The equivoque principle

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THE HORSE-DRAWN COACH pulled up outside the row of dilapidated tenement buildings just after midnight. A lone driver sat high at the front of the carriage, holding his lantern tightly in his clammy hands, nervously scanning the streets around him for any sign of life. Wisps of warm breath trailed like spectres from his mouth into the bitter November wind.

'So this is Crawditch, eh? Can't say I'm thrilled about being here, Bishop,' he said anxiously. 'It's a bit of a hole, int' it?'

'Where else would you find a rat, Mr Melchin?' said the portly man inside the coach. He pulled a gold pocket-watch from within the folds of his dark-purple robes, and squinted in the half-light of the driver's lantern. 'Don't worry, I've no wish to remain in this godforsaken place for long myself,' he said, peering through the carriage's window into the ever-present smog.

Ever since the last days of the eighteenth century, steam and smoke had become the belt and braces of modern society. The masses of coal-burning furnaces and chimneys on the London skyline spewed their filth into the air relentlessly, birthing sulphur-dioxide smog that clung to the damp, cobbled streets like a milky shroud.

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