Detective Mary

Chapter 51

Three days later, Lydia agreed to Mr. Wickham's next invitation to the ball.

It was Catherine who told Mary about it.

Taking advantage of the fine weather, Mary arrived at Meriden's inn early in the morning - Editor-in-Chief Hall had decided that sending letters by the postal route was slightly slow, so he had directly commissioned someone to bring Mary a sample copy of the new issue of Seaside Magazine, which was serialized with the Serial Killer's Chess Game.

Mary, in turn, had written a synopsis of the new serial idea she'd put together earlier, put it in an envelope, and asked the visitor to deliver the letter to Editor Hall again, in order to ask for his opinion on the idea for the next serial.

The relationship between editor and author in the nineteenth century was, for the most part, one in which the author sent the manuscript to the editor after it was finished and waited to hear whether or not it had been approved.

The advantage of this was that all the creative power was in the hands of the author, and the writer gave full play to his or her own initiative to create. Whether the manuscript is published or not is a separate process after the creation of the manuscript.

However, in the 21st century, some editors of publishing houses or magazines prefer to read the author's outline and sample chapters first, communicate with the author in time, and sign the copyright of the work before letting the author create.

This is a compromise between the creative process and the market - the editor's performance is based on the number of readers, and interfering with the author's creation from this perspective can more or less guarantee the commercial value of some works.

In terms of literary development, Mary is not entirely in favor of such an approach.

While this way of working ensures that the published text is a favorite of readers and that the magazine gets paid for it, it treats literature as a commodity. It is easy for authors to lose their own thinking and self-expression, and their motivation to create is based solely on money.

On the other hand, this kind of cooperation not only speeds up the efficiency of editors in reviewing manuscripts, but also enables authors to get professional advice from editors, which is a win-win solution.

Mary's only motivation now is money.

It's not that she hasn't fantasized about becoming a great writer like Balzac, Stendhal, or Dostoevsky - it's not enough to dream. Regardless of the amount of money she could get for her work, the mere idea of being immortalized in history was already a great temptation for an idealist like Mary.

However, the reality is cruel, no money to eat, how to create strength? Mary felt that she had better focus on the reality, to ensure that she could rely on the fees to be financially independent, and then think about how to create the social and artistic value of the literary works.

So she still chose the twenty-first century's cooperation model, first handing over the plot synopsis to Editor-in-Chief Hall, so that he could provide some advice from an experienced editor's perspective, increasing the probability of passing the manuscript.

After handing the letter to the youth in charge of running errands and walking out of the inn, Mary replied to Catherine, "Lydia agreed to Wickham's offer, isn't that better, I'll soon have five brand new hats again."

Catherine: "......"

Catherine, who had accompanied Mary, was several times tempted to speak, and she hesitated for a moment before cautiously testing, "Do you really think that Wickham would propose such a ridiculous thing as an elopement, Mary?"

Mary ticked the corners of her mouth.

"If you're as unconvinced as Lydia," she said, "there's nothing I can do about it."

"I believe." Catherine said softly.

This was rewarded with a surprised look from Mary, and the fourth sister, who never had much of a presence, continued, "You can help professional detectives solve crimes, and are serializing speculative fiction; it's always easier to identify a person's character than to depict a murder."

"That's not necessarily true."

Though Catherine was being complimentary, Mary shook her head, "The real human heart is far more inscrutable than a fictional character."

However, Catherine's words really surprised Mary a bit.

In the original, Catherine, the sister of the fourth in line of the Bennet family, left Mary with ...... no impression.

And the reality of Catherine is basically the same, she does not have much of an idea, and there is not much of a hobby. Because the age and the two big sisters difference is a little big, Mary is the kind of boredom reading does not love to socialize the character, thus Catherine as a sister, but instead became Lydia's little follower.

In her daily life, apart from the occasional quarrel with Lydia to grab a pretty hat, which was just a small fight of a girl's family, basically, what Lydia liked, she liked.

It's just that Lydia doesn't care about Mary's creative path, and that's something Mary is well aware of, though she didn't expect at all that Catherine would take an interest in her serial.

The way she was listening to her synopsis about the circus a few days ago, and then a few days later volunteered to accompany her to pick up a sample issue, was not a look of polite friendliness between sisters.

"So you like detective stories, too," so Mary said, "I didn't realize that before, Katie."

Catherine blushed, "I didn't like it much before, I thought it was all boys' stuff. It's either murder or crime, and it's bloody and gruesome."

Mary: "And?"

Kathryn: "Then your serial appeared in Seaside Magazine, and Dad loved it so much he read it back and forth several times and complimented you at the dinner table. So I went and read it and realized that speculative fiction is a lot more fun than I thought it would be."

Well, who hasn't had that "real flavor" experience.

Mary laughed out loud.

Regardless of what she'd thought before, now she looked interested, and who would mind if their sister was interested in books.

"Then if you're interested," she said, "I'll recommend a couple of speculative fiction novels I've read before."

"I'm more interested in the story of Mr. Philip Luther!"

Kathryn mustered up the courage to speak, "I followed you here on purpose when I heard you were coming to pick up the sample issue today, just to find out ...... what kind of plot development was going on behind the scenes."

Mary: "......"

Catherine: "What?"

Mary: "Nothing, I'm happy!"

Mary was indeed happy to have someone else who recognized her creations out of nowhere. Jane and Elizabeth had always been close to herself, of course they would support her, not so Catherine.

She didn't love her out of love for herself, but out of a genuine love for the work itself.

"Then if you're going to be in such a hurry," Mary said graciously, handing Catherine the sample issue, "go ahead and read it."

Catherine's eyes lit up, "Really? Don't you need to read it first?"

Mary: "I wrote the serial, I don't need to read it to know the plot."

As for typographical errors, or spelling mistakes, or whatever, Mary didn't consider herself as professional as Editor-in-Chief Hall, and she was assured of his business skills.

Moreover, this serialized issue was going to officially unfold the plot, as the author, Mary was naturally the one who was most familiar with the work. According to Editor-in-Chief Hall's habit of breaking chapters, she could probably guess at which plot point this serialization would be stuck at to end.

In the second serialized issue, picking up on the brilliant chapter break stuck in the previous issue, Philip Luther's first reaction upon hearing Edmund's words was to ask, "Are you from the head?"

"Yes." Edmund admitted.

"So who did you kill?" Luther asked.

His question was rewarded with a smile from Edmund, the lanky, wooden Edmund looked a little morose when he smiled.

"That's for you to discover, Detective." --Edmund's purpose was not only to turn himself in, but also to lay down the gauntlet.

Even though Philip Luther still hasn't gotten over the loss of his wife, a sense of justice has long been embedded in his soul. And to take a step back, his wife was also his assistant in solving the case, even if Luther wanted to continue to sink without taking the murderer's provocation, the spirit of his beloved will not forgive him.

So Luther sent Edmund to the police station at the first time, and then officially started the investigation.

Earlier, after reading the first serialized issue of Serial Killer's Chess Game, Sherlock Holmes threw out three possibilities for the case that convinced Mary - trying to investigate a murder case in which no victim had been found, she couldn't think of an answer that jumped out of those three possibilities even if she thought about it.

So the first order of business for Mary's Luther is to look for missing persons in the parish.

Luckily, it's not too difficult; the industrial town is bustling, but the neighbors know each other. After the pastor brings the matter to the public's attention, everyone is shocked and frightened, but they are quick to help the police and Detective Luther find answers.

There was indeed a lady missing from the town, Edmund's mother.

Edmund's mother was strict and controlling, and as a result did not get along well with the neighbors. Edmund herself, a simple but witty woman, was liked far more than her mother, who had left home a year earlier to "visit her family" in the south, and in fact, if it hadn't been for this incident, no one would have thought to find out whether she had been visiting her family for a year, or whether she had disappeared.

After a whole year, even if there are some clues have disappeared most of them. For this reason, Luther had to take the most primitive means of investigation, bit by bit to collect clues from a year ago, and finally in the wasteland outside the town, found the body of Edmund's mother.

The body has basically decomposed, the police identified the cause of death is an axe chopped off the head, brutal and bloody, like the usual much abused by his mother Edmund, finally could not stand it anymore, in a quarrel angrily swung an axe, killed his mother.

But Luther feels it's not that simple.

How could a criminal who had killed in a moment of passion wait until a year later, until he arrived, and then say, "I killed a man," in an extremely calm tone of voice?

He went to see Edmund again with the answer, and in prison he confessed.

The pontificating Edmund is handcuffed to a chair, and he still has that almost numb, icy look on his face.

"You're very efficient," he praised, "to change police officers, they'd never be so quick - no offense to the local police, I'm still very good friends with them, however, Detective, government agencies are tedious and lengthy in getting things done, and you've been a police officer, so you should be well aware of it, just ......"

Luther did not speak.

It was only when he saw that Luther would not take his words that a few looks of dissatisfaction surfaced in Edmund's mute expression.

But he kept to himself, "It's just not enough for me to praise you for being a smart guy, Detective. You're just doing a job that a cop could do."

"How many more victims?" Luthor asked gruffly.

"Ah," Edmund was satisfied, "you guessed, how did you guess?"

"Because you turned yourself in to show off."

Luthor held back his anger as he explained, "For a whole year, the police hadn't found anything, and that made you upset. You wanted the bystanders to know what you had done, so you chose to turn yourself in to me to show off what you had done. The way you killed your mother was rusty, and you got away with it all thanks to the fact that she was poorly liked and no one cared, for the first time. How many other victims?"

"Do you know what a sequence is, Detective?"

"......"

Edmund didn't answer Luther's question.

"Simply put, it's a series of objects arranged into up according to some invariable rule," Edmund responded, "I've been in workers' classrooms, and that's what the teachers there teach us."

"You mean."

Luthor eyed him warily.

"Are you a sequence killer (THE SEQUENCE KILLER) who follows his own unchanging rules for killing?"

--If Mary hadn't guessed correctly, according to the plot development and word count arrangement, Editor-in-Chief Hall would have cut the story off here 80% of the time.

In the twenty-first century, the term "serial killer" was finalized and became a term of criminal psychology, but also went through a process. Mary has merely condensed this process, minus the psychological research, into this story.

Eventually Philip Luther will use the term serial killer to describe Edmund, but not now, but Mary has already thrown out the concept at this point in the plot.

It's a fitting end to the second installment of the serial to end here, both in terms of letting everyone know the pattern of the killer's crimes and giving a tentative definition of the killer.

Kathryn joyfully received a sample copy of the new issue of Seaside Magazine, and looked as if she was about to spread it out on the street and read it.

"Read it when you get back," Mary had to admonish, "reading on the road hurts your eyes."

"Okay."

Catherine had to close the magazine, "Let's get going then."

However her doomed to miscalculation. Mary had just nodded and was about to return to Longbourn with Catherine when a carriage suddenly stopped in front of the two Bennet sisters.

"Lady Mary, Lady Catherine!"

Mr. Bingley, who had not been seen for a long time, stepped out of the carriage without saying a word.

"Mr. Bentley?!"

Mary and Catherine were beyond surprised, "You're back?"

A few days ago he did write to say that he would return immediately, but he did not expect it to be so coincidentally in the recent days.

Mr. Bentley, who was about to become a future brother-in-law, was immensely eager to see the two Jane's sisters. He took off his hat, "I had intended to go straight to Longbourn when I had finished my business, but I did not expect to meet you both now at Meryton."

"Katie and I have come to take a sample issue." Mary said.

"Congratulations." Mr. Bentley smiled.

"It is we who should congratulate you, sir!"

Mary teased with a grin, not forgetting another important matter, "You and Jane were so busy earlier that I didn't dare ask if Holmes had made any progress in his investigations overseas?"

"He has not replied as yet, except that the government official with whom we jointly commissioned his investigations abroad has indicated that he is safe," Mr. Bentley explained, "As for you, Miss Mary, if it is true that you are to go to Milton, Mr. Thornton has said that he will ask his own mother and sister to look after you.

"

Technically Mary was also helping Mr. Thornton with his investigation of the case, so it was only right for him to indicate so.

But Mary shook her head, "Thank Mr. Thornton for me, but we still have a relative in Milton, so perhaps I could stay at a relative's house."

Mr. Bentley froze, "You have a relative up north?"

Mary was actually quite surprised.

To say that Mr. Bennet had many relatives, Mary was not surprised, at least he was a decent squire. But to have relatives so far north from Longbourn, she really did not expect.

And apart from a few close relatives - Mr. and Mrs. Gardner and Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, for example - other distant relatives, who did not travel to make contact, were indeed unknown to Mary.

"I didn't know before," she answered truthfully, "or Dad told me."

"I know who it is!"

Kathryn suddenly picked up, "I heard Dad talking to Mom this morning about a pastor by the name of Hale, Dad's cousin, who suddenly quit his job at the beginning of the year and moved up north with his whole family to teach!"

Mary: "......"

Name is Hale?

She didn't know any relatives with the name Hale. But the minister with the last name Hale, who lived in the South but quit his job and moved to the North ...... crosswise, that's the family of Miss Margaret Hale, the heroine of the novel South and North.

The Bennet's second young lady marries a straightforward and sincere man, as does the Hale's only young lady.

Mary burst into some tears; can't the heroines of the world's romance novels be one family?