Episode 15 — The Red Mana League (4)
“Miss Holmes. Must we really go this far?”
Fresh out of the restroom, Adler sighed and spoke to Holmes.
“I hate to say it, but this counts as sexual harassment, you know?”
“Follow me.”
“Ugh.”
Without mercy, she tugged him along and started down the street again.
“Huh. It’s Miss Holmes.”
“Adler’s there too. Did they finally get something on him?”
“…Wait, didn’t those two just come out of the restroom?”
As murmurs rose around them, Adler gave a wry smile and whispered again at her ear.
“This could turn into an ugly rumor, Miss Holmes.”
“An ugly rumor?”
“Word travels surprisingly fast in London.”
“I don’t quite see what you mean.”
Feigning ignorance, Holmes kept walking, then asked in a low voice,
“By the way, Mr. Adler—are you ill, by any chance?”
“Pardon?”
“You look pale.”
He felt his face, tilting his head.
“Do I look that way?”
“Comparing it to the photo taken at your manor a few years ago is one thing, but compared to the photos from just a few months back, the difference is extreme.”
“……….”
“What made you so sickly in just a few months?”
At Holmes’s sharp question, Adler stared at her, dumbfounded.
“…You looked up my photos?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He cocked his head and tossed the question back at her cool smile.
“‘Why’? Well…”
Holmes started to answer with a look that said what kind of question is that—then lost her words.
“And a photo taken at my manor years ago—why do you have that?”
“……….”
He pressed her once more, then gentled his tone as if chiding a child.
“Miss Holmes. Stalking is a crime.”
“…It’s not like that.”
“All right, then don’t do it again, please?”
“I said it’s not.”
She twisted out of his hand as he moved to pat her head, and murmured inwardly.
‘He changed the subject on purpose.’
His smooth deflection barely showed, but he had deliberately avoided talking about his condition.
Which meant there was definitely something wrong with his body.
“……….”
The hourglass from earlier flashed through Holmes’s mind; she bit her lip.
‘An hourglass with such a dubious origin—there’s no way it’s real…’
“Miss Holmes, we’re here.”
Adler’s words snapped her back to herself.
“This is…”
The entrance of the City & Suburban Bank stood before them.
“…I was going to come here later.”
“Why?”
Holmes frowned slightly as she realized Adler had somehow started leading her to their destinations.
“There’s nothing to gain here yet. Only after we’ve gathered all the evidence should we go down to the basement—”
“I see.”
Holmes fell silent.
“Hmm…”
For some reason, Adler was looking at her with disappointed eyes.
‘…Why?’
A cold sweat prickled across Charlotte’s back.
‘What did I miss?’
She was the one who ought to judge the riddle he’d set and be disappointed.
But seeing Adler’s disappointed gaze, she finally realized:
She wasn’t the only one who could be disappointed.
“If that’s Miss Holmes’s opinion, then we can save this spot for later—”
The setter of the puzzle could just as easily be disappointed in her.
“N-no.”
“Pardon?”
“This is the place.”
The words burst from her before she could think them through.
“…This was where I meant to come.”
“Ah, was it.”
No time to regret it now.
She’d said it; now she had to make it true.
“……….”
Eyes shut for a beat, pupils darting beneath the lids, she opened them and looked Adler straight on.
“…Mr. Adler, you’re my assistant right now.”
“Only for the day. But sure, let’s say so.”
In that short span, her gaze found its answer; it was shining already.
“Then when I give the signal, help me.”
“…Help with what?”
“You’ll know when the time comes.”
With that, she hid the cuffed arm behind her back and strode to the counter.
“How may I help you?”
“I have something I’d like to deposit with your bank.”
The clerk at the counter smiled and asked,
“And what would our little young lady like to deposit with us?”
—swish…
She held out the ring on her finger.
“Oh my, what a pretty ring…”
“That’s not what I’m depositing.”
“Pardon?”
Holmes spoke low to the clerk, who had picked up the ring and was turning it under the light.
“It’s simply the token that proves who my principal is.”
The clerk tilted his head and peered closer—then his face went rigid.
“This is…”
Working at London’s largest bank and dealing with many a “high person,” he couldn’t possibly fail to recognize the arms of the Royal House of Bohemia.
“No need to worry about imposture. I’m showing you my face this clearly; if I’m lying, I’ll be executed.”
The Queen of Bohemia—who had insisted on accepting only a photograph—had, the very next day, sent her ring by post as hush money.
“By the way, does this bank have a manual that says you may use rude language if someone looks young?”
Holmes presented the ring set with top-grade mana stones—a piece she wore for self-defense—and pressed the clerk with a lifted corner of her mouth.
“S-sir—my apologies… but this alone is not sufficient to establish identity.”
Sweating but dutiful, the clerk persisted.
“At minimum, an official document bearing a seal—”
“Will this do?”
Adler drew from his breast a document folded to hide its contents.
“The text is top secret, so I can’t show it. That is Her Majesty’s seal, warded by magic.”
“Ah, er…”
“Surely that suffices for identification.”
Staring blankly at the Queen’s seal impressed beneath, the clerk finally stammered,
“I—I’ll fetch the bank manager…”
She bowed in haste and hurried to the back.
“Ah, welcome, honored guests.”
A short while later—
“My deepest apologies. Heh heh…”
Summoned by the message, the bank manager rushed in, beaming at Holmes and Adler.
“So then, what is it you wish to deposit?”
“I hear this bank has an underground vault.”
“……!”
“It isn’t for just anyone, is it? Rumor has it you must be at least royal to use it.”
“How did you know that…?”
“Don’t underestimate the information network of the one who hired us.”
“Ahem. Very well.”
“Might we have a quick look at it?”
At that, the manager rubbed his hands and replied,
“I’ll check the reservation list at once. One moment, please.”
Holmes smiled quietly and whispered to Adler,
“If we can’t go down as we are, we become customers ourselves.”
“Exactly.”
“Once you’ve deposited valuables inside, you can visit at any hour—and we can go in right away to investigate.”
“Well done, Miss Holmes.”
Adler patted her head again.
“…This is basic.”
She knocked his hand away and muttered it—but her heart was still racing.
‘This is fun.’
Working a case with Adler was nothing like the cases she’d had until now.
It felt like an adventure—solving a well-laid riddle step by step.
That tense moment just now—when it resolved, the sense of achievement set her whole body trembling faintly.
Enough that she forgot, for a moment, that Adler was patting her.
“Ahem, good news, ma’am.”
The manager returned to find Holmes’s eyes bright as stars and began,
“At present, no one is using the basement vault. You should have the space entirely to yourself.”
“…Pardon?”
“There’ll be no risk of theft, either. Security will focus solely on your effects…”
“Hold on.”
Holmes, unusually flustered, asked back,
“There’s nothing down there right now?”
“Yes, completely empty.”
But the manager’s answer only rang again in her ears.
‘…What is going on.’
Charlotte had deduced that Joan Clay’s objective was an item hidden in the basement.
Working part-time next door under odd terms, at a pawnshop right beside the vault.
When she’d slipped near the interview room, just before the anti-eavesdropping spell fell over the office, she’d heard Clay say her wish was to crack “London’s largest bank.”
And in the Auguste Academy basement—whose coordinates were nearly the same—using the client, Miss Wilson, they’d been inscribing a magic circle full of highly complex formulae.
Taken together, the only conclusion was that the target was this bank’s basement.
“Miss Holmes. You can’t steal something from a basement that’s empty.”
But that deduction had just been overturned.
“For reference, what Joan Clay told me as her plan was to infiltrate this bank’s basement as well.”
Adler’s gentle voice at her side drove the nail in.
“Our fundamental premise just collapsed.”
.
.
.
.
.
“Miss Holmes.”
Once they were out of the bank, Adler spoke up.
“A new riddle has appeared.”
Holmes stared at him.
“Would you happen to know the answer to that riddle?”
“…Do you, Mr. Adler?”
When she asked in return, he shrugged.
“Well now, how could I know an answer that Miss Holmes herself doesn’t.”
“Liar.”
Charlotte chuckled and opened her mouth.
“You’ve already noticed.”
“……….”
“The truth of this case.”
Adler’s eyes began to glimmer.
“Very well—here’s the question.”
At those words, Charlotte’s heart thumped on reflex.
“Ha.”
A short laugh escaped her.
“…What is it?”
“It’s nothing, Mr. Adler.”
If Charlotte from a few years ago—
No, even Charlotte from just a few months ago—were to see her now…
What would she think?
‘She’d think I was drugged.’
Or try to strangle me on the spot.
But now, she could only admit it.
“What was Joan Clay’s true objective?”
She liked the riddles that came from the man before her.
“…Joan Clay’s objective was nothing so trifling as a bank heist.”
And she liked answering them.
“Wilson. She was the true target.”
Adler’s face brightened at her answer—and she liked that too.
“Joan Clay had her sights on Diana Wilson from the start.”
“Splendid, Miss Holmes.”
And after, she liked the wholehearted praise he gave.
“As expected, you’re the best.”
More than any case she’d experienced before.
‘If this keeps up, I might…’
No one knew the side effects of mana stones, tobacco, and drugs better than she did; the thought was all too easy to imagine.
‘…become dependent.’
If she grew wrongly accustomed to this new pleasure, she would surely set foot on a road she couldn’t turn back from.
‘Well—perhaps it doesn’t matter.’
It didn’t really matter.
The same went for Adler.
Just as she bore her “curse,” he surely bore one too.
And since they could ease each other’s curse, he and she were—each to the other—the finest indulgence and amusement.
To gain happiness by destroying each other—what an irony.
“Then where do we go now?”
“Auguste Academy.”
Smiling softly at the thought, Holmes answered Adler’s question at once.
“To be precise, the dormitory basement.”
“…I’m not even surprised anymore. Impressive.”
She followed after him as he took the lead, thinking quietly,
‘I wonder if three can live in the boarding house.’
If circumstances allowed, it might not be bad to make him her assistant—before they destroyed each other.
.
.
.
.
.
Charlotte Holmes trailed after me with a smile that, for some reason, sent a chill down my spine.
“Oh, and just so we’re clear.”
“……?”
With the end of the case drawing near, I whispered to her in a low voice.
“As you can see, investigating and solving the case is the detective’s role—yours, Miss Holmes.”
“Yes. I know that well, Mr. Adler.”
There was a lesson she needed to grasp.
“But protecting that detective—that’s the assistant’s job.”
So she wouldn’t charge in and hit a game over.
“If things get dangerous, I’ll protect you, somehow. Miss Holmes.”
I made the promise to guard her in the finale of this affair.
“Understood?”
Perhaps she understood; she bowed her head without a peep.
“……….?”
But what’s with that hourglass in her hand.
“…Mr. Adler.”
I was puzzling over it when Charlotte halted and quietly asked me,
“Were you serious about what you just said?”
Her face wore an expression as if she couldn’t comprehend the words.
“I was.”
“……….”
Why is she suddenly like this.