Chapter 82 ….
After speaking privately with Sherlock Holmes, I relayed my conversation with Titania exactly as it had happened.
“A shining stone?”
Titania looked deep in thought, as if rummaging through her memories.
“My brother never really cared about jewels or accessories…”
Then, as if something came to mind, she continued with an “Ah.”
“Now that you mention something shining… there was this one time I entered my brother’s study without knocking.”
Charles Baskerville’s study.
We had certainly investigated the place before, but aside from shelves densely packed with books passed down through generations, nothing particularly noteworthy had stood out.
Even those books were thick with dust, suggesting Sir Charles himself hadn’t read them much.
“Charles was startled and started shouting at me. He’d never done that before—he looked so agitated, like he’d become a different person. I was honestly taken aback.”
At the time, there had been a wooden box on the desk—something she had never seen before—and inside it was a jet-black, glossy stone.
“It was kind of funny but also… a bit creepy, the way he carefully polished that stone with a velvet cloth.”
There had been something almost fanatical in Sir Charles’s eyes as he looked at it.
He had treasured the stone immensely and had forbidden not only the servants who normally maintained the study but even Titania herself from touching it.
“A wooden box?”
I hadn’t seen anything like that when I searched the room.
Titania added casually:
“Oh, there’s something like a secret door in the wall next to the study, you know? They say it’s a hidden space built when the mansion was first constructed…”
At her next words, my eyes widened.
“I think he probably stored the mineral specimens in there.”
Mineral specimens!
That was exactly the clue we needed to find the artifact.
After hearing the full story, Sherlock Holmes immediately began searching Sir Charles’s private quarters.
“Miss Titania says there’s a secret door in this room, correct?”
More focused than ever, we thoroughly examined every inch of the room.
The door was supposedly hidden in the wall, but to the naked eye there was no visible distinction.
About thirty minutes later, Sherlock suddenly stopped in front of one wall and proposed:
“Let’s try knocking on the walls.”
If Miss Titania was telling the truth, there would be empty space behind the section that was actually a door.
It should sound different from the other walls.
“Good idea.”
Tap, tap. Knock, knock. Thump, thump.
We tested each wall in turn, and finally knocked on the wall to the right of the desk.
Thunk.
At the clear hollow sound, we lifted our heads and met each other’s eyes.
“Here!”
“This is it.”
Of course, that wasn’t the end of the difficulty.
But Sherlock wasn’t called a great detective for nothing—using the various tools he had brought, he eventually located the seam of the secret door.
After wedging his metal cane into the gap, he grunted and applied leverage.
“If I push it like this…!”
With a crack, the wall—no, the secret door—opened.
The hidden space beyond revealed itself.
“…It’s narrower than I expected.”
The interior was cramped.
At most, it looked like it could barely fit a single bookshelf, and it was stuffed with miscellaneous items of unknown purpose.
“So we must find the mineral specimen in here.”
We crouched down and searched diligently, and eventually found several wooden boxes matching Titania’s description.
“…The problem is, there isn’t just one specimen.”
Three or four wooden boxes, each with different labels.
Inside them were black, glossy stones that all looked quite similar.
“This one seems to be biotite, this one schorl, and that one olivine…”
“The exact mineral doesn’t matter.”
As I picked up one of the specimens, I recalled Hugo Baskerville’s message from before my regression.
“It sleeps within the shining stone.”
“The issue is that the artifact is hidden somewhere inside these minerals.”
I raised the stones high over my head—
—and hurled them to the floor.
Crash!
With a deafening bang, the specimens shattered mercilessly.
“…Ha.”
Sherlock clicked his tongue as if I were incorrigible, but he soon bent down to examine the fragments scattered across the floor.
Meanwhile, I drew the ritual dagger I had brought, ready to destroy the artifact at any moment.
As I stared blankly at the pale blade glinting in the light leaking into the hidden space—
“…Could this be it?”
Sherlock, hands trembling, picked something up and showed it to me.
In his large hand was a green ornament.
At a glance, it appeared to be made of jade.
It was small enough to fit in one’s palm, with a bizarre face carved into its center.
A long snout, sharp teeth protruding between it, and an utterly ferocious expression…
“It’s an object shaped like a dog’s head.”
The moment Sherlock finished speaking, the air around us seemed to drop by a degree.
A chill ran down my spine.
“Sherlock, drop it.”
The instant the artifact fell from his hand to the floor—
Bark!
Bark bark bark!
…Right beside my ear, the sound of a dog barking rang out.
As an eerie sensation crept up behind me—
“Watch out!”
In an instant, Sherlock stepped in front of me.
The “invisible hound” lunged at him.
Grrr—BARK!
With a horrifying sound that seemed ready to tear the eardrums apart, the dog’s sharp teeth were just about to sink into Sherlock’s flesh—
Clang!
A clear metallic ring echoed.
…Sherlock had raised his metal cane and swiftly blocked the creature’s jaws.
“Quickly! There’s no time!”
His normally composed face had gone pale in the face of imminent death.
I could see his arm trembling as he held back the beast with superhuman strength.
Bit by bit, the dog’s teeth crept closer to his throat.
There!
I spotted the green ornament lying on the floor.
“Haaah!”
Raising the dagger high overhead, I struck the artifact without the slightest hesitation.
Clang!
With a sharp metallic crash, the green jade shattered into pieces.
“…Phew.”
I let out a breath of relief as I stared blankly at the green fragments scattered everywhere.
No matter how hard the gemstone, it was helpless before this dagger that fundamentally destroys objects of darkness.
Huff, huff.
Sherlock, breathing heavily, lowered his cane—then suddenly fixed his gaze on the empty air.
“Mrs. Carter, that is…”
At that moment—
A figure with the head of a black wolf briefly appeared before us.
“…!”
Before we could properly process it, it vanished like a mirage.
…The shattered jade artifact at our feet did the same.
This too.
It crumbled into powder and dispersed like smoke before our eyes.
“Did you see it? That just now…”
“Anubis.”
Sherlock’s eyes met mine.
“Anubis, right? The Egyptian god with the head of a black wolf—no, a jackal.”
If my memory served me correctly, there was no doubt.
In both my previous life and this one, I had often read books about Egyptian mummies and pyramids.
I had definitely seen it there.
Even the long staff in its hand matched the familiar image of Anubis.
“…You’re right. I saw the same thing. That aside…”
Looking more closely, Sherlock was drenched in cold sweat.
His face was pale, likely from narrowly escaping death.
“Shall we get out of this damned space as quickly as possible?”
Even a werewolf is no different from an ordinary human before transformation.
I supported his staggering body and led him out of the hidden room.
Golden sunlight poured through the window, brilliantly illuminating the dim study.
And so, by the narrowest margin, I was able to resolve the case of the “Curse of the Hellhound.”
I might have died and regressed again otherwise.
Thanks to Sherlock Holmes’s quick thinking, that disaster was avoided.
“You’ve worked very hard, Emily. I heard everything from Mr. Holmes.”
Two days after destroying the artifact, Inspector Lestrade finally arrived, looking utterly exhausted.
He had apparently been overwhelmed dealing with other incidents elsewhere.
In any case,
after politely sending away the guests who had been confined in the mansion, he quickly wrapped up the case.
Next, he began organizing the crime scene.
After painstakingly reassembling the shattered mineral specimens, he discovered something:
“Only the specimen that contained the artifact had a thin crack.”
It had been constructed so it could be opened and closed.
From here on was the inspector’s speculation, but it seemed Sir Charles had instinctively sensed something ominous and kept the artifact sealed inside the mineral specimen…
“…and after hearing the hound’s barking, he may have grown anxious, opened the specimen to check—and met his tragic end.”
Even so, several questions about the case remained unresolved, so I sent an SOS to Helena.
The day after the inspector arrived, she came to Baskerville Manor, ready to provide the clear answers I wanted.
“Sir Charles’s body had turned to dust, you say?”
“Yeah. The undertaker was completely terrified.”
When the undertaker opened the coffin to prepare the body—
instead of Sir Charles’s decaying corpse, there was only what looked like ash.
“You said the artifact was imbued with curse-type black magic? This is just my guess, but I think Sir Charles may have already died the moment he obtained the artifact.”
The “sacrifice” suffers biological death the instant they fall under the spell, but due to the curse, they continue to appear alive for some time afterward.
“Before the soul meets complete death, the victim’s lingering will moves the already ‘dead body.’”
That was the typical progression of curses cast through black magic.
“So even if Sir Charles hadn’t opened the specimen to check the artifact, he was doomed to die soon anyway.”
…Was that why I regressed only after Sir Charles’s death?
Helena also revealed the rest of her findings.
The artifact’s official name was “Blessing of Anubis.”
Despite the name “blessing,” it had actually been created from the start to inflict curses.
“It’s meant to curse grave robbers who steal valuables from coffins.”
That was why it took the form of Anubis, the Egyptian god who protects the dead.
If an unauthorized person obtained the artifact, it would first seem as though good fortune followed them.
In reality, however, the “Hound of Hell” would begin tracking them from afar.
As time passed, the barking would grow closer, and the cursed victim would suffer auditory hallucinations, visions, and nightmares until—
“When they finally hear the barking right beside their ear, the hound that has found its target bites them to death.”
Indeed, it was exactly how Sir Charles Baskerville had died.
