marvelous rosaline

16

It's an hour's drive from town back to New York.

For a long time, the two sat in the vehicle in a strange silence.Until William in the driver's seat spoke first: "Do you have anything to ask?"

Rosalind: "I have so many questions to ask, so I don't know where to start."

William: "There is still a lot of time, you can take your time."

Rosalin looked at the rapidly passing scenery outside the car window, and sorted out her words.

"Why did you betray Moriarty?" she asked.

William laughed out loud.

He stared ahead, his tone still gentle: "Shouldn't you ask me how I met your mother?"

Rosalind: "...Are you asking or me?"

"Feel sorry."

William noticed Rosalind's subtle emotions, and quickly apologized: "Let me answer you, it's actually very simple, the children of villains are not necessarily villains, and the offspring of villains are not necessarily villains, are they?"

This is true.

What a classic literary model, that's what Star Wars is about.

Rosalin turned to look at William.

She asked again: "Since you stole the manuscript, why didn't you destroy it? Wouldn't it be more convenient to destroy it directly?"

William: "You know that I wrote the code of the manuscript, why don't you just ask me what the contents of the manuscript are?"

"As long as I get the manuscript, I will know. Don't spoil my answer in advance."

After speaking, Rosalin frowned very unhappy: "You still haven't answered my question."

William couldn't help but shook his head.

"I'm sorry." He apologized again, "I'm Moriarty's son."

See it.

Rosalin murmured in her heart.A few words were enough for her to conclude that William Moriarty in front of her looked gentle, spoke softly, and had an amiable attitude, but he asked several times, which was enough to prove that he actually had a strong desire to control.

This is exactly the same as Professor Moriarty.

"Because my father wants to start a world-class war." William replied truthfully: "There is no Da Vinci's secret weapon, he will also look for other things. My dear Rosalind, you should understand that human beings The pursuit of hope is never-ending."

The smile on his face faded slightly.

"If I destroy the manuscript directly, my father will definitely turn around and look for other solutions. But you can see the result now. For that glimmer of hope, my father has been searching for the manuscript for more than [-] years."

"Just because of hope?"

"Also because of ego."

William admitted frankly: "He didn't want to admit losing to his son."

Rosalin quickly hooked the corners of her mouth.

"You and...professor." She couldn't help being curious: "Is there a good relationship?"

In fact, this matter has nothing to do with the case.

But the one sitting in front of him was James Moriarty's son!

Think about it, Mr. Holmes is still a hale and hearty old bachelor, but the son of his old enemy is already this old.

And Rosalin somehow felt that she and William hit it off.

"I did disappoint him."

William sighed: "Father wants me to inherit his mantle, but I don't want to see this world burn in hellfire."

Rosalin didn't quite understand.

In her opinion, in fact, William can consider these things after inheriting the mantle.

Who said that inheriting the resources and power of James Moriarty must do bad things?If it were Rosaline, she would definitely take everything over and do what she wanted to do.

Her silence made William look sideways, and then the middle-aged man seemed to understand the meaning of Rosalind.

"No, Rosalind."

He slowed down his voice: "I don't want to inherit everything from my father."

Rosalind: "..."

"I was just an accident to James Moriarty."

Talking about the past, William is very calm: "He didn't plan to have a biological son until I showed a similar level of intelligence to him when I was young. After the Reichenbach Falls, Moriarty needed an heir. He thought His legacy had to live on, so I became very important."

"But to me, his 'big cause' is far less interesting than Sudoku in newspapers."

Rosalin interjected slightly in surprise: "I also like Sudoku."

William laughed again.

"Maybe we can exchange experiences," he said, "but not now, here we are."

The Ford sedan was parked on the side of a residential street in Queens.

Rosalin got out of the car and saw William walking directly to an apartment, which he had obviously visited frequently in the past.

As soon as she entered the apartment, Rosalin could smell a strong smell of powder.She recalled the surrounding environment, and immediately understood: This is a lady's apartment.

But the apartment manager didn't stop William, probably because he knew him.

William led Rosalin straight to the third floor, and opened the room in the corridor.

"Is the manuscript kept in this apartment?"

Rosalin couldn't help being a little surprised: If that's the case, then the hard search that Ananxi said is nothing more than that.

"The manuscript is here." William gave an affirmative answer: "It's just that my father's people don't bother to understand our story."

He used "we".

Stepping into the room at the end of the third floor and looking around, Rosalin immediately understood everything.

The scent of snow and roses comes to the face - which of course comes from Rosalind's scent kingdom.Suddenly she even thought that she had returned to Paris, to her grandmother's house.

Red bricks, white walls, light-colored soft furnishings, and sentimental landscape paintings, the layout of each place is so fine, showing the owner's care and love for life.Judging from the choice of hangers and furnishings, the person who arranged everything was very young 20 years ago.

Because of this style of decoration, it was outdated in 1925.

"This is my mom's old apartment."

Rosalin said softly, "She lives here."

It has been 20 years. Although the furniture here is old, it is very clean. It can be seen that someone often comes to clean it.

"Go to the bedroom and have a look." William turned around: "Behind the bedside mural——"

"Is there a safe?"

"Ms. Miranda Williams designed the decoration of this apartment with your mother." William smiled slightly: "So you should know how to open it. The password is your birthday."

Rosalin pursed her lips.

She stared at William suspiciously, and seemed to want to speak, but couldn't make a sound.After several times of hesitation and entanglement, she finally gave up communicating and walked directly.

The same location, the same mechanism, the same mural that popped up, and the same safe.

Rosalin pressed the button and spun out her birthday: 050613.

With the same crisp "click", the safe opened, and the same manuscript lay inside.

Taking out the manuscript, Rosalin turned around.

As William Moriarty, who entered the room after her, turned on the lights, she saw the man in front of her for the first time in sufficient light.

Not just like James Moriarty.

William's pale complexion and those green eyes were so familiar to Rosalind.

It's just that Rosalin never looked at others with such a gentle and sad expression.

"Eight years ago."

Rosalin's voice was very soft, almost inaudible.

"Everybody's guessing who Edith Poirot's secret lover is," she said. "It's you, isn't it?"

William Moriarty's throat moved.

He nodded with great difficulty.

With eyes of the same color facing each other, William said, "Rosalind, I'm you—"

The following words were covered by the loud noise piercing the night.

At that moment, time elongated.

She heard the sound of glass shattering on impact, and the windows of the room shattered into pieces in an instant.William's words came to an abrupt end.

The smell of blood mingled with the scent of rosewater in her senses.

Rosalin's eyes widened suddenly, watching William's thin and pale body fall down.

…………

……

In the building a hundred meters away, Sebastian Moran turned his head sideways and got up from the sniper () rifle () with a cold expression like a reptile.

He thought back to a conversation he had had with the professor a few days earlier.

"I have one last question."

Moran said coldly: "Oedipus is your son, isn't it? I'll make a bolder guess that Rosalind Poirot is his daughter."

Professor Moriarty responded with an approving smile.

The professor sitting on the sofa nodded as if he had heard a satisfactory answer in class.

"You have always been a smart person, Moran." The professor commented: "Sometimes you are even smarter than Anansi."

Moran was noncommittal: "I just don't think you will do wasted work. If Poirot is not special, there is no need for me to follow her to New York from England, and—"

"and?"

"She looks like you, Professor."

Sebastian concluded without emotion: "I don't know what Oedipus is like, but Poirot is a lot like you."

"Oedipus..."

The professor raised his hand, as if lost in memory.

He stared at the void for a long time, and finally sighed with emotion.

"He is a good seed, but too emotional. It is a pity that he could be my heir, but in the end it was weakness and emotion that took him away from me." The professor said slowly: "To this day, I still miss The day we played Sudoku together."

The professor's tone is like that of an old man who simply feels sorry for future generations.

However, this did not impress Moran at all.

He doesn't care.

Apart from the deal with the professor, Moran didn't care whether the old man in front of him was a human or a demon in human skin.

"But until the end," laughs the professor, "he surprised me."

"The surprise is Rosalin Poirot."

"You're right, Moran."

The professor said meaningfully: "Maybe Rosalind is indeed very similar to me, but I am getting old and need someone to take over my legacy."

If so, then, with Rosalind Poirot, Oedipus would have no existence value.

Sebastian Moran took one last look at the lighted window, put away his rifle, and turned away.