Ned had never before thought of lollipops as instruments of torture. St Clair rolled the candy thoughtfully against his lower lip, then popped it back into his mouth.

 He’d bought it at the shop where they’d met Evans and hadn’t let go of it since. It was driving Ned mad. He tried to keep his eyes on the street, but the windows of the hansom cab were too fogged to see much. Considering where they were going, it was probably for the better.

The coachman let them out in the worst part of Seven Dials and looked in horror at the tall, narrow houses that seemed ready to collapse into the open sewers below.

St Clair handed him the fare with a generous tip. The man thanked him, then gave Ned a dirty look before he climbed back up into his seat. It was clear as day that he thought Ned was up to no good, taking an innocent young fool to one of the worst slums in London.

Ned suppressed a sigh, then jumped aside as a drunk stumbled through a door in front of him. The sour smell of alcohol and unwashed bodies wafted out of the noisy gambling den, making St Clair’s aristocratic nose wrinkle in displeasure.

He pulled the lollipop from his mouth with a wet ‘pop’ and tossed it onto a heap of rubbish.

Relieved to see it gone, Ned unfolded the crumpled piece of paper Evans had given them and read aloud, “M.C. Hargrave. 14 Monmouth Road.”

They crossed the street to the dark house with number fourteen written on it in old peeling white paint. The rotting window shutters creaked in the cold wind, threatening to fall off.

“How is it that the grandfather had enough money to stay in that posh retreat for eleven years, but the grandson lives in a slum?” Ned wondered aloud.

“Things happen. My aunt Emily ran off with a footman and ended up living in Limehouse,” St Clair said with a pragmatic shrug.

“You have an aunt for every occasion, do you?” Ned muttered as he leaned forward to examine the rusty lock. 

Golden light hit the lock, and it sprang open as St Clair replied, “Not exactly, but I do have uncles and cousins to cover the rest.”

“And what happened to Aunt Emily after she ran off with the footman?” a familiar amused voice asked from behind them.

Ned jerked around, but it was too late. His oldest brother had already cornered St Clair with his most engaging smile.

“She ran back home after a week and was quietly married off to some old fat baron in Shropshire,” St Clair answered cheerfully.

Patrick’s grin widened as he glanced at Ned. “I never knew you had such interesting friends, little brother. Don’t just stand there like a statue of the Virgin in a church. Introduce me.”

“James St Clair, at your service, Mr Kelly,” St Clair said before Ned could even open his mouth.

Patrick’s blue eyes lit up at the name with that unmistakable glint of a reporter on the prowl. Ned cursed under his breath and scowled at St Clair in warning.

The brat gave him a sweet smile and added conversationally, “I am sure your brother knows that I will make his life a living hell if he prints any of that.”

Ned blinked at him, but Patrick’s grin didn’t waver. “I see Ned already warned you about me.”

“I did no such thing. Mainly because I didn’t expect to see you here,” Ned grumbled.

“I was meeting an informant,” Patrick volunteered, jerking his thumb at the seedy establishment across the street.

“In this godforsaken place?”

“At least I am not peering through the keyhole of an abandoned clinic like some morphine addict trying to break in,” Patrick retorted.

“What do you know about this place?” Ned asked.

“What’s it to you?” Patrick asked back.

“Sergeant Kelly is helping me find someone,” St Clair said smoothly.

“I see. It’s private detective Kelly now, is it? Who are you looking for?”

“Go home, Patrick. This is none of your business,” Ned growled, but they both ignored him.

“Dr Charles Hargrave,” St Clair said.

Patrick raised his eyebrows at the name and said, “You won’t find him here. I heard he went mad with grief when his daughter died. She caught tuberculosis while treating the sick in this neighbourhood. They still revere her as some sort of local saint.”

“So this was a free hospital for the poor?” St Clair asked.

“Yes. Just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished,” Patrick replied sagely.

Ned pushed the door open. The inside was almost as cold as the outside and smelled of damp walls. Most of the furniture was gone, but the windows were intact, and there were no signs of breaking and entering.

“I would have expected an empty house in Seven Dials to be full of squatters,” he told his brother, who had followed him in with St Clair.

“Everyone thinks it’s cursed,” Patrick said, looking around curiously.

“But you just said the locals think the woman was a saint,” Ned objected.

“They do think of Helen Hargrave as a saint. But things changed around here once she got sick and her father took over. People would come to this place with a broken arm or a cough, then die for no apparent reason soon after they left. It was one of the first stories I wrote about, but even the Star Gazette found it too outlandish to publish.”

Ned squinted into one of the empty backrooms and said, “I remember that. You claimed there was some sort of plague in the slums that made people age years within days before they dropped dead.”

“I claimed no such thing. I just quoted witnesses who swore they saw it,” Patrick corrected.

“Uh-huh. If you want to help, see if you can get some light,” Ned said and looked into another room.

Golden magic flew over his head and lit the place up. Ned turned around to find St Clair behind him, glowing like a Christmas tree set on fire. Patrick, however, was still stumbling around, lighting matches.

They found nothing but old metal bed frames in the larger rooms, but the last and smallest one felt less cold than the rest. Ned saw a brazier and a box of matches next to a heap of fabric in a corner. He bent over it and flinched back at the smell of dirty laundry.

 Breathing through his mouth, he picked the heap apart. There was a threadbare blanket and a set of ragged clothes that were too small for a grown man. Underneath, he found a paper bag that still smelled of boiled sweets and a piece of cardboard the size of a visiting card. It showed the image of a praying woman and tiny letters that made no sense.

“Is that some saint?” St Clair asked over his shoulder.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You are the Catholic here,” St Clair pointed out.

“Not a very good one,” Patrick said and picked the card from Ned’s hand. “Let’s get out. It’s too dark in here.”

Ned suppressed a hysterical fit of laughter. It felt too surreal that his brother could not see the golden light filling the room.

Once outside, Patrick examined the piece of cardboard and said, “I don’t know what saint this is, but the letters are Cyrillic. Russian or some other Eastern European language. But such immigrants usually settle in the East End, not around here.”

“I can see why. The locals don’t seem to like strangers much,” St Clair commented, gesturing across the street.

A group of haggard men with hard faces was gathering there. The interest with which they sized up St Clair’s expensive clothes promised nothing good.

“Ned should have warned you to dress down before he took you slumming. You look like a peacock they’d like to pluck,” Patrick said, but the amusement in his voice was strained.

“Let them try,” St Clair said.

His feral smile worried Ned more than the glint of a blade across the street.

“We are leaving. There’s nothing left to search for here,” he said firmly and nudged his companions forward.

To his relief, none of the thugs followed as they walked off in the direction of Charing Cross.

On the way there, St Clair chattered amiably to Patrick, explaining how Ned had become his security consultant. Ned could tell his brother didn’t believe a word of it and already dreaded the inevitable inquisition that would follow.

As if reading his thoughts, Patrick said, “By the way, Ned – Ma expects you to come visit on Sunday. Didn’t you get her message?”

“I haven’t been at home much lately,” Ned muttered.

“She’ll be put out if you make excuses again. She’s invited widow O’Brien and her daughters for dinner,” Patrick warned.

Ned baulked. He knew what that meant, and apparently so did St Clair.

“Which one is he supposed to marry?” he asked bluntly.

Patrick grinned. “I hear Miss Mary is a beauty with a good head on her shoulders. She would make the perfect Mrs Kelly.”

Ned opened his mouth to tell his brother where he could put Miss Mary, then caught St Clair's expression. He just hoped Patrick did not recognise it for what it was.