"Artherton." "What is this?" "Ah, the gout, Captain Jackson." "I'm sent for to attend a case of gout?" "Well, that would be... considerate, Captain Jackson, but it was not myself who..." "Then who?" "Come on." "I'm due." "I have..." "I have important matters to attend!" "Who the hell sent for me, God damn it?" "I sent for you, Captain." "You're not supposed to start until tomorrow." "Now, Reid, no." "I have obligations." "I am..." "I am formally requested elsewhere." "Jee-sus." "What did she do?" "She come quietly, Mr. Drake?" "She did, sir." "Have her booked, Sergeant." "What charge, Inspector?" "Suspicion of murder." "As you wish, Mr. Reid." "Your name, ma'am?" "Vera Carswell." "Full name, please." "Vera Carswell, Lady Montacute." "Now, if you'd go with Mr. Drake, Lady Vera." "Ma'am." "That tailcoat is loaned." "Your dead room, Captain." "The full why awaits you there." " Her name was Ida Watts." " _" "She sold blooms from the steps of Christ Church, Spitalfields." "Might once have found you a white rose, for your buttonhole." "That woman, she upstairs, of noble title, found lying naked in a Whitechapel boarding house with this murdered flower girl." "She is, you've heard, of some standing in this country." "And this lady, we have now only till daybreak before her people and the lawyers arrive to set her free." "Do you understand, Captain?" "Shut it, the lot of ya!" "Sit down, ma'am." "Come on, boys." "Get 'em up." "Have a care my darlin'" "Quiet!" "Quiet!" "Silence, you runts!" "We're gonna need this dress when you're through." "Through with what?" "Gathering of truth from your person, my lady." "Does he always speak in that tone?" "Hands, Duchess." "I'm not a Duchess." "Which tone is that?" "Abraham, reborn as a file clerk." "My, you are thorough." "Well, I enjoy my work, Baroness." "Just a little keepsake." " Do you have all you need?" " Yeah, for now." "Go easy on him, will you?" "Now," "What am I to do with you, Lady Vera?" "Ask me questions, I'd imagine." "Did you kill Ida Watts?" "Oh, is that her name?" "No." "I did not." "You were found laying in the same bed as her murdered body, her blood all about you." "How is that?" "I do not know." "I travelled to Whitechapel with friends and we took in a show." "Which hall?" "The Cambridge, on Commercial Street." "We brought champagne." "The party broke up and I remained." "You enjoy the music hall theatre here?" "Yes." "Lacks pretence, and that pleases me." "The acts you saw?" "There was a man in a hat." "Sawed a woman in two." "And two fat ladies sang on the subject of being two fat ladies on... on how they wanted to put Mr. Gladstone in a pie and eat him for supper." "It was all very amusing." "And thereafter?" "More champagne, and... nothing." "Until that shrill squawk of the landlady woke me up." "You say you were drugged..." "No." "You said that." "Although I imagine it so, yes." "Forgive me, Lady Vera, but given the fact of where we have just now brought you from and where you were found, this face you offer to the world... some could call it heartless." "I am calm." " It is how I was raised." " You are calm, and then some more." "I do not believe it a pretence, but..." "I believe you unafraid." "Perhaps I have nothing to be frightened of." "Murderesses hang just as surely as murderers do, Lady Vera." "Yes, but that is a title that I am suspected of, and you, Inspector, make great play of my actual one." "And you know, therefore, the forces that now rally to my side." "And I make no boast of it, I promise you that." "In many respects, it is my great sadness, my family." "But... they will not allow me to linger here for long, whatever the charge." "Send her in." "I look forward to resuming our acquaintance in due course." "Good evening." "I am Vera." "Strip, now." "I think we must have her moved." "Let's see her secured in my office." "Yes, Mr Reid." "Strip, strip, strip, strip..." "Quiet!" "Strip, strip..." "Shut it!" "Mr. Reid..." "Forgive me, sir..." "I..." "Why should I ever need to do that?" "Your Mathilda..." "Should you not...?" "Governess..." "Miss Forbes... first night." "Denton." "3..." "F!" "Lady Montacute's dress." "Just put it over there." "These are examined?" "She comes first." "The bedding in which they were found..." "Velvet quilts... silk sheeting..." "You'll have a future as a draper should this life let you down." "It is good fabric, quality..." "The premises in which she and the lady were found, were not quality." "So what, you think her highness down there is made to feel comfortable?" "She visits often enough." "She is made to feel at home." "In Whitechapel." "Such length gone to... just for a murdering." "I would not have given it credit." "Himself, I mean." "Strolling back into the office, as though all he suffered was a weekend's course of fishing on the Wandle." "What would you prefer, Jackson, that he not come back at all?" "It's not a question of what I prefer." "I'm just merely confused as to what he chooses." "Last time I see him, him and his girl they're leaving." "The only thing to stop 'em... him taking two bullets." "Are you going to stand there and tell me you don't see it?" " See what?" " Come on..." "He thought to conceal it, but that man wore his torment like a carnival mask." " And now..." " Now... what?" "You could not call him happy." "Happy?" "I did not say happy, I say..." "Tranquil?" "Yeah... that." "The strength required." "Is a woman... that woman in our cells... is she capable?" "Women are capable of most anything, Drake." "By way of example, if I'm not at the Cafe Monaco to toast the birthday of Miss Hermione Morton by 10:00, she's gonna use a butter knife to scalp me and not think twice." "Good evening, Sergeant." "Sir." "I'm searching for my wife." "The lady's name?" "Her name is my name, Montacute." "Ah." "Ah!" "There is a parlour beyond, sir." "If you will wait awhile," "I shall see if someone shall come and speak to ya." "Then she's here?" "As I said, sir, have yourself a seat." "Let me go, copper!" "I swear it!" "You have it wrong!" "Thomas Denton, picked up by request of Mr. Reid, sir." "It's the cousin, is it, Constable?" "Miss Watts' cousin, Mr. Drake." "Good work, Grace." "Book him in, would ya?" "You boys, take him down to lock-up." "Argh!" "Ah." "There is a lady down there already, however." "She you will move to Mr. Reid's office, got it?" "Yes, Inspector." "Any better?" "It is a curse Bennet." "I tell ya." "Black rum, Don?" "W... there is relief with it." "No, no, it is water you need." "And plenty of it." "This is mine now." " No, Bennet." "Please!" " Uh, uh, uh... orders Sergeant, are for your benefit." "Take heed Constable." "That, that is bad living." " Water, Don." "Water." " Aw!" "Gah." "Excuse me, ma'am." "You are excused." "Move a step, would you?" "There." "Good." "Now I can see you." "Sergeant." " Inspector Reid." " He's in the parlour?" "Indeed, sir." "Ah!" "Oh, word of advice." "Never ice for the gout." "Then what, sir?" "What!" "?" "Prayer, Mr. Artherton." "Lord Montacute." "My apologies for keeping you waiting." "Yes." "You are?" "Reid." "I'm in command here." "Is she here?" "When last were you with her?" "Last night, the night before this." "Where that, sir?" "Here, near here." "Uh, uh, music hall." " Which?" " I don't know which." "Um..." "Vera brought me to it." "Which entertainment did you enjoy?" "Well, a fellow performing magic tricks... um... two women singing about Gladstone, in poor taste." "I left, and she remained..." "God damn it, man, is she here?" "She is." "And she's well and unharmed?" "She is unharmed." "Then... why do you keep her?" "Forgive me, sir, but you are both a good ways off your natural territory." "Well, I assure you, Inspector, it's not by my choosing." "She brought me to the music hall." "I left and she remained." "And you leave her to travel about this borough alone, and as she pleases?" "Well, I do not lock her up!" "Nor worry about her overly, it seems." "What I mean to say, is that so much of her seems a mystery to you, sir." "Huh, well we're all mysteries to one another, Inspector." "Wives, are nothing if not the exemplar of that fact." "Now, you heard this from me." "Yes, Lady Vera is detained at your pleasure, but habeas corpus is a powerful tool in the hands of an expensive attorney." "You may rest assured that I retain the most ruinous." "Now, you know who I am," "Who my family is." "Come morning, Inspector Reid, the weight of the world will break over your station house," "and my wife will come home." "Oh dear, it is only a name, Constable." "I shall give you mine." "It is Vera." "Vera Violet Elizabeth." "That was three names, and you haven't even given me one." "It's Robert." "Well Bobby, you are a far sight too handsome for this work." "And yet... you wear a uniform." "My goodness, take it from me... uniforms have an affect on a girl." "There is a girl, isn't there Bobby?" "Is she pretty?" "Good..." "I hate to imagine you with a plain girl." "And imagine you I shall, Bobby, you and your girl." "Do you dream of marrying her, Bobby?" "Let me tell you... do not." "There is a prevailing morality to our world... and it instructs us thus... find another, build a home, raise a family... the avoidance of these instructions will result in all manner of perdition... but... it is a righteousness, only recently conceived," "and it ignores many truths." "The cumulative wisdom of which is this... you, we, people, our instincts, our desires, we are entirely at odds, without moral decree." "So I tell you this Bobby... be sure to enjoy those others who toss their hair, and avert their eyes when you sweep in before them." "You may have Mary, Martha, Josephine, three times over... should you so wish it." "Hm, Reid... good." "See here this knifed cavity in the chest?" "That's not one wound, but many." "From the lesions and damage to the heart and lungs," "I count nine strikes with a blade... chop, chop, chop." "You wished my reading of it." "It is fury." "Many repeated blows at the same location." "It is rage." "Hatred, too, perhaps." "You found him?" "Denton?" "He has known the inside of a station house before." "Mr. And Mrs." "Daniel Fairfax of Blandford Street, Marylebond." "Drugged and thieved two years past." "They named Thomas Denton." "Drugging?" "That is the woman Montacute's defence, is it not?" "The claim is then withdrawn, however, once Mr. Denton is allowed response to the allegation and points out, amongst other vices, the drugging was at Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Fairfax's invitation and billing." "He, Denton, is their waged pilot into a world of vice." "He procured for them seats at the music hall, pipes of opium at a Limehouse den." "He brought guards with him for their wanderings through the rookeries." "No wonder, then, the allegation is forgot." "Here, this was found." "It's been emptied, but there are dregs." "It's a... a powdery composite." "Narcotic?" "Now, that's an assumption, Inspector." "Then let us make another." "Let us think on the for why that those such as the Fairfaxes, Lady Vera Montacute, might feel a yen to come visit us here." "Slum tourists." "You wish to feel what the extremes of life might sound, look, taste like." "This is the place to find out." "Velvet and silk, home from home." "The wealthy and the privileged come for the thrill of their corruption, and this... this girl here," "She, I come to believe, the collateral for those desires." "She will have justice." "Vera, Lady Montacute, her husband, and his title are sat in our booking hall, waiting." "Alone for now, but his minions now gather, so we must forge a proof so sound that it may stand strong against the combined weight of this island's ruling class altogether, and we must do this by dawn." "Captain, you said you are expected elsewhere." "Ah, I..." "I am." "Uh, she will cut out my heart with a teaspoon, she will remove my brains with a tin opener." "This." "There is sufficient remaining for an examination?" "Perhaps." "Then you do it." "Mr. Drake, you are to make yourself known to Thomas Denton... myself, I shall, um..." "I shall go gaze upon the beautiful Lady Vera once more." "That limp, that cane... that's camouflage Drake, I tell you." "It's a God damned deception." "Constable Grace, if you please." "Fetch your great brain to Captain Jackson's assistance." "Ooh!" "Clever too!" "Goodbye Robert." "Remember what I tell you." "Ah, I imagine that a gift of yours... the making of friends in strange pastures." "I am sociable, Inspector." "Indeed." "Your way made from your Oxfordshire estates, via your home in Regent's Park, to rented rooms in Whitechapel." "Oh, excuse me, I forget... you have no memory of the journey made to those rooms." "Only your drugged champagne at The Cambridge, and then... oblivion." "Correct?" "Correct." "Then let us perhaps therefore, talk a little more broadly, of what it is brings you to Whitechapel." "For this is surely not your first excursion to this corner of London here." "How quaint you make it sound, Inspector." "Whitechapel, the place that so very nearly took your life from you." "But it's not simply the music halls of this borough on which you fix your attention." "It is not." "They are diverting, but I read your newspapers." "The real entertainments are found in your streets." "That is not music hall, Countess." "That is life." "Indeed." "Believe me, Inspector, it is in the life of this city that my fascination is rooted... your life, for most pertinent example." "A man who climbed out of death's grip and has now returned to his life's duty." "I cannot tell you how pleased I am to have met you, Inspector." "Such fascination, such an eye for event, and yet that eager witnessing of yours so dulled that around you, beside you, even perhaps by your hand, a woman is stabbed ten times over and you unable to bring to mind a moment of it." "Perhaps it is because you are callous." "But though you watch and that you titillate yourself in that watching, you do not care." "Goodness." "Such insight, Inspector." "Perhaps that is why fate has brought me here?" "For the great Edmund Reid to show me to myself?" "Oh, and how you are jaded, my lady." "Are you really so without hope for your life?" "Perhaps I am." "I should say," "Lady Vera, that the life that I imagine you wish to escape, that which brings you far from its genteel restrictions, perhaps at least the few hours you pass with us, that life is here." "Now it's come for you." "Your husband waits beneath." "He is a soldier, you know?" "So I understand." "My knight-errant." "That your manor for all time, is it?" "Where we found you?" "Born there, weren't I." "You never left?" "I've been to Covent Garden," "I've been to Marylebone." "And though the paving stones may be cleaned of all shit, and the shops sell perfume... there's not a song to be heard in the air, nor a friend to be seen." "And you, from the voice on you, you are what," "five streets from your raising?" "Rookery off back of Little Paternoster." "Ida." "She's your cousin." "Of a kind." "My aunt is our brother's girl." "So, her old man." "That would be Frank Watts, would it not?" "Known to you, ah?" "Her mother was an Ivory, therefore." "I knew her brother Samuel." "We ran together awhiles." "And how is it that you're stood there and myself... in these here?" "Army." "Now, here's what I'm thinking, Tom." "I have no fight with you taking an opportunity when it comes." "These gents and ladies, they come a-wandering down here as if our lives were naught but a fairground sideshow." "To my mind, they are ripe for a fleecing." "And you, son, would not be sat there were that all we thought you tangled in." "Your Ida's lies dead, naked as the day she were born, her skinny ribs plundered with the sharpest of knives," "and you the cause of it." "Not me." "No." "I done nothing." "You find me someone to say otherwise." "But they do say otherwise, Tom." "They do now, leastwise." "Now you are fetched here under suspicion of it." "I told ya." "I've done nothing." "I know nothing." "And you, copper." "You may scrap your attempt to make kin of me." "Could be that you once walked on my side of the street, but you walk there no longer." "Grace, the lady upstairs, what do you make of her?" "I think she understands how to set about holding power over a man." "Microscope, bring it over here." "She's of the moment, haircut and unforgiving symmetry?" "It is elegant, certainly." "But Ida, is, ah, she not elegant also?" "Not so much." "But she aspires to such elegance, she affects it." "Here, take a look..." "The hair, at least what's hair, it's been dyed." "Dyed recently, and cut recently." "Cut in an approximation, do you see?" "To her highness upstairs." "Grace, you go fetch the inspectors to me now, okay?" "First a theory, second a fact." "In both cases, the motives and for whys leave me stumped, but you're gonna want to hear them." "Here, Grace." "You... you tell them." ""It is indeed narcotic, but it is not pure and it's not orthodox." "It is a blend... cocaine, hydrochloride, and morphine sulphate combined in... i... insufflation."" "Ida." "The same residue was caught in her nasal cavity." "It's a powder, it's combined, and it's snorted." "And the effects?" "I haven't sampled it myself." "Give the man time, however." "But in principle, the two would balance one another." "The jitters of the cocaine, suppress the languor of the morphine, elevated euphoria, less the attendant despair." "An amalgam a woman such as Lady Vera might have made on demand." "Although not in such a ratio as this." "Three parts morphine to one part cocaine." "Good night, sweetheart." "It is overbalanced with intention." "Mr. Denton." "This is his chosen system." "He drugs, then he robs." "Then, why use the cocaine at all?" "So that the effects appear initially consistent with that which the lady desires." "But once achieved, one person may react to the effects in a fashion entirely the reverse of another." "Where senselessness might be brought out in one, and rage instead might be borne in another." "The rage to murder?" "So this... these powders, this drug... that is fact, Captain." "Your theory?" "Imagine her, Reid, alive once more." "She's a pretty girl, she's got some spirit, but she's a girl of these streets." "These streets, how many flower girls do you know that have the time and inclination to see their hair so structured?" "I... it is dyed, also." "Cut and dyed to make her the lowly pauper to our princess above." "She is made Lady Vera's twin." "And there you have it." "Our theory." "Oh, you wish to leave us?" "I am expected, Reid." "Captain, if you feel that you have done all you might to see her story told for those who brought her to this exposed, then by all means, you go, please." "Enjoy your evening." "You know that man Capshaw?" "He should have asked me, because I would have shot you clear through that bleeding heart of yours." "Inspector Drake, my sense of it is that your attempt to find comradeship with the man Denton was not an unqualified success." "He hates me." "Ah." "But he has knowledge of her, knowledge that I want." "Mr. Reid, you may not ask that of me." "I do not ask that of you, Bennet, but I would ask that you might remember a face you once made." "Them curtains..." "Why?" "Dull child that you are... witnesses they are." "They still might hear, however." "Hear you confess to murder, old son?" "You know... when I used to run with Samuel Ivory," "before Major General Gordon and his scarlet tunic came for me..." "I did not give one tinker's toss for the fridge on my back." "People would take one look at me, think me naught but an animal." "These days however," "I'd take care for that not to be the first thought that a man might have at the sight of me." "And you know why Thomas?" "Because they would think it and they would be right." "Now..." "What is that?" "What is in there?" "Believe me, son, when I say you do not want to know." "You have cause to find out means you have displeased me." "Now, here's how we travel." "I tell you what I think, you tell me what you know." "For some whiles now, you have rented the rooms on Puma Court for the pleasure of a Miss Lady Vera Carswell." "Amongst the entertainments you fixed for her, you mixed pharmaceutical cocaine with powdered morphine." "That's right, boy." "We here educate ourselves on you." "That is some intoxication, I am sure." "Were you there when Ida had a snort of it?" "No?" "But you do know for why you fetched her there, for why you had your cousin made up to be the very mirror of that good lady above." "No, you, ah... this is a story, your mad mind, copper." "I've done nothing." "I know nothing." "See, now you have displeased me." "When I was soldiering in Egypt, I saw a man's toe shot off." "Yeah." "I could not move for enemy fire, however, not for an hour or two." "Could not find the dressing's to bind him, safety to stretcher him away... nor a single drop of grog to dull the pain." "He bled right out, he did." "Fast, too." "That bugger, that great toe, it is a bleeder." "Now, I am told that eventually this one will get through bone." "No!" "Please don't, I beg you!" "You can not!" "No!" "Oh, please!" "No, no!" "Just a toe." "You be still." "You tug around like that, there will be a fearful mess and the pain surely greater and all." "You tell me you had the narcotic mixed up different, more morphine, less cocaine, to drug and then to rob, as is your way!" "Aaah!" "No!" "No, stop!" "What mishap befell your Ida, Thomas?" "No!" "Please, I beg you!" "What put the powder inside her?" "No!" "For why did you have her rigged up, like one them propers you despise so?" "Please, stop!" "Inspector Drake!" "No, sir!" "Enough!" "You do not hide your barbarism from me!" "This is an outrage!" "Get out of my sight!" "Please..." "Mr. Denton." "Mr. Denton, I can only help you," "I can only protect you from him if you will speak to me." "Come, come." "Oh, Jesus." "What is that, Don?" "Tincture of wolfsbane." "No." "I've just come from the threat of severing that exact same digit from the lad Denton." "Hm, do no threaten here, Bennet." "You may cut the bastard thing clean off and hear nothing but my cheering you on." "We all have our crosses." "Good evening, Mr. Drake." "Miss Morton." "Sir." "Mr. Drake." "My brother will not say for why I am accompanied by him, but here, here." "For my part, I have come to string that American up by his most prized appendage." "Do you mind terribly?" "You, uh... you go right to it, miss." "I do hope you can look after yourself from here on in." "Mimi, go away." "Charming." "You follow me, Miss Morton." "I'll take you to the captain." "Oh dear Sergeant, what have you done to yourself?" "Oh, nothing, miss." "It looks worse than it is." "Oh, poor you." "I much prefer things to be worse than they look." "Mr. Morton..." "You, ah... you wear a ring, sir." "I do." "I've not seen her, sir." "Not since the night at Blewett's." "I know it." "What will you do, sir?" "My wishes for the future remain constant." "I love her." "I wish to make her happy." "I've told her this, that... you... all else may be forgotten." "She has been happy with me." "Mr. Drake, I know you are not a cynical man, that you act with your heart." "It is to that heart that I speak now." "I ask you to think on the life Rose will have, of the life her children will have." "They will run free, know what it is to climb on oak, to... swim in a stream." "And she, she will be... cared for and honoured and loved, sir, every day that she lives." "Can you say the same, Mr. Drake?" "Can you offer her these things?" "And, most importantly, would you deny her them?" "Captain Jackson, sir." "I bring you a visitor." "Now, you listen to me, knife man." "I made changes for you." "I behave in ways that are surprising to all who know me, myself included." "You were to meet my father tonight, and..." "Aah!" "Oh!" "Aaaaah!" "Why, Thomas?" "Why was your Ida fetched from her blooms?" "What use was she?" "The lady made a request for the man she was to bring with her." "A man?" "A man you knew?" "No, sir." "It was special, weren't it?" "She wished for you to find a woman for this male companion of hers, so you whored your cousin to this man?" "It was what the lady asked for, but not what I intended." "I was to be done with before that arrangement needed meeting." "And that was where the heavy morphine blend." "Lady Vera and her companion were to be sedated." "Ida was the... dispenser." "And then she was to rob them both blind." "Only your drug failed you, and Ida was killed." "Who by?" "Lady Vera or this man you speak of?" "I do not know, sir." "I beg you to believe me." "I was not there." "And this man, Lady Vera's companion." "Can you describe him?" "There is no need, sir." "You have him here already." "He is..." "Above." "What happened to her?" "A knife." "Killed by whom?" "Ah, that we do not know" "But she was found to bed with a comatose noble woman..." "No joke, real, ah, blue blood." "Who?" "Montacute." "Vera Carswell." "My, my, Miss Morton." "How you do get around." "I don't... know her... but I..." "Oh my goodness, the... the stories, the exploits have been recounted..." "Her husband, Lord Christopher, the full title, the Earldom, land will all become his in due course." "But she, well, all that's ever been required of her is that she... marry well, which she has done... and then... smile and be beautiful." "Although, those kinds of expectations have been known to kill a person." "But it's chilly here, Captain, and I need tea... tea that is in fact more whiskey, than tea." "She has a lovely face." "God in his mercy grant her grace." ""The Lady of Shalott"." "Take me somewhere else." "This is Reid's place... he made it so he might know anything there ever was to know about everything." "You make him sound like a man from a fable." "In many ways, that is exactly what he is." "If there was a file on you, what would it say?" "Um..." "He had a talent for runnin', until..." "Until?" "until he decided to stop." "And yours, Miss Morton?" "Hm... mine's not written yet." "Listen to me, darlin'." "Now, these people, your people, they come to these streets and they find whatever kick they can before they go home again." "Is that all I am to you?" "No." "Not all, just most." "Word has it this civilian has been wandering freely about my station house." "Well, what can I say, Inspector?" "The mountain came to to Mohammed." "That man, Lord Montacute, Major Christopher Carswell, come here so brazen, entitled as he is, thinking to hide in plain view." "Tut, tut, tut." "Ida." "She was not interfered with?" "She was not." "And yet we know from Thomas Denton that his cousin was ordered up and made the twin of his wife for his, Lord Montacute's, pleasure." "For his imagined pleasure." "Quite so, and all at the whim of Lady Vera." "We do not know whether he greeted her whim with distaste or delight." "So, Lady Vera, unconscious." "Denton's narcotics taken their desired effect." "But not upon Lord Christopher, however." "He was nowhere to be seen." "The drug, different powers over different bodies." "Then let us imagine Lady Vera unconscious," "Ida perhaps sufficiently euphoric to partake in whatever debauchery had been intended." "But the gentleman, the narcotic running through him, has now become homicidal." "He kills her." "And in his shame and mania, he runs for home." "Imagine him, return to Regent's Park, the fog of the narcotic gone from him." "He cannot recall with any clarity what has passed, but he does know that his lady wife was left behind here, in Whitechapel." "And somehow presents himself to the police of that borough." "And the lady, the beautiful lady, just sleeps an innocent sleep throughout." "Meanwhile, just hours since, you have the knife in her hand and evil in her heart." "Hmm." "One or other of them, however." "One or other." "Captain, I think we may consider your work done," "If Miss Morton still has need of you, that is." "Eh, she'll keep." "I need you to lend me Grace a while longer, though." ""Fingerprints" by Francis Galton." "What say you and me make the inspector a little homecoming' present." "You see what it says there, in the margins?" "You see what he wrote?" ""Incontrovertible truth," with a question mark." "With a question mark." "Now grab the lantern." "Okay, turn up the flame." "You hold it steady over that knife." "Major Carswell." "Your rank?" "Sergeant, sir." "Although in this force, I am Inspector Drake." "Your service seen where, however?" "Egypt in the main, sir." "Huh." "Under whose command?" "Colonel Madoc Faulkner." "At El Teb." "You saw the worst of it, then." "I was glad to get home, sir, as you must be each time you return." "I've ever been a bachelor, sir, and so can only imagine how it is to ever be leaving and returning, leaving and returning, an endless reacquaintance with those we love." "Well, 'tis duty, Inspector Drake." "What of our duty to our families, to our wives, sir?" "But you've only just now told me that you lack for a wife." "I must conclude, therefore, that you... you talk about me, and I wonder what right you believe you have to do so." "A policeman's right." "One who investigates murder." "Best you now see me as a man to be obeyed," "Major Carswell, as a man who owns your secrets." "Your wife's secrets, also." "One of you has killed a young lady this night last." "A girl made to resemble your wife, sir." "The three of you... enjoying a little party, in our corner of London, here." "Yes." "We know it all, sir." "All save one fact, which of you it was, drove the knife into her." "The girl, made up to resemble your wife." "Her name was Ida." "What pleasure did your wife believe you might find in that act, sir?" "Pleasure indeed." "She wished me to..." "Make love to both of them," "Two Veras." "It's a mountain to try and to find love for just the one of her." "That... that boy... that earnest," "Toynbee-type, fool enough to strike you, he can harp on his trees, and his streams... for swimming!" "It's..." "He thinks it an arcadia in waiting." "But if there's doubt in him now, it will be a... a hell." "A hell, Mr. Drake." "Your wife, Major." "Let us stay on the subject of your wife." "Such a... an arrangement." "What does she stand to gain from that?" "Your affections rekindled?" "Perhaps." "That woman's mind is her own." "And so..." "You did not." "I tried." "She asked me to try, so I did." "And then, sir?" "She laughed at me." "Who did?" "Uh, both of them..." "Uh, no, Vera... uh..." "The other." "I d..." "The..." "A powder." "Whatever she had given me, I... couldn't tell them apart." "And so you picked up the knife," "You struck out." "No." "Uh, no." "I do not..." "She laughed at you." "You thought it your wife humiliating you, and you struck out." "Sir, why did you come here tonight if not in truth, because you hoped to unburden yourself?" "Now, she laughed, you struck out." "No, Sergeant." "I do not remember." "If you would stand for me now, Major." "Many a marriage has failed, as we all know, but such a striving to see one revived, Lady Vera." "It suggests..." "A, ah... what should we call it... a... a commitment to the life which wearies you so." "I confess myself glad that your celebrated faculties are unharmed by your recent ordeal, Inspector." "You make no denials, therefore?" "Denial would be predictable, would it not?" "It would be customary." "Well, then, there you have it." "I do try not to be boring." "You consider that the worst of sins, I imagine." "What is it you want to know?" "Which of you and your husband performed the act?" "Hmm." "I am inclined to tell you." "You will have my gratitude." "As inducement, however," "I would hear something from you, Inspector." "What do you remember?" "Five days in death's maw." "What did you see there as you stood at the border between life and death?" "I give you my word, you tell me something, and I will give you all that I know." "You ask me what I saw." "Yes." "Nothing." "But I might tell you what I... felt." "All the better." "I was not afraid, not for a moment." "I sensed that I was held." "By what?" "By God?" "I put no name on it." "I feel no need to do so." "Are you aware, my lady, of a medical procedure known as trepanning?" "Yes." "The boring of a hole through the skull." "Quite so." "It's been practised since prehistoric times, but there is evidence to suggest that, uh, a small section of bone that is removed to expose the dura mater of the brain was then worn as an amulet around the neck." "A charm?" "Against what?" "Who can say?" "But I know what malignancy I now wear mine against and what I imagine the prehistorics felt guarded against." "Self-regard." "They looked out from their caves across unsheltered plains and knew that all that lay out there was savage and hostile to their existence on that earth, and they saw the threat and felt only the urge to stride out," "to find food, bring it home, to survive, continue." "The necessity of struggle, the collective, placed above the self." "In death, the affirmation of life." "You think me clichéd." "No." "On the contrary." "Where is that constable of yours?" "The pretty one." "Have him come here with copy paper and a pen to write with." "Grace!" ""I, Vera Carswell, Lady Montacute, wish to confess to the murder by stabbing of Ida Watts in the attic rooms rented by myself of Alderman's lodging house on Puma Court."" "You keep writing, Constable." "What, er, time did this event take place?" "I cannot say." "I was incapacitated due to the effects of a cocaine and sulphurous morphine amalgam that I had a Mr. Thomas Denton make for me." "Explain the presence of Miss Watts." "I asked Mr. Denton if he would find a girl who could be made to look like me." "He found her, and I saw her hair dressed and coloured and her face made up." "Why do this?" "You asked me why it is I come here to these streets, where you find your daily struggles with its dirt and its deaths and its chaos." "Everything that you would see rid from this world, Mr. Reid," "I glorify." "And so, yes." "I brought my husband to those rooms and that girl because I thought that... well, I thought that he might want to join me in that glorifying and that I might perhaps not be so alone in all that I did" "and thought and felt." "But he did not join you." "No." "He looked at me with the same incomprehension with which you look at me now." "How many times did you put the knife into Ida Watts?" "For reasons I have already stated," "I..." "I cannot be sure, but..." "It was more than thrice, but less than ten times." "The power of sharpened steel to cut through flesh, you... you might expect it to need strength, but she gave way with ease." "And why?" "Why did you kill Miss Watts?" "Because she did not prove amusing and because I wanted to know how it would feel to do so." "Now, I imagine you want me to sign beneath." "Do not worry, Robert." "They're not all like me." "I'm not like a single woman alive." "He claims not to recall." "And she has confessed." "And yet I do not feel the truth shine upon us, Bennet." "You two." "Come see what I made." "It is the smear of blood on the knife." "It is the magnified bloody imprint on the thumb rise of the handle." "What is it you've made, Jackson?" "It is the incontrovertible truth." "Well..." "It's an attempt." "Look here." "Now, after the third or fourth thrust," "Ida's blood got gluey, so that there is the mark of the thumb of the hand that killed her." "Mr. Galton's theory runs thus, that the tip of each and every finger contains parallel ridges." "See, Bennet?" "See your own there?" "These ridges form walls or patterns, each one entirely distinct from its neighbour and each one entirely distinct from human to human." "The print of such is therefore entirely unique." "The chances of any two prints being alike are, so Mr. Galton has it, one in 64 billion." "And we wouldn't be the first, either." "There's a detective in Argentina that used this very same method to bring a woman to trial for the murder of her children." "Mr. Galton recommends a printer's ink for the best sample." "Which we are unlikely to find at this hour." "And there is little time remaining to us." "I've got another idea, however." "Morning, your highness." "Now place each thumb in the soot." "Make your mark." "Sergeant Artherton!" "Gentlemen, if you would care to wait for a few moments." "Hm." "Hmmm." "Do you know what it is brings the gout out for me, Sergeant?" "No, Chief Inspector." "The full weight of the British aristocracy waking me before I have had my kippers." "Where is the miraculously returned, Reid?" "Where is he?" "They are the same?" "The two forkings at the end of the two ridges that make the island there..." "they are identical, yes." "And these?" "These prints are whose?" "Lord Montacute." "Inspector Reid, Inspector Drake." "Morning, Chief." "Edmund, a word." "So that I understand, you have a signed confession on the part of the lady." "I do." "And somehow it does not suffice." "I believe that she, for reasons too perverse to imagine, but I believe that she wishes herself guilty." "She wishes herself hanged." "Now, she may have been there, she may have watched, but she is not the girl's killer." "And this knowledge arrived at by way of... a thumb mark printed in soot." "You have a confession, Mr. Reid." "You use it." "Lady, please." "It is not too late." "It is never that." "Dear Mr. Reid." "It was always too late." "Inspector Reid." "You have the keys, I understand." "One last question for you, sir." "What kind of man is it allows his wife to go to the rope for him?" "Confess." "Know the release." "Enough!" "That, is a murder solved." "Your feet not even back under the table and a murder solved." "This shall be spoken of, Edmund." "All is as it ever was, Mr. Reid." "Last warning." "That is a good drop, Don." "Mmm." "Good gentlemen," "I shall see you tomorrow." "Reid." "Captain." "Come on, really?" "You're just gonna sit there and we all just pick up right where we left off?" "I saw you." "You were leaving." "You had your girl and you were leaving." "I was." "We were." "And so?" "Mathilda asks the same." "I'm sure she does." "I tell her what I tell you." "I..." "I cannot further account for it." "I woke from my sleep knowing only this..." "I was not saved so that" "I might go fishing." "And the event, your shooting." "You have any recall of it?" "Little." "Barely an image." "But before Obsidian, as I stepped into that place," "I've never known fear like it." "Forgot my hat." "It's a ridiculous hat." "Nonetheless." "Ridiculous." "Hm."