"To adapt to its surroundings, it can change its color at any time. One moment it wants to hide in the bushes, the next it can lie brazenly on the most conspicuous tree trunk—and even stick its tongue out at you."
In a few light words, Mary gently peeled back the layer of Russell's true nature.
"That metaphor of yours, Miss Morstan… is certainly… vivid."
Russell gave two dry laughs and decided to keep playing dumb.
"Too kind."
Mary finally scooped up a small bite of tiramisu. The delicate cream and faintly bitter cocoa melted on her tongue.
She half-closed her eyes, visibly savoring it.
After a moment, she set the spoon down, dabbed the corner of her lips with her napkin, and looked back at Russell.
"By the way, Mr. Watson."
"Hm?"
"Yesterday in the hall, didn't I tell you that the night before last, Moriarty stole my brooch?"
Mary asked abruptly.
Russell's motion paused for the briefest beat—then he nodded.
"You did. Why?"
"He returned it," Mary said softly. "He came in person, and gave back what he took."
A short silence followed.
Russell lifted his eyes to her, trying to read something in those sea-blue irises.
But he couldn't.
They were an ocean with no bottom, too deep for light to reach.
"This kind of thing… isn't it fairly common?" Russell finally said.
"That thief used to do it too—take something, then return it."
"Perhaps." Mary's voice remained calm. "But I have the sense he's provoking me."
"You said that yesterday too," Russell replied smoothly.
"No. Yesterday was a guess." Mary shook her head. "Today, it's certainty."
"Why?"
Mary's fingertips traced the cold glass, leaving a thin track of condensation.
Her gaze seemed to pass through Russell and land somewhere else—on a scene only she could see, replaying in her mind.
"The night before last, he stole in and did nothing extra. When I caught him, he used some method I didn't understand to escape, and in the process he took my brooch.
Up to that point, I could still interpret it as—thieves don't leave empty-handed."
She paused, as if choosing her words.
"But last night was different."
Russell picked up his spoon, calmly dug into his tiramisu, and used sweetness to cover the fact that his heart had nearly stopped.
"Different how?" he asked, sounding like an interested gossip.
"He didn't go to the collection room. He went straight to my bedroom."
Mary's tone was almost clinical, as though describing someone else's misfortune.
"He came in through the window. And he tried to take my lipstick.
When I caught him, he didn't return it. And he said some… very offensive things."
"Such as?" Russell raised a brow.
Mary imitated his cadence from the night before—lowering her voice, adding a faintly playful edge.
"'A social butterfly who plays all sides.'"
"—Hiss."
Russell sucked in a sharp breath, eyes wide with righteous indignation.
"That's filthy."
"It wasn't only that." Mary's expression turned theatrically aggrieved. "He said a great many outrageous things, and he used my lipstick to write on paper."
"This Moriarty is unbelievably awful," Russell said, seething on her behalf.
"People like that ought to be dragged to the Thames and drowned."
"Yes," Mary inclined her head slightly, apparently satisfied by his performance. "He also said that 'ladies are always magnanimous,' as though that would make me spare him."
"Scum," Russell snapped, and slapped the table.
It wasn't hard enough to draw attention, but the posture was unmistakable: moral outrage, firmly expressed.
"I despise nothing more than cowards who exploit a woman's kindness."
Then, as if he realized he'd leaned in too hard, he reined himself in and adopted a look of sincere sympathy.
"Miss Morstan… you weren't hurt, were you?" he asked carefully.
"No," Mary shook her head. "Fortunately."
"He seemed to come specifically to offend me, but not to actually harm me. If he truly intended to… I wouldn't even know what I should do."
Yes, yes—keep going, dear.
As if last night's unstoppable duelist hadn't been you.
Russell listened without changing expression, even offering a look of relief at precisely the right moment.
Mary watched him. A faint glimmer flickered across her blue eyes.
Interesting.
As she described last night's "incident," the emotional responses on Russell's face—shock, anger, sympathy, relief—each arrived at the exact beat a kind, upright young man should hit.
Flawless.
Even Mary couldn't say clearly why she suspected Moriarty and Russell were the same person.
Perhaps instinct.
Perhaps something else.
Either way, testing him cost her nothing.
And she couldn't forget the details of last night's fight.
Moriarty's evasions were precise—as though he could anticipate each strike—yet his counterattacks, footwork, and balance carried a raw clumsiness, the texture of someone untrained.
Two qualities that should not coexist, concentrated in a single body.
Mary looked at Russell again.
The loose uniform could not fully hide his slightly thin frame. His posture was languid. His table manners were distinctly un-aristocratic. His gaze was clear, with an almost perfectly measured hint of harmless foolishness…
No angle would connect this man to the masked figure who danced on the edge of a blade and still had the audacity to speak that way.
Presence, movement, manner of speech—everything screamed two different people.
Had she overthought it?
Or was his acting truly that good?
If he had talent like this, he ought to be famous at the Royal Theatre—why hide on Baker Street and steal trinkets?
Mary said nothing more. She picked up her spoon and quietly finished her tiramisu.
Smooth, faintly bitter, with a lingering sweetness.
For some reason, the man across from her felt much the same.
He looked simple and harmless, but the moment you tried to dig deeper, that shifting layer of cocoa would catch in your throat.
Sweetness and bitterness intertwined—tempting, unsatisfying, always a step away from certainty.
"What is it?" Russell noticed her silence and asked carefully. "Is the dessert not to your taste?"
"No." Mary shook her head and lifted her eyes to him with a small smile—no longer probing, just the polite distance of their first meeting restored.
"It's delicious. Thank you for the treat, Mr. Watson."
With that, she took the rhythm of the conversation back into her hands and quietly folded that dangerous suspicion away.
Forcing a connection would only drag her into obsession.
If logic refused to let the two identities overlap, then—for now—she would treat him as what he undeniably was:
An interesting soul.
At least then, Mary Morstan's university life would not be unbearably dull.
-------
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