The voice carried through the rain, easy and familiar.
It didn't belong in this cold night. It sounded like someone greeting an old friend.
Which was, frankly, irritating.
Mary froze for a beat, then recovered.
She didn't speak. She didn't move. She simply stood there, letting cold rain strike her face, her blue eyes reflecting the uninvited guest in the white mask.
Her mind was sluggish from the cold—but her thoughts had never been clearer.
In fact, the chill in her body began to fade the moment she saw him, heat rising in its place—pure anger.
"Opening a window in the rain like this," Russell asked with infuriating concern, "aren't you worried you'll catch a cold?"
Mary answered with a knife-cold question of her own.
"What are you doing here?"
Her voice was distant—borderline disgusted.
"This place doesn't welcome you. Leave my sight before I call the police or raise the household."
"Don't be like that," Russell said lightly. "You look angry. Who upset you?"
"You tell me." Mary's tone dropped even colder.
[Mary Morstan is irritated, disgusted, and enraged by your taunting. Malice +50]
…?
Wait. What did I do?
Behind the mask, Russell's eyes widened.
I've been here less than a minute—why do you hate me this much?
Was it really just because I mocked you a little last time? Isn't that… a bit petty?
"Ahem… calm down, Miss Morstan—"
"Don't use my name," Mary cut him off. "We're not close enough for that."
"Fine, fine. Miss Morstan. Please, calm down." Russell raised both hands in surrender.
"Honestly, I didn't come here to mock you."
"Oh?" Mary's eyes were glacial. "Then you came to steal lipstick again?"
"Not that either… actually, I didn't come here to steal anything at all."
As he spoke, Russell reached into his pocket.
Mary instinctively stepped back, her hand snapping toward the cane nearby, eyes locked on him with full alertness.
[Mary Morstan feels hostility toward you. Malice +20]
"What are you trying to do?"
"I want to… give you a gift."
Under her wary stare, Russell pulled out a thick stack of papers.
"A gift?"
Mary frowned.
"No need, thank you. I find your things filthy."
"I think you should take a look anyway," Russell said, smiling. "And who said it was mine?"
Mary's frown deepened.
She stared at the blank, emotionless mask—then slowly shifted her gaze to the papers in his hand.
By moonlight, she saw a fragment of text on the top page.
The name MORSTAN stabbed into her eyes like a needle.
"This is…" Her voice trembled.
She looked up at Russell. He didn't move, didn't react.
Only then did she reach out and take the stack from him—
The stack of paper that mattered more to her than anything.
Mary let go of the cane. Both hands gripped the contracts as her eyes flew over the contents.
A sense of unreality washed over her.
A feeling of everything being wrong—yet the ending still landing on the right answer.
"Why…" she murmured, her voice no longer hostile, no longer guarded.
"Why are these with you… and why are you giving them to me…?"
Those sea-blue eyes stared hard at the white mask, trying to read even the smallest scrap of genuine intent beneath that false pallor.
"Uh… it's a long story," Russell scratched his head, looking like he didn't know where to start.
"Short version: last night I planned to steal a little something from Lloyds Bank. Then I ran into a group of colleagues with no manners.
You know me—sure, I break in and steal property, but I'm a good boy at heart.
So as a civic-minded citizen, I solved Scotland Yard's problem on the way."
He shrugged, saying it like it was nothing.
"As for these—after the fight, I opened a safe and grabbed whatever was inside.
You know my style. I steal things, but I always return them. This time's no different.
Honestly, I didn't expect it to be your family's. Guess it's fate."
Fate.
Mary turned the word over in her mind and found it almost laughable.
Her thoughts raced, trying to force this scene into a coherent loop.
A new trap?
Had he seen through her plan and decided to humiliate her with it?
Or was this some deeper conspiracy from Mycroft, dressed up as coincidence?
No.
None of it fit.
His tone carried no probe, no disguised hook. His little unconscious movements gave away his real state.
No calculation. No mockery. No plot.
Only a pure, maddening casualness.
The board had already been overturned. Pieces scattered. Her king lay face-down in the mud, declaring her defeat.
And now, the culprit who'd flipped the table had picked up the most important piece, wiped the grime off it, and set it back in her palm—
Without even understanding what it meant.
Mary went quiet.
She almost wanted to laugh.
Not the polite, distant smile of Miss Morstan.
But a wild laugh—half absurdity, half fury, half the manic relief of someone who'd survived a cliff edge by inches.
In the end, she swallowed it.
She didn't want to look that unhinged in front of a stranger.
Mary raised her gaze to the thief and, to her own surprise, found him… a little less unbearable.
Still infuriating, yes.
But less so.
"You look pretty surprised," Russell said when she didn't speak. "What—did you not know your family's stuff was stolen?"
"The moment the paper came out, Father called to confirm." Mary's mood had improved enough that she could spare him a few words.
"Lloyds told him the box was intact, nothing missing—apparently they even said thank you to you."
Heh.
Russell sneered inwardly.
If they truly thanked me, they wouldn't be pressuring Lestrade to catch me.
"And," Mary continued after a pause, "The Times printed nothing about a theft, so we naturally assumed the bank told the truth.
But clearly, either the bank or the paper is lying—"
She cut off mid-sentence, as if something clicked.
In those blue eyes, something flashed fast.
A calculating light.
She'd just found a new idea.
If Lloyds wanted to play dishonest, then she wouldn't mind taking a big bite out of them.
A dangerously delighted smile curved across Mary's face.
"Miss Morstan," Russell said, wary, "you're smiling like a villain."
"!"
Mary snapped her head up toward him.
Right—she'd almost forgotten he was still standing outside her window.
"Ahem." She coughed twice, forcing her expression back into something composed. "Excuse me. I need to step away for a moment."
"Step away?" Russell arched a brow beneath the mask. "From the sound of it, you're not kicking me out anymore?"
"The Morstan family doesn't mistreat its benefactors."
Mary smiled, and walked toward the door.
"Please wait a moment."
....
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