Detective Mary

Chapter 19

Mr. Sherlock Holmes' admonition hit the nail on the head, and could be said to have gone straight to Mary's heart.

Relying on two sisters and a brother-in-law is never a permanent solution, and it's a simple fact that if you want to change your life, you either have to marry or become financially independent.

To be a modern person as a noblewoman rice worm, Mary is never willing. But limited by the times, as a woman, Mary can do very little.

She had been thinking about how she should be financially independent.

The nineteenth century was in the midst of the rise of capitalism, and if Mary possessed so much as a single skill, there was barely a way out, even if it was difficult.

For example, cutting clothes, borrowing the experience of the twenty-first century, Mary can completely use the modern design to open a women's hat store, and maybe even become famous before Ms. Chanel in a few decades.

However, Mary was a mess of a seamstress, and she didn't have the patience to sit down and do needlework.

It would be fine to be good at cooking and pastry, for example, and save up savings, or use a loan to open a small store and run it to a subsistence level.

But Mary was a single girl who relied on takeout to survive before she traveled through time and space, and after she traveled through time and space and had a maid to work with, she didn't have that level either.

Even if Mary is well versed in economics and makes financial investments or borrows bonds to become rich and become a big capitalist, who cares if she wants to get married or not when she is rich and wealthy?

Just Mary's understanding of the current economy is limited to the theory, but also only the skin of the area, the paper can be, the actual operation is not very realistic. More realistically, investment and management is not a problem, the problem is, where she came from the capital.

As the heroine of the novel, Mary felt that she was too useless.

Thinking about it, the only thing she can do, and it is more feasible, is to follow the example of Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, and the Bronte sisters and other female writers, penning and submitting for publication.

After all, there was so little she could do, and writing was one of the more decent and feasible options. Mary had nothing else, but more than a hundred years of insight than the people of this age.

Especially since Mr. Holmes had left, Mary had instantly lost interest in the entire Nethersfield estate.

She didn't like embroidery, much less bridge, and it wasn't proper for her to hide in someone's study when everyone was in the parlor. So for the past few days, Mary had instead had a rough plan.

It was indeed possible to write a book and try it out.

As a lover of crime and adventure and deductive suspense, Mary had a bellyful of stories to write. She would never do anything like plagiarizing famous authors, even if we don't talk about respecting originality, if we want to plagiarize, whose to plagiarize? Since there is Sherlock Holmes in this world, who can guarantee that there is not Detective Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple?

Besides, Mary can draw inspiration from real crimes, why copy others.

She sat at the parlor table in Nesselfeld Manor writing and drawing, ignoring the hustle and bustle of people exchanging entertainment and immersing herself in her own world.

Elizabeth noticed Mary's distraction and asked out loud, "Are you writing a letter, Mary?"

Mary came back to her senses, "Hmm? No."

This piqued Elizabeth's curiosity, and she put down the embroidery she was doing and walked over to Mary, looking at the spread out paper, which listed over a dozen unfamiliar names, several with circles and forks drawn after each.

"Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway ......"

Elizabeth read the first few names that hit the top and looked confused, "What are you writing? I don't recognize any of these people."

Mary: "......"

Elizabeth: "Mary?"

Mary: "...... No, nothing."

It's the heroine of Pride and Prejudice pronouncing the names of several famous serial killers more than a hundred years later, and it's such an anticlimactic feeling!

Mary was messed up for a moment because of the weird sense of time and space dislocation, but eventually collected herself and said seriously, "I want to make some money on my own, and Mr. Holmes inspired me, and since detective novels in London can be sold in Longbourn, I can write and try it out too."

"Make money?"

"Yes," Mary spoke as a matter of course, "and as I'm not as good-looking as you or Jane, and my character is not interesting, and I don't want to marry someone I don't like, it looks as if I'm going to be an old aunt for the rest of my life--."

"Pooh-pooh."

Elizabeth instantly frowned, intercepting Mary's words, "Where do you get off cursing yourself like that?"

Mary: "I'm telling the truth."

Elizabeth: "......"

When the older sister gave Mary a deep look, there were no words for a long time.

In all fairness, Mary's looks were not remarkable. Mrs. Bennet had been beautiful in her youth, and that beauty had been bestowed not very equally on her five daughters, Mary being the one who had inherited the least of it.

She was also of an eccentric and witty disposition, which was agreeable, but only if Mary herself wished it. If she didn't want to do something, even if her mother chattered about it for three days and nights, she would still turn a deaf ear.

Marry for love, Elizabeth absolutely agree, she hopes that Mary so smart girl, can find a gentleman worthy of her. But listening to the tone of Mary's voice, it was clear that she was giving up on marriage.

How can this be!

"Alright."

Mary saw Elizabeth's expression rise in concentration and guessed the concern without her having to ask.

In this day and age, a "spinster" who couldn't get married was a very bad influence. According to "decent" social customs, the five Bennet sisters were supposed to start out simple, with the top one married before the next one could socialize and get married - fortunately, the Bennet family was in the country and didn't care much for such red tape.

But for all that, Elizabeth couldn't understand how any woman in the world could honestly feel that marriage was unimportant.

As usual, Mary grinned and took Elizabeth's arm, "I just want to write, why should I be so unhappy. In case my novel sells better than London's, I might even have to provide for you in turn!"

Elizabeth, "Oh, so how much have you written now?"

Mary: "Uh." She hasn't even decided what she's going to write.

Seeing her blank, speechless look, Elizabeth snorted a laugh.

It was true, Elizabeth didn't approve of Mary giving up her search for a good husband, but there was nothing wrong with writing for pleasure. As Mary had said, in case her novel was successfully published and sold like hotcakes, who minded the money.

"I won't jab at you," Elizabeth said, "only if you write the beginning, I'll have to be the first one to read it."

It was better to forget it!

Mary glanced at the names of several killers on the paper and thought it best not to torture Elizabeth's nerves.

She picked up the paper and Elizabeth couldn't help but ask as she noticed the circles and forks after the names, "What are those marks?"

Mary, "Well, I'm trying to think of ideas."

Actually, she was thinking about which case would be better suited for adaptation.

The nineteenth and twenty-first centuries were just over a hundred years apart, but society had evolved so rapidly that there were real-life cases that didn't really lend themselves to being told in the Victorian period. Take Gary Ridgeway, for example, from the list - he had a much louder name, the Green River Killer.

The Green River Killer was on the loose for decades, and the police locked him up early on, but could never find the evidence to make an arrest until dna testing technology was formally utilized in criminal investigations to solve the case, and only then were they able to prosecute the culprit.

In Sherlock Holmes active at the moment, people do not know what dna is.

So those that require the use of modern technology to solve crimes must be ruled out, and those that don't require modern technology aren't every bit as suitable.

The rapid development of society has brought about changes in people's psychology. Capitalism's alienating distortion of human and human, human and social relations is by no means conceivable to the people of the nineteenth century.

The murders in the Victorian period were nothing but revenge killings, love killings, and desperate and desperate for money. People's motives were straightforward, but by the 1980s, law enforcement found that in case after increasingly bizarre case, they were often unable to find a clear motive in the behavior of serial killers.

It wasn't that there wasn't a motive, but it became more complicated.

So if she wants to draw inspiration from real cases, Mary has to do more than copy the process of solving them.

She had to make sure that current readers could understand the motivations of the characters, but also keep the drama and twists of the novel and make the story compelling.

So sifting through ......

"The ones with the crosses are the stories that aren't suitable for writing," Mary explained to Elizabeth, pointing to the list, "the ones that are blank are the ones I'm thinking about, and the ones circled are the ones that are ready to be written."

Elizabeth's eyes immediately rested on the only circled name out of the dozen.

"Edmund Campbell."

She pronounced the name carefully, "He's the only one whose stories are fit to write, isn't he?"

Mary: "............"

It's really weird!

No wonder Mary exclaimed many times, her pretty, demure, soulful and generous good sister pronounced the name of a demon, and Mary just felt uncomfortable. She nodded her head and was just about to make a haphazard attempt to pass it off when she heard Miss Bingley's voice from behind her, "What's the story you're telling?"

Mary withdrew her paper with an expressionless face, "Nothing."

Miss Bingley, however, didn't catch Mary's attempt to end the conversation - or maybe she did, she just simply didn't want to. Miss Bingley sat herself down next to Mary and laughed, "I can hear it all, Miss Mary is planning to write her own novel so that it can be published as a book, isn't she?"

"......"

Kind of a shame.

Mary wasn't the flamboyant type in the first place, and it was just embarrassing to yell it out like that when she hadn't even put pen to paper yet, okay?

However, Miss Bingley had no intention of lowering her voice, and when she spoke up like that, even Mr. Hurst, who was playing bridge with Mr. Bingley, heard her.

"Writing a novel?"

Mr. Bentley put down the cards in his hand with interest and agreed, "Miss Mary is so talented, I think she'll be able to write a good story."

"Not so."

Miss Bingley agreed: "You see, everyone here is well-informed and has read many books. If you want to write a book, why don't you give us all a synopsis of the story, so that the gentlemen can give their opinions, and perhaps help you to introduce you to a publisher, don't you think, Miss Mary?"

Mary responded by immediately putting on her signature fake smile.

How could she not understand Miss Bingley's meaning? The young girl now saw herself as rival number one, mistaking her for Mr. Darcy, and therefore hated for Mary to make a fool of herself in front of Darcy.

To be reasonable, Mary was not at all interested in Darcy, and she naturally did not mind acting as Elizabeth's shield. However, even if Miss Bingley was using nothing more than schoolboy tactics, the endlessness was annoying!

Especially with her encouragement, which was written with the word "despise" in her manner, clearly not believing that Mary, a country girl, could come up with any good stories.

In that case, don't blame her for not being polite.

"Fine," Mary grinned, "then I'll tell."

Even a figure in the window could scare Miss Bentley out of her wits, Mary couldn't believe she could be so relaxed after hearing about the real case, and she was the one who wanted to hear about it, it wasn't Mary's intention to scare her!