When Charlotte walked out through the gates of the sanatorium, Russell was leaning against the carriage, gazing idly up at the sky, bored out of his mind.
The moment he saw her emerge, he straightened up at once.
"All finished talking?" Russell asked offhandedly, his tone easy.
"Mm." Charlotte gave a noncommittal reply, her expression as composed as ever, betraying nothing out of the ordinary.
"What did Doctor Vanessa say to you? All so mysterious," Russell pressed, curious.
"Nothing much." Charlotte pulled open the carriage door and climbed in with brisk, efficient movements.
"We just discussed a few things about Charles's upcoming course of treatment, along with some academic matters relating to psychology."
She brushed the topic aside lightly, giving Russell no opening to dig any deeper.
"Come on, let's head back to Baker Street. We've still got the Emily Collins business to investigate."
At that, Russell raised an eyebrow. Though he felt there was something odd about it all, in the end he said nothing and climbed into the carriage after her.
The carriage set off slowly, carrying the two of them away from the sanatorium and off in the direction of Baker Street.
Russell leaned back against the cushions, yawned, and closed his eyes to rest.
Charlotte, meanwhile, tilted her head to the side, staring out the window at the streetscape flying past in reverse, not saying a word.
By the time the carriage came to a stop outside Baker Street, the sky had already faded toward dusk.
"We're here." Charlotte's voice rose, rousing Russell from his little nap.
"Mm." Russell yawned, then got to his feet and followed Charlotte down out of the carriage.
"We're back, Mrs. Hudson," Charlotte called out as she pushed open the door.
"Russell and Charlotte, is it?" Mrs. Hudson's voice drifted out from the kitchen. "Dinner's already ready."
The two of them walked into the sitting room, where the fire in the hearth was burning bright and the dining table was laid with steaming Shepherd's Pie and a vegetable salad.
Charlotte didn't sit down right away. Instead she walked straight over to the telephone.
"Hello, Lestrade," she said, lifting the receiver, her tone still that same brisk, businesslike one. "Have the items been delivered?"
From the other end of the line came Lestrade's utterly exhausted voice.
"They've been delivered, they've been delivered, I put them on your desk. My God, I've only just gotten back to Scotland Yard and haven't even had time for a sip of water.
Those cigarettes are all cheap stuff, the sort you find all over the docks—they sell hundreds of them a day.
If you're hoping to trace things through the source of the cigarettes, I'd say you can give that up."
"I'll make my own plans about that," Charlotte said. "You may go and get some rest."
"I do hope it'll actually be rest."
Lestrade said this with a resentful sort of grumble, then hung up the phone.
Charlotte set the receiver back in its place, then turned and returned to the dining table.
"Aren't you going to take a look?" Russell asked.
"No rush. It's not as though the things are going to run off," Charlotte said. "Let's finish eating first."
At that, Russell shrugged and went back to working through the dinner on his plate.
After dinner, Mrs. Hudson called out to Russell just as he was about to go and wash the dishes.
"Just leave those, I'll see to them. You two have other matters to attend to, don't you?"
Mrs. Hudson said, "Off you go now. A little thing like this—just leave it to me."
"Then we'll leave it to you." Russell set down the utensils in his hands, then got up and went upstairs together with Charlotte.
The materials Lestrade had sent over were packed inside a large document envelope, sitting quietly on the desktop alongside the envelope Moriarty had delivered.
Charlotte stepped forward, picked up the document envelope, tore open the seal on it, and tipped everything inside out onto the desk.
A stack of reports investigating Emily Collins's personal relationships tumbled out, along with an evidence bag containing several cigarette butts.
Charlotte first picked up the report and skimmed through it quickly.
The report was thick—Lestrade had clearly written down every single connection to Emily Collins that he'd been able to dig up.
It even included distant relatives back in her rural hometown, the sort so far removed they scarcely counted as family at all.
Charlotte's gaze swept rapidly across those densely packed names and relationship descriptions, filtering out all the irrelevant information.
"Find anything?" Russell stood up and walked over to the table where the coffee beans were kept, setting water to boil while he began grinding the beans.
"Not really," Charlotte said.
"Emily Collins was born in the countryside. She has two older brothers and a younger sister at home.
She only had three years of schooling before she went out to work. At first it was something like part-time hourly work, and later a certain employer introduced her to Hannigan, whereupon she naturally ended up as a maid in Hannigan's residence."
"Sounds rather uneventful," Russell said.
"No need for 'rather'—it simply is uneventful," Charlotte said. "Emily Collins's entire life before she came to work at the Hannigan household could be summed up as amounting to nothing at all."
"What about her romantic history?" Russell asked again. "That's the most important part, isn't it?"
"She's had a fair few lovers, actually," Charlotte said, idly flipping through the file in her hands.
"From what Lestrade turned up on the surface alone, there are five or six."
"A regular socialite, then." Russell raised an eyebrow. "Seems Miss Emily Collins's charms are nothing to sneeze at."
"Most of them were just fleeting flings," Charlotte said with a disdainful curl of her lips, tapping her finger lightly against the file of one of the men.
"According to Lestrade's investigation, these people are either already married with children, or have already left London and have no further contact with Emily Collins.
And besides, rather than calling it romance, it would be more accurate to call it a means of climbing upward."
"Climbing upward?"
"Mm," Charlotte nodded. "Those five or six just now are only the ones Lestrade documented as having had an explicit cohabiting relationship with Emily Collins.
Based on his investigation and interviews, Lestrade also added an additional list on top of that."
"Let me guess... since you call it climbing upward, then the people on that list wouldn't happen to be..."
Russell shot Charlotte a look of confirmation.
"Her employers."
The two of them said it in perfect unison.
"I knew it." Russell shrugged and picked up the kettle, which had finished boiling.
"You don't seem the least bit surprised by this," Charlotte said, lifting her eyes to look at Russell.
"Isn't this sort of thing rather common in London?" Russell poured the hot water into the filter cup holding the coffee grounds, the stream steady and even.
"A young, pretty girl who comes from the countryside and wants to get a firm foothold in a big city—taking a few shortcuts is hardly blameworthy.
Otherwise, how would she have managed to be introduced by an employer to someone of Hannigan's caliber?
It's not as if London lacks proper domestic-service training institutions. If Hannigan wanted a capable maid, he could have just gone and recruited one there, couldn't he?"
Charlotte didn't argue. She merely pushed the useless list aside and turned to a new page.
"So, when was the last time Emily Collins was confirmed to be in a relationship?"
Russell set a cup of steaming coffee down beside Charlotte's hand.
"If you're asking about the named and documented ones, then that would be half a year ago."
Charlotte lifted the coffee cup and blew at the curling steam.
Russell caught the implication behind her words, so he asked again: "Then what about the nameless, undocumented ones?"
"That would be half a month ago."
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