Shadows over Edinburgh

The rain-drenched cobblestones of Edinburgh’s Old Town gleamed like polished jet under the pale yellow gas lamps of the Royal Mile. A freezing winter mist hung low between the towering, ancient tenements of sandstone, muffling the clip-clop of horse hooves and the distant striking of midnight bells from St. Giles’ Cathedral. In the subterranean cellar beneath a historic cooperage on the edge of the Cowgate—less than three streets from where…