Episode 21 – Tiger’s Den
“…What did you just say?”
A few hours after I learned—via the reputation-check system I’d received as a reward for solving the case—that my life was hanging by a thread.
“As you heard, Miss Wilson.”
At a café near the Auguste Detective Academy, I was meeting with Diana Wilson, a victim of the Red Mana League.
“I have no more business with you.”
To be precise, I was dumping her.
“Let’s break up.”
At those words, Wilson looked at me with a shocked expression.
“”………..””
Almost at the same time, stares poured in from all around.
Most people glared at me with a frosty “knew he’d do this again” look, then soon averted their eyes.
Seeing that even the random patrons in a café—not even at school—reacted like that, Isaac Adler must be fairly infamous for this sort of thing.
“A reason, at least.”
“………..”
“Please, at least tell me why.”
“…A reason, you say.”
In truth, the reason was simple.
I could barely manage the main quest as it was; there was no way I could take responsibility for her too.
In fact, this didn’t apply only to her; it applied to the people connected to the cases to come and to potential clients as well.
Even just the episodes that occur in the original Sherlock Holmes series number around sixty.
On top of that, there are the lousy original episodes the Story Department tacked on.
It’s hard enough dealing with the “main characters” tied to the “main quest.” If I tried to keep ties with every single person in those episodes, I can’t even imagine into how many pieces my body would be split.
So I needed to set a rule.
From now on, when a case concludes, my ties with the people involved in that case end as well.
Except, of course, in cases that help with my future conduct and survival—like the Queen of Bohemia or Lady Joan Clay.
Since I’m already struggling to handle the “main characters” linked to the “main quest,” it couldn’t be helped.
“And besides, getting entangled with me is dangerous to begin with.”
This was also for the sake of Diana Wilson and the future connections to come.
Even the reputation system can’t identify the thing threatening to kill me—some enigmatic existence with no discernible identity.
Starting with that mansion explosion last time, plenty of dangerous incidents are bound to befall me from here on out.
I don’t want to drag people into those just because they happen to be associated with me.
Especially not a girl who has only just escaped a death sentence and begun to picture a future—I don’t want to stand in her way.
“I’m sick of you now.”
So I squeezed my eyes shut and forced cruel words at the girl before me.
“To begin with, you were also bait to lure out Charlotte Holmes.”
“What does that…”
“The only one I was interested in was her.”
Her eyes, gone ice-blue with shock, fixed on me.
“Thank you for serving as the link between me and her, Miss Diana.”
As I forcibly suppressed the surge of guilt and finished, Wilson—who had been staring at me, body trembling for a long moment—moved her hand to the water glass beside her.
– Sssplash…!
And a few seconds later, an ice-cold shower doused me.
“My last trip… I was going to take it with you.”
Tears gathering in her eyes, she rose and looked down at me as she whispered.
“You garbage of a man.”
Leaving those words behind, Diana Wilson turned her gaze away from me and turned her back.
“…Go die.”
With that short, searing line, she quietly left the café.
“Farewell, Miss Wilson.”
Among the people who glanced at me with faces of “serves him right” before hastily looking away again, I could only murmur with a wry smile.
“Take care of yourself.”
It had only been a week, but the time I spent with her had been quite enjoyable for me as well.
I wonder if she received the anonymous letter I sent, saying there’s a lead in Romania to break her curse?
If she lives in the birthplace of vampires, she—born a True-Ancestor vampire—may be able to extend her lifespan.
I sincerely pray she spends a peaceful, happy remainder of her life there.
.
.
.
.
.
“Hello, Mr. Adler.”
“……?”
Just as Adler was quietly rising with that thought, a male student addressed him.
“Mind if I sit for a moment?”
Adler, wearing a puzzled expression and wondering whether they knew each other, only recognized who the boy was when a low whisper reached his ear.
“Nurse, we’re even now.”
“…Miss Holmes?”
Charlotte Holmes, dressed as a man, said that as she took the seat beside him.
“Um…”
Not across from him on purpose, but right next to him.
“…Never mind.”
Adler wanted to ask why, but the look in her eyes—staring straight at him—overwhelmed him into swallowing his words.
“What you just said—was it true?”
“Pardon?”
After watching Holmes’s mood for a while, he tilted his head at her level, flat voice.
“The reason you dated Diana Wilson.”
“Ah.”
“Was it really to forge a link to me?”
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason Adler dated Wilson.
“…It was.”
But it was true to a certain extent; and for some reason, it felt right to answer that way, so Adler gave a small nod.
“……….”
Charlotte subtly averted his gaze, propped her chin on her hand, and began to swing her legs up and down.
“You’re the absolute worst.”
The faint blush that flashed across her face as she said it must have been Adler’s imagination.
“Then the reason you never revealed it was you who broke her curse and saved her life?”
“Having achieved my aim, shouldn’t a flimsy tie be severed?”
“Trash.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Rubbing his eyes for a moment, Adler gave his usual wintry smile and grinned at Charlotte as she maligned him.
“Good thing I decided against sending a telegram laying out the truth.”
“What?”
At that ominous remark, Adler’s eyes went round.
“Because you showed up at the Academy the next day and the whole affair ended as a mere incident, I had no time to tell the truth to our client, Miss Wilson.”
“What do you…”
“And then today you suddenly said you were leaving Britain, so I was going to telegraph her hotel in Romania and disclose everything.”
Cold sweat began to bead on Adler.
“If I had, Miss Wilson would only have realized after arriving there, wouldn’t she?”
“………..”
“That she’d splashed water with a look of revulsion and told a man to go die—the man who took on the vampire’s curse in her place and became terminal for her sake.”
Adler attempted to keep his composure as he spoke.
“I’ll say it again: I’m not terminal. And in any case, it’s something that wouldn’t have happened.”
“We really had a close call. Miss Wilson’s condition was so weakened that even if she learned the truth, she wouldn’t have been able to leave Romania.”
“………..”
“And if, in that state, the more radical members of the Red Mana League—those who rejected you and split off—were to approach her?”
Holmes continued, still smiling, spinning out the hypotheticals.
“She might become the new leader of a reborn Red Mana League that would swallow Romania, the heartland of vampires—and spend her life hunting you, Mr. Adler.”
“Miss Holmes, I didn’t know you had a talent for fiction.”
“I’m not joking. It’s well within the realm of possibility.”
Then, eyes gleaming, Holmes leaned her head in toward Adler.
“Especially if I, who know the whole truth, sent that telegram to the Romanian hotel this very instant.”
“…Are you blackmailing me right now?”
“Precisely right, Mr. Adler.”
At that, Adler sighed and asked:
“What do you want?”
“You’ll have to come somewhere with me.”
“I’m afraid I’m rather busy today.”
“Are you sure about that?”
When Adler flatly refused, a vague sense of foreboding in his gut, Holmes began to whisper low at his ear.
“That woman at that table over there—she’s targeting you right now.”
“What?”
“A woman who gave you everything a few months ago and was abandoned.”
At that, Adler shifted his gaze past the tables, and in the corner he saw a woman staring at him with a chilling look.
“There are two more like that. Second table on the right, and third table on the left.”
“Not a man… a female… that thing…”
– Shring…
And then there was the shaggy-haired woman at the next table muttering with a creepy face, and the schoolgirl with dead eyes stroking a dinner knife as she stared at him.
“You’ve been tailed for a while—didn’t you notice?”
“Uh, well…”
“And for reference, the one peeking at us from behind that huge, wide-open newspaper is Miss Gia Lestrade.”
“Ah, that one I know.”
As Adler muttered, glancing at Lestrade, who’d been voyeuristically observing him in a ridiculous disguise since earlier, Holmes whispered in his ear once more.
“If you don’t come with me right now, you die.”
[Chance of being killed: 69%]
Only then did Adler grasp how credible the probabilities he’d checked a few hours ago were.
“Looks like I have no choice.”
“Mm-hmm.”
When he linked his arm through Holmes’s, she smiled quietly and rose from her seat.
“I’ll put off sending that telegram to Miss Wilson—for now.”
Completely unaware that Professor Moriarty had already, that very morning, carried out the plan she’d told Adler about.
[Chance of being confined: 36% → 40%]
[Chance of being kidnapped: 21% → 25%]
And, as a result, utterly unaware that a secret organization directly under Moriarty would be born in Romania a few months later.
“Fuck, what the hell.”
“Pardon?”
And even Adler—who would become both the organization’s protected asset and its target—had no idea.
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.
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“We’re here.”
“…Miss Holmes.”
After we shook off the deranged women hungrily eyeing my life, and gave Gia Lestrade the slip even though she kept up a laughably poor tail after we left the café—
“This is…”
I froze solid when I saw the sign of the building Holmes had halted to point at.
[Diogenes Club]
“The quietest place in Britain. Perfect as a bolt-hole.”
I prayed I was wrong, but Charlotte’s next words shattered that faint hope.
“For reference, my lazy older sister is the president here.”
Looks like I’ve marched myself straight into the den where the woman who is practically the British government itself lies in wait.
[Mycroft Holmes takes note of you.]
Please save me, Professor Moriarty.