Ripper Street (2012) s03e08 Episode Script
The Peace of Edmund Reid
"For all our days are passed away in thy wrath, and we spend our years as a tale that is told.
" Follow the bones.
Forgive me.
The chances of any two prints being alike are 1 in 64 billion.
I am pregnant and unmarried.
What is this? Theodore Swift is my business.
Where, oh, where might he find safe haven? But of course, Father.
I stay to bring all to its conclusion.
Inspector Reid, explain to me once again how it is you consider yourself fit for purpose.
I have headaches, Mr.
Abberline.
What else do you wish me to say to you? Perhaps that you understand for why you suffer such affliction.
No? You offer no explanation as how it is that part of your anatomy ails you so, allow me, therefore.
A man shot you in it.
Warrant card now.
Your preparations are made, are they, for Bournemouth? Well, they're not my preparations, but, yes, they are made.
And you would have me invalided away from here before your journey south? I would.
Do you now accept the proposal I tendered you? Scotland Yard? I do not.
Will you force me to have you dismissed? Do you recall, Fred, the night we were called to Miller's Court to attend the remains of Miss Kelly? You believe I will ever forget? This was your chair, that was your brandy, and we drank, in the hope that those remains, the hard edges of those images, stamped into our minds, that they they might somehow be dulled.
But there is nothing can dull it, not brandy, not Bournemouth.
We spoke at night of how having seen his acts in such detail, of how we knew them, as though they belonged to us ourselves, how therefore we felt that if only we might lay our eyes upon him, that then we would, without proof, without witnessing, without any evidence of any kind, we might look into him, and simply know him.
What do you mean? Do you say that you have found Jack the Ripper? No, Fred.
But there is another circle I now see coiled about me.
Another snake sent to swallow its tail.
Yet another Whitechapel evil whose scheme is yet to be determined.
And that knowing, Chief Inspector, the knowing certainty of purpose, it slides into view this day, the next.
It comes.
And then And then this work will be rid of me once and for all.
Came over with the cattle, Mr.
Best.
Not on the passenger line, Mr.
Ackerman? Passengers get watched.
Livestock does not.
And I'm grateful to you, sir, what you have uncovered.
You're a credit to us.
To all we newspapermen.
Well, I'm flattered, I'm sure.
But, Mr.
Ackerman, you did not bunk down with the heifers all the way to London just so you might give me the glad hand.
I need your proof.
And I yours, sir.
I do not feed you information for gratis.
You were to provide in kind.
Think I'd carry it out to dinner with a man I've never met, do you? That evidence will be hid for a while yet.
Besides, trust must be earned, Mr.
Best.
Those who chase you and I this monster, Swift the man we would bring down he saw this done to me.
The money he hid the funds for which you searched but could not find, sir their journey to this city brought death with it man, woman, and child.
Amongst that number, one I loved.
Now, you doubt my commitment one more time, I shall take what I have and go to print alone.
The thing itself in good time.
For now, a sample.
Those soldiers' tunics are red, if you have my meaning.
And their deaths relate to all you would now elaborate upon.
Something else for you, too, Mr.
Best.
Its purpose will get clearer, but, for now, I entrust it to you for safekeeping.
Until we next meet, however, you heed some advice This dance you join, it is a deadly one, so, you go now to your place of work, you take what you need, and you do not return.
You do not take a step without that.
You do so in caution.
Fear is your friend, Mr.
Best.
Fear keeps us alive.
I'll send for you again once a place of greater safety is found.
Okay, stop! Stop! - You seen him - Please, sir! if you see him, you come and find me.
Look at me.
God! London.
Remove the Englishmen, it is not a city without appeal.
Yet here's a thing for reasons no doctor has yet to clarify, when I disembark here, my bile rises with heartburn, Mr.
Ackerman.
We should tell you something.
You think yourself a plague to me? The reason I'm run out of North America? You are not.
I expand my empire.
Residing here suits my needs.
I worry more after the fucking half blood than I do after you.
So, to business.
I cannot think you come here without encouragement in one form or another, without assistance from some other prick.
No.
There's no one.
God! Stop it! Stop! Please stop! Aah! And so, the encouragement.
Who promises it? Tell me who, I won't have you killed.
All right.
His name's Best.
Fred Best of the Star.
Oh, God.
Aah! Thank you, Mr.
Ackerman.
Jesus Christ, Caitlin.
Did you really? Jackson? Jackson! Open this bloody door! What? - A man cannot sleep at his work? - Fresh corpse arrived.
American, I'm told.
Let's hope you catch it.
His name's Ackerman, sir.
Ralph Ackerman.
Reporter, resident of New York City.
New York City, indeed.
- This ascertained how? - He is not robbed, sir.
His particulars still on his person, therefore.
Pages torn from his notebook, but all else intact.
His hands were roped, boss.
He was tortured.
And then the coup de grâce betwixt his eyes.
Did he give them the answers they sought therefore? Grace, hotels, boarding houses? No record of him, Mr.
Reid.
Well, here left luggage stub in his billfold.
Not a large case, and only a few items.
He did not mean to remain with us long.
Tell him what else, Constable.
Sir.
He was seen Rubensteins, an early supper taken in the company of one who's well recognized in these parts.
Another hacker.
Fred Best.
Continue your work, Captain.
Mr.
Grace, get yourself to the Royal Exchange, the Reuter office within.
Every piece of reportage our Mr.
Ackerman's produced within two years, say.
Let us find what preoccupations have brought him to East London for so short a stay.
Inspector Drake, it is an old habit, but let us go call on Mr.
Best once more.
Welcome to Whitechapel, brother.
Ransacked, abandoned.
What of Best? Do we imagine they found what they hunted for? The man himself, or something he made? Whichever.
We must assume that whatever investigation saw the errant New Yorker Mr.
Ackerman's brains put out, - our Mr.
Best is set on the same.
- _ It was your own, was it not, Mr.
Reid? Pocketed from the man's obituary file.
Read after you were shot.
And now there is no longer the need for it.
So you hope.
Mr.
Artherton, have the wires run for Fred Best.
There is a view down the street, as I asked? Our finest, sir.
Hmm.
Let us hope so.
The palliative farewell, all as it should be.
Although, the time approaches beyond which any termination would be problematic.
There's no call to concern yourself on that score.
The likelihood of this child being conceived even within my imagination was so slender that well, one's fate must be embraced.
Emilia, for as long as it is possible, for as long as it requires me to, find a story for the world.
This is our secret, is it not? I do not wait my turn.
Not ever.
And most certainly not here.
Caitlin, darlin'.
What use is this place if it cannot provide so little as a fucking remedy for the fucking heartburn? Where is it you take me, Theodore? Do you not think I have matters to attend? We go somewhere a lesson my girls practically been learned.
"And what lesson is that, Theodore?" A lesson my darling girl, that demonstrates just what the future of Whitechapel will be, now you and I have reconciled.
Reconciled Well, what would you call it? I've been co-opted by organization ends.
Well, this is what happens when you thieve from your old man, Caitlin.
This way, sweetheart.
Where are they? Where are the men? All in good time.
This Obsidian, you think to make it an engine for good, but you forget who you are.
There's nothing in your blood to mark you out for philanthropy.
Think of what energy and resources you have expended toward the betterment of this world, and yet your single most notable achievement remains this, the death of 55 human beings.
No, you are a Swift.
No mistake of it.
Now This is what will happen here.
Your workers are sent home, and this flattened land is repossessed for an altogether grander scheme.
Remember just what choices you have.
It is my way or the rope, daughter mine.
Miss Hart.
I was told to find you here, but Where are the men? They're sent home, Jane.
Forgive me, madam.
We have not met.
I'm Swift.
Theodore.
Sir.
Pleasure, Miss Cobden.
And why are they sent home? Will you say? Development is shut down, Jane.
I'm sorry? The development is shut down.
Why? Why shut down? 'Tis too costly.
And it will change not a thing.
No, madam.
This is a dream, some nightmare of ruin.
'Tis too costly, and it will change not a thing.
This Ackerman, he's freelance it would seem.
As all men of a free and noble heart should be, Constable.
Gazettes, chronicles, heralds, and sentinels.
Many periodicals, and but one theme the corruption of the powerful governments and corporations.
And one man, one business, the seeming focus of his most recent articles a man named Swift, a shipping concern named Swiftline.
A case was even brought about as a result of his investigating.
"A congressional inquiry after Mr.
Ackerman alleged that Mr.
Swift himself gave order for a troupe of Pinkertons to fire on the picket line, which he, Mr.
Swift, had engaged them to break.
" Now, do we think Mr.
Best, a hacker from the Star, do we imagine he has joined him in his campaign against the man Swift? I don't know why you think I'm the man to ask such questions, Grace.
I've lived here, here within crawling distance of the London docks, not those, in Hoboken.
Now you tell Reid it's clear what did for this man.
Someone shot him.
There's nothing else he need know.
Constable Grace, Wilkins up at the ace he reports a man with a China ear booking in.
- Fetch yourself there, son.
- Pronto! A man named Ackerman known to you? Someone shot him in the head.
It's time we were elsewhere, Best.
Ackerman, Theodore Swift, everything you have now.
Or the next man you see will be Reid.
Indeed, Captain? What, you will take me to him and listen as I draw a direct line between the slaughter of the 55 and your wife? Else why did you save me from those men of H Division? Could it be that, though you were long estranged, you still feel the keen urge to shield your wife from all which might mean her harm, from the wrath of your Leman Street colleagues? All right, Best.
Your point's made.
But I mean to know.
Those are British soldiers.
The Royal Niger Company, I believe.
- And these connect how? - I do not know.
Mr.
Ackerman was to tell me.
These offered as a taste.
A promise of what was to come.
We had corresponded for some weeks, he and I.
He had looked but failed to find how Swift was relocating his fortune.
And so you showed him and demanded your quid pro quo in return.
We agreed Swift must be here in London.
Mr.
Ackerman travelled to join us, bringing, he assured me, the discovered proof of just what purpose that man, his shipping line, and his newly relocated fortune were now set.
Do you know what this is? It's a Stanhope.
It is for seeing things that might otherwise not be seen.
Lunch, sawbones, and I have a hunger on me, I tell you.
Oh.
Who are you? Her manners are normally better.
Mr.
Best, Miss Morton.
Listen to me, darlin'.
I need a favour.
One hour's all I ask.
Only sit with him, make sure he goes nowhere.
Is he as disagreeable as he looks? No.
He's a good fella.
One hour.
Lunch, Mr.
Best? Where is it, Mr.
Ackerman? Where do you have it hid? _ _ Not a name we have heard in some years, Mr.
Drake.
No, Mr.
Reid.
Fred Best fleeing him, eager to avoid ourselves also, so it would seem.
This his unbonded workers shot in protest.
Were his culpability proved, he would face criminal indictment, and with that a jail term.
- His assets stripped from him in damages.
- Quite so, Inspector.
And so Facing such a fate, the removal from him of his assiduously built fortune, does he perhaps choose to ship it to an altogether friendlier city? It must be shipped in secret, however, and changed up, also, into a currency which bears no sign of his owner.
Unregistered securities.
Bearer bonds.
Shipped by anonymous sea cans for London.
Sea cans which are loaded aboard goods trains.
Goods trains which then might be robbed.
At gunpoint on the tracks of Whitechapel.
Do you not see it, sir? See her the good Lady Hart.
She's held to have saved you.
I know this.
But the chances, the happenstance, it is too great.
That money, which her man Capshaw plotted to thieve, it is her father's money, Swift money.
And we are to tell ourselves she knew not one detail of that plotting to rob that train? Now, do we go up there, sir, ask her direct? Yes, Bennet.
I imagine we do.
Make haste! Cellar to attic.
Cash and bearer bonds.
Pull the place apart.
Well, now.
Mr.
Drake.
I knew it would not be long before we were to be reacquainted.
Bricks, Henderson, Matthews the upper floors, see them ransacked, thorough-like.
At your service, Mr.
Drake.
And you, Inspector Reid.
Are we not to have a fond word of remembrance? In due course, Mr.
Swift.
I feel sure of it.
He will fall.
Help him.
Water bring it.
Madam, there are those who would have me drag you to my cells by your ankles, and yet it seems that I am in your debt once more.
There is no debt between friends, Inspector.
Since the moment those engines fell into our world, we have asked ourselves why it is that none have come forward to claim they were robbed.
And here you, your father returned.
The answer suddenly so simple.
I wonder are you ready to make the report, sir? A man cannot report a burglarising if he has not been burglarised.
And I have not.
Explain your presence here in London, Mr.
Swift.
I visit my family.
You know a man, name of Ackerman? Ralph Ackerman? Newspaperman out of New York City.
Of course.
The man makes eternal cause of blackening my name.
Name the day you last saw him? I can not, sir.
I never once met him.
Nothing, Inspector.
Not a bean.
Save the safe in the wall, sir.
Miss Hart, you will open your strongbox.
You think yourself absolved, do you? You are not.
I see you, Long Susan.
Dark and sharp as a midsummer shadow.
Your lies, your blood-blackened heart I see you.
But you cannot show the world what you see, can you, sir? Constable Grace.
- Mr.
Reid? - Go now.
Fetch two carpenters, two masons also, and when you have, see that they then remove every floorboard and cut every stone where that money might be hid.
Yes, sir.
I think you men might be done here, now.
Don't you? My thanks, madam.
Good day, Inspector.
All victory is fleeting, Mr.
Swift.
Fear not, Caity, your papa will see you another palace built.
Sir.
Come sit.
Move through.
Move through.
Bennet Bennet, I feel I feel the earth shift and fall.
Mr.
Reid? You sent for me, Amelia? Not I.
He.
How is he the old man? He will see us all into the ground.
That's because he deals with the devil.
And you just opened your doors to him.
You believe I have a choice in the matter? How much has he told you, Caitlin? Has he told you just what business it is that he establishes for himself here? Nothing that man can do would surprise me.
Then why do you allow him to kick back here? What does he have over you, darlin'? I really need to tell you? I think you do, Caitlin.
By way of example, have you told him yet how you shot Reid? I'm glad that you don't attempt to deny it, Caitlin.
How did you do it, Matthew? How did you discover me? It doesn't matter how I did it.
How did you do it? It was a choice.
A decision.
As with all in this life, a right turn, a left turn.
You either choose or you allow others to choose for you.
And now you'll simply just allow yourself to be folded back into your father's life once more? I will not, but that depends on you, Matthew, - on your choice.
- I won't lie for you.
Not on this.
You'll not protect me, as you once swore such ardent oath to do? No? Then perhaps you will protect your child.
The night before I shot Reid, we two, like hot and wanton dogs in a Whitechapel gutter.
There was no other before, no other since.
The child is a new thing.
It might make us newly excited.
Choose, Matthew.
Choose.
Where is he? Gone.
He would not be stopped.
Gone? Gone where? He spoke only of going to print.
That clown is going the right way towards getting himself dead.
Then perhaps he would be considerate enough to show you that road also.
He is quite the fountain of knowledge, your Mr.
Best.
Not a soul hereabouts whose stories he doesn't have cached away somewhere.
You, for example, Matthew.
Now, I never hid that.
I gave you my name.
But not your story.
I didn't have you pegged as judgemental, Hermione.
I am not.
But I know when I am become an option for a man rather than his priority.
And I am nothing if not demanding in that regard.
It is after her well-being that you now chase around, is it not? Your Caitlin.
She's pregnant.
Captain Homer Jackson, there was a future for you.
And in its stead, you chose the past.
He is your friend.
But his troubles are not yours.
Are they not? Mr.
Reid he he cannot continue as he is.
He cannot police with the hurt he now carries.
And so Abberline insists I now take his place.
Take his place or copper no more.
Not around 'ere, leastwise.
How does that notion now sit with you? Now that you and I are Well, we shall be together, if I have you beside me, Rose, that chair it would hold no fears for me no more.
I should get back.
I know.
I shall be here for you later, however.
I know that also.
Watch your grinnin' if you see Miss Morton.
She and the captain No longer, it seems.
What'd he do? Miss Susan, apparently.
Rose, will you tell me what Miss Morton said? Oh, she said he left her to wait in his rooms with Fred Best and With who? Jackson! Mr.
Ackerman what did he give you? Oh, do you mean amorously, Mr.
Swift, or by way of disease? You're a spry fellow, are you not, Mr.
Best? Springing from one man's pillar to another's post? See this mandrake, this prick smuggler, may dance no more.
No, no.
Oh, don't! Please! Please! I will I I will speak.
I will will speak.
You see, darling? He's not such an unreasonable fellow.
The floor is yours, Mr.
Best.
Let us end this dance now, shall we? I know what Ackerman did not know not till I told him.
I know that your money that all of your money was shipped here as bearer bonds to be cached away from those that would bring you to heel.
I know that she, your daughter that she saw a tranche robbed from you.
You shared this information with Mr.
Ackerman? And in return, Mr.
Best, what did he give you? What did he pass you in that kike kook shop? Um, no.
There there was no time.
He was not able.
After all that effort, both his and yours? I do not believe you, Mr.
Best.
I am, however, of a mind to show you.
This is a British gun, built for the conquest of all those who would stand in Britain's way.
Well, I'm buying them now.
And selling them, too.
To all those who would see such weaponry turned back on its creator, myself, my shipping lines, we shall prove an effective quartermaster.
But Why would you tell me this if you ? If I do not mean to kill you? Well, who can tell? Perhaps I am vainglorious.
But, see, I shall certainly kill you if you do not speak of who else you have shared your hard-won knowledge with.
Please, Mr.
Best, he is in earnest and must be indulged.
You must save yourself.
Must I now? Which names would you have, sir? Why, all, Mr.
Best.
I shall tell you.
Only spare me.
Tell me, and we shall see about that.
Oh, I have told multitudes, Mr.
Swift.
I have told bin rakers, I have told sweeps, I have told every street Arab and mudlark from the Thames to the Old Nichol, from the city gates to the old forgery coal-whippers, lumberers, watermen, coachmen, churls, flower girls, trotter scrapers! I have whispered in their ears! I have howled it across tap rooms! And what is it you have told? Oh, what indeed? I shall tell you what Fred Best, in his love, in his benediction for each and every soul who must scrape and connive their way to this benighted part of the world, this is what he told them.
That Mr.
Theodore Patrick Swift longs for nothing more in his life than a proud cock in one hole whilst he suckles from another in the other.
You know, Mr.
Best, I have not killed a man in nigh on 15 years! No, Theodore! No! Sometimes Pa says with a frown soon you'll have to settle down have to wear your wedding gown be the strictest wife in town well, it must come by and by when wed, to keep quiet, I'll try but till then I shall not sigh I shall still go in for my Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay - Bravo! - Bravo! Très magnifique ! Bravo! Bravo! I wouldn't be here if it wasn't urgent.
But Drake.
I need to find Drake.
- Best has disappeared.
- He's not here, Captain.
Superbe ! Superbe ! Mademoiselle Erskine! Delighted to welcome you, sir.
Bonsoir.
Bennet.
Enchanté, mademoiselle.
Enchanté.
See now, Captain, he comes.
Drake, listen to me you must hear me.
Must I? Then it needs be outside, renegade, - for I will not mar this night here.
- Renegade? Why is it you must forever seek to curse me? I found what you hide.
I know you conspire against us.
Oh, shit.
You come here! Wait, Drake, you don't understand.
It's Swift.
Theodore Swift.
I know it is! Let me explain.
Bennet! Bennet! Bennet! But, Drake, I know what you're doing.
And I know what you do.
Never for you to be trusted.
Bravo, Inspector.
But then I hate to disappoint you, Drake.
You, Captain, are arrested.
Under what charge is this man arrested, Inspector Drake? Obstruction of justice.
The case? Attempted murder.
Whose? Yours, Mr.
Reid.
Ask him, sir.
Ask him who he protects.
I am not sure I need to.
For now there are other priorities currently upon us.
With me, gentlemen.
Jeez.
Jesus, Best.
Where? The same tip on which Mr.
Ackerman was found.
It is Swift.
You know this how? You see the geometry of the ballistics here? That's not many weapons, but one.
The Maxim machine gun.
The new weapon of choice for our imperial forces.
No longer just that.
Drake, the belongings you took from my rooms might I have them? Please.
You both want to see this.
You know what this is, don't you, Reid? Yes.
It is a Stanhope.
Magnifying device, very powerful.
It enables the viewing of micro-photographs.
There's a cargo manifest also.
It records Swift's shipments, from which he supplies anti-imperialist forces worldwide.
Anti-British to the Niger, anti-French to North Africa.
Anti-U.
S.
to the Philippines.
These weapons are stockpiled here in East London, and sold to whoever bids highest or to who might point such weapons at whoever it is he disdains.
My father-in-law trades in death now.
And he chooses Whitechapel as his command centre.
Well, can we take him? Can we tie him to these? By motive, but there's nothing physical I can see.
Then we will require an informant, someone who might speak against him.
What he accuses you of 'tis true? It is.
Go on.
It is Susan's thumbprint on the gun that shot you.
You removed it? You matched it.
I think I must go speak to her, see if such a proving may bring her to our course.
You do not ask how or for why, but it is yours.
A fund for the clinic.
That it might develop as you see fit.
This more important.
Miss Susan Just why would you abandon us? It is not an abandoning.
It is only your sovereignty.
Yours, Dr.
Frayn.
No soul, no man to say what may or may not be done within these walls.
Only you.
Good morning, Miss Susan.
Good morning, Mathilda.
I am astonished, madam, that you would come here now.
Might we speak? Please, Jane.
For earlier, It is too hard to explain but I am so, so sorry.
For much else besides, but I hope This.
It removes the tenement lands from the title of Obsidian and transfers it to yours.
- I - Please, Jane, only listen.
Where I have failed, you must now succeed.
Do you understand? Goodbye, Mathilda.
Goodbye, Miss Susan.
Be, um Be good for your father.
I let myself in.
Your girl I've sent her away.
And your father? He now takes up the suite at the Athenaeum.
I cannot let you leave, madam.
The surgeon has told you, then.
Not by his own choosing.
He was discovered, and Inspector Drake has a way of extracting the truth.
Please, Inspector, do not perform a dance for him.
No dance.
Your Mr.
Judge, so long as I have known him, his actions have had many a root, but a black heart is not one.
A black heart? If only it were so simple.
You might hunt out villainy with ease, fill your cells, and allow the good people of this earth to walk forever unmolested.
There are times, however, when it is perhaps as simple as all that.
One looks at another man and knows that he is for nought but iniquity in this world.
In many ways, it is a gift to be shown such, a gift we should not run from but welcome.
My life, Miss Susan, a policeman's life, we look for pattern to show us our path.
Pattern, form, a design.
And so here I offer you one such.
You and your Mr.
Capshaw set men to thieve from your father.
The cataclysm that ensued sees Mr.
Buckley and his wife bankrupted.
And in that bankrupting, Obsidian Estates absorbs their shop and so reveals the discovery of all that lay within my daughter.
Pattern.
But design, Inspector? Whose? Who can say? But was it mere accident that saw neither of your shots hit their mark? It was my husband taught me to shoot.
And I do not think him inaccurate in his teaching.
Unless, of course, he thought that one day you might have cause to shoot at him.
I wonder, do you do you consider us tragedians caught in some farce? Because you, despite the concessions you have made to survive in this world of ours, I know your intentions have been for the benefit of all.
And yet one act damns me.
I take from a man my cruel father whose money is made on nothing more than the blood and toil of others, and then I am drowned in a tide of slaughter.
I think of nothing but the protection of my world from a man who ripped the sex and entrails from five young women, and in my fevered pursuit, my eye is turned, and my daughter lost, gone.
Caged in that cellar.
Until your incidental calamity, by turns, brings her back to me.
'Tis as you say, Mr.
Reid.
We are caught in the teeth of some grotesque.
Damned if we do and damned if we do not.
We might act now, however, wrest some measure of control back to ourselves, see good done.
Caitlin.
Why do you send for me? She does not, Mr.
Swift.
I do.
Police, Caity? Have you lost yourself? No, Theodore.
Quite the reverse.
Kill this cop for me, will you? Aah! Oh! Aah! Good day to you, Theodore.
You.
You are finished! Yes.
Mr.
Swift, I expect I am.
You see, there is something I have had too many occasions to learn when a man such as yourself is concerned.
The law cannot constrain you.
Too fucking right, policeman.
So, you drop this now.
Or prepare for the wrath of God to fall on your shoulders.
No.
Because, you see, this is the lesson.
Evil men need evil ends.
What is this, Caitlin? We Inspector and I we wish to show you somewhere, a place that has come to mean much to us both.
A place where a little girl was kept.
Down you go, Theodore.
What is this place, Caitlin? 'Tis the belly of Whitechapel.
At your instruction, Father, work here is shut down.
There will not be a soul through for weeks.
You make yourself at home, sir.
- You coming, Caitlin? - One moment.
For the heartburn, Father.
No! No! Fuck you all! No! This does not end this way! Theodore Swift does not end this way.
Then how, sir? It is only the suicide chooses their conclusion.
Caitlin! Think of what you do! I am blood.
Your blood.
It is your family you kill here.
No.
'Tis my family I keep safe.
What make of woman are you?! I'm your father, damn you! I made you! I made you! Inspector.
Inspector.
Captain.
The fence from the Wentworth Street hold-up, a runner come, sir.
Constable Grace brings him to ground.
Yours, I believe, Inspector Drake.
You make the choice.
I wish you well with it, Drake.
For better or worse.
Right? Congratulations Mr.
and Mrs.
Drake.
"London will remember him for this that he was the detective who, alongside Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline, led the pursuit of the man we at the Star named 'Jack the Ripper.
' but whilst his streets might, in the years since, have found some measure of recovery, it is this obituarist's fear that Edmund Reid did not.
" I shall race you, my daddy.
"If there is justice where he now walks, it might be that the care which he wore so heavily will be lifted from him.
" "Those who knew him, those who did not, those who may have only seen him - _ - stride past in pursuit of whatever villainy beset him that day, he might offer a prayer for him.
And this might be our prayer for peace, for his peace.
" "We, the children of the east, of the docksides, highways, rookeries, and laneways, we pray for the peace of Edmund Reid.
"
" Follow the bones.
Forgive me.
The chances of any two prints being alike are 1 in 64 billion.
I am pregnant and unmarried.
What is this? Theodore Swift is my business.
Where, oh, where might he find safe haven? But of course, Father.
I stay to bring all to its conclusion.
Inspector Reid, explain to me once again how it is you consider yourself fit for purpose.
I have headaches, Mr.
Abberline.
What else do you wish me to say to you? Perhaps that you understand for why you suffer such affliction.
No? You offer no explanation as how it is that part of your anatomy ails you so, allow me, therefore.
A man shot you in it.
Warrant card now.
Your preparations are made, are they, for Bournemouth? Well, they're not my preparations, but, yes, they are made.
And you would have me invalided away from here before your journey south? I would.
Do you now accept the proposal I tendered you? Scotland Yard? I do not.
Will you force me to have you dismissed? Do you recall, Fred, the night we were called to Miller's Court to attend the remains of Miss Kelly? You believe I will ever forget? This was your chair, that was your brandy, and we drank, in the hope that those remains, the hard edges of those images, stamped into our minds, that they they might somehow be dulled.
But there is nothing can dull it, not brandy, not Bournemouth.
We spoke at night of how having seen his acts in such detail, of how we knew them, as though they belonged to us ourselves, how therefore we felt that if only we might lay our eyes upon him, that then we would, without proof, without witnessing, without any evidence of any kind, we might look into him, and simply know him.
What do you mean? Do you say that you have found Jack the Ripper? No, Fred.
But there is another circle I now see coiled about me.
Another snake sent to swallow its tail.
Yet another Whitechapel evil whose scheme is yet to be determined.
And that knowing, Chief Inspector, the knowing certainty of purpose, it slides into view this day, the next.
It comes.
And then And then this work will be rid of me once and for all.
Came over with the cattle, Mr.
Best.
Not on the passenger line, Mr.
Ackerman? Passengers get watched.
Livestock does not.
And I'm grateful to you, sir, what you have uncovered.
You're a credit to us.
To all we newspapermen.
Well, I'm flattered, I'm sure.
But, Mr.
Ackerman, you did not bunk down with the heifers all the way to London just so you might give me the glad hand.
I need your proof.
And I yours, sir.
I do not feed you information for gratis.
You were to provide in kind.
Think I'd carry it out to dinner with a man I've never met, do you? That evidence will be hid for a while yet.
Besides, trust must be earned, Mr.
Best.
Those who chase you and I this monster, Swift the man we would bring down he saw this done to me.
The money he hid the funds for which you searched but could not find, sir their journey to this city brought death with it man, woman, and child.
Amongst that number, one I loved.
Now, you doubt my commitment one more time, I shall take what I have and go to print alone.
The thing itself in good time.
For now, a sample.
Those soldiers' tunics are red, if you have my meaning.
And their deaths relate to all you would now elaborate upon.
Something else for you, too, Mr.
Best.
Its purpose will get clearer, but, for now, I entrust it to you for safekeeping.
Until we next meet, however, you heed some advice This dance you join, it is a deadly one, so, you go now to your place of work, you take what you need, and you do not return.
You do not take a step without that.
You do so in caution.
Fear is your friend, Mr.
Best.
Fear keeps us alive.
I'll send for you again once a place of greater safety is found.
Okay, stop! Stop! - You seen him - Please, sir! if you see him, you come and find me.
Look at me.
God! London.
Remove the Englishmen, it is not a city without appeal.
Yet here's a thing for reasons no doctor has yet to clarify, when I disembark here, my bile rises with heartburn, Mr.
Ackerman.
We should tell you something.
You think yourself a plague to me? The reason I'm run out of North America? You are not.
I expand my empire.
Residing here suits my needs.
I worry more after the fucking half blood than I do after you.
So, to business.
I cannot think you come here without encouragement in one form or another, without assistance from some other prick.
No.
There's no one.
God! Stop it! Stop! Please stop! Aah! And so, the encouragement.
Who promises it? Tell me who, I won't have you killed.
All right.
His name's Best.
Fred Best of the Star.
Oh, God.
Aah! Thank you, Mr.
Ackerman.
Jesus Christ, Caitlin.
Did you really? Jackson? Jackson! Open this bloody door! What? - A man cannot sleep at his work? - Fresh corpse arrived.
American, I'm told.
Let's hope you catch it.
His name's Ackerman, sir.
Ralph Ackerman.
Reporter, resident of New York City.
New York City, indeed.
- This ascertained how? - He is not robbed, sir.
His particulars still on his person, therefore.
Pages torn from his notebook, but all else intact.
His hands were roped, boss.
He was tortured.
And then the coup de grâce betwixt his eyes.
Did he give them the answers they sought therefore? Grace, hotels, boarding houses? No record of him, Mr.
Reid.
Well, here left luggage stub in his billfold.
Not a large case, and only a few items.
He did not mean to remain with us long.
Tell him what else, Constable.
Sir.
He was seen Rubensteins, an early supper taken in the company of one who's well recognized in these parts.
Another hacker.
Fred Best.
Continue your work, Captain.
Mr.
Grace, get yourself to the Royal Exchange, the Reuter office within.
Every piece of reportage our Mr.
Ackerman's produced within two years, say.
Let us find what preoccupations have brought him to East London for so short a stay.
Inspector Drake, it is an old habit, but let us go call on Mr.
Best once more.
Welcome to Whitechapel, brother.
Ransacked, abandoned.
What of Best? Do we imagine they found what they hunted for? The man himself, or something he made? Whichever.
We must assume that whatever investigation saw the errant New Yorker Mr.
Ackerman's brains put out, - our Mr.
Best is set on the same.
- _ It was your own, was it not, Mr.
Reid? Pocketed from the man's obituary file.
Read after you were shot.
And now there is no longer the need for it.
So you hope.
Mr.
Artherton, have the wires run for Fred Best.
There is a view down the street, as I asked? Our finest, sir.
Hmm.
Let us hope so.
The palliative farewell, all as it should be.
Although, the time approaches beyond which any termination would be problematic.
There's no call to concern yourself on that score.
The likelihood of this child being conceived even within my imagination was so slender that well, one's fate must be embraced.
Emilia, for as long as it is possible, for as long as it requires me to, find a story for the world.
This is our secret, is it not? I do not wait my turn.
Not ever.
And most certainly not here.
Caitlin, darlin'.
What use is this place if it cannot provide so little as a fucking remedy for the fucking heartburn? Where is it you take me, Theodore? Do you not think I have matters to attend? We go somewhere a lesson my girls practically been learned.
"And what lesson is that, Theodore?" A lesson my darling girl, that demonstrates just what the future of Whitechapel will be, now you and I have reconciled.
Reconciled Well, what would you call it? I've been co-opted by organization ends.
Well, this is what happens when you thieve from your old man, Caitlin.
This way, sweetheart.
Where are they? Where are the men? All in good time.
This Obsidian, you think to make it an engine for good, but you forget who you are.
There's nothing in your blood to mark you out for philanthropy.
Think of what energy and resources you have expended toward the betterment of this world, and yet your single most notable achievement remains this, the death of 55 human beings.
No, you are a Swift.
No mistake of it.
Now This is what will happen here.
Your workers are sent home, and this flattened land is repossessed for an altogether grander scheme.
Remember just what choices you have.
It is my way or the rope, daughter mine.
Miss Hart.
I was told to find you here, but Where are the men? They're sent home, Jane.
Forgive me, madam.
We have not met.
I'm Swift.
Theodore.
Sir.
Pleasure, Miss Cobden.
And why are they sent home? Will you say? Development is shut down, Jane.
I'm sorry? The development is shut down.
Why? Why shut down? 'Tis too costly.
And it will change not a thing.
No, madam.
This is a dream, some nightmare of ruin.
'Tis too costly, and it will change not a thing.
This Ackerman, he's freelance it would seem.
As all men of a free and noble heart should be, Constable.
Gazettes, chronicles, heralds, and sentinels.
Many periodicals, and but one theme the corruption of the powerful governments and corporations.
And one man, one business, the seeming focus of his most recent articles a man named Swift, a shipping concern named Swiftline.
A case was even brought about as a result of his investigating.
"A congressional inquiry after Mr.
Ackerman alleged that Mr.
Swift himself gave order for a troupe of Pinkertons to fire on the picket line, which he, Mr.
Swift, had engaged them to break.
" Now, do we think Mr.
Best, a hacker from the Star, do we imagine he has joined him in his campaign against the man Swift? I don't know why you think I'm the man to ask such questions, Grace.
I've lived here, here within crawling distance of the London docks, not those, in Hoboken.
Now you tell Reid it's clear what did for this man.
Someone shot him.
There's nothing else he need know.
Constable Grace, Wilkins up at the ace he reports a man with a China ear booking in.
- Fetch yourself there, son.
- Pronto! A man named Ackerman known to you? Someone shot him in the head.
It's time we were elsewhere, Best.
Ackerman, Theodore Swift, everything you have now.
Or the next man you see will be Reid.
Indeed, Captain? What, you will take me to him and listen as I draw a direct line between the slaughter of the 55 and your wife? Else why did you save me from those men of H Division? Could it be that, though you were long estranged, you still feel the keen urge to shield your wife from all which might mean her harm, from the wrath of your Leman Street colleagues? All right, Best.
Your point's made.
But I mean to know.
Those are British soldiers.
The Royal Niger Company, I believe.
- And these connect how? - I do not know.
Mr.
Ackerman was to tell me.
These offered as a taste.
A promise of what was to come.
We had corresponded for some weeks, he and I.
He had looked but failed to find how Swift was relocating his fortune.
And so you showed him and demanded your quid pro quo in return.
We agreed Swift must be here in London.
Mr.
Ackerman travelled to join us, bringing, he assured me, the discovered proof of just what purpose that man, his shipping line, and his newly relocated fortune were now set.
Do you know what this is? It's a Stanhope.
It is for seeing things that might otherwise not be seen.
Lunch, sawbones, and I have a hunger on me, I tell you.
Oh.
Who are you? Her manners are normally better.
Mr.
Best, Miss Morton.
Listen to me, darlin'.
I need a favour.
One hour's all I ask.
Only sit with him, make sure he goes nowhere.
Is he as disagreeable as he looks? No.
He's a good fella.
One hour.
Lunch, Mr.
Best? Where is it, Mr.
Ackerman? Where do you have it hid? _ _ Not a name we have heard in some years, Mr.
Drake.
No, Mr.
Reid.
Fred Best fleeing him, eager to avoid ourselves also, so it would seem.
This his unbonded workers shot in protest.
Were his culpability proved, he would face criminal indictment, and with that a jail term.
- His assets stripped from him in damages.
- Quite so, Inspector.
And so Facing such a fate, the removal from him of his assiduously built fortune, does he perhaps choose to ship it to an altogether friendlier city? It must be shipped in secret, however, and changed up, also, into a currency which bears no sign of his owner.
Unregistered securities.
Bearer bonds.
Shipped by anonymous sea cans for London.
Sea cans which are loaded aboard goods trains.
Goods trains which then might be robbed.
At gunpoint on the tracks of Whitechapel.
Do you not see it, sir? See her the good Lady Hart.
She's held to have saved you.
I know this.
But the chances, the happenstance, it is too great.
That money, which her man Capshaw plotted to thieve, it is her father's money, Swift money.
And we are to tell ourselves she knew not one detail of that plotting to rob that train? Now, do we go up there, sir, ask her direct? Yes, Bennet.
I imagine we do.
Make haste! Cellar to attic.
Cash and bearer bonds.
Pull the place apart.
Well, now.
Mr.
Drake.
I knew it would not be long before we were to be reacquainted.
Bricks, Henderson, Matthews the upper floors, see them ransacked, thorough-like.
At your service, Mr.
Drake.
And you, Inspector Reid.
Are we not to have a fond word of remembrance? In due course, Mr.
Swift.
I feel sure of it.
He will fall.
Help him.
Water bring it.
Madam, there are those who would have me drag you to my cells by your ankles, and yet it seems that I am in your debt once more.
There is no debt between friends, Inspector.
Since the moment those engines fell into our world, we have asked ourselves why it is that none have come forward to claim they were robbed.
And here you, your father returned.
The answer suddenly so simple.
I wonder are you ready to make the report, sir? A man cannot report a burglarising if he has not been burglarised.
And I have not.
Explain your presence here in London, Mr.
Swift.
I visit my family.
You know a man, name of Ackerman? Ralph Ackerman? Newspaperman out of New York City.
Of course.
The man makes eternal cause of blackening my name.
Name the day you last saw him? I can not, sir.
I never once met him.
Nothing, Inspector.
Not a bean.
Save the safe in the wall, sir.
Miss Hart, you will open your strongbox.
You think yourself absolved, do you? You are not.
I see you, Long Susan.
Dark and sharp as a midsummer shadow.
Your lies, your blood-blackened heart I see you.
But you cannot show the world what you see, can you, sir? Constable Grace.
- Mr.
Reid? - Go now.
Fetch two carpenters, two masons also, and when you have, see that they then remove every floorboard and cut every stone where that money might be hid.
Yes, sir.
I think you men might be done here, now.
Don't you? My thanks, madam.
Good day, Inspector.
All victory is fleeting, Mr.
Swift.
Fear not, Caity, your papa will see you another palace built.
Sir.
Come sit.
Move through.
Move through.
Bennet Bennet, I feel I feel the earth shift and fall.
Mr.
Reid? You sent for me, Amelia? Not I.
He.
How is he the old man? He will see us all into the ground.
That's because he deals with the devil.
And you just opened your doors to him.
You believe I have a choice in the matter? How much has he told you, Caitlin? Has he told you just what business it is that he establishes for himself here? Nothing that man can do would surprise me.
Then why do you allow him to kick back here? What does he have over you, darlin'? I really need to tell you? I think you do, Caitlin.
By way of example, have you told him yet how you shot Reid? I'm glad that you don't attempt to deny it, Caitlin.
How did you do it, Matthew? How did you discover me? It doesn't matter how I did it.
How did you do it? It was a choice.
A decision.
As with all in this life, a right turn, a left turn.
You either choose or you allow others to choose for you.
And now you'll simply just allow yourself to be folded back into your father's life once more? I will not, but that depends on you, Matthew, - on your choice.
- I won't lie for you.
Not on this.
You'll not protect me, as you once swore such ardent oath to do? No? Then perhaps you will protect your child.
The night before I shot Reid, we two, like hot and wanton dogs in a Whitechapel gutter.
There was no other before, no other since.
The child is a new thing.
It might make us newly excited.
Choose, Matthew.
Choose.
Where is he? Gone.
He would not be stopped.
Gone? Gone where? He spoke only of going to print.
That clown is going the right way towards getting himself dead.
Then perhaps he would be considerate enough to show you that road also.
He is quite the fountain of knowledge, your Mr.
Best.
Not a soul hereabouts whose stories he doesn't have cached away somewhere.
You, for example, Matthew.
Now, I never hid that.
I gave you my name.
But not your story.
I didn't have you pegged as judgemental, Hermione.
I am not.
But I know when I am become an option for a man rather than his priority.
And I am nothing if not demanding in that regard.
It is after her well-being that you now chase around, is it not? Your Caitlin.
She's pregnant.
Captain Homer Jackson, there was a future for you.
And in its stead, you chose the past.
He is your friend.
But his troubles are not yours.
Are they not? Mr.
Reid he he cannot continue as he is.
He cannot police with the hurt he now carries.
And so Abberline insists I now take his place.
Take his place or copper no more.
Not around 'ere, leastwise.
How does that notion now sit with you? Now that you and I are Well, we shall be together, if I have you beside me, Rose, that chair it would hold no fears for me no more.
I should get back.
I know.
I shall be here for you later, however.
I know that also.
Watch your grinnin' if you see Miss Morton.
She and the captain No longer, it seems.
What'd he do? Miss Susan, apparently.
Rose, will you tell me what Miss Morton said? Oh, she said he left her to wait in his rooms with Fred Best and With who? Jackson! Mr.
Ackerman what did he give you? Oh, do you mean amorously, Mr.
Swift, or by way of disease? You're a spry fellow, are you not, Mr.
Best? Springing from one man's pillar to another's post? See this mandrake, this prick smuggler, may dance no more.
No, no.
Oh, don't! Please! Please! I will I I will speak.
I will will speak.
You see, darling? He's not such an unreasonable fellow.
The floor is yours, Mr.
Best.
Let us end this dance now, shall we? I know what Ackerman did not know not till I told him.
I know that your money that all of your money was shipped here as bearer bonds to be cached away from those that would bring you to heel.
I know that she, your daughter that she saw a tranche robbed from you.
You shared this information with Mr.
Ackerman? And in return, Mr.
Best, what did he give you? What did he pass you in that kike kook shop? Um, no.
There there was no time.
He was not able.
After all that effort, both his and yours? I do not believe you, Mr.
Best.
I am, however, of a mind to show you.
This is a British gun, built for the conquest of all those who would stand in Britain's way.
Well, I'm buying them now.
And selling them, too.
To all those who would see such weaponry turned back on its creator, myself, my shipping lines, we shall prove an effective quartermaster.
But Why would you tell me this if you ? If I do not mean to kill you? Well, who can tell? Perhaps I am vainglorious.
But, see, I shall certainly kill you if you do not speak of who else you have shared your hard-won knowledge with.
Please, Mr.
Best, he is in earnest and must be indulged.
You must save yourself.
Must I now? Which names would you have, sir? Why, all, Mr.
Best.
I shall tell you.
Only spare me.
Tell me, and we shall see about that.
Oh, I have told multitudes, Mr.
Swift.
I have told bin rakers, I have told sweeps, I have told every street Arab and mudlark from the Thames to the Old Nichol, from the city gates to the old forgery coal-whippers, lumberers, watermen, coachmen, churls, flower girls, trotter scrapers! I have whispered in their ears! I have howled it across tap rooms! And what is it you have told? Oh, what indeed? I shall tell you what Fred Best, in his love, in his benediction for each and every soul who must scrape and connive their way to this benighted part of the world, this is what he told them.
That Mr.
Theodore Patrick Swift longs for nothing more in his life than a proud cock in one hole whilst he suckles from another in the other.
You know, Mr.
Best, I have not killed a man in nigh on 15 years! No, Theodore! No! Sometimes Pa says with a frown soon you'll have to settle down have to wear your wedding gown be the strictest wife in town well, it must come by and by when wed, to keep quiet, I'll try but till then I shall not sigh I shall still go in for my Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay - Bravo! - Bravo! Très magnifique ! Bravo! Bravo! I wouldn't be here if it wasn't urgent.
But Drake.
I need to find Drake.
- Best has disappeared.
- He's not here, Captain.
Superbe ! Superbe ! Mademoiselle Erskine! Delighted to welcome you, sir.
Bonsoir.
Bennet.
Enchanté, mademoiselle.
Enchanté.
See now, Captain, he comes.
Drake, listen to me you must hear me.
Must I? Then it needs be outside, renegade, - for I will not mar this night here.
- Renegade? Why is it you must forever seek to curse me? I found what you hide.
I know you conspire against us.
Oh, shit.
You come here! Wait, Drake, you don't understand.
It's Swift.
Theodore Swift.
I know it is! Let me explain.
Bennet! Bennet! Bennet! But, Drake, I know what you're doing.
And I know what you do.
Never for you to be trusted.
Bravo, Inspector.
But then I hate to disappoint you, Drake.
You, Captain, are arrested.
Under what charge is this man arrested, Inspector Drake? Obstruction of justice.
The case? Attempted murder.
Whose? Yours, Mr.
Reid.
Ask him, sir.
Ask him who he protects.
I am not sure I need to.
For now there are other priorities currently upon us.
With me, gentlemen.
Jeez.
Jesus, Best.
Where? The same tip on which Mr.
Ackerman was found.
It is Swift.
You know this how? You see the geometry of the ballistics here? That's not many weapons, but one.
The Maxim machine gun.
The new weapon of choice for our imperial forces.
No longer just that.
Drake, the belongings you took from my rooms might I have them? Please.
You both want to see this.
You know what this is, don't you, Reid? Yes.
It is a Stanhope.
Magnifying device, very powerful.
It enables the viewing of micro-photographs.
There's a cargo manifest also.
It records Swift's shipments, from which he supplies anti-imperialist forces worldwide.
Anti-British to the Niger, anti-French to North Africa.
Anti-U.
S.
to the Philippines.
These weapons are stockpiled here in East London, and sold to whoever bids highest or to who might point such weapons at whoever it is he disdains.
My father-in-law trades in death now.
And he chooses Whitechapel as his command centre.
Well, can we take him? Can we tie him to these? By motive, but there's nothing physical I can see.
Then we will require an informant, someone who might speak against him.
What he accuses you of 'tis true? It is.
Go on.
It is Susan's thumbprint on the gun that shot you.
You removed it? You matched it.
I think I must go speak to her, see if such a proving may bring her to our course.
You do not ask how or for why, but it is yours.
A fund for the clinic.
That it might develop as you see fit.
This more important.
Miss Susan Just why would you abandon us? It is not an abandoning.
It is only your sovereignty.
Yours, Dr.
Frayn.
No soul, no man to say what may or may not be done within these walls.
Only you.
Good morning, Miss Susan.
Good morning, Mathilda.
I am astonished, madam, that you would come here now.
Might we speak? Please, Jane.
For earlier, It is too hard to explain but I am so, so sorry.
For much else besides, but I hope This.
It removes the tenement lands from the title of Obsidian and transfers it to yours.
- I - Please, Jane, only listen.
Where I have failed, you must now succeed.
Do you understand? Goodbye, Mathilda.
Goodbye, Miss Susan.
Be, um Be good for your father.
I let myself in.
Your girl I've sent her away.
And your father? He now takes up the suite at the Athenaeum.
I cannot let you leave, madam.
The surgeon has told you, then.
Not by his own choosing.
He was discovered, and Inspector Drake has a way of extracting the truth.
Please, Inspector, do not perform a dance for him.
No dance.
Your Mr.
Judge, so long as I have known him, his actions have had many a root, but a black heart is not one.
A black heart? If only it were so simple.
You might hunt out villainy with ease, fill your cells, and allow the good people of this earth to walk forever unmolested.
There are times, however, when it is perhaps as simple as all that.
One looks at another man and knows that he is for nought but iniquity in this world.
In many ways, it is a gift to be shown such, a gift we should not run from but welcome.
My life, Miss Susan, a policeman's life, we look for pattern to show us our path.
Pattern, form, a design.
And so here I offer you one such.
You and your Mr.
Capshaw set men to thieve from your father.
The cataclysm that ensued sees Mr.
Buckley and his wife bankrupted.
And in that bankrupting, Obsidian Estates absorbs their shop and so reveals the discovery of all that lay within my daughter.
Pattern.
But design, Inspector? Whose? Who can say? But was it mere accident that saw neither of your shots hit their mark? It was my husband taught me to shoot.
And I do not think him inaccurate in his teaching.
Unless, of course, he thought that one day you might have cause to shoot at him.
I wonder, do you do you consider us tragedians caught in some farce? Because you, despite the concessions you have made to survive in this world of ours, I know your intentions have been for the benefit of all.
And yet one act damns me.
I take from a man my cruel father whose money is made on nothing more than the blood and toil of others, and then I am drowned in a tide of slaughter.
I think of nothing but the protection of my world from a man who ripped the sex and entrails from five young women, and in my fevered pursuit, my eye is turned, and my daughter lost, gone.
Caged in that cellar.
Until your incidental calamity, by turns, brings her back to me.
'Tis as you say, Mr.
Reid.
We are caught in the teeth of some grotesque.
Damned if we do and damned if we do not.
We might act now, however, wrest some measure of control back to ourselves, see good done.
Caitlin.
Why do you send for me? She does not, Mr.
Swift.
I do.
Police, Caity? Have you lost yourself? No, Theodore.
Quite the reverse.
Kill this cop for me, will you? Aah! Oh! Aah! Good day to you, Theodore.
You.
You are finished! Yes.
Mr.
Swift, I expect I am.
You see, there is something I have had too many occasions to learn when a man such as yourself is concerned.
The law cannot constrain you.
Too fucking right, policeman.
So, you drop this now.
Or prepare for the wrath of God to fall on your shoulders.
No.
Because, you see, this is the lesson.
Evil men need evil ends.
What is this, Caitlin? We Inspector and I we wish to show you somewhere, a place that has come to mean much to us both.
A place where a little girl was kept.
Down you go, Theodore.
What is this place, Caitlin? 'Tis the belly of Whitechapel.
At your instruction, Father, work here is shut down.
There will not be a soul through for weeks.
You make yourself at home, sir.
- You coming, Caitlin? - One moment.
For the heartburn, Father.
No! No! Fuck you all! No! This does not end this way! Theodore Swift does not end this way.
Then how, sir? It is only the suicide chooses their conclusion.
Caitlin! Think of what you do! I am blood.
Your blood.
It is your family you kill here.
No.
'Tis my family I keep safe.
What make of woman are you?! I'm your father, damn you! I made you! I made you! Inspector.
Inspector.
Captain.
The fence from the Wentworth Street hold-up, a runner come, sir.
Constable Grace brings him to ground.
Yours, I believe, Inspector Drake.
You make the choice.
I wish you well with it, Drake.
For better or worse.
Right? Congratulations Mr.
and Mrs.
Drake.
"London will remember him for this that he was the detective who, alongside Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline, led the pursuit of the man we at the Star named 'Jack the Ripper.
' but whilst his streets might, in the years since, have found some measure of recovery, it is this obituarist's fear that Edmund Reid did not.
" I shall race you, my daddy.
"If there is justice where he now walks, it might be that the care which he wore so heavily will be lifted from him.
" "Those who knew him, those who did not, those who may have only seen him - _ - stride past in pursuit of whatever villainy beset him that day, he might offer a prayer for him.
And this might be our prayer for peace, for his peace.
" "We, the children of the east, of the docksides, highways, rookeries, and laneways, we pray for the peace of Edmund Reid.
"