‘What is it, then?’ came the other voice. ‘Something from your chemical researches? Or from one of those little jaunts to the jungle which so preoccupy you.’

‘A little of both, perhaps. I have made the acquaintance of a new friend,’ she said, chuckling.

The whirr and click sounded again and a match was struck, briefly illumining a puckered mouth and a long white beard as a cigar was lit.

‘Well, well,’ whispered the owner of the beard. ‘We all look forward to hearing more, I’m sure.’ He lit the cigar and sucked on it hungrily. ‘You are always full of surprises … Mrs Gillyflower.’

Chapter the Fourth

‘A Study in Crimson’

The town was coffin-dark.

Soot lay on every surface, streaking the soft stone of grand municipal buildings, settling on rooftops like infernal snow, tumbling from the eyes of begrimed statues like malignant tears.

A pall of smoke hung over every mill and manufactory, shrouding the feeble sun which hung in the sky as sickly, green and wan as a cadaver’s face, as though viewed from some distant and impossibly alien world.

Then came the shriek of the whistle and workers began to pour through factory gates. A great seething, unwashed slab of Humanity – men, women, children – more bone than flesh, clad in blackened bonnets and coats, filth etched into every crease, every line of their sad and downcast faces. On they came, thin as charcoal sticks, heading for their meagre homes, work over for a few short, precious hours.

Two such workers were Abigail Blench and Sissy Roper. Backs aching, begrimed and beaten, they hauled their weary young bones over the cobbles.

Sissy stopped and turned to her friend. ‘Nay, Abigail, I’ve had it.’

‘Have you heck as like,’ rejoined Abigail.

‘I promise you!’ insisted Sissy. ‘I’m beggared if I’m breaking me back for them leeches any more.’

‘What choice do we have? Where else’ll we go?’

‘Where’d you think?’

They had stopped outside of a pair of massive iron gates. Sissy pressed her face to the bars, like a child gazing into a toyshop.

Abigail laughed, exposing teeth as black as her clogs. ‘You’re soft in the head, Sissy—’

Then she stopped in her tracks. What was this? Rising high over the whistle’s shrill cry – music. The thudding chords of a pipe organ and the plaintive sound of a hymn! One dreamt up by Bunyan in a distant time when old King Charles was on the throne of a sunnier, greener, kinder England. ‘He who would valiant be, ’gainst all disaster. Let him in constancy, follow the master!’