The fog outside had not yet dissipated. The sound of hooves in the morning in London Bloomsbury was faintly heard through the window glass, like echoes transmitted through water.
In the ward of the free general hospital, only a dim wall lamp was lit, and the shadow of the glass bottles in the medicine cabinet was stretched long by the lamp wick.
The ward was surprisingly quiet, with only the faint sound of wheels from a cart rolling over the wooden floor in the distant corridor.
The iron bed creaked softly as Arthur turned over.
He slowly opened his eyes, his eyelids heavy, as if two slabs of stone pressed against them.
Arthur's eyelashes trembled slightly, a faint gray-green circle shading his eye bags, looking like either he had stayed up all night or had just recovered from a fever.
This sickly demeanor, however, lacked the natural collapse of a true illness and was instead attributed to the makeup artistry personally taught by the Parisian Sleuth, Francois Vidocq.
