"A small accident?"
Lestrade's voice climbed a full octave.
"Somebody translate that for me. What exactly does 'a small accident' mean?"
"A small accident means... some very small accidents. You know."
"Translate it."
Lestrade stared at Russell, his tone and posture those of a father one breath away from erupting.
"What the hell, exactly, counts as a small bloody accident?"
"A small accident is," Russell cleared his throat and met that scorching glare head-on, "Pilsen's dead."
"...Who's dead?"
"Pilsen."
"Which Pilsen?"
"I think there's only one Pilsen who'd get that kind of reaction out of you," Russell said.
The expression on Lestrade's face went from fury to blank shock to flat disbelief in the space of a single heartbeat.
Then he slammed his palm down on the desk and shot up out of his chair.
"Absurd!"
Lestrade looked from one of them to the other.
"How did he die? Did you two kill him?!"
"Of course not." Charlotte rolled her eyes.
"Then how did he die?"
"The Professor's people silenced him," Russell said.
At that name, the shock finally drained out of Lestrade's face. He glanced left, then right, then lowered himself back into his chair.
"The Professor?"
Russell and Charlotte both nodded.
"Tell me exactly what happened," Lestrade said gravely. "From the beginning."
Russell drew a long breath and laid out everything that had happened that night — how Charlotte had deduced, back on Baker Street, that Pilsen was hiding at 27 Clement Street, how the two of them had set out, slipped into the estate, fought Pilsen, and how the Professor's man had appeared at the end and put a bullet through him. Every detail, nothing left out.
When he finished, Lestrade sat there for a long while without moving.
He looked at this pair of partners — far too young, and far too good at causing trouble — and for a moment he had no idea what to say.
In the end, every emotion in him condensed into one long sigh.
"Good Lord above..." He slumped back in his chair, rubbing at his aching temples. "I'd rather you told me to work a double shift than hear news like this," Lestrade said wearily.
"So what you're telling me is that you not only broke into a murder house and got into a brawl with a wanted man, you also witnessed an execution, and then my own men hauled you back here as suspects!"
"Well, if that's how you want to sum it up, I can't say you're wrong." Russell nodded.
Lestrade's face cycled through several colours. He seemed on the verge of saying something, but the words kept dying before they reached his lips.
At last he managed to force out one sentence:
"Could the two of you not give me a little peace? Even for one day?"
"Look on the bright side. At least on paper, the case can be closed," Russell said soothingly. "Pilsen's dead, so the Hannigan case is finished, and the Lloyds Bank business can be accounted for officially as well.
"He wasn't taken by you, granted, but the body did turn up in your jurisdiction. And the Professor's hardly going to step forward and claim the credit, is he?"
"Well, thank you ever so much, both of you," Lestrade said sourly.
"And what about the Professor?" he asked. "With Pilsen dead, what do the two of you intend to do?"
"That leaves only Charles Brown," Charlotte said. "I'd advise you to put more men on watching that end of things for a while."
"I don't need you to tell me that," Lestrade said. "Besides, we never made the Charles Brown business public at all. However far the Professor's reach goes, he can't possibly know everything, can he?"
"I wouldn't bet on it." Russell shrugged. "What if he does?"
"Never mind that for now." Lestrade waved a hand. "The man who fired the shot — did you get a look at him?"
"You'll want to ask Watson," Charlotte said, and Lestrade's gaze slid obligingly onto Russell.
"Didn't see him clearly." Russell shook his head. "Dressed head to toe in black, hat on, keeping to the shadows. Fired and went straight out the window."
"He's an excellent shot. He hit a target seven metres away in pitch darkness, and put it right between the eyes," Charlotte added.
"All right... all right..." Lestrade waved a limp hand, then thought of something else. "What about Emily Collins? She's at least still alive, isn't she? Don't tell me she's dead too."
"You can rest easy there, she's alive," Russell said. "Her state of mind isn't wonderful, though."
"Her state of mind..." Something unpleasant seemed to occur to Lestrade, and his brows drew together.
"She hasn't gone mad, just a bit—" Russell said. "Just, a bit — I suppose you'd call it a total collapse of her views on love."
"That's fine, then. Not mad is fine." Lestrade let out a breath, and some of his spirit came back. "Does she know anything?"
"No. We didn't talk to her much," Charlotte said. "Though I doubt she knows a great deal in any case. She may not even have known Pilsen's real identity."
"Better than knowing nothing at all." Lestrade got to his feet. "Right. Leave the rest to me. The two of you ought to be getting home."
He waved them along, then opened the door of the interrogation room and gestured for them to step out.
"Remember to settle the consultant's fee," Charlotte reminded him as she rose.
"I know." Lestrade sighed, then looked over at Russell. "And go and take a bath when you get back."
"I know."
Russell shrugged and scratched irritably at his hair.
It was sticky.
By the time the two of them walked out through the doors of Scotland Yard, the night was very deep.
The streets of London were empty. Only the dull yellow gaslamps burned on in the distance, solitary in the cold wind.
"So what now?" Russell said, hands in his pockets, breathing out a plume of white. "There won't be a cab at this hour. Looks like we're walking back."
"Then let's walk." Charlotte pushed her hands into her own pockets and turned her collar up higher.
And so the two of them went side by side down the deserted street.
Their footsteps echoed off the empty road, crisp and lonely.
Russell walked on the side nearest the roadway.
He did it without thinking — back at the orphanage, Martha, the matron, had taught him.
When you walk with a girl, keep her on the inside, so the mud thrown up by passing carriages doesn't ruin her skirts.
There were no carriages passing now, and Charlotte wasn't even wearing a skirt today, but he did it anyway.
She walked at his side, half a pace behind, like a silent shadow.
Her stride was slower than usual — perhaps because she was tired, perhaps because streets at this hour simply invite a slow walk.
She said nothing, only kept her head down, watching the toes of her shoes alternate across the flagstones.
Her black curls, tangled from the fight, swayed gently with each step.
A few strands hung down beside her cheek, hiding her expression.
A gust of wind went through them, colder than before.
The walk from Scotland Yard back to Baker Street was neither long nor short.
In daylight, forty minutes or so.
But in this silent, deserted small hour, it seemed to stretch out without end.
The shops along the way had shut. Only the lamps on either side remained, like so many eyes, watching in silence over this young man and young woman making their way home in the dark.
Russell could still catch a faint smell of wine clinging to his hair and clothes, mixed with something like rust.
He didn't much care for it.
"Are you tired?"
Russell spoke suddenly, breaking that long silence.
Charlotte shook her head.
"No," she said, her voice so soft the wind scattered it at once.
"Then who was that yawning back at Scotland Yard?" Russell smiled.
"...That was physiological."
Charlotte fired back the retort, then quickened her pace, passed him, and took the lead.
Her head stayed down, hands still in her pockets. That oversized black coat only made her look thinner.
From behind, she might have been a stubborn child sulking at a grown-up.
Russell watched her back and said nothing more, only smiled, then lengthened his stride until he was walking beside her again.
They went on like that in silence, crossing one street after another.
Then, as they came to a crossroads, Charlotte stopped.
"What is it?"
She didn't answer. She only turned around.
She stood at the edge of the lamplight, half her face lit, half of it in shadow.
Those grey-blue eyes were fixed on him, and there was something in them — very faint, very light.
She simply looked at him, saying nothing.
Russell looked back, equally silent.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
He could hear his own breathing and hers, and the heartbeats that seemed on the verge of dissolving into the night.
"You know..." Charlotte's lips parted, as though she meant to say something.
But the words reached the edge of her mouth and she swallowed them again.
The wind passed between them, carrying the particular sharpness of deep night, and from somewhere far off, the woodsmoke of a stranger's hearth.
"It's nothing."
She only shook her head, then turned and walked on.
"Let's go," she said, very quietly.
The girl's steps were faster now than before, as though she were running from something.
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