Late at night.
The corridor of University College London's medical faculty lay empty—no footsteps, no voices, only the thin hush of gaslight.
Lucian clung to the outer wall and climbed with practiced precision. His black nightwear dissolved into the darkness as if it had been poured from it. Every movement was light, silent—nothing like the trembling, tray-hugging poor student from daylight.
On the third floor, a faint candleglow leaked from Professor Craig's office window.
That old bastard is still here?
[Skill: Magician's Hand — A phantom thief's entry-level compulsory course. You can steal a gentleman's pocket watch from any angle, "unlock" a lady's heart, or cut a deck at a speed the naked eye cannot catch.]
Click.
The lock cylinder turned without a sound.
No scratches. No marks. As though the window had always been open.
Lucian slipped inside and landed noiselessly.
A faint scent drifted through the room—bitter almonds.
His pupils tightened.
Bitter almond. The signature of cyanide.
But he forced down his alertness and continued forward. This was the medical faculty; odd smells were hardly rare. Besides, the intimidation letter in his pocket was waiting for its cue.
The plan was simple:
Pin the letter to the chair. Let Craig see it the instant he sat down tomorrow morning. No injury. No blood. Just enough fear to make a bully live out the rest of his life in trembling.
That was Moriarty's style.
Elegant. Precise. Exactly measured.
Lucian circled the desk and approached the high-backed leather chair—
Then froze.
Craig was sitting in it.
His head lolled to one side. His eyes were wide open. White foam clung to the corner of his mouth. A teacup lay overturned on the desk, and brown liquid still dripped steadily over the edge.
Lucian's brain assembled the picture in a single instant.
Cherry-red lips. Cyanide poisoning. Tea still dripping—death within five minutes.
He reached for the man's neck.
Residual warmth.
No pulse.
Just died.
Someone had gotten here first.
And the timing was too perfect.
Lucian had chosen tonight. The killer had chosen tonight.
Coincidence?
Or had someone been watching him from the dark?
No. Not now.
This wasn't the moment to chase that thread.
Withdraw.
Leave no trace.
Lucian turned to vault back out the window—
Click.
The door lock turned.
Too late.
"Professor? Are you still here? I have an urgent document…"
The door opened. A young female student stepped in with papers in her hands—and looked up to see a black-clad silhouette standing beside a corpse.
For one second, time stopped.
In that single second, Lucian finished calculating:
She could see the outline of a dark figure, but the gaslight was behind her. His face was in backlight; she shouldn't be able to make out details.
Door to coat rack: three steps.
Footsteps in the hallway—about seven seconds before the first group arrived.
There were only two options now.
Run?
No.
This student had seen the shape of a man in black. If he fled through the window, the entire city would be hunting a mysterious black-clad intruder by morning.
Stay—and switch identities immediately.
Three seconds to prepare.
The girl's scream ripped through the night.
Lucian flashed behind the coat rack. His hands moved with the Magician's Hand—too fast for sight.
Left hand: he tore off the nightwear mid-motion, balled it up in midair, and stuffed it precisely into the lowest compartment of the rack.
Right hand: he pulled out the intimidation letter. Fingers blurred. He shredded it into fragments and shoved every scrap into his mouth. Bitter ink flooded his tongue; he fought the gag reflex and swallowed hard.
At the same time, he straightened his old shirt, removed his mask, and put on his plain spectacles.
Three seconds.
Done.
The hallway footsteps were already at the door.
Lucian stepped out from behind the coat rack and merged into the crowd rushing in.
"What—what happened?"
His voice trembled at exactly the right degree. His eyes were perfectly panicked. His shoulders hunched slightly.
A textbook ordinary student—scared out of his wits.
Every detail was performance, yet it had to look like the absence of performance.
That was the essence of impersonation:
Not pretending to be someone else—
But becoming them.
At this moment, Lucian was not Phantom Thief Moriarty.
He was a socially anxious bookish nobody who had come to return a book and walked straight into a murder scene.
The female student collapsed at the doorway, pointing into the office.
"D-dead… someone's dead… Professor Craig is dead…"
The corridor exploded into chaos.
In the confusion, Lucian stayed at the edge of the crowd, head lowered, shoulders tight.
But his peripheral vision never stopped working.
Twelve people in the corridor.
Nearest exit: left staircase, eight meters.
The nightwear hadn't shown. The window had been opened by skill—no scratches.
The biggest flaw was the girl's testimony—
"When I went in, he was standing next to the body."
The timeline didn't fit.
If Lucian was truly "a passerby who ran over after hearing the scream," he couldn't have arrived before her.
He needed a perfect explanation.
…
Twenty minutes later.
A barrage of hurried footsteps swallowed the corridor.
Inspector Lestrade arrived with several constables, breathless, his sideburns still stained with an un-wiped smear of coffee.
"Seal the scene! Nobody touches anything!"
Lestrade took one look at the office and went gray with anger.
A real homicide. Scotland Yard's face would be dragged through the mud.
Yesterday's disaster hadn't even cooled—and today another corpse was waiting.
"Who found the body first?"
The female student trembled and pointed toward the corner.
"I-it was me… and him."
Every gaze swung over.
Lucian let his body stiffen—just slightly.
The instinctive flinch of an innocent man being accused.
"What?" He blinked, bewildered. "I'm not the killer… I just heard the scream and ran here…"
He didn't rush to defend himself.
Rushing was guilt.
A truly innocent person's first reaction was confusion.
Lestrade sized him up.
He'd interrogated enough criminals to last a lifetime; this boy's fear was unpleasantly genuine.
Puffy eyes from insomnia and malnutrition. Clothes washed pale and torn in several places. Nothing about him looked like the kind of person who could plan a murder…
But then again—who could ever be sure?
"What's your name?"
"L-Lucian Grey. Second-year. Literature faculty."
"Out in the medical building at this hour?"
"Returning a book…"
Lucian produced an old volume—Foundations of Anatomy. The library card bore Henry Jekyll's name. Overdue by three weeks.
A prop, prepared long ago.
The Napoleon of Crime didn't live on a single plan.
(Granted, Lucian hadn't expected Charlotte's interference last night, and he definitely hadn't expected his target to die the day he was going to act—nearly saddling him with a catastrophic scapegoat's fate.)
"There's a return box in the library, but I had no time during the day. I was returning it for my roommate."
The kind of procrastination that waited three overdue weeks fit a "poor literature student" persona perfectly.
Lestrade took the book and flipped through it.
"Take him in. We'll question him at Scotland Yard."
Two constables stepped forward and seized Lucian by the arms.
Lucian let his body shake. Eyes wide. Lips quivering.
"I don't know… I don't know anything… I'm just a novelist… I—I…"
The nightwear was the biggest hazard. The window wasn't, and the skill lock-pick left no marks.
The real trouble was still that one line of testimony.
He needed someone to interrupt this process.
Just as the constables began to drag him away—
"Wait."
A cold, sharp girl's voice came from the stairwell.
Everyone turned.
Charlotte Holmes stood there.
Her silver short hair was a mess, clearly yanked from sleep. A dark overcoat hung off her shoulders—obviously not her size. Slippers on her feet. A red lollipop between her lips.
"M-Miss Holmes?" Lestrade looked as if he'd seen a ghost. He reflexively straightened his collar. "At this hour—why are you here?"
"I'm staying in the teachers' building next door because of last night, Lestrade." Charlotte yawned. "Your pig-squeal whistles woke me up. If Scotland Yard's efficiency were half of its noise production, London would've become paradise long ago."
Her eyes swept the scene, then settled on Lucian.
For a heartbeat, Lucian felt as if he were standing naked in front of her.
Those blue-green eyes looked capable of piercing everything—
His disguise. His lies. The black nightwear stuffed away—
Three seconds.
Five.
Ten.
Just as Lucian felt his control beginning to fray, Charlotte suddenly looked away and turned to Lestrade.
"Inspector Lestrade."
Her tone was flat, as if stating a boring fact.
"Before you arrest someone, shouldn't you at least confirm whether this goldfish is the murderer?"
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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