The sea wind from the harbor, reeking of brine, beat in gusts against the wooden window of the sheriff’s office.

Arthur half leaned against the window, a cigar between his fingers, its ember a dark red ring, pale grey smoke slowly unfurling.

The sheriff, a man past fifty, sat behind the large desk against the wall, wearing a navy single-breasted tailcoat whose brass buttons bore the red field and white horse of the Kent County arms; from the inner pocket of his dark brown corduroy waistcoat hung the chain of a pocket watch.

"The White Horse Arms of Kent County"

He was a decidedly old-fashioned country sheriff. Unlike his colleagues in town who had taken to wearing the fashionable silver-white wigs, he adhered to the local tradition of a hundred years and wore a broad-brimmed felt hat.

Nor was this his first encounter with Sir Arthur Hastings.

He still remembered: it was the spring of 1832, on the eve of parliamentary reform, when the whole country was seething with unrest, during the ceremony where the Duke of Wellington reviewed all the sheriffs of the realm.

The Union Jacks over Piccadilly Square snapped sharply in the wind as the Duke of Wellington, mounted on his beloved horse "Copenhagen," passed by the ranks formed by the sheriffs of the kingdom, flanked by the Guard Cavalry and mounted police from Scotland Yard.

And that young man riding not far off to the Duke’s rear right, in white gloves, tailcoat, and tall hat, astride a jet-black charger, was none other than this spirited representative of Scotland Yard.

He sat upright, held his reins with perfect steadiness, neither acknowledging the crowd nor nodding to anyone in particular; his gaze merely swept, cool and composed, over the rows of faces standing at attention.

Back then, the old sheriff had heard from colleagues near London that this was the famed Assistant Police Director of Scotland Yard, Mr. Arthur Hastings, the most promising man in all of Scotland Yard, indeed in the entire national policing system. At the same time, he was the fellow who, in that nationwide sensation of a murder-and-body-snatching case, had commanded the coordinated investigation across the three policing districts of England, Scotland, and Wales.

From that moment, the old sheriff knew this young chap was no fish for a village pond. On the way back from London to Ramsgate, he had even discussed with the other sheriffs of Kent what sort of position this young man might one day attain.

Some did not think much of such a beardless youth; some felt he might succeed in the future, but that to declare he was sure to become a great man was far too rash.

Yet the old sheriff counted among the minority. He had formed a very favourable impression of this Arthur Hastings, and not merely because they had exchanged a few words at the banquet after the review, but because of the character he had inferred from those few words.

He had wagered with others at the time that this lad would not only climb high, but that it would happen before long.

Sure enough, not long after, he read in the newspapers reports of the affair at the Tower of London.

The only pity was that the young man’s luck proved poor: though the matter was handled successfully, he had, by mischance, lost his life over it.

Afterwards, the old sheriff slowly let the man slip from memory, until some time ago he again saw the name Arthur Hastings in the papers.

At first he took it to be merely a youngster with the same name, but when a few days ago he saw this old acquaintance on the beach at Ramsgate, he suddenly realised that the most promising young man in all of Scotland Yard in those years had actually come back from the dead!

It might not be quite proper to put it that way, yet the old sheriff firmly believed that the feeling was not his fault; rather, Fleet Street had devoted far fewer columns to Arthur Hastings’s recovery than it had, in those days, to speculating about his death.

When the old sheriff first set eyes on Arthur, he quite thought he was seeing a ghost, and only after the two of them sat down to exchange courtesies did he finally make sense of the whole story.

It turned out the man had not only survived, he had been seconded to the Foreign Office, and later, having differed with the Foreign Secretary on matters of policy, had in a fit of anger resigned from White Hall.

He bore Arthur no particular ill will; indeed, he was rather fond of listening to him recount his experiences in Germany and Russia.

Arthur talked with him of current affairs and police reform.

He, in turn, talked with Arthur of horse prices, land rents, and all the petty local trifles; of course, an occasional outburst against the great bureaucrats of White Hall was never omitted.

The old sheriff had always held that there was nothing wrong with establishing a professional police force in a great city like London; but in the countryside, in places such as Ramsgate, it was still men like them, traditional sheriffs appointed by the Royal Family, who could be of more real use.

To say nothing else, the sheer administrative cost of a professional police force was something rural districts simply could not afford.

If the Government were willing to foot the bill for local policing, he would naturally support it with both hands. But in reality, White Hall was unwilling to part with even one penny more, yet still expected localities to establish professional police forces. Where in the world was one to find such a bargain?

Though the old sheriff had spent most of his life active within his few acres in Kent County, that did not mean he lacked sound judgment.

At least in matters of local law and order his assessment was very much on the mark.

For the Municipal Corporations Act passed last year was just as he had described: it abolished 178 virtually hereditary town corporations, transferred urban governance to local councils elected by the citizens, entered municipal property into proper registers, and required the annual publication of all items of municipal expenditure.