bill Mayne.

The literary critic who has been chasing after Philip Luther since "Serial Killer Chess Game", and Mary dismissed him when she met him, wrote a letter to Mary Bennet.