Chapter 517 - Same Starting Point (1/2)

Zhang Heng returned to 221b Baker Street at four in the morning. It had been a peaceful and uneventful night at Whitechapel, and the only real bother were a few drunks fighting in the alley behind the pub. As soon as the police arrived, everyone disappeared from the street except for the wasted ones, to sloshed to even wake up. Nothing else happened after that.

After sending Naomi back to her place, he headed home to bed. At seven o’clock, three hours later, his eyes flipped open.

As he walked out of his room, where Holmes, as usual, had already finished breakfast and was smoking his pipe, flipping through the day’s newspapers. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Zhang Heng sat down at his usual seat, rang the bell, and waited for Mrs. Hudson to bring his breakfast to the table.

“You came back rather late yesterday night. How did it go? Please don’t tell me you still found nothing. I had high expectations of you,” remarked Holmes as he turned a page, his eyes still fixed to newsprint.

“I have found one very important clue. I have a general idea of how the killer selects his targets.” “Oh?” Holmes straightened up, finally tearing his gaze away from the newspaper. He looked at Zhang Heng “Pray, tell.”

“Don’t forget that we’re now in compet.i.tion against each other. If you want to know, you should go find out yourself,” Zhang Heng answered.

Holmes burst into laughter. “Are you still mad at me for choosing the opera ahead of time? Alright, I take back what I said. But I’ve also managed to learn a lot of things. If that’s the case, let’s see who finds the answer first then.” He put down the papers in his hand, fetched his hat and walking stick from the hanger, and said to Zhang Heng, “I must admit, you’re putting me under a bit of pressure. It seems I’ll have to raise my game.”

“Hopefully, you can still catch up,” said Zhang Heng with a grin on his face.

By the time he finished his breakfast, it was seven-fifteen. Quite some time had pa.s.sed since Holmes left. Zhang Heng lingered at the breakfast table for a while and began sorting his thoughts. What he had said to Holmes wasn’t in any way an exaggeration. In fact, he did discover a lot of things last night, especially after his talk with Naomi. He found a precious piece of information. According to her, churches of the East End wouldn’t accept girls in her trade, except for a tiny chapel known as The Church of the Sacred Heart. The priest treated the prost.i.tutes as equals, and when some of them had no place to go, he often allowed them to spend the night at the church. On top of that, the generous clergy periodically pa.s.sed out loaves of bread to the starving women when he had the opportunity.

Naomi might not realize something amiss, but Zhang Heng sensed it clearly enough.

He finally found the answer he had been searching for the whole night.

Who could approach these prost.i.tutes openly without attracting attention? The answer had actually been staring him in the face the whole time-a clergyman. In fact, there wasn’t even the need to deliberately collect information about these women since they actively sought the parish out to reveal all their secrets no holds barred during confession sessions anyway. Zhang Heng looked at his pocket watch but did not leave immediately, knowing that the Church of the Sacred Heart wasn’t yet open at this hour.

While waiting, he briefly planned his next move. After that, he put on last night’s gear again and called for a carriage.

When he arrived at his destination, a familiar face showed up at the steps of the church.

Holmes was standing outside the door, watching him, wearing the most intrigued look on his face.

“Interesting. While we both chose to go in different directions, it appears we still ended up in the same place.” Zhang Heng felt a little frustrated. He had tried his best to race against time, even successfully obtaining the information he wanted, but despite all the effort, he was unable to curb Holmes’s unrelenting progress.