IN the year 1903, I found myself wandering the streets of London on the eve of Christmas Day. Snow delicately lined the cobble-paved roads of the city, and many of the shops had arranged multi-colored lights and a rather over-bearing array of silver colored tinsel across the interior of their display windows. Handfuls of children in choir groups travelled from door-to-door in hopes to serenade the residents of the city into donating money to the church, while pockets of those unfortunate enough to have nothing at all gathered around rusted barrels, warming themselves in a makeshift garbage fire.
If I could offer any passing remark about London, I would most certainly say that it was almost too peaceful. Coming from New York, I was always used to hearing a wide variety of colorful cursewords coming from the mouths of taxi drivers passing by, or the orchestra of horns blaring from the dozens of cars that found themselves stuck in the array of traffic on their way to work.
I had just finished my usual rounds for the holidays - buying a few boxes of toys and a handful of books to ship to family members back in the States. While making my way back to my apartment (which, despite holding a rental price of nearly 2'000 pounds, was rather small in size and average in decor), I bumped into a rather peculiar man, dropping my recently packaged items into the snow. The man had kept his head down, and continued to walk in the direction he had been going.
"I beg your pardon, sir!" I shouted, my tone understandably irritated. The man continued to walk, seemingly ignorant to the words I was saying.
I attempted to salvage what had been left of my gifts to no avail. The cardboard boxes that had held the multitudes of toys had became wet, and rather flimsy while sitting in the snow. Picking one up, its contents had torn through the wet material, and onto the mixture of slush and a light dusting of snow below.
Against my better judgement, I began following the man, hoping to confront him about what he had caused. After a few minutes of making his way down the main roads, he began cutting into narrow alleyways, and rather dark, unlit sections of the city. I began to suspect that he caught on to my trailing of him.
After what seemed to be nearly an hour of twists, turns, and unusually decrepit roads, the man had finally come to a stop.
He walked up the steps of a significantly out of place building. Most windows had poorly constructed wooden barricades on their exterior, and the plants that may have once flourished laid dead and withered in their pots. Entering the building, the front entryway had closed with an audible slam.
Any sane person at this point would have simply counted their losses and turned away - but unfortunately for me, in a blind sense of anger and demand for some sort of justice, I made my way towards the decrepit apartment building.
From the outside, you'd think anyone living here was either insane, or some sort of criminal hiding out from the police. There was trash littered everywhere - and a foul stench of some sort of alcohol filled the air surrounding it.
"By god, McClaren, what have you gotten yourself into this time..?" I mumbled to myself, making my way up the steps and to the front door. Attempting to turn the doorknob was a waste of effort - the thing fell right off of the door the second I touched it.
"Are you here to see the Detective?" A voice called out from above. Looking up, there was a person - judging by the voice, a man - silhouetted behind a set of rather opaque curtains.
"Detective?" I inquired, raising a brow. I quickly shook my head, assuming that I could be seen. "No, no. I've come here because... well - to put it simply, somebody owes me money for damages to my goods." I quickly continued, returning my attention to the doorknob.
