The Great Detective is many things to many people, but she is absolutely not a cop.

Violence is deplorable, sure, murder vile, she scorns these as any member of a society might do, but really she’s in it for the solve; hooked on crosswords at a young age, she graduated to the harder stuff when the pleasure ebbed. A nice theft, some swindling, a kidnapping or two, arson here and there, the occasional bit of barratry, all merely opportunities to excercise a soul quaked with idleness, a chance to pit herself against the invisible mind of another.

But she has no calling for conviction. Once the solve has been achieved, the pleasure is over, the world dims again, some of the sparkle goes out of her eye, some of the spring out of her step. The game is over with the reveal. More, as an amateur, she has a world of latitude in how she acts. She has discretion.

Her Archnemesis, in this moment, is smaller than ever before, less clever; if they have thwarted all the yeomanly efforts of the nation’s constabulary that is beginner’s luck more than anything. There was no premeditation to their latest murder, if quite some malice; pushed to the brink they merely snapped.

“I do not think,” says the Great Detective, slowly, “that the police will ever find you out. Go; I will not stop you.”

And like that Her Archnemesis is gone. This is justice, of a sort: the Great Detective knows that some people need killing, and the state has no monopoly on violence.