Angela Alexandra Livingston, called "Big AL" by her few friends and colleagues, was not normal.
Their appearance, of course, was more likely to be described as "average". She was neither strikingly pretty, nor tall, nor was she disfigured, and yet she did not quite correspond to the current image of a decent woman.
It started with Angela knitting and refusing to wear dresses or skirts. She didn’t use make-up and mostly had long auburn hair tied in a loose knot. It was a scandal to the women in her neighborhood, they didn't understand why you could walk around like that in a big city like London. In her opinion, it was no wonder that the young woman still had no man by her side. She was employed and, as far as her landlady understood, Angela worked as a detective. Also something that the fine ladies could not understand.
Yes, Angela was a private investigator. And precisely the detective who has been called “Yard's Angel” or “Real Holmes” for several years. Of course it was impossible to prevent reports and photos of her from appearing in the newspaper, but wherever possible Angela avoided herself, her work, her life.
Her office was three blocks from the yard and it took her over an hour to get there every morning. But that way she could protect her private life to some extent.
Despite her popularity, the order situation was not always so good that she could finance her life and so she still had a "sideline".
The library of the British Museum had always been one of her passions. Her foster father worked there. And he had made it possible for Angela to work as an "auxiliary library" in the huge archives when she needed money