By Caroline Funk | English Literature and Creative Writing | Class of 2023
Education Abroad Program: Literary London, Summer 2021

Prize Winner

Writer’s Note: This was my final paper for ENG 399 in the 2021 summer term of Miami’s Literary London Study Abroad Program. It is a creative story inspired by Sherlock Holmes mysteries and is based on the recreated Victorian streets from the Museum of London. In revising this story, I had a few key ideas and themes from class discussions in mind. The first one is the Week 3 theme of the construction of London as a character. In the example of the Sherlock Holmes story we read, London is the playground in which clues are found and adventures take place. Our readings discussed the description of London’s fog and darkness in Conan Doyle’s writing that creates a tone of mystery and ultimately becomes a character in the story. If it were a bright and sunny day in London, there would not be an ominous feeling of gloom or the suggestion that something dangerous is hiding and lurking in the shadows. I opened up my creative story describing a similar mysterious fog and rain to create the same aura of moodiness and mystery that allows London to become a kind of character and play a role in the construction of the story and ambiance as Conan Doyle does in his Sherlock Holmes stories. Another way I tried to emulate the theme of London being a character is by building into the plot. I came up with the idea for the clue being a footprint in the road because the very streets of London itself now become a physical piece of evidence and an essential part of the plot in the story. It’s not just the backdrop for which the story is taking place; it’s the central piece of evidence in the mystery.

The idea of London being a character ties back to our larger class and study abroad themes about how to read and write historical fiction located in London. I think the argument that you should attempt to write London as a character highlights the importance of physical setting when writing historical fiction. Doing research and knowing accurate information about the real place is an important part of writing historical fiction, and I think physically seeing the streets in the Museum of London as well as being in London itself helped me craft the setting for this story in a way I wouldn’t have been able to had I not been there in person. My story would be fine without the details of London. It could be a generic pub, a generic cobbler, and a generic footprint. But in giving the pub a location in Pimlico, setting it right along the Thames, making the cobblestone streets the central part of the mystery, giving details about the fog and the river and the rain, I characterized London in a way that allows the story to take on its own life. There is a reconstruction of time and an attempt to make this place feel realistic. Those details create verisimilitude and a tone that would not exist without paying attention to the importance of characterizing the setting. Overall, my focus in this creative story is emphasizing setting as a character in order to bring a reality, mood, and theme to my work of historical fiction. 

James had seen a lot in his pub. The bar would fill each night with all the important locals: the cobbler, the pawnbroker, the barber, the bank clerk. He would hear the whispers of gossip as he passed out pints of beer across the bar. Something about the dark wood surrounding him seemed to blend in with the rest of London. The city was filled with the sense of gloom: the dark paved streets, the thick fog that hung in the air like London exhaling its breath, the dim glow from the city street lamps, the cloudy drizzle of rain that pattered against the window. There was an ominous sense to all of the gray, but also a sense of beauty. James found himself comforted by the dimness of it all, the way the fog melded everything together. The rhythm of raindrops mixed with the chatter in the pub was a peaceful sound.

 The cobbled streets, the dark wooden buildings, the barrels of beer and coffee outside their warehouses, the stands of freshly baked bread, the streets were always filled with markets and customers and people selling goods. James was always right there on the corner, watching people peer through windows. He watched mothers drag their children away from the toyshop window, pushing them again and again until they finally followed. He loved to watch people stop and slow down past the freshly baked biscuits and bread, inhaling the warmth of the scent. He would watch the coffee warehouse as workers carried in load after load of beans shipped overseas from Jamaica or Ethiopia. Recently, more and more goods had arrived at their harbors. The demand for new items grew and grew, more shops opened up, more people moved from the countryside to join in on the liveliness of it all. London was an expanding city.

Watney Combe Reid & Co sat right in the center of Pimlico, the neighborhood of Belgravia that expanded into Westminster, on the corner of Bessborough Place. The rushing current of the Thames ran up against the edge of the pub. When it rained, as it usually did, the raging tide would send waves crashing against the wall at the edge: rushing water mixed with the sounds of pub chatter and rainfall. The splashing waves and current had a rhythm, a flow that James grew fond of as it kept a beat running in the background of his daily routine. The rain, the fog, the crowds, the river, the street vendors, the pub was his home at the center of the city in the middle of all the commotion. There was nothing he could possibly miss out on here.

The pub was a family business, one James had planned on inheriting since before he could even remember, like his father and his father and his father before him. Of all the businesses he could own, James was glad it was the pub. The nights were loud and grueling long hours on his feet, dealing with the drunks and shoveling people away when the night had come to an end, forcing people out and slamming the doors shut in their face. But there was no other place where people seemed to come alive in such a way. The shouting and chatter was an energy that James couldn’t quite pick up anywhere else. He loved the gossip he could overhear from his customers, loved the way they would hustle throughout their day busy with their errands and work, and yet would come to his bar to relax. He loved to watch them loosen their collars, let down their shoulders, show a little of themselves.

Once the night struck ten, every surface of the pub was filled. The corner tables were packed full with crowds of people and crowds started to form at the bar as people lined up to order their drinks: dark ales, ciders, India pale ales, porters of Whitbread or Parsons. James helped each and every one of them. He moved effortlessly through the motions of muscle memory: twisting the valve, inhaling the bready foam of beer pouring from the tap, sliding it across the counter in large glass pitchers and watching his customers gulp them down. The bar would shake as they slammed their empty glasses down and pounded the surface, demanding another.

In the bustle of crowds, a familiar face slid through the front entrance and collapsed into the corner seat of the bar. The cobbler: William Whistleby. He was a regular at James’ pub, and a good friend. Without asking, James filled a pint of porter and slid it across the bar to William.

“Long day, eh?”

“They do seem to keep getting longer.”

William was quite a reserved man. He was short and slender, with rough and nimble hands from his work. James himself had gone to his shop a few times to mend a few worn-out soles and peeling heels. Most of James’ regulars wanted to talk for hours. He had just caught up with the barber the other night and heard about an absurd story of a horse carriage that had crashed into the pawnbrokers’ shop and damaged a few antique vases. But William usually kept quiet and to himself. He preferred to fade into the background, settle in with his surroundings, make friends with the shadows in the corners. He would begin and end the night with polite conversation, pause sometimes to request a few refills, but nothing more. But on a night like this, when the place was this busy, James didn’t mind his reserved and calm presence.

“Let me know when you want your next one.”

“Will do, thank you, James.” He tipped his hat slightly, flashing his slicked, dark hair in a polite gesture.

“Help, help!” James looked up and over William’s silhouette to see the bank clerk crashing through the door, flailing his arms about, “I’ve been robbed!”

A crowd immediately gathered around him, demanding questions and trying to figure out what happened.

 “I—I—don’t know. I was sitting at my desk when I heard a strange noise coming from outside my door. I peeked through and saw a tall man, a bowler hat low over his eyes and covering his face, rummaging through my drawers and emptying them into a knapsack. I had a large collection of cash, a few pocket watches, and a few bank files in those drawers: all of them gone. I tried to run after him but he got into the boat on the river and I lost him.”

 A herd of men ran to the river, trying to see if they could chase after him. James had unfortunately seen one too many robberies in his lifetime, being nearby so many shops. He followed the crowd through the door and peered across the street at the bank clerk’s office. The cobbled streets were uneven, pebbles that swooped up and down along the jagged surface of the pavement. There was a pattern to it, a rise and a fall in between the gaps of each stone, except for one empty spot where a stone had been pulled up from the ground. A large footprint was imprinted into the mud below.

 A spark seemed to go off in James’ mind. The pub was in an uproar of gasps: a few shrieks of terror and a rushing noise of concern. James let it all fade to the background, melt into the fog and clouds around him. Instead, he ran back to the counter, back to the dark and quiet man he had just happened to serve, the only man left in the bar who hadn’t run out to the river to find the thief. The bank clerk ran desperately following behind him.

 “William, I believe you may be of some assistance.”

He looked up from the murky bottom of his glass, and stared at James as if to say, “yes?”

“I need you to show me all the records you have of your shoe repairs. Please. There’s no time to spare.”

Though he was a man of few words, James could tell that he heard the urgency in his voice. After a few minutes, he came back from his shop around the corner with a stack of papers in hand.

 “Here they are. What do you need me to do with them?”

“There’s a footprint, imprinted into the mud on the spot where a stone is missing from the pavement. Would you be able to tell what kind of shoe left it?”

William locked eyes with James. “I just might.”

They raced back outside to the footprint in front of the clerk’s office. William bent down, resting his forearms on either side of his knees, and examined the indentation. Carefully circling around it, he shuffled through the papers in hand, holding them up one after the other, examining the differences and similarities in each receipt, searching for something he could identify. As he examined the ground, a crowd began to gather behind him, looming over his shoulder trying to figure out what he was doing.

“Is that the one?” James asked from behind his shoulder.

“No, it’s not.” William declined, flicking through to the next paper and tossing the ones he had already compared aside. The crowd grew rushed with anxiety. Tension rose in the air with the looming sense of anticipation. After all the chatter and noise from the late night and the pub, the entire street was silent.

 “Aha!” William burst up from the ground and threw his arms wide. “That’s it, that’s the one. Sheriff, the man you’re after is Edward Seabury.”

The crowd applauded, joining together in a sigh of relief that someone had managed to catch the culprit. People shouted William’s praises.

“Bless you, William!” James jumped out and wrapped his arms around William in a tight embrace, expecting William to return the favor. His face tightened with awkwardness, and his arms stayed glued to either side of his waist. James quickly let go and took a large step backward. William smoothed out his jacket and cleared his throat. “Sorry. Just, well, however did you figure it out?”

“I gathered all of the records I had on my shoe repairs from the last six months, as you asked. Naturally, I got rid of all the women’s as this is clearly a man’s dress shoe. I discarded all the laced walking shoes, all the Wellington and Blucher boots, until I was left with just the flat leather evening dress shoes.”

 James hadn’t heard William speak this often and for this long. There was a level of understanding that struck him, the way William seemed to notice uncommon details, in shoes but also in everything. Maybe that was why he was also quiet, always taking in his surroundings, always noticing the little features everyone else ignored.

“The size was next,” William continued, “this footprint is around 28.6 centimeters long, and there were only seven records I had that fit that shoe type and measurement. The curve of the heel means it would have to have been a fine calf balmoral shoe, made of fine Italian leather based on the way the edges of the footprint fade out a bit instead of drawing a stark line in the mud. The size measurement is unique to begin with, but I know for a fact that I haven’t had a single client with that kind of shoe except for Mr. Seabury. Without a doubt, it must be him.”

They had managed to catch the robber in less than an hour, but there was truly nothing special about it. The missing stone in the mud was like the street setting up its own trap, its own spot to catch the culprit. London had a way of looking out for itself. And its people did too. James knew this town, its texture, its patterned fog, the store owners across the street, the pub regulars like the cobbler who he could summon for the job. William turned to the policeman to tell them more about his discoveries, and James turned back around to the pub to serve the next customer. The drizzle of rain against the window and chatter of customers was, like always, there to welcome him back.

Story based on shops in recreated Victorian streets, Museum of London