The money from the specialized repairs was quiet. Foster kept the cash hidden in a hollowed-out geography book on Foster's—his bookshelf, a place that felt both secure and symbolically appropriate. He was mapping his escape, his entry, his future. Each banknote added was a step closer to the Aethelstan Club's marble steps.
The police work, meanwhile, took a turn for the brutally mundane, a stark contrast to the esoteric mystery of Davidson.
A new case landed on his desk, assigned by Martha. "You handled the burglaries. See if there's a pattern here."
It was a series of assaults in the Factory district. It was not the clean, almost surgical violence of the Davidson case, it was messy, desperate, and human. Workers were being jumped on their way home, their weekly wages stolen. The attacks were quick, vicious, and left the victims with broken bones and shattered pride.
Foster spent days walking the fog-drenched, cobbled streets near the whirring textile mills and clanging metalworks, interviewing shaken men and women whose lives were balanced on a single paycheck. The air here was thick with coal smoke and the smell of hot metal, a world away from the ozone and polished brass of the city center.
He found no pattern. Just poverty, opportunity, and cruelty. It was a problem of patrol routes, poor lighting, and economic despair. He coordinated with the local cops, organized a few extra patrols during shift changes, and set up a sting operation that resulted in the arrest of two desperate dockworkers.
It was a clean, effective police work. Captain Hanson gave another one of his microscopic nods.
But the victory felt hollow. While he was chasing muggers, the real mystery—his mystery, was stagnating. The Davidson file was gathering dust in the "Closed" cabinet. The bone chip sat in an evidence bag, its secret untold. The feeling of chasing shadows returned, stronger than ever.
It was during the final paperwork for the assault case that he saw something. A tiny, almost insignificant detail in the evidence log for one of the muggers.
Personal effects: a handful of coins, a cheap tobacco pouch, a folding knife.
And a key.
It was a small, brass key, oddly elegant amidst the man's average looking belongings. It was tagged and bagged, destined for the property room. But something about it nagged at Foster. It was too fine, too well-made for a common dockworker. It looked like it belonged to a jewelry box or a fine piece of furniture.
On a hunch, Foster took the key to Mr. Havelock.
—
The old clockmaker held it under his loupe, turning it over in his delicate fingers. "Hmm," he murmured. "This is quality. Not modern. See the bow? That floral design is a signature of a locksmith named Albright. He had a shop in the old city center, went out of business… must be forty years ago."
"Where was his shop?" Foster asked, his pulse quickening.
"Corner of Regent and Sycamore. The building's still there. Mostly offices now, I think."
Regent and Sycamore. It was a block over from the Davidson alley.
A cold certainty settled in Foster's gut. This was no coincidence. The mugger, a hooligan from the docks, had no business carrying a key from a long-dead locksmith whose shop was adjacent to the scene of an "animal attack." It was a thread, thin as silk, connecting the city's gritty underbelly to its hidden, older heart.
He didn't report it. He couldn't. How would he explain his interest in a key from a closed mugging case to Captain Hanson?
Instead, he logged the key back into evidence, but first, he made a careful wax impression of it, slipping the blank into his pocket.
—
That night, he sat at his desk with the impression and a piece of jeweler's brass he'd bought from Havelock. With files and a small graver, he began the painfully long work of copying the key. His hands, now skilled and sure from weeks of repair work, moved with a focused intensity.
This wasn't just police work. This was a different kind of craft. The craft of an investigator who was no longer playing by the rules of the world he found himself in.
He was creating his own key.
Not just to a forgotten lock, but to the truth. The money in the geography book was one kind of key. This sliver of shaped brass was another.
And both were leading him to the same, inevitable conclusion: he had to venture into the deep places, both literal and social. The Aethelstan Club couldn't wait much longer.