Too Much Information

In the attic, Sitangna opened her eyes only after she heard Sherlock go downstairs.

She had actually begun to wake when the car stopped, but Sherlock had picked her up so quickly that she was too embarrassed to wake up in his arms. To spare them both the awkwardness, she simply kept pretending to sleep.

The last time he had carried her in a princess carry, she had still been reeling from the explosion and hadn't felt anything. This time, though, perhaps because she had closed her eyes and lulled herself into pretending to sleep, her senses were unusually sharp in the darkness.

Sherlock looked lean, but his upper arms and chest muscles were quite full. Sitangna rested her head against his chest and felt how soft his relaxed pecs were. So chest muscles are soft! The corners of her mouth curved upward.

Thump-thump, thump-thump.

The muffled sound of his heartbeat echoed in her ears even after she had left Sherlock's arms, gradually fading as the familiar scent of fir at her nose dissipated.

Only after the creak of a closing door came from Sherlock's room and Sitangna was sure there was no one left in the living room did she carefully climb downstairs. She took the still-warm afternoon meal out of the microwave and rustled her way back upstairs.

Only when the entire apartment fell silent did Sherlock withdraw his covert gaze and shut the door properly. He knew it-she had been pretending to sleep.

"Miss, I've already informed your father. He'll be here shortly." In the hospital room, the butler set a fruit platter the maid had just prepared in front of her.

"It's all right. Father can finish what he's doing before he comes to see me." Emily speared a piece of apple with a silver fork, lowering her long, thick lashes to hide the unease in her eyes.

Footsteps grew louder and more numerous in the hallway, and she quickly put her other thoughts aside.

"Emily! My darling, are you feeling unwell anywhere? Did that bastard hurt you?" Mr. Cavendish rushed to the hospital room at once, escorted by his bodyguards.

Now that the kidnapper had been caught, he could be interrogated at any time. Mr. Cavendish was more concerned about his precious daughter.

"I'm all right, Dad. Sherlock and the others found me in time." Emily's father pulled her into a tight embrace, and the joy of being reunited brought tears to both their eyes.

"I swear, I'll never put anything that dangerous on you again." The memory still frightened Oliver Cavendish. He turned and buried his face in the old butler's shoulder, sobbing.

After years of navigating the ups and downs of officialdom, he had entrusted that deadly piece of intelligence to his daughter precisely for safety's sake. He had never expected someone involved to have slipped through the net.

"I already had people investigate Victor thoroughly. By rights, such a major oversight shouldn't have been left unresolved. It seems someone among my subordinates hasn't been doing their job properly."

"Don't worry. The Cavendish family doesn't keep dead weight around." Oliver stroked his daughter's head affectionately, but the cold, bloody look in his eyes sent a chill through Emily when she happened to glimpse it.

"Sir, the kidnapper Victor shot himself at the police station just now. But we caught one of his accomplices. He's tight-lipped and refuses to say anything. We need your instructions." The head of the investigative team had called.

"Hmph, he got off easy. As for the one who won't talk, try everything on him first. I'll be right there."

Oliver hung up and turned to tell his daughter affectionately to get some rest.

"The criminal killed himself out of fear of punishment, Emily. I promise I'll make things right for you."

"He killed himself? What a shame. I wanted to teach him a proper lesson myself." A vicious look flashed across Emily's face, and anger seemed to blaze in her eyes.

"Let's leave him alone for now. Once we're home, give me back the USB drive. It's far too dangerous to keep it on you."

Oliver spent a long time comforting his daughter, then stationed his trusted guards outside her room before finally sweeping out.

"Grandpa Butler, I need some electrolyte water. Could you pour me a glass?" Emily touched her throat. She was a little thirsty.

"Of course. You still want it chilled, don't you?" Hearing the young miss call him Grandpa again, the butler looked at her with even more affection than Mr. Cavendish had shown. He turned to get water from the refrigerator in the suite.

[T: Thank you.]

Emily let out a long breath. Seeing the butler return, she slipped her phone back under her pillow without betraying a thing. "Thank goodness for you, Grandpa Butler. I nearly died of thirst."

"Don't say that! No talk of dying. You must live happily for a long, long time, miss-until these old bones of mine can't carry me anymore..."

"Hmph. Where's his body?"

Oliver stormed into the investigative team's office, and Ian, the team leader, hurriedly rose to give him the seat at the main desk.

"It's in the morgue downstairs, Boss. Would you like to see it?" Ian gave a military salute to his immediate superior, who was following behind the boss.

"No need. Just handle it properly. Take me to the one who's still alive."

Oliver picked up Ian's unfinished case report and skimmed it. Once he was sure the man hadn't written anything he shouldn't have, he led the whole group to the interrogation room.

Before leaving, he also told Ian to inform every officer who had taken part in the rescue that their bonuses would be doubled that month.

"Thank you! Thank you, Boss! We'll work even harder!" Ian sprang happily from his seat and shared the good news with the team members still busy in the room. The office erupted in cheers.

Amid the laughter, Ian inconspicuously glanced at the hem of a garment just disappearing past the blinds and breathed a sigh of relief.

Going back to after Emily got into the car, Ian, as the leader and spokesman of the operation team, had stayed by her side.

"Has Scotland Yard been holding any death-row prisoners guilty of particularly heinous crimes lately?" Emily had finally gotten her phone back and was answering a flood of messages as she asked.

"Let me see." Ian opened his laptop and checked the recent prisoner intake records.

"Yes. The East District Prison is clearing space, so it transferred a batch of death-row prisoners to the underground cells at the police station for temporary holding." Ian didn't know why the young miss was asking, but he believed in doing more and asking less.

"When we get to the station, find a chance to send him out. Find a death-row prisoner with a similar build to take his place, and make sure the substitute keeps quiet." That would keep him from saying anything he shouldn't.

"Him?" Ian knew who the young miss meant, but he couldn't quite understand.

"Well... Miss, your father will be here soon. We probably won't have time to arrange it. Besides, why would you help the kidnapper who hurt you?"

As he spoke, Ian quietly reached behind him, where his equipment had a built-in recording device.

"I advise you to get on the same side as me, Ian." Emily looked at him solemnly.

"He told me a lot of scandals and secrets about the Cavendish family. Even if you didn't hear them from outside the door, knowing my father's character, if he finds out you were there at the time..."

"Do you think he'll let a whole bunch of potential threats live?" Emily hadn't gotten this far in life by being naive. Ever since she had been old enough to understand, she had known her family wasn't clean, especially her father, who led the charge.

After so many years at her father's side, she had come to understand his methods.

"I... We're all Mr. Cavendish's most... most loyal subordinates. He probably wouldn't make things difficult for us over something he can't verify."

Ian sounded less certain the more he spoke. His team weren't police employees in the strict sense, but specialized personnel maintained by the Cavendish family-the kind who had signed themselves over.

"You can try your luck." In Ian's eyes, Emily's beautiful face became that of Medusa, flicking her snakelike tongue. He didn't even dare look her in the eye.

"If you want to live, do as I say and get in the same boat as me. Then you and your team will still have a slim chance of survival."

As Mr. Oliver's only daughter, Emily was also, in a sense, his employer, his boss. So obeying her didn't mean he was betraying anyone.

"..."

"Anjieka, go to the cells now and get a tall, thin death-row prisoner. Somewhere around thirty or forty will do. We'll be back at the station in an hour, and I need to see his body."

"Our team's survival is at stake. You must do it in secret."

On the other end of the line, Anjieka had been puzzled by the strange task her boss had suddenly assigned her, but her face went pale when she heard his earnest warning.

Working in this field, she knew what his words meant. Their team had probably been unlucky enough to uncover one of the boss's secrets during a job.

"I'll get it done." Anjieka used the code her boss had given her to open the safe, took his access card, and headed for the underground cells.

"Grandpa Butler, it's me, Emily! I've come back safe and sound. I'm all right, and the ambulance will be at the hospital soon. Is Father with you now?"

The butler knew exactly what Emily was thinking. She probably wanted to see her father as soon as possible. Poor young miss, she must have been terrified.

He then succeeded in persuading her father to come and comfort her at once. Hearing Emily happily call him Grandpa Butler, his heart melted.

"He claims he's just a mercenary, an international mercenary from America. The kidnapper Victor offered him ten thousand dollars a day and didn't ask him to do much, just follow him around and take care of odd jobs."

"Victor still directed and carried out the whole plan, but he didn't make the two explosive devices."

"In fact, they were the same type as the bombs used in several recent kidnapping and bombing cases."

The interrogator handed Oliver the results they had just obtained. Oliver frowned, glanced impatiently over them, and tossed them back to the staff member.

The matter had now produced an outcome favorable to him, and the ringleader was gone. As long as that troublesome great detective Sherlock didn't dig deeper, everything would be fine. If he had known, he wouldn't have troubled Mycroft and ended up owing him a huge favor.

"Since the criminal is dead and the victim has been rescued safely, let's close the case here. Classify it as an ordinary kidnapping for ransom."

"There's no need to waste too many public resources on it. Other cases need you too. As for sentencing the accomplice, use your own judgment."

The foreign mercenary was another headache, but Oliver had more important things to do. After instructing the investigative team to close the case, he left again for an unknown destination.

Watching the big boss come and go like the wind, Ian felt the sword hanging over his head lower for the time being.

He had been terrified that the boss would go and see Victor's body, notice something amiss, and wipe out their whole group. God bless.

"What? Victor killed himself?"

That evening, Sitangna and Watson brought dinner to the table, and Sherlock, who had just finished a call with Inspector Lestrade, told them the news.

The three of them had slept their fill all afternoon. When they woke, there was the sweet cheese pie Mrs. Hudson had brought back from her baking class. Paired with the creamy pasta Sitangna had made, dinner was taken care of.

"I just feel like it's not that simple." Sitangna recalled what Emily had said to her. What was it that felt off?

"Judging by what happened when we cracked the bomb's key, he wasn't the one who installed the device, and he didn't know it could be disarmed with just one tune."

Sherlock was well versed in psychology. Unless the man was a world-class actor, there couldn't have been anything wrong with his observations.

"Oh, I didn't pay any attention to Victor at the time. Nana played the pipe organ so beautifully that I felt a sacred sensation, like I was ascending to heaven on the spot."

Watson ate his creamy pasta in large mouthfuls. This kind of food was more to his taste.

"It wasn't that amazing." Sitangna's face flushed. "I was performing beyond my usual level. My piano skills are actually only around grade six or seven."

"Really? To me, you sounded about as good as those people at the Golden Vienna." Watson had once been there on a date.

"You're too kind, too kind. It was all thanks to the pipe organ!" Sitangna laughed it off and glossed over the matter. If they kept talking, she would give herself away.

"Christmas is almost here, children. What presents would you like?" Mrs. Hudson opened her deliveries one by one. Inside were the Christmas decorations she had ordered in advance.

"I'll love anything you give me, Auntie." Sitangna sat on the carpet, opening packages with her.

"My little sweetheart, I'll make sure to get you a one-of-a-kind present!" Mrs. Hudson affectionately pressed her cheek against Nana's, and both of them were full of anticipation.

"As for me, I'll take anything except a photo of Sherlock," Watson said as he cleared the table. That lazy dog Sherlock had sprawled on the sofa again and couldn't be persuaded to move.

"Who would give you something like that?" Sitangna burst out laughing, making Sherlock lift his head.

"It's decided. This Christmas, I'll give each of you a signed photo of myself." As soon as Sherlock said it, he started searching for nearby print shops.

"Please don't. I don't want one." "No! That's too scary!"

"I'll put mine on our apartment door for people to admire," Mrs. Hudson joined in.

Sherlock lay back down. "Tch. You're all so childish."

Knock, knock.

Someone knocked on the apartment door. Watson was washing the dishes, and the two ladies were opening packages, so Mrs. Hudson ordered the only person in 221B with nothing to do to answer it.

Sherlock reluctantly got up and opened the door, only to shut it again the instant he saw who it was. Fortunately, Mycroft's umbrella moved faster and wedged itself in the gap.

"That's really very rude of you, dear brother."

Ignoring his younger brother's eye roll, Mycroft opened the door and came in, greeting everyone in the living room in turn like a gentleman.