Charlotte's pupils contracted sharply.
"Pilsen."
A familiar name, together with the face from the wanted poster, flashed across her mind.
In an instant, all the scattered clues were strung together.
"I've got it."
I tossed out that terse line and then hung up the phone.
"Looks like the answer's out already?" Russell watched her.
"Say what you will, though your line of thinking is sometimes a bit simple and direct, it really does come in handy."
Charlotte gave Russell a long, deep look, then said:
"Pilsen."
"Pilsen?" Russell knit his brows. "How is it him again?"
How is it always you.
Is there a '258' tacked onto the end of your name too?
"A specialty of the Bohemia region of Czech—it's called Pilsen beer," Charlotte said.
"Good thing Lestrade is a drunkard. That was a real help."
"If the killer is Pilsen..." Russell paused. "Then doesn't everything string together?"
"That's right," Charlotte walked over to the information wall, picked up a pen, and heavily circled the three names—[The Professor], [Hannigan], [Pilsen]—together.
"The Professor masterminded the Lloyds Bank attack, and Pilsen was one of the men who carried it out.
After the operation failed, Pilsen went into hiding. All of London turned up no trace of him—right up until Hannigan's case."
"But everything was going fine, so why would he go looking for Hannigan?"
Russell knit his brows.
"Wasn't he hidden away perfectly well before?"
"According to what that lot said, Pilsen's standing—well, maybe not that he could summon wind and rain, but at the very least he was somebody of note.
Do you think a man like that, after tasting that kind of life, would be content to hide away like a rat for the rest of his days?"
Charlotte countered.
"The reason he could stay hidden all this time was likely thanks to the Professor's help. Otherwise there's no way Scotland Yard could turn all of London upside down and still fail to find him.
The best explanation is that the Professor, to keep Pilsen from being exposed and thereby dragging him down too, stepped in to protect Pilsen and had him stay in hiding."
"But Pilsen wasn't content to keep being a rat that couldn't stand the light of day, so he wanted to escape—to flee London, to go somewhere else and start over, to build himself up big and strong."
Russell picked up the thread of Charlotte's reasoning and carried it on.
"Then he found Hannigan and proposed the idea of getting smuggled out.
Hannigan, out of some sort of misgiving, refused him. The two came into some kind of conflict, and then Pilsen, worried that Hannigan would sell him out, killed him to silence him.
And then, just as he went into the bedroom to loot more money, he happened to spot Moriarty's card.
Because the reason he'd fallen to such a state in the first place was all Moriarty's doing.
So, harboring a grudge against Moriarty, he simply turned the situation to his advantage and pinned the crime on him—and the whole chain of logic closed shut just like that."
Russell looked at the several names circled together.
"That really was a huge roundabout journey. The next thing to do is to find Pilsen."
"That's right—it's tantamount to returning to the starting point," Charlotte said noncommittally.
"It's been a full month since Pilsen was put on the wanted list, and Scotland Yard still hasn't caught him.
If before it was because the Professor was providing him shelter from behind the scenes, then now that's not necessarily the case.
His killing of Hannigan was surely outside the Professor's expectations—you can tell that from the fact that he stayed hidden in London the whole time.
The Professor never intended for Pilsen to make a comeback. His idea was for Pilsen to stay hidden—hidden until death.
But Pilsen clearly had ideas of his own."
"With Pilsen pulling a stunt like this, now it's the Professor's turn to get anxious." Russell's tone sounded thoroughly gloating.
"This time, the Professor can't keep him safe, and the odds of Scotland Yard finding him have gone up."
"The odds of finding him have gone up, but whether what they find is a living man or a corpse—that's another matter entirely."
Charlotte lifted her coffee cup.
"In the current situation, the Professor has surely already given up on him—let alone protect him.
Since Pilsen has slipped free of control, then to keep him from being caught by the police and exposing him, the best method is to kill and silence.
Perhaps the Professor is even out looking for Pilsen right now, preparing to clean house."
She took a sip of coffee, then set the cup down.
"Now, it's a race between us and the Professor.
Whoever finds a living Pilsen first wins."
"Then what if we have Lestrade run a notice?
Say that if Pilsen turns himself in of his own accord, Scotland Yard will offer him protection and go easy on him—do you think he'd do it?"
Russell asked.
At his words, Charlotte raised an eyebrow, seemingly mulling over the feasibility of the proposal.
But in the end, she still shook her head.
"Not very likely."
"Why?"
"Pilsen shouldn't be the type who, for the sake of staying alive, would willingly become a prisoner in the dock."
Charlotte analyzed.
"Otherwise, he could have simply stayed hidden all along—there'd be no need to take the risk of seeking out Hannigan, remember?
That fellow has sheer ambition carved into his very bones. Ask him to sit in prison in exchange for safety, and he'd sooner stake it all on one throw."
"Sounds reasonable enough. So what do we do next?" Russell asked. "Just wait like this? Or are you planning to go tell the news to The Times."
As he spoke, he glanced at the clock on the wall.
"If we go to The Times now, then tomorrow morning we'll get to see your deduction printed on the front page.
Of course, barring any surprises, The Guardian's side should have already received Mary's news.
So..."
"So, the outcome between the two of us will be decided by tomorrow's newspaper sales."
Charlotte said.
"Once you're done at The Times later, swing by The Guardian too, and tell them this news as well."
"Huh?" Russell was taken aback. "Why?"
He looked at Charlotte, baffled.
"Let me point something out—though Mary knows the inside details of the case, if you now tell only The Times, then the intelligence The Times holds will be the most current and the most complete.
From that angle, The Guardian's coverage would just be an insider's leak, while The Times would be the revelation of the truth—so naturally the sales figures would differ.
If you tell The Guardian the news, then the advantage between you and her vanishes."
At his words, Charlotte merely gave him a light glance.
"I don't need to prove anything by that kind of method, Watson."
She stood up, walked to the window, and gazed out at Baker Street, gradually being blanketed by the night.
"If we're going to compete, then let's compete openly and fairly.
Let's see, given the same intelligence on both sides, whether it's The Times's writing that's the sharper, or The Guardian's touch that's the more captivating."
"A proxy war, then," Russell remarked with some feeling.
Though he had no idea why these two had inexplicably started competing, the matter itself was hardly a bad thing for him.
After all, watching pretty girls squabble was far more interesting than cracking any case.
I love watching women squabble the most.JPG
"Of course, that's not the main reason."
She paused, turned to look at Russell, her gaze drifting a little unnaturally.
"Buying clothes always takes money, doesn't it?"
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