I wonder sometimes what shape the world would have found for itself if they had never discovered the Distillation.
I’m sure the face of the world would have changed in many ways, mostly for the better. The Austrio-Hungarian Pact might never have declared war on the Neo-Imperial Italians, for example, and the Barbary League would never have had such success in their raids against the Kingdom of Spain and her European allies. The Great Plagues and the Changes might have been banished from the world of possibilities, and the great city of London might yet have remained unscarred by disease, war, and upheaval.
I suppose the discovery was inevitable, however. The Distillation is a part of the great cycle of life; it would always have been there, waiting for mankind to unearth it and put it to use. While I might wish that history had turned the course of nations to a saner, wiser path, it is futile to wish that such a find might have been buried forever beneath the sands of time.
The first record we have of the destructive material is in the account of one Nikolai Petrovich, an explorer of some renown within the Arctic Circle. His journeys had taken him into the wilds of Siberia, where it was rumored that the great Kahns of the Mongols had concealed some kind of treasure in the expanse of the frozen wasteland. It was there that he stumbled upon a cave, half buried in the snow and ice, and laid wondering eyes on the glowing crystals within.
He took with him some samples, which he shared with comrades at a meeting of explorers in Prussia some years afterwards. A scientist by the name of Vogler was in attendance, and he happened to note a peculiar attribute to the luminescent mineral. Namely, whenever it was placed near an object, that object would begin to do what was intrinsic in its design. A gear would turn, for that was what gears did. Pistons would pump, for that was what they did. Coals would glow without a fire, and adding machines would calculate in an almost independent manner. Experiments revealed aspect after aspect, and the mineral spread like wildfire as soon as a British alchemist determined that regular quartz, when exposed to the stuff, soon began to resonate with and duplicate the strange behavior.
Before long, the Distillation replaced smokestacks with clean factories, horses with frantically pumping engines, and even the force of gunpowder with electrical power and compressed air. The number of inventions multiplied exponentially until the very face of society—no, the world itself—was changed beyond knowing.
Of course, if the discovery of the Distillation was unavoidable, I wish that they had at least taken some care with it. For if it brought out such surprising qualities in seeds, metals and soil, it should have occurred to them what it might do to those in constant, close proximity. Proper care should have been taken then, as it is now, to avoid overlong exposure, even if only out of concern for what the unknown could do.
Alas, instead it became a fashion statement to wear chips of the Distillation as jewelry, or to inlay it in various objects and buildings as decoration. The glowing crystals were everywhere, with some richer families constructing statues or pillars of the mineral as statements of their own power. It was among those families that the Changes were first seen. A whimsical poet would speak a little too familiarly of flying. An avid hunter with a love of dogs would begin to exhibit some markedly canine habits. Someone’s skin, always tough against comments and jibes, would begin to be a bit too thick in a literal sense. They spread, for a time, unseen among mankind, until all at once the Changed were everywhere among us, and the world was, for the second time in a generation, irrevocably warped.
All of which was how I found myself caught in an alley, faced by a man in a dark coat and top hat, holding a Wolsey and Smith Etherpistol, while his partner the werewolf growled at my back.
It had not been a very delightful journey to that point, and though I do not discount my own responsibility for the situation, I could not help feeling a bit of bitterness towards the bend of history as I watched the man take another step closer. The pistol did not waver as he trained its blunt little barrel on the center of my chest. He smiled, revealing a mess of half rotted teeth and wooden replacements. “Would you look at this one, Ben? He seems a mite put out!”
The werewolf growled again, and I resisted the urge to glance back at him. Werewolves are tricky, even compared to most Changlings, as one can never quite be sure of how they will react. It’s the result of the melding between man and wolf, you see. Sometimes the man is in control, sometimes the dog, and sometimes both at once. So I focused instead on my adversary with the pistol, hoping he would be more reasonable. “Could you blame me, sir? After all, you have placed me in quite a predicament.”
The man burst into gales of laughter. “A predicament, he says! And ‘sir’. He sir’d me, he did!” Shaking his head, the slender gunman gave me a leer. “Fancy talk, but you’re no lord. Not one at all, are you, grubber?”
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I found myself restraining the urge to clench my cane until my knuckles whitened. His manner of addressing me was starting to concern me, and for more reasons than his sly air of contempt. If he already knew that I wasn’t a member of the peerage, he likely knew more about me than your average footpad. If he knew that much, and still decided to hold me up, it meant that someone had decided to take an interest in me. Unfortunately for me, that interest was distinctly probable to be unfriendly.
You see, over the course of one’s chosen profession one tends to make a plethora of enemies—my own work was no exception to that rule. Investigators, even those with sterling reputations and unimpeachable notions of honor like my own tend to make more than an average aspiring banker or solicitor. For whenever there is a secret that someone is willing to pay to discover, there is always one person willing to pay to cover it up, if not more. For every cuckolded spouse, there is the adulterer; for every defrauded or burgled owner of property, there is a thief or liar; and for every family mourning an untimely and unnatural death, there is a killer. I suppose that even in a world with no Changlings it would be no different, though the werewolf at my back growled again and reminded me anew of how much easier the situation would be without the Distillation to worry about.
I considered the man in front of me more closely now. Since I was sure that he was not some petty thief here to mug me for my nearly empty purse, he now warranted a more thorough examination. His coat was fairly worn, though not so badly that I would assume he was a real thug from London’s underground. The pistol in his hand was well cared for; the gears had even been polished a bit so that they shone faintly in the dim alleyway. An assassin, then, though not a highly skilled one to be attending to his business in broad daylight. Perhaps a clean-up man for one of the less-influential lords in the city, and likely one who rarely needed to deal with mere investigators such as myself. My mind, galvanized to action by both the pistol ahead of me and the fangs behind, began a frantic sorting of my current and past cases to find the possible source. In the meantime, I continued to watch for more clues.
As I continued to study him, the man took another step closer. He kept the blunt barrel fixed on my chest, even as his partner prowled the alley behind me. A sneer lent his voice a coating of sarcasm as he spoke. “Now, if my lord farmer would indulge me with your attention, we have a message for you.” He gestured with one hand. “You’re going to leave the city tomorrow, on an urgent trip you see. You’ll leave just a little too quickly to finish some of your affairs, but you have to visit the family you see. Maybe your schoolteacher mum comes down with the flu, or your da hits his foot with a hoe. Doesn’t matter what you say, but by tomorrow you’re gone.” He leaned in, his free hand now wagging an oily finger at me. “And you never, ever come back.”
I gave him my best smile. “Ah, you see, there we might have a problem.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “A problem? Ben don’t like problems.” The werewolf growled again, and his impatient shuffling ceased. Neither boded well for me. That grim sense of doom increased when the man placed a thumb on the cocking gear of the Etherpistol. He drew back the mechanism a trio of sharp clicks. The air pistol hissed a little as the compressed gas seeped into the firing chamber, only held back by the catch of the trigger. He continued. “Problems tend to get messy.”
“Well, my good man, I don’t disagree with you in the slightest. Regrettably, I am in the middle of an investigation regarding a delicate matter which cannot be left unattended.” As I had hoped, the gunman tensed slightly when I mentioned my current work, leaving me little doubt that his employer rested among my present work and not my past. It was a relief, since it left me with only two remaining possibilities.
The gunman responded in a somewhat terse tone. “There ain’t a matter so delicate that it can’t wait a while. Family’s important you see.” He tilted the pistol to aim at a higher point on my chest, just below the breastbone.
“Indeed it is, good sir. But that is precisely the problem.” He frowned, but before he could break in again with another threat, I bulled on. “You see, there is a certain…lady acquaintance shall we say…who had paid me to look into the affairs of her husband. She suspected many things, among them that he was defrauding her of her inheritance, and that he was wooing women other than herself.”
Impassive, the gunman shrugged. “So what?”
“So, I promised the dear lady I would look into things for her. However, she is not the trusting sort; her plans are such that if I happen to conveniently disappear in the course of my investigations, she will instantly assume the guilt of her spouse and hire a certain acquaintance of mine to deal with him in a more permanent manner.” I let those words sink in. The gunman seemed to mull them over in his greasy little mind before he cracked a smile.
“Eh, it’s of no concern to me and old Ben here. ‘Sides, it’s not like the nibs is innocent, is he?” He chuckled, and I felt an unexpected—and utterly unwanted—twinge of camaraderie with him for a moment. After all, my research into the matter did implicate the philandering lordling fairly well, and I had only a few more bits and pieces of the matter to square away before I presented the case in whole to Lady Dafferty for her consideration. At the same time, the gunman’s lack of worry told me that Lord Dafferty was likely not his employer.
Of course, that fact only led me to implicate the second of my two more bothersome investigations. “Wait, my friend, for that complication to my business is only the beginning. There’s the matter of a young banker I was looking into—”
Before I could finish the sentence, the short barrel of the air pistol drew level with my eyes. The amusement was gone from the gunman’s face, and his terribly rotten teeth clenched in a sneer. “What about him?”
Raising my eyebrows in surprise, I shrugged. “Only a case of bookkeeping errors. You see, the lad’s managers have noticed a few wide discrepancies in the ledgers, and his notes were consistently associated with amounts of money that can no longer be found within the vaults. One of the managers employed me to find out if the young man has become involved in something untoward. If I leave the job uncompleted, the poor lad may be brought to trial over the issue and thrown in jail over something for which he is blameless.”
The gunman was silent a moment. “A sad story, that one.” He paused, the pistol still pointed unwaveringly at my head. “Perhaps we could provide some timely assistance, then. What have you got on him?”
Though the interest he showed in the case had already confirmed my suspicions, the offer sealed them up without a doubt. The Tubman case was fairly new to be generating this kind of adversarial pressure, but what little I had uncovered had already told me that the case was far more than some junior clerk stealing from his masters. “Well, the lad is innocent, for one. He did not have access to the money vaults, nor had he been working on the days the accounts were altered. I have the record of his hours in my coat pocket, as well as the hours of the bankers who would have had access. I was only just now headed home to study them and find out the real culprit.”
“The only copy?” The glint of a feral, ugly kind of cleverness lit the gunman’s eyes. He took yet another step forward. “It would be a shame to send you off without delivering them, then. Hand them over, so we can complete the task for you.”
Taking my left hand off my cane, I reached inside the fold of my coat. “Here then, if that will make you—”
“Ah, ah, ah!” The gunman took two more steps, bringing the barrel of the gun within an arm’s reach of my nose. The werewolf growled again, and the scrape of its claws on the cobblestones revealed that it had closed to within reach as well. I thought I could feel the warmth of its breath on my neck. “No fast moves, now. I’ve heard of your tricks, and I want nothing of the sort here, you understand?”
I nodded slightly, listening to the harsh breathing behind me. My eyes were locked on the pistol barrel. All I needed was for him to advance just one more step, and the situation would be well in hand. “I do, sir.”
“Good.” The gunman stepped forward, and I let myself relax a little as he leaned in. With his free hand, the gunman reached toward the opening of my coat, where I had directed my own fingers before his threatening gesture had rendered me immobile. I waited patiently, trying as best I could to judge where the werewolf was behind me. The timing for the trick I was about to utilize would be close, but even as the gunman slipped his fingers inside my coat lapel, I was confident that it would work.
The instant his fingers were inside the cloth, I snatched at his elbow and twisted. He let out a yelp of surprise as he found himself pulled off balance, and the little snub-nosed barrel of the pistol was yanked out of line with my body as he stumbled, his hand still caught inside my coat. The man fired, only a moment too late, and the belligerent puff of compressed air hurled its lethal projectile into the side of the alleyway. It kicked up a spattering of brick and mortar, which rained down on the three of us.
Even as the pistol went off, I heard the werewolf snarl. A glance back over my shoulder showed the Changling crouching low, ready to pounce on me and end the brief struggle with his partner. The same twisting motion that had thrown his partner off balance, however, had brought the end of my cane in line with its slavering canine features, though it was obviously far too short to use in bludgeoning the werewolf. At least, it was too short for the moment.
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I pressed a concealed button in the grip of the cane, and the old walking stick came alive with a whir of Distillation-driven gears. The bottom half of the staff shot away, leaving a length of sharpened steel behind. The force the artificer had used to propel the sheath seemed excessive to me at most times, but now I truly appreciated his genius as the heavy, detached portion of my cane slammed home in the center of the werewolf’s forehead. Its snarl cut off and its eyes crossed before the Changeling fell over backwards.
The gunman swore loudly and started a brief struggle to free his arm, or at least to bring the pistol back around. I had no intention of conceding either advantage to him, and so I reversed the direction of my pivot, bringing my cane around as I did so. The gunman’s balance failed him entirely as the disorienting pull became a sudden shove, and his second shot went skyward as I kicked his feet out from under him. The pistol left his hand as I bore him to the ground and slammed him into the cobblestones with enough force to make his head bounce.
He started to struggle again, obviously reaching for the pistol which lay just out of his reach. Then he froze as the edge of my once-hidden weapon made its presence felt against his neck. A short blade about half again the length of my forearm, it was every bit as lethal as its slim form suggested. I did not envy the poor thug as he discovered his danger, but his comfort and peace of mind were rather secondary to my other concerns at the moment.
Satisfied that the gunman was no longer an issue—and with a length of good steel ready to guarantee he would not be one for long if he tried—I let go of his arm and reached for the fallen pistol. I managed to obtain my goal as the werewolf was just regaining its feet. It started forward until I pulled the trigger and sent a shot skipping off a cobblestone near one foot. The mutt let out a startled whimper and hopped backwards, obviously unwilling to brave a second shot when the next bullet might land a bit closer to home. I placed a thumb on the priming gear and drew it back another click, and the werewolf ran, tail tucked between its legs and only occasionally glancing backwards at his captured companion.
“And they say they’re a man’s best friend.” I shook my head and clucked my tongue. Then, feeling a cold, yet satisfied smile twist my lips, I turned back to my captive gunman. “Now then, my dear sir, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. My name is Hector Kingsley, Investigator.” I leaned in close, and the hired gun tried to shrink back into the stones beneath him. “What is yours?”
A short while later—after a long and fruitful conversation with one Alexander Thorpe—I walked along Daversham Street to return to my place of residence. While the gunman had not known everything about his employer’s antics, the facts he did know lined up nicely with my own suppositions. I had every confidence that Mr. Tubman was soon to be released from the chains of suspicion under which he now labored. One of the more senior managers, a Mr. Pastee, would not be as pleased with my results, but I believe there is something to be said for only trying to satisfy a part of the people around you, rather than everyone.
I paused for a moment at the intersection with Hershing Street, which allowed one of the horseless carriages most Londoners seemed to favor to grind past. The oversized wheels rumbled over the cobblestones, and I checked to make sure another did not follow in its wake before I crossed the lane. Arriving at the opposite corner, I went up the short flight of steps to the small tenement I had leased from an honest, if not overly generous, landlord the day I arrived in the city. It was not a spacious abode, and most of my clientele would have probably termed it shabby, but it did have the benefit of being comfortable and convenient to the nearby thoroughfares.
On reaching the door, I fished my keys out from one of the interior pockets of my coat. I had just raised them to the first of my three locks when I heard an all-too-familiar whistle behind me. I froze, unwilling to look, but knowing the contact was going to be unavoidable. The delay was brief, for I knew full well that if I procrastinated too long, she would only whistle again and increase the problem.
I turned and found her striding across the lane. She wore her red hair short, as always. It spiked up in tufts around her goggles, especially since she had them pushed up high on her head. She wore buckskin breeches and a blouse and vest that would have scandalized any Englishwoman had she not covered it all with a long, nondescript coat. Of course, it was not for the consideration of propriety that she wore it, and anyone seeing the mischief in those devilish green eyes would have no doubt she brought trouble with her.
A carriage ground to a screeching halt as she crossed, the driver cursing at her with dreadfully descriptive talent, but she silenced him with a glance and a raised eyebrow before continuing on her way. She was not intimidating of stature, but most Londoners did not quite know how to react to someone openly carrying a repeating carbine in the streets. It was no ordinary rifle, either, but a specialized Walter and Teskof Airpowder Carbine, something any cavalry officer would love to own, especially with the customized tweaks she had lovingly built into it. Technically, the weapon was not allowed under the current arms laws of London, but no man in uniform who had noticed the way she cradled the weapon would have dared try to confiscate it. Any who succeeded would likely be surprised at just how many other weapons she had managed to conceal in that dull gray coat of hers, in any case.
She looked me over with a frank study as she approached, and her grin was somewhat irritating when her gaze met mine. “So, get into some trouble Hector?”
“Nothing of any real concern, Ms. Anderson.” I kept my tone level. Responding to her jibes in kind had led nowhere in the past, and I wasn’t about to waste an afternoon bandying words with some indolent bounty hunter.
“That’s Ms. Patricia Anderson the Glorious to you, Hector. Or the Lady Mustang of Paverly Square.” Patricia, or “Mustang,” to her fellow hunters in trade, rolled her eyes, as if to show her opinion of formal address in general, and I felt a fresh wave of annoyance wash over me. The cursed Yankees never had grown civilized enough to gain a healthy respect for such things. Of course, the fact that she continued to insist on using that ridiculous nickname only worsened things. I realized that bounty hunters tended to take monikers denoting strength or speed, but what point was there in calling a young woman after a horse?
I resolved, with little hesitation, to cut the interview short. In a tone as civil as I could manage, I ground out a question I felt sure I would regret. “Do you have some business here, Ms. Anderson? Or are you here on a social call?”
“Wouldn’t that be the talk of the town? Kingsley and Mustang, courting.” I must not have been successful in concealing my dismay at that mental image, for she laughed and shook her head. “Well, you needn’t worry yourself about that, Hector. I’m here on business, as usual.” Shifting the carbine to cradle it in her other elbow, she fished in one of her coat pockets before drawing out a bundle of papers tied together with string. This parcel she handed to me without hesitation, as if my acceptance was a foregone conclusion. “I have a couple of small cases for you. I figured you could use the work.”
I regarded the packet for a moment, my sense of dignity fully at war with my more pragmatic sensibilities. Finally, I reached out and took it, careful not to drop the lot in the street. “So many at once, Ms. Anderson?”
She gave me a smile and tilted her head to one side. “Yeah. Life’s been busy. Seems there’s an awful lot of criminal activity around here these days. Ministry’s been going crazy trying to track everyone down, and that work’s on top of the usual family feuds.” With a shrug, she glanced back out into the street. Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “On that note, a Lady Dafferty has been asking questions. Seems she’s looking for a person to do a job for her.” Patricia’s eyebrows quirked in an expectant expression, and I sighed.
“It seems the dear lady has grown impatient with me, Ms. Anderson. Do not worry; I still intend to recommend you once I speak with her tomorrow.”
“Good. Just making sure you’ve remembered how profitable our arrangement has been for the both of us.” I nodded, somewhat reluctantly, and Patricia smiled. She slugged me in one arm, apparently a friendly gesture in whatever American barn she had been born in, and walked away. Her good manners extended only to a parting shout over her shoulder as she stepped back out across Hershing, heading north along Daversham. “I’ll see you around then, Hector. Good hunting.”
I watched her go, wincing in exquisite pain as yet another carriage braked to a stop mere inches from her lithe frame. Then, as she reached the far corner, I remembered my own manners as well. “And good day to you, Ms. Anderson!”
Patricia barely paused to glance back, but her green eyes once again lit with some impish fire and she gave me a casual wave. I stood long enough to watch her disappear into the next alleyway, then turned back to my door. Tucking the papers carefully under one arm, I began the process of unlocking my door, for suddenly I had much to do.
Opening the door, I stepped inside my small abode and set the packet of papers down on the table to my right. Turning, I shut the door and reset the locks with the smooth and sure movements born of continual practice. Hard experience had taught me time and again that an unlocked doorway might as well have been an open one, and that open doorways all too often invited the wrong sort of guests to call on an investigator such as myself. The door secure, I retrieved my parcel and turned again to consider my home.
To my left a narrow hallway extended to a cramped parlor that could double as a dining room when I had company. The four well-worn chairs were heirlooms of a sort from my family home, and they were more than numerous enough to accommodate any friends I would choose to invite in to lunch. My mother had insisted I take them, based on the so far futile hope that I would be entertaining frequently. Just beyond that was a meager pantry where I kept what few items of food that I had within my position though all too frequently I ate with clients or in the occasional pub.
To my right was the closed door to my office. It was a small space cramped by my desk and two chairs, one set in front for any potential client I might interview. Though the office might well have been termed a closet, it also had the advantage of a back exit that a client in need of extra discretion could use to their comfort. The door could also be locked from the inside, and the desk and chairs could serve as an impromptu barrier against truly determined intruders, a function I had occasionally relied on them to serve in less fortunate times.
Alongside the door to the office, was the foot of a staircase that ran parallel to the hall. I took that route, climbing to the second floor where my own personal quarters waited. At the top of the stairs, I paused to unlock a fourth lock, and stepped into my room. My cot was undisturbed, as was the book case that stood against the right-hand wall. An inspection of the floor near both revealed no fresh scrape marks, which meant the trunk beneath my bed and the safe behind my books both remained undiscovered. The nightstand against the left wall also seemed unharmed, the complex locks that guarded the drawers unmolested, which greatly increased my peace of mind. While the nightstand did not hold an armory of weapons and tools like the trunk, or the valuable documents and items of the safe, it did hold pictures of my family and the trinkets and baubles I had carried through my life thus far—in some ways, that nightstand was of far more concern than the others. All seemed to be in order, which meant my study of the work Patricia had offered could begin.
I quickly disposed of the string holding the bundle of papers together. I spread the sheets out on the cover of my small cot, sat down beside the pile, and sifted through them. Patricia’s method of filing left something to be desired, but the bounty hunter did have a consistent practice of folding the papers related to the various cases together in a bizarre, haphazard manner. The first folded bunch came apart easily and revealed a fairly straightforward job. Apparently one Lord Pevensley had grown interested in contracting the services of Patricia to protect him against some plot or other. An attempt had already been made on his life, though I had read nothing of the sort in the local news. It could easily turn out to be a figment of his imagination, but the letter still urged some sort of attention at the earliest possible convenience.
I shook my head at his paranoia, but to be truthful his excess of caution was typical these days. The nobility had always been a nervous bunch, but in a time when werewolves and worse stalked not only the deep and dreary wilds but also the halls of Parliament, it would seem to be somewhat wise to be extraordinarily careful. Patricia had included the address where the potential client could be found, and I made a mental note to inspect the place before my appointment with the bank the next day.
Upon taking up the second package of papers, I found a rather remarkable situation waiting for me. The Everston Academy of Ethereal Sciences had been vandalized twice during the night, and one of the instructors had reported the sight of a figure trying to climb the wall. Suspecting a burglar, they wished to contract a guard to watch for further attempts at mischief. I could not restrain a snort of amusement at the thought of Patricia standing a post and watching for some unwary footpad to top a wall. Apparently the academy had not been well informed about the nature of Patricia’s typical work, but if she was willing to take the client seriously, then so was I.
Still, the academy’s offer seemed interesting. It was not often that a mere school tried to ensure its security with such stringent measures, and their dedication to self-preservation tweaked my interest. Further, I wondered what an educational institution could do to inspire such ire or motivate potential burglars. The location of the academy seemed unusual as well; unlike some similarly named schools for the wealthy or well-connected which were located in the countryside or the cleaner, safer boroughs of London, this one seemed to be placed right the midst of less refined territory. It was curious enough a situation that I decided that I would visit the place just before my appointment with Lady Dafferty the next afternoon.
My perusal of the opportunities completed, I set the papers aside and turned my attention to other concerns. For a time, I simply occupied myself with the humdrum labors of the day. The papers were duly filed away in the office downstairs; some time was spent preparing a simple meal of bread, cheese and wine for myself from the somewhat meager stores in the pantry. The front room needed tidying, which I accomplished with minimal fuss and bother, though I am sure my mother would have made much fanfare over the event of my cleaning anything. As the light faded from the sky outside and the few windows of my home grew dim, I turned the knob that allowed the shutters over the lamps to draw back, revealing the ever-glowing Linderton Lanterns that would allow me to find my way through the place at night.
Under the light of the lamp in my office, I bent myself to the task of accounting. The numbers, as always were rather dreadful. While my talents had lent themselves well to the challenge of investigation and observation, talents crucial to the success of any enterprising detective, I found myself far less skilled in the subtle war of business and investment. My earnings, small and infrequent enough as they were, seemed to flow constantly out of my hands. Rent on the apartment was due yet again in the coming week, and try as I might to balance the ledgers, I would soon have to make some hard choices in order to meet that cost. Cutting back on supplies and equipment might help, but only as far as I would not need to use such trappings. In truth, I felt more inclined to simply eat less, since my native temperament would allow me to forgo the necessities of life in pursuit of some resolution to a puzzle, but I knew it would be impractical to do so.
I sighed and turned away from the task at last, knowing full well that I would need to bend myself to the chore of completing the commissions Patricia had offered me as rapidly as possible, or find myself looking for another place to live. Drawing the shutters back over the lamps in the office, then the pantry and parlor, I made my way upstairs once again.
I paused at the door to my room for a moment. There was a window there, larger than the other, minimal panes that were scattered about the other rooms. Thick shutters closed it, and a bar across the opening to keep them shut. It was a foolish luxury I had been powerless to resist, for though it exposed my humble abode to all manner of intrusions and invasions, the view was simply too wonderful to deny myself in the name of mundane security. Even the passage of time had not yet dulled the beauty in it enough to convince me otherwise.
Unbarring the window, I drew back the shutters and looked out over the city. It was not a broad view, of course, but it was enough to see a portion of London, nearly all the way to the Thames. Lights from lamps glowed like golden fireflies frozen in some wonderful dance, with their cousins, the stars, reflected in the broad mirror of the sky. Even now, as late as it was, the great metropolis still moved, with gear-cycles and horseless carts traversing the streets and intersections that made up its structure. London, as it had been when I first saw it, seemed again a place of wonder, of dreams unfulfilled, but still fresh. A city of chances, hopes, and possibilities just out of reach and waiting to be caught by those willing to chase them. I looked out at this scene, smiling sadly at it for a time before I drew the shutters tight and made the bar fast against them. Tomorrow would be a busy day, and rest was called for the night before a new case.