The Shadow of Great Britain

When Lewis returned to his rented room on the fifth floor of No. 7 Witfield Street, it was already two o’clock in the morning.

The rundown stairway was still as narrow as a crack, with peeling walls and loose floorboards. The sour and rancid smell from the neighboring cheese warehouse seeped in through the windows, turning the air sticky. Lewis usually felt a headache, nausea, and the urge to curse whomever was responsible whenever he caught a whiff of that smell, wishing he could torch the cheese warehouse to the ground.

But tonight, he didn’t even frown.

As if the stench was not a stench, but a...a symbol of poverty, and for the first time in his thirty years, Lewis felt this symbol was drifting further away from him.

He should have been fast asleep in the reserved suite at the Green Hotel, a luxurious one-pound-a-night room, with pressed sheets, a bright fireplace, hot bathwater, and bellboys who would place a foot mat at your feet...

It was the highest form of indulgence in life.

For a One Penny Journalist who usually had to count his pennies for a pint of beer, it was extravagance verging on fraud.

Yet he didn’t stay over.

He insisted on going home.

Not out of thriftiness, nor a sudden twinge of conscience, but for another reason—he was particular about where he slept.

If he slept in the hotel tonight, he’d definitely oversleep or get drowsily entangled in the feather pillows and not want to get up the next day.

But tomorrow morning, he had to go to a place, a place that could change the course of his life—No. 4 Whitehall, Scotland Yard.

He was to meet Sir Arthur Hastings.

The big shot willing to take note of his address, hand him a business card, and with a flick of a finger, let all the sensational cases land in his hands.

Therefore, even though Lewis was so drunk his eyes could hardly stay open, he insisted on returning to his rented room with a bed that hurt his back and a mildewy pillow, just to make sure the alarm in the morning (actually the clanging from the milk carts downstairs at six o’clock) would wake him on time.

To get home, he desperately hailed a cab at Covent Garden, competing against the gentlemen and ladies who had just finished watching a play and were preparing to go home, and paid a high price to snatch it up.

"Witfield Street...No. 7...Fifth floor!"

He slurred drunkly, and the driver, put off by the strong smell of alcohol, politely refused, saying, "Sorry, sir, but I saw another gentleman flagging me down first."

Lewis handed over two shillings.

Then another two shillings.

And finally fished out his last half shilling.

The driver immediately fell silent and helped him onto the carriage.

The exorbitant cab fare made Lewis’s heart bleed.

To pay for this fare, he had to scratch off today’s afternoon entries in his small ledger: "Buy a new tie on Regent Street," "Get a second-hand silver pocket watch on Jermyn Street," and "Two newspapers for tomorrow morning."

However, it was all worth it.

The carriage rocked along the way, and he almost fell asleep inside, but the thought of being late tomorrow and keeping Sir Arthur waiting...

No!

Lewis startled wide awake, as if a bucket of cold water had doused his head.

A man of such stature had given him one chance, like a mercy from God, but a second chance...

Don’t even think about it!

So he forced himself to stay awake.

When he arrived at Witfield Street, he paid the fare and was nearly kicked off the carriage by the driver.

The midnight breeze blew on his face, worsening his dizziness, but the nameless card in his chest pocket was burning hot, almost searing.

Lewis staggered, climbing the five flights of stairs, opened the door, entered the room, and collapsed on the edge of the bed, like a tattered rag wrung out by a washerwoman.

The sky outside the window had long since darkened, and by moonlight, he could clearly see the pitifully small rented room, with only a bed, a table, a half-burnt candle, and a nearly full journal.

The night wind blew against the window frame, making the boards creak and moan.

Lewis lay down on the bed, then sat up, lay down again, and sat up again.

He couldn’t sleep.

Not at all.

After all, this kind of thing, this bizarre dream-like yet terribly real thing, stubbornly occupied his mind.

The business card was clutched in his hand.

He didn’t know how many times he had felt for it.

The paper was heavy, the ink was clear, and each line weighed in his palm, pressing on his chest, making it hard for him to breathe.

Sir Arthur Hastings

Permanent Secretary of the Police Commissioner Committee, Chairman of the Board of Empire Publishing Company, and even an unofficial Attendant to Her Majesty the Queen, close to the Royal Family...

The more Lewis read, the happier he felt.

He suddenly laughed, as gleefully as a drunk fool, yet his eyes were slightly wet.

Because the more thrilled he was, the more he remembered those humiliating days and nights over the past thirty years.

He was born in a rundown fishing village on the coast of Kent County; his father was a reckless fisherman, his mother died of pneumonia, his father was sent to a poorhouse for drinking and debt by the parish. And Lewis, the half-grown child, should have gone in too, spent his days weaving ropes, twisting threads, eating porridge so thin you could see your reflection in the cold stone walls.

But the deacon of the parish, considering the poorhouse overrun, thought it more practical to send a half-grown child to work in London rather than feeding him for nothing.

So he contacted a distant relative running a print shop in London, and Lewis was stuffed onto a carriage, along with an old coat and a bag of oatmeal cookies, and tossed into London City.