The next day.
Russell slapped the alarm clock beside his pillow into silence, yawned, and got up, moving through every step of his morning routine on muscle memory while still half asleep.
A double handful of cold water against his face washed away the last of the drowsiness. He pulled on his coat and headed downstairs.
There was a familiar figure at the dining table on the ground floor.
Charlotte had woken up at some point and was sitting by the table, a morning paper open in her hands.
It might have been the first time she'd ever been up this early.
Russell paused a beat, then came down the rest of the stairs.
"What's got you up so early today?" he asked, pouring himself a glass of water.
Charlotte lifted her eyes from the paper, let them rest on him for a moment, then withdrew them.
"I went to bed early. So I woke up early," she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Russell stared at her for a few seconds, as if he might read something off that placid face.
But managing that would have been about as easy as sitting him down to finish an entire secondary-school maths paper.
Far too difficult.
"Fair enough." He let it drop, drained the warm water in one go, and headed for the kitchen.
"Sit tight, then. I'll make breakfast."
"Mm." Charlotte inclined her head slightly, her eyes still on the paper.
Before long the click of the stove igniting reached her, followed by the sound of fat meeting heat, the kind of sizzle that makes a person hungry on the spot.
Charlotte lowered the paper and let her gaze settle on Russell's profile.
The young man was absorbed in what he was doing, oblivious to the careful scrutiny coming from behind him.
She watched that tall, lean silhouette, and it began to overlap with the phantom lodged in her memory.
Build. Height. Weight.
Her mind started working on instinct, measuring Russell's frame against the data that thief had left in her head the night at Buckingham Palace.
There didn't seem to be much difference between them physically.
But that proved nothing.
London held a hundred thousand men of similar build, if not a million. Narrow the field to Imperial College and you could still turn up a hundred of them.
The variable was too broad. Worthless as evidence.
Charlotte shifted her gaze, letting it drift down to the hand Russell had resting on the edge of the stove.
Those fingers were long and nimble. Right now they held a spatula, flipping the egg in the frying pan with practised ease, one smooth unbroken motion.
She had watched those hands do a great many things. Brew tea. Grind coffee. Turn the pages of a case file.
What she had never seen was those hands in white gloves, flitting through moonlight like butterflies.
So that was no proof either.
Her eyes travelled on, and came at last to rest on the side of his face.
Charlotte was certain of one thing: she had never seen Moriarty without his mask.
From beginning to end, that man had worn the damned thing, white and fixed in place as though it had been welded to his skin.
The mask was a fog nothing could penetrate, sealing away every emotion, every secret he had.
She studied Russell's profile a while longer. In her mind the two similar figures overlapped for a brief moment, then split apart again just as fast, like oil and water refusing to mix.
One stood in sunlight. One in moonlight.
One was making her breakfast in a kitchen. The other danced wherever he pleased across the rooftops of London.
How could they possibly be the same person?
The idea was as absurd as deciding that Mrs. Hudson and Jack the Ripper were one and the same.
There was no logic in it.
"What are you thinking about? You're miles away."
Russell's voice cut across her thoughts.
Charlotte came back to herself with a jolt and found that he had turned around at some point and was watching her with curiosity, a plate of steaming breakfast in his hands.
"Nothing." She looked away, folded the paper, and set it aside.
"Just thinking about Pilsen."
"Think about him after you've eaten. It'll keep." Russell set the plate down in front of her.
"Mm." Charlotte made a small sound of agreement and picked up her knife and fork without looking at him again.
Russell sat down opposite, took up his own sandwich, bit into it, and let his eyes linger on her for a moment.
Then he looked away, and the two of them ate in silence.
It was exactly like every other morning. Quiet. Easy.
And yet Charlotte felt as though something were lodged in her throat, making it hard to swallow.
All she could do was slow her eating to a crawl, stretching the meal out as long as possible.
Not until Russell had finished his food, said goodbye, and walked out of 221B Baker Street.
The moment the door shut, it was as though Charlotte had been granted the right to breathe again.
She let out a long breath and set down her knife and fork. Less than half the food on her plate was gone.
She glanced at the closed door, then tilted her head back to look at the ceiling above her.
A reckless idea was taking shape in her mind.
She had ruled it out countless times already. Denied that delicate possibility over and over.
And still, somehow, it wouldn't leave her alone.
So she needed to check once more. One final confirmation.
Charlotte drew a deep breath, rose slowly from her chair, and walked towards the stairs.
She climbed them and stopped in front of a door. Russell's door.
If — if he really was Moriarty, then his room would surely have things like that in it.
The mask. The grappling hook gun. Even that ridiculous, theatrical Phantom Thief outfit.
He couldn't have gone to the trouble of stashing all of it somewhere else entirely. Could he?
This was simply a necessary confirmation.
Charlotte kept telling herself that, trying to make what she was about to do sit right.
Then she reached out and laid her hand on the cold doorknob.
She hesitated a moment longer, made up her mind, and turned it gently.
The door wasn't locked.
There was a faint click, and it swung inward a crack.
Charlotte turned sideways, slipped through without a sound, and eased the door shut behind her.
The room was neat, barely different from the last time she'd been in it.
Sunlight slanted through the window and spread a bright patch across the floorboards.
A faint trace of him still hung in the air.
Charlotte scanned the room, her eyes moving quickly over every corner.
Desk. Wardrobe. Bed. The furnishings were plain and functional, without a single unnecessary flourish.
Much like the man himself.
Her gaze stopped at the wardrobe. She reached out and pulled the doors open.
Inside hung a few ordinary coats and everyday clothes, nearly all of which she'd seen him wear.
She pulled out the drawer beneath: several neatly folded undershirts and socks.
Nothing suspicious at all.
Charlotte frowned, and her eyes went to the bed.
She crossed to it, bent down, and looked underneath.
The space under the bed was empty except for a single old leather case lying quietly in the shadows.
She stretched out an arm and found she couldn't reach it.
So she crawled forward until her fingers just barely hooked the handle, and dragged the case out.
It wasn't locked.
Her heartbeat picked up despite herself.
She stared at the case, worn with age, and finally reached for it.
With a soft creak, the lid came up.
And everything inside lay bare before her eyes.
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