Sexton Blake, the great British detective, is having a disagreeable conversation with an elegant young lady.

In recent years, I've read several collections (usually as e-books, but a few printed books) of various stories of mystery and adventure from the heyday of the great Sexton Blake. Before then, I'd barely even run across the guy's name. (Heck, I hadn't even realized he lived in a house on Baker Street, in London, hence practically right next door to another British detective of whom you may have heard.) He was featured in thousands of stories by many different authors, mostly published in various British "story papers" (similar to the American "pulp magazines") from the 1890s up into the 1960s (and he occasionally appeared in other mediums after that). For decades, Eric Parker frequently did illustrations for those story papers. I decided to see what NC could do about imitating that artist, working on that character, for a black-and-white-themed challenge. This scene is supposed to be set in the 1910s.