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# limehouse-docks

By amigo-malignancy01 on January 24, 2026
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### Underworld Rumors: The Ghostly Thief (The Limehouse Docks)

The air in Limehouse was a thick, stagnant cocktail of rotting fish, river mud, and the cloying sweetness of opium drifting from the shuttered dens of Pennyfields. Here, the fog was not yellow, but a bruised purple, illuminated by the flickering oil lamps of riverside taverns. I kept my hand firmly on the grip of the revolver in my pocket as Holmes led me down a narrow alleyway that seemed to sweat salt and grime.

"The criminal classes are the most reliable barometers of a city's secrets, Watson," Holmes whispered, his eyes scanning the shadows. "They know when a predator is in their midst—especially one that doesn't follow the rules of the trade."

We met our contact, a wharf-rat known as 'Scupper' Jack, behind a stack of rusted iron crates. The man was trembling, his eyes darting toward the swirling mist of the Thames.

"I seen 'im, Mr. 'olmes," Jack hissed, clutching a tattered coat to his chest. "The Ghost. He came off a steam-launch near the Isle of Dogs. No sound, no splash. He walked straight past the night watchman, and when the watchman turned to challenge 'im, there weren't nobody there. Just a bit of 'eavy fog and a scent like… like lilies in a graveyard."

"Lilies," Holmes repeated, his voice sharpening. "And did this 'Ghost' carry anything?"

"A leather box, sir. Tucked under 'is arm like it belonged to 'im. He vanished into the warehouse district, but he didn't use the doors. He just… faded."

Holmes pulled a gold sovereign from his pocket and flicked it to the man. As we walked away, Holmes’s face was grimmer than I had seen it all night. "A thief who leaves a scent of funeral flowers and moves through walls, Watson. Our adversary is either a master of the stage-illusionist's craft, or we are hunting something that has no business being among the living."

#### Next

../foreign-office/midnight-in-london

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