That Victor

No matter how Candy assessed it, the environment registered as safe, and both the protagonist and the tasker were fine. But the plot forecast showed a major turning point: a green exclamation mark was benign, while the one on her page was a huge red one.

"It's about time. Let's go."

At the word, the Baker Street detective trio headed straight for the Britain Museum, where they had arranged to meet a contact who could give them clues about the case of the children who had disappeared from the manor.

The contact hadn't specified a location, but that posed no difficulty for Sherlock. In less than ten minutes, they found a familiar figure in the enormous museum.

"Professor Ashton, are you here for a visit too?" Watson stepped forward to shake his hand. Sitangna politely greeted him, smiling as she tugged Watson's sleeve and pulled him back to her side.

Sherlock stood silently to one side, his gaze sharp as he looked at the professor.

"Victor. That Victor, right?"

By then, Sherlock had pieced all the events together in his mind. Without betraying a hint of it, he drew Sitangna and Watson behind him.

Sensing something was wrong, Nana grabbed his sleeve nervously. Watson still had no idea what was happening and poked his head out in confusion.

Sitangna: Damn system, give me back my ten points!

Watson: What's going on?

"I think my standing here has already given you the answer." Ashton turned his back on them and strolled over to a mummy display case to examine the exhibit.

As though he really had come here just to look around.

The air in this part of the Egyptian gallery was strange. Perhaps it was the effect of spices that had lingered inside a coffin for a thousand years; the mingled scent of preservatives and dust was thick enough to suffocate.

Pale overhead lights cast a cold, hard glow over Ramesses II's enormous granite sarcophagus, outlining the mysterious hieroglyphs but failing to dispel the deep shadows around it.

"Let me venture a guess. The Trevor family served not only as Cavendish's aides, but yours as well. Perhaps even the combined power of those two families falls far short of yours."

Sherlock slipped a hand into his coat pocket. Catching his meaning, Sitangna used half her body to shield his movement.

"The real Victor disappeared, so you simply replaced him with your own child. That was not only to protect him, but also because you were wary of the forces behind him."

"You hold a distinguished position in the organization, but you have no real power, and precious little say. Unfortunately, the child you spent your life protecting died at the organization's hands in the end." A rare look of pity appeared in the eyes of the great detective as he prattled on.

"Angel Dust was successfully developed a long time ago, wasn't it? Since Victor dared use it on himself, chances are he already had an antidote. But someone tampered with his equipment before he set out, replacing the antidote with a larger dose of poison."

"You thought you could eliminate one more member of the anti-corruption squad for the organization? Weaken the opposing forces? Instead, you poisoned the child you had painstakingly raised." Sherlock could already hear footsteps, faint but noisy. There were definitely no fewer than five people.

"That must be painful, Professor."

Sherlock suddenly raised his voice. The hollow echoes struck the walls and returned, and everyone realized the gallery had been cleared.

Ashton's gaze turned cold, and a meaningful smile curved his lips.

"You're so clever, so why can't you guess who Victor is? Think carefully, child." Ashton walked slowly toward him, the silver syringe visible in his right hand putting everyone on guard.

"Who else could he be? Do I know him?"

A vein stood out at Sherlock's temple. Only then did he realize that a trace amount of neurotoxin had been released into the gallery. Once anyone who had inhaled it began to think, glutamate would stimulate their neurons to fire, triggering the toxin and immediately causing hallucinations.

"John, draw your gun and stand guard." Sherlock forced himself to calm down, but the neurotoxin Ashton had developed specifically for him was hardly so easy to deal with.

"I didn't bring a gun! You didn't say to bring one!" Watson stepped in front of the swaying Sherlock, while Sitangna held him tightly to keep him from falling.

"Don't be afraid." Feeling Sitangna tremble, Sherlock took her hand.

"I'm not afraid. How are you? Are you still conscious?" Sitangna held his arm and supported him, their fingers tightly interlaced.

Ashton looked at the detective team, so full of vigor when they had entered, now staggering about. His face was full of mockery. Was this the nest of rats His Highness had ordered him to eliminate? They were pathetically weak.

"I will personally join Mr Mycroft in mourning-at your funeral, dear Sherlo-" "Load!"

Sherlock abruptly sprang up and swept toward Ashton like a black bolt of lightning. His steps were swift and precise, and the hem of his black coat skimmed the polished floor tiles, stirring a breeze that wasn't there.

Two steps behind him, John's nerves had long been stretched taut. With one hand, he raised a loaded pistol and aimed it at Ashton; with the other, he instinctively protected Sitangna beside him.

[Activate Golden Bell Shield.] Sitangna successfully used the item and stared intently at the reflections on the floor. A team of agents was approaching them. Ashton had come prepared, and these people were probably enemies rather than friends.

This was the third time Watson had assumed a defensive position since they entered the gallery. Invisible strings seemed to fill the air, stretched taut and ready to snap.

"Professor Ashton," Sherlock's voice tore through the silence. He had already stopped the white-haired man's attack with the syringe. "Let them leave. Let us leave."

His slender fingers gently pinched a scalpel that glinted coldly as he held it against Ashton's throat.

The tempered glass all around reflected the jackal-headed statue of Anubis on display in the gallery. From Ashton's perspective, the jackal's head happened to overlap Sherlock, while he himself stood in the shadow of the sarcophagus, as though he had become one with those ancient symbols of death.

"Mr Holmes," he said softly, yet his voice had the sharpness of a blade cutting across skin, "you're still so eager to... skip the foreplay."

He reached out with a white-gloved hand and gracefully opened an almost invisible hidden compartment in the base of the Anubis statue, unmoved even as the blade drew a line of blood on his neck.

Inside lay a small box covered in verdigris.

He opened it and slowly took out an object. It was not the document Sherlock had expected, but a pair of rust-spotted surgical forceps, their jaws clamped tightly around a yellowed old photograph with curled edges.

Ashton pushed the forceps and photograph into a beam of cold light falling just there.

In the photograph, two boys stood shoulder to shoulder on jagged rocks. One wore a pirate hat, with a wooden sword and knife tucked into his belt; the other wore a pirate eye patch. They laughed recklessly into the sea breeze.

One boy had wheat-gold hair, its curls glowing warmly in the sunlight. That was the real Victor Trevor, and the little boy beside him, wearing the same smile,

was Sherlock as a child.