Bellefontaine's Return
Night had fallen hours ago in the London borough of Southwark. The intersection of Borough avenue and Newcomen street was crowded with carriages flowing north and south, east and west; drovers pushed their teams to pull wagons often overloaded at risky speeds. The intersection was also a dangerous but necessary crossing point for pedestrians out on nocturnal errands: common menials performing heavy labors, ladies maids procuring whatever their wealthy patrons might need, poorly paid clerks rushing to get home before returning to the counting house by dawn, and everywhere the unwholesome business of crime went on in the shadows.
This and more I saw from my perch four stories above the street on the roof of a building that lay on the southeast corner of the interaection.
