Chapter 12

12. "Oh no"

I wasn't used to drinking coffee.

When I was little, I had secretly tried some brewed coffee. Like everyone who wanted to peek at a secret and couldn't resist their curiosity, I ended up suffering for it. I'd poured it out then. Now, I held the coffee cup to warm my hands, and only took a sip once my palms were warm—

To my surprise, it was pretty good.

After watching Inspector Lestrade tug at his hair in frustration for quite some time, I tried to reassure him. "It's not hard to say no to Mr. Holmes."

Most of the games I'd played in the past were zero-sum games, where there was never a way for both sides to win. So when I shouldn't give ground, I wouldn't compromise an inch. For me, refusing Mr. Holmes really wasn't difficult.

Naturally, Lestrade couldn't agree with me.

If refusing really were that simple, he wouldn't have been troubled for so long.

I asked curiously, "Inspector Lestrade, does Mr. Holmes have something on you?"

"It's not like that."

Lestrade seemed to have trouble explaining.

Even if he did have something on him, telling me would only put it in my hands. There was no benefit in that for him. But I didn't need to point it out; that would only make it seem as though I really had ulterior motives.

"If you need help, I'd be willing to help too."

As soon as I finished, Lestrade said in surprise, "You'll take the case?"

"I won't help Mr. Holmes, but I can help you."

Lestrade frowned and asked, "Is there a difference? Either way, wouldn't I suddenly have to solve that baffling lost-property case? I really don't know what Sherlock is thinking right now. We just solved the Workhouse Explosion Case, and there are still piles of verification reports to write. Where would I find the time to work on a case from six months ago?"

We were talking as we walked farther into the police station, and our voices naturally grew quieter.

Another detective with high cheekbones and a straight nose was walking toward us. He might have lived in Wales before, and he was taller and more muscular than the other detectives. His whole face was stern and cold, and as we passed each other, he made no attempt to move aside and bumped me with his shoulder.

"Qiaosen, what the hell are you doing?" Lestrade heard the sound of us colliding and raised a hand, standing up for me.

The detective called Qiaosen gave no reaction. He looked back at us without saying a word.

A police officer nearby offered an explanation for him. "Detective Qiaosen must have seen that Detective Lestrade was about to get the credit and felt resentful."

Lestrade turned to me, the victim, and said, "Sorry you got caught up in this."

What was the big deal?

I shook my head.

Most importantly, the man had been walking toward me.

The parts of the body farthest from the brain were often the least able to conceal their owner's thoughts.

I didn't remember ever offending this stranger of a detective.

It was just a minor incident.

Lestrade told me they were going to give all three criminals a polygraph test.

Once we entered the station, Lestrade did his best to avoid mentioning Sherlock by name.

It seemed the people at this station had a fairly negative view of him. Even Lestrade didn't want to challenge all his colleagues for Sherlock's sake.

"Their methods, their targets, the evidence of their crimes, and so on—it won't be easy to get it all out of them at once. We've got five years' worth of cases piled up."

"And they won't tell the truth either."

"And they won't tell the truth either."

Lestrade and I spoke at the same time.

Lestrade looked surprised for a moment. "How did you know what I was going to say?"

Uh... no... I was just stating an objective fact.

First, the more charges there were, the worse it would be for them.

Second, if they didn't cooperate, the police would need to spend more time and effort investigating, and the time when they would be convicted and sent to prison would be pushed back accordingly.

All in all, telling the truth wouldn't do them much good.

Unless they were already tired of being free on the outside and wanted to experience life in prison.

Investigating by starting with them wouldn't be that easy.

Seeing that Lestrade was still hung up on something meaningless, I said, "Mr. Holmes said it."

Compared with me, an unknown international student, Sherlock's words carried more authority.

Sure enough, Lestrade lifted his head in sudden understanding.

"Did he say how to solve it, then?"

I thought for a moment. "Approach it from a different angle. Didn't Mr. Holmes ask you to investigate the lost-property case?"

"What's the connection between the two?" Lestrade couldn't figure it out.

"You can't conclude outright that the two things have nothing to do with each other, either. Have you heard of Chaos Theory?"

Lestrade fell silent. After a pause, he said, "So, in any case, it means I should look for Rhodes, right?"

Seeing him dodge the question of what Chaos Theory was, I really wanted to explain it to him. But I held back.

"What connection is there between him and the case?"

"You can ask the three of them."

I saw that Lestrade had already started looking for the case involving Rhodes. As he searched, he said, "Could they have robbed him? Although the necklace was made of precious metal, it wasn't actually worth all that much. It would have sold for a little over three hundred pounds at most. Should I ask them whether they robbed Rhodes of his necklace?"

"You can't ask them that."

"Then how do I ask?" Inspector Lestrade replied. "Isn't that how you ask?"

Lestrade didn't seem particularly good at interrogation.

I thought for a moment, then said, "If you do that, you'll be leading them to say what you want to hear. The less information you give them, the less they'll know how to answer 'correctly.'"

Lestrade looked over, seemingly waiting for me to say more.

"For example, take Rhodes's file, about fifty pages or so. It doesn't matter if they're all blank sheets. Just put it somewhere they can see it. Don't ask them about Rhodes yet; ask about the details of the Workhouse crime scene instead. Only at the end do you ask if they remember the young man at the London bar six months ago."

"Then what?" Lestrade asked in puzzlement. "They probably don't remember him. Otherwise, given how they operate, they'd have silenced him long ago. They wouldn't have left Rhodes alive until now."

"Let's not jump to that conclusion. Maybe you'll get a very interesting answer."

As soon as I finished, Lestrade asked curiously, "Lanny, have you ever done criminal investigation work before? You seem very familiar with this sort of thing. Back at the Workhouse, you weren't afraid of the bones, and you even said things a forensic examiner would say. You know a lot."

When he put it that way, I realized I'd never paid attention to those things before.

"My mother's a forensic examiner, and my father's a police officer. I picked things up from hearing about them so often."

"Then they must be very skilled professionals."

I was stunned for a moment, then smiled.

Lestrade did the same thing with each of the three men in turn, following my instructions. Yet not only did all three admit they had done it, they also provided more details about their cases to prove that they were utterly ruthless and had every motive to murder Rhodes six months ago.

As for the necklace, they each had their own story, but most said they had sold it on the black market and that it was gone even if we wanted to look for it now.

After leaving the interrogation room, Lestrade could hardly believe that Rhodes's seemingly unrelated lost-property case had instead forced the truth out of them, even proving that they were connected to his case.

"I didn't expect to get so much information," Lestrade said, looking at me in surprise. "It seems Rhodes really is the key now. I'll have to go meet him in person. Thank you so much for all your advice."

I smiled and said that I'd already told him I would help him, hadn't I? Besides, he didn't have to follow Mr. Holmes's instructions specifically; he could handle it himself.

"Thank you so much, Lanny."

Lestrade was in a hurry to leave the station.

I strolled out of Scotland Yard, considering how to deal with the start of term once the case was over.

I only had two weeks before classes started.

I was still thinking about it when I caught sight of a black car out of the corner of my eye, keeping pace with me. The moment I stopped, a man in black got out of the front seat. Before I could react, a pair of strong hands dragged me into the car.

I lost my balance and crashed headfirst into Mycroft Holmes, who wore the hint of a smile.

"We meet again, Mr. Lanny."

"..."

Oh no.