"G-get out of the way!"
"…Urk!"
The young nun who rushed in to stop the vagrants threatening me was struck by the knife they were brandishing for show, let out a scream, and collapsed.
"M-Mr. Adler!"
"Are you all right?"
And just then, of all times, people who looked to be my household staff came running from afar, and the vagrants bolted at once, tails tucked.
In the end, the only ones left there were me and the young nun, smeared in blood.
If someone who knew nothing had seen the incident, they would have praised the nun's great courage.
'As I thought, it was Holmes.'
But kneeling as if to check the nun's condition, I drew that conclusion.
Dabbing the "blood" she'd shed and tasting it with a fingertip, I could tell it was red paint.
Even with the gender swap, Holmes was Holmes. Had I not known this setup, the acting was good enough to fool me.
"Please forgive our incompetence, Mr. Adler."
"W-we… we're to blame. We should have come farther out to meet you…"
"We… we have nothing to say in our defense."
As I fretted over how to get through this bind, the housemaids and the housekeeper who arrived late began dropping to their knees one by one before me.
"We're sorry…"
"Please forgive us…"
Looking them over, I saw the maids go white as sheets, squeeze their eyes shut, and tremble.
"I failed to command everyone properly. I'll take the punishment on their behalf, so please, spare the other girls, Mr. Adler."
Kneeling before them as she spoke, the housekeeper's neck was mottled with purple bruises and cuts.
'…I'm going to lose it.'
I was starting to see why every gaze at the detective academy had been so cold toward me.
Whoever Isaac Adler had been before I possessed him, he'd apparently been quite the human piece of trash.
"…How does the nun look to you?"
"S-seems badly hurt."
"She looks dead."
To change the subject, I kept my eyes on Holmes and asked; the maids, after glancing at me, began babbling in a rush.
"She isn't dead yet. But I doubt she'll last until we get her to a hospital."
"..."
Hearing the housekeeper say that after checking her pulse, it seemed Holmes even knew how to induce a state like suspended animation.
"She… she was a brave nun. If not for her, Mr. Adler, you might have been in danger…"
"We can't leave her lying in the road. May we bring her to our mansion?"
As I silently looked down at her, the voices of maid and housekeeper reached my ears.
'That's exactly what Holmes is aiming for.'
Holmes had staged all this to get inside my manor and go after the Bohemian Queen's photographs.
Those "vagrants" from earlier must also have been actors hired by Holmes.
If I bring her home, in a few minutes there'll be a fake fire commotion with Watson's help.
Holmes—lying "dead" in my room—will use the confusion to see where I head.
"Help her up and escort her to my room."
I needed to turn that very point to my advantage.
After all, "The Scandal of the Kingdom of Bohemia" is an episode where Holmes loses.
If I simply do what Irene Adler does there, the photos will be safe.
"S-should we wash her…?"
"At once, sir."
Muffling the maid who muttered in shock, the housekeeper hoisted Holmes onto her back and started for the house.
'Stick to the original, stick to the original.'
The game was still deep in development, so I didn't know every detail, but this world was built on the Sherlock Holmes series.
Having read the four novels and fifty-six short stories over and over, I could manage to survive here.
Of course, surviving was one thing; clearing the laugh-out-loud quest list was another, and far more daunting.
For now, focus on the case in front of me.
"Where are you headed, Mr. Adler?"
"Ah."
Resolving myself, I started forward—then stopped at the housekeeper's call and went wide-eyed.
"Welcome home, Mr. Isaac Adler."
"Welcome home." "Welcome home."
Dozens of servants had come out to greet me at the door.
And among them, there wasn't a single man.
'You've got to be kidding me.'
I was suddenly very curious what sort of life Isaac Adler had been leading in London.
.
.
.
.
.
Holmes, slung over the housekeeper's back, and Adler stepped into the vast mansion.
'…Good. All going according to Holmes's plan.'
Watching from hiding behind the alley, Dr. Watson recalled the exchange she'd had with Holmes moments ago.
"The photos are likely in the mansion. On weekdays, when Adler's out, he might carry them on his person—but since it's the weekend, he'll be keeping them somewhere in the house."
"But they say the Queen, who feared the photos, has had the place searched several times already."
"Hmph. If that lecherous queen could have handled it at her level, I wouldn't have taken the case."
"Then how in the world do you plan to find them?"
"Simple. I'll make the other party reveal where he's hidden them himself."
So saying, Holmes changed into a clinging nun's habit and continued,
"Faced with a crisis, a man will go for what he values most. Men are that sort by nature."
"Mm."
Watson didn't agree with everything Holmes said, but she fully agreed that Adler would behave that way.
"When I'm inside the mansion, I'll open a window and signal you when the moment's right. That's when you throw the smoke canister in through the window."
"And then?"
"Shout 'Fire!' at the top of your lungs. That's your job today."
Replaying the plan she'd made with Holmes, Watson took a deep breath and looked ahead.
'Those girls…'
The housekeeper, who seemed to be around her own age. The maids, most looking about Holmes's age.
As they bowed to greet Adler entering the house, their necks and arms—every one—bore bruises and cuts.
'They're being abused.'
As a physician, she recognized it at once.
Those marks weren't made overnight.
'What a vile human…'
Watson's eyes began to blaze with righteous fury.
A good-hearted lady by nature, she had felt guilty just moments ago about dragging innocents into a case—but on second thought, there was no need for such qualms.
If this operation succeeded in retrieving the photos, the Queen herself would purge that piece of trash.
Then surely freedom would come to those poor girls as well.
— Clack…!
As she paced around the mansion with such thoughts, Watson looked up when a window opened.
— Sssk…
Confirming Holmes's signal, she steeled herself and drew the smoke canister from her coat.
'Please let it work this time too, Holmes.'
Then, with a strong swing, she hurled the canister into the room.
"…Hup."
She drew a deep breath, formed a trumpet with both hands, and readied herself to shout—
— K-K-K-K-KA-BOOOOM!!!
A massive explosion blossomed before her eyes, and the shockwave hurled her backward.
"Ugh…"
She tumbled over the ground for a long stretch and slammed hard into a wall.
— Fwoooosh…
In her wavering vision, Adler's mansion was engulfed in a great conflagration.
"F-f-fire… why is it actually…"
Murmuring weakly, Watson blacked out from the blow of hitting the wall.
.
.
.
.
.
"Mm…"
Holmes, who had been lying in Adler's room, clutched her throbbing head and pushed herself up.
"Oh dear."
Her eyes took in a room swallowed by flames—and real blood now trickling from her head.
Could Watson have thrown a Molotov instead of a smoke canister?
Scanning the room with that thought, Holmes spotted the canister on the floor, rolling and belching smoke.
Judging by that, the problem didn't seem to be what Watson had thrown.
'The source of the fire isn't here—it's the parlor.'
Searching for the cause, Holmes noticed dense smoke seeping in through the crack of the door.
'All the parlor windows were shut. So it's an internal cause, not external.'
There were two possibilities she could infer.
Either Isaac Adler had seen through her scheme and struck first, or someone who bore him a grudge—no surprise, given his reputation—had staged a bombing.
'…Troublesome.'
Either way, it was bad for Holmes.
To make her act perfect, she'd taken a paralytic; her body was sluggish.
Catching the full brunt of the explosion on top of that had wiped her out.
Getting out of bed right now seemed impossible.
"…Tch."
Holmes's expression cooled.
If the explosion was Adler's doing, he'd already grabbed the photos and fled.
Even if it wasn't his doing—if he'd died, or if the photos weren't in this room—the practical outcome was the same.
That is, a grim situation where the only "development" to expect was Adler perishing in the incident.
'…No way a mana user dies here.'
To make matters worse, Adler was one of the very few mana users in the world.
The reason he could swagger around with impunity was that in Britain, he was one of the rare magi treated like nobility.
Rumor had it his skill was quite poor, but even so, a mana user wasn't likely to die to something like this.
'I need to change the plan before it's too late.'
Clicking her tongue at how completely things had gone sideways, Holmes began to think hard.
— Plod, plod…
"…?"
Then she cocked her head at the sound of footsteps beyond the door.
"Cough, cough…"
Right that moment, a cough sounded from just outside.
— Creak…
Holmes squeezed her eyes shut to slits—then, as the door opened and someone staggered in, Isaac Adler came into view.
"Ugh…"
His whole body was badly burned; he'd clearly been caught full-on in the blast and was drenched in blood.
'So the photos were here.'
Seeing Adler, who'd still made his way back to the room in that state, Holmes felt sure of the photos' presence.
She smiled inwardly—and then briefly held her breath.
Adler, ashen-faced, looked around, fixed on the bed where Holmes lay, and was hurrying toward it.
"…Found you."
To avoid revealing she was awake, Holmes even forced her slit eyes shut again. At her ear, Adler's relieved voice.
'Did he hide the photos in the bed?'
Holmes had already searched the bed once when no one was around; she hesitated over opening her eyes, puzzled.
— Sssk…
Suddenly, an arm slid gently around her waist.
"…? ...??"
Holmes's thoughts stalled—her first time in a man's arms.
"That was almost really bad."
Lifting her up, Adler murmured in genuine relief and headed out.
"…Up we go."
He set her down in the mansion's yard, then staggered back into the house—Isaac Adler.
"..."
The household staff who'd been rescued and brought to the yard stared after him, disbelieving.
'Faced with a crisis, a man will go for what he values most.'
As Holmes took it all in, her own words to Watson, given with a shrug a short while ago, rose in her mind.
'Men are that sort by nature.'
The eyes of the arrogant prodigy—who had never once changed that belief in all her life—quivered, quietly.