Chapter Summaries

Zhang Heng met Irene Adler, a famous opera singer who had disguised herself as a man in the East End, and learned why she had come to visit him. She left him two tickets to her performance, while Zhang Heng recognized her as the woman who would later defeat Sherlock Holmes.

• Sherlock Holmes told Vial that he and Zhang Heng were close to solving the missing painting case, then invited Vial to lunch and arranged to meet him again that night.
• After lunch, Zhang Heng returned to Baker Street and found a beautiful woman waiting for him instead of the Gypsy busker he had expected.
• The woman explained that she was an opera company’s lead singer and had disguised herself as a man while seeking inspiration in the East End.
• She gave Zhang Heng two tickets to her performance at Queen’s Theatre, praised Mrs. Hudson’s baking, and introduced herself as Irene Adler.
• After Irene Adler left, Zhang Heng recognized her from the Sherlock Holmes stories as the woman who would outwit Holmes in the Bohemia scandal.

Holmes and Zhang Heng went to the Queen's Theatre, where Holmes watched for possible targets of Mr. M. Zhang Heng deduced that the missing oil painting was hidden inside a porcelain vase in the viscount's room, and Holmes praised his reasoning.

• Holmes canceled his meeting with Vial after gaining little useful information, and Zhang Heng said he had tickets to the Queen's Theatre.
• Holmes explained that three people on his suspect list would attend the opera, including the Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury.
• Holmes and Zhang Heng watched the audience arrive, while Holmes observed the people around the Prime Minister.
• Zhang Heng reasoned that Mr. M had made the viscount believe the painting was stolen, though it remained hidden in the room.
• Zhang Heng identified the porcelain vase as the hiding place, and Holmes praised his deduction.

At the opera Carmen, Sherlock Holmes and Zhang Heng spotted a waiter linked to Mr. M and pursued him through the theater. Zhang Heng rescued Sherlock from the attacker, who then turned toward the guards outside the prime minister’s box.

• Sherlock Holmes and Zhang Heng noticed a suspicious waiter watching the boxes and suspected he was connected to Mr. M.
• The waiter charged toward a box, and Sherlock Holmes ran upstairs while Zhang Heng went outside.
• Sherlock Holmes found a frightened family in the box and realized the attacker was still inside.
• The attacker overpowered Sherlock and choked him until Zhang Heng climbed through the window and kicked him away.
• Zhang Heng pursued the attacker, who approached the guards beside the prime minister’s box and sent two of them charging after him.

Zhang Heng escaped a theater ambush and fought his way through a Prussian barbershop, while Sherlock Holmes joined him and inferred that Mr. M led a criminal organization. Zhang Heng returned to the theater to finish the opera, leaving Holmes to handle the captured attackers.

• Zhang Heng escaped the theater guard through a window and pursued the waiter disguised man into a barbershop.
• Seven Prussian barbers and apprentices attacked Zhang Heng, who fought them until only two remained standing.
• Sherlock Holmes arrived, knocked down the last barber, and confirmed the waiter had escaped through a window.
• Sherlock Holmes concluded that Mr. M used an organized network to gather intelligence and carry out plans.
• Zhang Heng headed back to the theater to finish the opera and left Sherlock Holmes with the injured barbers.

Zhang Heng returned to Irene Adler’s successful opera premiere, then joined Sherlock Holmes in piecing together the identity of the man who attacked them. Holmes concluded that Carlson was a Prussian former soldier and compulsive gambler whose regular funds might come from Mr. M, and planned to investigate a casino next.

• Zhang Heng watched the end of Carmen and applauded the success of Irene Adler’s London premiere.
• Zhang Heng congratulated Irene backstage, and she teased him for leaving the performance midway and returning without flowers.
• Zhang Heng returned to 221B Baker Street and discussed the attack with Sherlock Holmes, who said the barbers were not part of Mr. M’s organization.
• Holmes identified the attacker as Carlson, a skilled Prussian former soldier and compulsive gambler whose pawned-and-redeemed watch suggested he received money regularly.
• Holmes suspected Mr. M was funding Carlson and proposed that he and Zhang Heng visit a casino the next day.

Zhang Heng, Vial, and Sherlock Holmes searched London’s taverns and boxing rings for the Prussian who escaped from the theater. Zhang Heng spotted a Prime Minister’s guard connected to the group’s planned target, and Holmes decided they could use that knowledge to get ahead of the plot.

• Sherlock Holmes disguised himself and assigned Zhang Heng and Vial to search together while he investigated alone.
• Zhang Heng and Vial searched taverns and boxing rings but found no sign of the Prussian.
• Zhang Heng recognized a Prime Minister’s guard from the theater and hid his face as the guard passed.
• Zhang Heng and Vial searched the café the guard had left but did not find the Prussian.
• Sherlock Holmes said they had acted wisely by not confronting the guard and that knowing the group’s target gave them the initiative.

Sherlock Holmes was arrested while watching the Prime Minister’s residence, then realized his pursuers had been monitoring the group and that they might be close to Mr. M. Zhang Heng traced the clue to the Carmen troupe, and Irene Adler revealed that its French consultant had recently come from France.

• Sherlock Holmes kept the Prime Minister uninformed and joined the Baker Street Irregulars in searching for the Prussian, but found no sign of him over two days.
• Zhang Heng bailed Sherlock Holmes out after the police arrested him outside the Prime Minister’s residence, where someone had reported him as suspicious.
• Sherlock Holmes concluded that their opponents had been watching them and had set a trap to warn him off the case.
• Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes connected Mr. M’s French background to the French opera Carmen and its London premiere.
• Zhang Heng visited Irene Adler, who identified the troupe’s French consultant as a recent arrival from France and described her dislike of him.

Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes captured Mr. M’s gang, but Holmes let Yuri return to France after extracting his promise to stay out of London. Zhang Heng gained a Criminal Investigation Skill and 15 Game Points, though the main quest remained incomplete.

• Aileen lured Yuri into a drugged dinner, and Zhang Heng and the red-haired detective stopped Yuri’s bodyguard as the disguised Sherlock Holmes drove him away.
• Sherlock Holmes exposed every member of Mr. M’s gang, while the viscount recovered his painting and Vial returned to France.
• Zhang Heng interrogated Yuri for information, and Sherlock Holmes released him after Yuri swore never to return to London.
• Zhang Heng gained a Criminal Investigation Skill and 15 Game Points, but the system did not credit him with finding Mr. M first.
• Sherlock Holmes declined to explain why he let Yuri go and played Zhang Heng a passage from Carmen that he had enjoyed.

Zhang Heng reflected on his five months in Victorian London and continued learning deduction from Holmes. While playing a deduction game with Holmes in a park, they observed strangers just before an unknown case approached them.

• Zhang Heng reviewed his progress in criminal investigation and makeup, and recalled learning from Aileen and Holmes.
• Zhang Heng wondered whether Professor Moriarty had appeared in the instance, since he could find no evidence of Moriarty’s academic identity or work.
• Zhang Heng deduced details about an aristocratic woman walking a dog, and Holmes added that her child had died young.
• Holmes described a man as a married typist and Freemason who had visited China, played football, served in the navy, and treasured his repaired pipe.

Zhang Heng learned that the Whitechapel murders had begun seven years earlier than in his memories, giving him a chance to use future theories against Sherlock Holmes. When they returned to Baker Street, they found several policemen waiting to involve Holmes in the case.

• Zhang Heng paid Sherlock Holmes the half-pound coin he had lost in their bet, and Holmes praised his progress while insisting he was still the better detective.
• Sherlock Holmes showed Zhang Heng a newspaper report about the Whitechapel murders and the killer's letter taunting Scotland Yard.
• Zhang Heng recognized the case as the future Jack the Ripper murders and realized that his knowledge of later theories might help him compete with Holmes.
• Zhang Heng noted that three murders had occurred in half a month and that the victims and timing differed from the historical case he remembered.
• Sherlock Holmes and Zhang Heng returned to 221B Baker Street, where Mrs. Hudson told them that several policemen had come to see Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes explained how the murderer’s supposed traits could be inferred from a letter’s handwriting, then agreed to help Scotland Yard investigate the Whitechapel serial murders. The chapter ended as Holmes, Zhang Heng, and the police prepared to begin work immediately.

• Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes joined the tense gathering of Scotland Yard officers and met the deputy commissioner.
• Holmes deduced the letter writer was a left-handed man aged thirty to forty with a weak, unstable character and conservative ideas, based on the handwriting.
• Holmes cautioned that the letter writer might not be the murderer and that someone could be misleading the police.
• The deputy commissioner asked Holmes to help solve the Whitechapel murders, explaining the pressure from Parliament and the Queen and the lack of leads.
• Holmes accepted the case without payment and insisted that the investigation begin at once.

Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes examined the latest Whitechapel murder victim, Bernice, and agreed to compete to find the killer first. Their separate investigations began with the evidence at the morgue, where Zhang Heng noticed clues but withheld judgment about what they meant.

• Lestrade accompanied Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes to the morgue and explained that Bernice had been killed and mutilated like the previous victims.
• Zhang Heng asked to investigate separately from Sherlock Holmes so he could test what he had learned, and Sherlock Holmes proposed a wager over who would catch the killer first.
• Lestrade described Bernice’s wounds and showed photographs from the scene, including evidence that the killer had removed part of her uterus and abdominal flesh.
• Sherlock Holmes examined Bernice’s body first with a magnifying glass, then yielded the investigation to Zhang Heng.
• Zhang Heng noticed signs of Bernice’s long-term drinking, repeated cuts to her throat, and strangulation marks that might have come from a handkerchief, but he avoided drawing an early conclusion.
• Zhang Heng observed the killer’s increasingly severe mutilation of the victims’ uteruses and considered the pattern as he continued examining Bernice.

Zhang Heng investigated Jack the Ripper’s crimes and considered how the killer’s shortening cooling-off period might mean another murder was imminent. After a day without solid leads, he returned to 221B Baker Street and prepared to investigate the crime scenes at night.

• Zhang Heng reviewed the murder pattern and concluded that Jack the Ripper’s pace was accelerating, leaving him little time to find the killer.
• Zhang Heng examined the three crime scenes and noted that the killer had chosen increasingly exposed locations.
• Zhang Heng questioned witnesses about possible clues, including whether sailors had been near the victims, but found their accounts inconsistent.
• Zhang Heng returned to 221B Baker Street and told Sherlock Holmes he had no leads, while Holmes said he was pursuing a promising clue.
• Zhang Heng armed himself with a revolver, a Kerosene Lamp, and a Small Knife, then set out to inspect the crime scenes at night and learn more about prostitutes.

Zhang Heng investigated the latest murder scene at night and encountered a young prostitute working despite the danger. He paid her to accompany him so he could ask her questions, and they set off to find food.

• Zhang Heng inspected the area around the latest murder to check its lighting and nearby homes.
• Zhang Heng warned a young prostitute that the murder site was dangerous, but she explained she needed money and had nowhere safer to work.
• Zhang Heng gave the girl a half-pound gold coin and told her he only wanted to ask a few questions.
• Zhang Heng asked the girl what he should call her as they walked to find somewhere to eat.

Zhang Heng questioned Laomi about Edna and learned that she had once had a child, helping him identify a pattern in Jack the Ripper’s victims. He began to wonder how the killer gathered private information about his targets and asked Laomi about her daily life to investigate further.

• Zhang Heng offered Laomi a cigarette and explained that he was a detective investigating Bernice’s death and the earlier murders.
• Laomi told Zhang Heng that Edna’s Indian boyfriend drank heavily and beat her.
• Laomi revealed that Edna had once had a child and sent the child back to her hometown.
• Zhang Heng realized the victims may have been selected according to specific traits and wondered how Jack the Ripper learned about their lives.
• Zhang Heng took Laomi to dinner and asked her to describe her daily routine, acquaintances, and usual places.

Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes independently traced Jack the Ripper’s murders to Sacred Heart Church, where the killer may be Father Jacob. They stood together outside the church, prepared to investigate, but had not yet confronted him.

• Zhang Heng told Holmes he had discovered how the killer chose his targets, but refused to share the clue while they were still competing.
• Zhang Heng learned from Laomi that Sacred Heart Church welcomed prostitutes and gave them shelter, leading him to suspect that a clergyman could learn their secrets through confession.
• Zhang Heng found Holmes waiting outside Sacred Heart Church, and they agreed to exchange information before entering.
• Zhang Heng explained that the cuts on the victims’ faces resembled a cross and suggested the killer had religious motives.
• Holmes revealed that the murder scenes, the church stationery, and prostitutes’ visits pointed to Sacred Heart Church, while Zhang Heng identified Father Jacob as the likely killer.

Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes investigated Father Jacob, the priest they had considered their leading suspect, but discovered that his alibis and shoulder injury made him an unlikely killer. Zhang Heng then turned his search toward East End clinics and the people who frequented them.

• Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes watched Father Jacob distribute bread and realized that Sherlock Holmes's handwriting-based deductions about the killer had been partly wrong.
• Zhang Heng questioned a homeless man, who said Father Jacob had served the church for more than thirty years and had no family in London.
• Sherlock Holmes entered the confessional and learned that Father Jacob had alibis for the first and third murders and could not have committed the crimes with his injured shoulder.
• Sherlock Holmes concluded that they still needed to find what connected the three victims, while Zhang Heng hoped they had enough time.
• Zhang Heng turned his attention to East End clinics as places the killer might have used to approach the prostitutes, then headed for the taverns they frequented.

Zhang Heng investigated Mark Cohen and searched his apartment, where he found a bloody animal organ and a notebook describing Cohen’s growing resentment toward prostitutes. After Sherlock Holmes revealed that the police had already arrested Cohen, Zhang Heng argued that Cohen was not the killer and that his confession could not be trusted.

• Zhang Heng traced the victims’ movements through prostitutes’ accounts and focused on Mark Cohen, a doctor who treated women in Whitechapel.
• Zhang Heng picked the lock to Cohen’s apartment and found blood, a bloody animal organ, and a notebook containing increasingly hostile entries about prostitutes.
• Zhang Heng hid when two police officers entered, then lowered his knife and surrendered after realizing they were there to collect evidence.
• Sherlock Holmes visited Zhang Heng in the police station and said he had arranged for the police to arrest Cohen before Zhang Heng arrived at the apartment.
• Zhang Heng told Sherlock Holmes that Cohen was the wrong man and showed him the notebook as evidence that Cohen’s confession was unreliable.

Zhang Heng challenged the police’s assumption that Mark Cohen was Jack the Ripper and suspected Father Jacob had influenced him. He hurried with Sherlock Holmes toward Sacred Heart Church, worried that a friend was in danger.

• Sherlock Holmes rejected Lestrade’s plan to celebrate Mark Cohen’s confession, pointing out that Mark’s account came from newspaper reports and the recovered uterus was from a pig.
• Zhang Heng asked to question Mark Cohen and suspected that someone had worsened Mark’s mental state while the police searched for Jack the Ripper.
• Mark Cohen admitted killing the three Whitechapel victims and claimed God had commanded him, but fell silent when Zhang Heng asked which church he attended.
• Zhang Heng concluded that Father Jacob was connected to the real murderer and rushed away with Sherlock Holmes, saying he feared for a friend’s safety.

Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes searched for the missing Irene Adler after discovering Father Jacob was also absent. Holmes realized that a hidden space beneath the church confessional might explain how Jack the Ripper learned about the prostitutes, and the two hurried to investigate.

• Zhang Heng explained that he had asked Irene Adler to investigate Whitechapel churches while disguised as a prostitute.
• Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes arrived at their meeting place hours late but found Irene missing.
• Zhang Heng and Sherlock Holmes searched Father Jacob’s empty home and found only his old dog.
• Zhang Heng reasoned that Jack the Ripper might have overheard confessions at Sacred Heart Church.
• Sherlock Holmes said he had noticed empty space beneath the confessional and suspected a hidden room there.