Chapter Text
Montague Street may seem to be an unlikely setting for someone seeking basic accommodation in Victorian London. It runs for but a few hundred yards, from Russell Square in the north to Great Russell Street in the south, its western side now dominated by the ever-expanding British Museum. During our time there, there were still some separate houses at the Great Russell Street end, opposite our own house (whose number, of course, I shall not reveal for the sake of its present owners). Our landlady for those two happy years, the estimable Mrs. Aliana MacAndrew, had inherited her property from a distant cousin and, following the passing of her husband, had decided to live in a small part of it and rent out the remainder. She had been there some two decades before our arrival, and even though our stay there was short, I look back on the time with fondness. My first home together with Cas....
I am often asked as to why there were no published cases from the Montague Street Years. One reason is that Cas was only slowly becoming established in his line of business, and many of the cases he solved were small if not trifling. Also, we were only there for some two years before circumstances forced us to move, and I had to face the terrible fear that, despite our closeness, Cas might wish for his own house. That he did not even hesitate before seeking out alternative accommodation for us both made me feel both unworthy and impossibly grateful that this blue-eyed genius had come into my life. I may not have deserved such a blessing, but I grasped it with both hands.
So, to the six cases, all hitherto unpublished, which Cas solved from our Bloomsbury residence. The first was that of Vamberry, the wine-merchant, followed by that of Vittoria, the Circus Belle. Criminality and science took us first east and then west of London, followed by Cas' first case involving political affairs (and my first meeting with his truly obnoxious brother, Balthazar). Finally, there was a case when a precious object was stolen from a moving train, whose solution brought mixed emotions for his client.