Chapter 2 Wedge Three Letters

It was a typical bad weather in London. You can recall Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's description in "Five Orange Pips": "It was late September, and the storm at the time of the autumnal equinox was extremely violent. The wind howled all day, the rain beat the windows, and even in this great city of London, which was built by the hands of man, we lost our daily life at this moment. In the mood of work, I have to admit the existence of the great power of nature. It is like an untamed beast in an iron cage, roaring at human beings through the bars of human civilization. As night falls, the storms are more violent. The wind Now whistling loudly, now weeping low, like a baby crying from the chimney of a fireplace."

At such a time, the melancholy Holmes must be sitting on the sofa and playing his violin again; and the good-tempered Dr. Watson must be sitting quietly on the side, rubbing rheumatism oil on his feet silently and helplessly. . However, there is no Sherlock Holmes here anymore, only the Sherlock Holmes Museum and the legendary stories he left behind. Old Wick was the curator of the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Now he put on a poncho and carried an old lantern. He tremblingly opened the mailbox in the heavy rain, stuffed a large package of mail into the bag, and then threw it into the Back, back back.

He caught a cold and fell ill for a few days, so he didn't come to work in the museum.I haven't come to pick up the mail in the past few days, so there must be a lot of letters piled up in the mailbox again. Although it has come to the 21st century, the old administrator still likes to use the old lantern that has been around for decades.Every day under its dappled light, it opened and read letters from all over the world one by one, and then answered all kinds of strange questions raised by Sherlock Holmes fans one by one. Only at this time did he feel that Holmes was still alive—needless to say, Old Wick himself must be an out-and-out Sherlock Holmes fan, and he admired the great detective described by Sir Conan Doyle.

Back at the museum, Old Wick opened Holmes' office, and there was Holmes' walking stick behind the door.He looked at the Holmes hat hanging on the hanger in the corner, put the old lamp on the corner of the table, and dumped the letters in the mail bag on the table.At another corner of the table, there was an antique wooden box, on which Holmes' big pipe lay quietly. Old Wick made himself a cup of coffee, then leaned back on the deck chair and began to slowly open and read the letters from all over the world one by one. The questions raised in these letters from readers are all kinds of strange, and many of them make people laugh: some asked who Holmes' lover was, some said that he was Holmes's long-lost brother, some said that he was Holmes' illegitimate son, and wanted to fight for Holmes. The heritage of the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and there are people who strongly request to come to Baker Street to be a babysitter for Holmes...Because of the cold, Old Wick missed work for a few days, so this time there are a lot of emails, but he still tries his best to write one by one. Answer these outlandish questions.

After answering about thirty letters, Old Wick stretched himself, took a sip of coffee, took off his reading glasses, wiped them and put them on again.Then he picked up the next mail. The envelope was already a little yellowed, with a few crooked words written on it, and the handwriting was immature.It read: 221B Baker Street, to Mr. Holmes. A gust of wind came in through the crack of the door, the light of the lantern flickered a few times, and a huge shadow swayed on the wall. Old Wick sighed and glanced out of the window.It was a dark night outside, and the pouring rain was still "crashing" and hitting the window sill with a "ding ding dong dong".

He had just recovered from his illness and was still a little weak, so he coughed loudly.For some reason, when he picked up the letter, he felt a sudden panic in his heart. He slowly opened the letter.Inside is a piece of light blue cartoon letter paper, the handwriting on it is the same as that on the envelope, still immature, the content inside is as follows: Old Wick held the letter paper, looked at it and couldn't help laughing, this is someone's innocent child.Hey, but this child is also very poor. It is natural for a grandson to miss his grandpa.Old Vic looked at the date the letter was written, and it was more than half a month ago.He put down the letter, took out a note from the side, picked up a pen and leaned over to write a reply to William Zhang:

After replying to the letter with a smile on his face, Old Wick put the page of letter back into the envelope, pushed it to the read side, and picked up the next envelope. As soon as he held the letter up to his eyes, Old Wick was taken aback for a moment: the handwriting on this envelope was exactly the same as the one he had read just now. He shook his head with a wry smile, and opened the letter anyway.Inside was still a piece of light blue cartoon letter paper, still in the immature handwriting, on which was written crookedly: Seeing this, Old Wick couldn't help shaking slightly with his hand holding the letter. He didn't know if this letter was another prank.

He has worked at the Sherlock Holmes Museum for more than 30 years. Before he came here, the federal government set up a special organization to investigate the British cases mentioned in these help letters. For 30 years he had received all kinds of letters, especially those asking for help.A lot of boring people will make up all kinds of weird stories for fun or seek excitement, write letters and mail them.He also tried to submit these to the relevant investigation department of the London authorities before, and after they investigated, they found that most of them were hoaxes.As a result, Old Wick gradually became numb. Many times when he received some letters asking for help, he would filter out some of them based on his intuition, and he would hand over the rest to the authorities.

But this letter, Old Vic was indeed a bit difficult to grasp. Judging from the handwriting and tone of voice, the letter was indeed written by a child, and ordinary children are not very good at deliberately telling such lies. He pondered for a long time, shook his head with a long sigh, and finally put the letter back into the envelope and put it aside.Maybe, or who is a child who likes to fantasize?This is also uncertain. Old Wick yawned, put down the other letters, and stood up.He was a little sleepy and planned to go to the bedroom to sleep for a while.But at the moment when he got up, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of another envelope on the table - the handwriting was exactly the same as the two he had just read.

Old Wick shook his head, sat down again, and read it patiently. Trembling, he opened the third letter.As soon as he opened this letter, he found that this letter was completely different from the previous two, except that the blue cartoon letter and immature handwriting remained unchanged.The letter is very short, only two sentences: Without a title or a date, Old Wick froze there for a moment. Outside the window, a gust of rain slammed on the glass, and a flash of bright lightning flashed across the sky and reflected on Old Wick's pale face through the curtains. At this moment, a helpless face of a little boy appeared in his mind, and the child screamed out a word at last: "Help!"