551
Leonard sat in a corner of the lounge, scribbling in the notebook in his hands.
He had already memorized Sherlock Moriarty's facial features so thoroughly that, as with Ince Zangwill, he could sketch a rough portrait with his eyes closed. Yet he still could not recall the source of that familiarity.
"When was it? Who was it?"
Leonard quickly sketched a Sherlock, stared at his beard for a while, then inexplicably rubbed at it with the eraser on the end of his pencil.
But a few strokes turned the beard into a black smudge. Leonard froze, suddenly realized something, and immediately drew another portrait beside it.
This one had no beard.
A seasoned detective's first impression was often one of experience. That experience suggested not only qualifications and history, but also subconsciously led people to place his age above thirty or even forty. Without his beard, however, Sherlock Moriarty suddenly looked very young.
Sherlock Moriarty might not actually be that old!
Leonard's pupils contracted slightly. His pencil paused in midair as he began looking for other things obscuring the face. Soon, beside the beardless Sherlock, he drew another Sherlock with his glasses removed.
Leonard frowned as he carefully studied the three little portraits. Suddenly, his eyes widened.
He abruptly stood and dashed out of the lounge, sprinting all the way to his little workroom in the church.
Leonard rushed toward the corkboard where he pinned photographs of suspicious individuals, took down Sherlock Moriarty's photograph, and placed it on the desk. He also opened his notebook of sketches beside it.
Finally, trembling slightly, he bent down, took a book from a drawer, and extracted a perfectly flat photograph without a single crease or scratch.
-it was a group photograph of Tingen's Nighthawks team.
It had been taken a month after