CLOVER

Tick-Tock

She stopped shortly after hearing William calling her.
"Trenor, she is here!"
"I know that, but we have to leave."
"Are you insane? We can catch her. She might have all the clues we need inside here."
-"No you don't understand, it is not important for us to catch her now. We need to leave right this instant."
"I swear I don't understand you sometimes. Why?"
"I will explain in the way out."
William noticed that Scarlett was hesitant, and he came closer to grab her arm and make their way out. She tried to lose his grip, but he kept putting pressure and tightening her wrist with his hand. 
"Trenor, let me go!"-she shouted, but he ignored her. As they made their way down the lobby, they noticed that the registered lady was back to her spot. William looked at her in confusion and then looked back to the room full of clocks. He made sure no one was following them and decided to run inside the room with Scarlett. He then locked the door and finally let go of Scarlett's wrist.
"You did not have to be that harsh. What was the hurry?"
"Look around."
Scarlett turned to see where William was pointing out with his eyes. She noticed the ceiling was filled with clocks and their seemingly annoying ticking sounds.  William stood on the center of the room where the five clocks he saw previously were more visible. 
"What is this? If you are trying to take me on a dinner date, you should have tried a less scary place. Hanging clocks are not quite romantic."
"What the hell are you talking about? I do not do dinner dates with work partners."-he pulled her closer to where he was standing and pointed at the clocks one by one. "Look, only these five have stopped working, and they each show a letter if they are read correctly. The clock in your left has the letter L. This right here has the letter E, and so does the one in the end. The one in the right is A, and the one behind you is V."
"Leave?"
"She knows we are following her and, most importantly, that we are here."
"There were little pieces of gears in the stairway. She might have left them for us to follow. We should have gotten inside that room."
"She is telling us to leave!"
"Yes, but at the same time, she wants us to follow her. We need to go back upstairs."
William reluctantly agreed and unlocked the door. 
"Excuse me, madam! Sir?! If you plan to stay here for too long then you will have to book a room please!"
"We actually are trying to look for a friend of ours. Her room number is 777"-Scarlett answered.
-"777 you said? I apologize, but you must have us confused. There is not any room under that number in Strand Palace. We are still in a construction process. "
"Room 777? Really?"-William whispered at her.
"That was the number! Listen, we are going up there no matter what. On the count of three, you will come running with me, okay?"
"They will throw us out if we don't listen to their rules!"
"Since when do you care about the rules?"
"I am a detective Ginger, of course I care about the rules, laws and all sort of legally written sayings."
"One..."
-"Oh stop it, this is childish."
"Two..."
"I think taking the sign from the clocks as the only possible sign would be a better option."
"Three!" Scarlett started running through the stairs, holding her dress side to side. William followed her shortly after that, and the register lady kept shouting at them to come back. By the time she went to follow them, Scarlett managed to open the door and get themselves in.
-"Great, we are inside my secretary's room who is supposedly the murderer of a big number of men and one more detail to mention is that I am also a MAN and someone who she can easily kill and get away with. Well, not so easily, she will have to kiss me in order for me to die, but the good thing is that I am a really intelligent man, and I would never fall for her deadly kiss. Oh god, have you ever wondered if she kisses women, too? It would be easier for her to kill us both then!"
"I am surprised she has not killed you yet! You get on people's nerves too easily, Trenor! I might even ask her to lend me that lipstick so I can get rid of your nonsense talking."
"You would kiss me?"
"Do not get your hopes high, I can easily use a flintlock as well."
All of a sudden, a crashing sound was heard from a distance.
"Guard the door! I will check!"
"Fine by me!"
Scarlett went running to where the sound came and saw that the window was broken. She realized that Jennifer might have heard them, and then she tried to escape.
"Trenor!"-she scoffed.
"What is going on there?"
"She escaped."
"Oh well, then it is our time to leave too! We can follow where she goes. London is big and we do not have much time left."
"Stay there for a bit longer, and let me check if she left something behind."
"When did we agree for you to take the lead in this mission?"
"Let me remember, oh well, now it's the perfect time."
"I was the one who hired you!"
-"Yes and thank you for that. Now shut up!"
William rolled his eyes and leaned to the door as Scarlett was creating a huge mess by throwing things everywhere, trying to find something.
"You know, if you told your assistant mate to come along, he would have been the one guarding the door."
"I will tell him to come when it's needed."
"I am just saying. Isn't it a bit unfair for him to stay behind when he made all those discoveries?"
-"Oh look who is talking!"
"What?"
"You left, Miss. criminal rot in your office's files while you went out solving cases which she is capable of solving too! Plot twist. The girl finally got the strength to do something on her own as revenge, and that turns out to be exactly something so evil that her master could not solve after months and months of trying. So what now? Are you advising me that I should not follow your steps, or else Tyler will turn out to be a murder who ends his victim's lives by spraying poisonous perfume on them?"
-"Wow calm down. You have a really short temper Ginger, you should have warned me about that."
"You will get the warning when you get on my last nerve. Maybe then I could use that perfume idea."
"You women scare me. You all seem so delicate and naive, yet you all are capable of so much more than drinking milk tea with your beloved friends."
Scarlett kept checking everywhere, but nothing caught her eye.
"I was thinking we need to find some great costumes for the ceremony if Clover will be there. We can not just go like this and expect our plan to succeed. Maybe we need masks, too! Masquerade balls are all the talk lately."
"That is it! If we are looking for a costume, then Clover is too!"
"Right. But how do we know where Clover is going to buy hers?"
"From this." Scarlett picked up a card with the name "Apsley Tailors" written in it, and she showed it to William for him to see.
"Well, Clover knows where to find good quality in everything that she needs."
"We need to leave now."
"Finally."
As soon as they opened the door, they sensed something burning from downstairs.
"Is she planning to burn us alive?" They both rushed downstairs and noticed that the room where the clocks were was in flames.
"She never leaves clues behind, does she?"
"I still have it hard to believe that Jennifer is behind all this."
Among the flames, there was a wooden sign getting slowly burnt. 
Tick-Tock, tempus tuum currit. 
She loves these word games so much, William. She always finds a way to mess around with your brain.