The morning in London was shrouded in clouds, the air filled with damp mist, and the streets carried the scent of soil leftover from a rainy night.
The building of Scotland Yard stood quietly at the street corner, like a sleeping beast waiting to awaken with the sunrise.
In the depths of this building, along the corridor of the third-floor side hall, Superintendent Laidley King casually swung his police cap in hand, with his uniform jacket draped over his shoulders, and hummed a tune he heard last night at the tavern.
If Chief Charles Rowan or Deputy Chief Richard Mayne were to see him like this, they certainly couldn't believe that this roguish-looking man was the usually serious and upright head of the London Police Intelligence Bureau's Section Five, Laidley King.
But indeed, this was Laidley when he wasn't in the presence of his superiors.
