The instant the gunshot cracked out, the hands of the clock seemed to be seized by an invisible hand.
Everything stopped dead.
Russell froze where he stood.
Straight ahead of him, he saw a muzzle flash bloom in the darkness and vanish just as fast.
And then Pilsen, right in front of him, went completely still. No more struggling.
He released his grip on Pilsen almost without thinking.
The body slid down limp as a puppet with its strings cut and toppled onto its back.
A crimson flower had blossomed at the center of his brow. Gravity drew the blood down along the eye socket, tracing a line across Pilsen's face like the track of a tear.
Just like that... he's dead?
Or is he playing dead to fool me?
Russell studied that face, emptied of life in a heartbeat, with narrow suspicion. The man who had been thrashing like a lunatic a moment ago now lay as quiet as a wax figure.
Then something occurred to him. His head snapped up, his gaze passing over Pilsen's corpse toward the direction the shot had come from.
Across the corridor, a door that had been shut stood wide open.
A figure seemed to be standing there, its outline swallowed by the dark.
When it registered Russell's stare, the figure made no sudden move. It simply lowered its arm, took two steps back, and dissolved without a sound into the shadows of the room.
Russell stared, thrown for a moment.
Was that Charlotte?
Just then he heard Charlotte's frantic shouting from somewhere close by.
"Russell! Russell!"
Hurried footsteps echoed through the silent house, growing louder, and the girl called his name over and over as she sprinted toward where he was.
The sound snapped his mind back into gear.
He didn't stop to answer. He threw himself forward, running flat out toward that open door.
"Stop!"
His shout rang down the empty corridor as he reached the bedroom with the open door.
The room was empty. Nothing but a window standing open and curtains snapping in the night wind.
He crossed to it in two long strides and leaned out.
A dark figure was already moving fast along the streets of Southwark District, cutting through as if the place were deserted.
The constables on patrol had all been drawn in by the commotion and were crowded at the front door, so not one of them noticed him.
Under Russell's gaze the man turned corner after corner, ducked into an alley, and finally passed out of sight altogether.
"Damn it!" He clicked his tongue in frustration and slammed a fist against the cold window frame.
So close.
Charlotte hadn't fired that shot.
He had no doubt about it. Given the situation just now, if that man had actually wanted him dead, it would have been more than easy.
But he hadn't. He hadn't.
The man's target had been perfectly clear. Pilsen.
"The Professor..." The name surfaced in Russell's mind on its own.
There was no mistaking it. It had to be the Professor.
Even if it wasn't the man himself, it was someone he'd sent.
Rapid footsteps came up behind him, cutting into his thoughts.
"Russell!"
Charlotte appeared in the doorway, one hand braced on the frame, breathing hard as her eyes raked over him, those grey-blue eyes full of worry.
"Charlotte-"
Before he could finish, she strode over, seized him with both hands, and searched him urgently.
Only once she was certain he was unhurt did she let out a breath, the tension draining out of her.
"You're all right?" she asked anyway, still unwilling to trust it.
"I'm fine." Russell shook his head, looking out at the deep night beyond the window, and sighed. "We were still one step too slow."
Charlotte followed his gaze out the window, her brows drawing tight, her face grim.
"The Professor..."
She swept the room once with her eyes, then turned away.
The two of them backed out and returned to Pilsen's body.
Charlotte crouched down and examined it closely.
"One shot, instant kill," she said. "From the doorway of that room to here is about seven metres in a straight line. Factor in the light, the angle, everything else... to pull that off, whoever fired was a professional."
"Mm." Russell gave a noncommittal grunt, his eyes on the lifeless face.
The eyes were still open, pupils blown wide, the expression frozen at the final second.
"He didn't even know how he died," Charlotte said. "I never expected the Professor's people would think of this place too."
She frowned.
"Coincidence, or..."
She murmured it to herself, then glanced at the man beside her, the one giving off the smell of red wine and a faint trace of blood.
Even forcing herself to suspect Russell against her own instincts, she couldn't find a single suspicious thing.
She was the one who had suggested Pilsen might be hiding on Clement Street, and she was the one who had acted on it the moment she'd said it.
From beginning to end Russell had been at her side. There had been no opportunity whatsoever to pass word to anyone.
So the only word that fit was coincidence.
And if it really was, that thought was somehow more chilling than the alternative.
"What do we do now?" Russell asked, looking down at Pilsen's body. "Pilsen's dead, every lead is cut off... oh, there's still Charles Brown."
Charlotte didn't answer. She stared at the corpse in front of her, lost in thought for a long while.
At last she spoke. "Get Scotland Yard first."
"Have Lestrade come out and clean this place up," Charlotte said. "And take Emily back with us. Pilsen may be dead, but she might know something."
"Mm." Russell nodded.
They took the stairs back down to the cellar. Emily Collins was curled up on the sofa, hugging her knees, saying nothing.
At the sound of someone returning, she lifted her head, as if she were still hoping for something.
But once she saw that it was Charlotte and Russell, what little light had been in her eyes went out entirely.
"There's nothing left to hope for," Charlotte said. "Pilsen is dead."
Emily's body jerked at the words, and then she quietly buried her head lower.
Charlotte's frown deepened at the sight of her.
"Don't play the victim," she said. "If you hadn't come charging in to get in the way, that man might not have had to die at all. We never wanted him dead. We wanted him alive more than you did. You're the one who gave him his chance to run, and you're the one who sent him to his grave."
Charlotte said it without a shred of mercy.
With every sentence, Emily Collins buried her head a little deeper.
It was then that they both heard a tremendous crash overhead, as though the front door of the house had been smashed open by force.
After that came a clamour of voices, laced with bursts of barking, and it was getting closer.
"Found them! They're in here!"
Someone shouted, and the footsteps converged and finally halted behind them.
Charlotte and Russell exchanged a glance, then turned around together, straight into the eyes of the constables who had arrived.
"Don't move! Drop your weapons!"
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