Now, my sweet, all that tosh is a lawyer's way of telling a fellow that there's a pocketful of sovereigns waiting if only he'll have the goodness to fetch 'em. I was down the stairs quicker than old Gladstone's hand up a whore's skirt, for I had scarcely known where my next meal was coming from. I hailed a hansom cab, clambered aboard, and off we went to Gray's Inn Walk, with harness a-jingle and hooves clopping.

If you never meet Silas Raven you won't miss much-he's a spiteful old devil of the prosecuting kind. A ghastly grimacing phiz, like a dose of rigor mortis. To my amazement, though, he had set out a tray of glasses and a bottle of fine old Madeira on his desk before my arrival. Hallo, says I to myself, here's a rum go and no mistake!

As the old loon went drivelling on, it appeared he was talking about my Uncle Brandon, an eccentric old bird, who was my Guv'nor's brother. I knew little enough of Uncle Brandon, whose life was vaguely described as "rackety" and who had spent much of it in foreign parts.

When Silas Raven, our cadaverous old brief, informed me that my revered uncle had gone to a better place and left me possessed of his entire estate, I could scarcely believe my ears. That Uncle Brandon's drinking and whoring had made him ripe for plucking I never doubted. Yet I had no idea he had even heard my name, let alone make me his sole heir.

My first impulse was to milk old Silas Raven for a few hundred sovereigns on the spot. Yet it was not to be. The close-fisted senior partner of Raven and Raven read my thoughts. He favoured me with a grin that would have looked unbecoming even on a stoat.

"There is-ahem!-there is a condition attending the legacy of your late uncle. Should you fail to fulfil it, the entire inheritance is to be forfeited and the moneys applied to the Shoreditch Refuge for Penitent Magdalens."