Eight hours shovelling away and still your shift was not over, but despite the ache in your back and the dust in your lungs, you would not complain for there was still coin to be made on the gloomy streets of London.

With an unsavoury squelch your sodden boots planted deep into a six foot pile of blackened muck at the end of a lonely alley. It was your task to sift through the cinders in search for anything of use, and as your shovel drew back another pile of soot, something metallic reflected the light of your lantern.

Without hesitation you sank to your knees and dug through the waste, to discover a fine jewelled ring...still attached to the lifeless fingers of someone buried beneath.

A corpse, here? That could not be! Who would bury a body beneath the mound? You looked closer towards the ring in bewilderment, and found that you recognised it immediately. It belonged to the wife of the renowned Baron, Alistair Crane.

As if the mere act of thinking aloud his name had summoned the devil himself, you heard Alistair's booming voice call to you from behind as your eyes grew wide.

"You! Pauper! Come to me at once!"