Detective Mary

Chapter 44

Mrs. Gaskell's North and South is not as well known as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but it is still a fairly famous English romance.

Mary always felt that Mr. John Thornton, the protagonist of North and South, was a bit more "down-to-earth" than Mr. Darcy, for no other reason than that Mr. Thornton was a factory owner who had come from nothing and had experienced poverty and hardship.

The fact that he is involved in business, in factories, and naturally in the workers and the social environment of the North, makes Mr. Thornton less dreamy than Darcy. In Mary's time, Mr. Thornton, played by Richard Armitage, was a handsome, manly man who made a huge number of young fans fall in love with him.

As for the real Mr. Thornton, he is much stronger and more imposing than the one in the movie. If Mr. Darcy's tense face is just a bad look, then Mr. Thornton, standing among the Irish workers, looks like a strict factory owner by nature.

No wonder Margaret, the heroine of North and South, had a very bad first impression of Mr. Thornton. It wasn't a matter of pride and prejudice, Mary thought, but Miss Margaret Hale was intimidated by his ferocious appearance!

"I am Henry Dyke," said Henry, stepping out of the festive crowd, "what can I do for you?"

"Hamp asked me to come."

Fortunately, Mr. Thornton was quite polite, and though his accent sounded hard, it showed no contempt.

"Hamp told me about your earlier dismissal," he explained, "and it concerned a change of supplier for Mr. Bentley's factory and mine, for which I was strictly responsible."

Henry was a little surprised, "So, now that it's all over, what are you doing here, Master?"

Mr. Thornton: "Hamp fired you for overhearing secrets, and this Mr. Holmes tells me that things have not eased up since Captain Carter's death, and that you have been victimized in London before, and may be attacked afterwards."

Henry: "So?"

Mr. Thornton: "So, I can offer you a job in my factory."

A factory owner personally coming to invite a worker to work, let alone in Victorian times, would be a rarity even in the 21st century - never saw Steven Jobs consoling the assembly line workers at Foxconn, right?

It was true that things were different, Mary sighed mentally, Mr. Bentley was an angelic good man, his partner Mr. Thornton was also upright, even the fearful and cunning Hamp had basically never harshly scolded the workers.

Heaven forbid that the magical scene of the Grand Master's personal visit to the slums should occur only in their case.

"Offer a job?"

Henry's surprise was matched by a smile, "Really? That would save me the time of looking for a factory."

Mary: "Wait."

Mary, who has been watching Mr. John Thornton from the shadows, speaks up to stop Henry.

She stepped forward and with a greeting to Holmes and Mr. Thornton, she went straight to the point: "By the sound of your accent, you are from the North, are you not, sir?"

Thornton raised an eyebrow, "Yes, why?"

Mary, "Then your factory may not be in London either."

Thornton: "In Milton."

A look of disappointment passed over Henry when he heard this.

"Henry has a family," Mary explained for him, "and I'm afraid it's very troublesome to drag them to Milton."

"So."

Mr. Thornton wasn't surprised, who doesn't have family yet? He mused for a moment, and then spoke, "I can also write a letter of recommendation for you, Decker, so that you'll always have a better chance of getting a job if you go to the factory with it."

"That's good!"

Dawson interjected before Henry Decker could speak, "This is good, or don't move to London, quick, Morstan, get the paper!"

Miss Morstan rolled her eyes considerably at the words, "Can you be more steady in what you do, it's only a letter of recommendation, are you afraid the Grand Master will turn against you and run away?"

That being said, she still turned around and left the room, going to look for a pen and paper.

Mary was dressed in a clean cotton dress, and Mr. Thornton really thought of her as a companion of these Irish workmen, and she stepped in to speak for Henry without sulking or suspecting her for her presumption.

It was a good thing she didn't have to waste her breath explaining - Mary didn't think she could get to Milton anyway, and it was a pain in the ass to explain why an unmarried lady had to change out of her dress and come to the slums to sit with a bunch of "less-than-decent" workers.

So when she saw that Mr. Thornton had not noticed her, she looked at Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

The detective was in his usual disguise, and he was far more dutiful than Mary, with his dirty hat pressed over his forehead, so that he would have been unrecognizable hiding in the shadows but for his strong nose and knife-like cheekbones.

Holmes had scarcely spoken since he entered, and he observed everyone in the room in silence, and eventually the detective's eyes rested on Henry.

"Sir?" Mary spoke.

"Ms. Mary." The detective pressed the brim of his hat as a greeting.

"Are you watching Henry, sir?"

"Yes."

An affirmation was enough for Mary to understand what the detective was thinking, and after a moment's hesitation she voiced the thought, "I don't think Henry Decker is in quite the right state; is it the after-effects of the devil's heel?"

"No," Holmes frowned at that, "the effect of the Devil's Heel is very short-lived, and it should have lost its effect altogether after Henry Dyke was sober."

"Then ......"

Mary's heart tightened, "Do we need to get a doctor for Henry?"

Holmes thought for a few seconds, "He's conscious, not like he has nerve damage."

That's good.

Maybe it was true, as Henry Decker himself said, that the visions were too realistic, plus the shock plus stress of being fired with the question of survival weighing on his mind, had kept him from resting well lately.

Now that the storm has passed, I think it's time to get a good night's sleep for good.

Miss Mostyn soon brought pen and paper, and Mr. Thornton, who was quite a dry man, even disregarding the squalor of the slum tables and chairs, sat down directly and wrote his recommendation on the spot.

Mary, seeing that Mr. Thornton had gone straight to writing, hastily asked a couple of the girls to help up with the lamp, and then asked them to bring in a chair of suitable height.

Seeing her in command, Holmes said thoughtfully, "You are experienced in this."

Mary: "I have to create the best writing conditions for myself, too."

Writing in dim conditions is not a good habit, there is no eye protection in this era, Mary always tries to ensure that she writes in the daytime, or at night when there is enough light, for fear of eye fatigue, and it would be inconvenient if she gets myopia.

When she said this, Holmes raised his eyebrows, "The first serialization published in the Seaside Magazine was too short."

Mary: "......"

And so on.

She froze for several seconds before realizing what Sherlock Holmes meant by that. Mary looked up at the detective incredulously, "You mean, is it my serial, sir?"

"It's Philip Luther's serial."

"............"

Not funny ok!

Mary was speechless by this snide response from Mr. Holmes.

She wasn't surprised that Mr. Holmes had guessed her pen name all at once; after all, the current issue of Seaside Magazine was the only one with a new serial, Serial Killer Chess Game.

However, it was surprising that Sherlock Holmes had actually bought Seaside Magazine and read her article! Even though he had taken the initiative to mention it a few times, plus the fact that the detective also read Watson's work in the original, and Mary was more or less mentally prepared for it, but when Holmes himself said so, Mary was still a little nervous.

She blinked and spoke cautiously, "And what do you think of Philip Luther's serial?"

Holmes looked over at Mary and saw that she was full of tentativeness and took his derisive sneer, and couldn't help but tick the corners of his mouth.

When the detective smiled, his aura of cold observation dissipated and took on a slightly jocular tone.

"I have only one question," he said, "where are the bodies of the victims of the towns visited by the protagonist, where no cases have been reported for a whole year?"

Holmes being Holmes, the key point came to him at once.

While most of the countless letters from readers of The Serial Killer Chess Game have wondered "who died", the real detective, Mr. Holmes, has taken the idea several steps further - how did the killer dispose of the body?

It was a question that only a detective would ask, and he convinced Mary in one sentence.

Mary was delighted as she asked without answering, "So, sir, you wouldn't want me to reveal the plot ahead of time, would you?"

Holmes was aghast.

Of course he would not take the initiative to ask for a spoiler, hearing Mary ask this, the detective instead spoke eloquently, "In my opinion, there are only three possibilities for the failure to find the body in this parish, one is that he handled it properly and skillfully, and no one has found it so far; two is that he dumped the body outside of the parish, and planted it in the hands of someone else; and three is that, he did not commit the crime in the parish at all. "

"And which of these possibilities do you think it is, sir?"

Holmes glanced at Mary, "That depends on your experience and understanding of crime solving, young lady."

Mary smiled, "I've finished my draft anyway, so why don't you guess what my experience and understanding is?"

Hearing Mary say that, the detective no longer hesitated.

"It's not realistic to dump a body, and since it's such a peaceful parish, someone going missing would certainly attract attention. If he really did it flawlessly, it would be a crime committed far away from the parish. Only in that case, his status as a laborer would be a hindrance, rather than being a letter carrier, or some other conveniently mobile occupation," said the detective, "and the limited space available doesn't indicate whether or not he left the parish, and whether or not he aroused suspicion, so I can't deduce a specific modus operandi. "

"Indeed."

"You should have put that at the beginning, it's vital - even London detectives who come across a murder case first ask about the person's whereabouts as a breakthrough."

Mary opened her mouth, just about to follow up the detective's remark with a retort, then realized that if she discussed the plot with Holmes, she was bound to spill the beans.

No way.

As much as Mary wanted to discuss it with Holmes, and even more so to know what he thought of the plot as the case unfolded later on, now was not the time, and she couldn't ruin the detective's reading experience for her own selfish reasons.

So Mary simply nodded, "You have a point, sir, other than that, do you have any questions?"

Holmes: "That is the only question for now."

Mary: "...... That's all?"

It shouldn't be, seeing as how the detective had previously disliked whodunits in a big way, Mary was prepared to be spit on until she exploded, but really, in the end, was it that simple?

Her unexpected expression was so obvious that it made Holmes a little puzzled - is there a writer in heaven who begs to be scolded?

"The Seaside Magazine has too little space for you, and the plot concerning the case itself is nothing more than that," said the detective; "there is not yet a hint of a clue in the text, and I have no further questions."

And so it was.

As the words came out, though, Holmes frowned slightly, "But-"

"But?"

"The break is at the key, and it does whet the appetite," he commented rather irritably, "Your editor knows his business skills."

That's not true!

Mary laughed out loud, she actually thought the chapter break was a bit much. It was fine to do it before the plot unfolded, but if she did it later, she wondered how many readers of Seaside Magazine would die in a hurry.

Mr. Detective's brief comment, however, gave Mary a little confidence, as well as more to look forward to.

She asked with interest, "Will you be reading on, sir? If the subsequent case unfolds, you'll give me feedback as well, right? I'll be waiting at my door for your evaluation!"

"I'll read on."

Holmes responded, but shook his head when he heard Mary's final question.

"But I'm afraid you won't be able to come to the door anytime soon, miss," he says, "Mr. Bingley and Mr. Thornton have entrusted me with the burden of following up the investigation, and I have to take a trip overseas."