The Silent Cry

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John Evan stood shivering as the January wind whipped down the alley.

P.C. Shotts held his bull's-eye lantern high so they could see both the bodies at once. They lay crumpled and bloody, about seven feet apart on the icy, cobbled alleyway.

"Does anybody know what happened?" Evan asked, his teeth chattering.

"No, sir," Shotts replied bleakly. "Woman found them and oP Briggs came an' told me.”

Evan was surprised. "In this area?" He glanced around at the grimy walls, the open gutter and the few windows blacked with dirt. The doors he could see were narrow, straight onto the street, and stained with years of damp and soot. The only lamppost was twenty yards away, gleaming balefully like a lost moon. He was unpleasantly aware of movement just beyond the perimeter of light, of hunched figures watching and waiting, the myriad beggars, thieves and unfortunates who lived in this slum of St. Giles, only a stone's throw from Regent Street in the heart of London.

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