“I would very much like to see Sherlock Holmes do that,” said Bram slyly. Arthur grinned, feeling devilish in his victory.

“Come along,” he said quietly.

Arthur led Bram around the Methodist Mariners’ boardinghouse until he found a side entrance, away from the church. A few other placards adorned the outer wall of the building. They were drawn in Oriental characters, each shape a complex array of interlocking strokes. Arthur was reminded of the hedge maze in front of Alnwick Castle.

“They’ve a separate house set up for the Oriental sailors,” said Arthur slowly as he realized what he’d found. “They can stay here for pennies while their ships are docked. And so a little community has formed. The sailors can trade goods with each other, alcohol and tobacco, opium and fresh pipes. And, naturally, they’ve a tattooist in residency.”

Arthur entered the building and was greeted by a wall of noise. Sailors from every port of the Orient shouted at one another in tongues, belting out foreign curses and dissonant chanteys. In one corner, a pile of men lay stacked, as if in a tin. Some puffed opium from three-foot pipes, while others had already fallen unconscious and lay across the floor or on the legs of their fellows. Two massive, bald Orientals held bottles, from which they drew a viscous liquid into glistening syringes. The bottles were small and bore the label “Friedrich Bayer & Co.: Pure Heroin for the Alleviation of a Child’s Bedtime Cough.” A nearby group was engaged in similar activities with a heavy jar of morphine. Arthur surveyed the state of international relations: Heroin from the Germans, morphine from the English, opium from the Chinese, and all traded freely until everyone drifted unconscious into his own sweet and vivid chimeras.

Arthur thought of Sally and Morgan entering through these same doors, two virgins crossing the river Styx. He said as much aloud.

“If you’re Virgil, does that make me Dante?” Bram joked in response.

“I believe it to be the other way around,” said Arthur.

An employee in a crisp black suit approached Arthur and Bram. He was a thin white man, and he spoke with the lilt of the Scottish Highlands.

“And what ship has brought the two of you to my doors?” he said through half a smile.

“Charon’s raft, perhaps, but let’s leave that aside for now.” The house employee did not seem to catch Bram’s reference, but his face betrayed no impression either way. “We’re looking for some young women.”

“So are half the men you see before you,” said the employee. “I doubt they’ve the coin to pay for it. But you two, on the other hand…” He looked Arthur and Bram up and down, from their polished shoes to their ridged hats. “My name is Perry. I’m sure I’ll be able to help you find what you require.”

“Thank you,” said Arthur, “but we’re not looking for young women who are here tonight. We’re looking for a pair of women who came in here some months, perhaps as much as a year or so, in the past. They made use of your resident tattooist.”

Perry frowned. He had hoped to make a tidy profit off these two gents.

“You may find him in the back.” He pointed toward a far doorway. “And when you’ve finished speaking to him, we’ll see if there isn’t anything in which I can interest you gentlemen.”

A velvet curtain, drenched in smoke and pocked with pipe burns, separated the larger room from which Arthur and Bram came and the quieter back room into which they proceeded. Bram pressed the curtain aside.

The haze of smoke was thinner here, and sconces of thick candles were attached every few feet to the walls. On a cushioned table in the center of the room, a foreign sailor with skin the color of an ash tree lay shirtless. He reclined belly-down on the table, his back facing up into the light. A handful of colored designs were imprinted upon the sailor’s back and an equal number upon his arms, which hung down at the man’s sides.

Before the sailor stood the tattooist himself. He was the largest Japanese native Arthur had ever seen. His head was completely bald, a style made all the more pronounced by the intricate tattoos that were printed onto his scalp. As he turned to face Arthur and Bram, they could see the colored designs running up his neck, across to his ears, and over the top of his head.

The tattooist was dressed in work clothes: wool slacks and a white shirt. Before him he held a long, sloped needle, which he pointed directly at Bram as he spoke.

“You’ll wait outside, gentlemen,” he said, somewhere in between a question and a statement. His accent was purely native to the London docks, without a trace of his Eastern homeland. His voice was deep and ragged from smoke. Arthur thought that his insides must be as burnt as his skin.

Before Arthur could respond, Bram reached over into Arthur’s coat.

He pulled the crow drawing from Arthur’s pocket and held it before the tattooist without a word. The tattooist stared at it strangely. Arthur could see the recognition in his face, as well as a sense of pride in his work.

“Aye now!” barked the bare sailor on the operating table. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

“And where’d you find that, then?” said the tattooist, ignoring his customer.

“A young girl’s corpse. This image was printed on her leg.”

“A corpse? Somebody killed one of those girls?”

One of which girls? thought Arthur, though he remained silent.

“Yes,” said Bram.

“Who?”

Bram paused for a moment, considering. The tattooist stepped backward, toward a small instrument table in the corner of the room. Arthur could see dozens of thin, sharp needles arranged from smallest to largest across the table. Some were straight, the size of clothespins, and others were long and hooked, like the beaks of seagulls. The tattooist stroked his needles menacingly.

“Not you,” Bram said at last.

The tattooist smiled. “All right, Smithy, off you go,” he said to his customer. “Let me have a minute with my friends here.”

With a series of hand gestures, the customer indicated his extreme displeasure at this turn of events. As he left the room, he bent over and spit on Bram’s shoe. Bram did not so much as flinch.

Arthur felt it was time to take the lead on the investigation.

“You tattooed a group of girls, at least two, sometime ago?” he said.

“I did,” said the tattooist. “Must have been more’n a year. The design was quite simple. No shading, just black ink on those pale little legs. I used…” The tattooist paused and turned to his instrument table. He selected a needle of medium grade, from the middle of the table. He handed it to Arthur.

“… this one.” It felt impossibly light in Arthur’s palm, as if it weren’t even there. The needle was made of ivory and was only as wide as a charcoal pencil. Arthur looked up at the tattooist to find him staring back, waiting for a sign of Arthur’s approval. There isn’t a craftsman alive who doesn’t take pride in his tools.

“It’s a lovely… device,” said Arthur.

“I carved it myself. In Kyoto.” The tattooist sighed, and his eyes went soft. He lost himself for a moment to nostalgic recollection and then quickly returned his mind to his surroundings.

“It was the first and only time a flock of mollies came in for a set of matching ink,” he said. “I put that crow there on all four of them.”

“Four?” exclaimed Arthur.

“Right so. There were four girls that came in together, with a copy of that drawing on a piece of paper. Just like the one you have now.”

“What were their names?”

“Well, let’s see, allow me to consult my bankbook. I’m sure they each provided me with a check.” The tattooist’s voice dropped even lower to convey his icy sarcasm.

“I see,” said Arthur. “And how about the drawing itself? I’ve never seen such a design in my life. What does the three-headed crow symbolize? From where did it derive?”