Chapter 29: After the Arrest — What Watson Owes the Dead

The cold came properly in the second week of December, the kind that settled into the city's stone and stayed there — not the damp, suggestive cold of November but the declarative kind, the kind that left ice on the inside of window glass and turned the Thames the colour of old pewter before the morning light had fully arrived.

Watson stood at the window of the new office and watched a costermongher below trying to start his cart horse, which had planted its feet and declined the morning's enterprise entirely. The man spoke to the animal with considerable patience and no apparent result. Watson had been watching for four minutes. He found he was rooting for the horse.

The new office was on Montague Street, two doors north of the char. The char itself was still there — the burned shell had not yet been cleared, the council having issued three contradictory notices about its disposition, which appeared to be how the council managed most things. Watson had not asked to have it expedited. He was not certain why. Possibly because he passed it twice a day and it reminded him of something useful.