Chapter 49

49. "He's trying to get your attention"

Location: Liverpool, England.

It was my third day aboard the Noah.

I was bundled up like a zongzi, or perhaps a bamboo shoot.

I had spent most of the first two days indoors with the heating on. Even when I went ashore later, I had stayed inside a shop and hadn't felt particularly cold. But on the third morning, the Noah gave its passengers a full morning for a short tour of Liverpool, and Lucian and Frida invited me ashore with them. Only then did I realize just how, how cold winter really was.

First, about their invitation.

Although Lucian hadn't said so, I knew he actually just wanted to go on a date with Frida.

But since theirs was a secret, underground relationship, he needed someone to help cover for them.

And so I became the only person he chose.

Deep down, I wanted to refuse.

But out of obligation (I had accepted four first-class tickets), courtesy (Mrs. Hudson and Watson were right there), and concern about the manga (I predicted something would happen to Frida, but no new manga preview had appeared yet), I went ashore with them anyway.

As soon as I stepped off the ship, the cold wind had me shivering.

In fact, before going ashore, I had put on every piece of clothing I could—two sweaters alone. Counting my coat, I had five layers on my upper body. But perhaps because my clothes were of poor quality (being poor, I couldn't afford particularly good ones), or because I was naturally sensitive to the cold, I never felt particularly warm no matter how much I wore. So before going out, I had also put two hand warmers in my pockets.

Compared with me, wrapped up as tightly as a zongzi, Lucian and Frida were dressed much more lightly.

Frida in particular had even left a ring of snowy skin exposed around her collarbones. I couldn't help feeling as if the cold wind were blowing down my own neck.

After we disembarked, Lucian asked where I wanted to go.

I said anywhere was fine, but I wanted to buy a scarf first.

On our way back to the ship last night, Sherlock had lent me his scarf. It was my first time wearing one, and the feeling of warmth spreading all around my neck had left a very good impression on me. Afterward, I had really wanted to buy myself a cashmere scarf too.

Frida soon found an antiques and secondhand market very close to Liverpool's city center.

The whole market could be divided into three sections. The first was a food street selling all kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables and street snacks, with a few restaurants as well. The second specialized in vintage clothes and handmade trinkets; it supposedly had over 150 stalls selling all kinds of old handmade goods. The third mainly sold local handicrafts, jewelry, leather goods, and the like.

Frida had originally planned to look around with me, but I didn't want to be a third wheel, so I arranged to meet them at a little roadside restaurant. The place was called Soupman, which sounded a lot like Superman. Frida said we could have a bowl of its famous cream of spinach soup before heading back.

I thought that was a great idea.

After we parted, I made two rounds of the area without finding a scarf I liked. Eventually, I spotted a secondhand bookshop nearby, which also offered shelter from the cold wind, so I went in to browse.

In fact, the city of Liverpool

had once produced a famous statistician and geneticist, Ronald Aylmer Fisher. He had also served as head of the eugenics department at the university I now attended, University College London, and had published several books. I deliberately looked for his books and was lucky enough to find a first edition of The Design of Experiments.

I liked this book quite a lot. It contained an interesting and famous design for a randomized statistical experiment. The design was also one of the examples Fisher used when he first explained the concept of a "null hypothesis"—a hypothesis one hoped to prove false.

That was "Lady Tasting Tea."

Even now, the name of this statistical experiment could be found in encyclopedia entries.

The null hypothesis was that "the subject cannot distinguish between the methods used to prepare different cups of milk tea." The subject successfully and accurately guessed how all eight cups of tea had been prepared. The outcome was documented in detail in David Salsburg's book, The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century.

I thought The Design of Experiments was a very interesting book.

The University of London library had several copies available to borrow, but they were all recent editions. Compared with this first edition bearing the marks of history, they felt entirely different.

I took it off the shelf and examined it for quite a while, noting that the shop had only one first edition of The Design of Experiments.

Just as I was about to ask the price, I suddenly heard a voice beside me.

"Are you planning to buy that book?" the voice asked.

I looked toward the voice and saw Professor Moriarty's younger brother, Louis.

He looked very much like Professor William Moriarty. One glance was enough to tell they were brothers: both had a delicate air and attractive features, and both had a distinctive beauty that struck people on first meeting them. This was completely different from their eldest brother Albert's regular, gentle features. Unlike Professor Moriarty, however, Louis also had burn scars on his face, reportedly caused by a fire he had experienced as a child.

Leaving aside what I had seen in the manga, this was actually the third time I had formally met him.

The first time had been during the school term, when I went to Professor Moriarty's home to collect materials for a discussion class and encountered him in person. By then, I already knew what he looked like from a photograph on the desk. Later, it happened to be time for their dinner, and Louis knocked on the library door. I saw him as I was leaving, and my impression was that he was a rather serious person. Of course, that might have been because he wasn't familiar with me, so there was no need for him to act friendly.

The second time was last night, when Professor Moriarty had sent him to return my coat. Not only had it been washed with great care, it had also been specially pressed with an iron. He had introduced himself then, saying his name was Louis. He stayed in a different room from Professor Moriarty and Albert, so I hadn't run into him when I visited Professor Moriarty yesterday.

This was our third meeting, and we had exchanged no more than three sentences. Yet I had a faint feeling that he was very hostile toward me, though he kept it hidden behind polite words and proper, measured manners. I wasn't very puzzled by his reaction. After all, he and another man named Moran believed I had witnessed the entire process of them blowing up the Workhouse. It was therefore only natural for him to be wary of me.

Now, Louis looked at the book in my hands and asked bluntly, "Will this book help with Asteroid Mechanics too?"

Remembering that he also had a brother complex, I thought he was probably very concerned about his brother's research too. So, holding the book, I instinctively flipped through it.

Statistics had an extremely wide range of applications, and it was naturally useful in asteroid mechanics and astronomy too. It could be applied to things like asteroid population analysis, orbital analysis, and collision probability estimates. But at most, this book offered some inspiration for thinking about concepts. One could say it was useful, or one could say it wasn't.

Personally, I thought a book like this was still somewhat useful to a gifted researcher like Professor Moriarty, so I nodded. Just as I was about to explain its contents, Louis said without hesitation, "There's only one first edition here. Let me have it."

His words were very direct.

I was worried he was in a hurry, so I raised my concern first. "Actually, I wouldn't really recommend buying it."

Louis coolly pointed out the contradiction. "But you clearly look like you want to buy it, yet you say you don't recommend that I buy it. Your words and actions contradict each other, and your intention to stop me from buying it is far too obvious. Do you think that because I don't understand mathematical theory, I have no need to buy it?"

With a serious expression, Louis said, "You're underestimating me."

"..."

I remembered Professor Moriarty saying his younger brother was very well-mannered. How was it that he showed a completely different face to me?

I didn't want to upset Moriarty's team, so I let him have the book.

The reason I didn't recommend buying it was that this first edition hadn't been preserved well enough. The book had been published in the 1930s, and the paper used back then was more prone to becoming acidic than modern paper, which was more stable. Generally speaking, acidic paper easily became brittle and yellow, the printing on it would fade, and the acid could also damage illustrations or photographs. Overall, the book was in rather poor condition.

I thought that was why the shop had only kept this one copy.

Because this copy simply wouldn't sell.

I still wanted to buy it because I thought I could haggle over the price. I wasn't buying it to read, but as a keepsake. If they wouldn't let me bargain, I wouldn't buy it. To prevent Louis from thinking I was taking advantage of him, I spoke up again. "You should look through the book before deciding whether to buy it."

Louis glanced at me and said indifferently, "Thank you for your advice."

He hadn't listened at all.

I couldn't save someone who was pretending to be deaf.

On my way out, I happened to pass the checkout counter and heard that Louis had bought it at full price. I shook my head repeatedly to myself.

In fact, I had thought it was just my imagination that Louis was targeting me.

However, when I returned to the ship, I discovered that Louis and I had signed up for the same competition held by the cruise ship's Chess Club.

A poster for the Chess Club competition had been up since the first day of the cruise, apparently to offer the nearly two thousand passengers a richer experience aboard ship. To encourage people to participate, the club offered a grand prize of one thousand pounds, five hundred for second place, three hundred for third, and one hundred for fourth.

I happened to need money to buy warmer winter clothes, so I thought I could enter the competition and earn a little money while helping the young professor work through problems.

Not long after I signed up, I unexpectedly discovered that Louis had entered the competition too.

I couldn't help wondering what Louis was thinking.

At a time like this, shouldn't he have been taking good care of Professor Moriarty's health instead?

Lucian, who was standing beside me, had seen Louis take the book from my hands that morning. Now, seeing that Louis had signed up for the same competition as me, he said, "That's strange, isn't it?"

After he said that, I suddenly felt as if my suspicions had been confirmed.

Even Lucian thought something was wrong, so there really was something wrong with Louis.

I fell silent and carefully considered the reason behind Louis's actions.

Lucian, who had been thinking beside me for a moment, suddenly looked at me with wide, shocked eyes and said, "Lanny, I know! He must be trying to get your attention!"

At that, I was momentarily speechless. "...Just be quiet."

Generally speaking, that meant something along the lines of "Stop talking nonsense."

Sure enough, Lucian said no more.

I naturally assumed that was the end of the little farce.

However, what happened later made me understand one thing: with certain people, if you didn't promptly and properly explain what you meant, they would lead you straight into the gutter.