221B Baker Street.
Mrs Hudson carried warm tea and biscuits upstairs and glanced at Charlotte, who was in Russell's room.
"Russell still hasn't returned?"
She could not help asking.
"He have been away for several days…"
"He will be back soon, Mrs Hudson."
Charlotte said, "With the Grand Central Railway, the journey from Sheffield to London should take three hours at most."
"But it is already evening."
Mrs Hudson frowned.
"That means he missed the first express train of the morning, the Bantam Slay, and had to change trains."
Charlotte spoke in a calm tone, yet an underlying anxiety seeped into her voice. Since morning she had been looking at the clock and then at the door roughly every thirty minutes.
Hearing this unconvincing consolation, Mrs Hudson sighed, set the tray on the round table beside the desk, and left the room without another word.
When the door clicked shut, the living room was once again wrapped in a stifling silence.
Charlotte sat on the single sofa that Russell always used, curled her legs up, and sank her entire body into the soft velvet cushions. Her ash-blue eyes were fixed on the flickering light of the flames in the fireplace.
She looked at it again.
Less than five minutes later her gaze unconsciously returned to the clock face.
7:15 p.m.
Night had long since fallen over London, yet the wind and snow outside the window showed no sign of abating. On the contrary, as the night deepened the sound of snow striking the glass grew ever fiercer.
"Charlotte Holmes, enough. Stop sitting here counting the time like a nagging old woman and use your head."
The girl buried her face between her knees and muttered something under her breath. In order to escape this meaningless, irrational anxiety she suddenly stood up, went to the desk, and once more spread out the sketches filled with clues and deductions.
Charles Morstan Milverton.
Appled.
Charlotte took up a pencil and, without realising it, tapped the paper while trying to concentrate her mind on the logical flow of the case.
If Russell's inference was correct and Appled was not a unified mechanical hub but a distributed physical storage network, then the basic methods Milverton used to maintain this system must have been extremely primitive—one-way postal confirmation, for example, or the hiring of independent lower-level gangs as guards. This seemingly crude method, on the contrary, brought a sense of security by making it impossible for outsiders to track. Scotland Yard had found nothing. MI6 did not possess the authority to turn over entire northern industrial cities.
But Moriarty could.
Charlotte slid her pen across the paper and circled the place names Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield.
She stared at the paper and repeatedly turned these inferences over in her mind, trying to build a barrier against the anxiety.
Just then a faint neigh of horses came from downstairs, followed by the clear chime of the wind bell on the front porch.
Charlotte's pupils contracted slightly. She immediately threw down the pencil and, almost reflexively, went to the window and flung open the heavy velvet curtains.
Through the clouded glass she saw a black carriage stopped under the streetlamp on Baker Street. The carriage was decorated with the discreet crest of the Morstan family.
Immediately afterwards came hurried yet somewhat disordered footsteps on the stairs. To the sharp-eared detective those footsteps were far too light; they clearly did not belong to a man wearing heavy leather boots.
The door was pushed open.
Mary Morstan stood in the doorway. She wore a deep-green cashmere cloak; snowflakes that had not yet melted still clung to the edge of the hood. Because the outside temperature was extremely low, her originally fair face was tinged with a faint flush from the cold, yet her emerald-green eyes still shone with their usual brilliance.
"From your expression I gather he has not returned yet?"
Mary removed her slightly damp leather gloves, loosened the belt of her cloak, and casually hung it on the coat rack by the door. Her tone was as composed and quiet as ever. Yet Charlotte noticed her slightly rapid breathing. In a blizzard of this intensity the journey from Kensington Manor to Baker Street would never be comfortable even in the finest carriage. For the head of the Morstan family, who always valued dignity and efficiency, to come in person through heavy snow at this hour could not possibly be merely for tea.
"If it were not for this blizzard he would already be sitting on the sofa complaining that Mrs Hudson's biscuits are too sweet."
Charlotte left the window, returned to the desk and sat down again, quietly gathering the sketches on the table.
Mary surveyed the empty room, walked straight to the coffee table, poured steaming tea into a cup, warmed her freezing fingertips against the warm china, and then gracefully seated herself on the sofa opposite Charlotte.
"This afternoon I confirmed by telegram with Euston Station. Because of the heavy snow in the north, at least three express trains from Sheffield to London have been forced to stop at intermediate stations."
Mary took a sip of tea and, through the rising steam, looked at Charlotte with her emerald eyes.
"That is the best-case scenario. If large sections of the track are frozen he may have to spend the night in a waiting room in some remote place."
Her words were clear and logical, as though she were reporting an ordinary logistical delay to a business partner. Yet Charlotte knew that if it were only a matter of checking train timetables Mary could simply sit by the warm fireplace in Kensington and have the housekeeper telephone every hour.
"You have never paid such close attention to the operating schedule of the Grand Central Railway before."
Charlotte saw through the disguise without hesitation; a mischievous light appeared in her ash-blue eyes.
"Miss Mary, your worry is written all over your face."
Exposed, Mary showed neither anger nor resentment.
"How could it be otherwise?"
She casually set the teacup on the small table beside her, leaned forward a little, and naturally radiated the aura of someone in a high position.
"The person I love is currently trapped in a blizzard or in some dangerous sewer, and his whereabouts are unknown. The funds and resources I possess are insufficient to provide him with any real assistance."
Mary stared steadily at Charlotte. Her tone carried an unusual note of helpless powerlessness that ordinary girls often felt.
"If you were in that mansion, could you sit at ease and enjoy afternoon tea?"
Charlotte did not answer.
"The deadline Milverton set—Christmas—is less than forty-eight hours away."
Charlotte unconsciously traced the edge of the pocket watch in her coat pocket with her fingertip.
"I dislike this feeling of losing control."
Mary lowered her gaze and looked at her own hands. Her voice was so soft it seemed about to be blown away by the wind outside the window.
"If I could do it over again, even if it meant hitting him, I would never let him board that train alone."
"We should have done that from the beginning," Charlotte added coldly.
In front of the fireplace on Baker Street the two girls, for once, found themselves in rare agreement and shared an almost unbearable suffering.
Mary stared at the maps piled on Charlotte's desk and the drafts covered with correction lines; her tone was calm yet carried a trace of irritation.
"Still no progress?"
She asked.
Charlotte stared for a long time at the pile of sketches on the table covered with red circles and lines. The orange light of the gas lamp illuminated the intricately entangled place names and clues; tangled lines bound them together like a spider's web.
"All dead ends."
Charlotte finally spoke. A faint discouragement seeped into her voice, yet the anger was stronger.
She stretched out a hand, threw the almost broken pencil onto the table, and the pencil rolled with a dull sound to the edge.
"Main postal routes, underground money-changing transactions, black-market storage agents. Every physical channel I can think of has already been analysed."
Charlotte rubbed her temples.
"If Appled is truly a fatal system, it ought to possess a central hub for maintaining deterrence. Yet the traces Milverton left in the records are like sand scattered carelessly across a map—damp, without pattern, source unidentifiable."
Hearing this, Mary's gaze fell on the clock face. Every movement of the hands quietly eroded the little remaining patience and time. While the so-called deadline drew one step closer, the person who should have been sitting on the sofa yawning… the culprit was still at large.
Waiting was like being killed with a blunt knife.
"Does that mean Appled's communications never required him to actively issue security commands at all?"
Mary quietly broke the silence; a faint anxiety appeared in her emerald-green eyes.
"Or perhaps he had already built a mechanism in Birmingham that would operate automatically for several months, and the trip to London was merely to confirm the results."
"That does not fit his pathological need for control."
Charlotte immediately rejected the speculation.
"The handle of a Dead Hand system must always be gripped in his own hand. Anything that operates automatically will never leave his sight."
There must be something we have overlooked…
Charlotte scratched her hair in irritation.
"No—I feel we are going further and further in the wrong direction."
"We need to return to the origin."
"What do you plan to do?"
Mary looked at her.
"Start from zero."
Charlotte stood up and walked toward the information board. She had moved this wall from her own living room into Russell's. The girl took up a pen and, without hesitation, erased every note stuck to the wall, then wrote the name Charles Morstan Milverton.
Since both physical tracking and communication interception had reached dead ends, let us completely abandon these complicated clues and return to the perpetrator's subconscious.
Mary paused for a moment, then sat up straight.
"You mean abandon all the progress we have made so far?"
"Yes. Throw it all away."
Charlotte turned, leaned against the desk, and folded her arms across her chest.
"Forget those meaningless red dots. Forget the northern industrial cities. Forget even the sense of panic the name Appled awakens in us. We have been distracted by the chips Milverton threw away."
She stared steadily into Mary's eyes.
"Since we have no idea where the box is, let us analyse the person who made the box. We start from zero and rebuild the personality model of Charles Morstan Milverton."
The proposal was bold and reckless—abandoning every existing empirical piece of evidence in favour of pure psychological profiling, like walking a tightrope blindfolded in thick fog. Yet under these desperate circumstances it became the only way to keep their minds clear.
Mary did not hesitate in the least. She picked up the gradually cooling tea, interlaced her fingers and rested her hands elegantly on her knees, entering a state of complete concentration.
"A very interesting proposal. That is precisely Miss Holmes's field of expertise."
A faint smile appeared on Mary's lips.
"Where shall we begin?"
"First, his identity."
Charlotte began to walk slowly across the somewhat worn carpet of the living room. With every step her mind rapidly cleared away every distracting thought.
"A media magnate respected in London's upper society was in reality a blackmailer who made a living by scavenging other people's garbage. Even though he possessed enormous wealth he clung to those shady secrets like a miser."
Charlotte stopped and looked at the girl sitting on the sofa.
"What was your first impression of him?"
"Arrogance, conceit, an uncontrollable desire to manipulate, and—"
Mary paused and narrowed her eyes.
"Suspicious."
Each time she spoke Charlotte wrote one down.
"And then?"
"Next we need to analyse the way he works."
Charlotte said. Her gaze was fixed on the notes scrawled in charcoal on the wall.
It had been a night with no escape.
Since both physical tracking and communication interception had reached dead ends, let us completely abandon these complicated clues and return to the perpetrator's subconscious.
Arrogant, conceited, overbearing, controlling, suspicious…
Charlotte quietly read the words written on the wall and heavily underlined "strong need for control" with the charcoal pencil.
"In criminal psychology, people who are extremely arrogant and possess a strong need for control cannot tolerate a state of being out of control. For Milverton, Appled was not merely a lifeline; it was also a symbol of his power."
She turned her face toward Mary.
"If you were Milverton and had to confront a powerful matriarch who controls most of the empire's wealth and a cunning, elusive thief on the dangerous ground of London, what would your first reaction be?"
Mary gently set the white porcelain teacup on the tray. Bone china and metal collided with an almost inaudible sound. Following Charlotte's gaze she stared at the bare wall. The flickering light of the flames was reflected in her emerald-green eyes, as though she had truly discarded the identity of the head of the Morstan family and wrapped herself in that refined yet repulsive shell.
"If I were Milverton…" Mary's voice was very soft.
"Faced with a thief who might invade Buckingham Palace at any moment and MI6 informants who are constantly watching, I would feel fear. No matter how calm I appeared on the surface, the fear of unknown violence would cling to my heart the way a leech clings to the spine."
She raised her face and met Charlotte's gaze.
"Because I am fearful and possess a strong need for control, I would never entrust a Dead Hand system that concerns my life and property to money-grubbing old agents hundreds of miles away or to drunken gang bosses. Distance means delay, and delay means death."
"Then what exactly is the operating principle of the Dead Hand system?"
Charlotte asked again.
"Because it is based on a distributed system, the ultimate secrets capable of overturning the British Empire, bringing the royal family to its knees and making Mycroft wary are entrusted to lawyers, bankers or gang leaders who can at any time accept bribes and keep them in storage."
After answering, Mary immediately frowned.
"This contradicts Milverton's public image."
"Right."
Charlotte's ash-blue eyes suddenly shone like the spark of a match cutting through night fog. She pressed the charcoal pencil hard against the wall, leaving a black mark.
"That is where the contradiction lies! We were completely deceived by his distributed system. We assumed he needed to send security codes to dozens of agents across Europe. Yet how could a psychopath with an extremely strong need for control ever feel at ease leaving his talisman in a state about which even he himself could not be certain? Entrusting life and property to dozens of complete strangers and praying every day that the letters would arrive on time or in secret… Relying so heavily on other people's mistakes is, for someone pathologically controlling, a pain worse than death."
Charlotte's speech quickened; at that moment the mental restraints that had bound her for so long began to crumble. Holding the charcoal pencil she rapidly began drawing independent squares on the wall representing the northern cities Russell had visited. Then in the centre of the box she drew a large circle and wrote the word "London."
"There is neither a drive shaft nor mechanical gears. No magical device exists in this world that can accurately sense from hundreds of miles away that the owner's heart has stopped beating. If Appled is truly a fatal system, the method by which he activates it must be sufficiently primitive and completely controllable."
Mary stood up from the sofa, walked over to Charlotte and stared at the pattern on the wall.
"For example, a time-limited confirmation password."
The girl added quietly.
"Like a bank vault—if he does not send a telegram of peace to the central authority every night by eight o'clock, a catastrophic scandal will be reported the next morning."
"Exactly. That is the safest approach that matches his psychological characteristics."
Charlotte turned and casually wiped her face. Charcoal dust clinging to her fingertips left faint black traces on her white cheeks, yet she paid no attention.
"But if that were truly the case, there would be no point in Russell going to the northern industrial zone right now to destroy those physical storage facilities. No matter how many originals Milverton burns, if he does not send a telegram tomorrow morning the front pages of the major newspapers will still bind us to the pillory of shame."
Yet the moment Charlotte finished speaking she suddenly stopped what she was doing.
"No. That is wrong."
Charlotte shook her head and lowered her voice.
"If it really is an activation mechanism based on a time-limited password, where is the central hub that distributes the tasks? The editor-in-chief of a major newspaper? Impossible. Unless they see actual photographs or top-secret documents, they would never have the courage to publish negative news about the royal family or the aristocracy even if they possessed ten times the courage. Only when the evidence becomes irrefutable does the media dare to behave like blood-thirsty hyenas."
After the logical reasoning a faint confusion appeared in Mary's emerald eyes.
"Therefore, in order to convince the newspaper offices, Milverton must possess something. Yet those items were clearly scattered and hidden in Birmingham and Manchester."
The two of them exchanged glances.
An unsolvable paradox suddenly stood before them.
The trigger mechanism is in London, yet the gunpowder capable of destroying a person's reputation is in the north. Even if Milverton died and organisational control loosened, how could those ignorant agents and thugs deliver letters to the printing houses of Fleet Street overnight? Had he sent manuscripts to the newspaper offices in advance? That was even less likely. Considering MI6's wire-tapping capability, any attempt to distribute large quantities of confidential documents would be intercepted and destroyed midway by Mycroft's subordinates.
Just then the wind outside the window suddenly strengthened, giving a high-pitched howl that made the old glass panes tremble slightly.
Charlotte shivered. Suddenly a thought flashed through her mind—the calm smile Russell had shown before he left, and the words he had spoken at the dinner table.
When the maze before one's eyes is far too complex, sometimes the most effective method is to smash the wall with a hammer.
"He is a fraud."
Charlotte suddenly spoke. Her voice was slightly hoarse, yet it rang through the quiet living room like a thunderclap.
"Who?"
Mary looked a little startled.
"Milverton! That complete fraud!"
Charlotte suddenly turned; her eyes shone with a terrifying brilliance. Instead of using the charcoal pencil she forcefully erased the word "Appled" written on the wall with her dusty fingers.
"A true assassin never boasts to the target, before taking action, about the composition of the poison coated on the blade. Yet think carefully—has Milverton ever failed to mention Appled to us, or to Russell, even once?"
Mary's eyes changed in an instant; she immediately understood the deep meaning contained in Charlotte's words.
"Excessive packaging is an excuse to hide guilt… He is constantly forcing the same concept on everyone."
"Right!"
Charlotte excitedly struck the wall.
"He made us believe that Appled was an invincible machine and that if he died the machine would crush everyone. Yet the physical logic of constructing this machine makes no sense at all! That is why he constantly needs to transmit the concept to others and deepen the impression."
Charlotte took a deep breath; her tone gradually became excited.
"What he used to intimidate the whole of Whitehall was nothing more than a castle in the air built on information disparity and fear!"
After this astonishing realisation the air in the living room suddenly felt thinner.
If Appled is not a network spanning the whole of Europe, then it must possess a physical form. Even a mirage must have a real object as the basis for its projection.
And new problems arose one after another.
"I have investigated all of his real-estate transactions in London; there is not a single problem in his financial records."
Mary frowned slightly and raised the most realistic physical obstacle.
"If Appled is merely a front organisation, there must exist a physical storage location capable of holding a vast quantity of original negatives and letters—enough to wipe out nearly half of Britain's elite. That is the foundation of Milverton's blackmail; it must exist and cannot disappear. Yet if such a thing truly existed, Mycroft would never have overlooked it, and no trace of large sums of money flowing through his routes was found at all."
Charlotte fell silent. She sat down again on the single sofa and unconsciously tapped the armrest lightly with her fingertips.
"This is indeed a logical dead end. No cash flow, no rental records. Except…"
Charlotte suddenly raised her face and met Mary's gaze in mid-air. A flicker of amusement passed through the eyes of both girls; in that instant it felt like a perfectly natural realisation.
"Except in the case where he needs to spend no money at all on renting or purchasing."
"That sounds a little absurd."
Mary said, yet there was almost no tone of denial in her voice.
"Then what can simultaneously satisfy the two conditions of requiring no expenditure on rent or purchase and being able to store a vast amount of information?"
For a moment silence fell over the room.
Could such a thing truly exist in this world?
A notebook?
Theoretically yes, but one or two notebooks would not be enough to record that much information. If all of it were converted into text it would probably fill the whole of 221B Baker Street.
Charlotte frowned and unconsciously reached up to rub her temples. Then the girl suddenly stopped moving; in that instant her ash-blue eyes widened slightly.
It was the unique physiological reaction that occurs when a person accidentally touches a hidden door leading to the truth.
"Mary."
Charlotte slowly lowered her hand; her voice trembled faintly from the sudden realisation. She turned her face and stared steadily at the head of the Morstan family sitting on the sofa.
"The safest vault in the world requires no registration of ownership at the city hall, no payment of high annual storage fees to a bank, and leaves not a single penny of trace in any account."
As she spoke she slowly raised the right hand she had just taken from her forehead and lightly tapped her temple with the tip of her index finger.
"Because it is right there."
Mary's elegantly interlaced hands suddenly clenched tightly.
Almost the moment Charlotte made that gesture, the logical fog that had covered them vanished.
"His brain's memory palace?"
"Possessing a memory palace alone is not enough. Perfect photographic memory is also required."
Charlotte drew a deep breath, as though she had just emerged from deep water. She walked to the wall, seized a cloth and mercilessly erased the physical distribution routes she had just drawn, leaving only the outline of a human brain in the centre of the wall.
"This explains every contradiction. There is no need to operate a strictly managed system, nor any security telegram that must be sent every night. Charles Milverton, who styled himself the uncrowned king of the British Empire, relied on an astonishing memory."
The girl's hand holding the charcoal pencil trembled slightly with excitement.
He recorded every letter's sender, recipient, specific content, and even the exact amount of every bribe down to the last cent. And he scattered those originals like unnecessary junk into the most inconspicuous, unremarkable dark corners of Britain. He did not care in the least whether the old men of the intelligence agencies or the gang members tried to betray him, because they themselves did not even know what they held. The only index and master catalogue in the world capable of linking the scattered physical evidence was locked inside his own skull. When he needed it, it was enough simply to tell the victim about their past; that alone made the victim feel shame, and he could easily break through their psychological defences. This convinced him that Milverton truly possessed a Pandora's box containing every secret of the aristocracy.
Mary stood up from the sofa; her emerald-green eyes swayed with emotion.
"That is why he could sit so boldly in the luxurious suite of the Savoy Hotel and advertise the fictional monster Appled to everyone. He knew that countless eyes across Britain were watching him, and that if even the slightest flaw were exposed he would be killed at once. Precisely for that reason Milverton needed a powerful talisman to protect himself and to stop those who wished to kill him."
"In other words, he fabricated the monster Appled and then used the physical evidence he had collected to create the non-existent body of this monster."
Charlotte snorted.
"An enormous lie that cost him more than ten years of his life."
Charlotte's bright laughter rang through the living room. This was indeed a shameful truth for every person who had been blackmailed. The elites who stood at the apex of the British Empire had been humiliated for more than ten years by an illusory magic box that in reality brought them no benefit whatsoever.
"As a result Russell locked himself into a blizzard for the sake of a single concept."
The girl's tone was somewhat sarcastic.
"If he finds out he will surely be furious."
"That is not necessarily true."
Mary said quietly.
"His journey north was not a waste of time. On the contrary, it was the most decisive and indispensable element at this turning point."
Charlotte tilted her head slightly, waiting for what was to come.
"Memory is precisely the most bullet-proof vault in the world," Mary explained in a calm tone. "Yet memory cannot be used as evidence in a court of law, nor can it occupy the front page of a Fleet Street newspaper."
She returned to the table and lightly tapped the sketch of the brain outline with her finger.
"Imagine that tomorrow morning Milverton's newspaper suddenly publishes a scandal article claiming that a cabinet minister accepted bribes. Yet no photographs, promissory notes or handwritten letters are attached as evidence. What do you think Mycroft would do?"
"He would immediately close the newspaper office on charges of libel and treason and send Milverton to the Tower of London. Unless irrefutable evidence is made public, the British bureaucratic apparatus possesses countless means of nipping rumours in the bud."
"Exactly."
Mary nodded.
"Milverton's brain contained only an enormous index. With this catalogue he could accurately identify who, when, where and what shady deeds had been committed, thereby breaking through the victim's psychological defences. Yet not everyone can be defeated by psychological tactics, so at that stage he needs to produce the physical content corresponding to the catalogue."
The girl set down the teacup and quietly said "Wait."
"It is as if Milverton is holding a pistol. He uses this gun to swagger about, threaten everyone, and even claims that if he dies or something happens the gun will explode and kill indiscriminately. If anyone dares to doubt the danger of the gun he will not hesitate to shoot them, and in fact he possesses the ability to do so. But now—"
"The gun was never fully loaded."
Charlotte took over the conversation.
"A gun without bullets is nothing more than a piece of scrap iron."