Concerning Events Most Unrelated

Harold McClellan was never much of a shot. His brother Duncan was, however, a fact that would not have mattered had Harold not drunkenly fallen into a duel with Lord Atterbury's second son Phillip, who promptly drilled him through the heart at twenty paces in a clearing outside of Hyde Park. Even then it only mattered because one dull-moon evening Phillip Atterbury decided to stroll Victoria Embankment, and ended it beneath Blackfriars Bride with a hole in his head.
The Yard was punctilious and efficient as usual. It appeared to be a straightforward case, and they had Duncan McClellan in irons before two days were out.
The only snag to their case was that Duncan didn't do it. A brawl had crushed a gin bottle of his right hand four days earlier, breaking several bones and damn near slicing a finger off.
The terrible affair came to my desk because other than Duncan, the Chief Inspector didn't have a clue to go on, and would be forced to attribute Atterbury the younger's new trephination to being a victim of this city's stew of murderous felons. Atterbury the elder would most certainly not accept that, or anyway were he in London at the moment instead of colonial Africa.

The year of 1887 had been slipping into the stagnant chill of winter, the dangerous slope into the hell known as The Christmas Season. The air outside was bright, cold, the type of cold that'll freeze a witch's tit until it can cut plate glass. London's not a city to trifle with on an afternoon such as this, if you don't need to. I was beside the glowering fireplace, sharing my coffee with some cognac so we could both stay warm. The newspapers were offering very little about the Atterbury case, chiefly the sensationalist speculation newspapermen fall upon where they can find no other scintillating truth to garrote. I'd ascertained Scotland Yard would be releasing McClellan when the front bell rang. I tried to make sure there were not an obscene number of cigarettes smoldering in the ash plate before Miss Templesmith introduced the guest.