Chapter 116: The Hound of the Baskervilles (4)

“What’s going on!”

“U, Ugh, 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 in this place just a few weeks ago.

“First, calm down and talk to us. You’re saying that something happened to Lady Baskerville?”

“No, it’s not that…”

“Huh?”

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…”

“… Oh.”

“It’s… the master of the mansion…”

Only then did Lestrade notice a pale-faced girl descending the stairs behind her— Helen Baskerville, making her narrow her eyes and ask once more.

“So, you’re saying that there’s a problem with the current master of the mansion, Sir Charles Baskerville?”

“… Uh.”

The maid shuddered, as if the thought itself was too horrifying to recall, making her fall into a panic.

“Miss, you don’t have to worry, everything’s alright. As long as I am here, this place is secure, I guarantee.”

“……..”

“So would you please tell us where the incident occurred? You don’t have to go, of course. Just 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… so 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.

“… A, At the end of the trail, there was 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.

“Inspector, 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 and followed the inspector.

“Come on, don’t just stand there.”

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

“……..”

However, reading the hidden anxiety in her partner’s eyes, hidden deeply beneath that intrigue, 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.

“Haaahhhhh…..”

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

“… Why is it so noisy here?”

A momentary silence filled the mansion as the lifeless gazes of all the servants, excluding the trembling maid, focused on him all at once.

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.

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

“This way.”

“Be careful not to erase the footprints, Watson.”

Not that it mattered, considering there were two specialists in tracking and investigation present at the scene.

“Hmm?”

Thus, the three women continued to follow the footprints along the eerie trail.

“Something is strange here.”

“… What?”

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

“The footprints seem a bit off.”

“The footprints?”

“It’s as if… the owner of the footprints was walking on their tiptoes.”

Hearing this, Watson’s eyes widened and she 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 exasperated voice came through, attracting their attention.

“What kind of idiot would start tiptoeing out of the blue while walking along a trail to the moorlands? Unless it’s Adler whose about to be caught having 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.”

A sombre look coloured Charlotte’s face as she delivered those words.

“Though it’simpossible to know what they were running from in the middle of the night.”

And at the end of those words… followed an eerie silence.

“”………..””

Amidst an atmosphere that had gotten far heavier than before, the three women began to quicken their pace, lowering their voices to a whisper as they conversed.

“… Oh.”

Before long, they reached the end of the trail where the moorlands stretched out.

“This is…”

Before them, lay an eerie scene.

“………”

In the expansive moors, beyond a continuous trail of footprints, lay a man presumed to be Charles Baskerville, collapsed.

“… This is giving me the chills.”

“Ugh…”

Notably, his face was contorted in horror, so much so that it was almost unrecognizable.

It was 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 horrific scenes, couldn’t help but frown at the gruesome sight. Charlotte Holmes, on the other hand, 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. He must’ve been consumed by terror and panic.”

“… A, Aren’t you scared at all?”

“Watson, you’ve seen more dead bodies than I have.”

“T, T-T-That’s not what I meant!”

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, they weren’t in a grim place like this, and at least the criminal was still human in most cases. But Holmes, this is…”

“… I hope you aren’t suggesting 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 reappear out of nowhere.”

“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 monster or supernatural entity…?”

“… Honestly, I think so too. If it were done by a person, I don’t think the man would have that horrified look on his face.”

However, Lestrade, who had been quietly observing the body, subtly 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 cases involving the supernatural.”

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

“You’re certainly right to think as such. I’m also considering the possibility that it might be the result of the supernatural being involved.”

“In that case…”

“But there are too many things that don’t add up and strange points that make me consider otherwise.”

Then she 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 silently stepped aside.

“I still think it might be a case involving the supernatural…”

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

“… Hmm?”

Just then, 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 she had seen something glowing, began gaping with a look of utter shock.

“This, this is…”

Despite the pitch-black night, a very large paw print was clearly visible on the ground of the rain-swept moor— the reason for the elite doctor’s shock.

“Ho, Holmes. Inspector. 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,

– Grrrrrr…

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

“A, Aahhh…”

The owner of that growling made its appearance in Watson’s field of vision, making her freeze on the spot and sweat profusely.

“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.

– Grrrrrrr…

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 moor of the night.

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– Tzzzzzz…

An unknown time had passed since the incident.

– Grrrrr…

“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.

– Grrr…

“………..”

The creature still exuded a terrifying aura with its icy glare and sharp fangs, however, Adler merely gazed calmly at the creature with an indifferent gaze.

– 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 sceptical expression, let a smirk spread across his lips.

“… This is just absurd.”

– Pant, pant…