The fog had not yet lifted when they found the door that faced the river under Blackfriars Bridge. It stood half open. Resin and the reek of lead met them—the very thread that had drifted in at the side door.
An oil lamp still burned before the type-case. The dead man's column was half set: Edmund Crane, scenery painter. The sealing die lay in an iron tray, its rim still warm. Beside it hung a short length of gold watch-chain, the key still on it, copper filings in the wards of the kind Lombard Street safes leave behind.
"If the key is here," Watson whispered, "the case was emptied long ago." Holmes lifted the chain but did not yet ask who had brought it. "The die is hot; the type is not yet struck. Whoever delivered the seal must return for his proof—Watson, put out the lamp. Against the wall."
A push of river wind widened the door by another inch. Wet boots crossed the threshold. The bergamot was fainter—as if another man had come in Reginald's place.
❦ To be continued.
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