Only after that figure rounded the corner and completely vanished did the stagnant air at the table seem to begin flowing again.
Charlotte stared fixedly in the direction Milverton had left, unconsciously tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip and producing a soft, sharp scraping sound.
"A classic case of narcissistic personality disorder, whose foundation is an unassailable intelligence network. Every pore of his skin seems to tell us this is a dead end."
She spoke quietly; a rare solemnity coloured her voice.
"He was trying to drive us into a psychological corner, to make us realise that the cost of resistance far exceeds the cost of compromise."
Mary remained silent, staring at the plate of completely cold foie gras before her. Like a blade breaking through ice, the killing intent she had so skilfully concealed until now slowly took shape in her emerald eyes. To be openly criticised and even treated as a commodity for sale was, without doubt, a precise strike against the newly appointed family head's most unforgivable weakness.
Suddenly she took up the silver knife and, without any warning, made a bold cut into the foie gras.
The porcelain plate uttered an ear-splitting, mournful cry.
"Fourteen days."
The girl's voice was low and cold, as though filled with ice. She flung the knife aside, slightly raised her eyelids, and glanced at Russell sitting beside her.
"Do you really intend to wait until Christmas Day as the little boy who opens the present, just as he scripted?"
Even knowing it was merely psychological warfare, Mary was seized by an indescribable sense of unease.
Russell did not answer at once. He took up his glass and drained the remaining Burgundy in one gulp. The rich, slightly astringent wine slid down his throat, diluting the black-pepper flavour that lingered in his mouth. He set the glass down, turned toward the Mary who looked ready to explode, then glanced at the coldly indifferent Charlotte. A gentle smile appeared on his lips.
"This cunning old man is truly skilled at applying pressure. If we had continued searching the entire British Empire for that elusive, fatal stronghold based on the bones he tossed us, we would have collapsed long ago."
Russell paused for a moment, then picked up the knife and fork and took the foie gras Mary had not touched.
"He only came to flaunt his power and put pressure on us, didn't he? If we grow too anxious we will simply fall into his trap."
He then cut a piece of the foie gras, put it in his mouth, and tasted it.
"In fact, whether you came today or not, the result would have been the same. Have you forgotten what you yourself said?"
Russell looked at Mary and brought the foie gras close to her lips.
"When was the last time you tasted the cooking of the Savoy's chef?"
Mary stared at the foie gras held out to her lips and paused for a moment. The rich aroma of black pepper mingled with the scents of red wine and truffle and lingered long in her nostrils. The icy sharpness that had stabbed like a knife into the girl's eyes miraculously melted under Russell's gentle, casual gaze. She hummed softly, without reaching for knife or fork, leaned forward slightly as though picking up a flower petal, and, with Russell's help, carried the foie gras to her mouth. Her plump, soft pink lips opened, lightly touched the edge of the silver fork, and a faint sweetness drifted out.
"It really is good."
Mary took a napkin and touched the corner of her lips. The intensity that had lodged in her eyes vanished; she recovered her proud, noble aristocratic bearing.
"Yet the cooking technique here is indeed somewhat lacking in refinement compared with that of Paris."
"Even at a time like this you point out the poor timing. The Morstan family seems to be born with a talent for putting on superior airs."
Charlotte, sitting opposite, rolled her eyes theatrically, raised her hand without ceremony, snapped her fingers, and summoned a waiter from a short distance away.
"Could you bring the wine list? Since the generous Mr Milverton is paying the entire bill tonight, I would very much like to sample the oldest port in your cellar. And for dessert, please add two more portions of the chef's special soufflé."
The waiter, thinking he could not afford even the slightest negligence, politely agreed and then prepared to leave.
Russell could not help laughing as he watched the two girls switch in an instant from high-pressure negotiation to blackmail mode. This was the rhythm they ought to maintain.
Milverton might be a master of psychology who deeply understood human weaknesses. He had tried to construct an impregnable psychological prison using the luxurious restaurant, expensive wine, and his own arrogant attitude. Unfortunately he had chosen the wrong people—the phantom thief who skilfully manipulated the criminal underworld, the great detective who pursued reason to its extreme, or the professor who plotted perfect crimes. The three of them were not the sort of obedient humans who would be easily cowed by a little intimidation.
"In other words, you already had a plan?"
Charlotte watched the two who were behaving so intimately that they seemed completely unaware of the people around them. She twisted her lips in contempt, yet the tension in her shoulders was visibly easing.
"More a slight intuition than a solution."
Russell cleared away the fork, took up a glass of water, and drank a mouthful.
"A truly confident person has no need to go out of his way to confront his prey and loudly declare his own invincibility."
"The so-called Pandora's box not only has weaknesses; those weaknesses are more fatal than they appear."
"Fatal weaknesses?"
Charlotte, who had crossed her long legs, raised one eyebrow slightly at this. She withdrew her gaze from the floor-to-ceiling windows that reflected London's nightscape and returned it to Russell's face, which was slightly moist with a smile.
"In criminal psychology, an excessive emphasis on the perfection of a particular defence mechanism often arises from an unconscious fear of being seen through."
Her fingertips tapped rhythmically on the smooth table surface.
"But that does not mean opening a breach will be easy. Even if one knows it is a paper tiger that only barks, the old men in the cupboard may still wet themselves with terror until they find the string that binds it. That is why we need to search carefully, taking our time."
Russell pushed the empty glass aside and beckoned to a waiter waiting nearby.
"Could you bring the dessert menu? Since Mr. Milverton has said he will pay for tonight's meal, it would be a waste not to eat more when we consider the goodwill of a man who went out of his way to come here and put pressure on us."
The waiter politely handed over the menu. Seeing Russell's composed manner, the last of the anger remaining in Mary's chest finally vanished completely. A radiant smile once again appeared on the girl's lips; her emerald eyes overflowed with unconcealable affection. She leaned naturally—indeed, extremely naturally—against Russell's shoulder, and together they looked at the high-class dessert menu edged in gold.
"We really cannot save his money."
Mary repeated languidly. The usual sweetness had returned to her voice.
….
By the time they left the hotel it was already late at night. The cold wind blowing along the Strand carried the characteristic dampness of the Thames, swept over them, and instantly erased the faintly pleasant warmth inside the restaurant. In the dense fog the gas lamps drew hazy yellowish circles of light; from the occasional carriage that passed along the street came the monotonous sound of hooves.
The black carriage of the Morstan family was already waiting at the foot of the steps. Old butler William stood respectfully beside the carriage door, holding a long-handled black umbrella.
"As soon as I return I must make use of every family connection in the financial district."
Mary stood in the cold wind, tightly pulled the collar of her coat, and recovered the calm and decisiveness proper to a person of power. She looked at Russell and Charlotte standing beside her as they efficiently assigned tasks.
"A blackmailer who intends to establish a long-term base in London cannot simply control things remotely from a hotel. He not only needs to deal with the so-called 'Dead Hand system'; he also requires large sums of money to maintain a vast underground information network. I intend to investigate every flow of the enormous funds he has earned since arriving in London, and to verify whether he has secretly purchased specific real estate around London or rented private vaults."
"That is a good starting point."
Charlotte thrust both hands into the pockets of her coat and exhaled a white, mist-like breath.
"Although Appled is a distributed system, when he blackmails others he always needs physical negatives or original letters as bargaining chips. He would never go to a negotiation empty-handed, so he must possess a secret storage place in London. As for the core transmission mechanism of Appled, I intend to find some way of solving it. Since the newspapers that served as the overt information source are fakes, there must exist a completely reliable secret information source that transmits the security codes. In this world there is no completely perfect encrypted communication. Every man-made system must be governed by the laws of physics. It was probably a telegram, contact by private messenger, or a specific frequency used even more secretly."
Mary nodded lightly, then turned toward Russell; her cold gaze instantly softened.
"There are mountains of suspicious transactions at the mansion that I must check myself over these next few days. If I learn anything I will send William to Baker Street to inform you."
Ignoring Charlotte's dissatisfied gaze she took a step forward, rose on tiptoe, and lightly kissed Russell's cheek. The scent of white camellias drifted gently through the cold winter night.
"See you again tomorrow morning, Mr Phantom Thief."
The girl whispered something, turned, used the step to climb into the carriage. With William's help the black-and-gold-edged carriage door slowly closed and disappeared deep into the dense fog.
"Stop staring—you're drooling!"
Charlotte said coldly, then turned to hail a passing carriage.
Russell chuckled and shook his head, then followed her into the somewhat crowded vehicle. The carriage rattled along the cobblestone road. Outside the carriage window the nightscape of Edwardian London receded like a flowing black-and-white silent film. The interior of the carriage was relatively narrow and unlit, yet each other's regular breathing could be clearly heard.
"Do you think two weeks is enough to find the Appled that is hiding on the riverbed?"
After a long silence Charlotte broke the quiet in a soft voice through the blurred carriage window. This detective, usually arrogant and conceited, showed rare hesitation when faced with the almost perfect dead end that Mycroft had declared a dead end.
"Fourteen days is only a rough estimate."
Russell sat deeply in the chair that smelled of well-worn leather, folded his arms across his chest, and spoke in a calm tone.
"Milverton deliberately set the deadline for Christmas not so much because he needed to wait fourteen days for us to submit, but because this period itself held special meaning for his system."
Charlotte's ash-blue eyes flickered in the darkness.
"You mean the Christmas traffic congestion, the closure of post offices, or the holiday for telegrams will somehow change the operation of his terrifying system?"
"It's not that complicated."
Russell shook his head.
"What shall I call it… a kind of psychological tactic, I suppose."
He explained.
"As I did before, after a countdown I had the Fleet Street newspapers make a big announcement that a large-scale show would be held in London. The aristocrats who know my methods will naturally become suspicious because of this report. No one knows who will be robbed next, because those who are robbed never raise their voices. The only thing I know is that I deal with people every day, and that this fear of the unknown is the most powerful catalyst."
Russell explained.
"Christmas may or may not have meaning for Milverton. It is merely… a bomb. What does Christmas mean to us? It means reunion, gatherings, sharing dinner, chatting. Yet Milverton planted a bomb on the day that ought to have been the happiest and most relaxing of the year. As that moment approaches it becomes increasingly difficult to find a way to defuse the bomb, and our anxiety grows. That is precisely what he wanted."
Charlotte remained silent for a long time in the dark carriage. The dim street-lamp light entering through the carriage window cast wavering shadows across her delicate, unapproachable profile. A complex, eerie light flashed in her ash-blue eyes, as though she were looking at the man beside her anew.
"What often shatters reason is not fear of the unknown, but a clear countdown."
The girl quietly summarised Russell's theory; rare agreement coloured her tone.
"The process of waiting for a verdict is far more painful than the moment of mounting the gallows. He hoped that during those fourteen days we would spend our time restless and anxious, gradually lower our living standards in despair, and finally collapse on Christmas Day and offer him everything."
"Exactly. This is not merely psychological warfare; it is also a war of attrition."
Russell shifted into a more comfortable posture in response to the slight rocking of the carriage.
"That is why we must not grow impatient. The more he tries to disrupt our plans, the more we should eat and drink as usual. A person in a state of anxiety is unlikely to find the fuse hidden in the confusion."
"You seem to know this very well."
Charlotte snorted, yet her tense thoughts quietly relaxed a little.
"Sometimes I really do think you were born with the thinking circuits peculiar to master criminals. For you, analysing the psychology of those twisted blackmailers is almost no trouble at all."
"Then please take it as a compliment, Miss Holmes."
Russell accepted the evaluation lightly; a gentle smile appeared in his eyes.
The carriage stopped in front of 221B Baker Street. After paying the fare the two climbed the entrance steps. When the familiar oak door was pushed open, the scent peculiar to this old-fashioned apartment drifted out, instantly shutting out the cold wind and conspiracy.
On the first-floor living room a dim gas lamp was still burning. Mrs Hudson had already gone to bed, yet on the small round table in the corner of the stairs two cups of warm milk and several freshly baked oatmeal biscuits under a warming cover had been carefully left.
They carried the warm milk up to the second-floor living room. The embers in the fireplace had been carefully replenished and radiated a reassuring red light and warmth. Charlotte removed the tweed coat that had grown damp in the cold of the winter night and casually hung it on the coat-rack beside the door. She walked straight to the comfortable single armchair and sank deeply into the soft cushions like a cat that had finally returned to its own territory.
Russell then brought two cups of warm milk and two biscuits, placed one of them on the coffee table beside her, and sat on the sofa opposite her.
"Mrs Hudson has always treated me like a little girl still growing up."
Charlotte stared at the steaming pure-white liquid. While complaining, her body, against her will, gripped the warm glass with her palm and absorbed its pleasant warmth.
"On a night when even breathing seems calculated, simply drinking a cup of warm milk free of any suspicion of conspiracy is already a luxury."
Russell took an oatmeal cookie and bit into it. The crisp texture and buttery aroma filled his mouth, instantly easing the tension of having encountered a venomous snake at the Savoy restaurant.
"Besides, from tomorrow onwards we may no longer have such leisurely time."
Charlotte still avoided a direct statement. The girl took a sip of milk; a thin white ring remained around her lips, which she licked away without concern.
"If I were Milverton…"
Charlotte set down the half-empty glass in her hand, curled her legs on the sofa, hugged her knees with both arms, and gently rested her chin on her knees. The ash-blue eyes that reflected the firelight began to move at high speed again. Yet she quickly gave up. She had drunk too much at the Savoy; as a result she was a little confused and her concentration had declined.
"Charlotte, rest."
Russell said this, then stepped forward and lifted Charlotte in his arms.
"Wait… wait, put me down…"
Driven by the mild intoxication of alcohol and the sudden sensation of floating in mid-air, Charlotte's protests actually possessed no deterrent force whatever.
"In your present mental state you are slower than a rusty gear; if you try to return to your room you are highly likely to bump into the doorframe."
Ignoring the detective's feeble resistance, Russell firmly supported her back and knees, walked through the living room, and pushed open the bedroom door with his foot. He gently laid the girl in his arms onto the soft quilt and removed her small leather shoes.
"I'm just too lazy to move. I never said I couldn't walk…"
Charlotte sank into the soft pillow; her ash-blue eyes were half-open, half-closed, and she murmured a rebuttal with a slightly drunken, vacant expression. The girl who usually displayed sharp wit now, under the combined influence of alcohol and sleepiness, showed a rare coaxing attitude.
"Yes, yes—the most brilliant mind in the British Empire merely took a little nap while thinking about Appled."
Russell murmured quietly, then casually drew the blanket that had been beside him and wrapped the girl's slender body firmly. The warmth of the blanket instantly enveloped her; Charlotte snorted discontentedly, turned over in the bed, buried her face in the soft pillow, and her breathing at once became calm and deep.
Russell stood quietly beside the bed for a while, then turned and dimmed the gas lamp on the wall. With a faint click the bedroom was wrapped in quiet, dim light. He tiptoed out of the room and left the heavy wooden door slightly ajar.
The fireplace in the living room was still burning quietly, occasionally crackling. Russell drained the remaining half-cup of hot milk, then let his gaze fall on the gold-foil-stamped invitation from the Savoy restaurant that lay on the coffee table; a thoughtful expression appeared in those black eyes. A certain idea slowly rose in his mind.
Fourteen days.
From that night onward the flow of time felt as though it had been accelerated by some invisible force and raced toward Christmas with a suffocating sense of urgency.
During the following week London recorded the heaviest snowfall of that winter. The entire city was covered in a dull ash-white; a bone-chilling cold wind howled sharply around the street corners. Beneath this quiet surface of ice and snow the information networks belonging to the Morstan family and Baker Street were operating at furious speed.
…
In the study of Kensington Manor the brass wall lamp burned through the night. Mary, wearing a close-fitting cashmere turtleneck sweater, sat behind the large mahogany desk. Piled on the table were bank statements from various banks within London and recent real-estate transaction records.
"Please re-examine every record of anonymous safe-deposit boxes newly opened at Coutts Bank and Barclays Bank in the past month. Also investigate every piece of real estate newly purchased through paper companies in the suburbs of London and along the Thames, privately owned wine cellars, and abandoned warehouses."
The girl's emerald-green eyes rapidly scanned the densely packed numbers and names; unmistakable coldness seeped into her voice. Old butler William, together with several of the most trusted senior accountants, busily worked abacuses and checked ledgers in a corner of the study.
Yet as time passed the incoming reports only made Mary frown more deeply. No anomalies were discovered—neither in the flow of funds nor in the acquisition of real estate. Charles Milverton's accounting books in London were as clean and upright as those of an extremely honest and sincere businessman. Apart from the purchase of replacement equipment for the newspaper printing presses and the enormous expense of maintaining the Savoy Hotel, the funds under his name were far from sufficient to support a situation in which vast quantities of smuggled information were stored underground. If Appled truly existed somewhere in London, rent, security costs, maintenance of damp-proofing equipment, and even the gatekeeper's salary would be required. Yet in Milverton's case all these physical laws seemed to have collapsed. He was like a ghost who left not the slightest trace in the city's financial world.
A dead end.
….
The living room of 221B Baker Street was equally silent. Charlotte's investigation had taken an entirely different direction from Mary's. Because Appled was a distributed system that needed to receive security codes continuously, it depended firmly on transmission routes. The great detective had obtained a map of the entire postal network of the London metropolitan area and the rules governing the transmission and reception of the most important Royal Telegraph lines. Using Mycroft's connections she had secretly intercepted every external communication from the penthouse suite of the Savoy Hotel.
"There were neither encrypted messages, nor specific street informants selling information, nor regularly transmitted encrypted telegrams."
On the night five days before Christmas Charlotte flung a pencil covered in teeth marks onto the densely annotated map and, in irritation, ruffled the long hair that had once been smooth. Information collected over the past few days lay scattered across the table. Milverton's daily routine was surprisingly regular. Mornings he took breakfast in the restaurant; forenoon he read various newspapers in the suite; afternoons he occasionally met a few newspaper publishers; evenings he spent watching opera at a West End theatre or having a drink at the hotel bar. Apart from official business documents he had never sent a single private letter.
"If he used neither the post nor the telegraph, how on earth did he transmit those so-called 'Dead Hand security codes'? Does he stand on the hotel balcony every day and make signs toward the sky?"
Charlotte sat deeply in the chair; deep fatigue and bewilderment floated in her ash-blue eyes. The logical chain broke here. Any system constructed by humans necessarily produces traces of informational interaction. Yet Milverton's behaviour seemed to mock their efforts in silence. Although he had taken no action whatever, Pandora's box still hung above everyone's heads.
Another dead end.
Russell walked over to her carrying a cup of freshly brewed hot tea, placed the cup in the slightly chilled girl's hand, and helped fold the papers scattered across the map.
"Is this not precisely the result he desired?"
Russell's voice was calm and possessed a soothing power.
"He presented a perfect defensive tactic and watched us stagger like headless flies through the maze he had set until we had exhausted all our energy and confidence."
"I know this is psychological warfare, yet I truly hate this sense of powerlessness—the feeling of not knowing where to begin."
Charlotte held the warm teacup; a crease remained between her brows.
"Every illusion has its flaws. Appled did not arise from nothing. As long as it is a physical entity it must obey the law of conservation of matter."
Russell picked up the empty plate in front of her and prepared to go downstairs for cookies so that Charlotte could replenish the sugar needed for thinking. Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs the doorbell rang.
"I'll get the door."
Russell said something and walked toward the door. To his surprise it was once again a member of the Savoy staff.
"Good evening, Mr Watson."
As he spoke he handed Russell a letter.
"Milverton again?"
"Yes. Mr Milverton invites you to a wine tasting."
Having finished speaking the messenger exchanged a light greeting, then turned and left.
Russell raised one eyebrow and opened the letter directly. Inside the envelope was only a thin notepad specially made by the Savoy Hotel; on it several lines of elegant, fluent italic English had been written in pen.
'To Mr Watson Tonight an exquisite Lafite has been delivered to the wine cellar of the Savoy. I think it far better that you come to my suite and enjoy the composure a true scholar ought to possess than remain in that narrow apartment with two women who are racking their brains in a deadlock. A conversation for men only. Furthermore, I strongly recommend that for the time being you keep this invitation secret from the two ladies beside you, so that the rich aroma of this wine is not spoiled by meaningless pride or quarrels. I am in the penthouse suite. I look forward to your arrival. —Charles Morstan Milverton'
Russell let his gaze linger on the few lines for a while and raised one eyebrow.
Was this a plan of divide and conquer, defeating them one by one?
Russell folded the note again, casually tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat, then turned and headed for the kitchen. He placed several freshly baked cranberry cookies on a small porcelain plate and carried it upstairs.
In the living room Charlotte was still covering her forehead with both hands, staring fixedly at the map of London's postal network covered in red lines that lay on the table. Several days of intense mental effort and the irritation of no progress had inevitably brought a pale bluish-grey tint to the great detective's eyes.
"Please have something sweet."
Russell placed the porcelain plate beside the map, concealing several of the lines she had been examining.
"Sugar is the only fuel that can set rusty gears moving again."
"Don't make noise."
Charlotte did not even raise her face; she casually grabbed a cookie from the plate, bit into it, and muttered something inaudible.
"Unless he is truly a psychic, I do not believe information can be transmitted in this world without a medium."
Russell walked toward the sofa, sat down, and casually poked the embers in the fireplace to make the fire brighter.
"It is already late. If no answer is found tonight, it is all right to rest your head for a while. There are only five days left until Christmas. If you collapse on the fourth day that cunning fox will not even need to prepare a negotiation table; he will simply take everything over directly."
"I am not that fragile."
Charlotte snorted, yet in the warm, quiet atmosphere the speed of her chewing gradually slowed. The fourteen-day countdown was like a huge stone pressing on her chest; with every day of fruitless effort the anxiety accelerated. She drained the last mouthful of cold tea remaining in the cup, leaned deeply back in the chair, and closed her aching eyes.
Russell did not interrupt. He sat quietly on the sofa, watching the hour hand of the wall clock tick. The air in the living room grew still quieter; only the occasional faint crackle of burning charcoal could be heard. It was only when the clock struck midnight that Russell rose and quietly walked to his own desk.
Charlotte was already asleep. She sat almost curled up in the large leather chair; the tightly furrowed brows had relaxed a little while she slept, and her breathing was calm and shallow. The tension of the past few days had finally been replaced by the body's instinctive fatigue. Russell took a wool blanket from the sofa beside her, gently draped it over her, and softly removed the London map from her elbow.
When all this was finished he walked to the coat-rack beside the door, once again took out the deep-black coat and put it on, then wrapped a cashmere scarf around half his face. When he pushed the door open the winter night of London rushed in with force. The snow had stopped, yet the air was still cold and filled with a frost-like atmosphere. Not a single policeman was patrolling the streets at night. Only the dim yellow gas lamps cast lonely shadows on the snow.
Russell stood in the cold wind of Baker Street, exhaled white mist, and hailed a night carriage that had been dozing at the street corner.
"Where to, sir?"
The driver asked in a hoarse voice.
"The Savoy Hotel."