A True Story of a Wizard's Life

There are some things we know we shouldn't do, but we can't help the impulse in our hearts.

If the impulse is the devil, Holmes, who has not been involved in the case for more than two months, is willing to dance a ballroom dance with the devil.In the name of taking his daughter on an outing, Holmes first went to the hotel where they were staying to inquire about the story about the small valley.

"Mrs. Binger, can you tell me about that valley? You know, I took my daughter here for a trip. Children always like beautiful flowers. We originally planned to go into the mountain the day after tomorrow. How could there be any talk about it?" What about the rumors of the terrible scream?"

Mrs. Binger is the proprietress of this hotel. She was very impressed with Mr. Lessinger and his little daughter Lessinger in front of her. The father and daughter both have pleasing faces. Mrs. Ribinger felt that she had seen through the characters of the father and daughter, the father who did not talk much but loved his children, and the little girl who did not talk much and smiled sweetly.

If it wasn't for pampering the child, how could Mr. Lessinger take his daughter out on a trip with a good temper. Few girls are treated like this these days.And the little girl is also quiet and well-behaved, if she has such a girl, she will satisfy the other party's little wish.

Mrs. Binger thought of Mr. Lessinger's character of saying that his daughter would do whatever he wanted, and she suddenly became serious. She must not let the father and daughter go to the valley three kilometers away.

"Mr. Lessinger, I'm not alarmist about the valley. You must not take Gal there. Those horrible rumors are all true!"

Even in the face of Mrs. Binger's stern warning, Holmes still had some hesitation in his eyes, not doubting the authenticity of Mrs. Binger's words, but hesitating to tell his daughter that he would disappoint her if he didn't take her. Not a father who would disappoint his daughter.

Of course, Mrs. Binger saw it too, and now she told all the stories about the valley without reservation, just to make Holmes completely dissuade Holmes from going there for an outing. "Since Binger and I moved here, thirteen people have died in that valley! The first time I remember it was 15 years ago in the early morning, a woodcutter who went into the mountain to cut firewood died at the mouth of the valley. Said that he must have seen something terrible before he died, so he showed such a horrified expression.

Later, in these years, six people died one after another. Some of them died in the mountains, and some died at the foot of the mountains. The police came to investigate the cause of their deaths, and four of them died of excessive fright. Three others died after falling down the hillside.It turned out that there were still some farmers living at the foot of the mountain. After these things happened one after another, they said that on the nights when those people died, they would hear strange screams from the mountain. Everyone was very afraid that there were monsters living in the mountain, so they moved more and more. It's getting farther and farther away.

So don't look at the beautiful scenery of that mountain, but few locals will go there.If you want to go hunting in the mountains, you will travel together.The villagers seldom mentioned these things, and recently some people discussed these things again. That was because three cases of disappearance occurred near here in the past month. The police came to investigate and said that three couples disappeared while passing by.Everyone suspected that they were captured by monsters in the mountains.

Mr. Lessinger, how can you take your child to such a dangerous place! "

"Missing?" Holmes lowered his eyes to prevent Mrs. Binger from noticing the light in his eyes. He was really interested. Although this is not a case that consumes too much brain power, it is indeed a case in ordinary and boring life. A condiment.

Mrs. Binger was relieved when she saw Holmes bow her head. She knew that it was good to be afraid. It was impossible to take the little girl to such a terrible place.

**

"So, father, do you want to go to the mountains alone to watch the moon?" Gabriel was not surprised that Holmes would be interested in that valley. Some people who leave the case are like gourmets who leave the food. Although they will not die, their lives will be lost. wonderful.

However, Holmes shouldn't just sneak out of the inn by himself, and look at his crude equipment, a torch and a pistol. Why should he think that if there is a murderer there, he can escape unscathed? .

Gabriel regretted it. She shouldn't have aroused Holmes' interest. Didn't she just follow him to see the church buildings and appreciate those classic paintings? Such a safe way of traveling is the choice of normal people.If something happened to Sherlock Holmes, her future life would be affected.

This is not to care about Sherlock Holmes. This man whose eyes light up when he hears that someone is missing does not need his daughter's concern. "Father, if you go into the mountains like this, aren't you afraid of werewolves coming to chat with you? Werewolves are not a gentle race. Are you sure the bullets can penetrate their thick fur?"

Holmes has already told several villagers that there are not many clues about the murders in the mountains that happened in the past because of the long time. They can only know that there were strange screams in the valley at night when the crime happened, and those people died before they died. They were all frightened, and three of them rolled down the mountain with quite hideous facial expressions.There must be something terrible in the valley.However, Holmes would not believe that there was a monster there.

Tonight, the moonlight is just right, suitable for exploration. Of course, he will go to the mountains to investigate.Who would have thought that after slipping out of the hotel, Gabriel would be blocking the path. "Miss Lessinger, children will be captured by werewolves if they don't sleep well. They will roast and eat you. As a father who can't beat werewolves, I will not rescue you."

Hehe, it sounds like you know werewolves well.

Gabriel felt that if Holmes went to study at Hogwarts, his courage would surely get him into Gryffindor, regardless of his IQ.

But stopping a Sherlock Holmes case is harder than stopping death from never coming. ,

Gabriel has already learned some rumors about Holmes during the period of staying in the hotel. It is really not an exaggeration to say that her father is famous not only in England, but also in Europe. Even Binger When the wife mentioned Holmes' death, she felt a little sad, obviously they were just strangers to each other.

Gabriel stood in front of Holmes, and she could almost feel the excitement emanating from him, "Finally there is a case!"Night is like day! '

"I'm an ignorant daughter, and I definitely want to go out to play. My father couldn't hold me back, so he could only drive me to the mountains at night in a carriage."

Gabriel really wanted to shout out, to show the people in the hotel a good look at Holmes' true character, and not to think that she knew nothing about the words he used to deceive Mrs. Binger.

"What do you think of my excuse? It's a good explanation of why we appeared in the mountains. Even if we are met by other people, we have a perfect excuse. Don't worry about revealing our identity just because we are investigating a case. Although This is Florence, but who in the whole European continent has never heard the name of Sherlock Holmes? Those policemen with bad eyes may be hoping for the help of a detective, but they are all regretting that they cannot invite a ghost. Do you want to Putting on Ghost Cracks? Or do you want me to preview a story about a little girl who refuses to be disciplined?"

Holmes was silent for three seconds, and glanced at the carriage that had been pulled out by him. Thinking of his current status as not free, he felt a little sullen about this lack of freedom. He couldn't tell whether it was for himself or for Gabriel. It's one thing to run around with a baby, it's another to take a little girl into the mountains.

It really shouldn't be such a hassle to adopt, otherwise he would be free now, but he would also lose his perfect cover-up excuse.

Holmes jumped into the carriage without saying a word. Instead of driving away immediately, he waited for Gabriel to follow him into the carriage. "With one more of you, it seems that those werewolves in the mountains can fill their stomachs. You think too highly of your little arms and legs."

Gabriel turned a deaf ear, she knew maybe she shouldn't go, she's just a little girl without a wand, and it's best not to use magic in the short term, but she can't afford to leave her alone in the hotel waiting for Holmes to come back. do it.

'Am I an enthusiastic person? 'Gabriel couldn't figure out what kind of person she used to be. She didn't think that the loss of memory meant a change in personality. She was just doing her best to play the role of a little girl who was worried about her father.

Holmes looked at Gabriel pretending not to care, and the sense of disobedience appeared again. This little girl really didn't look like a child. She didn't realize that her behavior of having to accompany her to the valley appeared on a child. How weird, if an adult can say it's responsible, but it's a little self-willed for a child to do so.

Forget it, the father is willful, and the daughter is also willful, so are they really father and daughter?

☆, 7

Under the moonlight, Holmes and Gabriel entered the valley holding torches.The scenery of this unnamed valley is really good. If you have not heard those horror rumors and preconceived it, you will not feel that the atmosphere of this valley is gloomy.When the midsummer night wind blows by in early August, and there are groups of fireflies dancing in the woods, this is really a good place to enjoy the moonlight.

Holmes walked up the mountain road. There was nothing special about the entrance to the mountain, but the last whereabouts of the three missing couples stopped abruptly here.The three missing couples were all newlyweds, none of whom were Italians. Two of them came on foot, and one came in a carriage.Their original destination was to enter the valley to see the scenery, and it is difficult to determine the exact time of their disappearance.

The three missing couples lived in different farmers' homes, and they did not take away their other luggage. When the farmers found something wrong and called the police, they have not found any breakthrough clues so far. According to the footprints and car marks It was found that they had entered the mountain, but the police did not find the existence of the six people after searching the mountain.

"I expect those policemen to search the mountains well, unless the missing one is the daughter and son-in-law of the chief of the police department." Holmes doesn't think these policemen have done a good job. The policemen are similar in this era. Now and then, when I think of it, Lestrade is still a passer-by. police.

Holmes has already found those fragmentary clues from the farmer's words, and pieced together a map. He delineated a search area, the seven people who died in the past few years and the six people who are missing now, the corpses and the last footprints of the missing people. The distance between the remnants is not far.

The obvious difference in this area is that it grows dogwood, which is a plant introduced from abroad to Italy. I don’t know if it has mutated in this valley. It enters the fruiting period in July and August. From a distance, it is a piece of red fruit, which is indeed a good place to enjoy the scenery.

Gabriel didn't say anything about the efficiency of the police in solving crimes. If it is for safety reasons, he should not enter the mountains easily.But now that she is walking in the mountains with a torch, the red color of the dogwoods in the firelight seems to be stained with blood, and there is a weird smell. What is even weirder is that there is a string of footprints left on the land .

"I remember that there was a heavy rain the night before yesterday. This string of footprints will never be left by those policemen. It doesn't look like a man's size. It seems that the murderer you are looking for may not be just a tall and strong man. .”

Gabriel also had some analysis on this case. The missing people were couples who appeared in twos. Generally speaking, people would preconceive that two people should be subdued, and the murderer would be a tall and big man.But if he can hide the trace of the missing person and escape the police's search, the murderer may be a local.

The reason why they chose to attack the couples who came to travel was because the locals would not enter this valley alone, and they were all afraid of the rumors about this valley.

Holmes squatted down and observed the set of footprints carefully. Its range was not large, because the muddy ground here was half-dried after the rain. Some people left footprints after passing by, but there were no footprints further away. more traces.

This foot size belongs to women, and it is a petite woman.Could this be a case of collusion?Generally speaking, the murderer would return to the crime scene to investigate again, because he heard that the police were coming to search the mountain, so the murderer came in to check just after the rainy night.

If this is the case, there should be the same thing here—a corpse.

Even after the heavy rain a few days ago, Holmes still searched the dogwood land in a sweeping manner. His eyes fell on a well-growing dogwood. Although the difference was not obvious, this dogwood The fruit of the dogwood is indeed better than those around it.

Holmes glanced around, found a strong branch and dug towards the soil at the foot of the dogwood tree. He should have picked up a shovel when he left the inn, for digging with a branch is not easy.

As for Holmes, without saying a word, he grabbed a thick branch and started digging. Gabriel also looked a little unhappy when he caught a glimpse of the red dogwood fruit.

Want to make the fruit grow more densely on the tree?Then bury the corpse. When the roots wrap around the corpse, it can absorb sufficient nutrients.

So don't think too much when visiting the orchard, the fruit tree that bears the most fruit may have a secret that makes people chill down the spine.

Gabriel also found a branch. She patted the ground with her hands, found another place with looser soil, and dug up with the branch.

Under the moonlight and firelight, two figures, one big and one small, were digging soil under the red dogwood tree. This was by no means a beautiful scene. It didn't take long, and both of them stopped their movements.

Two human heads appeared in the soil, and the corpse was not lying flat, but buried there vertically, as if a living person had been planted in the ground.

Gabriel always felt that this scene was familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

But they didn't stop their movements. There must be more than two corpses here. After careful searching, there were several other places where the soil was loose. When they dug it up, they found that there were exactly six people in total, three men and three women.

"None of them are Italian." Holmes said, but fell to the ground. He leaned close to the head of the corpse and smelled a faint fragrance, not only from one corpse, but from all six corpses. The fragrance, it should belong to some kind of plant.After such a long time, it has not dissipated. Even if it rains heavily and the rain seeps into the soil, the fragrance still exists. That only shows one thing, the connection between this plant and the murderer and the victim is close.

Gabriel also squatted down, regardless of whether the mud would stain her clothes, she followed Holmes's movement, and sniffed at the head of the victim's corpse, ignore this weird movement, a little girl under the moonlight Squatting on the edge of a dirt pit, looking down at the corpse with only one head exposed in the pit, smelling the smell, this may become a classic scene in horror movies in the future.

Today, the first movie has not yet appeared, and such a picture can only be seen in the works of realist painters.Holmes observed Gabriel's expression, but there was a frown on that immature face. "You know the scent."

Holmes used an affirmative sentence, and his tone was slightly excited. This uncomplicated corpse burial case has a weird criminal motive. This is what he wants to find out. There are important clues behind this scent.

"I don't remember clearly." Gabriel also wanted to help. She wanted to find out what happened earlier and leave Florence earlier. She felt that if Sherlock Holmes stayed in one place for a long time, it would be hard to tell if Holmes would be exposed. , it's not that there is a problem with his disguise, but that love and coughing cannot be concealed. Holmes' love is obviously to solve the case.

Not being able to remember is a good excuse.Holmes had a guess as to why Gabriel had a vague impression of the scent of a plant.From the perspective of ordinary people, the little girl likes a certain plant. This plant may attract children because of its beauty, but the plant remembered by Gabriel must have its own special features, perhaps it is aggressive.

The two continued to dig out the entire body.

The first body excavated was that of a man, and he was completely naked, and his cucumber was missing.

Even Holmes frowned slightly. He looked at the incision on the lower body of the male corpse. This knife was cut after death, which reminded people of the eunuchs in the Eastern Continent.

It was only then that Holmes remembered that there was a little girl beside him. Should the little girl watch the corpse?!

This is really a difficult question. He has always used IQ to distinguish human beings, of course there are always exceptions, such as Watson, and now he is considering age and gender for the first time.

But before Holmes could sort out the little tangle in his mind, Gabriel had already begun to rummage through the deep pit where the corpse was buried. "It seems that this gentleman needs to publish a lost and found. The important part he is missing is not here. I bet on tomorrow's eggs, and the other two Mr. Deep Pit have also lost a very precious part of themselves."

"Ahem." Holmes coughed lightly unnaturally. What is a lost and found? Which newspaper is willing to publish such a notice in a grand manner, it must be an indecent existence, and it will make the men who see it feel uncomfortable. Pain between legs.

"Let's dig up a female corpse first, forget what you saw just now, you should learn the knowledge that matches your age."

Gabriel smirked, she just wanted to develop in the direction of erudition, Holmes should be happy for his daughter's rich knowledge, so as not to tarnish Holmes' IQ as a father.

Afterwards, the two dug up a female corpse, which was also a wounded corpse. The female had no cucumbers to remove, but the lower body was cut several times, and the upper body chest did not escape the murderer. The poisonous hands, the two lumps on the chest were cut off, but this time they were not taken away, but buried in a deep pit.

After digging up all six bodies, it was found that three men and three women had suffered the same injuries.It seems that this person is not only interested in masculine characteristics, but also very hostile to female characteristics.The murderer took the cucumber, but did not take away the two lumps of flesh of the woman, which must have some special meaning.

Holmes thought about the buried state of those corpses. Why did he abandon the normal form of digging a hole to bury people directly, but chose the difficult one, digging a deep hole, stripping off their clothes, and putting the corpses in vertically, so as to connect with the corpses? Looking at the faint fragrance emanating from the tree, Holmes had a rough guess that it was planting a person, and that fragrance was most likely watered with some kind of solution.

No matter which plant the source of the fragrance on the corpse belongs to, the people who use it are the local residents.

The suspect initially targeted a woman with a small stature. This person was withdrawn, misogynistic, had a vague attitude towards men, and had a gardening family background.

And there are not many residents around this valley, because of the horror rumors of this mountain, the population here is not large, although it is scattered into several gathering places, they are all familiar with each other.

A woman who doesn't seem to be afraid of threats, usually raises flowers and plants, and no one will associate her with the murderer.I'm afraid these few victims also thought so, so they easily caught the truth.But it is not an easy task to subdue a couple at the same time. There may be accomplices in this process, or she may have used some kind of method to make people unconscious.

**

The next day, Mrs. Binger heard Holmes asking if there were any special flowers and plants here.

Since he can't accompany his daughter into the mountains and forests to get close to nature, Mr. Singerson, as a good father, wants to buy or pick some special flowers and plants to make his daughter happy. Anyway, I can bring some plants back to satisfy my daughter's little wish.

"You are such a kind father." Mrs. Binger felt that Mr. Singerson was too doting on her daughter, and she did her best to make her smile. "We have a lot of lovely flowers here, but August It's not a good time for flowers to bloom, it's more beautiful here in spring. Let me think about it, we have two gardeners here who are good at tending plants, and they go to the mountains every year, that mysterious valley you mentioned, there Instead, there are all kinds of plants growing, and the rich people in the city also like these flowers and plants, and will buy them from these two families."

Holmes wrote down the names of the two families, and asked about the situation of the two gardeners, but did not find out that there was a woman who fit the suspect's portrait in their home. One of the two gardeners was an old man living alone, and his child He went to the city to develop, and the other one just got married, and his child was only half a month old, so it seems that the possibility of his wife going to the mountains on rainy nights is very low.

Perhaps the suspect is not a gardener, but there are not many people who know the situation in the valley very well, except for the gardener who is often in contact with plants, there are woodcutters and hunters, and they have already known that there are no women in this place.

Therefore, Holmes added another question, "Are there only two? I want to go a few more places. It's hard to say what kind of plants little Gal likes. It would be great if there were more choices. If possible, I would like to take Gal with me." Choose, she is a little shy, if it is a female gardener, it will make Cal feel that the other party is kinder."

Mrs. Binger seemed to remember something, and she said hesitantly, "There used to be a third house, and the plants in Rosa's house were cheaper, but her personality is a bit strange, she doesn't like to talk to outsiders very much, and she doesn't like it now. Do this business. It's better not to go to her house. "

Maybe it was because the father who was afraid of spoiling his daughter took the little girl to find Rosa rashly. Mrs. Binger lowered her voice and explained, "Rosa is a poor girl. Her mother died of postpartum hemorrhage. Her father Alvaro may not like this daughter because of this. Since the death of Rosa's mother, he has not been very kind to Rosa. Originally, Alvaro's family was in the plant business, and he did not regard Rosa as a pampered Daughter, when Rosa was very young, Álvaro regarded her as a hard worker, and took Rosa to collect plants in the valley of horror. We watched Rosa's small shoulders carrying those heavy flowers and plants and persuaded her Alvaro, but they are father and daughter, our dissuasion is of no use.

Rosa is 23 now. She is actually quite beautiful. There are always young men around who express their affection for her. Everyone hopes that she can leave that home and start a new life.However, Alvaro insisted on not agreeing to Rosa's marriage, and it has been delayed until now, and Rosa's personality has become more and more withdrawn in recent years.Alvaro passed away two months ago, and Rosa's spirits seemed even worse.

Don't you take Cal to her house, she won't welcome you. "

Holmes listened to Mrs. Binger's words, and of course immediately went to Rosa. There must be something wrong with this woman!