Chapter 13: The Face Behind Three Intermediaries

The first name on the list was Rennie.

Watson had written it in the margin of Adelaide's notation three nights ago, pressed into the paper with more force than was necessary, the way a man marks something he intends to return to. Beneath it, in Perkins's uneven hand on a separate scrap, were the other two: Voss and a surname only, Calloway. Watson had spent Tuesday morning cross-referencing all three against the company registries he had assembled from Adelaide's routing data, against the dock ledgers, against Holmes's final notebook entries, and by the time he had finished there was a shape to it — incomplete, three-sided at best, but a shape nonetheless.

He brought the shape to Lestrade on Tuesday afternoon, without sending word ahead.