VINCENT EVERETT SAT IN HIS COACH ACROSS THE street from the fashionable town house in London. It was one of the colder nights of the winter season, but he had slid the window open so he could see clearly across the street. He wouldn’t be surprised if snow was imminent.

He wasn’t sure why he was there, subjecting himself to inclement weather. He didn’t doubt that his secretary, Horace Dudley, would serve the notice that gave the occupants two days to vacate the house. It wasn’t that this was another stepping-stone in his decision to ruin the Ascot family, who lived there. It was more likely that he was simply bored and had had no other plans for the evening.

Even the decision to ruin this particular family wasn’t an emotional one. Vincent hadn’t experienced any real emotion since his childhood, nor did he ever again want to know such pain. It was much, much easier to exist with a stone for a heart, made simple matters such as evicting a family during the Christmas season just a matter of course.

No, the methodical destruction of the Ascots wasn’t emotional, but it was personal. Vincent’s younger brother, Albert, had made it personal, when he had put the full blame for his failed business and finances on George Ascot.

Albert had lost most of his inheritance, solely on his own. However, he had learned from his mistakes. He had taken what little was left of it and tried to start a business that would support him, so he wouldn’t be a continuous drain on Vincent. And to give himself some pride. He had bought several merchant ships, opened a small office in Portsmouth. But apparently Ascot, an established shipping merchant himself, had been afraid of the competition and had set out to undermine Albert’s efforts at every turn, to break him before he even began.

These were the details in Albert’s letter, which was all he’d left behind before he disappeared, that and an astounding number of debts that continued to land on Vincent’s door. Vincent feared that Albert had taken himself off to quietly kill himself somewhere where he wouldn’t be found, as he had threatened so many times. What else was he to think, when Albert’s letter had ended with “This is the only way I can think of, to no longer be an embarrassment or burden to you”?