London, where penniless boys wore rags and ran wild in the streets, never going to school. London, where villains killed ladies of the night—I had no clear idea what these were—and took their babies in order to sell them into slavery. In London there were royalty and cutthroats. In London there were master musicians, master artists, and master criminals who kidnapped children and forced them to labour in dens of iniquity. I had no clear idea what those were, either. But I knew that my brother Sherlock, sometimes employed by royalty, ventured into the dens of iniquity to match wits against
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