At 2:17 a.m., the first telephone rang.
Inspector Arthur Delbury had long ago learned to distrust telephones after midnight.
They rarely brought good news.
He reached across the bedside table without opening his eyes.
"Delbury."
The voice on the line belonged to Sergeant Collins.
"We've got one, sir."
Delbury sat upright.
"What sort of one?"
"A gentleman. Blackfriars Bridge. No identification. Still breathing, but barely. The doctor says he'll live."
Delbury swung his feet onto the floor.
"And?"
Collins hesitated.
"There's... something odd."
"There always is."
"The man was carrying a revolver, but it had never been fired. No money missing. No watch missing. No struggle. It's as if someone stopped him without wanting to rob him."
Delbury was already dressing.
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
---
The rain had stopped.
London's streets glistened beneath the gas lamps as Delbury's motorcar pulled up beside Blackfriars Bridge.
Two constables stood guard over the scene.
The unconscious man had already been taken to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, leaving only chalk markings and curious faces behind.
Delbury crouched beside the gutter.
"There."
A constable pointed.
"What am I looking at?"
"The dart, sir."
It lay half hidden beside the kerb.
Barely an inch long.
Steel.
Perfectly machined.
Delbury picked it up with his handkerchief.
"No feathers."
"No poison vial."
"No markings."
The inspector frowned.
"Not military."
"No, sir."
"Not homemade either."
He slipped it carefully into an evidence envelope.
Whoever had made this possessed money...
...and precision.
---
Twenty minutes later he stood beneath the bridge itself.
The river moved quietly through the darkness.
Most detectives looked for footprints.
Delbury looked for decisions.
He walked the stranger's likely route from the post box.
Three steps.
Pause.
Turn.
Draw revolver.
Collapse.
He stopped exactly where the victim must have fallen.
"No blood," he murmured.
"No signs of panic."
His eyes drifted toward the opposite pavement.
Newspapers.
Flowers.
A sleeping drunk.
He smiled faintly.
"Interesting."
Collins looked puzzled.
"What is, sir?"
"If I wanted to hide an assassin, I wouldn't hide him."
"I'm afraid I don't follow."
"I'd hide an observer."
The sergeant frowned even harder.
Delbury pointed across the road.
"A newspaper seller has every excuse to stand in one place for hours."
He pointed again.
"A flower girl watches every face that passes."
Then toward the railway arch.
"And no one notices a drunk."
Collins stared.
"You think one of them did it?"
"I think one of them saw everything."
---
The newspaper vendor had gone.
So had the flowers.
The drunk had vanished.
Only damp footprints remained where he had slept.
Delbury's expression hardened.
"They left together."
"How can you tell?"
"They didn't."
Collins blinked.
"But you just said..."
"They left separately."
The inspector looked once more across the empty street.
"Which means they were never together in the first place."
---
Across London, in a room hidden behind the respectable offices of a shipping company, a man in a grey suit unfolded the ivory envelope.
He broke the black wax seal with surprising care.
Inside rested a single sheet of cream paper.
Only one sentence had been written.
The Archivist is dead. Find the Second Key before they do.
Nothing else.
No signature.
No date.
The man read it twice.
Then held the page above a small spirit lamp.
Slowly, more writing emerged in pale blue ink.
Not words.
Coordinates.
A street.
A time.
And one name.
Arthur Delbury.
For the first time that night, the man frowned.
"So," he whispered.
"They've drawn him into the game already."
He folded the letter, returned it to the envelope, and locked it inside a steel dispatch case.
Then he walked to the window.
The eastern horizon was beginning to pale.
Dawn was still an hour away.
Somewhere in the city, another player had just taken the board.
And if the message was genuine...
Inspector Arthur Delbury would be dead before sunset.