[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]

In yesterday’s exploration, we suggested that if you want to understand a housing finance ecosystem and lack the statistics or reference resources to compile a proper survey, you can do well by conducting a simpler ‘physical exam.’

Is that all I am to you, just a pretty johnny?

Any given housing finance ecosystem processes activity across three dimensions – homes, people, and money.

Locate yourself in space and you define yourself relative to others

By poking and prodding the system as it processes residences, occupants, and money, you can deduce its functions.

I’m sure one of these links to her motivation

Yesterday we covered the concept and Question 1, how do I find housing, and what types are available?

Once you’ve found your desired pied a terre, you have to secure possession. 

Question 2: Selling and buying

If I own housing and you want to own it, how does the system recognize transfer of ownership from you to me?

You’ve found a place you want to own – my place – and I’m ready to sell it to you for an agreed price.  I need your cash; you need evidence that you’re the owner now.

A Turkish title deed: note the owner’s picture!

Between us and the transfer stand a host of professionals who specialize in these handoffs.  Who handles what, what documentation (pieces of paper), what do they say, how are they prepared and signed, who holds them?  What certificates, what protections, what recourse to authority?

You’ll have questions like these:

1. How do you know I own it?
2. What defines my property?   Does it include land, outbuildings (garage, shed), furnishings and fixtures, utilities and systems?  How are its boundaries specified, and why is that specification accepted in the wider world?
3. How can you later prove that you have now acquired ownership from me?
4. Via what piece of paper (if any; in some places, understandings are verbal) is my ownership currently documented?  A deed of title, a purchase receipt from a previous owner?
5. Where can you expect to find or examine my documentary proof of ownership? How do we designate a neutral repository (escrow agent, lawyer, realtor) to hold the valuables – money and certifications like title deeds – while we’re preparing for the closing?

This question gets to the roles and services in the title transfer value chain, both the governmental side (recordkeeping, recognition of transfer, and neutral enforcement) and the private side (professionals involved) and will touch on all these real or potential professionals:

• Closing attorney to prepare the new title deed (and the purchase and sale that precedes it).
• Registry clerk who places in the new title in the great big book and gives you the filing and recordation information.
• Title insurer.  Warrants that your new title is good, and will pay you the property’s value if that proves false.
• Real estate broker or estate agent.  Match-makes between sellers and buyers.  Brokers always face the question of who works for whom.
• Mortgage broker.  Represents you in searching for the best financing.
• Surveyor makes a detailed and personally inspected map of your demesne (pronounced domain), so as to provide the metes and bounds. 

Everything inside the rock wall is my demesne

(Love that Middle English!)

Whan that blogger with his essayes wroote
The metes and bounds hath posted the Web soote,

Depending on where you are in the world, and what type of residential property you’re seeking to transfer, you’ll encounter more or fewer of these folks.  Each check you write, at the closing table or before it, pays for a link in that value chain, a link done by a professional who is (usually, or at any rate supposed to be!) more expert than a generalist, and a vast leap over your effectiveness if you tried to do it yourself. 

The more checks you write at the closing table, the better your ecosystem; while I won’t claim this postulate as absolute fact, that’s my instinct. 

That’s pretty basic, isn’t it?

How do you the newcomer learn about the mechanics of property transfer?

In most developed nations, that’s pretty simple – just Google “home purchase closing” or similar phrases.  Further, many countries have consumer-protection or consumer-disclosure laws that make it easy to learn what you need to know.  In the US, for instance, we have:

The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), which has been around for 35 years (since 1974, holy moly) as a consumer protection statute:

We need settlement procedures

1. RESPA requires that borrowers receive disclosures at various times. Some disclosures spell out the costs associated with the settlement, outline lender servicing and escrow account practices and describe business relationships between settlement service providers.

2. RESPA also prohibits certain practices that increase the cost of settlement services. Section 8 of RESPA prohibits a person from giving or accepting any thing of value for referrals of settlement service business related to a federally related mortgage loan. It also prohibits a person from giving or accepting any part of a charge for services that are not performed. Section 9 of RESPA prohibits home sellers from requiring home buyers to purchase title insurance from a particular company.

Additionally, any professional association (like the US realtors) will have extensive exposition, and a little bit of poking around will reveal dozens of law firms eager to let you download standard agreements.  Indeed, looking for the forms will also surface the types of practitioners who specialize in transactional services, and they in turn will lead you back to the sequential steps.

Similarly, the settlement statement – a standard form listing what costs for what services might be paid at the closing – acts as an effective checklist of possibilities.  A good example is the HUD-1 settlement statement (link in .pdf), which zeroes in on possible costs, as shown in the large image below.

If HUD thinks you might be paying these, there’s probably a good reason why

Well-developed (and typically higher-income) ecosystems have these mechanics down pat, so much so that everyone takes them entirely for granted.  As a result, first-world investigators who travel to developing nation environments often presume they know how the system works when in fact they don’t.

Hence it’s important, in less-developed ecosystems, to forget everything you think you know about the property transfer value chain, and start from first principles.  One learns by asking the same questions, over and over again, walking step by step through the imagined process and collecting samples of the documents along the way.  Most significantly, how the process works in the formal world of mortgages and electronic records often differs dramatically from how it works in the informal world of unregistered property, cash transactions, and verbal rather than written rights.

Tracing the mechanics of a transfer of ownership, and the recognition/ enforcement of that transfer, also expansively touches everything to do with the broader society and property rights – and that, being one of the pillars of a liberal democratic society, provides a window into government’s functionality, integrity, and legitimacy.

Somebody’s worried

However, such speculations into political philosophy would take us ‘beyond scope’ (as the compleat consultant would say), so let us stay with the more prosaic element of that single dwelling unit.  You’ve located and chosen it, you’ve agreed with its owner about your occupancy.  Now you have the last piece – you have to pay for it.

“Hamburgers!  The foundation of any nutritious breakfast.  Do you know what a quarter-pounder costs in France?”

[Concluded tomorrow in Part 3.]

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By: David A. Smith

If you get a new doctor, what’s the first thing he or she does – after establishing how you or your insurance will pay, of course? The physical exam.

We make them cold so that we know you’re dead if you don’t flinch

When we don’t know how a system works, what do we do? We palpate it.

Tell me if this hurts

We shake it and hear the rattles.

Louder sounds are better, aren’t they?

We twiddle the knobs and observe the changes.

Wonder if this detonates it?

Indeed, long before we had any taxonomic understanding of medicine, we tracked biological processes by their outputs, whether in reading the entrails of a goat or examining the patient’s stool.

What comes out reflects what went in …

… and what happened to it on the way through

In the modern era, we do the sample systemic analysis remotely, with radioactive isotopes that serve as tracers through the body, highlighting circulation and concentration, learning about the system by following particles on their way through it.

If I were you I’d worry about the glowing parts

In the same way, when we consider a housing finance ecosystem, the blood plasma is money, and its tracing is a time-honored investigative technique.

“Follow the money”

When it comes to housing, the money moves in three dimensions: homes, people, and money:

1. Homes. Providers and consumers finding each other.

2. People. Sellers and buyers exchanging money for consumption and use rights.

3. Money. Capital providers and capital consumers financing a home purchase.

Understand these three dimensions and you go a great ways toward placing an ecosystem in its space.

Thus, if you come new to a housing finance ecosystem, either because you’re visiting a country and want to buy or rent a home, or as a student, researcher, or consultant tasked with designing a new program intervention, you can learn a lot about the ecosystem if you follow the money through each of its three dimensions.

Use all three eyes and you’ll see the full dimensions

Keep on truckin’ for insight

The investigative technique

To understand each process, follow it step-by-step, actor by actor, cost by cost. Take a journey through the system, getting up close and personal with each of its elements.

Pretty fantastic voyage, if you ask me

Imagine yourself starting the journey, a hopeful fool empty of knowledge, and ask yourself, How do I encounter? How do I interact? What money changes hands, how and for what purpose?

My ignorance and my bundle are soon parted?

Question 1: Owner-consumer value chain

If you have housing (to rent or sell) and I need housing (to occupy or buy), how do we find each other and what kind of tenure relationships could we establish?

You’re new in town, and you need a place to live. Think of all the sub-questions you’ll have.

1. Can I find plenty of places, or are they scarce?
2. How much space can I afford?
3. Can I buy or do I have to rent?
4. If I want to buy, how far out of downtown do I have to be?
5. Is there enough good-quality rental?
6. Is the government in the business of providing housing?
7. Is the government in the business of subsidizing the supply side (helping create more homes)?

Now I’m going to ask you a simple question – do you feel … lucky?

This simple question – what housing is around? – gets at everything to do with the supply, flexibility, and affordability of housing:

• Ranges of tenure. Ownership, condo, co-op, shared ownership, rental, affordable rental, rent-controlled rental, roommates, public housing. Which of these are formal, which informal? What gray tenures exist (like in-laws apartments, illegal sublets, or overcrowded student housing)?
• Diversity of configuration. Apartment types, bedroom counts, flats or gardens or townhouses or duplexes or free-standing bungalows.
• Cost and affordability. What percentage of income do households pay for occupancy? How does this vary by tenure? How are utilities provided, and who pays them?

How do you the newcomer find out housing supply, configurations, tenures, and costs?

• Ask people.
• Apartment guides.
• Newspaper advertising.
• Banners and flyers and signs. (Learn how they advertise FOR RENT and FOR SALE.)
• Realtor/ real estate broker/ estate agent shop windows. Nancy and I have got into the habit of staring at these pretty much anywhere we find them. We’re always astonished at how little you get for your money in the UK or Europe.

Each window pane is another comparable

(Except the Uncle Sam, who wants You to Buy)

Remember, every form of configuration, tenure, and price point exists because somebody thinks that’s the right niche for some fraction of the market. By their homes ye shall know them.

Further, the question also opens a window into the property-transfer value chain, including what types of markets link property providers (owners and landlords) with property consumers (renters and buyers), and conveniently bringing us to the second question.

[Continued tomorrow in Part 2.]

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Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said: ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’

Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll

The Wright Brothers couldn’t get venture-capital funding for the airplane.

Turned down again …

IBM thought the personal computer a toy.

For serious computing, you boys will need big iron

Facebook emerged out of a college dorm.

Want billions, kid?  Put on some shoes

In each case, until the thing existed, nobody could buy it, and thus you virtually couldn’t sell it.  To sell it, you need salesware, and the only good salesware in such cases is the thing itself.

The solution is its salesware.

At AHI, we invent new financial program, products, and participating Mission entrepreneurial entities (MEEs) that do not exist in the country where they’re needed.  That’s our niche, our unique value.  We observe a country’s housing finance ecosystem, describe it typologically and taxonomically, compare it with all the other countries and times and programs in our experience (of which the US is a rich source of experiences, since we’ve done more, for longer, with more variations – fifty states, baby! – than anybody else), and propose a sui generis new solution. 

We constantly face the challenge of disbelief; in fact, we face the challenge that our listeners believe what we envision is impossible.

Croquet with hedgehogs and flamingos?  Impossible!

A while ago, I was part of a five-year campaign to persuade the Powers That Be in Britain to create a streamlined housing and rehabilitation tax credit (the HART credit) that a group of us designed, gratis, and presented for their consideration.  One would think that Britain’s Labour government would be interested in the most effective affordable rental housing program in America, a tool that has financed 1,800,000 apartments over 23 years, with a sophisticated and complex value chain, and is a unique kind of money (soft equity) that explains why housing tax credits work.

You’d think that information would be relevant.  You’d think its value would be self-evident.  You’d think that the principles involved would be self-explanatory. 

You’d be wrong.

Instead, as I posted four years ago:

Unfortunately, we currently find ourselves in a position analogous to the aspiring author who received the following critique from Dr. Samuel Johnson:

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

“And your tax credit’s no great shakes, either.”

In the UK, we have met with many government officials and received substantial support, but at the moment, those who support HART are not government officials, and those in government have yet to become HART supporters.

And that wall of complacency blocks us today, despite Britain’s current housing mess being caused in part by excessive reliance on single-family homeownership and an under-represented public-private permanently affordable professional rented sector – as you would create with a HART credit.

Great logo, great concept

Now all we need is a program

In the twenty-plus years I’ve spent years banging my pointed head against this challenge, I’ve broken it down into a set of fears and a set of objections.

What if it doesn’t work?

I’ll list them quickly.

The fears

Most of these fears become worse in a large hierarchy, where you always have somebody above you scrutinizing your performance, somebody below you angling for your position, and somebody at your level competing for the boss’s favor.

I’m really trying to succeed you

Fear that it cannot be made.  If the thing doesn’t exist, who could imagine that it could exist, or that we could be the ones to create it?

Fear of looking stupid.  Right up there with embarrassment as a phobia of homo urbanis.  Ever dream of being back at school, taking a test for which you’re not prepared?  For some reason debilitating to the cause of experimentation, we’re paralyzed at the thought of being shown up for a fool.

Don’t wear this button

Fear of looking credulous.  Maybe this is why; if you believe my spiel, and then I’m revealed as a charlatan, you look not just dumb but also naïve.  The people whom we’re trying to pitch want at high cost to avoid looking bad before their bosses.

And it didn’t even taste good

Fear higher-ups will shoot it down.  A distinction from the previous one; we make think it’s a great idea, but when you take it in to your boss, he or she may eviscerate it with withering phrases, and even though you secretly and truly believe, you will have displeased the boss, which is contra-indicated in organizational survival.

The boss didn’t like the proposal

Fear that counterparties won’t perform.  This is the worst; this is the organization man’s nuclear meltdown.  You buy my pitch; in fact, you believe it, you become passionate about it.  You persuade your boss to back it.  Now you’re rolling the whole organization forward, and even though I do everything I said I would, somebody else – some other ministry, a regulator, a large company on which the plan depends – abruptly changes its mind, and leaves you in the lurch. 

I gave this party and nobody came …

Even worse, they don’t do the honorable thing and kill the deal outright; instead it gets lost in the mists of committees, and you can never get an answer.  So you dangle, twisting slowly in the wind, while your credibility goes does the drain.

In any given case, some of these fears may be rational; they may even be right.  To win the point, you have to allay the fears, which manifest themselves through vocalized objections. 

The objections

By the way, if you’re pitching a product, and you don’t hear these objections, it means you have failed sufficiently to engage your prospect.  You can’t overcome an objection that I don’t voice, so you must make me voice it.  You want to keep the proposal going until people voice statements like these, either for themselves or for mythical offstage others.

“It’ll never work.”  Sure it’s a failure of imagination, but can you really blame someone for voicing this, particularly when you come asking for a commitment of something valuable – money, time, reputation?  Would you have spotted these guys as the world’s future billionaires?

Spot the world’s richest man?

“People won’t want it.”  I think I heard it said that, after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, a British aristocrat sniffed, “that’s all well and good for the Americans, but we have servants for carrying messages.”  Never underestimate the complacency of people who have lived quite happily their entire lives without the widget you’re conceptualizing?

Would you have spotted Twitter? 

“You can’t make any money on it.”  Some things seem good ideas until the question arises of paying for them.  Does anybody know how Twitter will actually make money?

Is it just a matter of sliding the pieces around?

“We tried that years ago and it failed.”   Very common as a smokescreen, since it obscures what the past was and what anybody did about it, and hence provides nothing that would allow you to counter my prejudice. 

You have no idea what happened before

It’s the only objection for which I have little patience, simply because today is by definition different from yesterday, and in a world where technology and networking are advancing at warp speed, a thing impossible even five years ago may be fully ripe now.

Take a look at our three introductory breakthroughs: the airplane, the personal computer, and a social media Web site.  In each case, the thing invented was new, and its potential incomprehensible before it was created.  In all three cases – and this, I think, is no coincidence – the thing itself depended on network effects to create a whole new ecosystem around it. 

Ecosystems change and evolve.  Heraclitus was right.

Get me the stage one capital, O lord

“If it were any good, somebody would have done it already.”  This and its evil twin “Why you, why not somebody else?” are the last line of defense, combining all the previous skepticisms.  It’s the objection I’ve heard (or not heard but perceived) for most of my career – and it’s the reason for this post, because my answer, forged over thirty-plus years, is simple:

The solution is its salesware

Don’t tell people that you have a marvelous solution the margin is too small to contain.  Just write the solution and present it for inspection and proof.

If you show it, they can help you improve it

Don’t tell people how it could be created if only you had the money.  Just create it.

Take the leap

Don’t explain how you’ll quit your job once you have the funding in hand.  Just leap, and show you mean it.  If you won’t bet on yourself, why should I bet on you?

Should I bet on you, Ray?

If you’re an expert, demonstrate it.  Solve the problem, present the solution.  Build the thing, then show the thing.

The solution is its salesware.

The solution is its salesware

Breaking through the walls of ignorance

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[A previous trio, Part 1a , Part 1b , and Part 1c, covered the rules of engagement with clients.]

Holmes sat for some time in silent thought. He had lit the oldest and foulest of his pipes.
“I am not clear yet what you want me to do in this matter, Mr. Mason,” he said at last. “Can’t you make it more definite?”

The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place

Three decades of experience in affordable housing finance, alongside the great detective Sherlock Holmes, the Compleat housing finance consultant, has given me insight into the profession of consulting, and to the services and activities requisite to success.  A hundred years hence, New York City will give rise to the ultimate consultants, the Ghostbusters, but in nineteenth century London, Holmes reigns supreme, because his services are comprehensive.

B6.       Asks all the questions the client finds it difficult to ask

A specialist, be he doctor, lawyer, or affordable housing consultant, must be fully expert in his field, and thus must delve into the muck of human existence:

“He appears to have a passion for definite and exact knowledge.”
“Very right too.”
“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking rather a bizarre shape.”
“Beating the subjects!”
“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him at it with my own eyes.”

Chapter 1, A Study in Scarlet

When Holmes struck, he knew what he was striking and what effect it would have.

B7.       Identifies the relevant information from a welter of data

As an expert, the consultant can identify what information is critical to uncover, can extract it from sources, and can then arrange the information into a format suitable for interpretation, which the consultant then provides to the client. 

“It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.”

The Reigate Puzzle

Holmes grunted from the sofa.
“The county police ought to make something of that,” said he; “why, it is surely obvious that– –”

All that scrying of entrails is for the purpose of making explicit a vision of the proposed transaction, so that at each time a new fact or resource is added, the consultant is able instantly to update the projection and give the client real-time guidance.

“It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet

Eliminating the impossible on behalf of Alexander Holder

B8.       Creates options and does not foreclose them

The consultant is the expert, Holmes once lectured me.  The client not required to be an expert.  Not for clients to develop theories, design alternative financial structures, or create options.  That is our job.

When Miss Violet Hunter was puzzled by events at her situation, Holmes spared no effort to decipher them.

“I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we shall no doubt find waiting for us.”

The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

B9.       Makes things decisionable

An effective consultant is like a hound on a leash, Holmes once commented to me as we were being hauled through the streets of London by Toby, a half-spaniel, half-lurcher with an infallible nose.  It is his job to lead the client unerringly to the decision point, and then let the client decide.

Like his bloodhound Toby, Holmes was relentless when scenting a solution

A good consultant thus works for his client by operating independently within the absolute limits of his remit.  There is no need to ask the client for permission to do things which are preparatory or technical in nature, and where no client decision is required. 

Nevertheless, in every complex matter, there come points where the client must choose:

“It was not the wife; it was the children,” groaned the prisoner. “God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God! What an exposure! What can I do?”

The Man with the Twisted Lip

At such times, the consultant must sketch the probable outcome of actions, and invite the client’s decision:

Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on the shoulder.
“If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up,” said he, “of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers. Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case would then never go into court at all.”

The Man with the Twisted Lip

Holmes gave Neville St. Clair a chance to redeem his life and his good name

B10.     Recommends to his client

Even as the consultant operates independently over large stretches of territory, there are some essential decisions that are the province solely of the customer.  Time and again I have seen Holmes nudge a client toward an answer, or frame it in a way that he hoped would yield a particular result, but as he emphasized many times to me, the ultimate decision is always and ever the client’s choice:

“God bless you!” cried the prisoner passionately. “I would have endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left my miserable secret as a family blot to my children.

“It must stop here, however,” said Bradstreet. “If the police are to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone.”
“I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take.”
“In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps may be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out. I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your results.”
“I reached this one,” said my friend, “by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast.”

How to solve a complex problem: an ounce of shag

B11.     Puts the right team on the case, and manages his subcontractors

Even the cleverest consultant is but a single man, and some assignments call for teams of people.  Indeed, when portfolios are involved, or vast geographies must be covered.  For this the consultant needs to be able on short notice to assemble a team of subcontractors:

As he spoke, there came a swift pattering of naked feet upon the stairs, a clatter of high voices, and in rushed a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs. There was some show of discipline among them, despite their tumultuous entry, for they instantly drew up in line and stood facing us with expectant faces. One of their number, taller and older than the others, stood forward with an air of lounging superiority which was very funny in such a disreputable little scarecrow.

For all that they were street urchins, the Irregulars were professional

“Got your message, sir,” said he, “and brought ’em on sharp. Three bob and a tanner for tickets.”

Holmes had a romantic view of street Arabs, as we called them.  These homeless children, byproducts of the Victorian slums, suffered exploitation, violence, and disease.  Nevertheless, London’s slums were hives of entrepreneurialism, and Holmes, like any good prime contractor, dealt equitably with his subcontractors:

“Here you are,” said Holmes, producing some silver. “In future they can report to you, Wiggins, and you to me. I cannot have the house invaded in this way. However, it is just as well that you should all hear the instructions. I want to find the whereabouts of a steam launch called the Aurora, owner Mordecai Smith, black with two red streaks, funnel black with a white band. She is down the river somewhere. I want one boy to be at Mordecai Smith’s landing-stage opposite Millbank to say if the boat comes back.”

Holmes also knew how to delegate and to insist upon subcontractor accountability:

“You must divide it out among yourselves and do both banks thoroughly. Let me know the moment you have news. Is that all clear?”

“Yes, guv’nor,” said Wiggins. “The old scale of pay, and a guinea to the boy who finds the boat.” “Here’s a day in advance. Now off you go!”

They were named Irregulars but they performed yeoman service.

He handed them a shilling each, and away they buzzed down the stairs, and I saw them a moment later streaming down the street.

We should note that just as Holmes could be a deniable ambassador for his client, the Irregulars were deniable ambassadors for Holmes.

“If the launch is above water they will find her,” said Holmes as he rose from the table and lit his pipe. “They can go everywhere, see everything, overhear everyone.”

The Sign of the Four, Chapter 8

B12.     Executes decisions made wholeheartedly, even if having disagreed

I never had occasion to record it in my diary – Holmes forbade me even to document it privately – but on a handful of occasions, Holmes was called upon to execute client instructions he had counseled against.  Considerations of state occasionally intervened, the tawdry business of diplomacy being a field of endeavor that Holmes eschewed entirely.  More commonly the client made a dreadful blunder, and Holmes was then consulted a second time to minimize the damage. 

If that happened, the client emerged shaken, grateful, and in awe of Holmes, and thus the perfect referrer of interesting cases:

I read as follows:

Sir:
Our client, Mr. Robert Ferguson, of Ferguson and Muirhead, tea brokers, of Mincing Lane, has made some inquiry from us in a communication of even date concerning vampires. As our firm specializes entirely upon the assessment of machinery the matter hardly comes within our purview, and we have therefore recommended Mr. Ferguson to call upon you and lay the matter before you. We have not forgotten your successful action in the case of Matilda Briggs.

“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.”

The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

“Yes, here we find Vavasoeur, and Vandeleur and the Giant Rat of Sumatra

The world is still not prepared …

 [Continued in Part 3a.]

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