Chapter 107 York Hermes of Lloyd's
Although Sherlock's reasoning was complete and reasonable, only Aiwass knew that Sherlock's answer must be wrong.
Because he lacked an important piece of information, but Aiwass could not tell Sherlock this piece of information.
Sherlock followed the clues from Aiwass's grandfather and found the Noble Red Circle. Adding the Pelican Bar, the giant survivors and the smuggling case, he naturally believed that Aiwass's parents were killed by the Noble Red Circle.
This inference is completely logical.
However, during the dream ritual, Aiwass, as the Deformed Limb Demon, tortured the curse master "Aziz bin Abdul" and learned from him that he served Professor Moriarty. He was the true master of the Hook Demon and killed the entire Alexander family.
But he is not a demon warlock of the Noble Red Society.
He wasn't even from Avalon, and had nothing to do with the Giants or the Star Antimony... He was a Parthian.
This information was the one Sherlock himself mentioned to the "fox" during the dream ritual.
At the time, Sherlock only knew that the mastermind had gone abroad, destined for the Horus Empire or the Parthian Empire. But Aiwass had seen the man's face with his own eyes and even learned his Parthian-style name.
- In other words, the Alexander family, as the founders of the Scaleless Hand, are related to the Noble Red Society, and the Noble Red Society also has the motive and ability to kill them; but the person who ultimately carried out this plan was a foreign curser hired by Professor Moriarty.
The party with motivation has no action, and the party with action has no motivation.
The key point is that Aiwass has never heard of any connection between Professor Moriarty and the Star Antimony people or the giants. If they did, Aiwass would not have been attacked by the Noble Red Society and chosen as a sacrifice in the first place - he was actually sacrificed and almost silenced.
By then, Aiwass had been exchanging letters with the demonologist and his apprentice for a long time. If they had known the professor at all, there would be no reason for them to risk angering him by sacrificing Aiwass.
——This incident was filled with an unnatural atmosphere and involved a wide range of issues, which gave Aiwas a headache.
He felt like he had missed a crucial clue, but he couldn't confirm it without visiting Haena's hometown and investigating it himself.
Aiwass could only put this aside for the time being.
The only clue he could grasp at the moment was that the person who attacked Sherlock must be suspicious. The fact that they had to fake Sherlock's death and involve Sherlock's family in the act meant that the person most likely knew Sherlock and was related to the Hermes family.
The most important thing is that Sherlock almost immediately identified the suspect -
Sherlock returned from washing his face and sobering up. He regained his cool expression and answered Aiwass's questions seriously, as if nothing had happened.
"Come to think of it, this matter has something to do with you...Mr. Fox."
"I?"
Aiwass was a little puzzled: "What does it have to do with me?"
Sherlock calmly drank his black tea with honey, his voice steady and without the slightest tremor, as if what Aiwass had seen before was an illusion: "You told me the secrets about Lloyd's and the Stranglers in my dream that day. I was very surprised at the time.
"I've known about Lloyd's for a long time. I'm well aware of their history and that they're essentially a shady loan sharking institution. I also knew they used Lloyd's of London as a credit currency to collect profits and pass on taxes to Avalon. But of all I knew, the only thing I didn't know was that they actually employed the Stranglers.
“And it was completely illogical that I had never come across this in any of my previous investigations. So I immediately realised that someone was trying to prevent me from gaining access to the deepest secrets of Lloyd’s.”
"—and the fact that he could do this so easily proves that 'he' is your source of information."
Aiwass continued smoothly, "And you think this source is very reliable—at least in terms of Lloyd's and even Lloyd's, you think he is the most reliable expert."
There is only this possibility.
By now, Aiwass had fully understood Sherlock's immense investigative prowess. In less than a week, without even leaving Glass Island, he had tracked down Jacob and the Scaleless Hand, following Aiwass's lead. This wasn't something that could be accomplished simply by "looking up information."
In other words, Sherlock must have used his connections. His main method of investigation was actually to consult on various matters through his powerful connections and the connections of his connections.
So, if you want to "poison" Sherlock's intelligence, you can only become an expert in this field.
"As long as he can gain your complete trust, then whenever you want to ask about this matter, you will definitely come to him first. Because you will think he is the most reliable."
"Not bad." Sherlock nodded.
——As expected of a “fox”.
Sherlock really admires Aiwass who can always keep up with his thinking.
He nodded appreciatively and added in a calm and indifferent voice, “Moreover, this person should be closely related to the interests of Lloyd’s.
"As it happens, I do know such a man. He is my uncle, York Hermes, the half-brother of my father, Arthur Hermes."
Sherlock put down his teacup and crossed his fingers over his stomach. "He's the vice-president of the Avalon Bar Association and the editor-in-chief of Lloyd's Weekly. He's a senior executive at Lloyd's... their legal advisor. I told you in my dream before that Lloyd's had invited me... It was him who invited me."
"—In fact, you've met him before."
"Have I seen him?"
Aiwass was a little confused.
Sherlock nodded. "At your investiture ceremony. He was sitting next to Inspector Gordon."
"...the middle-aged lawyer with short blond hair?"
Hearing Sherlock say this, Aiwass recalled the lawyer in the white suit.
He was a little surprised: "But he is blond..."
"I have black hair from my father and from my grandmother."
Sherlock said calmly, "Uncle York inherited my grandfather's golden hair. As the eldest son, the Hermes family armor should have been inherited by him.
"But that year was the Ten Days' War. My uncle didn't want to go to the battlefield, so he passed the family armor to my father. My father commanded the Vanguard Army at the time. Thanks to the Grand Arbiter, the war, which was originally expected to be very brutal, lasted only ten days. After the victory, my father was promoted to Lord Chamberlain."
"...So your father is the Lord Chamberlain."
Aiwass exclaimed, "You've never mentioned that before."
The Lord Chamberlain's duties primarily included planning various ceremonies and events involving the royal family, presiding over royal weddings and funerals, and hiring and dismissing servants and ladies-in-waiting within the Palace of Silver and Tin. He was essentially the equivalent of a butler in a typical knightly household, though perhaps even more senior—he had the authority to oversee the education and conduct of royal family members, and the power to punish princes and princesses for misbehavior.
Sherlock sighed. "Because my father and Her Majesty the Queen were once fellow drama lovers. Unlike me, he is an avid literature lover. So I think this appointment is due to Her Majesty's personal feelings and is not worth boasting about.
"Because of this experience, Her Majesty the Queen also signed a special order. It gave my father an additional power, which is that he can veto the performance of any new play, force the plot of any existing play to be revised, or cancel the performance of the new theater. However, my father did not even use this power before he suffered a disaster for no reason."
"Disaster?" Aiwass asked.
"It's a curse."
Sherlock replied, "But at the time, we hadn't found any trace of a curse, and we all thought it was poison—because Prince Canter's symptoms at the time showed that he had been poisoned. His liver, lungs, and brain were almost melted, and blood was oozing from his mouth and nose. The priest who came to examine him also confirmed that it was poisoning.
"Since the royal family members died of poisoning, the servants responsible for the prince's daily life were the first to bear the brunt of the consequences. They were tortured and had their memories extracted... Naturally, no information was obtained.
"At this time, an anonymous letter accused my father of poisoning me. Later, the Inspectorate found the same poison in my home. Under such circumstances, a craniotomy and memory search were necessary to prove his innocence. However, the memory search spell would burn the brain... In other words, my father was going to die no matter what. The only difference was his innocence."
"--Apparently, things took a turn for the better later on," Aiwass nodded and continued.
Because although Sir Arthur has now resigned as Minister, he is obviously still alive.
"Yes, Her Majesty the Queen issued an urgent order to release my father. She said directly, 'I don't think Arthur would do such a thing.' She didn't even look at the 'evidence' submitted by the Inspectorate, and she exonerated him and reinstated him.
"My father was deeply grateful, but he still resolutely submitted his resignation."
Sherlock sighed. "He was right. We later learned that this was just the beginning. Each member of the royal family died in a different way, and that's when we confirmed it was some kind of curse. Logically, a country with such a strong curse could only be Star Antimony... but that's neither absolute nor scientific."
"The Path of Love also possesses the ability to curse," Aiwass replied, "so the Iris Man is a possibility as well."
"That's right," Sherlock nodded. "The Iris Kingdom is being pressed hard by the Star Antimony people. They desperately hope that Avalon can share some of its firepower.
"The curser could also be from the remnants of the giants. After all, one of the paths the giants follow is transcendence, and they also have the ability to curse. It could even be the Scaleless Hand or the Noble Red, who also have a legacy of curses."
"Could it be that," Aiwass vaguely realized something, "Avalon actually doesn't know the origin of the curser?"
"Yes. Such a hard-to-detect curse, yet its execution rate is so low. We advertise it as being the Star People simply because we have a long-standing feud. This makes it easier for the public to understand and creates a greater sense of urgency—after all, many people know we can't defeat the Star People. Setting up an unbeatable target can effectively prevent us from being hijacked by public opinion."
If Avalon doesn't know who the enemy is, the moment he chooses the wrong target to start the war, it means he is doomed to fail.
Because the party that was originally cursing the royal family would not join the war at the first time, and would only add insult to injury - or even wait for the time when both sides were defeated and then reap the benefits.
"Luckily, my father ran away quickly. Otherwise, he would have been blamed for it later."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze becoming sharp. "And my uncle always claimed that he liked the job of a lawyer. Now that I think about it, he also had the motive and possibility to frame my father.
"I used to have a good relationship with my uncle... When I was little, he would take me hunting, while my father only liked to go to the theater. He was the one who came to our house to take care of me during the two weeks when my father was away on the battlefield. The main reason I doubted him was because he was the last person to visit me before the bombing.
"He asked me about the 'Sweater Brotherhood', repeatedly asking me who my source was and why I didn't ask him for confirmation before 'taking the risk to investigate' - because before that, I had always asked him about Lloyd's and Lloyd's.
"I explained to him that this was information from a dream, from another possible history. But it obviously didn't convince him.
"He invited me to join Lloyd's again... I already knew the ins and outs of Lloyd's, so how could I possibly agree? So I refused without hesitation."
"You should have agreed first." Aiwass couldn't help but say.
"How could I have known he was capable of such a thing? York was furious at the time, but soon calmed down. He told me that he would come again in the afternoon and take my father with him - meaning that I should not go far. After he left, I suddenly felt a little sleepy, so I decided to take a shower and take a nap.
"But just as I was about to finish, there was a huge bang outside and the house collapsed. The water in the shower head burst directly, and the wall burst inward with smoke, cracks and collapse.
"Luckily, I reacted quickly enough. I collected samples from the burst pipe and condensed them into an ice shield, which protected me from the initial impact and saved me from immediate death. However, I broke at least twelve bones, suffered severe internal bleeding, and lost my sight and hearing. I lay prone on the ground, unable to even get up.
"—Based on the time and the scale of the explosion, he definitely hadn't gone far. He could have easily turned back the way he came after hearing the explosion... but he didn't."
Not until the very end, Sherlock whispered.
He looked a little sad.
"I felt someone shaking me—my remaining rationality told me it must be the landlady. I told her not to shake me and gave her the Bishop's contact information. I also gave her the alchemical potion in my storage box that could temporarily keep me alive. Finally, thanks to the first aid of Bishop Mathers, who lived nearby, I barely survived.
"After I was revived, I immediately contacted my brother Mycroft Hermes and told him everything. Then I told him to announce my death to see how Uncle York would react."
He looked at Aiwass solemnly and said seriously, "Thinking back now, the person who framed my father might be him. From this point of view, he might have a connection with the curser, so he was able to get that bottle of cursed poison.
"This matter involves not only my personal grudge and family feud, but also the future of Avalon... and even the safety of Princess Isabel. If all goes well, we may even be able to solve the mystery of the curse—"
"Edward has the ability to search his memory, but it can only be used at the most critical moment. I'm not sure how deeply Uncle York is involved in this matter, and this chance is only once. If they find out that I'm still alive, I'm afraid they'll immediately become alert. This clue will be cut off immediately.
"The landlady has been taken into protection. The only people outside who know that I am still alive are my brother Mycroft, you guys, and Edward.
"—I'm afraid my faked death won't be concealed for much longer, so this matter needs to be resolved as soon as possible. I'm leaving everything in your hands, my friend. If you need my help analyzing anything, please feel free to contact me."
Sherlock solemnly announced his mission to Aiwass.
(End of this chapter)
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