He tried to match the numbers with the words in the books according to his idea, but none of the six possible book-number combinations listed ultimately formed a meaningful sentence.
"Hmm, I guessed wrong. Was my entire approach flawed, or is it even more complex than I thought?"
Thinking that this matter had nothing to do with him, he decided to try again, and if it didn't work, he would burn the letter. So, Xia De once again observed the characteristics of the numbers, and when he saw the last digit of each group, he thought:
"Could the last digit not only correspond to the book number but also to a shift? Does the number one mean that after finding the corresponding word, I jump to the next word?"
This idea had no basis, but trying it wouldn't cost any pounds. So, he tried twelve more possibilities, following the logic of "shifting one, two, or three words forward or backward."
Although the sentences on the densely packed page still had no practical meaning, Xia De noticed some clues:
"'Relics of the Western Front' corresponds to 1, 'The Queen and Her Lovers' corresponds to 2, 'The Silver Knight' corresponds to 3. After finding the word, shifting backward by the corresponding number of positions in this arrangement, although the put together still doesn't make a comprehensible sentence, after skipping the words corresponding to '2', it seems to make some sense... Could it be..."
Xia De's eyes widened slightly:
"Numbers 1 and 3 correspond to shifting backward; number 2 corresponds to shifting forward?"
Xia De felt a warm current surge from his back, then realized it was the cat's tail sweeping his back as it had climbed onto his shoulder.
His excitement made him eager to translate again. This time, he only needed to re-find the words corresponding to the last digit "2" in the first 10 groups of words. Subsequently, the first ten words formed a half-sentence:
Gray Headed Eagle, original urgent mission notification.
"Oh, that was easy."
An uncontrollable smile appeared on Xia De's face. He glanced at the alarm clock on the desk; it was now eleven in the morning.
"What an interesting morning."
"But meaningless."
"Yes, meaningless, but very interesting. I am indeed clever and bored."
He gained immense satisfaction from this puzzle-solving game:
"However, Gray Headed Eagle? Yes, I've heard that codename."
He looked at the misty square outside the window and thought for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly:
"A month ago, when I went to collect my salary, Mr. Giles Johnson mentioned that this is Carson Rick's ace agent. Two years ago, MI6 received news that Carson Rick secretly dispatched two ace agents from the Gray Gloves organization to infiltrate Tobesk. Six months ago, one was caught, but he committed suicide. The other is the famous 'Gray Headed Eagle.'" (Chapter 368)
Although he was an opponent of Six Divisions, Mr. Johnson's tone at the time expressed admiration for this agent. Gray Headed Eagle had done quite a lot: stealing special alloy records from Gondor City, the City of Steel; the gold heist ten years ago; the accident at the Coldwater Port shipyard eight years ago...
When Xia De overlapped that seemingly omnipotent but unknown foreign ace agent with the poor Detective who died in a foreign land, in a strange sense of dislocation, he actually felt that the two should have been the same person.
"Is Sparrow Hamilton the Carson Rick ace agent Gray Headed Eagle?"
He sat in his chair, holding the cat and looking out the window:
"He was so remarkable, with so many wonderful stories, yet he died here for a ridiculous reason, and no one, except me, even knows where he is buried."
Thinking this, it was truly a bit sad.
"The first time I heard of 'Gray Headed Eagle' was at the 'Lucky' banquet at Lakeview Manor. That night, I also heard many pieces of news, which later proved to be directly related to me. So that's it, I had already received clues back then. Sparrow Gray Headed Eagle..." (Chapter 74)
Although the Outsider and the living Sparrow Detective spent no more than ten minutes together in total, he still missed that Detective very much. After the Detective's death, through step-by-step piecing together of clues, he has now roughly reconstructed the life story of that Detective, who was also an Outsider. Xia De could only say that this world is truly too cruel and dangerous for ordinary people.
This secret letter in his hand was a mission order, requiring agent Gray Headed Eagle, before the end of the Great City Player rhode cards tournament in the autumn of 1853, to use the upper-class connections he had gained during his three years in Tobesk to contact Virgil Cameron, the court jester from the Duchy of Set, to the greatest extent possible while ensuring his own safety.
The order required Gray Headed Eagle to personally obtain a secret letter from Virgil Cameron and deliver it to a predetermined location as instructed.
"Where is the predetermined location? That's not important, but to make Gray Headed Eagle risk exposure to personally retrieve the secret letter, this must really be an extraordinary mission."
Xia De sighed in his heart, but then he thought of the order Chief Anlos gave him:
"Chief Anlos said that Six Divisions suspects this Virgil Cameron will meet with the Carson Rick people during the Great City Player finals, and asked me to monitor him as much as possible; and what Carson Rick is asking me to do now is to obtain and transmit a secret letter. So, Six Divisions really got the correct intelligence this time, and the Duchy of Set indeed has connections with the Carson Rick people."
He seemed to have suddenly become a key figure in this mission. More precisely, Xia De could now completely say that he could dictate the development of this event.
"But Gray Headed Eagle should not be the person Six Divisions detected to meet with Cameron, because Gray Headed Eagle's order was merely to do this before the Great City Player ends, not during the Great City Player finals as Six Divisions' intelligence indicated. Hmm..."
He looked at the envelope, placed the cat on the desk, got up to get the brazier, and then, after lighting the envelope and letter paper, watched them burn to Ashes.
Xia De had no intention of doing this, because he had no reason to. Sparrow Detective had only asked him to burn the letter. He also had no intention of telling MI6 the information he had learned, as that would force him to explain many more things.
"I haven't seen this letter. I don't know what Sparrow Hamilton's identity is. I'm just taking over Uncle Sparrow's Detective agency. I know the orange cat Mia, but I don't know Gray Headed Eagle."
Xia De whispered to himself in his heart.
He already had enough trouble with the Chosen One matter; he absolutely could not get involved in foreign espionage affairs.
After burning the envelope and letter paper, he had planned to take the cat out for a meal to celebrate finally settling all ties with Sparrow Detective. This two-and-a-half-month mission was over, and he had truly inherited all of the Detective's legacy.
But thinking of the burned envelope, he felt that the eight-digit password seemed somewhat familiar. Then he remembered that on the weekend Leia returned to Tobesk, when Xia De was waiting for a carriage at the alley entrance of Silver Cross Avenue, he was bumped by someone and picked up a newspaper, which also had similar passwords written on it.
"Something like that happened?"
He sat in the chair at his desk, recalling that day.
Dorothy had told him that the way to meet the carriage was to wear Gray Gloves on both hands and an animal brooch on his chest. That brooch was a brass eagle-headed brooch Xia De had found in the late Sparrow Detective's bedroom desk.
"Hmm..."
Later, he met President Stan of the Prophet Association on Silver Cross Avenue. Of course, Xia De wouldn't say he was waiting for Princess Leia, so he casually fabricated that he was on a Detective mission and preparing for a rendezvous.
So President Stan immediately performed a Divination for Xia De and gave him advice: "Wear the Gray Gloves inside out, replace the newspaper in your hand with the Three Penny Newspaper, and then buy a red rose to hold in your hand."
"Did something like this really happen?"
President Stan is the most excellent Diviner in the Tobesk area. The Divination he once performed for Xia De regarding the "Knight" was very accurate. And if President Stan was truly Divining "how to make Xia De's rendezvous smoother" that day, then the advice he gave might indeed have been helpful for the "rendezvous."
Thinking of this, Xia De again retrieved the newspaper he had brought back that day from the bookshelf behind him. After copying down the numerical password on the edge of the newspaper, he deciphered it according to the pattern he had just discovered, and surprisingly, he actually got a complete sentence:
"Confirm Gray Headed Eagle's request for single-line contact. A dynamically changing intelligence network is now provided."
This was the sentence on the edge of the first edition, which also meant that the person who dropped the newspaper did not know the true identity of "Gray Headed Eagle," because he did not recognize Xia De. And Sparrow Detective seemed only able to receive information, not actively make contact, so he couldn't report that he was about to die.
"A special mission will be carried out in harvest month. Currently, there is no change in information. If you abandon the mission, please go to the old place tomorrow night and write 'delarion - Eternal Loyalty.' If the mission is not carried out and no response is given, it will be considered identity exposure, please evacuate on your own."
This was the sentence on the bottom edge of the first edition, and "tomorrow night" had long passed.
Xia De finally understood why he was asked to burn that letter. Of course, if Sparrow Detective didn't find anyone and just died, it seemed possible, but the Detective probably worried that the sudden closure of the Detective agency in the city center, or the strange change of ownership of this "haunted house," would attract the attention of MI6.
Judging from the location and the identities of the neighbors, this was almost certain. Therefore, finding Xia De, this "somewhat problematic" person, to temporarily operate it for three months, waiting for everything to dissipate, and for the Gray Gloves to give up on the "Gray Headed Eagle" who had not responded for a long time, everything would then be over.
"It really is 'eternal loyalty.'"
Xia De sighed with emotion.
"The intelligence obtained, please deliver it to 1 Vic Street before harvest month and collect this year's 2000 pounds in operational funds."
"2000 pounds?"
Xia De now understood why the Detective agency in Sparrow's era, which only did pet searches and mistress investigations, could still support his consumption of high-end black tea.
"Will you go and get that 2000 pounds?"
"Of course not. I'm playing a loyal Delarion now. How can I pass intelligence to an enemy country?"
"The truth?"
"I'm not short of money right now, so there's no need to get involved in trouble for 2000 pounds. However, the address wasn't written on the order. Sparrow Detective definitely knew the address, but for others, unless I happened to run into President Stan and got this secret intelligence, even if they got Mr. Cameron's secret letter, they wouldn't be able to get involved in this matter."
Then came the last line of cipher text on the newspaper:
"Unless specifically required, do not frequently activate the information network."
This sentence was written in the gap of the second edition's advertising section.
Xia De sighed and threw the pen in his hand onto the desk.
He was very certain that what he currently glimpsed was only a corner of Carson Rick's "Gray Gloves" organization's complex intelligence system. Sparrow Detective was dead, and no one could know how that complex system actually operated.
However, it was certain that Sparrow Hamilton's mission was long-term undercover. He could not actively provide any intelligence to his superiors, and his superiors might not even know his true identity. His only role was to remain silent, accept missions, and then complete them.
"This kind of spy is truly amazing. If I hadn't received some information, I wouldn't have thought that an ordinary Detective would have such an astonishing background."
Thinking this, he threw all the newspaper and the translated text into the brazier and burned them to Ashes.
In the firelight, the pages slowly burned away. Xia De looked at the bright brazier and vaguely understood that the last traces of the former Detective had also disappeared from this house.
He sighed softly:
"Farewell, Sparrow Hamilton Detective."
