“Do you undelstand what I am saying, yes?”
“First of all, why don’t you just stop using that weird speech style already? You aren’t fooling anyone with it.”
“… Uh, ok.”<sup>1</sup>
The man, using broken English with a thick Asian ent and animated gestures to assert that he was just your run-of-the-mill interpreter, abruptly stopped short after hearing Charlotte’s words. The icy chill in her voice made him shiver, warning him to choose his next words carefully.
“I mean…”
“I’m not joking around, what the hell are you trying to aplish?”
Charlotte muttered, the icy chill in her tone still present, while directing an intense re toward Adler.
“Your disguise skills are good enough to fool even me. Now you expect me to be fooled by this shitty disguise you’ve put up? Do you think me to be a fool?”
“Look here, Adler. Are you testing my patience?”“… N-No, I’m not.”
As she leaned forward and snapped at him aggressively, the man, sweating profusely, fidgeted with his fingers and muttered.
“I’m really not Adler…”
Immediately, Charlotte’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she scrutinized his whole body from top to bottom.
“… Or perhaps, you wish to assign me a task that can’t be entrusted to Adler?”
“Kul, kullukk…!”
As she asked with a venomous undertone in her voice, Adler, who had been gauging her expression, nodded slightly after a dry cough.
“… The sun is shining so brightly today.”
“It’s evening now.”
Adler, trying to act nonchnt as he looked outside, was promptly silenced by Watson’s correction. Before he knew it, the doctor had silently approached his side.
<em>- Swoosh…</em>
“Our client must be having trouble seeing, Holmes…”
Watson, sitting right next to Adler, crossed her legs and pulled out the pistol that was lodged in her holster.
“Maybe drilling a hole in his eye sockets would help him see better?”
<em>- Brrrr…</em>
As the loaded pistol rested against the desk, Adler, shivering, finally took notice of the elite doctor sitting beside him.
“Please, don’t do this…”
“… So, what task are you trying to assign?”
Charlotte sighed deeply at his miserable appearance. Leaking another small sigh, she opened her mouth to speak.
“Let’s hear it.”
Adler’s eyes widened, and then a bright smile tugged the corners of his lips into a joyful curl.
“So, you see, what happened in the case I was involved in…”
Soon, his head started bobbing from side to side as a vivid eyewitness ount started spilling forth from his lips.
“… Keep your head still.”
However, before his story could even begin, Charlotte’s sharp advice flew right at him, making him freeze.
“That’s the professor’s habit, isn’t it?”
“Have you ended up just like her?”
“No, no! It’s not like that…!”
Adler, momentarily frozen still, quickly shook his head and stammered out an excuse.
“It’s just because I’m happy…”
Trailing off, he started scratching his head in awkward motions.
“Please pretend you didn’t hear thatst part.”
“… Shall I start exining again?”
Between the dark res of Charlotte and Watson, Adler, feeling the chilling atmosphere intensify several times over, began his testimony with a trembling note to his voice. R??
.
.
.
.
.
“… So far, that’s what I’ve experienced.”
“Hmm.”
“How does it feel? Roughly, what do you think…”
After a long talk about his experiences, Adler finished speaking and cautiously asked Charlotte, gauging her reaction.
“It’s just amon kidnapping case.”
“… Is it?”
“Honestly, I personally find it quite uninteresting.”
Adler began fidgeting restlessly upon hearing the response.
“Wh-Why might that be…”
“After all, everything needed to solve the case is already there, isn’t it?”
Charlotte spoke in a listless voice while gazing right at his trembling eyes.
“Let’s set aside the mastermind behind the case, the victim’s information, and the cause of the incident for now.”
“But…”
“The most important thing, <strong>the location where the victim is held</strong>, is clearly known, isn’t it?”
Adler quietly tilted his head upon hearing that question.
“Why do you think that?”
“You said you’ve been to that ce. Then you obviously know the location.”
“Ah.”
“It’s not even funny anymore…”
Charlotte almost lost her patience at his careless response, but soonposed herself and muttered in a low voice.
“You should have gone to the police with this. The facts are clear, so why on earth did youe to an consulting investigator?”
“Um…”
“Do you think I’m a chess piece that you can move at your whim?”
Adler bowed his head as if ashamed by her heated question.
“… Haaa.”
Charlotte, frowning at his dejected look, finally sighed and spoke,
“If you really want to entrust me with this utterly trivial case, I have one condition.”
“What is it?”
Adler immediately reacted and looked up, and Charlotte directed an intense gaze toward his ckened left eye.
“… A date.”
“What?”
Eventually, her voice, barely audible, burst out of her mouth.
“Promise me that this weekend… this weekend, just the two of us, without anyone else, w-we will go on a date.”
“Then… I might consider taking the case.”
Charlotte started twirling a pen in her hand, fiddling with it to distract herself from the nerves.
“Uh, um…”
“Well, if you don’t want to…”
Seeing Adler hesitate, she added in a blunt tone.
“No, no… I will go on the date…”
“Really?”
“Yes, of course.”
“… How can I trust you on that?”
As Adler whispered in a low voice, Charlotte quietly snorted and turned her gaze away.
However, beneath the desk, her two legs were swinging back and forth in joy, contrary to her indifferent reaction.
“Pfft…”
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, it’s just that…”
Adler could not hold back his chuckle. However, the frigid words Charlotte’s words brought him back to his senses and he uttered.
“I’ll go on the date, but this case isn’t as trivial as Miss Holmes deems it to require such conditions.”
“Why?”
He whispered in a low voice to Charlotte, who could only direct a puzzled look toward him.
“This case might seem trivial at first nce… but it’s actually aplex issue involving problems between nations.”
“Oh, such cases are almost routine for me.”
At that, Charlotte chuckled before retorting with a smirk.
“Just to give you an idea, I’ve assisted over five heads of state directly, and if you widen the scope to include national officials, you couldn’t count them all on two hands alone. And you dare to suggest that a mere international incident is a challenge in front of me…”
“… Of course, that’s not all.”
Adler interrupted her, scratching his head as he added,
“The moment Miss Holmes decides to intervene in this case, someone smarter than Miss Holmes will forcefully get involved as well.”
“… It’d do you good to take back that remark.”
As soon as he finished, Charlotte, with an expression far more chilling than anything he had ever seen, red menacingly at Adler.
“Why?”
“I can overlook most insults thate out of your mouth. But if you dare suggest that Professor Moriarty is smarter than me…”
“You should listen to people till the end, Miss Holmes.”
Immediately, Adler interjected with a gentle smile.
“You can’t possibly know the ranking of the smartest women in London I have in my mind now, can you?”
“There’s no woman smarter than me in London.”
“Really?”
Teasing Charlotte with a yful expression, Adler quickly continued as he sensed the killing intent emanating from her,
“Even if we consider Professor Moriarty an exception, you must acknowledge that there are others above you.”
“There can’t be…”
Charlotte, frowning at Adler, started muttering under her breath. However, her words soon trailed off.
“… Have you remembered?”
“Could it be…”
Just as she was about to ask him a question, uncertainly filling her eyes.
<em>- Knock, knock, knock…</em>
“
Suddenly, the sound of knocking echoed from the door.
“Who is it? Didn’t I put up a sign on the door that we’re not taking any more clients today?”
“… Mrs Hudson should be out grocery shopping at this time.”
Alerted by the recent attacks from the professor, Watson and Charlotte shifted their sharp gazes towards the door as they rose from their seats.
“Oh, it seems she has already arrived.”
“What?”
Just then, as Adler sighed by himself,
<em>- Click…!</em>
Surprisingly, the locked doorknob started turning.
And then, a chilling silence descended on the room.
<em>- Creeeak…</em>
Amidst the silence, as the door slowly opened, the expressions of Watson and Charlotte, who had been reaching for a pistol and a hunting whip respectively, tensed simultaneously.
“Hello~”
“Ah.”
The moment they saw the face peeking through the slightly opened door, they were momentarily left stunned.
“Everyone’s gathered here, huh~?”
With a lethargic smile, the identity of the person silently stepping into the room was…
“Adler, could it be the person you mentioned…”
“… Was my sister?”
It was none other than Mycrony Holmes herself.
“Well, that being said~”
As Adler, instead of responding, only sweated nervously at the other Holmes sibling’s arrival, Mycrony Holmes was the first to speak while gazing intensely at him.
“Our dear Mr Adler does not seem to know what a promise is~”
Her eyes, ever so slightly parted, were gazing at him with a chill so intense he felt he was plunged into the depths of the arctic sea.
“… Is it because he’s a devil who interprets contracts as he pleases?”
“Mm, hmm.”
In such a spine-chilling situation, quietly clearing his throat, Adler then turned his gaze toward Charlotte.
“T-Ta-da~!”
He murmured in a low voice with a timid smile.
“Behold! T-The v-v-v-variable… I have prepared for Miss Holmes in this case!”
After that, silence drenched the room in its chilling embrace for a long, long while.<ol>1. From here on out, he will be speaking normally</ol>