Author note: It's been a while! I have an idea of how this is going to end, so I'll keep at it (consistently or not) until it's done. Hope you're enjoying it so far!
Hatson stared at a nondescript red door connected to a small house made of bricks. The papers he needed were in hand. He only needed to knock and he'd be closer to finding the answers he needed, he hoped.
Sholmes had disappeared. After Hatson was released from the hospital and was encouraged to take off a few days of seeing patients before moving his practice into another building, he found that Sholmes was not at the house. Hatson went to the nonprofit Sholmes worked. They hadn't seen him either.
After calling and texting Sholmes several times (not that that worked under normal circumstances. Sholmes rarely if ever replied), Hatson tried looking in Sholmes's room. What little he found worried him.
Most of the paperwork that normally piled Sholmes's desk and floor had been burned in the fireplace in their living room. Hatson did find an address for a place outside the city. He normally wouldn't have up and gone to an address he hadn't been before, but he was getting desperate. He made multiple calls to the London Police Department, had even visited the main office in person, but the lieutenants and officers seemed too busy to help him. Even when he said the missing man was their freelance detective, it didn't seem to phase the officers.
So he went to the address scrawled on a piece of paper.
He knocked a few times, firmly. After a few moments, the door opened. Hatson instantly recognized the samurai who stood in front of him. Behind him was the bearded man Hatson remembered from his and Sholmes's casing the joint on Lupin. Hatson was observant enough to notice that the bearded man was keeping one hand close to his gun holster.
The samurai let Hatson inside. Hatson stayed close to the door, ready to bolt out if needed. Despite the bearded man's weapon, neither one of the men appeared threatened by Hatson's presence. More confused than anything.
"Herlock Sholmes is missing," Hatson blurted out. "I've tried contacting everyone I can think of. I need to know whether you are connected to his disappearance." A part of him was proud of holding his own against two unusual, and likely, criminals.
"If you're asking whether we're keeping him in a closet somewhere, we haven't seen the guy," Jigen answered.
Goemon gently held out his arm to stop Hatson as he started to move toward Jigen, suddenly furious.
"We have not seen your friend," Goemon responded. Turning to look at Goemon, Hatson saw in his face he was telling the truth.
Goemon continued. "I wish we could be of m" –
He was interrupted by a thump of a heavy object in another room. Tightening their grips on their weapons, Jigen and Goemon moved to the source of the noise. Hatson followed.
Entering the living room, they found Lupin dragging a large painting of an attractive woman on a swing, eventually placing it against a wall. Wiping his forehead, Lupin turned to look at the three men, matching their confused expressions with a goofy smile and raised eyebrows.
Lupin caught a glimpse of Jigen's shocked eyes from under his hat. "You got the painting?!" Jigen demanded. "We're a team, we tell each other this shit."
Lupin became serious, then petulant. "I left a note," he muttered.
"The hell you"— Jigen put his hand behind his back, pulling off a card stuck to the back of his button up.
Goemon also pulled a card from the back of his kimono. Both calling cards had the same message:
"I am going to steal The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard at the British Museum. Don't worry about me, I'll be back in an hour. Cheerio!"
"The ordeal was pretty boring, actually," Lupin said, glancing languidly at the painting. "No police to be found."
He turned to Jigen and Goemon, placing his hand against his mouth as though telling them a secret.
"I'm fairly sure one of the security guards was doodling on a painting when I got there."
Hatson was staring at the master thief, Lupin III, that Sholmes spent weeks pursuing. It was now or never.
"Herlock Sholmes is missing," Hatson yelled from across the room. He walked closer to Lupin, his hands carefully placed as though guarding a weapon he didn't actually have. "I know you've spoken with him. Tell me where he is, and how you're connected with his disappearance."
Hatson also didn't know whether Lupin and Sholmes had spoken. But he hoped the trick he had seen in movies would work, that Lupin would tell him they'd spoken.
"He's missing?" Lupin asked, looking genuinely bewildered.
"When is the last time you've seen him?" Hatson asked.
"A few days ago," Lupin responded.
That was the last time Hatson had also seen Sholmes, vaguely recalling that Sholmes followed him to the hospital.
Lupin looked at Hatson, then turned to Goemon and Jigen, his brows furrowed.
"Tymiaor is going to be a much bigger threat than we thought," Lupin said to them. "If they're wasting no time in going after an innocent bloke, they will be on our tail before we know it."