Next afternoon. St. Thomas' Hospital.
The corridors were filled with the sharp smell of disinfectant. Nurses in neat white uniforms hurried past.
Mary appeared here wearing a understated black coat and a black veiled hat. She had just finished inspecting the factories in the East District and, accompanied by her long-serving butler William, stopped by the hospital.
After all, she had already established a public image; no matter how busy she was, she had to visit her critically ill father regularly.
"William, wait outside."
When they reached the door of VIP Ward 301 at the end of the corridor, Mary whispered the instruction to William and his two escorts.
"Yes, Miss."
Mary stretched out a hand gloved in black lace and gently turned the heavy oak door.
With a faint click, the warm yet deathly quiet air of the hospital room rushed out at once.
But the moment the girl's gaze entered the ward through the gap in the door, the indifferent expression with which she had intended to savor the man's miserable state froze instantly.
Someone was already in the room.
A man sat in the large single armchair beside the hospital bed.
He wore a well-tailored, high-quality dark pinstripe suit, over which he had draped an elegant cashmere overcoat. His thick golden hair was carefully combed; gold-rimmed glasses rested on his high, straight nose.
At that moment he had his back to the door and was leisurely turning the pages of The Times, as though this were the reading room of his club rather than an intensive-care unit.
Arthur Morstan, lying on the hospital bed with his body bandaged from the fire, stared at the man with eyes filled with a mixture of terror and fury, making a wheezing sound like a leaking bellows.
Hearing the door open, the man paused slightly while turning the newspaper.
He slowly folded the paper, placed it on the bedside table, rose elegantly, and turned his face.
This was the Professor's first formal meeting with the King of Blackmail.
The moment their gazes met, it felt as though gunpowder were about to fill the air.
"Hello."
The man's voice was low and charming, carrying a clear upper-class accent. The ash-green eyes hidden behind the gold-rimmed glasses regarded Mary with a mixture of curiosity and inquiry.
"And you are…?"
"I am Mary Morstan."
The girl stated her name casually.
Mary removed the veiled hat from her head, revealing her bright, long pale-yellow hair and emerald-green eyes.
"What a coincidence! Not only have you already basked in the spotlight of business, but you have also fulfilled my filial duty of visiting Father ahead of me."
"You must be my cousin Charles. You came all the way from Birmingham to help solve my troubles."
Milverton watched the young woman walking elegantly toward him. On the face that usually wore a polished expression, unconcealable tension and surprise appeared.
Long pale-yellow hair and emerald-green eyes.
This was completely different from the sickly girl with long silver hair and blue eyes whom he remembered.
Reason told Milverton that this was Mary Morstan herself—she had simply removed her disguise.
But…
The moment Milverton's snake-like eyes met the girl's bottomless emerald ones, an enormous sense of incongruity exploded deep within his soul.
Wrong.
It was completely wrong.
On that bone-chilling afternoon fifteen years ago, the girl he had glimpsed through the half-open door had indeed possessed silver-white hair.
Yet in the eyes of that poor, sickly country boy standing on the brink of death, there had been something that could never be faked by a wig or colored contact lenses.
The girl of fifteen years ago had lain on the enormous velvet bed. Her bones were fragile, her breath weak; her soul radiated an incurable aura of decline from within, like a candle about to burn out.
It had been the state of someone suffering from a severe congenital disease, ready to die at any moment.
And the woman standing before him now…
Every smile and gesture was gentle and delicate; even her way of walking carried an impeccable aristocratic air.
Yet beneath that extremely beautiful exterior, the beast-like intuition of the King of Blackmail, Milverton, detected a fresh, intense scent of blood and a predatory aura of someone hunting prey.
A person can change the color of their hair and eyes.
But it is absolutely impossible to completely transform the deep-rooted, death-foreshadowing aura of a dying person into such an aggressive, predatory presence. Moreover, a girl who had suffered from an incurable congenital disease had not only failed to die, but had miraculously recovered and, fifteen years later, grown into a capable and shrewd businesswoman?
This was the greatest paradox in the world.
After the momentary shock, Milverton's eyes instantly darkened.
The playful, teasing expression that had at first been merely probing words completely vanished from those abyss-like ash-green eyes.
The so-called Mary Morstan standing before him was not Arthur Morstan's blood relative at all!
Until now he had only been able to infer from Arthur Morstan's eyes that this daughter was a cold-blooded patricide.
And now he had personally witnessed that this woman's identity as a daughter was also fake.
This was not merely a family dispute. An outsider was trying to stain the Morstan name with her despicable bloodline.
After the initial shock came an overwhelming, uncontrollable sense of exaltation.
She was a fake—a ghost who had seized the family business and stolen Arthur's daughter's name and identity.
This was genuine theft. Even Moriarty would have gone too far!
How could something so wonderful exist in this world?
"Cousin Charles?"
Mary keenly noticed the subtle yet fleeting change that appeared in Milverton's eyes.
The change had been far too abrupt. Even with her profiling ability she had only been able to glimpse, for the briefest instant, an extremely unsettling greed and intoxication.
She looked at him and, pretending not to know, tilted her head slightly.
"Is there something strange about my face?"
"No, of course not, my beautiful cousin."
Milverton quickly regained his composure. The refined face once again wore that gentle, gentlemanly smile as warm as a spring breeze.
He took an elegant step forward and extended his gloved right hand to Mary.
"Even though the newspapers have already overflowed with glowing praise for you, I was simply overwhelmed by your astonishing beauty. Meeting you in person, however, has made me realize that the editor-in-chief of The Times still lacks imagination."
"I'm sorry for the flattery, cousin."
Mary glanced at the offered hand but did not refuse it. She merely touched the fingertips of her lace-gloved fingers lightly to his, then immediately withdrew her hand.
Both of them wore perfect smiles, yet their eyes held a terrifying killing intent resembling that of man-eaters.
Mary smiled as she withdrew her hand and directed her gaze past Milverton's shoulder to the haggard man lying on the hospital bed.
Arthur Morstan's sharp eyes grew even more frantic the moment he saw Milverton and Mary shake hands.
It was a desperate struggle—as though he were watching two jackals devour his flesh and blood—and a chilling tacit understanding was born.
"Father seems to be in a good mood today."
Mary walked to the bedside with natural steps and gently adjusted Arthur's blanket.
She turned and looked at Milverton with a gaze that held gratitude yet somehow seemed distant.
"I sincerely thank my cousin Charles for taking the time out of his busy schedule in Birmingham to visit Father. Business, however, is complicated. The fact that you have been able to stay here for so long suggests that the Birmingham newspapers must be run by excellent professional managers."
"No. I prefer to carry my work myself rather than hand it over to someone else. After all, the only person one can truly trust is oneself, isn't that so?"
Milverton slowly slipped his hand into the pocket of his cashmere coat and fixed his venomous ash-green eyes on Mary.
"Ever since I came from Birmingham to London I have been looking for a good opportunity to meet you, yet I never dreamed I would meet you today."
He smiled.
"When I was little, I remember my mother telling me that she had a niece who had been bedridden with a serious illness for many years. She said the girl had even received a death sentence in her childhood. But now that I have met you, all those previous words suddenly feel like lies."
Milverton spoke meaningfully, letting his gaze linger on Mary's striking long hair.
"A girl whom famous doctors predicted would not live past the age of ten not only recovered her health in a mere few years, but even acquired the wisdom to overturn the entire Morstan family—what kind of miracle occurred?"
Arthur, lying on the bed, convulsed even more violently. His cloudy eyes filled with a desperate cry for help, yet from his burned vocal cords only indistinct swallowing sounds emerged.
He stared at Milverton, then at Mary, as though looking at two demons returned from hell.
"Just a moment ago, when I saw that golden hair and those eyes deeper than the forests of Ireland, I suddenly realized something."
Milverton turned his face; the gaze behind the gold-rimmed glasses crawled slowly and coldly, like a venomous snake, down Mary's elegant neck.
Hearing this, Mary did not break her usual elegant smile. She gently placed the black veiled hat at the foot of the bed.
"Cousin, your stories are interesting. Is it true that in your hometown of Birmingham, praising a woman is synonymous with questioning her family line?"
The girl answered quietly in a tone that contained just the right amount of dissatisfaction and teasing, as though dealing with a trivial social slight.
She walked to the window and, gazing through the thin white veil at the gray winter scenery of the south bank of the Thames, said calmly,
"The family business that Father worked so hard to build must not fall into the hands of certain malicious people, must it?"
"Hands of others…" Milverton repeated the words in a low voice, as though he had just heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.
"What a moving declaration of filial piety."
He took two steps forward and approached Mary standing by the window.
"You are truly a talented actress; I must admit it. That appearance, that pitiful demeanor, and the hair redyed to its original color… You used the sympathy of The Guardian and Scotland Yard and nearly deceived every citizen of London."
Mary's eyelashes did not so much as twitch; she continued gazing out the window.
"Cousin, I don't quite understand what you are saying. Perhaps the heavy workload of these past few days has left you a little stressed."
"You don't understand?"
Milverton suddenly turned and walked straight to Arthur Morstan's bedside.
Looking down at the disabled man whose face was twisted with terror, he stretched out a gloved finger and gently touched Arthur's atrophied arm that was connected to the IV drip.
Then, through Arthur's violently trembling eyes, Milverton turned his face and spoke to Mary, word by word:
"Fifteen years ago, when my mother and I were driven out of Morstan Manor by this cold-hearted man, the weather was far colder than it is today."
He paused, his tone gradually turning mocking.
"But in that nauseatingly luxurious hall, through the half-open door on the second floor, I saw the real Mary Morstan."
The moment he finished speaking, a cold wind seemed to blow through the hospital room; the sudden drop in temperature made time itself feel as though it had stopped.
Arthur Morstan's cloudy eyes stared at Milverton as though about to burst. Mary, who had been facing away from them, showed clear tension in her slender back at this moment.
Milverton skillfully seized this fleeting weakness.
"She had long silver-white hair and blue eyes, but the most important thing was—"
He deliberately slowed his speaking speed, as though slowly peeling away the last fig leaf of this shocking fraud.
"She was a pitiful creature suffering from an incurable congenital disease; even her breathing seemed to radiate an aura of death. That corpse-like smell—I will never forget it for the rest of my life. And you…"
Milverton turned and stared with his ash-green eyes at Mary's expressionless face as she finally turned around.
"You not only grew up full of vitality, but transformed into a monster capable of devouring the entire Morstan family… This is truly the greatest magic of the century!"
A deathly silence spread through the ward.
Only Arthur Morstan's rapid, labored breathing reminded them that a third person was present in the room.
Mary neither defended herself nor hysterically denied anything.
She simply stood there quietly. In her emerald-green eyes there was neither warmth nor any pretense.
She remained silent, offering neither explanation nor anger in response to Milverton's words.
The girl merely observed the man in front of her with complete detachment, capturing his character profile.
Arrogance, paranoia, extreme self-confidence, and… an almost perverse desire to control the fates of others.
When he became extremely excited, his body unconsciously leaned forward.
When announcing a discovery, he fixed his gaze on the prey, seeking the joy of witnessing the moment the opponent's psychological defenses collapsed.
"Is this the way of the King of Blackmail?"
Mary suddenly spoke.
Her voice no longer carried that soft, elegant tone; it had returned to something cold, rational, and even slightly arrogant.
"Fantasies like these in the style of a Gothic novel might make you a fortune if you write them into a script and submit them to a West End theater. Why do you need to make them public? That would be far too wasteful."
Milverton sat back down in the armchair, crossed his legs, and regained his relaxed posture.
"A dead fake is worthless, but a mysterious heiress who controls the Morstan Empire will become the long-term livelihood I have always dreamed of."
He paused for a moment, then returned his gaze to Mary.
"So, Mary… what should I call you?"
He asked, and before Mary could answer, he began answering the question himself.
"I have heard from gang leaders that there is an unidentified person in London's underworld who has never once shown himself. Like the phantom thief Moriarty, he is a living urban legend, yet he differs from Moriarty in certain respects. That person never appears in public. He seems to prefer being a director rather than an actor, to devise strategies for criminals, and to watch the dramas he has arranged unfold. What was his name again…? Ah, I remember."
Milverton appeared to be thinking deeply, then suddenly opened his eyes and clapped his hands in surprise.
"Professor—does that sound right?"