Episode 1: The Client in the Rain
The autumn of 1890 was particularly unkind to London. A persistent, sooty drizzle fell from skies the colour of woodsmoke, and a chill that spoke of forgotten warmth had settled upon the city. I had taken refuge in my modest lodgings at 12A Craven Gardens, attempting to find solace in a medical journal, but the words blurred before my eyes. My own practice, yet to properly begin, felt as distant as the Indian sun I had so recently left behind.
It was, therefore, a welcome distraction when my landlady, Mrs. Henley, announced a visitor. "A Mr. Croft to see you, Dr. Mercer. Says he's a neighbour."
I knew the name, of course. Erasmus Croft resided in the much grander Number 7, and was a figure of some local intrigue. He was spoken of as a "consulting logician," a man to whom the wealthy and the desperate alike turned when a problem lay beyond the grasp of Scotland Yard. I had seen him on occasion—a tall, gaunt man with a hawk-like profile and an energy that seemed to crackle around him. I bade him enter.
"Dr. Mercer," he began, without preamble, striding into the room and shedding his damp overcoat as if it were an old skin. His eyes, a piercing and unsettling shade of grey, scanned my quarters with a single, sweeping glance that I felt must have catalogued every book, every stray paper, the very state of my soul. "Forgive the intrusion. Your military service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and your recent publication on the identification of tropical poisons, suggests a man of both fortitude and precise observation. I have need of such a man this evening."
I was too astonished to speak. How could he know of my paper, only just published in a specialist journal?
He answered my unspoken question with a thin smile. "The clay on your walking boots is peculiar to the path beside the Royal Society's gardens, where you doubtless went to clear your head after reading the proofs. The callus on your right forefinger is from a pen, not a surgical scalpel, indicating a recent shift from practical medicine to theory. And your bearing, Doctor, has the stamp of the Queen's commission. The deduction is elementary. But we have no time for vanity. Are you free?"
"I... yes, of course," I managed. "But for what purpose?"
"To witness a tragedy unfolding in three acts," he said, his voice dropping. "The first act arrived by this." He produced a small, cream-coloured envelope from his waistcoat pocket. It was of high-quality stock, but bore no crest. The message within was typed on a modern Remington machine, a single, stark line:
THE PHOENIX MUST NOT RISE FROM THE ASHES. THE CAGE AWAITS THE CANARY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
"It is melodramatic, but not idle," Croft stated. "The 'Phoenix' is the colloquial name for a new airship design, the personal project of Lord Ashworth, an innovator in aeronautics. The 'Canary' is his daughter, Miss Lillian Ashworth. The threat is therefore twofold: against his life's work, and his child."
"And the second act?" I asked, intrigued despite myself.
"The second act," said Croft, "is the client himself."
As if on cue, a frantic knocking came at my door. Mrs. Henley, looking flustered, ushered in a man who was the very picture of distress. He was young, well-dressed, but his face was pale, his eyes wild with fear. Rainwater dripped from his fine coat onto my rug.
"Mr. Croft! Thank God you are here!" the young man gasped. "I came to your home, and your housekeeper directed me here. It's Lillian! She's gone!"
"Compose yourself, Mr. Fairchild," Croft said, his voice calm and authoritative. "Explain everything to Dr. Mercer and myself. Omit no detail."
The young man, who was introduced as Mr. Arthur Fairchild, fiancé to Miss Ashworth, collapsed into a chair. "We were at the British Museum today, in the Egyptian gallery. She was fascinated by the sarcophagi. I turned to examine a scarab—only for a moment!—and when I looked back, she was gone. I thought she had merely wandered off, but she was nowhere to be found. The museum guards assisted in the search. Nothing."
"Was there any sign of a struggle?" I asked, adopting my professional tone.
"None. It was as if she had vanished into thin air."
"And this was discovered in her stead," Croft interjected, not as a question, but a statement. He produced a small object from his other pocket: a single, vibrant crimson feather, the kind one might find from a tropical bird or an exotic costume.
Fairchild stared, aghast. "Yes! How did you...? It was lying on the floor where she had been standing."
"The third act," Croft murmured, holding the feather up to the lamplight. "The Crimson Cipher. It is both a taunt and a signature."
He turned his piercing gaze back to Fairchild. "You will return to Lord Ashworth. Tell him I am on the case. Do not speak of the feather or this note to anyone. Dr. Mercer and I have a gallery to visit."
---
The Egyptian gallery of the British Museum was a vast, echoing hall, filled with the silent, stone-weight of antiquity. At that late hour, it was empty, save for a lone constable left by a baffled Yard. Croft moved like a bloodhound, his entire being focused. He ignored the great Rosetta Stone and the massive statues, his attention fixed on the spot Fairchild had described.
He dropped to his knees, his nose inches from the marble floor. "Observe, Mercer. The dust here is disturbed. Not a scuffle, but a precise pattern." He pointed to a series of faint, scuffing marks. "A man's boots, size ten, I'd wager. He stood here, waiting. And here..." His finger traced an almost imperceptible drag mark. "She did not walk away. Her heels were pulled. She was taken with swift, expert efficiency."
"But how?" I asked. "In a public gallery?"
"By exploiting the one thing that makes men blind: authority," Croft said. He strode to a large, wooden door marked STAFF ONLY - NO ADMISSION. The lock was simple. From a small leather case, he selected two fine tools and, with a deft click, had it open in seconds.
Beyond lay a narrow service corridor, lined with crates and casting materials. And there, caught on a rough-sawn splinter of wood, was a second crimson feather.
"The 'Cage,'" Croft whispered, his eyes alight with the fire of the chase. "They did not bring her out through the public halls. They used the museum's own labyrinth."
We followed the corridor to a loading bay that opened onto a rear alley. In the mud of the alley, clear as print in a book, were the fresh tracks of a motorised van—a vehicle still rare enough to be notable.
"The plot clarifies," Croft said, his voice tight with excitement. "They have the 'Canary.' They have taken her not for ransom, but to silence her father. To stop the Phoenix. The threat was not against her life, but a promise to cage her if he proceeded. The airship's maiden launch is tomorrow at the Ashworth estate."
"Then we must go to the police! To Lord Ashworth!" I cried.
"And precipitate her death?" Croft countered. "No. Our kidnappers are men of theatre. They leave feathers as calling cards. They will not do something as crude as murder in a ditch. They will have a stage. And I know precisely which one."
He hailed a cab and gave an address in the Docklands, a area known for its sprawling, abandoned warehouses.
"The old Aether Mills," he explained as we rattled through the fog-shrouded streets. "A place of industry, of fire and rebirth. A perfect stage for a 'Phoenix.' They will have her there, and they will make her father watch as they threaten to turn his dream into her funeral pyre, unless he publicly scuttles his project."
We arrived at a desolate brick building, its windows boarded, the air thick with the smell of the Thames and old rot. A single, flickering light could be seen on the upper floor. Croft moved with a predator's silence, finding a side entrance.
Inside, the vast, cavernous space was dominated by the skeletal frame of a failed industrial machine. High on a gantry, we saw her: a young woman with golden hair, tied to a chair. Below her, pools of oil shimmered in the lantern light. Two men stood guard.
"It's a trap, Croft," one of them sneered. "The boss said you'd come."
"Of course I did," Erasmus Croft said, stepping into the light, his voice ringing with absolute authority. "You are former employees of the Royal Balloon Factory, dismissed by Lord Ashworth for incompetence. You sought to sell his designs to a foreign power, but the Phoenix was too advanced, too personal a project. So you resorted to this melodrama to break him."
The men recoiled. How could he know all this?
"The feathers," Croft continued, advancing. "From the headdresses of the museum's South American exhibit, which you passed on your route. The typed note—the 'a' key is slightly misaligned, a flaw unique to the machine in the Balloon Factory's records office. And the van's tread pattern is the same as that used for deliveries there. You did not need to be geniuses. You only needed to be men with a grudge and access."
A fight ensued, short and brutal. I found my old soldier's instincts returning, and together, Croft and I subdued the two men. As I untied the terrified but unharmed Miss Ashworth, Croft stood over his captives.
"The greatest mystery, gentlemen," he said, "is not how a crime is committed, but why the criminal believes he is clever enough to get away with it. You sought to cage a songbird to clip the wings of a Phoenix. A poetic, but fatal, error in logic."
---
Later, in the warmth of my sitting room, a grateful Lord Ashworth and his daughter having departed with the police, I poured two glasses of brandy.
"Croft," I said, handing him one, "that was... astounding. You saw a whole narrative in a feather and a typed line."
He waved a dismissive hand. "Data, Mercer. Unconnected facts are like stray threads. The mind of the logician weaves them into a tapestry. But I will admit," he said, taking a sip, "having a chronicler, and a man of action, at my side proved to be... not entirely disagreeable."
He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw not just the brilliant logician, but a man in need of a companion to share the silence between the storms.
"My lodgings at Number 7 are more spacious," he said casually. "I have been considering taking on a fellow lodger, to share the expense. The room gets the morning sun, and is admirably quiet. Should you ever find Craven Gardens... unsuitable."
I did not hesitate. I had seen the adventure, the purpose, that walked beside this man. I had seen the beginning of something far greater than a single mystery.
"I should find it perfectly suitable," I replied.
And so began my association with Mr. Erasmus Croft, and the true start of my London practice.