Misdirection

At that, she promptly forgot her fear and perked up, chatting enthusiastically with the only other woman present about her favorite perfumes and lipsticks.

Sitangna had just finished reading the files, and before she could get her bearings, she was swept up in the conversation. It wasn't until they finished talking, went outside together, and got into the car that she came back to her senses.

"Mamma mia, the way you women talk is terrifying. You went on and on, bursting with energy. I almost thought I'd just attended a beauty forum."

Watson had barely said a word the whole time. Sherlock had been deep in thought, while the two women had been engrossed in a subject Watson knew nothing about. With nothing else to do, he had read the documents and files over and over, even examining Emily's office from top to bottom twice.

"Haha, once you fall in love and marry someone you love, you'll understand the feeling: sharing interests and enjoying yourselves."

Sitangna was still immersed in their conversation and wished it could have gone on longer. Miss Emily was a wonderful woman who knew how to enjoy herself and loved sharing with others. Sitangna was holding the perfume Emily had just given her. It had only arrived that day, and Emily hadn't even used it herself before giving it to Sitangna.

As Sitangna pondered what gift to give Emily in return, Sherlock's calm expression finally shifted a little.

"There are many chemical reagents with a fishy smell, but only a few whose primary effects could be used in a kidnapping. Those are difficult to prepare and extract. It seems this kidnapper is not only accomplished with high-tech devices, but also exceptionally skilled in chemistry," Sherlock murmured.

"All right, stop praising him for now. Our main priority is getting to Emily's home before dark and finding everything out of the ordinary. We don't have much time left."

Watson looked with some concern at the darkening sky. For some reason, he couldn't shake the feeling that a storm was brewing.

Not long after he spoke, raindrops began pattering against the car windows. Britain's weather was always this changeable, and it was truly unpleasant.

Fortunately, the driver pulled straight into the garage, sparing them from getting out in the rain. Once Emily opened the front door with her fingerprint, Sherlock and the others hurried to search the villa for anything unusual.

Watson and the butler searched the first floor, while Sherlock and Sitangna headed straight upstairs and into the bedroom.

"Have you used this scented candle, Emily? The wax layer looks strange to me."

Sitangna also had a scented candle from a good friend by her bed, which she treasured. She had since collected quite a few exquisitely crafted handmade scented candles, so she knew a fair bit about them.

But the top layer of wax on this one looked as though it had been melted and solidified again, and its color was slightly different from the wax beneath it.

"No, I bought it as a decoration and left it here. Let me see."

Emily hurriedly took the candle from the bedside table. Her brow furrowed slightly; she had clearly spotted the anomaly Sitangna had mentioned. She fetched the candle from the bedside table on the other side and set the two identical scented candles side by side in front of the light.

Now Sitangna could see it clearly too. The wick of the suspicious candle was about three millimeters shorter than the untouched one.

"Could the wicks have been slightly different when they left the factory? Let's not scare ourselves just yet. We'll take these to the lab for testing overnight."

Sitangna steadied Emily's trembling body and comforted her. She looked worriedly at the woman, who was only five years older than she was. Emily's deathly pale face made her heart ache.

Anyone would be terrified to find signs that a stranger had been at their bedroom nightstand. How had he managed it? Everyone present was curious.

"I haven't found anything unusual with the makeup or skincare products for now. The smell may have just been left over from the kidnapper's activities, but I suggest you avoid using the products on the table for the time being."

Sherlock had found nothing unusual. He took off his medical protective gloves and went downstairs to join Watson, but neither of them had found anything.

In the end, they took only the two suspicious candles and stayed the night. Emily had originally wanted to station more guards, but she was still afraid, and she couldn't very well have the guards sleep on her bedroom floor.

She went on about it until Sitangna was about to leave. Seeing Emily gazing at her so pitifully, Sitangna softened at the sight of those watery eyes.

And so she ended up staying. She slept with Emily, while Sherlock shared a guest room on the second floor with Watson.

"That works out perfectly. Protecting the hostage is part of the investigation too."

Emily happily hugged Sitangna, who had finished washing up. The two sat embracing on the couch in the bedroom suite's little sitting room, watching television. Sitangna was actually slow to warm up to people and rarely grew close to someone she barely knew so quickly.

But as she looked at Emily, several figures gradually surfaced in her mind. She wondered whether those people were doing well now, and what had happened to her family after they received the terrible news.

She didn't dare think about it.

In all the time she had been here, she had deliberately kept herself from thinking about those things, forcing herself to enter and take part in the story quickly, because once she started thinking about them, she couldn't stop.

It's all right. It doesn't matter if I go back a little later. As long as I'm alive, I'll have a chance to return.

Her only wish for completing the mission was to bring herself back to life and return to her original world. She hoped everything would go smoothly from here on and that she really could get what she wanted.

Sitangna wiped the moisture from the corners of her eyes and rested her head on Emily's shoulder. The warmth against her made her keenly aware that she was still alive.

"The kidnapper's deadline is tomorrow, but I have a social gathering at the opera house during the day. With so many people around and tight security, he probably won't make a move."

Emily gently stroked Sitangna's head, thinking she was worried about her.

"If he really wants to get what he's after, he won't do anything foolish." Sherlock looked away and turned his attention back to the various news items on his phone.

How strange. Why have I been looking at Sitangna without realizing it so often lately? Could it be a lingering effect of that day?

It must be an emotional misjudgment caused by the suspension bridge effect.

"I think so too. Emily, come straight back after the gathering tomorrow. We'll set out ahead of time when it ends and escort you all the way home."

Watson had just gone out to hand the suspicious items over to the staff at the official testing station. As a fellow worker, he felt a little bad about making them work overtime so late.

"You handed everything over, right? Hopefully they can test them quickly." Sherlock let out a long breath and relaxed, resting his head against the back of the armchair.

"Yeah. The man said we'd have the test results by tomorrow morning at the latest." Watson took four glasses of hot milk from the butler. Miss Emily had a habit of drinking milk before bed, and the butler had taken it upon himself to prepare some for the guests too.

"Oh, this taste takes me back to when I was little. My mother used to make me drink a glass before bed to help me sleep, but every time, I'd wake up in the middle of the night needing to pee."

"Once, I even dreamed I was using the toilet, and then I realized I'd woken up while I was still going. Do you know how terrifying that is? I never drank milk before bed again after that."

Watson joked with everyone about the embarrassing incident from his childhood. As expected, Sherlock mocked him for it, and the two traded verbal blows back and forth, leaving Emily dumbfounded.

"Are they like this at home too?"

Sitangna said nothing and gave Emily a world-weary smile. Emily understood at once and crossed herself in a show of respect. The two burst out laughing.

"Oh! Arguing with you almost made me forget. The staff member I handed the items to knows you. He said he was your university classmate. What was his name? Vic... Vick-something... Oh, my memory."

"Victor?"

"Yes, yes! I think that was it." Watson was the last to finish his milk, and the butler came in and collected the empty glasses.

"I think we were classmates, but I don't know him well," Sherlock replied coldly.

"That's hilarious. How many people do you know well?" Watson had finally found a chance to strike back hard.

"Heh."

"If Sherlock can remember his name, this classmate must be remarkable in some way." Grinning, Sitangna told Emily the amusing story of how Sherlock had been ostracized and mocked for being unable to remember the detectives' names at the police station.

Sherlock loftily declared that he didn't care at all.

"We only saw each other a few times in the same classroom at university. Wow, he's a criminal profiler at a district police station now. Very nice."

Sherlock had already retrieved the information he wanted from the vast internet.

"A criminal profiler? Then why is he working at the testing station too?" Watson asked in puzzlement.

"Maybe he has several jobs because he wants to earn more," Sitangna suggested.

"Or maybe he just likes working at the testing station," Emily said, finding that possibility reasonable too.

Ding-a-ling.

The butler came over, ringing a small bell. He told Miss Emily to go to bed immediately: she had to get up at seven the next morning to have her hair and makeup done, and she couldn't be late. Emily reluctantly ended the conversation, and everyone returned to their rooms.

As for why Emily was so obedient, she explained to Sitangna from beneath the covers that the butler, Howard, had watched her grow up and had been by her side for more than twenty years. He was not only the villa's butler, but also almost an elder to her.

"That night, I was curled up under the covers like this, too scared to show my face and trembling the whole time. Howard sat on the floor with his back against the bed and stayed with me all night. His eyes were red from staying awake..."

In their whispered conversation, Sitangna shared some warm memories of her own. The two girls gradually fell asleep, and it was broad daylight the next morning by the time Sitangna slowly woke.

Huh? Why didn't anyone wake me?

The other side of the bed had gone completely cold. It seemed Emily had been up for a long time and had probably already arrived at the opera house to watch the performance.

When Sitangna was fully awake, she sprang out of bed and ran straight to Sherlock's room without even stopping to put on a coat.

"Sherlock! Sherlock, are you awake? Wake up! It's an emergency!"

The door opened after she had knocked for only a short while. Fortunately, Sherlock was awake. Sitangna quickly grabbed him and led him to Emily's bedroom.

"Come and smell this. The fishy smell Emily mentioned is back!"

After bringing him there, Sitangna went to knock on Watson's door and told him to be on alert immediately. Something unusual had happened right under everyone's noses, putting her on high alert.

By the time she and Watson reached the bedroom, Sherlock already knew what the chemical reagent was.

"A phenethylamine derivative, a trace hallucinogen."

Sherlock waved a hand, stirring the air in front of his nose, and fixed his gaze on a bottle of perfume.

"It seems the kidnapper didn't put the hallucinogen in the makeup or skincare products. He added it to Emily's favorite perfume instead."

Emily's makeup that morning had been done by a specially hired makeup artist, who hadn't used any of the products on her table. But the perfumes specially blended by a master perfumer were her favorites, and their oversight the day before had kept them from considering that possibility.

"At first, the hallucinogen mixed into the perfume wouldn't have a smell. It would only become noticeable once the fragrance weakened." Sherlock pulled the spray nozzles off the bottles one by one and finally found a pinhole at the opening of a pink perfume bottle. It was so tiny that he had almost missed it.

No wonder Emily had only smelled it after the officers finished their search and hadn't reported anything unusual in time.

"It seems the scented candle was just a distraction, meant to make us think we'd found a trace and let our guard down."

Sitangna's expression darkened. Although Sherlock said the concentration of the hallucinogen was very low, none of them knew how many times Emily had sprayed it over the past two days. If it hadn't cleared from her system and actually took effect, they'd be in trouble.

"Then let's go to the opera house now." Watson hurriedly called the driver to get ready to leave. Fortunately, Emily had left them a car.

"Mycroft, what's the situation over there? Is anyone acting suspiciously?" Sherlock had made the rare move of calling his older brother.

"No unusual activity for now. I have an important meeting to attend today. Her father made all the security arrangements there himself."

Mycroft glanced at the ticking hands of his watch, then hung up and returned his gaze to the woman in front of him.

"If you genuinely want Britain's protection, hand over all the intelligence now. I imagine American agents won't be as easy to deal with as we are."

Mycroft rubbed the uneven engraved pattern on his umbrella handle. "Time waits for no one. We'll meet again in three days, if there's still a chance."

"Ms. Irene."

Irene Adler was the only character, whether in the original work or the BBC series, to whom Sherlock Holmes had publicly admitted defeat.

"I can give it to you. I have only one condition."

Just as Mycroft's figure was about to disappear through the doorway, she spoke. The ember at her fingertips flickered, smoke curling around her and setting off her sharp features, making her impossibly sexy.

"Let me meet him."

It wasn't that she lacked the ability to meet someone. It was that the crafty Mycroft had planted too many bodyguards around Sherlock, and she needed to stay hidden right now, so she couldn't draw too much attention.

So, unless that man came looking for her himself... But as things stood, he would have plenty to keep him busy for some time.

"When he has time." Mycroft agreed. The intelligence Irene held concerned national security, so he couldn't afford to be careless.