Reginald Faraday and the Cobbled Corpse

When the Past Refuses to Stay Buried

London can look innocent enough at night. Lamps burn low. Frost settles on the cobblestones. Still, bodies often end up where they shouldn’t be. Sometimes directly in a man’s path.

There is no obvious reason for his death. Only fragments. A torn railway ticket. A broken whistle. A single gold cufflink. Enough to raise suspicion. Not enough to explain why he never made it home.

Then the name surfaces.

Caelum Hartley. A man Reginald questioned years earlier. A man who slipped out of London once the questions ran dry. A man who was never meant to return. Certainly not like this.

What begins as an interruption becomes an obligation. Hartley was not wandering. He was chasing someone. And whoever he followed did not stop running when Hartley fell.

Three days later, Reginald finds himself balancing on a narrow ledge above the underworks. The stone is slick beneath his feet. Heat rises from pipes below. Somewhere ahead, the truth is close enough to vanish. Then the ground gives way.

He survives the fall. But the suspect gets away.

Back in his rooms, the silence feels oppressive. His grandfather’s ghost offers no guidance this time. Charlotte brings news instead. False names. Missing ledgers. Figures kept off the books. Someone altered the numbers. Someone panicked when scrutiny arrived. Someone paid to make the problem disappear.

And that is just the beginning…