Detective Mary

Chapter 40

It wasn't until Captain Carter fell in a pool of blood that Mary realized what had happened.

She covered her mouth and pressed the cries and shock back into her stomach, then her eyes fell on the prone detective and overseer, "Sir!"

Holmes: "Don't move!"

The detective first pointed out the cover for the overseer, then withdrew himself as fast as he could to a place out of the way of the window, not forgetting to urge Mary again, "Stand still."

"I... I'm not moving."

Mary was just surprised, she wasn't stupid. Sherlock Holmes had kept her in the shadows when he'd just captured Captain Carter, and after he'd been killed by a sniper's rifle, she'd be even less likely to venture out at will.

She even stepped back when she heard the detective's words.

"You guys aren't hurt, are you?"

Mary asked as she waited until the detective had retreated to safety before rushing forward.

You have to know that the sniper is two shots in a row, the first shot just broke the glass, now full of glass fragments, so directly down, may also be cut by the fragments.

Holmes shook his head, he looked at Mary, without saying a word, from the pocket of his coat, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her.

Mary: ???

Holmes: "Your cheeks, miss."

Mary blinks. When Mr. Holmes passes the handkerchief forward again, she takes it in bewilderment, subconsciously wipes her face, and then looks again, and sees that the white handkerchief is slightly dusty.

"When was ...... this!

Did she just walk through the door rubbing herself into a blossom cat face, Mary reddened a little in embarrassment, "Thank you, sir."

Holmes: "No harm done. You wait here, and I'll go and see how Hamp is doing."

With that said the tall and leggy detective walked straight to the office. He didn't stay in there long, just to make sure that Mr. Hamp hadn't been attacked or shot.

After witnessing that there was nothing untoward, Holmes returned to the factory hall.

"I've asked Mr. Hamp to call the police," he said, "it's not safe for you to leave here."

"How can this be?!"

Mary can't run away at a critical moment.

Moreover, Captain Carter's last words before his death confirmed Mary's suspicion that the man behind the scenes, the big boss who was trying to manipulate the cotton industry, was James Moriarty.

It is not him what other professor can be so godly, Mary is not surprised by this, what surprises her is ......

Captain Carter said that what James Moriarty was doing was preventing a war that would affect the whole world. And right now today, it wasn't that long ago that the First World War was fought in nineteen hundred and fourteen.

Mary doesn't think it's just a coincidence.

But what did the cotton industry have to do with the First World War? By the time World War I rolled around, Mary would be well into middle age, and Professor Moriarty was already anticipating the future at this very moment?

Countless questions came to her mind, and the more Mary thought about it, the uglier her face became.

And all this, naturally, fell into the eyes of Sherlock Holmes.

A few critical glimmers flashed in his sharp eyes, but Mary, absorbed in her thoughts, did not notice them, and the detective did not immediately pursue the matter - now was not the time.

"You do have to go, Miss Mary."

Mr. Hamp, who had finished calling the police, finally summoned up the courage to step out of the office, his hands trembling uncontrollably, supposedly unrecovered from the stress of shock.

But when the factory owner, who had come back from the dead, spoke to Mary again, his tone of voice was completely devoid of the false politeness and warmth of before. His gravity emphasized the sincerity of his words.

"The police must not find out that you are present, or else they will be bound to come to your door to consult you for evidence on the morrow, and then all will know that you stayed in the factory late at night with several men, and that will be very bad for your reputation."

...... That's true.

It's a pain in the ass. Mary's head turned two sizes when she heard the word "reputation".

England had been a constitutional monarchy since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but at the brink of the twentieth century, something as nebulous as "fame" still held women in thrall.

The poor, who had nothing, were much better off in this regard - Mary couldn't believe that the slum girls' nightly flings would lead to their own ruin.

But as Mary enjoys a life of clothing and food, she must also endure the oppression that comes with class.

Mr. Hamp was a little older than Mr. Bingley, and by speaking so plainly he regarded Mary as one of his own, so he did not even try to persuade her more, but changed his tone to one of firmness, "I'll ask the overseer to see you out, and Mr. Bingley's carriage will be waiting for you outside."

Mary sighed heavily.

What else could she say? Mr. Hamp had been thinking of her from the bottom of his heart, too.

"Well, then," was all Mary could say, "please do let me know if you hear anything tomorrow."

Before she left Mary looked over at Holmes, the detective who had fallen into silence was surveying her with a burning gaze, too serious to call Mary's head sideways in bewilderment, "Sir?"

Holmes: "Nothing."

Mary: "That handkerchief ......"

There was dust left on it, and Mary couldn't return it to him directly, she thought for a moment, "I'll return it to you later in the morning."

Holmes didn't care about the paddle at all, he nodded his head casually, "Goodbye, Ms. Mary."

It was a good thing Mr. Detective didn't say goodbye with a good night, because Mary didn't think that anyone would be able to have a nice dream under those circumstances.

By the time she got back to the streets of Glenorchy Mary had barely calmed down, but she couldn't help but be worried when lives were at stake. This worried both Mr. and Mrs. Gardner and Jane, who couldn't stop asking if there had been trouble with Editor Hall at the dinner table.

Mary found a cool breeze excuse to excuse past, she went to bed early, but nearly did not close their eyes all night.

When she woke up on the following day, she only felt a vague pain in her brain due to insufficient rest, at the breakfast table Mary specifically asked the maid to pour her an extra cup of tea, before the tea reached her mouth, the Gardner House in the streets of Glynos Church ushered in a brand new guest.

Sherlock Holmes himself had arrived.

Mrs. Gardner looked surprised when the maid came to deliver the message, "Holmes? The same Mr. Holmes who helped Mr. Bingley solve the case? Your uncle was out before dawn, however."

Not that the aunt was surprised, but the detective had been able to come to the house without an invitation or a message, and the Gardners had never seen the famous Mr. Holmes.

It would have been a surprise to anyone for a stranger to come to their door.

"Don't be anxious," Jane smiled in relief, "Mr. Detective is not visiting our uncle, but Mary."

"Mary?"

Mrs. Gardner was even more surprised.

It sounded strange for a gentleman to visit an unmarried girl so early in the morning. Besides, Mary's detective novel had just been drafted, and Jane's tone of voice made it seem as if she and this Sherlock Holmes were very familiar with each other.

"So it is," Mrs. Gardner ticked the corner of her mouth as her aunt's realization dawned on her, "I'm afraid this is the one Elizabeth was talking about, Mary's sweetheart?"

Mary: "......"

One could not blame Mrs. Gardner for misunderstanding, what other possibilities could there be, as a matter of common sense. Mary cried and laughed, but also knew that Mr. Holmes was afraid that there was indeed something going on directly at her door.

So she didn't waste time explaining to her aunt, and got up, "I'll say hello to Mr. Holmes first."

"It's all right to ask him to wait a little longer," Mrs. Gardner teased with a wink, "Doesn't he have the patience to wait for a lady?"

The point was, he did not!

Mary couldn't help but shake her head.

Mr. Holmes would not have rushed to his door if there had not been a motive for the necessity of meeting. Now that he was here, Mary was too full of curiosity, and too preoccupied with yesterday's events, to eat, and secondly, she was afraid that Holmes would be too lazy to wait, and would break into the dining-room - something he had already done at Netherfield Hall.

She hastily wiped her hands, set aside her teacup, and went out into the parlor.

Sherlock Holmes was waiting for her where she was.

Today the detective was dressed in a beige three-piece suit, his hat of the same color taken away by the maid and hung on a coat rack on the porch, with only his cane held in his palm. The lean gentleman stood in the parlor, his back to the door, and was viewing the paintings on the walls.

He didn't look back when Mary entered, "You didn't get much rest last night."

"...... Yes," she closed her eyes, "How do you know, sir?"

"In former days your steps were never so heavy and slow."

Holmes turned and looked straight at Mary.

The detective's eyes quickly flicked over Mary and saw that she was in a healthy state of mind, except for slight fatigue, before continuing, "Your family did not notice the dust you rubbed up against at the factory."

"Eh?"

"Better dispose of it yourself before the maid finds out," said Holmes, "and last night your skirts rubbed up against the motor oil in the crate."

That was all right.

Mary's clothes were washed with Jane's, and the maid wouldn't necessarily find out not to mention that even if she did, she could lie and say it wasn't yesterday's rubbing on her.

After all, not everyone is as unusually perceptive as Mr. Holmes, right?

But he was kind enough to warn, and Mary would not rebuff the detective.

On a normal day, she would have cheered at the detective's concern, but the scene of Captain Carter's collapse in a pool of blood was so delayed in Mary's mind that she just couldn't smile.

"Thank you," spared Mary sincere gratitude, "how have things been since I left last night? Did the police come up with any leads?"

The detective sniffed.

"I am gratified by the interest which the detectives take in the case," he said; "there are still so many righteous-minded persons in London, but unfortunately not all of them are possessed of extraordinary intelligence. If they were left to pursue the information of that 'James Moriarty,' I fear they would not know when to wait."

The implication was that by relying on the police to handle the case, they were afraid that even if Moriarty turned Eurasia upside down, they wouldn't be able to find any clues.

"So," Mary continued, "what is the purpose of your visit today, sir?"

"Yesterday you seemed to think of something." Holmes went straight to the point.

He stepped away from Mary and walked over to her, looking down at her with a calm gaze, "At Captain Carter's mention of the word war, your reaction was not one of surprise, but of dawning realization."

"......"

Still surprised, actually.

But as the detective had said, Mary did understand Moriarty's motives as well. At this point Mary never wanted to hide from the detective, thus she simply nodded dryly.

"It's not so much the word 'war' as the word 'cosmopolitan'."

Mary answered seriously.

"I probably know what manipulating the market for the cotton spinning industry and forcing a large number of factories out of business has to do with stopping a world war."

Finally it was Holmes' turn to be surprised.

The detective, who had always had a good head on his shoulders, showed a rare look of surprise. He raised an eyebrow, as if questioning Mary's grandstanding - where did she, a country lady who had only just arrived in London a few days before, get the nerve to say that she knew the way the man behind the curtain was stopping the war?

Holmes mused for a moment, his sharp eyes taking on a hint of realization.

"I think, mademoiselle," he said, "that your next explanation will still be that those books brought from London inform all the answers."

Surely it was still doubtful, wasn't it?

Mary knew she did deserve suspicion for knowing so much as a single young lady from the rural south. But if she didn't come clean, who could know that she had traveled through time and space?

Besides, this time Mary wasn't making any excuses to shrug it off.

"It was indeed books that informed me of the answer," she returned with a smile as she finally tickled the corners of her mouth, "It was Das Kapital, sir."