Threads of Silk and Gold Ripper Street

VINCENT: I want to see the pyramids.

I want a suit made out of silk from Hong Kong.

I want my own blend of tobacco and a pipe of ivory.

I want a pair of shoes... made out of silver.

VINCENT GUFFAWS

That's the stupidest idea I think I've ever heard.

You'll be jealous.

This programme contains graphic violent scenes and some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

It's your turn.

I want you.

Nothing more.

Tell me.

-Tell me we can do this.

-We can do this.

I promise you.

We have Quint's folio.

He'll pay.

He has to.

He'll pay whatever we want.

Then I want my suit and my silver bloody shoes.

HE CHUCKLES

Shit. Luke's gonna skin us.

Let him try.

Come next week, we'll be long gone from all of 'em.

All of this.

LOUD CHATTER

CHATTER

Harry Collins! Harry, liven up.

Regent Street, Baker Street, Haymarket.

David Goodbody.

David Goodbody.

David?

No Vincent neither.

Otto Roberts.

-Do you want to earn a few quid?

-Special?

Harlequin. David's ground, but...

Early bird and all that.

-KNOCK AT DOOR MAN:

-Please come in.

DOOR CREAKS

-You may close the door now.

-I'm the boy you called for.

I, er...have something for you, sir.

Yes, David.

I believe you do.

ARTHERTON: Buggery, sodomy, and acts homosexual are crimes.

There'll be no bail, sir. Go.

-If you'll follow me, sir.

-Next!

ARTHERTON: Oi! We'll have less of that!

Quite a haul, Inspector Ed.

Another foul molly house brought to ground by the brave crusaders of Leman Street.

On the side of the pansies now, are you?

-BEST:

-On the side, as ever, only of justice.

Tell me, Sergeant, what room here for the cut-throats and filchers of Whitechapel,

when your cells runneth over with mandrakes and rantipoles?

Oh, no doubt you'd have the streets amok with arse-mongers.

Streets, sir? You raided a private residence.

Are there any, um...

are there any blue bloods this time?

Or are they all still running scared after Cleveland Street?

Do not ever again come here for your muckraking.

Escort Mr Best back to the gutter.

This is a free land, Inspector, first in the civilised world.

It is not muck I seek to shovel into cold light here, but rank hypocrisy!

Goulston Street, sir, telegraph boy.

-REID:

-Otto Roberts?

-FLIGHT: Yes, sir.

Who was it occupied this room?

Didn't give his name, sir.

-CHATTER FROM STREET

-This ain't The Savoy.

Could have fooled me. His appearance?

Middle-aged business type.

Not too shabby, not too smart. He looked like anyone.

My guests don't care to be studied.

-Faces come and go. Some pay by the hour.

-Did he?

Coughed up for day and night. Said he awaited a telegram.

I should send up the boy.

WOMAN: Get inside! Come on, Tommy!

If you could perchance hasten matters,

I should like to rent the room again before lunch.

Get him before Jackson.

CHATTER AND LAUGHTER

All right, which of you goddamn whoresons is a flimflam man, huh?

Come on, I'm not fresh off the...

Good to see you. I'll get a drink.

All right, we're not done here.

What say one of you fellas lends me the money for another hand, huh?

Dr Yankee.

Nice duds.

My ship came in. Gin for everyone.

CROWD CHEERING

-Must have been a goddamn galleon.

-Call it a fleet.

Well, I'd love to say I don't begrudge you a penny, Charlie, but I'm a shitty liar.

BOTH CHUCKLE

How about you squaring some of what's owed, huh?

Plus interest, with thanks.

And I can do better than that, Doc. You've done me a turn once or twice.

All this...

it's there for the taking.

-You boy! You manage here?

-Barely.

Messenger was sent this morning to Goulston Street.

-Is that so?

-Harlequin Hotel.

Oh, that was...

He shouldn't have even been there.

-It wasn't his job.

-Then whose?

David. David Goodbody. Around that way's his patch.

-My ears are burning.

-I wish all of you was burning.

-What's afoot?

-Otto's dead.

-What?

-LUKE: Took your rounds

cos you'd done a bloody bunk, and some bastard killed him.

-Who are you?

-Am I under arrest?

-Watch your tongue, boy. VINCENT:

-Vincent.

Featherwell.

I was with David today. Went to the fair in Bethnal Green.

-During work?

-Isn't illegal to hate your job.

-Who was the telegram for?

-I only had the address.

Is that usual?

It happens. We just deliver.

You, David, have you been at the Harlequin before?

No.

-Are you certain about that?

-Yes. Yes, sir.

Help me discover what befell your friend.

I need to know where that telegram was sent from, when, and by whom.

I do not wish to make such a visit here again.

According to their ledger, the telegram was sent from a bureau in the city.

No name given.

You can see here, all these, day after day, week after week,

sent from the heart of the City to addresses in Whitechapel.

But no replies. The mail only travels one way.

That's banker's turf.

What business have well-to-do's telegraphing the rookery?

Why indeed? See here. David Goodbody lies.

He's been dispatched to the Harlequin three times this fortnight.

Find these other addresses. I want to know who's been receiving these missives.

Strangulation, then?

Silk fibres.

From a scarf maybe.

A knot tied in it.

And the boy was sexually active.

Very active, and not with women.

-Was he forced?

-Not that I can see, least not today.

He was just, I don't know, an enthusiast.

They're bloody everywhere.

Don't knock it till you tried it, Benito.

I know some stevedores'd treat you like a princess.

Those addresses, almost all of them,

-flag the Harlequin.

-I want to know the movements

of this boy, David. Trail him.

-And his friend, sir? The gobby one?

-Him too.

Tierra del Fuego.

South America.

It's the land of fire. My friend Charlie gave it to me.

Might as well be goddamn hieroglyphics to me.

I mean, look at this.

You know anything about investments,

stocks, bridge loans?

Land of fire? Sounds like hell.

I'm looking for my friend...

David Goodbody.

He's off shift.

Who, then, might know where I could find him?

SWITCHBLADE CLICKING

I'll give it back.

-Tell Quint it was a mistake.

-VINCENT:

-No.

-We see this through.

-How?

Quint's gonna kill us. I mean, that should have been me today.

I know that.

My love, believe me, I know that.

You're here and we're alive,

and, while blood still pumps in me, I'll not give up on the plans we've made.

Whoever Quint sent for us went to your patch

and assumed the boy who showed up was you.

-He didn't know Otto was Otto.

-He doesn't know my face.

Nor mine. There's still time to see this through.

So, we hit back and we hit hard.

What we asked for, let's double it.

I'm going to see Freddie Best. We need to ensure we're safe.

-Come with.

-I've a job.

-No.

-Take my knife.

-And what about you?

-Please. For this job, at least.

I told you.

We can do this.

LOUD CHATTER

-You heard about Otto?

-Course I bloody did.

Poor sod. I thought you'd given up the frig jobs.

Money's money.

Is, um...

-..is Harry all right?

-Harry's fine.

He sent this. Said he'd meet you at the Harlequin after his shift.

So, Otto, what do you know?

How would you like The Star to turn the biggest bank in London upside down?

-Just what the hell was Otto up to?

-Otto wasn't.

He wasn't supposed to be there.

There's a copper watching us.

-VINCENT:

-Freddie, go now.

-You're a policeman, are you not?

-FLIGHT: Keep your voice down.

I am an abominable bugger, sir, a proud Uranian.

A hunter of hinder parts.

A keen participant in behaviours grotesque and indecent.

Homo sapiens homosexual.

Take me in.

You are aware of the consequences of the admission you made to my constable?

I fear, sir, there may have been a misunderstanding.

My intemperate consumption. You see, I'm...

The wretched gin had quite scrambled my faculties.

I recall not a word I uttered to your good man,

and I must insist I retract, in toto.

David Goodbody sells himself under the guise of his delivery rounds.

Nor is he, as my sergeant has discovered, the only telegraph boy to do so.

-Are you among them?

-Certainly not.

Each to their own, mind you.

I myself am partial to a tight mimsy.

A rosy notch.

A dewy flower.

You and David are in straits. Otto Roberts is dead because of it.

Do you feel no guilt? An innocent boy lies slain.

Innocent?

Yes.

Though you'd shackle him, would you not?

Catamite. Sodomite. Pervert.

A moral bankrupt fit for your shackles.

Are you gonna be charging me with aught, sir? I've got a shift coming up

and people do need their telegrams.

-Toodle-pip, sirs.

-ARTHERTON: Off he goes, then.

Proud Polly Prick-tickler.

Gamahuching his way through every molly house back to St Martin's.

Are we short of homosexuals wasting our cell space, Sergeant?

We could have broken him, sir.

There's an egg in the box with a far softer shell.

-REID: You run them. Confess it.

-No, sir!

Yes, sir! You pander and pimp those boys, who ought to be safe in your care.

They swing for such, do they not, Sergeant? Indecent predators

of our noble youth.

They swing in agony, sir, and justly so.

I run nothing!

I just...I just try to do my job.

I want to move upstairs, learn to...to use the wire.

-Which boys are the renters?

-I don't know.

-Not all, just...

-David Goodbody.

Otto Roberts. Vincent Featherwell.

-Who else? Who else?!

-There are others.

What else were David and Vincent involved in?

Your friend, Otto Roberts,

was killed in David's place. If you seek any kind of justice

for him, you speak.

David, there's...there's a man he sees.

A well-to-do. I've heard David and Vincent talk of him.

His...love for David,

and how they might...capitalise.

-Blackmail?

-I don't know.

But it wouldn't be the first time.

-This man of David's, who is he?

-A banker, sir.

Name of Quint. Solomon Quint.

Quint, Solomon.

He's at the House of Barings, sir.

Get me a hansom.

Inspector Reid? Franklin Stone. A pleasure.

We can speak in my office.

I hear you're looking for Sol Quint?

-I am. You work with him?

-Mm, ten years.

His work being what, exactly?

You might call him a haruspex.

In ancient times, certain priests, haruspices,

would examine the entrails of sacrificed beasts,

thus to determine the fate of men and nations.

Just so, Solomon Quint would sink his hands into the grimy slew of phenomena,

economic, political and geographic,

and, from what he found there, determine our fortunes.

Quite literally.

Investments. He would analyse investments?

And the risks thereof.

Can I offer you a refreshment?

Thank you, no.

Temperate man.

Bravo.

Forgive my flippancy, sir. This has been a most difficult time.

Sol left under something of a cloud.

He's no longer with Barings? Since when?

Almost a week.

His work had become...

erratic.

A man in his position cannot afford to be erratic.

Sol Quint was the most brilliant of his kind, sir.

Until, er...

Well, he was a dear friend and I'm not a man given to indiscretion.

But your candour is much appreciated, sir.

Suffice it to say Sol Quint's marital bed was infrequently troubled by his presence.

He had certain pastimes.

In truth, I think the man was heartsick.

Perhaps in every life, at some point, we must make such a choice.

What choice, Mr Stone?

Between love and gold, Inspector.

Love and gold.

My duty is to the House of Barings.

I have not...

..the luxury...

..of placing anything before gold.

Not even Sol Quint.

I was obligated to dismiss him.

If you'd oblige me, Mr Stone, I shall need Mr Quint's address.

My folio. You were simply to recover my folio...

..and now an innocent boy lies dead.

HE SIGHS

No.

Tell Mr Stone, I...I need to see him.

I can't...

I cannot...

They know, man!

The boys know, and now double would they wring from me!

Chide me not, Mr Quint.

It is to your mess I endeavour to take my broom.

My apologies.

The older boy.

Were you aware of his friendship with the newspaperman Fred Best?

Does...does Mr Stone know?

Well, I must see him.

This is our last chance to...

..come forth open-handed before the bank investors.

Mr Stone would prefer that all parties keep their counsel.

It is fundamental, Mr Quint, that you keep your counsel.

Yes.

Of course it is.

I understand now why you came.

I would have given David anything.

Anything he asked. I...

I loved him.

I love him still.

You must think me a bloody fool, sir.

I do not pretend to understand the things that love makes men do.

But every man I've known has suffered for it.

Yet what else is there, Mr Self?

How else to know,

even for a moment,

that we live?

CHATTER OUTSIDE

-What's this?

-Charlie Frost.

Paid back the money I loaned him.

-At least that's something. CHUCKLES:

-You should have seen him.

He was suited and booted.

All in finery like a tailor's dummy.

Susan, you remember when I was talking about a way to get us out from under?

-I'm trying to count.

-Yeah, I know that, but listen.

-Look, can you see I'm trying to count?

-Hey.

-WOMAN LAUGHS OUTSIDE

-What is it?

Silas Duggan.

Duggan. What about him?

-He wants more.

-How much more?

More than I have and more than I can make.

I can't take more from the girls. I can't.

He's squeezing us week by week.

Darling, what if I was to tell you

there was a way out of this that didn't involve running?

Now, Charlie Frost, he's no genius, but Charlie Frost knows some people.

There's a mine.

Silver and copper. The land is lousy with it.

Charlie put in what little he had. Within a week, 200.

This is your notion of out from under?

To gamble what meagre pot Silas Duggan does not extort?

That's the beauty of it. It ain't a gamble, and the value just soars.

Ah, the man whose numeracy extends to the price of liquor and tail,

this man will make himself a titan of high finance?

All right.

Just got to settle with Duggan my way.

You'll not settle anything with Duggan.

Oh, tell me, Susan, huh? You tell me what to do.

Tell me how I'm supposed to help you, cos you kept this goddamn thing a secret.

Now the son of a bitch is turning the screw.

-GUN COCKS

-All I wanted was you and me.

-Don't.

-Should have done this from the start.

-You don't know him.

-He's about to know me.

-Duggan!

-DOORS CREAK

HE PANTS

-JACKSON:

-Silas Duggan!

Whiskers too, or just a trim for the barnet, nice rub of oil?

Oh, I'm not the one getting a haircut, you chiselling piece of shit.

Out of my affections for your good lady, I'm reluctant to post you home in pieces.

Leave now and we'll call this parley... an idle fancy.

Fancy?

Duggan, I am real as hell. You've had your last penny out of my lady.

You try to squeeze one farthing more...

-GUN COCKS

-..I'm gonna see you paid in lead.

HE GROANS

You dare cross me, dare whisper the name Silas Duggan to your police whip cracker,

dare even dream about my handsome likeness...

HE GROANS

..I shall skin you from nose to toes.

Here shall I take my razor to your pizzle, make a gelding of you.

Have you stood by mewling, as I spatchcock your wife upon my bunk.

HE MOANS

Now leave my shop, cowboy,

and tell your whore mistress I shall bill her for the broken glass.

HE GROANS

Mr Quint does all right for himself, doesn't he, sir?

Maybe I should become a banker.

I'm just home from the dressmaker's. I think he's in his study.

-KNOCKS

-Mr Quint?

Mr Quint, it's the police.

SHE GASPS AND SOBS

SHE SOBS

DOOR SQUEAKS Inspector?

If I may, sir.

Sergeant, join me?

Unless of course Mrs...Mrs Drake...

Oh, no. No.

Always time for just the one, sir.

GLASSES CLINK

Hm.

What is the purpose of our work, Bennet?

The law?

In your opinion.

HE SIGHS

To protect, sir.

That's why I came to H Division, to protect.

A man, blackmailed by a boy for illicit affection,

takes anguished revenge on another...

and then, stricken with guilt,

ends himself.

So, whom did the law protect today?

Far from protect, does it not occur to you that, but for the law,

both Solomon Quint and Otto Roberts would be alive?

What, then, sir?

Do we choose the laws we see fit to enforce?

We have our obligations, but our work today...

..if Mr Quint is any example...

..I begin to think a law that makes a crime of human love

will police itself in pure...

despair.

-DRAKE: They're for the lady. BELLA:

-Thank you.

DRAKE: There you go.

They're so beautiful.

You're quiet today.

Forgive me, my love.

The Inspector was turning all philosophical on me.

Gave me an 'eadache.

We'll have words. Can't have him wearing out that noggin.

The law's the law, right?

And policemen serve it.

We don't ask all the whys and wherefores, do we?

Otherwise...well, what then?

But the Inspector, when it comes to banging up poofs and Mary Anns...

CHUCKLES: To see him, he's a man all scooped of belief.

Do you believe in it?

Hell's bells. Not you too?

Maybe he just understands what it is to be lonely.

Say a law was made tomorrow...

..for you to love me was a crime.

They say it's filthy and unnatural.

Would you stop, Bennet? Turn off your love like a gas tap, just to obey?

I'd be the filthiest scofflaw this land had ever seen.

-WOMAN:

-Eggs! Get your eggs!

Bella?

-Bella, it's you.

-You're mistaken.

-Who was that?

-I don't know.

She seemed to know you.

There was a part of my life before Tenter Street

full of cruelty and sadness.

She was a working girl?

Please can we go home now, Bennet? There's a chill.

Of course, love.

DOOR OPENS

You look beautiful.

SIGHS: You're drunk.

I thought it before I was drunk, and I'll think it after I'm dead.

I've thought it every moment since I first saw you.

You're all the true beauty in this world.

You're bleeding.

You remember.

There was a night, me and you, we took a balloon over Chicago.

It was all laid out. It was electric, the city.

It was like starlight, and I said some words to you.

You swore you would weave our lives together...

..with threads of silk and gold.

I made myself believe that I could live up to you.

-I never cared about money.

-It ain't about the money.

I mean, what do I have to give you? I got nothing left.

I broke every promise I ever made you, I brought you down to this.

-CRYING:

-And now I can't even protect you.

-Matthew.

-I ain't a man, Caitlin.

-Don't.

-I'm not a man.

Don't make this about your wounded pride.

-I see the way you look at me.

-Oh, you see nothing!

The only thing you ever look to is your next swashbuckling bloody daydream.

You finish your bottle. I will not indulge your self-pity.

DOOR OPENS

DOOR CLOSES

They're in.

Come here.

I've been worried sick, Harry.

CAMERA CLICKS

CAMERA CLICKS

CAMERA CLICKS

JACKSON SIGHS

BONES CRUNCH

CLEARS THROAT

Flight!

Suicide, huh? And the gun was in this hand?

Yes.

Phalanges of the digitus medius and secondus.

Multiple fractures.

-Could he pull the trigger?

-With broken fingers?

He's forced to write a note.

Crack. Gun's jammed in his hand.

Boom.

Whoever wanted Mr Quint dead, it sure as hell wasn't Mr Quint.

Madam, I understand this is a, er...

..painful time for you, so forgive my bluntness.

Was your husband a man with enemies?

Only himself.

I no longer believe his death to be suicide.

Can you help me understand who might have killed him?

I...I have no idea. He...

..he was a gentle man.

I spoke to Franklin Stone at Barings yesterday.

He intimated you and Mr Quint might have been facing certain...marital issues.

Sol and I were married for 20 years, and we loved each other, Inspector.

If Sol had issues, they were with Franklin Stone and not me.

-What issues?

-I know not.

"A matter of gravest principle," was all he said.

Some work he'd been conducting, regarding the Argentine.

May I see this work?

All his files are at the House of Barings.

He had some, but...some days ago his folio was stolen.

And he did not report it?

I believe the culprit was...

..someone whose acquaintance he sought not to expose.

A boy.

-Do not judge him, Inspector Reid.

-I do no such thing.

This boy.

David, David Goodbody?

I wouldn't know.

My husband was a private man,

and there were things he saw fit not to share with me.

But I was never lied to, nor deceived by him. Our marriage was...

An arrangement?

..a companionship.

And a loving one.

We each wanted for the other happiness, wherever that may be found,

and what is love, sir, if not that?

-DAVID:

-Quint's dead? How does Fred Best know?

-VINCENT:

-He talks to the coppers.

He says Quint was killed and...

Cunny bastard whores!

I'm sorry.

Why?

-This should have been so easy.

-It isn't over yet.

Quint's dead, David.

-What's he gonna pay us now?

-He's dead because they're afraid.

What we have is dangerous, and they know it

and they want us to be afraid also. You said we can do this.

You made me believe it, and I believe it still.

Then we take 'em on?

We give 'em true cause to tremble.

I want those boys back in here.

Flight said Vincent was hugger-mugger with Fred Best. See what he knows.

Sir.

A word in your...

Left in an hurry, did we?

From Vincent.

My name is David Goodbody.

I wish to speak to Inspector Reid.

My sergeant saw you selling yourself to a man.

Rather reckless of you now, to present yourself thus.

I believe in justice, sir.

I have information... concerning Mr Quint.

One of your sexual partners, is he not? The victim of your blackmail?

Mr Quint and I only talked...

-Ah.

-..sir. It isn't a crime, is it,

for a lonely man to find brief peace in talk?

No, not yet.

His folio was stolen. Would you know anything about that?

No, sir.

And this talk concerned what?

He was afraid.

Said they were against him.

-Who?

-Said they'd destroyed his files,

and would cut out his tongue just because he told the truth.

Who, boy? Who is it would silence him?

I came here of my own accord, sir.

Will I be free to leave as such?

It is a dangerous game you play, David.

We do what we have to, sir.

-Why?

-Love.

-Vincent?

-My love is unnameable.

You tell me who Quint feared, then you may leave.

He mentioned the name Franklin.

Franklin Stone.

And the burden of Argentina.

STONE: That accusation is absurd.

I make no accusation, Mr Stone, merely enquiry.

I paid Sol Quint to report.

What possible interest could I have in destroying his work?

That, sir, is my enquiry.

Perhaps his analysis proved... incommodious.

Concerning the Argentine, for instance.

I believe this house had significant investment there.

Perhaps you would like to share with me

the name of he who flings such night soil at my door.

Perhaps you would share with me Mr Quint's recent work.

I should like full access to his files.

Of course.

However, there is the small matter of due process.

After all, Sol's death occurred in Hampstead, did it not,

which is the jurisdiction of S Division,

and we here fall under City of London policing, not you...

KNOCKS TABLE

..Metropolitan fellows.

See, the information in our files is very sensitive, Inspector.

I really must insist on having the correct warrants and assurances.

If it would be of any help, I could enquire of Commissioner Bradford.

I'll be seeing him at my club...later.

I understand Mr Quint's folio went missing of late.

Must be bothersome to such an assiduous custodian of his work.

Let's both hope it turns up soon, shall we?

They told me the police would come.

They bloody telegraphed me, those sodomites.

Make a fool of me, and they will ruin this bank.

I need more time.

I need you to get me more time.

-VINCENT:

-Freddie.

How's that mutton cooking?

Fred, listen to me. If anything should happen...

What?

Look, tell me what you've gotten into.

Eh? Even your telegram sounded shit-scared.

If they come for David and me, there's a folio.

Take it. Publish it.

-Where?

-It's stashed.

BEST: Where?!

Hold up, jug-ear. Where's the Mary Ann? I know you've been meeting up.

-Help him, please! Please help him!

-What?

-Go!

-Where?!

He's down by the tannery!

GASPING AND GRUNTING

Oh! Aah!

HE SCREAMS

HE GROANS

Aah! Aah! Aah!

HE PANTS MR SELF GROANS

Shit.

DOOR BANGS

HE GROANS

HE CHOKES

Go.

-CHOKING:

-The documents.

-Give them to Fred.

-You will not die. You will not die.

Now! Fred!

Go! Now.

I won't leave you.

I want...

I want...

..a hammock made of silk

in warm sun.

-SOBBING:

-I want you to stay with me.

Please...

RUNNING STEPS

HE SOBS

I, James Self...

..hereby confess to the murders

of Otto Roberts, Solomon Quint and Vincent Featherwell.

I killed them

of my own full accord

for reasons

spiteful and indecent.

Bull! You killed on orders.

You wish to avoid the noose, you will give me a name.

I killed them of my own full accord...

..for reasons spiteful and indecent.

You are no less a messenger boy than Roberts and Featherwell.

And did they ever question those by whom they were sent,

or seek to comprehend the message they delivered?

For whom do you kill?

Franklin Stone?

Why lay down your life?

Do you see, I am all that stands between you and the rope? Tell me!

On my death, all I have, plus a settlement of insurance,

will be directed to my boy.

Do you understand, law man?

The one goodness I may achieve in this wretched life

will be the timely leaving of it.

Bring me your rope.

-How is he?

-How would you be?

David.

David, the man who killed Vincent and Otto and Mr Quint,

he will not talk to me,

and so I need you to tell me all that you can.

We needed money.

We serviced men.

Sometimes, if there was an opportunity, we'd filch something,

a pocketbook, a briefcase,

then ransom it back.

The money was nothing to them...

..next to the world knowing them for who they were.

And you took Mr Quint's folio?

-SOBS:

-But Vincent knew this was different.

Mr Quint's work was...

Vincent said it would make England shake.

-The Argentine was crumbling and...

-What about the Argentine?

I don't know.

He just said it wouldn't hold, that Mr Quint saw a storm coming.

-That's a goddamn lie.

-Jackson, Jackson.

-SOBS:

-We just wanted to be free!

-David.

David, where is Mr Quint's work?

HE SOBS

Where?

What is it, Reid? Is it about the Argentine?

The country's in debt. Vast debt.

They borrowed to cover themselves, underwritten by the House of Barings.

Argentina has run out of gold. They can't pay.

Quint saw how deeply Barings was exposed.

What the hell are you saying?

It's Quint's storm. It's a massive default.

All investment in that country is about to become worthless.

That's...that...that's horse shit. There's silver and there¹s copper in...

The country's bankrupt, man. Look, it's all here in black and white. Look.

What, you have interests there? Since when?

Stone was allowing the bubble to inflate. He was fuelling it.

Why, sir?

Ever more investment, ever more for the bank. Quint kept their correspondence.

Sir, all of this, it's as crooked as fish hooks

but how does it give us proof of murder?

This!

This is what you have been hunting and killed for.

You know as well as I, you have no proof of any crime at my hand.

James Self will break.

I know not a fellow by that name...

..and the only thing you can prove

is I acted in the best interests of my bank and its investors.

By lying to them?

By burying this?

How could you believe you'd avert disaster by denying it was happening?

STONE: Not denying. Delaying.

An hour ago, I concluded the last of my meetings with Lord Rothschild

and the Governor of the Bank of England.

They have agreed a loan sufficient to cover the debts of this House.

Had they not done so, had news of our exposure in Argentina become known...

Do you not comprehend the nexus, sir?

The connections inexorable of this age?

Do you imagine the telegram wires encircling our globe

are like angels' harp strings thrumming gently?

They are a garrotte, sir.

They necessitate unorthodox stratagems for survival.

Had news broken earlier, Barings would have been ruined.

Bank runs would have spread like the plague.

The economic heartbeat of our city... country, Empire, convulsing.

Would you have the whole world wear the rags of Whitechapel?

I saved this bank.

And what of your investors beyond this bank,

blindly stacking their livelihoods upon your pyre?

You sound like Sol Quint,

and my obligations are not to them, but to this House.

Then let the world see how this House does business.

Your naivety demeans you.

Those whose fortunes I have saved are free to think ill of me,

to shun me at the club...

..to divest themselves of their sullied funds...

..in tender compassion give every squalid pound to their stricken fellow men.

Do you imagine they will? No.

Because love and justice are not the primal forces of our world, sir.

Gold is the primal force of our world.

You believe, as Sol did, in right and wrong, but there is only...

..profit and loss.

You believe in laws...

..but there are only ledgers.

Would that it were otherwise, Inspector Reid.

Would that it were.

Would that my friend worked down the hallway still,

free to take lunch with me every Friday...

..as was our wont.

-We all have our obligations.

-Yes, Mr Stone.

That we do.

DOOR OPENS

DOOR SHUTS

It is a meagre justice gets meted today.

But if the world may not know Franklin Stone for a murderer,

let them know him for a merchant of fraud and greed.

I'll serve up that bastard's head, stuffed with an apple.

This will take you as far as the station.

From there your path is your own.

Vincent and I were in love.

There is no path without him worth treading.

Yet tread on we must, one step at a time.

Good luck, David.

SUSAN: You took my money and gambled it on an empty hole in Argentina.

Get it back.

-JACKSON:

-I tried.

I talked to Charlie. Uh...yeah, he's in deep too.

We can't get it back. Nobody can. It's, er...

..it's gone.

It's gone?

Jesus, Caitlin. Scream at me. Scratch my eyes out.

Throw something.

I'll never give you a scrap of feeling ever again.

I was just trying to get us out.

You get out.

Did you hear me?

Put down my whisky and get out.

I'm gonna think of something, OK? I swear...

From this moment, I don't care what you think or swear or do.

You betrayed me.

Do you have any idea what you've done? You betrayed me.

You took our money, which I made, and you threw it away.

You were right about one thing.

You aren't a man.

Get out.

CARRIAGE PASSING OUTSIDE

KNOCKS

Miss Cobden, I hope you'll excuse the hour.

It is excused, Inspector.

You see, I, er...I have of late had cause for...reflection.

Would you care to sit,

or would you prefer to share the results of your ruminations from the threshold?

It is a rare thing to find a friend in this world, a...a true friend.

Rarer still one that might... become more.

There are some that do and risk all for it...

..and, even though the world and all its might

might seek to snuff out their...love...

they burn with it, fierce and bright, like the sun.

The love that I have known,

the strength needed of me was not there.

I failed, er...

..I failed my wife, Miss Cobden.

I would not have that pain visited upon you.

You said the past was naught but black magnetism.

If I allowed, you would help me resist it.

I have...

..had enough of the darkness...

..if you would help me know the sun.

Well, Edmund...

..I do hope you're not going to launch into sonnets

every time you wish to take me for dinner and a dance.

I should find all the swooning quite tiresome.

I will not be your mistress. I will not stand

for shady encounters and stolen assignations.

-I, er...I cannot divorce...

-Nor do I ask that.

But if we are to burn fierce as the sun...

..then I should have us share our light with the world entire.

Shall we?

SWITCHBLADE CLICKS

SWITCHBLADE CLICKS

Name me a price, boy.

It's named.

HE CHOKES

HE GROANS

STONE GASPS AND MOANS

A bed for the night, Maggie, that's all.

Each soul here, when first they came,

had reason never to trust again.

It's the bloody Jews! Hang the noose around the lot of the kike bastards!

-REID:

-Whoever seeks to set Jew against Gentile would do the same for the Irish.

-Your love for him is not real, Bella.

-It is.

No, it is not.

Who are you?

Will you have at me with your billy club?

Bennet, no! Leave him be. I'll explain.

I saw her, Bennet, with a man.