The Day of the Draw at Hogwarts

The light in the police archives room was very dim, giving people the impression that it was already dark outside. But actually, it's ten o'clock in the morning.

The dim light was due to the curtains being drawn on every window in the archives and, of course, to the smoke inside the archives. The darkened archives room was now filled with smoke, making it look like a "wonderland". The root of all this is the only living person in the archives: a middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man was putting his feet up on the desk and smoking a pipe. He was tall, over six feet tall, with slender limbs and gray eyes. He had a slicked back hair and a face as sharp as a diamond. His jaw is square and protruding, and he looks very tough and perseverant. He also has a slender aquiline nose, which may be due to adequate nutrition and frequent hair washing. His aquiline nose does not give him a greasy and sinister villain feeling, but makes his face look particularly alert and decisive.

He has a bowler hat on hand, a black coat and a black tall felt hat hanging on the hanger behind his back, and a cane is leaning on the edge of the desk.

With a creak, the door opened, and an old woman who looked to be in her fifties pushed open the door to the archives room.

"Joseph Bell! You are smoking in the archives again!" As soon as she entered the door, the old lady choked and coughed several times. She covered her nose, ran to the office window, opened the curtains, and opened the window to let the light in and let the smoke drift out.

"Mrs. Stubbs, I like to analyze and reason about complicated cases under the shroud of smoke." Joseph's voice was low and powerful, with a sense of vicissitudes.

Mrs. Stubbs sighed and muttered: "I don't know who that young man offended, but he was assigned to you. Come in!"

She called out the door, and a young man in his early twenties walked in.

"New intern, I hope you will get along well." Mrs. Stubbs rolled her eyes when she said this. It was obvious that she had no confidence in this.

"John," the young intern approached Joseph and stretched out his hand to shake his hand, "John Livingstone."

"Joseph Bell," Joseph moved his feet off the table.

"I'm leaving first," Mrs. Stubbs said as she prepared to leave the archives. "Smoking less..."

Joseph seemed not to hear, but he put his pipe aside. Pipes are different from cigarettes. It is easy to extinguish the pipe by itself if left alone. Some novices will even extinguish the pipe halfway through smoking.

"What time is it?" he asked suddenly.

"Uh," John was a little confused. Only then did he notice that there was an unusual lack of a clock in this archive room, so he took out a pocket watch from his outer pocket, opened it and took a look at the time.

"Two minutes to a quarter past ten, sir."

Joseph nodded. At this moment, Mrs. Stubbs seemed to suddenly remember something and said to Joseph: "By the way, you seemed to have said before that Mrs. Hudson next door to you is looking for a new tenant. You can I recommend this little guy to go there." Mrs. Stubbs turned to John and said, "If you haven't found a suitable house yet."

"Of course he hasn't found a house yet." Joseph looked casual and said casually: "But I'm a little curious, why don't you live with your father? Is it because you can't stand his alcoholism? ?”

"Sorry, what did you say?" John was a little confused, while Mrs. Stubbs beside him rolled her eyes. Her expression seemed to say: God, are you here to fix things again?

Joseph knocked on his pipe, "Your father is an alcoholic and he recently divorced your mother..."

John:?

"Young man, stay and work hard. I believe you will be my best assistant - I knew it the moment I heard your name!"

John: "No, ah, you...?"

"I understand that you must be full of doubts in your heart, and I will patiently answer them for you, my future assistant," Joseph waved his hand and subconsciously picked up the pipe, but looking at John's face, he still didn't light it up again.

"You must want to ask, we just met, and you and I didn't know each other's names for more than a minute. How could I see so many things?"

John nodded, "Yes, that's right, but -"

"Engraving." Joseph pointed to John's pocket watch, "The engraving on your pocket watch, 'Livingstone', your last name, I believe it is a relative of your family, but it should not be someone of the same generation. The pocket watch looks like it is from the 1930s. Popular style, the wear marks on it also indicate this, which means that it was at least passed down from your grandfather's generation. Of course, it is also possible that your father's brother gave it to you, but the probability is negligible, because open the watch cover When I was there, I vaguely saw a black and white photo, which looked very similar to you, so there is a high probability that he is your father."

"But half of the photo was torn off, which means their relationship broke down, and you kept the father's half, which means you live with your father. You haven't rented a house yet because there is a smell of hotel shampoo in your hair. The taste is so obvious that no reasoning is needed.”

"As for the inference that your father is an alcoholic, it's just a little genius' guess. I saw some small scratches and bumps on the back and winding area of ​​your pocket watch. This means that his hands shake every night when winding it. Sometimes I would drop my pocket watch on the ground, and if it’s not what I expected, the dial glass should also be installed later.”

Joseph spoke quickly, and John was dumbfounded.

"Oh my god……"

Joseph showed a smile, and he happily cleared away the debris on the table, "Just a little reasoning, I am the administrator of the police archives, but I am also a detective-"

"...I guessed none of them correctly."

Joseph:?

Σ(っ°Д°;)っ

"Your reasoning is fundamentally wrong."

Joseph showed an incredible expression.

"I bought this pocket watch at an antique market."

Joseph:? !

"But there is..."

"I carved it on it."

Joseph:…

He glanced at the carvings and found that he couldn't tell the age of the carvings due to the dirt and the distance. A misjudgment occurred, thus affecting the entire reasoning.

"The black and white photo is a photo of me, taken with my ex-girlfriend, which I tore off after we broke up. The connection between scratches and alcoholism is too forced, isn't it? Why can't it be me who drops things all the time? As for the shampoo, I don’t know what happened, so I just picked up a discounted bottle from the supermarket." John spread his hands to show that your reasoning is untenable!

Mrs. Stubbs laughed out loud, "My child, this colleague of yours is a fanatical Sherlock Holmes fan. He always likes to reason like Sherlock Holmes, but unfortunately every time he is very outrageous - when we first met, he They also deduced that I am the widow of a drug lord!”

A trace of embarrassment flashed across Joseph's face, "Okay, Ms. Stubbs, I want to tell the newcomer about his work content!"

Mrs. Stubbs smiled and left the archives.

After she left, Joseph also became serious. He tidied up the clutter on his desk and put in a copy of "The Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes" and a copy of the recently popular "The Adventures of Lockhart" In the drawer. Then Joseph gave John a serious talk about the work.

"My job here is actually very easy. We only need to file and process the cases sent by all the London police stations. Mrs. Stubbs will send the files over every morning. We only need to divide them according to regions, and then Arrange them according to time and just put them on these shelves. Generally speaking, they can be processed in one morning, after all, there are not many cases to be filed. "

The lack of case files is not because London's security situation has reached the point of being open at night, but because the police force is scarce. If it is not an extremely vicious case, the police will not be dispatched. If there are fewer police officers, there will naturally be fewer files that need to be sent to the headquarters for backup.

"Occasionally, the police will come to us to retrieve files, but the probability is low." Joseph shrugged. There are countless old cases backlogged in this huge archives, and no police officer has ever thought of digging them out and solving them. Lose.

After listening to what Joseph said, John realized that his job was really relaxing!

Joseph had plenty of time to do what he wanted to do, such as reading detective novels.

"To work here, the most important thing is to calm down. It's hard to get promoted here, but it's better to be free on weekdays." Joseph made a cup of tea for his intern. "The work pressure is not high, even if the daily work is not completed, Don't worry, no one will come to hold you accountable. We are directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Administrative Affairs. The police actually have nothing to do with us. And these archived files, to be honest, are just a formality, and almost no one will come to investigate again. .”

Joseph took out a plate of cookies, and the two chatted happily together.

"I often read those files, and then make deductions like a real detective..." Joseph patted a stack of folders on his desk, "An interesting case was sent to me two days ago, saying that something happened on the train. The bombing case seems unremarkable, but the witness’s confession is very interesting. This case is very interesting and complicated. This is a problem that can only be solved by smoking three pipes of cigarettes..."

Joseph told his juniors about the interesting cases he had seen.

"It sounds like a supernatural incident." After listening to the details of the case, John also felt that the case was a bit weird. "It's very strange. Although the witness's confession is not reliable, the case is also full of weirdness."

"First, there were no body parts left at the crime scene. It is too far-fetched to say that there were no bones left because of the explosion. Second, I don't understand why there was an argument with someone before committing the crime since it was an attack? This kind of thing is not about one thing. Suddenly? Because the two quarreled, all the passengers ran out. Third, what did the passengers mean when they said it turned into a ball of fire? Can anyone really fight when his body is on fire? "

The two had a heated discussion about the truth of the case.

"Maybe there was a fight between two magicians on the train, and the two of them ran away after the commotion, so everything can be explained!" Joseph said in a joking tone, and at the same time took his pipe. .

"You have a very good imagination. I think you can write novels."

"novel?"

"The popular book "The Adventures of Lockhart" tells the story of a magician traveling around. You can design a protagonist who goes to a place one day and accidentally meets Lockhart, who is traveling around." John While talking, he had already seen the "The Adventures of Lockhart" on his senior's desk. He had also read this book and was very fascinated by it.

"I think this idea is good. A man wants to get a loan from a bank to start a business, but he meets Lockhart there, and a whole new world opens up before his eyes..."

"Wait, why would the magician go to the bank?"

John was also stuck: Yes, how could the magician go to the bank? But he soon found a solution.

"Design a plot! For example, a certain magical creature appears in the bank and likes to collect and occupy treasures. The magician Lockhart must catch it and return the treasures to their original owners."

"Good idea, how about this magical creature being a dragon? Greedy and loves treasures."

"Is it a bit too big? Let me see, it can be designed into a small, thief-like animal, with a kangaroo-like bag on its belly to store stolen treasures..."

The two had a heated discussion.

…

Tom's investigation stalled. Although he used Legilimency to see the police who came that day, because the information the front desk staff knew was too one-sided, Tom did not see the subsequent development of the matter. The known information could not help him accurately find the police who came to investigate that day. of police.

What's even worse is that their sources of information are actually extremely limited. In modern society, if you want to search for the police station near the train station, you can easily search it by opening a map software. But Tom and the others need to buy paper maps and check them bit by bit.

In the era of information explosion in later generations, it is very difficult to obtain all kinds of information. If it was the 1920s, Tom and his friends might have solved their problems on Zhihu, and now they might be looking at files in the lounge at Hogwarts. But now even the Internet is just a prototype, and they can only find ways to investigate on their own.

What they gained all day today was that they excluded the police stations near the train station, and none of them took over the case that day.

Beyond that, there was no further progress. To make matters worse, it rained heavily at night. Tom stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of the hotel and sighed, "I'll take you back to Hogwarts first."

He made the decision to let Harry and Ron go back to school first while he continued exploring London. The three of Tom, who was worried, were walking on the street. The rain had stopped at this time, and a figure in a suit attracted Tom's attention.