Becoming Professor Moriarty’s Probability

Chapter 116: The Hound of the Baskervilles (4)

"What's going on!"

"Uh, uh... ah..."

The people, led by a just-awakened Gia Lestrade, descended to the first floor of the mansion and were confronted by a maid who had started working there just a few weeks ago.

"First, calm down and tell us. What happened to Lady Baskerville?"

"No, it's not that..."

"What?"

Lestrade, quite accustomed to dealing with such chaos, covered the trembling maid with a coat and asked as she shook her head frantically.

"It's not Miss Helen that's in trouble..."

"...Ah."

It was then, Lestrade, noticing a pale-faced girl descending the stairs behind her—Helen Baskerville—narrowed her eyes and asked again.

"Is there a problem with the current master of the mansion, Sir Charles Baskerville?"

"...Uh."

The maid shuddered, as if the thought was too horrifying to recall, falling into a panic.

"Madam, you're safe here. As long as I am here, this place is secure."

"........"

"Would you please tell us where the incident occurred? You stay here. We'll go and check it out."

Upon Lestrade's gentle inquiry, the maid, still trembling, began to mumble, pointing beyond the wasteland.

"It was late at night, and the master hadn't returned... I went out with a lamp to look for him..."

"...Yes."

"And when I followed the master's footsteps on the trail..."

Her voice was quivering with fear, but Lestrade, persistent, waited for the maid to finish her story.

"...At the end of the path, there was the master's body."

The moment those words ended, Lestrade, with a sharper glance than ever before, kicked off from her spot and started to make her way out of the mansion.

"Officer, wait!!"

"...What are you doing, Watson?"

"Ho, Holmes?"

Meanwhile, as Watson stood sweating profusely, unsure of what to do, Charlotte quietly passed by her side, following the inspector.

"Come on, don't just stand there."

Her eyes were filled with the usual intrigue at the prospect of a new case.

"........"

But reading the hidden anxiety in her partner's eyes, Watson briefly lowered her head.

"...Oh, forget it."

She pulled a pistol from her pocket, squeezed her eyes shut, and began to follow Charlotte.

"".........""

The servants, drawn out by the commotion, stared at their retreating backs.

"Yawn....."

Behind them, Isaac Adler, who had just woken up, yawned and spoke up.

"...Why is it so noisy?"

The lifeless gazes of the servants, excluding the maid, focused on him all at once, and a momentary silence began to fill the mansion.

.

.

.

.

.

Thanks to the drizzle that had been falling since dawn, following Sir Charles Baskerville's footsteps on the woodland path was not a difficult task.

"This way."

"Be careful not to erase the footprints, Watson."

Although it was rather meaningless to say, considering there were two specialists in tracking and investigation present.

"Hmm?"

Thus, the three women continued to follow the trail of footprints up the path.

"Something is strange here."

"...What?"

But as they reached the place where the wasteland began to appear, Lestrade started muttering with a furrowed brow.

"The footprints seem a bit off."

"The footprints?"

"It's as if... they were tiptoeing away."

Hearing this, Watson widened her eyes and looked at the path where, indeed, the shape of the footprints had changed as Lestrade had described.

"...It's true."

"I don't understand. Why would someone suddenly start tiptoeing..."

"Are you both serious?"

As Watson and Gia Lestrade's expressions filled with doubt, Charlotte's voice came through, sounding frustrated.

"Who would be such a fool to start tiptoeing out of the blue while walking a woodland path? Unless it's Adler caught just before an affair, nobody would do such a thing."

"Indeed..."

"Then what are these footprints?"

Lestrade asked with a dense expression, to which Charlotte replied in a subdued voice.

"...They were running."

"Excuse me?"

"Running with all their might."

Her expression had become quite somber.

"It's impossible to know what they were running from in the middle of the night."

And silence ensued.

""...........""

Amidst an even heavier atmosphere, the three women began to quicken their pace, whispering to each other.

"...Oh."

Before long, they reached the end of the woodland path where the wasteland stretched out.

"This is..."

Before them lay an eerie scene.

"........."

Beyond the continuous footprints in the wasteland lay a man presumed to be Charles Baskerville, collapsed.

"The chills are real."

"Ugh..."

Notably, his face was twisted to the point of being unrecognizable.

As if he had witnessed something that should not exist in this world.

"It seems he really did see something and ran away."

Even Lestrade, who had seen her fair share of horrors, couldn't help but frown at the gruesome sight, but Charlotte Holmes started to approach the body with an intrigued expression as soon as she discovered it.

"Look, Watson. He's clutching the ground with his fingers. Must've been consumed by terror."

"Aren't you... aren't you scared at all?"

"Watson, you've seen more dead bodies than I have."

"That's not what I mean!"

As Charlotte nonchalantly spoke and squatted beside the body, Watson, shivering uncontrollably, let out a shriek.

"After all the cases we've faced together, you're still such a baby."

"This... this isn't like before, in a dark place like this, and at least before the criminal was human. But Holmes, this is..."

"I'd rather not entertain the idea that the culprit is the legendary hound of the Baskervilles, Watson."

However, as Charlotte calmly reassured her and examined the body, Watson took a deep breath and slowly began to regain her composure.

"Yes, even in this era... It's unlikely that a demon extinct for nearly a thousand years would suddenly appear."

"This is a clear case of murder."

Charlotte quietly drove the point home in response to Watson's remark.

"But, but... Is it possible they were struck by some strange phenomenon?"

"Honestly, I think so too. If it were done by a person, the face wouldn't be so consumed with terror."

However, Lestrade, who had been quietly observing the body, quietly voiced a contrary opinion.

"Looking at it now, there's no sign of external trauma on the body. We'll have to perform an autopsy to know for sure, but at least it doesn't seem like the victim died from an assault."

"........"

"Of course, you know as well as I do that this is a characteristic commonly found in bizarre cases."

After saying this, Lestrade looked intently at Charlotte, who quietly nodded and got to her feet.

"You might well think that. I'm also considering the possibility that it might be the result of some strange phenomenon."

"In that case..."

"But there are too many things that don't add up and strange points to consider it so."

Then she quietly began to look up at the moon shining faintly in the night sky.

"...Hmm."

Noticing Charlotte's vacant expression, Watson realized she had entered her own world of deduction, a sign she was contemplating the case, and quietly stepped aside.

"I still think it might be some strange phenomenon..."

She murmured in a slightly timid voice, scanning the surroundings for any clues she might have missed.

"...Hmm?"

Watson noticed something twinkling in the distance under the moonlight and tilted her head.

- Click...

She cocked the pistol she was holding and quietly began to walk.

"...Ah."

Watson, having reached the spot where something had glittered, began to gape with a stunned expression.

"This, this is..."

Despite the pitch-black night, a very large paw print was clearly visible on the ground of the rain-swept moor.

"Ho, Holmes. Officer. You need to come and see this..."

The very moment Watson, who had turned pale and started to step back, called for Holmes and Lestrade, who were still examining the body.

- Growl...

The low but distinct growl of a beast began to sound right in front of them.

"A, aah..."

The owner of that growling made its appearance into Watson's field of vision, who was frozen in place and sweating coldly.

"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

Watson screamed with all her might and began to fire her gun frantically in front of her.

"What, what...!"

"Watson...?"

In that sudden situation, Lestrade and Charlotte, turning their gaze in her direction, witnessed the most terrifying sight they had ever encountered.

- Growl...

The massive creature, which Watson had mistaken for something glittering in the moonlight, was now dodging the gunfire and disappearing into the darkness with its cold, gleaming eyes.

"""............"""

As the creature completely vanished into the dark, a profound silence descended upon the night moor.

.

.

.

.

.

- Tzzzzzz...

How much time had passed?

- Growl...

"Hmm."

Surprisingly, the unidentified monstrous creature that had hidden in the darkness reappeared next to Isaac Adler, who had returned to his room after evading the servants' notice.

- Growl...

"..........."

Still exuding a terrifying aura with its icy glare and sharp fangs, Adler merely gazed calmly at the creature for some reason.

- Swish...

"Well done."

A moment later, as Adler reached out his hand with a smile, an unbelievable scene began to unfold.

"But, I was just wondering..."

The creature, which had quietly accepted Adler's gentle stroking on its head, lay down, exposing its belly and started wagging its tail.

"You're a female, aren't you?"

- Woof?

As a naive sound, completely out of place with its current form, came from the creature's mouth, Adler, who had asked the question with a skeptical expression, let a smirk spread across his lips.

"...This is really crazy."

- Pant, /genesisforsaken