We had an early breakfast, and the breakfast table was cleared in advance. My companion was in his pajamas, awaiting the appointment. Dr. Mortimer was punctual about his appointments, and the clock had just struck ten o'clock.

The doctor came, followed by the young baronet Henry Bascowell. Henry was short and stocky, with a pair of black eyes. He was about 30 years old, with a strong body, thick eyebrows, and a stubborn and aggressive look.

Face. He was dressed in Scottish-style clothing with a hint of red. His appearance showed that he was a weather-beaten young man who spent most of his time outdoors, but his quiet and calm expression and calm attitude showed a gentlemanly demeanor.

.

Dr. Mortimer introduced: "This is Sir Henry Bascowell."

"Oh, yes." said Henry: "Mr. Sherlock Holmes, even if my friend had not suggested calling on you this morning, I would have come myself. It is well known that you are good at studying very small problems. This morning,

I just encountered something that I really can’t figure out.”

"Sir Henry, please sit down. Are you saying that you have encountered some strange things since you arrived in London?"

"It's nothing important, Mr. Holmes. I was probably just joking. This is a letter, if you can call it a letter. I received it this morning."

Henry put the letter on the table, and we all leaned forward to look at it. It was an ordinary gray envelope, addressed to "Norsombolan Hotel", the handwriting was quite sloppy, and the postmark read "Charing Cross Street".

The letter was sent at dusk the day before.

"Who knew you were going to the Nosambolan Hotel?" my companion asked, looking sharply at Henry.

Henry said: "No one knows! It was only after I met with Dr. Mortimer that we decided to go."

"But there can be no doubt that Dr. Mortimer has been there?"

"No, I used to stay with a friend." Dr. Mortimer replied, "We didn't explicitly say we were going to this hotel."

"It seems that someone is paying special attention to your actions!" Holmes took out a half-sheet of letter paper folded into four quarters from the envelope, 13 inches wide and 17 inches long. He opened the letter paper and laid it flat on the table, with something in the middle.

A line of sentences, mainly affixed with printed characters, reads as follows:

"If you value the value of your life, or if you are rational, then please stay away from the swamp."

Only the word "swamp" is written in ink.

"Now, Mr. Holmes," Henry continued, "perhaps you can tell me what this means, and who is so interested in my actions?"

"Dr. Mortimer, what do you think about this matter? In any case, you should admit that there is absolutely nothing supernatural in this letter, right?"

"Of course, Mr. Holmes. However, the sender may very well believe in this mysterious incident."

"What's going on?" Henry asked eagerly, "I feel like you two know more about me than I do!"

"Before you leave this room, you will know what we know, Sir Henry, I am sure of that," said Holmes. "Now, please allow us to confine ourselves to this very interesting letter.

, this must have been improvised and sent out yesterday evening. Watson, do you have yesterday's "The Times"?"

"Yes, put it in that corner." I replied.

"Can you please bring it to me? Open the page inside, and please tell me, please, the page dedicated to the main comments." Holmes quickly glanced from top to bottom with his eyes. This important comment discusses

Regarding the issue of free trade, let’s take a look at one of the paragraphs: Perhaps you will be deceived by rhetoric into believing that protection tax will encourage the industry in which your business belongs or the life of industry. However, if we proceed from rationality,

In the long run, this kind of legislation is destined to move the country away from wealth and closer to poverty, reduce the total value of imports, and thereby lower the average living standard of this island country.

"Watson, what do you think of this matter?" cried my companion cheerfully, rubbing his hands with satisfaction and asking: "Don't you think that this is a very admirable sentiment?"

Dr. Mortimer looked at my companion with professional interest, and Henry fixed his vacant eyes on me.

"I don't know much about taxes and that kind of thing," Henry said, "but from what I can tell, with this text message, we seem to be way off base."

"On the contrary, I think we are on the right track. Sir Henry Watson knows more about my method than you do, but even he may not understand the importance of this long sentence.

"

"Yes, I admit, I don't see any connection between the two." I said.

"Oh, dear Watson, the connection between the two is so close that each word in the text message is extracted from this long sentence. For example: 'you', 'your', 'life'

, 'value', 'reason', 'away', etc. Now, can't you see where these words come from?"

"God! You are so right! Mr. Holmes, you are so smart!" Henry shouted involuntarily.

"If you still have any doubts about this, the fact that the two words 'distance' and 'value' are cut from almost the same place is enough to eliminate your doubts."

"Oh, now...it's true!" said Henry.

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Holmes, this is quite beyond my expectation," said Dr. Mortimer, looking at my companion with amazement. "If anyone says that these words are cut out of newspapers, I can believe them, but

That you could point out which newspaper it was from, and which editorial it was cut from, is the most remarkable thing I know, how did you find out?"

"I wonder, Dr. Mortimer, could you tell the difference between an Eskimo skull and a negro skull?"

"certainly!"

"But how to tell the difference?"

"That's my special hobby. The difference between the two is quite obvious. The slope of the face, the raised brow bone, the line of the jawbone, and..."

"This is also my hobby, and the difference is quite obvious. Just like the difference in your eyes between the skulls of an Eskimo and a black man. In my eyes, the standard small type 5 used in The Times is different from half a

There is also a huge difference between the non-standard typefaces used in the penny evening newspapers. Distinguishing the typefaces used in newspapers is part of the most basic common sense for criminology experts. Of course, frankly speaking, when I was still

When I was very young, I once confused the fonts of the Western Morning Post and the Leeds Mercury. However, the font used in the opinion column of The Times is very special and cannot be compared with other newspapers.

Confusion. Since this letter was posted yesterday, perhaps these words can be found in yesterday's newspaper."

"I understand, then, Mr. Holmes." Henry said, "As far as I can see, the person who cut this message used scissors..."

"Nail scissors," my partner said to be precise: "Obviously, you can tell, the blades of the scissors are very short because the person using the scissors had to cut the word 'stay away'

Two times."

"Exactly. So, that is to say, he used a pair of short-bladed scissors to cut out the words used in this message, and then pasted them on with glue..."

"Use glue, not paste," my partner corrected.

"Yes, it's glued to the paper. But what I want to know is, why is it that only the word 'swamp' is written in ink?"

"Because, it's not easy to find this word in newspapers. The other words are common words that can be found in any newspaper, but the word 'swamp' is not very common."

"Oh, of course, that will explain it clearly. Mr. Holmes, do you see any other problems in this text message?" Dr. Mortimer asked.

"There are some signs that we can explore further. This man has taken great pains to hide as many clues as possible. The address, as you can see, is rather sloppily written. However, apart from well-educated people, many people in The Times

Few people read it. Therefore, we can infer that this letter was written by a well-educated person, but he wanted to pretend to be a poorly educated person. And judging from the fact that he took great pains to conceal his handwriting, it seems that

His handwriting is likely to be recognized by you. Also, you can also see that the words are not posted in a straight line, and some words are posted much higher than others. For example, the word 'life' is posted higher

It's not very neat. This shows that the person who cut and pasted is in a hurry, emotional or careless. Generally speaking, I am more inclined to the view that he is in a hurry, because this matter is obviously very important, and it is so important to do this.

The person who wrote the letter does not seem like a careless person. If he was panicked, this raises a new question, which is worth noting. Why was he panicked? The letter sent early in the morning, after he left

It will be delivered to Sir Henry before leaving the hotel. The person who wrote this letter is probably afraid of being bumped into - but who is he afraid of bumping into? "

"Now, we are really making some wild guesses," said Dr. Mortimer.

"It would be better to say that we are comparing various possibilities and selecting the conclusion that is most consistent with the real situation; this is the scientific use of imagination, and reliable evidence is always the starting point for our thinking. At present,

, and one more thing, no doubt you will call it a 'random conjecture', but I am almost certain that the address on this letter was written in a hotel."

"What is your basis for saying that?"

"If you check carefully, it is not difficult to find that both the ink and the pen tip have caused some trouble for the person writing the address. When writing this letter, the pen tip scratched the paper twice and the ink also spilled out. In

When writing such a short address, the ink dried three times, which shows that the ink in the ink bottle is limited. Just think about it, personal pens and ink bottles rarely do this, and these two situations actually occur at the same time.

, this is of course a rare thing. So you know that the pens and ink bottles in hotels are almost always in this situation. Therefore, I can say with certainty that if we go to various hotels near Charing Cross Street to check

Wastebasket, once we find the rest of the copy of The Times where the comments were cut, we can immediately find the person who sent this strange letter. Oh! What is this?"

The 13×17-inch piece of letter paper with the words on it was held by Holmes only one inch from his eyes and he observed it carefully.

"Ah? Nothing." He said as he threw down the letter paper again, "This half piece of blank letter paper doesn't even have a watermark on it. I think what we can discover from this strange letter is also true.

That's it for now. Oh, Sir Henry, has anything worthy of note happened since you came to London?"

"Oh, no. Mr. Holmes, I think, not yet." "Have you not noticed that anyone is paying attention to your movements or following you?"

"I feel like I've walked into a novel with a bizarre plot," Henry said. "What the hell, why are you following me?"

"We are about to discuss this issue. But before we discuss this issue, are you sure you have nothing more to tell us?"

"Well, it depends on what it is and whether you both think it's worth talking about."

"I believe that all abnormal phenomena in daily life are worthy of discussion and study."

Henry smiled and said: "I know very little about the ordinary life of the British, because I spent almost all my golden years in Canada and the United States. However, I thought that losing a leather shoe was not something here.

Part of normal life, right?”

"Did you lose a leather shoe?"

"Oh, sir, my dear," cried Dr. Mortimer, "it may well have been misplaced, and you will find it when you get back to the hotel. There is no use in bothering Mr. Holmes with such a trivial matter.

.”

Henry said: "It was Mr. Holmes who asked me what happened besides ordinary life."

"That's right," said my companion, "no matter how ridiculous it may seem. You mean, you lost a leather shoe?"

"It was just a misplacement! Last night I put a pair of shoes outside the door, and this morning there was only one left. I didn't ask anything from the man who polished the shoes.

What makes me uncomfortable is that I just bought these high-top leather shoes on Hebin Road yesterday and I haven’t worn them yet.”

"If you haven't worn it yet, why would you put it outside the door and ask someone to wipe it?"

"This pair of high-top leather shoes is light brown and has not been polished, so I left it outside the door."

"So, as soon as you arrived in London yesterday, you immediately went out and bought these high-top leather shoes, right?"

"I also bought a lot of things, and Dr. Mortimer accompanied me to buy them. You should know that since I want to be a decent country squire there, I must wear local clothes.

Perhaps the living habits I developed in the American West made me a little dissolute. In addition to purchasing other things, I also specially bought this pair of leather shoes - costing 6 pounds - but I haven't worn them on my feet yet.

Got one."

"A lost pair is of no use," said my companion. "I admit that I agree with Dr. Mortimer that the lost leather shoe may be found soon."
To be continued...