Victor Elliot:
My name is Victor Elliot - as a matter of fact yes, of those Eliots, but a mongrel branch. So mongrel there's actually a legal paper that forbids us from claiming kinship. The extra l is to additionally confuse and befuddle. Frankly, such things now are only important to people like my mother. I wonder sometimes if she failed to realize that Father was from the chopped off branch of the Eliot family tree.
As the first born son, I was destined for great things - take over the family business, marry a girl of equal or greater social status (as determined by my mother, of course), and sire numerous little Elliots, preferably two or three sons to carry on the abandoned branch of the family. And all hope for the future of this particular branch resides in me, the sole male heir.
Unfortunately for my parents, I had other plans.
I suppose it might seem frivolous to mention how much I admire the stories of Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle, particularly to confess how they inspired in me a desire to join the Pinkertons. I took advantage of my father's insistence on a solid background of schooling to study as many disciplines mimicking the great fictional detective as I could.
I imagine I might be a Pinkertons agent at this very moment, had not my esteemed brother-in-law - a man brave enough to marry my fiercely independent sister Sophia - asked me to look into the death of a hat shop girl.
I seem to have a strong affinity with the rebellious ancestor who got lopped from the official family tree, and might soon be similarly disowned. But I am not afraid to make my way in this world by my own merits, which I think by way of education are not inconsiderable.
As the first born son, I was destined for great things - take over the family business, marry a girl of equal or greater social status (as determined by my mother, of course), and sire numerous little Elliots, preferably two or three sons to carry on the abandoned branch of the family. And all hope for the future of this particular branch resides in me, the sole male heir.
Unfortunately for my parents, I had other plans.
I suppose it might seem frivolous to mention how much I admire the stories of Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle, particularly to confess how they inspired in me a desire to join the Pinkertons. I took advantage of my father's insistence on a solid background of schooling to study as many disciplines mimicking the great fictional detective as I could.
I imagine I might be a Pinkertons agent at this very moment, had not my esteemed brother-in-law - a man brave enough to marry my fiercely independent sister Sophia - asked me to look into the death of a hat shop girl.
I seem to have a strong affinity with the rebellious ancestor who got lopped from the official family tree, and might soon be similarly disowned. But I am not afraid to make my way in this world by my own merits, which I think by way of education are not inconsiderable.
Copyright 2013 Sydney Blackburn