The Lucky One and the Unlucky Bastard

The proceedings at the Unicorn Court today were enough to leave the ladies and gentlemen in the gallery utterly astounded.

First, a witness recanted their testimony on the spot, and then a spirit appeared as the victim to accuse the defendant of her own murder.

When the translucent, spectral form of the young girl drifted above the witness stand, even the clerk's fountain pen slipped from his hand, splattering a blot of ink across the parchment.

"Order! Order!"

The judge nearly hammered his gavel to pieces, but his shouts were drowned out by the sudden, explosive uproar from the gallery.

The commotion spread like a rising tide.

There were gasps from fainting noblewomen, the dull thud of walking sticks dropping onto the parquet floor, and, more than anything, a chorus of incredulous, sharp intakes of breath.

Lestrade's knuckles turned white as he gripped the railing.

He gazed at the ethereal figure on the witness stand; the girl's golden hair still shone like wheat waves under the sun, though it was now shrouded in a hazy, spiritual glow.

Seeing the courtroom descend into chaos, the sweat-drenched judge had no choice but to suspend the session once more.

Lestrade hurried over to the girl's spirit.

"Daphne... you..."

He had so many questions for her, the ones he had chewed over during every sleepless night.

Questions about the pain, the resentment, and the unfulfilled promises all caught in his throat, finally emerging as a trembling plea for confirmation: "Do you still remember me, Daphne?"

The girl's spirit tilted her head, a familiar gesture that drew several stifled sobs from the gallery.

"Daphne, my poor daughter."

An elderly woman with hair like frost stumbled forward and threw herself before the girl. The wrinkles carved into her face by twenty years of time seemed especially deep now; she reached out to embrace the phantom figure, only to freeze in mid-air.

She could no longer hold her daughter.

"You're Mother!"

Daphne's spirit suddenly brightened, her voice brimming with irrepressible joy.

She drifted a step closer to the old woman.

At the moment their fingers were about to touch, the old woman wept, watching helplessly as the girl passed right through her body, her face etched with confusion and helplessness.

"It's alright, Daphne."

A flash of agony crossed the old woman's face, but she quickly forced a trembling smile.

She stroked the air above her daughter's head just as she had when she was a child, her movements as gentle as touching morning dew on a rose, though there was no longer the sensation of soft hair beneath her hand: "God bless you, I am so happy to see you one more time, Mother is so happy."

The scene before them caused several sensitive noblewomen to turn away, dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs.

The girl's phantom eyelashes fluttered.

She turned to look at Lestrade, the memories swirling in her heterochromatic eyes like a school of glowing fish in the deep sea.

Finally, the girl recognized him from his familiar brow and eyes.

"Are you... Brother Gray?"

"It's Greg." Lestrade corrected her out of reflex, but the moment the words left his lips, his eyes grew moist.

Twenty years ago, when they first met, the little girl who could never remember his name had called him that, too.

He hurriedly added, his voice so soft he feared he might shatter a fragile dream: "But, you can call me Gray if you like."

Meanwhile, the atmosphere at the other end of the courtroom was tense, with Holmes engaged in a fierce debate with the judge.

"The law has never stated that a spirit cannot testify. If there is a loophole in the current law, then the law should be amended."

"But there is no precedent for this!"

"Then write it into the statutes as a precedent!"

Hearing this, the judge's white beard trembled with rage; he had no desire to debate a man who held such contempt for the law: "I am the judge of this trial!"

Having anticipated this, Holmes tapped the jury box and continued: "In that case, shall we proceed with the other individuals involved in this case?"

Seeing the other side back down, the judge snorted and sat back in his chair. He had to admit, the man had offered a sound suggestion.

The trial could not simply be abandoned halfway through, but he could not continue as things stood. Proceeding with the other defendants was a decent tactical detour.

"Fine, then let us try that Scarface."

When Scarface from Red Lion Lane was dragged up, he bared his teeth in a hideous grin: "Heh heh, this fancy courtroom is more like it—it's worthy of a gentleman like me!"

Hearing the man's shameless words, the gallery erupted instantly.

"Damn slave trader, you greedy, bone-sucking wretch!"

"You aren't fit to use the word gentleman!"

Oliver, sitting in the corner, did not join in the cursing. For some reason, the angle at which Scarface tilted his head, and that cynical, rebellious tone, made him feel as if he were seeing another familiar figure.

[Your Honor, this courtroom is too shabby; it is not worthy of a gentleman like me!]

The bluster of Smarty from the defendant's bench years ago overlapped with the scene before him in a way that was both eerie and harmonious.

"Order!" the guard shouted loudly.

Once the courtroom had quieted down again, Sir Hawkins the prosecutor stood up, unable to contain his eagerness.

This bulldog of the legal profession possessed a corpulent frame, yet his voice was unexpectedly shrill: "Your Honor, pursuant to the Vagrancy Act of 1824 and the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1837..."

As he reached the height of his excitement, his double chin trembled incessantly.

"The evidence of guilt against Scarface is as plain as a rat in an empty house; this man must be sentenced to the gallows!"

The other gentlemen of the jury nodded in unison, but Holmes alone remained seated and motionless.

"Your accusations against me are truly laughable."

Scarface let out a mocking sneer.

"I did not harm those children; on the contrary, without me, those children would have long since starved to death! They would have been mangled by machines in the factories or left to rot in the gutters!"

At this point, his voice suddenly dropped to a low rumble.

"Under my protection, those children were not bullied to death while working as child laborers. Because the scoundrels of the slums all know that those urchins are the property of Scarface, and if they let a child die or become crippled, I would take brutal revenge, ensuring they ended up dead or crippled themselves."

"That is sophistry!" the judge roared, beside himself with rage.

"Sophistry?"

Scarface's furious eyes swept across the jury box, and every gentleman he locked gazes with instinctively shrank back.

"It is the very laws you enacted that have left these children destitute. If I, a man who provides shelter for street urchins, am to be sent to the gallows, then everyone sitting on that high bench, one and all, should be pushed onto the scaffold!"

"You villain, how dare you show contempt for the court!" one of the jurors slammed his hand on the table and stood up: "I see no need to grant him any further chance to argue; sentence him to the gallows at once!"

"Hahaha! How ridiculous!"

Scarface suddenly burst into a harsh, grating laugh.

He quickly stifled his smile and cast his gaze toward Oliver in the gallery: "Even the most charitable among you who claim to aid street urchins have likely not saved as many children as I have."

He withdrew his gaze, his lips curling into a mocking arc: "And yet, you are the ones who wish to judge me now?"

Oliver instinctively tightened his grip on his hat, the soft felt deforming between his fingers.

It was him!

This man was him!

But why, what on earth had happened, and how had Smarty turned into this after being exiled?

"As for the claim that I make the urchins steal?" Scarface suddenly raised his voice, the sound echoing beneath the stone dome: "That is nothing more than me teaching them a means to survive."

"You want to ask me why?"

"Because you lucky ones were born lying in golden cradles." His voice rose sharply, vibrating until everyone's ears went numb: "While we unlucky wretches had shrouds for swaddling clothes!"

At that moment, the courtroom fell into a deathly silence.