I felt like a complete scumbag. At the very least, the looks I was receiving certainly suggested as much.
“What… did you just say?” Christine asked with a trembling voice. “You heard my entire secret, and you even asked if the photo could be the reward for the request. Now you’re backing out?”
“This is too much!” Lure shouted. “Even for you, Master, this is going too far!”
“Wait! Just a moment!” I shouted before things got worse. I pointed out the window. “There is something I need to check downstairs. Can you wait ten, no, five minutes?”
Christine raised an eyebrow as if she found it hard to understand. It was a delicate expression worthy of an opera singer.
“So, you are saying you will decide whether to accept the request in five minutes?”
“Yes. I think I can make a decision in exactly five minutes. Could you wait comfortably and have some tea in the meantime?”
“…Very well, then.”
“Thank you so much. Well then!”
I hurried toward the stairs of the detective agency, then stopped and grabbed Lure.
“Lure, you come with me for a second.”
“Me? Do you need me for something?”
Lure followed me with a dazed expression. As we descended the stairs, he cried out, “What is it? Can’t you at least tell me what you’re trying to check?”
‘I’m sorry. I can’t explain this to anyone. It’s related to my ability.’
***
Earlier, when I looked out the window, I had seen numerous people passing through the streets.
‘People sure are plentiful. The culprit might be hiding among them, so I should be careful. Well, I’ll see them anyway, so I just need to avoid them.’
But immediately after that, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘Wait a minute. Can I really see them?’
I see the culprit. But what defines a culprit? Usually, isn’t a culprit someone who has already committed a crime? It was past tense.
Then what about someone waiting to commit a crime?
‘It’s not certain if someone plotting a crime will appear as a black shadow!’
If someone had already stolen the photo from Christine, I would be able to see them. I wouldn’t be able to miss a silhouette as black as ink. But would someone *intending* to steal the photo appear that way? If they didn’t, what was I supposed to do?
‘I have to be realistic.’
Currently, I was receiving excessive attention as some kind of genius rookie detective. However, looking at it objectively, I was merely acting as a detective by relying on my ability to see culprits. It was hard to say I possessed particularly great observational or deductive skills.
If I accepted Ms. Christine’s request and found myself unable to use my ability at all, my hasty choice might even put her life in danger.
‘So I need to check my ability now, and if it won’t work, I must refuse the request.’
If I couldn’t handle it, it would be better for Christine to find another detective.
“Huff, huff! Just how far are we running?” Lure shouted, still confused, as he chased after me.
“This is far enough. This should do it.”
I stopped and scanned the street. The scenery was the same as what I had seen from the window. The streets were crowded today, and people were hurrying along. In a corner, beggar children were lined up to beg, though they were the type who could turn into pickpockets at any moment.
“Lure, I’m going to give you an instruction that is very hard to understand. Can you just follow my lead this once without asking any questions?”
“…Fine. What is it?”
“I’m going to stand right here with my eyes closed. I want you to go to those beggar children, grab any one of them, and say this: ‘That man over there wants to test his intuition. Do you want to try stealing his wallet? If you manage to steal it, he won’t chase you or call the police, and he’ll let you keep all the money inside.’ Can you do that?”
Lure made a strange face. The question ‘Why on earth are we doing this?’ seemed to reach the tip of his tongue, but perhaps remembering my request not to ask anything, he simply nodded silently.
“Good. If they refuse, ask another child. If even one of them says they’ll do it, come back and tell me it’s done. Then I’ll open my eyes. Got it?”
“…Alright. I don’t know what the point of this is, but I’ll try. I trust you, Master.”
I gave Lure a grateful smile and closed my eyes. In the darkness, I thought to myself.
‘There were two conditions I’ve discovered for the black shadows.’
The first condition: it must be a crime I perceive. If someone stole a document, I would only see the culprit once I clearly recognized that the document had been stolen. What I wanted to test was whether I could see the culprit of a ‘crime that I perceive but has not yet happened.’ Therefore, I had ordered a specific crime: stealing my wallet. There had to be that level of specificity for me to check if the culprit would appear.
The second condition: the black shadow vanishes once the person is clearly identified as the culprit. I also needed to properly test this ‘identification’ condition at some point. I figured that if I told Lure to steal my wallet, there was a chance the shadow wouldn’t appear at all because the culprit was already identified. I would know it was Lure, Lure would know he was the culprit, and there would be no one else involved who didn’t know.
That was why I asked him to recruit one of the beggar children. So that I wouldn’t know exactly who the culprit was.
‘Who else could I even ask for such a complex and bizarre request?’
I felt grateful once again that Lure was my assistant.
“It’s done, Master.”
Lure’s voice reached me. I opened my eyes and looked at the beggar children.
‘…Two.’
Among the children, two black silhouettes stood side by side.
“I tried to suggest it to them one by one like you said, but since they were huddled together, they all ended up hearing it. None of the others were interested, and only one kid accepted. Look. That one, the kid missing a finger.”
Lure pointed to the left of the two black shadows.
“What about the one to the right of him?”
“The biggest one? He said he wasn’t interested and just turned his head away.”
But in reality, his interest in my wallet was profound. That was why he appeared as a black shadow.
“Ah, he’s coming. He’s coming, Master. The one I talked to is coming over.”
Lure made a fuss, but I no longer cared about that. I had confirmed everything I wanted to know.
‘It works. Even if they haven’t committed it yet, if they harbor a clear criminal intent, they appear as a culprit.’
Thinking about it, it might be obvious. Even in mystery comics, the silhouette of the culprit isn’t only seen during the murder. The culprit is shown as a silhouette from the preparation stage of the crime.
“Um, Mister. About what you suggested earlier…”
Just then, the small shadow came to my side and whispered. As I leaned down to hear the child better—
*Snap!*
“Ah! Master! Your wallet!”
Another child who had approached unnoticed quickly snatched my wallet and ran.
The shadows vanished.
The child missing a finger smiled mischievously and asked, “You really promised to let us keep this, right?”
Leaving only those words behind, he scurried away.
“Ugh… I guess the two of them were in on it.”
“Seems so.”
I shrugged lightly and looked back at Lure.
“Well, I promised, so there’s nothing I can do.”
Thanks to those kids, I was able to confirm my ability. If that was the price, a single wallet wasn’t a waste.
“Let’s go back up. Ms. Christine must be waiting.”
“What? Is the confirmation over? Then… regarding Ms. Christine’s request…”
“Why even ask?” I flashed a smile as mischievous as the one the kid had given me. “Of course I have to take it.”
***
“You’re back!”
Christine stood up abruptly to greet us. It was obvious she had been suffering from anxiety and restlessness the entire time, which made me feel quite sorry.
“I am truly sorry, Ms. Christine. The confirmation is finished. I will accept this request.”
“Is that true? You won’t change your mind again…”
“That will never happen. I give you my word.”
“Whew.”
Only then did Christine seem to relax, sinking into the sofa in the office.
“I thought there might be subordinates sent by the Grand Duke down there. I feared that after putting me at ease, you would come back up with a grim face along with the people he sent.”
“There’s no way! My master is definitely not such a cowardly person!”
“I believe so as well. That is why I wanted to entrust the request to him.”
Hearing that made me curious.
“Come to think of it, why did you choose me, Ms. Christine?”
While it was true that I had been making a name for myself recently, there were countless detectives in the Imperial Capital more famous than me. Wouldn’t it be natural to trust them more?
‘Between an unknown singer with one flash-in-the-pan hit and an established veteran with constant hits, who would be considered the better singer?’
So why did Christine come to me? She had even clung to the request after I initially refused; was there a reason to go that far?
“The opponent is the Grand Duke,” Christine replied. “Moreover, the Grand Duke’s marriage partner is the princess of the Eastern Kingdom. As Wilhelm said, for the sake of the peace treaty between the two nations, it might even seem proper for me to be sacrificed. In this situation, who could I possibly trust with this request?”
‘Uh… I don’t think I would be the answer, though.’
“Why did you think I would be okay?”
“Because I saw it with my own eyes. I saw Mr. Hayes navigating through a party full of famous people in the Imperial Capital and even climbing onto the stage. I heard later that the commotion was all to save a single detective. And a faded detective at that, one who lacks skill and isn’t even recognized within the police station.”
I didn’t know who told Christine that, but they certainly seemed to dislike Detective Baron.
“I thought that someone who would argue with Madame Moss to save an insignificant detective would protect their client even if it meant arguing with the Grand Duke. More than anything, I witnessed it myself. That tenacity as you fought past my guards to finally crawl onto that stage.”
“You certainly have a good eye for people!” Lure boasted needlessly. “My master is someone who will use any means necessary to solve a case.”
Whether it was a compliment or an insult, it was the truth.
“Yes. Now that I’ve accepted the request, I will do my best to protect you and the photo, Ms. Christine. In that sense, I’d like to ask: where is that photo now?”
“I can’t tell you the exact location. Didn’t you also want the photo as the reward for the request, Mr. Hayes? Therefore… I will only say that the photo is inside my house.”
She couldn’t easily reveal the location to someone who also wanted it. Especially not while she was suffering like this because of Wilhelm.
I understood Christine and nodded.
“Then let’s head to your house first.”
The things to protect were Christine and the photo. To protect them properly, it was best to have both within my reach.
“Alright. It will take about thirty minutes from here by carriage.”
As I nodded and prepared to leave with Christine and Lure—
‘Wait, look at this.’
I saw a black shadow outside the window. A hired carriage was parked on the street next to our agency. A long black shadow, which shouldn’t have been there, was draped over the face of the coachman.