"Who is this person?"
Russell held the envelope in his hand, asking curiously.
"It doesn't look like it was misdelivered, either."
"Emily Collins..." Charlotte took the envelope back from him, murmuring for a moment as if trying to recall something.
"I remember she was Hannigan's servant."
"Hannigan's servant?" Russell raised an eyebrow, then, as though something had occurred to him, added, "The one who sold false information to the newspapers?"
"Mm." Charlotte gave a slight nod, at the same time giving the envelope a little shake.
"There doesn't seem to be a letter inside, but there's something else."
As she spoke, she aimed the mouth of the envelope at the tabletop and tipped it out.
A few cigarette butts came rolling out onto the table.
"Cigarette butts?" Russell said. "What's the point of stuffing cigarette butts in here?"
Charlotte, beside him, said nothing, only staring silently at the butts on the table, then glancing again at the envelope in her hand.
"Emily Collins... and cigarette butts..."
The girl knitted her brows, then cast another glance out the window.
Then, as though she had realized something, she spoke:
"Moriarty..."
"Moriarty?" Russell looked at Charlotte, his tone carrying just the right measure of puzzlement.
"What does this have to do with Moriarty?"
Charlotte did not answer, only running her fingers over the surface of the envelope before slowly saying:
"He's been here. He placed this envelope behind the windowsill, then left again."
"He? When?" Russell frowned and walked over to the window.
"No need to look. It happened last night." Charlotte stopped Russell.
"There's a layer of water droplets on the surface of the envelope, which means it's been exposed to the cold air for quite some time."
"He probably came last night, while we were all asleep," Charlotte explained.
"He came to deliver an envelope and two cigarette butts?" Russell returned to the table and looked at the butts lying there.
"What's he trying to do?"
"Some kind of hint," Charlotte said, then reached out and pointed at the envelope.
"Emily Collins—that's the name of the recipient."
She explained, "She was Hannigan's maidservant, and Hannigan is a famously wealthy man in the Southwark District, so his standards for his servants absolutely would not be low."
"So a thing like smoking couldn't possibly happen with a maidservant," Russell said, following her line of reasoning.
"Exactly. Emily Collins could not possibly smoke. That being the case, why would Moriarty go to the trouble of specially packing up a few cigarette butts and sending them over?"
"It's because he wants to tell me that these butts were something he found inside Emily Collins's home."
"So... he went to Emily Collins's home?"
"It seems that fellow is even more petty than I imagined," Charlotte remarked wryly.
"But it looks like he broke into an empty place—Emily Collins wasn't home.
If she had simply stepped out, he'd only need to wait a little while for her to come back.
So Moriarty most likely discovered something, or rather sensed that Emily Collins hadn't returned to her own apartment for quite some time.
Then he found these cigarette butts in the rubbish bin.
As I just said, Emily Collins couldn't possibly smoke, but that doesn't rule out that some man she knew might smoke."
As Charlotte spoke, she picked up one of the butts with a pair of tweezers and raised it to her eyes to examine it.
"And for a woman to allow a man to smoke inside her home, there are only two possibilities.
The first: either that man came with ill intent, and Emily Collins didn't dare resist, so she had no choice but to let him do as he pleased.
The second: either Emily Collins and that man were on very good terms—so good that she didn't mind even if he smoked in her home."
Charlotte spoke, then turned her head to look at Russell.
"Which possibility do you think it is?"
"I think," Russell fell silent for a moment, then said, "the second one."
"Why?" Charlotte asked.
"Because she's only a maidservant—what about her would be worth anyone caring about?" Russell explained.
"At most, she sold the false news about Moriarty's killing to the newspapers and made a little money—that shouldn't be enough to get her marked by anyone.
And besides..."
He paused, his gaze settling on the pile of cigarette butts.
"There are rather too many butts here."
Charlotte followed Russell's gaze. Those burnt-out butts lay strewn every which way across the clean tabletop, like the corpses of defeated soldiers.
"Indeed." She gave a slight nod. "If it were just an ordinary visit, or a malicious break-in, one or two cigarettes would be the most.
But there are a full eight here, and every single one was smoked down to the very end, which shows that man stayed in Emily's room for quite a long time."
"A man, in a woman's room, smoking for that long... it's rather unlikely there's nothing going on between these two," Russell concluded.
"So Emily Collins was perhaps taken away by some close male friend of hers—or simply by her lover."
"Find Lestrade, have him look into Emily Collins's social circle," Charlotte said, then set down the tweezers in her hand and turned to walk into the room.
"And take these cigarette butts along for him to identify. That fellow's into both smoke and drink—identifying this sort of thing couldn't be easier for him."
"Then what do we do?" Russell asked, sitting on the sofa in the sitting room and looking toward the room. "And it's only a few cigarette butts—can't you identify them yourself?"
"I could, but there's no need. We still have other matters to attend to right now. Since we're going to have Lestrade do the work anyway, why not let him take care of everything that needs doing while he's at it." Charlotte's voice came from the bedroom.
"Call Lestrade now. When we get back from the North London Highlands Sanatorium, I want the things I asked for already sitting on the table."
"Understood." Russell answered, picking up the telephone on the table and deftly dialing Scotland Yard's number.
A moment later, Charlotte emerged from the room.
She had changed out of that comfortable nightgown and put on Russell's clothes—or rather, the set that had once belonged to Russell.
The originally well-fitted cut looked somewhat oversized on her, the shoulder line sliding down slightly, making her figure appear all the more slender, all the more in need of being wrapped up in something.
She walked over to Russell's side; he had just hung up the telephone.
"All done?" she asked.
"All done," Russell said, setting down the receiver and spreading his hands.
"Lestrade cursed a couple of times, then turned around and went to get to work."
"Then let's go." Charlotte tucked her cheek down into the warm high collar, then headed toward the door.
The two of them rode a carriage all the way to the North London Highlands Sanatorium.
Doctor Vanessa was already waiting at the entrance.
"Good morning, Miss Holmes, Mr. Watson." She looked in good spirits today.
"Good morning, Doctor," Charlotte gave a slight nod and got straight to the point:
"We're here to see Charles Brown."
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