Detective Mary

Chapter 38

Luring Captain Carter into the trap was a bit of a ruse.

He was tasked with destroying the contract, and had several arguments with Mr. Hemp over it, and naturally understood Mr. Hemp's anxiety over having screwed up everything.

It would have made sense if Mr. Hamp had tried to make up for his mistake by explaining the situation to Mr. Bentley and asking for the unsigned contract back.

Mr. Hamp, who had been instructed by the detective, fixed the time for his secret meeting with Captain Carter for the following day, after the factory had closed.

Mary arrived at the factory in Mr. Bentley's carriage before the workers had left and Captain Carter had arrived. She entered the factory gates, saw no detectives about, thought a little, and circled along the plant.

Then Mary did find Mr. Sherlock Holmes in a corner at the back of the factory.

The detective was dressed in a black overcoat, with a jacket of the same color and a neatly buttoned bow tie. Only Holmes' movements were ungentlemanly in comparison with his smart attire.

He leaned against the window of the factory, his hat in his hand, his cane under his armpit, his tall, thin body hidden in the corner, staring at every movement inside the factory without moving.

Mr. Holmes was a dignified-looking man, and his usual cool demeanor was always a little aggressive. It was childish to see such a man in the posture of a listener, so attentive was he.

It's actually a bit cute.

Mary couldn't help but giggle at the sight of Holmes, knowing that when he went into detective mode, he didn't care about anything.

Holmes did not raise his head when he heard the commotion, but held his finger to his mouth in a gesture of silence.

"Your footsteps are too loud," he said bluntly, "and Captain Carter is bound to discover your presence when he arrives."

"I will take care of that. "

Mary said, hastily curbing her smile and carefully walking over to Mr. Holmes, "Can I do anything, sir?"

Holmes: "Wait."

This is what is meant by asking Mary to wait with him outside the factory for Captain Carter to come to the door.

As the night deepened, Mary glanced up at the gray London night sky and figured that Captain Carter was planning to come over after it was completely dark.

Suffice it to say that it was fortunate that Mr. Bingley had vouched for her, otherwise Mary would never have been able to come here alone at night.

A single Victorian lady could be a guest at a friend's house at night, could go to a party, and could go to the opera with a companion. But to go out like this, without any company, alone with a man - if word got out, Mary Bennet's reputation would be completely ruined.

Fortunately Mr. Bingley insisted on keeping his word.

He promised to involve Mary in pursuing the case and was willing to assume responsibility for her personal safety even at his own risk.

Charles Bentley, who was upright and sincere by nature, offered to help Mary lie before the Gardners by saying that Mary had only been invited by Editor-in-Chief Fred Hall and his wife to the editor-in-chief's home for dinner tonight.

Mr. Bingley didn't even tell Jane about this! He just sent out his own carriage and told the driver to drop Mary off and then find a place to hide until it was over and then send her home.

It was in this way, too, that Mary had the opportunity to follow Holmes as he waited for Captain Carter to take the bait.

--It was true that setting up the sister and brother-in-law was the right thing to do!

Mary thought as she stood on tiptoe.

"What's in the factory?" She asked.

"......"

Holmes' eyes finally moved from the window to Mary.

Mary was small and thin. And the walls of the factory were high and the windows were erected nearly half a meter above the dwellings, a good five and a half feet above the ground.

For the lean, tall detective, standing in a corner would give her a level view of the factory's interior. Mary, on the other hand - once again, she was on tiptoe to see inside, and had to pick her way around the window edge to keep her vision parallel.

Mr. Holmes, who had always had a good head on his shoulders, sighed at the sight.

"Just a moment."

He stepped rather helplessly out of the shadows.

The detective strides out into the open space of the factory, searches around a few times, and carries over an empty wooden crate from the corner, setting it down at Mary's feet.

"This will do," he held out his right hand to Mary, "step on it."

Mary blinked and lifted her head along Mr. Holmes' bony palm.

Four eyes met, his cold, sharp, pale eyes deep and dark in the dim light, but that wasn't intimidating, and Mr. Holmes' aura of calm confidence seemed rather less aggressive in the stillness of the night.

He was staring at Mary and when she didn't respond, the detective raised an eyebrow, "What?"

"No, nothing!"

She withdrew her gaze and tickled the corners of her mouth.

Mary felt like she was getting spoiled by her male god, a few special treats in a row, she was getting used to it.

So Mary reached out her hand graciously. Her fingertips were placed in the middle of the detective's palm, and the man's knuckles curled up, and he took hold of her hand.

As skin met skin and warmth spread, Mr. Holmes gave a little push and leapt onto the crate with Mary in tow.

"I guess that's no problem."

He withdrew his hand, "At least you can see what's going on in the chamber."

The touch of finger contact still lingered within Mary's senses, and she felt her face still burn slightly, but was finally able to restrain her excitement.

Mary curled her fingers, "Thank you, sir."

Holmes had chosen a good position, it was backlit and with the corner of the wall as cover, they had a good view of the room, but the people in the room would have a hard time noticing that there was someone here.

Therefore, Mary stepped on the wooden box to secretly observe, will not be noticed.

"Why isn't Captain Carter here yet," Mary muttered in a low voice, "and although I have Mr. Bingley to cover me, my aunt and uncle will still worry if I come home too late."

Holmes glanced at Mary.

"So," he spoke coldly, "your program for financial independence is to become a writer."

Mary froze.

Was this Mr. Holmes' intention to have a family chat with himself? Sherlock Holmes was actually concerned about the daily life of a bystander?

Mary was surprised, but not completely lost for words, that the subject of "financial independence" had been reopened between them, as he had already pointed it out.

It's ...... shameful!

Although it was the detective who had first outright stated that he would know about it sooner or later, and Mary hadn't intended to keep it from him, Mary didn't feel ready to discuss what she was creating with Holmes.

Still, it was possible to relay it briefly.

"Yes," so she replied, "it went through the draft without a hitch, which is a good start."

"In which journal?"

"Seaside Magazine."

Mary knew that the detective's concern, I'm afraid, wasn't that she was writing a novel, but that she was creating a suspenseful speculative fiction novel.

So she added, "I love detective novels on weekdays, and it's kind of a surprise to be able to put pen to paper on my own and make money."

I didn't expect the detective to hear this, but he spoke rather disdainfully, "Those literary works are all nonsense."

Mary: "......"

Sherlock Holmes: "Only practice makes perfect, how can you create factual speculative fiction when you've never handled a full case on your own?"

You must have a lot in common with Karl Marx, the founder of dialectical materialism!

Mary cried, "Jules Verne didn't personally go to the center of the earth or the moon, Mary Shelley didn't personally create monsters out of corpses, and Victor Hugo never even saw the strange man who lived in the bell tower ah."

Holmes: "What corpses?"

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

What a way to get to the point!

As a person who loves to read, Mary always takes literature for granted as common sense, especially when standing in front of Sherlock Holmes, she subconsciously feels that the great detective knows everything, almost forgetting that Watson in the original story but directly judged that Holmes' knowledge of literature is basically equal to zero.

"I mean," Mary had to explain, "there's always a need for fictional plots in fiction writing, otherwise wouldn't I have to kill someone in order to figure out the murderer's psychology?"

"It is for that reason," Holmes snorted out a laugh, "that I say literature is all nonsense."

"......"

Even if you were a male god and publicly criticized Mary's other male goddesses, she would never be able to forgive okay!

Mary shut up in exasperation and decided to stop liking Holmes for three minutes.

Never mind, thirty seconds, seeing as the detective was still helping her move boxes and being extremely considerate in helping her step on them.

And just as the outdoor duo fell into silence, there was finally movement within the factory.

The heavy main door of the factory was pushed straight open, and an upright shadow walked in. Mary gave a slight start when she saw the shadow, and immediately couldn't be bothered to sulk with Holmes.

Just by looking at the upright stance and sturdy stride, she knew that it was a soldier. Upon hearing the door open, Mr. Hamp, who had lingered in the factory office, came out also.

"Hamp," The Shadow stopped between the machines, "you got the contract?"

It was indeed Captain Carter.

Mary had never noticed this soldier, who was on good terms with Lydia at Meryton, until he stepped out into the moonlight and Mary realized that he was not one of the "red uniforms" of the local militia regiment.

With his athletic stance, alert eyes, artillery boots and stocky build, his uniform and habits were proof that he had been to war!

"Yes."

Hamp pulled a document out of his pocket and handed it to Captain Carter, "I told Bentley that if he wasn't going to change suppliers, the contract wouldn't be of much use, and that I'd be good enough to recommend it to someone else, and he's so kind and trusting that he returned the contract without much thought."

"So it was that simple."

Captain Carter was very satisfied, and his tone visibly relaxed after reviewing the documents.

"Then, with many thanks for your attentiveness," he said, "I will put in a good word before the professor, and ask him to give you a chance to make amends."

Hamp breathed a long sigh of relief.

"Thanks, thanks!"

He had almost forgotten what he had come to do, and the factory owner said rather eagerly, "If the professor will forgive me, I shall not forget your kindness!"

"Forgive you?"

Captain Carter gave a start and looked extraordinarily surprised when he spoke again, "I didn't mean that, the professor never forgives wrongdoers."

With that, his hand went to his waist.

"It's only natural to make up for mistakes made with death."

--Oops!

Mary, outside the window, realized it was bad almost as soon as Captain Carter's hand moved, in this position, and he tried to draw his gun!

Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, reacted faster.

The detective was tall and long-legged, and at the turn of Captain Carter's tone, he had leapt sharply over the high window and straight into the factory.

But even Sherlock Holmes could not move faster than a soldier about to draw his gun!