Moonlit Meetings:
Chapter 2:
"I knew we were going to have to watch out for him, I didn't know that he was going to be that sharp," Mey-Rin complained that evening at Ciel's flat.
Tanaka poured out a cup of tea for his master who was very stressed after an exhausting day and was half asleep in an armchair.
"To be frank young master, this cannot go on for much longer. Either we find those responsible soon or we stop and find a different method. Alternatively, we could bribe or blackmail Michaelis."
Ciel sat up to sip his tea and thought back to earlier. He had managed to laugh off Sebastian's comment and had told him to never make comments like that to a superior officer ever again, however a seed of suspicion may have remained in Sebastian's mind.
"Blackmail would work better than bribery. Tanaka, can you find everything you can about him? It's an unusual name so it should not be that hard," he ordered. "When is Aunt Ann due back in England?"
His aunt was his guardian who had adopted him following his parents' death and she had changed his surname to hers so he would not be recognised at school as the son of the victims of a well publicised murder case. His name change from Ciel Phantomhive to Ciel Durless was currently useful as it meant his parents' persecutors would be unaware of his involvement with the Police and the phantom thief.
The heists were simply a ruse to search the houses of the suspects. The suspects were acquaintances of his parents that he, Tanaka and his aunt were able to remember. So far some of the suspects had been found to be carrying out illegal activities such as fencing stolen paintings or drug dealing, but none had murdered anyone or had a strong enough motive to murder his parents.
"If we don't get any hints at the next heist, I will consider quitting, not as a Police officer though," he relented. "I want to keep my position in the Police. For now we need to plan the next one."
Tanaka retrieved the list of suspects and a map from its hiding place in a cushion. For safety all evidence that the trio were involved was concealed even their own homes in case of a search.
Ciel took the notebook and ticked off their most recent suspect.
"I really though Baron Kelvin was the person we were looking for," Mey-Rin complained. "He had photos of you and your family everywhere."
"His interests did not lie in murder," Tanaka said plainly. "He was an odious and disgusting man. When we are finished with everything, we should release all the evidence we found on him about his hobbies."
Ciel nodded in agreement. Over the course of six months they had discovered a lot of things that they had to keep quiet as it would ruin the plan.
He ran through the list of the names with focused eyes. If he only had one heist left he was going to have to choose carefully. Ciel was sure that he had seen his parents' murderer on their way out of the house, but no matter how hard he tried to remember he could never recall what their face looked like which was understandable as he had only been 10 when it had happened.
Randomly he pointed at a name and attempted to remember who they were. The name Arthur Wordsmith did sound familiar, although he couldn't remember ever meeting him.
"Tanaka, can you remember an Arthur Wordsmith?" he enquired.
The butler brought his laptop over.
"You should know who he is, he is a moderately well known author," he explained. "The master and mistress were fans and invited him over for dinner once- you were too young to stay up late so you never met him. He was very shy and meek."
He pulled up a photo of the author and a list of his works. Ciel noted that all the books were in the crime genre. A sudden thought struck him.
"Has he ever written a book about a double murder and a fire?"
Tanaka's eyes widened, understanding the significance. "That is a good point. He did seem like the type that would do that."
A few moments later Ciel had the answer to his question.
"He released a book a few months ago about a Count and a Countess that were brutally murdered in their own home which was then set on fire to hide the evidence," Tanaka summarised. "You may be right about him being the murderer this time."
It did indeed fit his profile. Wordsmith had a motive, now they had to check if there was any evidence. An author would be likely to have evidence of their inspiration documented somewhere.
"Where does he live?" he asked excitedly.
"Unlike the previous suspects with their mansions, he lives in a small house in Chelsea so it should be easier. There will be less chance of being caught on CCTV," Mey-Rin showed him an aerial view.
"There will be less space to hide though," Tanaka pointed out.
The leader of the trio considered it meticulously. The presence of Sebastian Michaelis was a danger as well as the small scale of the property. Matters would be easier if Sebastian was absent for the heist which he wouldn't be of his own accord.
"Do you think we could get away with slipping a diuretic into his lunch?" he said out loud and was brought back to reality by Tanaka.
"That would make him even more suspicious of us," he scoffed. "We should not give him any more cause for suspicion. We should plan everything properly before rushing into hasty decisions like trying to give Michaelis a case of diarrhoea."
With that decided they agreed to meet the following evening at Tanaka's flat to discuss progress as they would not be able to do anything during work hours with Sebastian prowling around the office.
Ciel found Sebastian in the office before him the next morning and he immediately felt tension between then. Sebastian had been in the middle of writing on the whiteboard and there was a stack of files on the table next to him. The sight of a nearly empty coffee cup next to that, hinted that he had been there for quite some time.
"Did you get up early?" Ciel asked politely and sat down at his desk, feeling worried about the result of Sebastian's investigations.
"I merely wanted to start solving the case as quickly as possible," was Sebastian's answer.
Ciel glared at Sebastian's back. The man was annoying as he was clever. Reluctantly he had to admit that he wasn't bad looking though. He shook his head to banish the complimentary thoughts he had just had about Sebastian.
"I have found a few things of significance," he continued on. "Should I wait for the others to arrive? Or do they usually arrive late?"
"Mey-Rin should be getting my tea."
The last thing he had expected was for Sebastian to turn around and frown at him after he had said that. Perhaps Sebastian liked Mey-Rin more than he had let on the previous day and thought it was mean of Ciel to order her to make tea.
"Her tea is not well made," Sebastian sighed. "She made me some yesterday and I didn't enjoy it. My tea is much better."
Ciel stared at him in surprise. It was such an unexpected comment that it took several seconds to formulate a reply. Tea making was the last thing he had expected to be Sebastian's hobby.
"Are you offering to make me tea?" he asked playfully.
It was Sebastian's turn to stare at him strangely.
"I won't make you any until you do something to redeem yourself. Until then, enjoy Mey-Rin's tea."
As if on cue Mey-Rin entered the office balancing Ciel's tea in one hand and her handbag in the other and Tanaka slipped in behind her. Ciel chose Mey-Rin to make his tea at work because he had no idea to make it himself and she made it the same way as Tanaka so he had no genuine problem with it. Obviously Sebastian considered his tea making to be on a whole new level and liked bragging. If Ciel had allowed him to continue on, he would have probably boasted that he was one hell of a tea maker.
"I have your tea," she announced and blushed when she spotted Sebastian.
Ciel barely had a chance to drink it before Sebastian started his lecture. He ordered them to sit around one table and to take notes. Ciel could not protest because it would look suspicious if he was too resistant to the idea of solving the case."
"To begin with, we should give the thief a name. Does anyone have any ideas?"
"Black Phantom," Mey-Rin suggested.
"Kuro Kaitou," was Tanaka's suggestion.
"Kaitou Kid," Ciel said and realised his mistake. He had just mentioned the name of the main character of the manga series he had taken the concept of a phantom thief from. He winced and waited to see if Sebastian would notice the link.
Unfortunately for Ciel, he had. "I had been wondering if anyone would suggest that name. I thought it would be Ciel because he is the most childish. So, your research for catching him involved reading manga?"
Ciel opened his mouth to protest that he had read it before the thief had ever appeared, but Tanaka cut in and Ciel realised his almost slip up.
"Inspector Michaelis, please get to the point instead of goading Ciel."
The Chief Inspector cursed Sebastian silently. He had been nearly caught again. Admitting that he had read a series that had been clearly used for inspiration before the phantom thief had even existed was a giveaway. It was lucky that Tanaka was more watchful and on the alert than him.
"I think we should call him Black Phantom," Sebastian changed the subject adroitly. "Now we can properly start."
He turned to write on the whiteboard and Tanaka and Mey-Rin took the opportunity to send warning glances at Ciel, indicating that he should keep his mouth shut.
"There are some common factors behind the heists so far. Firstly, they are all private residences of the rich, but nothing is ever reported missing by the owners. What do you think this indicates, Ciel?"
The phantom thief blinked and desperately tried to decide between appearing to be an idiot or appearing too knowledgeable. For the sake of not spending his future in prison he went for the first option.
"I don't know."
Sebastian tutted. "How did you get to the rank of Chief Inspector with your skills? It means he really didn't steal anything or he stole something that the owners don't want to report."
"Well, what would that be then?" Ciel demanded, annoyedly having spotted a chance to get revenge.
"I haven't quite worked that out yet," his rival admitted. "Moving on, Black Phantom appears to know a lot about the locations he steals from."
"That just shows that he cases the location first," Tanaka interrupted.
Their usual procedure was to briefly pass by the house and survey the surroundings and to do the proper casing under the guise of a Police visit.
"At one heist he used a complex escape route that required prior knowledge or a floor plan so I became curious about that. I found the floor plans in the files and I wondered if the thief somehow had access to them," he frowned. "I am probably going too far with this point, it's all conjecture. The next point was-"
Ciel was no longer listening. Sebastian was getting too close to the truth for comfort. He had to work out how to deal with him soon before he ended up being caught out with undeniable evidence.
It is probably obvious which manga Ciel used as inspiration but can anyone identify it? It begins with an M.