The day after Isaac Adler's house burned down to ashes from an unknown cause.
"Hah, hah…"
The Queen, who had burst out of her hotel the instant she received Holmes's telegram asking her to come to Watson's hospital, was now in the hospital lobby, exhaling in rough gasps.
"As you said, I came the moment I got the wire."
"Yes, well done."
"What is this urgent matter that must be dealt with at once?"
Holmes, who had been waiting on a sofa in the lobby for the Queen, answered her question.
"Of course, it concerns the photograph."
"…Don't tell me you've already gotten your hands on it?"
"Not quite, but it's as good as in our hands."
"O—oh! Is that true?"
The Queen brightened and clasped both of Holmes's hands.
"I knew I was right to entrust the matter to you. How will I ever repay this favor…"
"The case isn't over yet. Please calm yourself and hear me out first."
But in a cool voice, Holmes said as much and invited the Queen to sit.
"…Holmes."
"What is it, Watson?"
From beside Holmes, Watson, who had been quietly watching, began to whisper to her with care.
"Are you really all right?"
Whenever a case showed signs of resolution, Holmes would always wear a serene expression and bury herself in her hobbies.
Yet for some reason, she was prickly now, like a girl in the throes of adolescence.
"I'm fine, Watson."
"Truly?"
"…I said I'm fine."
It was a situation that felt markedly at odds with the usual Holmes, who always seemed mature and master of all things.
"Hurry and explain what on earth happened."
"..."
"My nerves are about to snap. Adler's warning said there isn't much time left."
The Queen, who of course could not sense such a dissonance, grew impatient and began to press Holmes.
"First of all, yesterday we failed to find the photograph."
Holmes began, still looking at the Queen with that prickly voice.
"…What?"
"But now we know where the photograph is."
"Is—Is that really so?"
At the word that they'd failed to find it, the Queen's eyes had gone wide; hearing that its location had been discovered, she again brightened and asked on.
"Where in the world is that accursed photograph?"
"On the third floor of this hospital, in inpatient room 102."
"What?"
"Because Isaac Adler is hospitalized there with full-body burns."
At that, the Queen's face showed dismay.
"Why that boy?"
"It's a long story."
Holmes slowly closed her eyes, tapped the table with a finger, and let out a sigh.
"…A very long one."
And then she began to explain what had happened yesterday.
"Isaac did that?"
"That incorrigible scoundrel?"
When Holmes reached the part where Adler had leapt into the flames to save her and the servants, not only the Queen but even Watson wore disbelieving looks and asked again.
"You didn't see it with your own eyes because you lost consciousness yesterday, so I can't blame you."
"But still…"
"But Watson, judging a matter with preconceptions is the shortest road to distorting the truth."
Holmes, for some reason, raised her voice and bore down on Watson.
"Even so, it's strange to me. Isaac, who thinks of women as nothing more than toys to use and discard—how could he…"
"Your Majesty, forgive me, but that is not the point I am trying to make."
Holmes cut off the Queen, who was still muttering as if she could not make sense of it, and continued.
"I deduced the photograph would be in his townhouse. However, Adler went in and out of the house several times and yet never took the photograph."
"T—that can't be…"
"He was going to make the photograph public within thirty-six hours, so he would not have used a bank or a private vault with cumbersome withdrawal procedures. And of course he wouldn't hide it in some lax place with no security."
As Holmes's words flowed, smooth as a mountain stream, the Queen listened with a blank expression.
"Considering all that, the place becomes obvious. Adler had the photograph on his person from the start."
"On his own person…?"
"Already possessing the most valuable thing, he would have had the leeway, even in the flames, to grab nothing else."
Holmes, who normally enjoyed lecturing clients with an arrogant smile while laying out her deductions, somehow didn't look particularly confident today.
"Even so, it still doesn't explain why he saved me…"
She added, frowning like a girl stuck on a difficult mathematics problem.
"Then if we go to Adler now, we can recover the photograph?"
"…Well, yes, presumably."
Ignoring that, the Queen fired off an urgent question, and Holmes answered in a low voice.
"Dr. Watson and I will retrieve it on your behalf."
"T—that won't be necessary…"
"Adler is a mana user. What if you go and he counterattacks you?"
The Queen, who had been pulling a slightly reluctant face at first, began to waver at those words.
"Watson and I have plenty of experience dealing with bizarre cases and mana users. But Your Majesty has no such experience."
"Indeed… that is true."
In the end, she accepted it.
"Very well, I shall wait here for you both."
"A wise choice."
Holmes and Watson rose to their feet, gave the Queen a courteous nod, and set off at once for the third floor, where Isaac Adler was.
"Holmes, why insist on going along yourself?"
Then, suddenly, Watson put a question to Holmes.
"Adler's been prescribed morphine and a sedative to dull the pain. The Queen could go alone just fine…"
"You are sometimes far too talkative, Watson."
Brusquely brushing aside Watson's question and quickening her pace, Holmes tilted her head for a moment and glanced back.
"…What is it, that nurse."
A nurse had just passed them by, and for some reason she looked familiar.
.
.
.
.
.
"…Huaa."
I never imagined that the very moment I slipped out of the ward disguised as a nurse, I would run smack into Holmes and Watson.
'I really almost got caught.'
When Holmes turned back and shot me that suspicious look, I was so startled I thought I'd been exposed then and there.
But perhaps it was because, in the original, she failed to recognize Irene Adler when Irene greeted her while cross-dressed as a man.
Thankfully, Holmes didn't seem to recognize me in my nurse disguise.
'So it really was Holmes.'
Seeing her lying there disguised as a nun hadn't moved me much.
But watching her walk in wearing the signature cloak-backed coat of Holmes made it feel real at last.
Holmes is truly a woman. A pretty young girl with brazen, yet somehow haggard eyes.
No doubt all the characters I'm going to meet from here on will have their genders swapped like that.
And I'll have to get tangled up with most of them, one way or another.
"Phew."
Letting out a small sigh, I widened my eyes and steeled my resolve.
There are two big things I have to do right now.
First, I need to settle my relationship with Holmes's client, the Queen of Bohemia, who's been eyeing me like a hawk.
If I don't resolve that quickly, then just as Professor Moriarty said, my life will be in danger.
And after that—
[Love-Hate Relationship: Become Holmes's 'That Man'.]
—I need to clear this quest.
Otherwise, this world will collapse.
'To think I'd live to see a day like this.'
I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be the one to hand Holmes her first defeat.
But I hope she'll understand this is all for her sake.
In raw ability she's a match for the Holmes of the original, but Charlotte still has the weakness of being mentally immature.
To become the only being capable of standing against Moriarty, this failure is necessary—a plausibility for growth.
"Ah, ah. Can you hear me?"
Though her age and gender were different, I eased my guilt—guilt over using knowledge of the original to hand defeat to a person I revere without reservation—just a little.
"If you can hear me, please respond, Professor."
Before leaving the academy, I had put on the ultra-mini mana receiver Professor Moriarty gave me, and I murmured in a low voice.
— I hear you perfectly well, Mr. Adler.
Professor Moriarty's voice came to my ear.
— So what is it you want me to do now?
Across the way, in a café on the opposite block, Professor Moriarty had taken a seat. She was looking at me with an excited expression and waving.
"Think of this as a rehearsal before we begin full-fledged consulting on crime."
As the world's plausibility, I have a duty to foster the growth of the protagonist, Charlotte Holmes.
"From now on, I'll act according to the orders you give, Professor."
At the same time, I also have a duty to nurture Professor Jane Moriarty—Holmes's arch-enemy and final boss—into a plausible, living presence.
"Don't be too tense; just take it easy and unhurried."
To take the woman who has just stepped into the world of crime consulting and turn her into the emperor who will rule London's underworld—
That's my other main quest.
"Whatever happens, I'll take responsibility for all of it."
— How very romantic of you.
In my field of view sat the Queen of Bohemia, wearing an anxious expression in a chair in the lobby.
"As your assistant, let's topple the Queen of Bohemia once, Professor."
To break out of this no-answer situation, it was time to use a cheat code named Moriarty.
.
.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, at that very moment.
The hospital room where Isaac Adler had been admitted.
"...…."
Charlotte Holmes carefully opened the door and stepped inside, then stared down at the bed with an expression of disbelief.
— If you see this, open it at once.
There, in place of Isaac Adler who should have been lying in the bed, sat a lonely envelope.
— Miss Charlotte Holmes.
On the envelope, her name was written in Adler's hand.
"Holmes, what on earth is all this?"
"...…"
It was the moment when the first failure was engraved on Charlotte's hitherto flawless career as a detective.