As the voice fell, the entire interrogation room descended into a dead silence.
Charles Brown.
The one responsible for picking the lock, the one who knew the password, the madman.
This is just great.
Just when they had finally seen a glimmer of hope, everything had returned to the starting point.
"What do we do now?" Russell turned to look at Charlotte. "Are you going to give that madman some psychological counseling?"
Charlotte glared at Russell, then looked away, muttering curses under her breath.
"He goes all the way to rob a bank, yet has this little mental fortitude, getting scared out of his wits by a thief playing tricks."
"I agree." Russell nodded slightly.
"Is there really no one else who knows the password besides him?" Charlotte asked, unwilling to give up. "The guy who received the letter at the very beginning, he must have seen the password, right?"
"Mr. Billson..." the bandit reported that name.
"Billson, where is he?"
"He's not here... we were just hired by him." The man shook his head, his tone sounding somewhat aggrieved. "No one in this business has a conscience..."
Russell silently noted this name in his notebook while observing Charlotte's reaction.
"Lestrade."
Charlotte turned around and shouted to Lestrade outside the interrogation room.
"What is it, got a result?" Lestrade walked over, holding a half-eaten doughnut in his hand.
"You have two things to do right now." Charlotte held up two fingers.
"First, arrange for the best psychiatrist for that madman named Charles, and get him to recover his basic language faculties. And during this process, record any numbers he unintentionally blurts out. Remember, any numbers.
"Second, find that guy named Billson and bring him to me."
Lestrade looked at the expression on Charlotte's face that brooked no argument, then looked at the half-eaten doughnut in his hand.
"I'll try my best, but I can't guarantee results in a short time."
"Then find a way to get results, unless you want that Professor to plan a few more crimes. Who knows, his next move might be to blow up Buckingham Palace.
"Oh right, by the way, contact Lloyds Bank for me. Tell them I want the list of all clients for that opened storage room."
"This... what if it involves user privacy and Lloyds Bank refuses?"
"Then tell them to just sit tight and wait for Moriarty to send the things back. I'm not in a hurry anyway, but they'd better pray those clients aren't in a hurry either."
After dropping these words, Charlotte shoved her hands in her pockets and shot a glance at Russell beside her.
"Let's go, Watson."
Russell closed the notebook in his hand, gave Lestrade a sympathetic look that said "tough luck," and then followed.
The two got into the carriage, and Russell opened the notebook in his hand.
"What did you write down?" Charlotte got up from opposite him and sat next to Russell, her gaze falling on the notebook.
"Just noted down those keywords mentioned earlier," Russell said, handing the notebook to Charlotte. "Though I don't know what use they are."
Charlotte reached out to take the notebook, her gaze falling on the content of that single page.
"Face melting, devil, clones... The Professor, password, Billson... It is indeed quite complete."
"But the problem is, we can't find a breakthrough." Russell said, looking out the window. "Charles is a madman, Billson is missing. The only two clues we have are making no progress."
"Compared to that, I'm more concerned about—what is this?"
Charlotte pointed to a stick figure drawing on the notebook.
It was a swirling mass of black smoke, and in the center of the smoke, a large question mark was drawn.
"Art." Russell said concisely.
"This is a waste of paper."
The carriage traveled smoothly on the return journey. The wheels rolled over the wet stone pavement, making a monotonous and rhythmic clattering sound.
The inside of the carriage was quiet. Russell leaned against the soft cushion, gazing out the window.
He appeared to be admiring the unique scenery of London, but in reality, he was observing the reaction of the young girl beside him out of the corner of his eye.
He could smell a faint scent coming from Charlotte, a mixture of rosin and chemical reagents. It wasn't unpleasant, at least much better than that smell of gunpowder and blood in the bank's underground last night.
"A ghost, a monster, a devil whose face melts."
After an unknown amount of time, Charlotte finally spoke, her voice sounding particularly clear in the quiet carriage.
She closed the notebook and returned it to Russell, her face showing a hint of impatience.
"Playing tricks."
"The Professor?"
"I'm talking about Moriarty," Charlotte said.
"What, you've seen through his methods?" Russell asked curiously.
"Realistic masks, plus smoke bombs," Charlotte said. "The so-called melting face is likely some chemical reagent."
"Then how do you explain the clones?" Russell asked again.
"As London's famous Phantom Thief, Moriarty can move quickly without making a sound—this is a reasonable assumption. Based on this assumption, added to the cover of smoke bombs, moving without making any noise to create the illusion of appearing in multiple locations at the same time is not far-fetched."
Charlotte continued, "It's just that those guys with little experience obviously didn't think of this, so they were startled. One of the cowardly ones was even scared insane. Tsk."
[Charlotte is very dissatisfied with the fact that you scared Charles insane. Malice Points +10]
...It's not my fault he critically failed his Will check.
Russell silently excused himself in his heart, while saying out loud: "After all, Moriarty has never had any dealings with those guys before, and they don't look like the type to read newspapers."
After returning to Baker Street, Charlotte got out of the carriage, pushed open the door, and went straight upstairs to her room. In the end, it was Russell who had to pay the carriage fare out of his own pocket.
He walked up the stairs at a leisurely pace, greeted Mrs. Hudson, and then entered Charlotte's room.
At this moment, Charlotte was busily working in her room.
She had brought out a board from somewhere, with a map of London pinned to it with thumbtacks, as well as some colorful sticky notes filled with various keywords.
Under Russell's observation, Charlotte tore off all those sticky notes and threw them aside, leaving only that yellowed map.
"What are you doing?" Russell asked curiously.
"An auxiliary tool," Charlotte said. "I only use this when facing relatively complex cases."
"For the matter of The Professor?"
"Mmh."
"Alright then, good luck." Russell said indifferently. His gaze lingered on the map for a moment before he withdrew it.
He turned around, left Charlotte's room, and returned to his own room. Then, he fished out that document from his bedside table.
I'll go return the items tonight.
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