Chapter 4: Murder in a Closed Room

It turns out that detective work is not as interesting as Watson imagined.

It has been a week since he became Miss Holmes' assistant. After signing the employment contract, Charlotte saw that he had no fixed place to live, so she allocated the vacant room upstairs to him as a bedroom.

Watson also moved his luggage here and took charge of the security of the Holmes Detective Agency.

221B Baker Street was originally a three-story apartment building. It was bought by Miss Charlotte's father, the Duke of Holmes, and transformed into a professional detective agency. The spacious and ventilated lobby became an office for receiving customers.

Different from the original book, Charlotte does not live here. She is actually a rich aristocratic daughter. Most of the time, she is busy with her own things, chemical experiments, autopsies, sword practice, equestrian training, gun shooting... Daily life is rich.

So Watson was given full authority to manage this huge detective agency. It sounds like he has great power, but in fact he is just responsible for doing some miscellaneous work, cleaning, receiving customers and recording their needs, sorting out and summarizing cases in newspapers... The work is boring.

Although some jobs will come to you on your own initiative, most of them are noble lords/ladies dressed in gorgeous clothes who come to your detective agency to help find missing pets, investigate lost property, and find evidence of the lady/master's lover's cheating...

They are all trivial matters. Although the nobles promised a lot of rewards, it is more like a kind of free favor than a job.

Most of these guests were received by Holmes himself. When Watson prepared tea, the customers did not look anxious at all. Instead, they looked indifferent, like leisurely tourists who came to visit, pointing out the decoration and furnishings in the detective agency.

Charlotte was polite to these guests on the surface, but she immediately stopped smiling after they left, and specifically told Watson: There is no need to really investigate jobs like this that are obviously paid higher than the market, just receive them well and pretend to take notes seriously.

There are some ordinary visitors, such as street vendors in business disputes, railway employees who made mistakes at work, old gentlemen with family discord, fashionable girls confused about the future...

They were all introduced by other private detectives, who really encountered some troubles and urgently needed fair and smart people to guide them.

Holmes would first listen to their stories, then analyze the problems and give appropriate suggestions, and charge a small consulting fee.

Watson would basically listen and write down the files, and he had a better understanding of the wisdom of this female version of Holmes.

Compared with the detective Sherlock in the original book, Miss Charlotte's knowledge range is obviously wider, perhaps because she was born wealthy and did not need to be distracted by money, but could devote more energy to learning all kinds of knowledge.

Perhaps due to the difference in gender, the difference in hormone secretion and the influence of aristocratic etiquette and family education, the temperament and habits of this Miss Holmes are also different from those of the original Holmes.

Her temper is not so weird, but rather milder, and she will not use stimulant drugs to cheer herself up when there is no case to investigate.

Apart from the natural physical difference between men and women, Miss Charlotte may not be as strong as detective Sherlock in terms of force, but in terms of rich knowledge, the Holmes that Watson knows may have won - at least she will admit that the earth revolves around the sun.

Since joining the Holmes Detective Agency, Watson has hardly stepped out of the door except for rest time, and he has been engaged in clerical work.

After a long time, he couldn't help feeling a little bored.

However, Watson is quite patient, and he also knows that the real Holmes cannot be like the elementary school student of the God of Death, and there are all kinds of murders around him every few days.

He was happy to be free... Every day he would sit in the hall and read old books bought from street stalls, enriching his knowledge and gradually calming his restless heart.

From time to time, he would meet with Stanford Jr. to drink two pots of wine together at his invitation, and his life was particularly leisurely.

To be honest, Stanford Jr. was indeed a good friend. Although he was born in a wealthy family, he was not arrogant at all when dealing with people. He often treated Watson with delicious food and wine, introduced him to a good job, and introduced the interpersonal network and interesting stories of all walks of life in London at the wine table, which really helped Watson integrate into London.

The leisurely daily life lasted for nearly a month, and Watson's leg and foot problems had not improved, but his peaceful life began to ripple.

Everything started with that letter.

On this day, Holmes had a rare leisure time. She had just finished the experimental work upstairs and sat in the reception hall with Watson to drink black tea.

After a month of getting along, the two had become much more familiar with each other, enough to joke with each other.

During the conversation, Charlotte suddenly walked to the window, pointed outside the window, and said, "Watson, guess who that person is?"

This is a small game that the two of them played in their spare time, judging the identity and whereabouts of passers-by by observing their words and expressions.

Watson came to the window and looked along Charlotte's ink-stained finger.

Across the street, there was a strong man in plain clothes with a thick beard on his face. Watson had seen many people with this style in the army.

The man walked slowly with his head held high, but his sharp eyes were always fixed on the house numbers of each household, counting them one by one, holding a large blue envelope in his right hand. Although he was not wearing a uniform, he was obviously a courier.

Watson also noticed that there was a blue sea anchor-like tattoo on the back of the other person's hand holding the letter, which was like some kind of sailor's symbol.

He only took one look and immediately came to the conclusion, "This is a naval officer who has just retired from the army. He has a military-style beard on his face, a sailor tattoo on the back of his hand, and his head held high like a leader." The appearance can prove this.”

"And I venture to guess that he is probably looking for our Sherlock Holmes Detective Agency."

As soon as he finished speaking, the man outside the window looked at the room as if he suddenly realized something, and ran over in stride.

Dong-dong-dong, there was a rapid and heavy knock on the door.

Charlotte clapped and praised: "Beautiful, what a wonderful reasoning!"

Watson smiled, got up and opened the door for the visitor.

The visitor asked in a deep and deep voice: "Hello, is Miss Holmes here? I have a letter from her here."

The female detective came over and said, "I am Charlotte Holmes."

The man seemed to be confirming Holmes' appearance, nodded, and took out an envelope from his arms, "Hello, Miss Holmes, this is your letter. Do you need a reply on the spot?"

After receiving Charlotte's shaking head in denial, the man thrust the letter into Charlotte's hand. He put his heels together, stood at attention, raised his hands in salute, and then hurried to the next place.

Charlotte sat back on the sofa, opened the letter and read through it, her face suddenly showed an excited expression, like a child who got a new toy.

She threw the letter over and said, "Watson, look at this, there is a bizarre case coming to your door."

Watson took the letter and looked at it——

"Dear Miss Charlotte Holmes:

Last night, a strange murder occurred at No. 3 Garden Street, Lauriston.

The crime occurred in an empty house that had been abandoned for a long time. At about three o'clock in the morning, the patrol police nearby heard a shrill scream from inside the house. Knowing that the house had been uninhabited for a long time, the patrol officers suspected something was wrong and went to check.

The doors and windows of this long-abandoned house were all locked, and no light could be seen inside. The patrolman broke the door lock and entered. He saw the body of a middle-aged man lying in the hall filled with books.

The deceased was a well-dressed gentleman, his clothes were clean and tidy, he had not been robbed, and he had no identification materials on him.

There were no signs of struggle at the crime scene, there were no injuries on the body, and the cause of death was unknown.

Why did the deceased enter the empty house, and how did the murderer commit the crime... We are puzzled and deeply aware of the thorny nature of this case.

Please come here at twelve o'clock, we will always be waiting for you on site. Everything at the murder scene will remain untouched until we hear back from you.

If you don't have free time to come, we will also inform you of the follow-up details. We hope to get your on-site guidance, we will be very grateful.

Sincerely, Tobias Grayson”

Watson secretly thought: "Research on words written in blood..."