Imperial College — Faculty Office Block.
"Here?" Russell looked at the tightly shut oak door, mildly surprised.
"Professor Fields' office is the last one on the second floor," Mary said. "At this hour, he should still be in the faculty dining hall."
"And if we get caught?"
"If we get caught, we say we needed to use the phone to confirm something urgent with family." Mary gave a sly little wink.
The three of them crept into the building, moving softly. The corridor was hushed — only the quiet echo of their own footsteps drifting through the empty space.
Second floor. Professor Fields' office door was unlocked.
Mary eased it open, and all three slipped inside.
The office was simply furnished: a broad desk, a few guest chairs, and a bookcase that consumed an entire wall from floor to ceiling.
Mary walked straight to the desk and pointed to the black telephone sitting quietly in the corner.
"Be my guest," she said, gesturing toward Charlotte with a gracious wave.
Charlotte didn't stand on ceremony. She stepped forward, lifted the receiver, and dialled a number she knew by heart.
The line rang twice before someone picked up. An operator's voice came through.
"Put me through to Mycroft," Charlotte said. "Tell him Charlotte Holmes needs to speak with him."
A brief pause on the other end — as though the operator were verifying her identity.
Then came a voice, respectful and faintly nervous: "One moment, please, Miss Holmes."
The wait was short.
Roughly half a minute later, a voice came through the receiver — steady, composed, the voice of a man who gave the impression that nothing in the world could disturb his thoughts.
"Charlotte?" There was a rare note of genuine surprise in Mycroft's voice. "You're actually calling me of your own accord?"
"I just thought of something. Figured I'd give you a heads-up." Charlotte settled back into Professor Fields' wide office chair, her tone perfectly offhand.
"It concerns Moriarty."
"Moriarty?" Mycroft's voice paused briefly. "As I recall, you told me not long ago that you had absolutely no interest in some attention-seeking performance artist."
"He's going to Buckingham Palace." Charlotte didn't bother with explanations. She lobbed the grenade straight at him.
"The so-called announcement in the papers is nothing but a distraction — a way to hold the public's attention, and everyone else's, while obscuring his real objective. The day the countdown reaches zero is the day he slips into Buckingham Palace."
The words landed. And on the other end of the line — silence. A long, dead silence.
So absolute that Russell could almost hear the birdsong drifting in from the branches outside the window.
Neither he nor Mary could hear Mycroft's response — they could only try to read Charlotte's face for clues.
But Charlotte's expression remained an impeccable blank, which told Russell precisely nothing.
"Evidence?" Mycroft asked at last. "Don't tell me this is pure deduction — without a single concrete lead."
"It is, frankly, pure deduction," Charlotte said without flinching.
"He needs a stage grand enough, and a target weighty enough. Survey all of London — there is nowhere more fitting than Buckingham Palace."
"Fascinating reasoning." Mycroft's voice had recovered its usual composure, as though that brief lapse into silence had been nothing more than a trick of the ear.
"But it remains reasoning — and regarding a thief whose every action appears to be almost entirely improvised, at that."
"Which is why I rang — only to give you fair warning," Charlotte said, unmoved by the gentle mockery.
"Believe me or don't. Either way, the one who ends up making Buckingham Palace — and the Crown — look a fool won't be me."
"I'll take your suggestion under advisement," Mycroft replied at last, his answer as diplomatically noncommittal as ever.
"If there's nothing else, I'll get back to work."
"Suit yourself."
Charlotte hung up without a second thought. The receiver came down with a firm click.
Silence settled back over the office.
"Well?" Russell was the first to break it.
"What was his reaction?" Mary asked, her curiosity evident.
"He panicked," Charlotte said, cutting straight to it without preamble. "That was not the response he should have given."
She rose from the chair, hands sliding back into the pockets of her coat. Her expression held none of the satisfaction that ought to follow a confirmed theory — only a kind of quiet gravity.
"He really does have some connection to Moriarty," she murmured, almost to herself. Then she looked over at Mary.
"You're considerably sharper than I gave you credit for."
"Thank you for saying so." Mary smiled, accepting the compliment with genuine ease.
"Well, that rules out one line of connection," Mary continued. "If Mycroft is linked to Moriarty, then whatever tie existed between Moriarty and the Professor — that should be severed now."
Charlotte picked up the thread.
"I don't know what Mycroft is ultimately after, but there is absolutely no chance he'd allow himself to be associated with someone like the Professor."
"So what do we do next?" Russell asked.
"No idea," Charlotte said, shaking her head, raking a hand through her hair with restless irritation. "What on earth is going through that man's head..."
"I'd suggest we leave here first," Mary put in mildly. "By my reckoning, Professor Fields could be back any moment — and there's no point lingering now that we have what we came for."
"And the Professor's case?" Russell asked.
"On hold for now." Charlotte waved a hand. "Until Lestrade puts Billson, or a coherent Charles, in front of me, I've run out of angles to work with.
"Mary's right. I need to shift my perspective. Right now, I'm far more curious about what Mycroft is actually thinking."
With that, she turned and walked toward the door.
Mary and Russell exchanged a glance, then shrugged in unison and quietly followed.
The days that followed passed in a strange, ominous kind of calm — the stillness of a sky heavy before a storm.
Moriarty's announcement had struck London like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples spreading outward in every direction, and those ripples only grew wider as the days wore on.
Every newspaper on Fleet Street devoted its most prominent page to tracking the number — that countdown — recording its descent toward zero.
Dread and anticipation braided together above the city, fermenting, swelling to a pitch the city had never known before.
The aristocracy were terrified to a man. Security was tightened across every great household; some went so far as to spend small fortunes bringing in hired mercenaries from abroad.
The common people, meanwhile, were electrified. They saw Moriarty as a dark champion — a rebel hero striking back at the powerful on their behalf.
All of London had become a vast theatre, waiting for its star to take the stage.
And yet the man who had set all of this in motion seemed entirely untouched by it.
Russell kept to his usual rhythm — idle by day, productive by night. He also found a window to slip into Buckingham Palace and plant a Teleport Anchor while he was at it.
Charlotte appeared to have set the Professor's case entirely aside. She had dug out the newspaper cuttings on Moriarty and was quietly turning them over in her mind.
And so, with neither drama nor urgency, the days carried them to Saturday.
The day of their Afternoon tea appointment — and the day the curtain finally rose.
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