Chapter 44

"Mmmph mmph mmph mmph mmph."

I couldn't really go see Professor Moriarty myself.

Perhaps it was because of the way I'd been raised, or perhaps I simply had a hard-to-change habit of trying to please others, but I wanted people to see me as a sensible, well-behaved child. So, when I encountered someone who needed help, I ought to help them if I could; if someone was sick, I needed to show sympathy and concern.

Those little habits had gradually become ingrained patterns of thought and behavior.

Sometimes I wondered whether I cared about others out of unconscious habit or because I genuinely wanted to deep down.

"Hopefully he'll gradually get better."

That was all I could say.

Just then, the line ahead began to move again.

I moved forward with it and was about to say goodbye to Albert, but he fell into step beside me and asked, "Lanny, are you going to visit him?"

"I wouldn't be much help if I went," I said regretfully.

It wasn't as though I was a doctor...

The moment that thought flashed through my mind, I suddenly realized something.

I might not be a doctor, but someone else was—a professional doctor.

This was Watson's chance to raise his favorability with the big villain boss.

I'd read in the manga that Professor Moriarty hadn't yet fully built up his reputation and influence at this point. He was physically weak and mentally exhausted right now, so if Watson cured him, perhaps Professor Moriarty would be a little more courteous to Watson when he and Sherlock fell out in the future, and wouldn't make him suffer so much.

Come to think of it, Professor Moriarty was also the one who controlled the criminal network.

If he thought more about Watson's kindness, maybe Watson wouldn't be bullied by so many criminals like he was in the original.

Because Professor Moriarty would step in.

The more I thought about it, the more excited I became.

I had to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

I hurriedly suggested, "My roommate, Mr. Watson, is a doctor. I can ask him to go and see Professor Moriarty."

"That won't be necessary..."

Albert was about to decline my offer, but I firmly refused to let him, thinking, You're too late, as I called Watson.

Watson was out shopping with Mrs. Hudson at the time.

I could hear the noisy crowd behind him on the phone. It sounded as though they had gone to take a break in the rest area. As soon as he answered, his gentle voice came through before I could speak. "Lanny, is something wrong?"

Mr. Albert still tried to stop me, saying it was only seasickness.

But I waved his hand away and said solemnly to Watson, "Mr. Watson, could you do me a favor? I don't know if you remember Professor Moriarty, but he's been feeling unwell ever since he boarded the ship. I hear he's seasick, but he still hasn't eaten anything. Could you go and take a look at him for me? Please!"

Watson rarely heard me ask for favors, so when he heard me, he agreed almost without thinking. "Of course, if I can help. Let me tell Mrs. Hudson first."

Even if you can't help, you have to try anyway, Watson!

This is all I can do, Watson.

After asking Albert where the two could meet, I turned away from Mr. Albert and repeatedly urged Watson in a low voice, "Mr. Watson, please make sure you take good care of Professor Moriarty, all right? Try to see him through to a full recovery. Even if he says he doesn't need looking after, don't listen to him. You have to make sure he gets better."

I didn't know what I'd said wrong. In any case, Watson didn't listen very seriously to this important assignment of mine. He was smiling the whole time, and I had no idea what he was thinking.

"Mr. Watson, I'm being serious..."

How can you keep laughing for so long?

Watson's smile grew even wider. "Sorry, you were so serious that I couldn't help it." He tried several times to suppress his laughter, and finally cleared his throat and composed himself before saying, "I promise I'll carry out the assignment."

Naturally, I believed Mr. Watson. My mood immediately brightened, and I felt much happier. "Thank you, Mr. Watson."

The feeling of accomplishing something important was wonderful.

After hanging up, I told Albert that Dr. Watson was kindhearted, conscientious, responsible, and professional, and would definitely take good care of Professor Moriarty.

But after I said that, Albert looked into my eyes with a thoughtful expression.

I didn't think my little scheme should have shown. Even if it had, they didn't know I could see their future, so they couldn't guess what I was up to.

I asked in confusion, "Is something wrong?"

Albert said thoughtfully, "Mr. Lanny, with that attitude of yours, it's very easy to run people ragged."

"What attitude?" That only made me more confused.

I wasn't sure what he meant, so I thought back over everything I'd done. Only then did I realize that Albert was probably talking about my irresponsible attitude of not being willing to do something myself, but putting others to the trouble of helping.

I immediately felt guilty.

Still, I couldn't very well admit to something like that myself.

"Perhaps," Albert's voice rang out, "that's what makes you stand out."

I didn't know where his thoughts had wandered this time, and I couldn't tell whether he meant it as praise or criticism.

Albert smiled at me. "I don't dislike that about you."

Sometimes, I had to admit my listening comprehension couldn't keep up with what they were trying to say. "Sorry?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, Albert's smile froze. His gaze shifted from side to side, as though he were looking for a landmark, though he wasn't really looking. He moved his feet and said, "I have to go."

I stood there blankly for a moment, but the knowledge that Watson would soon max out Professor Moriarty's favorability quickly took over my thoughts again.

For the first time, I felt I was a little clever after all.

The abacus in my head was clattering away.

Someone stopped beside me. I turned to see Sherlock, who had left me in the line for ages. He wore a very proper, formal suit, like a white-collar elite sitting in front of a skyscraper's floor-to-ceiling windows.

My instincts told me something was wrong. Sherlock spoke first, asking, "How is it going?"

"What do you mean?"

Sherlock frowned. "I mean, how is it going standing here?"

"There are a lot of people, and I've been waiting a long time." I looked ahead. "I reckon I'll be waiting another two hours."

"Would you like to be done with it?"

Alarm bells rang at Sherlock's question, and I heard myself say, "I'm not in a hurry, actually."

No sooner had I said that than Sherlock pulled me out of the crowd. The progress I'd made waiting almost an hour vanished in an instant. The crowd quickly filled the gap. Sherlock strode ahead and said, "Lanny, do you remember what you told me on the first day?"

Even if I didn't remember, Sherlock would.

He was obviously laying a trap for me, and it didn't take long for me to find out what he was doing.

Sherlock led me to a restaurant not far from the fortune-telling parlor, where a young woman in a white dress sat in a corner. I remembered that her golden-brown hair had been pinned up when I saw her yesterday. Now it fell loose over her shoulders, making her face look younger, like any female college student you might see on campus.

—Maren Flynn.

She sat by the window, her lake-blue eyes full of unease. She gripped the arms of her chair, her carefully tended, glossy nails scraping along the grain as she tried to find somewhere to put her nervous energy.

The restaurant wasn't very busy at the moment, and the coffee machine at the nearby counter was creaking. Her eyes had followed us closely ever since we entered, while she struggled to restrain the fear in her heart.

Sherlock eagerly introduced me to her. "This is the psychic master I told you about, Lanny Hamish."

Hamish was Mr. Watson's middle name. Watson thought it was a little silly, so he didn't like using it. I really wanted to glare at Sherlock when he introduced me, but Mrs. Talbot, Maren, was looking at me curiously, so I didn't.

Maren seemed to trust Sherlock's manner completely. Perhaps while I was waiting in line, he had demonstrated his deductive reasoning to the young lady and left her thoroughly impressed. So, even though she was curious about my identity, there wasn't much doubt in her eyes.

"Hamish doesn't sound like a surname."

Hamish was the Scottish equivalent of James, and it indeed wasn't a surname.

"I never said it was a surname," Sherlock said.

I could understand. Lanny alone did sound a little insubstantial as a name, and not convincing enough.

Sherlock said to me, "She needs your help."

That simple sentence was packed with implications.

"She originally wanted to ask the fortune-teller Valentine Butler for help, but there were too many people there today, so I recommended you to her."

I'd never imagined there would come a day when I'd take over someone else's gig.

Sherlock, you—

"I'm in terrible trouble."

Maren Flynn's voice pulled me back to reality, but she stopped there.

Her brow was furrowed, and the corners of her mouth trembled slightly. As I watched her, her mouth tightened, and she raised her sharp gaze to me. "Can you really look into the past and predict the future?"

I glanced at Sherlock, who sat with his eyes lowered and his expression composed.

Actually, this was just like when people often dragged me along as a child to pretend to be a novice and help them win money gambling on board games.

All right...

I gathered my thoughts and explained to Maren Flynn, "Sorry, I don't have the abilities he mentioned. You shouldn't casually trust strangers you meet on the street. It won't do you any good."

"Lanny, please don't refuse so quickly." Sherlock raised both hands in a gesture of partial surrender. "I only thought I could introduce you to each other and earn a little commission as the middleman. It wouldn't do you any harm, either. Lanny, you don't have to be so standoffish."

The meaning behind his words was all too clear.

The room the scream had come from that morning was Maren Flynn's. She was a wealthy man's wife, but her humble family background made it difficult for her to fit in with high society. She was the sort of person who was difficult to approach and wouldn't easily trust others.

If the corpse from this morning were still around, we could have simply struck up a conversation with her and investigated the relevant clues.

Now there was no case involving her, so we really could only approach her indirectly.

"But she doesn't trust you," I said to Sherlock. "If she really needed help, I don't think this would be a suitable subject to discuss in public. Yet she's patiently stayed here without suggesting we go somewhere else. Maybe she's just humoring you."

Maren's expression changed at my words.

I bowed slightly toward Maren Flynn. "Mrs. Talbot, this is probably the only time we'll meet. We likely won't have another chance. Perhaps I can leave you with a word of advice: 'Someone is watching you.' Please be careful."

I noticed a flicker in her eyes at that, both hesitation and longing. I could almost hear her mind weighing whether to believe me.

"Also, if you choose to trust Valentine Butler, then you really are beyond help."

As soon as I said that, I noticed Sherlock raise an eyebrow slightly out of the corner of my eye, as though he were a little surprised too.

He was the one who wanted me to say it.

I suppressed the urge to complain and said calmly, "You must have seen me waiting in the crowd. I went there because I wanted to challenge that fortune-teller."

The restaurant was so close to the fortune-telling parlor that we could see the line from where we stood.

While Maren waited, she couldn't have done nothing but wait. She would also have been curious to see where the people who came were from and what they were like. So I guessed she knew I'd been in the line.

"But now that I've been interrupted, there's no need for me to go back and wait..."

"Are you saying you're better than Valentine?" Maren asked in surprise, not even noticing that her voice had grown higher. "He can read people's thoughts directly."

"And? My abilities are limited, and I can only see a few brief images, but I don't think I'm any worse than he is."

Reading someone's mind was nothing more than a technique

called cold reading: gathering information from every aspect of a person's appearance, behavior, body language, and speech, then asking open-ended questions to obtain private information and continually adjusting one's assumptions based on their responses.

I said calmly, "If you're not in a hurry, perhaps we could play a game."

There was a library nearby. She could pick a book in the library, put it back where she found it, and have me find its location. I would wait outside the library blindfolded the whole time.

Maren was happy to play, and many people even came to watch our little game because of who she was.

The game required a crowd.

The key wasn't the person who hid the book, but the reactions of the people around them. When you went in the wrong direction, many people couldn't hide their reactions. Some gloated and waited for you to make a fool of yourself, while others put themselves in your shoes and grew anxious on your behalf. Finding the book at the end was difficult too, but her perfume was very strong. After she held the book for at least ten seconds as instructed, its scent would be subtly different.

Some people couldn't smell it, while others were very sensitive.

I wasn't the only person who could do it.

Experience or training, a naturally sensitive sense of smell, or outstanding attention and observation—even nervousness could make someone notice the details around them.

With that, I successfully won Maren Flynn's trust.

We arranged to talk privately again in a private room.

Sherlock was asked to leave during this, but I cheated by putting my phone on speaker. I placed it face down beside my chair, where she couldn't see it.

Naturally, Maren Flynn wouldn't believe anyone would help her for free, so I quoted her a price. Seeing me take her money clearly reassured her, and she was more willing to trust me.

After all, when someone offered a service and quoted a price, it implied that they were a professional and worthy of trust, which could reduce suspicion. The act of paying also gave a person a greater sense of commitment. And because she had invested money, she would be more willing to cooperate actively.

"I'm in a great deal of trouble. How should I resolve it?"

That question was far too open-ended.

"If you really can tell fortunes, you should be able to see it, shouldn't you? I'm... in serious trouble."

Maren began running her fingers through her hair over and over.

I instinctively leaned back in my chair. "It has to do with your husband, doesn't it?"

Yesterday, I had noticed her husband, Mr. Talbot, at first glance.

Although he appeared old and frail to outsiders and needed his wife to support him, when he got out of the car, he didn't need to brace a hand against it or rely on anything else. Instead, he held Maren's handbag steadily in both hands, showing how loving he and his wife were. That detail contradicted the persona he presented.

Actually, if he had simply been acting like an ordinary elderly man, he could have gotten out of the car easily without extra support. But judging by how he behaved, he should at least have had problems with his balance or muscle weakness, so it seemed unusual that he could get out without bracing himself.

On top of that, just as I was about to take a closer look, Professor Moriarty called out to me and distracted me.

Maren's eyes

darkened considerably when she heard me. "What did you see?"

"I saw your husband lying on this cruise ship. How unfortunate."

"This has nothing to do with me!" Maren waved her hands, utterly terrified. "I didn't kill him."

I sighed inwardly and said, "You need to find your husband now to resolve this."

Maren's golden-brown hair fell messily over her shoulders. Her eyes were full of despair as she looked at me pleadingly. "I don't know where he is."

As soon as she finished speaking, I casually grabbed a few things and went through the motions of a ritual. "In the direction of the sunrise, where there are shadows, somewhere no one will notice, you'll find him."

Maren's eyes gradually lost focus as she listened. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she gazed into the distance, as though trying hard to remember or think of something. Her lips moved gently, but in the end she fell silent.

Had that lackluster pronouncement finally exposed me as an amateur?

I looked steadily into her eyes and said calmly, "If you still can't find him today, we can meet here at the same time tomorrow. I promise."

That final promise seemed to be just what Maren wanted. She nodded, and before she left, she looked at me and said firmly, "I didn't kill anyone. Please believe me!"

"Yes, I believe you."

Sherlock emerged from the shadow of the building and came quietly to my side. In a voice only the two of us could hear, he murmured, "She gave herself away at the very beginning."

Yes, she had given herself away as soon as she started talking.

When I said her husband was lying on the ship, her first reaction hadn't been "What happened?" or "What's wrong with him?" or "Why did I say it was unfortunate?" Perhaps he was only sunbathing?

But her first reaction was "I didn't kill him."

The truth was plain to see.

I couldn't help sighing.

Even though Sherlock hadn't said anything, my question had been based on speculation at most. Still, I really didn't know what Sherlock wanted.

I asked him, "Mr. Holmes, how long are you planning to hide her husband's body?"

The moment the words left my mouth, Sherlock clapped his large hand over it.

Mmmph mmph mmph mmph mmph.

Waaah, mmph!