“I happened upon an old friend from my university days whilst in a drinking den I like to frequent. It was not the place I would expect to find “Archie” - Viscount Archibald Peacock Fitzwilliam, as it was a place frequented by rogues, scoundrels, and ladies of ill virtue. Grape Lane, known as “Grope” Lane by locals and historically by another name, which I, as a gentleman cannot repeat, is a notorious place. “The Board Tavern” is run by the fearsome Miss May who has the build of a bare knuckle fighter and a reputation to accompany it.

Archie was in high spirits, I often found this the best time to gain his favour. His family owned extensive property within the city, renting these as dwellings and to local businesses, similar in fact to the activities of my family in their seat at Ripon; perhaps explaining our bonhomie. We came to sit in a corner at a small gaming table on the first floor of the building where it was less raucous, except when there was a dispute over a game of chance. Leaning forward in a conspiratorial way, Archie told me of his difficulties within the local street known as The Shambles. The Shambles was predominantly a street of butchers and taverns frequented by the common folk. The stench of blood poured into the street from slaughtered animals could be quite heady on a summer’s day and therefore only the low born frequented the bars there.

He told me tales of strange noises heard by the tenants, the sound of fiddles playing jigs into the night and glimpses of shrouded figures dancing and spinning to the music in the street. Tales of perambulators moving of their own accord, and even an account of a bicycle moving by its own power. Figures in the doorways seemingly watching constantly and of course the tale of the ghost I named “Horace” who surprises passing strangers. The incidents seemed to have increased in frequency over the recent years and some of the townsfolk were beginning to complain.

Archie viewed these tales as “poppycock” appearing to think his tenants were bargaining for reduced rent, and was more concerned with the excuses rather than their plight. Archie was aware of my interest in such super natural matters yet was uninterested in hiring me to investigate and so we changed our conversation to other matters and decided to play a game of “Brag”. Archie was famously inept at gambling and was often taken advantage of in such circumstances, not that as a gentleman I would do such a thing. When our conversation returned to property, Archie talked of his plans to demolish a slum area to the rear of the Shambles and convert some of the buildings to business premises and offices. He mentioned a property in Newgate which piqued my attention, a location away from the stench of the Shambles, at the top of the street and near to what I have come to consider the focus of “unexplained” activity in the City. It sounded like a location which could suit my needs very well. Archie was having a good turn of luck and as I had imbibed a few glasses of the establishment’s rather questionable “brandy” I was feeling less gentlemanly towards gaming. Within short measure Archie was at a disadvantage and the cards did not fall his way, not due to any underhand behaviour on my part, but because Archie was a clumsy, obvious player and in a state considerably worse than my own. A small debt was amassed and with Archie looking somewhat puzzled and resigned to his loss we began to discuss how he might settle his debt.

A few short weeks after this meeting I located to my new business premises at 2 Newgate just yards from the centre of the unusual activity on the Shambles. Archie had agreed to lease me the premises at a considerable discount and the promise of a bottle of the finest Scotch whisky he could lay his hands on. Upon my offer to investigate the complaints of his tenants, he again he uttered “poppycock”.

Thus Professor Braithwaite’s Agency for the investigation of the Unusual, The Unknown and The Uncanny now has a home.

My first week of work in the offices of my new premises were undisturbed by any unusual activity. I visited The Shambles late at night with my clockwork lantern and once did see a small glowing figure which could have been a cat or dog but it disappeared so rapidly that I could not discern its provenance, otherwise my efforts bore no real fruit. However upon the second week whilst at work on my journal I heard the distant sounds of a jig played on a fiddle. The hair on my neck began to stand and I made rapidly for the door grabbing my lantern in haste.

The Shambles was brightly illuminated by a large crescent moon and as I turned the handle on my lantern, flickers of shrouded forms came into view and the buildings and their signage somehow altered, The Neptune Inn became The Fortune Inn and Pierce Clothes Dealer became a purveyor of funeral shrouds. Several windows and doorways held glimpses of watching figures. In the centre of the street, spinning and twirling, a pair of shrouded ghosts were dancing a jig to the darkest, almost disjointed sounding fiddle music. One bore an embroidered rose and the other figure had checked patches upon his shroud, “Blossom” and “Basil” they shall henceforth be known. It was then I spotted the bandaged faced man as he stepped forward to take a seat in the open window of the butchers shop, resting his arm on the “shammel” or shelf at the bottom of the window, holding a jewel encrusted goblet. His head was framed by the empty butcher’s hooks above and the glowing jewelled pendant around his neck. Reaching inside a pocket he brought forth a deck of cards, shuffling them with his white gloved hands, seeming to look at me whilst dealing the cards. As he placed the fourth card down … the figures and scene vanished and, unnerved, I was left alone on the street.”