Hearing that Mary had worked out the result in almost no time at all, Russell couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
"How is it that both you and Charlotte can calculate so fast?"
"It's simple, really." The girl set down the sandwich in her hand and explained with a matter-of-fact expression:
"We know this is a six-digit passcode. Each digit can be anything from 0 to 9, repetitions allowed, and it must contain at least one 8 and at least one 9.
So the total number of possible passcodes is ten to the sixth power, which is 1,000,000.
Subtract the cases that don't contain an 8 or don't contain a 9 respectively, and the number of results that fit the conditions is one million minus 531,441 twice, then add back 262,144 once—giving 199,262 possibilities."
Russell looked at that matter-of-fact expression on Mary's face and fell into silence for a moment.
Wasn't it supposed to be that foreigners were bad at math?
He'd been transmigrated for too long; all the knowledge in his head had been handed back to his high school teachers from his previous life.
"So, one hundred ninety thousand—close to two hundred thousand possibilities," Mary said, wiping the marks off the blackboard and picking her sandwich back up.
"It's a finite number, sure, but from a practical standpoint it's basically infinite.
You two can't seriously go and try all two hundred thousand possibilities one by one, can you?"
"Definitely not." Russell shrugged. "Charlotte and I aren't that dumb.
I'm not Doctor Strange, man—I can't run through them for you over and over again."
"Then what's Charlotte planning to do?" Mary asked curiously.
"No idea." Russell shook his head candidly.
"She made a suggestion to Ms. Vanessa. She said that by taking an indirect, roundabout approach, they could bypass Charles's stress-response zone and get him to record the numbers through his subconscious, or through muscle memory."
"Subconscious muscle memory?" Mary raised an eyebrow.
"For example, say I ask you right now to memorize a string of numbers—let's assume six digits," Russell explained simply.
"After memorizing them, you might temporarily forget them, for subjective or objective reasons.
But your brain, your body, will record them in your subconscious—and during that process, your brain hasn't taken in any new information about numbers.
Then, after a while, if I ask you to give me six random numbers, the numbers you give me will most likely be the passcode I told you to remember.
It's just like learning to ride a bicycle—even if you don't ride for many years, the moment you climb back onto the seat, you can still ride off effortlessly."
"Mm." Mary nodded thoughtfully. "It does sound like a pretty good idea."
"But actually putting it into practice probably won't be so simple."
Russell sighed. "Doctor Vanessa said Charles's mental state is very unstable right now—it can't withstand any trial and error.
If we provoke him again, it might trigger his brain's self-protection mechanism, and then... he'll forget everything completely."
Hearing this, the girl's eyes brightened slightly and she inwardly breathed a sigh of relief—yet on the surface she wore an expression of concern.
"That's... really such a shame. So this path won't work either?"
"At least in the short term, that should be the case." Russell shrugged, then popped the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth.
"All we can do is hope Lestrade's side catches Pilsen quickly, or that there'll be some new lead on Emily Collins."
"And Emily Collins is...?" The girl blinked curiously.
"A maid at the Hannigan residence," Russell explained.
"She's the one who sold the fake news about Moriarty committing murder to the newspapers."
"So it was her." Mary suddenly understood. "But why go looking for her?"
She asked, puzzled, "To sue her for slander or fraud?"
"That's the newspaper's business—Charlotte and I don't concern ourselves with that." Russell spread his hands. "We want to find her mainly because she might be connected to Pilsen."
"Her, and Pilsen?" The confusion in Mary's eyes deepened. "Why would those two get tangled up with each other?"
"Good question. I'd like to ask that too." Russell spread his hands. "But they are tangled up."
He told Mary about the matter of Moriarty sending over the cigarette-butt envelope.
After hearing it, Mary was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help bursting into laughter.
"What's so funny?" Russell looked at her, puzzled.
"It's... it's nothing." The girl's body trembled as she struggled to suppress her laughter, then lifted her head to look at Russell.
"It's just that... in certain ways, Moriarty is just like a little kid."
"A little kid?" Russell raised an eyebrow. "How is he anything like one?"
"He's very much like one." Mary cupped her chin in both hands, Russell's puzzled face reflected in her azure-blue eyes, brimming with fondness.
"At the very beginning, when he was wrongly accused and became the target of everyone's blame, he did nothing.
So much so that even after The Times and The Guardian cleared his name and washed away the false accusations, he didn't show himself or say anything.
So I naturally assumed he simply didn't care about any of it—until you told me he'd sent an envelope to Charlotte."
At this point, Mary couldn't help laughing again.
"First of all, we can be certain that at the very beginning he had no idea the person who sent the news to the papers was Emily Collins, right?"
"Mm-hmm?" Russell neither agreed nor disagreed.
"Then why did he later go out of his way to visit Emily Collins's apartment?" Mary asked with a smile.
It was clearly deduction, yet it also looked as though she were questioning the man himself about his intentions.
"That's because..." Russell paused, then said, "He'd found out that the person who sold the news to the papers was Emily Collins."
"Exactly," Mary nodded. "But how did he find that out?"
"This..."
"Could it be because he went and had a chat with that newspaper?" Watching him rack his brains for an excuse, the smile at the corner of Mary's mouth grew ever thicker.
"And I'd guess he probably got a messenger to help pass word along again."
"That sounds... like it actually makes sense," Russell said.
"This is basic deduction, Russell."
The girl's tone carried a hint of obvious smugness.
"You see, on the surface that man looks like he doesn't care, but in reality he was still too indignant to let it go, so he went out of his way to hunt down the person who'd been gossiping behind his back.
Then, when he planned to confront the culprit face to face, he discovered that person had already fled.
Not wanting his trip to be for nothing, he simply ransacked her place from top to bottom—and actually turned up some valuable things.
So, in order to catch Emily Collins, Moriarty thought of using Charlotte, and sent those things over to her.
He could even dress it up as repaying a favor—killing two birds with one stone."
Mary spoke while watching Russell.
"You see, isn't this just a little kid who cares about his pride?"
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