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“Tea, Mr. Holmes?”
“Thank you, Ravenmaster. No sugar, if you please.”
“Milk?”
“None. Much appreciated.”
“Ah, a rare lover of tea in its purest form, are you, Mr. Holmes? I must confess I share your inclination.”
“Oh?”
“I spent two years in Japan, posted there as part of Sir Harry Parkes’ delegation and then at the embassy. An island nation like our own. So much similar and yet so different. I picked up a few things there and have held them close since.”
“Arigato gozaimasū for the tea, Ravenmaster.”
“HA! Arigato gozaimasū indeed! Now, Mr. Holmes, I confess that as glad as I am to share my passion for that beautiful land, I believe that you probably have better things to do than hear an old man reminiscing. Let me thank you first for accepting my case and apologise for not being able to bring it to you personally. Keeping my post makes that a difficult proposition.”
“You needn’t be troubled, Ravenmaster. Your niece was most convincing. A fine young woman if I say so myself.”
“She’s our pride and joy! She noticed that your partner, Dr. Watson, is currently unavailable.”
“He’s preparing for his wedding at the moment.”
“A most worthy endeavour! And that’s why she convinced me to ask a friend of hers to assist your investigation in case you needed medical expertise. A doctor! An expert in poisons, even!"
“Does your case merit knowledge of such matters, Ravenmaster?”
“Maybe not, Mr. Holmes, but making my niece happy is a worthwhile proposition on its own, is it not?”
“Indeed.”
“Well, then, let me fetch Dr. Greyfield.”
______________________________
“A woman?!”
“Indeed, this is Dr. Irene Greyfield. She’s one of the first students to graduate from London School of Medicine for Women and a most intelligent individual!”
“Mr. Holmes.”
“Pardon my indiscretion, Dr. Greyfield. Women in medicine are still much of a novelty to me, I’m afraid.”
“You’re forgiven. As long as it’s just the once.”
“Of course.”
“Tea, Doctor?”
“No, thank you.”
“Let me give you both all the details.”
_______________________________
“I assume you have the means to contact the late Ravenmaster’s niece, Dr. Greyfield?”
“I do. I’ll let her know, Mr.Holmes.”
“Much appreciated.”
"So, tell me, Mr. Holmes. What does a detective do when his client is murdered?"
"One would think the detective would gain most interest in the case, of course."
"Indeed."
"Estimated time of death, Dr. Greyfield?"
"Judging by the body's heat and room temperature, yesterday evening. 6 pm to 9 pm would be my guess."
"Not long after we left him, then. Did you take into account the heat being higher last night than now? The fireplace is still warm."
"I did."
"Excellent, let us examine the cause of death.”
"Asphyxiation. No doubt."
"Aconite, then."
"I'm pleasantly surprised, Mr. Holmes."
"Thank you, doctor. Would you care for surprising me in turn?"
"Oh?"
"No forced struggle, two possible methods of ingestion, meal and drink. Which is it?"
"Hmm... He finished his meal, which, judging by the stains on the plate, was considerable. He couldn't have eaten every bit before collapsing in agony if it were laced in poison.
As for the drink, there's two bottles on the table and only a single wine glass. He drank at least a third of one of the bottles and an unknown amount of the empty one. If the wine had been poisoned, he'd be dead before he could have refilled his cup."
"Indeed. So?"
"The cup? The wine glass. In solid form, lining the inside of its walls. Slowly melting due to contact with liquid. Clever."
"Excellent observation, Doctor. Let us turn now to the killer's note."
“Another code.”
“And another misdirection.”
“You don’t believe both notes to be genuine? The first one he received predicted his death, did it not?”
“It did, as much as this one brags about justice being served.”
“And where do they misdirect the reader?”
“In that they want the reader to assume they were written by someone other than the Ravenmaster himself.”
“A suicide, huh? There was no one after him except himself, after all. But he was a well-beloved man. Why would he commit suicide, Mr. Holmes?”
“War injury on his hip, possibly a bullet badly treated. It’s hurt him badly for years. He masked it with copious amounts of alcohol.”
“You’re right.”
“He must have chosen to go out in style, Dr. Greyfield. Be a part of something great. A murderous scene that would make him part of the main cast of the play for the first and last time of his life. That’s why the notes were encoded using English written in hiragana, the japanese syllabary. It served two functions: masking his handwriting, which could have given up the game early on and making us think that someone from his past of being posted at the Imperial Court was after him.”
“It does fit. Rest in peace, Ravenmaster.”
“Rest in peace indeed.”
“Well, then, Mr. Holmes, are you ready?”
“Ready for what, Doctor Greyfield?”
“To step out of course. Take my hand?”
“With pleasure.”
________________________________________
“That was awesome. And you nailed being Dr. Irene Greyfield. I loved every second of it.”
“That must have taken a lot of work to make. We’ve got amazing friends, Shinichi.”
“Yes you do! And we’ve filmed every second of it! Now we can replay your playful flirting, Shinichi’s ego progressively getting bigger and Shiho’s slowly melting cold demeanour, you were even smiling by the end, all we want!”
“Sonoko!!”