Mary looked at Russell wordlessly.
"Does he really look like someone short on money?"
"Who ever thinks they have too much money?" Russell said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Then how exactly am I supposed to hand the money and the silk banner over to him?" Mary blinked, deciding to go along with the circuits of Russell's brain.
"That I wouldn't know," Russell spread his hands.
"If all else fails, write a thank-you letter to the newspaper. Just say you're grateful to Mr. Moriarty for sparing your family from the bank's swindling.
To express your thanks, you've specially prepared a silk banner, along with fifty pounds in cash, and you'd like to ask Mr. Moriarty to come collect it at Scotland Yard tomorrow at twelve noon, sharp."
"That actually sounds like a good idea." Mary nodded with mock solemnity. "I'll write it the moment we get back to the classroom."
"…You're serious?" Russell watched her take up this posture, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Isn't this exactly what you suggested?" Mary shot back.
"All right, enough joking around."
"You were the one who started joking with me."
"Fine, fine, fine—my fault." Russell raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Let's go, it's time to head back to class." He stood up and walked toward the door.
Mary watched Russell's retreating figure, a faint arc curving at the corner of her mouth, before she followed after him with brisk, light steps.
The two of them walked side by side down the quiet corridor, heading toward the classroom for the next lesson.
The afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass windows along one side of the corridor, casting bright patches of light across the floor.
"Come to think of it, Saturday's afternoon tea…" Mary suddenly spoke up, as if remembering something.
"Hm?" Russell turned his head.
"It seems like you really enjoy sweets?"
"They're all right, I suppose," Russell thought it over. "I wouldn't say I love them, but I don't dislike them either—it mostly comes down to how sweet they are. Macarons, for instance, I just can't stand."
"Given the way you toss them back one whole at a time, I'd actually find it strange if you could stomach a macaron."
Mary said with a smile.
"So what's your favorite thing to eat?" she asked again.
"Butter cookies, probably—what, are you planning to bake some for me?" Russell countered.
"Father won't let me near any baking, but I could always have the cook help out," Mary said.
"Of course, whether you actually get to eat them depends on your exam results."
The girl gave a sly little smile.
"If you can place in the top ten, then maybe I'll consider it."
"That sounds awfully difficult."
"How will you know if you don't try?"
"Fine," Russell finally conceded defeat in the end. "For the sake of butter cookies, I'll give it everything I've got."
The two of them chatted on like this, on and off, and soon arrived back at the lecture hall.
Five minutes later.
Mary looked at Russell, slumbering beside her like a lump of mud, and fell into deep thought.
Giving it everything you've got—where, exactly, may I ask?
That evening, when Russell pushed open the door of 221B Baker Street, what greeted him was neither Mrs. Hudson's greeting, nor the melodious—or rather, ear-splitting—sound of Sherlock's violin.
Instead, it was a thick, pungent reek of chemical reagents.
He knitted his brows, hurried up the stairs, and pushed open the door that stood ajar.
The living room was in utter disarray.
All manner of beakers, test tubes, and spirit lamps had been set down at random across the table and the floor, while liquids of every color churned and bubbled within the glass vessels, giving off bizarre odors.
As for Sherlock, she was clad in a dressing gown and goggles, her full attention fixed on the chemical reaction taking place inside a test tube, muttering to herself all the while.
Although Russell didn't know much about chemistry, he could be certain of one thing.
If one were to put a name to the current state of this laboratory, and to its experimental protocol, it was probably nothing short of a string of spirit lamps wired in series.
"Let me just ask," Russell walked over beside her, looking at that tableful of reagents, the corner of his eye twitching despite himself.
"What are you doing?"
"An experiment." Sherlock said without even turning her head, pouring out the waste liquid in the test tube and beginning to mix up fresh reagents all over again.
"I can see that it's an experiment," Russell said, pinching his nose.
"But are you planning to blow Baker Street sky-high?"
"I'm attempting to reproduce Moriarty's face-melting trick." Sherlock explained succinctly.
"You actually believe the words of that madman Charles?"
"A madman's words may be incoherent, but they often conceal the most genuine of fears."
Sherlock set down the test tube and took off her goggles.
"He said he saw a face melting, which proves that, in that instant, his vision really did suffer some kind of powerful shock."
"So?"
"So, I now have a hypothesis—what Moriarty used at the time was a specially formulated chemical reagent, highly corrosive and smoke-producing, smeared onto an extremely thin, lifelike mask."
She picked up a piece of rubber, pitted and pocked from corrosion, and held it up for Russell to see.
"When he'd completed his task and was ready to make his escape, all he had to do was trigger some mechanism—perhaps a change in temperature, perhaps contact with the air.
In any case, the moment the mechanism was triggered, the reagent would react rapidly and dissolve the mask.
This process would generate a great deal of smoke and an irritating odor, enough to cause a double disruption to both sight and smell within a short span of time, creating the perfect cover for his getaway."
"That sounds… quite reasonable." Russell nodded with mock solemnity.
"But it doesn't seem to help much with figuring out who Moriarty actually is."
"I'm simply curious, that's all." Charlotte said, and then tossed Russell a notebook.
"Since you're here, help me record the data."
"I refuse." Russell withdrew that notebook without the slightest hesitation.
"I'm still young. If I absolutely have to pick a way to die, it can't be because of some utterly meaningless chemistry experiment.
Do you really have the heart to let Mrs. Hudson read about the deaths of the two of us in tomorrow morning's paper?"
"Coward." Sherlock curled her lip and shot him a look of disdain.
"I'm taking responsibility for my own life, and for the safety of every resident along the whole of Baker Street," Russell corrected her with righteous indignation.
Just as the two of them were bickering, Mrs. Hudson's voice came up from downstairs.
"Sherlock! Russell! What sort of mischief are you two up to upstairs? I smell a strange odor!"
"See?" Russell looked over at Charlotte.
Charlotte gave an impatient "tch," and in the end honestly chose to give up.
She shoved all the experimental apparatus on the table into a box in one sweep, grumbling under her breath:
"Dull, uninspired creature, utterly lacking in the spirit of scientific inquiry."
"This is just the most basic reverence for life."
At dinnertime, the three of them sat gathered around the dining table.
Mrs. Hudson, while nagging at Sherlock not to always be carrying out those dangerous chemistry experiments in her room, cut a piece of tender, juicy roast steak and placed it on her plate.
Sherlock listened absentmindedly, forking up a piece of steak, putting it into her mouth, and chewing.
"Russell, as her neighbor, you have to take good care of Charlotte."
Mrs. Hudson promptly turned the conversation toward Russell, who was buried in his meal.
At these words, Russell lifted his head and looked at the landlady before him with an innocent expression.
"I already take very good care of her, Mrs. Hudson, I swear to God."
These words seemed to remind Charlotte of something; she drew her gaze back from her wandering thoughts and looked at Russell.
"So last night, that was you?"
"Me what?"
"Who moved me to the bedroom."
"Uh… we generally call that carrying—but never mind that."
Russell nodded, admitting it openly and without reservation.
"I could hardly let you sleep the whole night on the sofa, now could I? What's the matter?"
"No—nothing." Charlotte withdrew her gaze.
At that very moment, the sound of a telephone ringing upstairs drew the attention of all three.
Russell and Charlotte both looked up at the same time, toward the ceiling above their heads.
"Who could be calling at this hour?" Mrs. Hudson said instinctively.
"Mycroft, or Lestrade." Russell speculated from the side. "Apart from those two, there couldn't possibly be a third person who'd ring her up."
Charlotte said nothing; she set down the knife and fork in her hands, then left her seat and rose to go upstairs to answer it.
After only about two minutes, Charlotte came hurrying back down, with a trench coat now added over her clothes.
"You have two minutes left to finish your dinner, Watson."
Charlotte said.
"Why?" Russell asked instinctively, though he unconsciously picked up the pace of his eating all the same.
"Because Lestrade's carriage will be coming over in a moment—we have to go out for a bit."
"Lestrade? What's he here for?" Russell asked, his words muffled as he chewed on his steak.
"Charles Brown has recovered."
____
________________________________________
If you want more chapters, please consider supporting my page on (P). with 50 advanced chapters available on (P)
👻 Join the crew by searching Leanzin on (P). You know the spot! 😉