Russell tapped the panel twice with his knuckles.
Solid. Not hollow.
But that didn't reassure him. It only sharpened his caution—and his curiosity.
He stood, smoothed the carpet back into place, and looked around.
Neatly arranged wooden boxes. Decorative wooden carvings on the walls that seemed meaningless at first glance.
And then his eyes found the gas lamp on the ceiling.
In a district like this, gas lamps were cheap—out of place. If you wanted to display status, you used electric light.
Unless the gas lamp wasn't here just to illuminate.
A faint, almost invisible dust clung to the rim of the lamp shade.
Russell moved to the door and swept a fingertip along the top of the frame. The same fine residue came away.
Ash.
Not ordinary dust—something left behind by high heat.
He raised his fingers to his nose.
A thin scent of pine resin mixed with sulfur.
"I see," Russell murmured, a knowing curve forming at the corner of his mouth.
Now it made sense why the security here was so… minimal.
The true lock wasn't the flimsy brass latches. It wasn't guards outside.
The true lock was fire.
The entire fourth floor was a carefully constructed tinderbox—wood and accelerants arranged to burn fast and burn completely.
If a thief broke in and tripped the wrong mechanism—pressure, a hidden line, anything—
One spark would turn this place into an inferno.
Secrets, evidence, and the unlucky intruder would all become indistinguishable ash.
"So that's the 'fire dragon burning the storehouse' trick," Russell muttered.
Now that he understood the rules, the rest was simple.
Don't trigger the mechanism.
Take what he came for.
Tonight's target: the club's founder—Sir Phineas Black.
The system didn't say what Black's secret was, only that it was serious—serious enough that it made simple corruption or even murder look small.
"Don't tell me it's espionage," Russell muttered.
His gaze locked onto a wooden box marked with the initials P.B.
He lifted it, weighed it in his hand, and opened it with practiced ease.
A soft click.
The lock surrendered.
The smell of old paper drifted out.
Russell exhaled quietly, wiped a trace of sweat from his brow, and opened the box fully.
Inside lay a stack of yellowed letters—dense handwriting, every line pressed down with restraint and severity.
He pulled one at random and scanned it in the dim light, eyebrow lifting.
Foreign correspondence.
German, neat and disciplined—yet the tone between the lines was unmistakably transactional in a way that made the skin crawl.
Russell's German extended about as far as hello and thank you.
But he didn't need to understand it.
Mycroft would.
Normal letters didn't need to be hidden like contraband. If it was stored here, it wasn't clean—no matter what language it was written in.
"So it really is espionage," Russell whistled softly, sliding the letters into his pocket. "That's a much heavier hat than 'ordinary crime.'"
A seemingly harmless private club—an intelligence station.
Sir Phineas Black: British nobility on the surface, but selling secrets to Prussia in the dark.
If that ever got out, it wouldn't just cost him his title.
It would cost him his head.
Russell took out a pen and a blank card.
The nib scratched lightly, and in moments, a flamboyant line of ink appeared:
"Sir Black—loyalty is a fine thing. Pity you've aimed it at the wrong place. —Moriarty"
He placed the card back into the box, closed it, and even locked it again—tidy, considerate, as though nothing had happened.
Then he tossed down another haze bead.
Black fog rolled out.
And the thief vanished.
Russell dropped from the Romanti Club's highest level and took to the night using his grappling launcher—swinging through London's upper air like a pendulum.
The wind carried Mayfair's decadent scent past his ears.
Below, streetlamps outlined roads like golden rivers, bearing the slow flow of aristocratic carriages.
Next stop: Pall Mall.
He hoped the government's most important gentleman wasn't asleep yet.
The grappling line cut a cold arc through the air and caught the edge of a distant building.
Russell swung across open space, his silhouette flickering in and out of shadow—like a night raven threading between rooftops, elegant and lethal.
Pall Mall wasn't far. It was the street of London's most exclusive gentlemen's clubs—Carlton, Reform, Travelers, and the like.
A center of dining, networking, and power—one where women were barred from the core spaces entirely.
"No wonder Charlotte moved out," Russell murmured.
Mycroft Holmes's residence sat in the quietest corner of that street.
Russell moved soundlessly across the rooftop and checked the light through the window.
Mycroft was still awake.
Inside Mycroft's study, the fireplace burned steadily, bathing the room in warm orange glow.
Mycroft sat behind a broad desk. A cup of tea rested nearby. A book lay open in his hands—his focus absolute.
And then a voice rose behind him, soft and provoking:
"Good evening, Mr. Mycroft Holmes."
....
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