The East, its poor and desperate multitudes.
Beyond, the Corporation of London and its wealth.
Two tributaries of humanity are here.
This pump, this signifier of that which unites all,
all men made in one image.
So I declare unto you
that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie,
and we do not tell the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
then we have fellowship,
one with the another.
Off him, you jackals and vermin.
Help me! Oh, God!
Stay away from the water.
It is the King returned.
King Cholera.
Mmm. I have sandwiches, too.
You are kind to me, Mrs Reid.
I would take greater care of you, Kathleen.
Hear you name the man who would work you and then punish you so.
No, Mrs Reid.
If you are my friend, you wouldn't ask me this thing.
You might at least have prepared a picnic, Reid.
Some German wine, perhaps.
I do not come here to seduce, Inspector Ressler.
Well, then why, Reid?
Hobbs!
Six, sir.
Elizabeth Jackson. You lay claim to her, do you not?
Her dissected remains made landfall here.
Blackfriars. On Corporation Land.
A case for the City Police.
That makes her my case, not yours.
You question this?
That parts of her washed up here? No.
Her provenance, however...
Provenance, Reid?
Where she came from, where she was butchered,
whether she is a Ripper victim at all.
The lad shouted six.
Yes, I heard.
Six is the number I had painted on a sack of pig-flesh
that weighs the same as that package that washed up here.
I have had numerous such packages
dropped into the river at various intervals on both banks.
Number six began its journey in Battersea.
So, this sack of pork has made its way five mile east of there?
This river has strong currents, Mr Ressler.
An eastward flow from the source, westward with the rise of the sea.
The tide and time are a piece for the day of Miss Jackson's discovery.
As this sack went into the river in Battersea, then so did she.
But the Ripper cuts his swathe here.
The City and the East!
This woman is not such.
No. No, she must be.
This girl was diced, separated
and put into the river in order to obscure her murder.
The Ripper would have us sit up and pay heed,
have men, men like you, Inspector, clamour to add your names
to the tally of those who have wondered after him.
- Inspector Reid! - Whitechapel calls you back, Reid.
- Inspector Reid! - Forget your dismay, Inspector.
Have it from me and remember it well,
you want no part of this parade.
Inspector Reid, you must come immediately.
Morning to you.
And to yourself.
You are alone here.
The world hides in fright when there's rumour of cholera.
- But not yourself? - No, sir.
I make my home where men's fear lies. I fight it for them.
Then you are welcome here.
Dead man is here?
He is, sir.
Mr Jackson and Mr Drake delivered him to us.
You question whether his death is a matter for us?
It is a medical issue, is it not?
Any more are dead, it will be one of public order.
Should the water pumps be broken?
Not until we confirm cholera.
We close the pumps they'll be drinking from the river in a day.
And then the dead will line the streets.
It's rigid.
Spasm at the point of death, the jaw is locked but...
The gums are discoloured.
Tongue's engorged.
All the signs.
You have word out inquiring after other choleroids?
I do, sir. And nothing.
I was not here in '76,
last time the King cut his way through these streets.
Sudan, sir.
I missed that particular party.
'75.
I was in New Orleans when it came.
Each town, each settlement, man, woman and child rotting.
Food for flies.
We must expect more, then?
I'll get him open. Get you sure.
He had no other effects on him?
He was scavenged. Before they saw what he was.
This is a financial paper. He's a City man.
This may not be our problem.
Indeed, but a news vendor has written here. An address, perhaps.
We should cross to Corporation Land, find his home.
Reid,
this is a whale, not a man. I'm going to need a hand in here.
Kathleen, please, this man who sells you and beats you,
you protect him and he will send you back here.
You and 20 others like you.
Perhaps he will, Mrs Reid.
But a woman has to work to find food and lodgings in this city.
I'll work to find you that lodging.
And will there be any does not insist upon
churching me every Sunday? Upon my knees,
listing the sins I've got on my back?
He's a big man, Hobbs.
When I cut, he's liable to fall away, so you're going to help me.
- Sir? - See, the tissue must be drawn back
to reveal the breastbone.
Now, I need you to hold it.
Now pull.
Just peel the flesh back gently and evenly while I cut.
Breastbone is held in place by cartilage.
We need to cut the lower jaw here.
The breastbone comes off!
Pull the tongue and the trachea...
And now to access where this man's killer lives.
And where is that, sir?
The bowel, Hobbs.
The bowel.
We've stepped out of our jurisdiction now, Sergeant.
Tread carefully.
Ma'am.
Money never begat courtesy, Bennet.
No, sir.
Excuse me, can you tell me where this is delivered, please?
Delivered each morning.
Our presence here marked. City Police, sir.
Let them mark it.
There's a German named Koch that saw them first.
Grew them, too.
Cholera bacillus in a jar.
Saw how it loved dirt and dank earth.
How it lived to breed and spread in river basins.
And how, if your glass was strong enough,
you could actually see it in a man's gut.
And do you see it, sir?
No. No, Hobbs, I do not.
Captain Jackson.
Word comes from the dispensary, sir.
More dead?
Not yet, sir. But many sick.
Number 26, sir. We'll take a look.
You're Metropolitan Police
and beyond your jurisdiction.
I suffer no obligation to you.
You will give us access
or I shall take you where we shall find you your obligation.
My thanks to you.
Sir.
Is she dead?
No. Opium, Sergeant.
Have a look around.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
What?
Who are you?
The police, wench, is who we are.
- Whose lurk is this? - Mine.
The truth, toff er.
Mine in name. His in spending.
His? Big man, small eyes, pink like a pig?
- That's right. -What's the name of the man that installs you here?
Winston. Algernon Winston.
- He was with you last night? - He was.
Raging all night about his head and his belly.
Place of work?
I don't know. I swear it.
Why would he tell me? I don't care to ask which Jew fills his pockets.
- It is a bank? - Of course it's a bleeding bank!
And the street? Did you ever take his arm
and walk him back there after a night on your back?
New Inn. Huge black door.
So where is he, then?
He's cold clay, woman.
As gone as your girlhood.
Best find another fine suit to climb inside.
Off your patch twice in a day, Reid?
Put in for transfer?
We'd need grander manners and blacker boots for that.
Aye. And a poker up our arseholes.
What is it your pit-dog says?
You inquire after my presence, sir, here's the reason for it.
I've a resident of your square mile on my slab.
Grey and stinking and every mark on him telling me cholera.
Keep your voice down, man.
And keep your men off my manor.
- Hobbs. - Message for you, sir.
You're needed at the Eastern Dispensary.
What, Constable? Are there more?
Don't think this forgotten.
Whoa!
- Emily? - Edmund.
- Are you sick? - No, I'm well.
Then why are you here?
I was visiting.
One of your women?
- Mrs Reid. - Captain.
It spreads.
- Indeed. - Is it what we fear?
That depends on what you fear.
The fat man, his insides have a story to tell
but that story ain't cholera.
Then what...
What in hell is he doing here?
Inspector Ressler, you have an insight into what is happening here,
now is your moment to tell me.
Why do you follow us?
- I have others. - Dead in such a way? How many?
- Four in two days. - Four!
And you have kept this silent?
A panic in the City, Reid?
We close for business, New York will make a million in our place.
And now the dead of Whitechapel flush you out.
We have a contamination. But of what? From where?
- Oh, it is hell. Hell rises up! - They rave!
You've heard of ergotism?
- I'm with you. - Ergotism?
It is a fungal infection on the rye grain.
It's milled into the food chain.
Sustained exposure can lead to ravings and visions.
Shh.
I need you to tell me how you feel.
A burn, sir.
My feet and my fingers are aflame.
Burning sensation in the extremities.
The medievals knew it as St. Anthony's fire.
Reid, ergotism...
The man on my slab, it doesn't account for the manner of his passing.
The gastric collapse that preceded it.
And yours the same?
Puked and shat themselves to death?
Yes.
But we have a start, Captain.
However, there is a test for ergotism, is there not?
Ehlrich's reagent.
Then Ressler, you will bring your dead to my laboratory.
- Reid, I cannot simply... - You can! You will.
Captain Jackson will make comparison.
We'll work on finding a bacteria that unites these deaths,
- tell us what we fight against. - Very well.
Reid,
I need you to bring me one.
A body near death, I need to study how it take 'em.
- Go with him. - Sir.
What is this that strikes here, Edmund?
I hope to find out. Go home, Emily.
I have appointments in town with possible sponsors...
And I would have you safe
and crossed off the roll of those I fear for.
Please, Emily, go home.
You forget how my every day is.
How I have feared for you.
And how those fears have been proved accurate.
I would do more with my life than sit by the fire
in grief and anxiety.
Boil your water, Emily.
Eat nothing that has not been sealed.
With me, Sergeant.
Food?
Nothing?
HOW long?
Three. Three days?
I am sorry.
This contamination.
We have Winston. Ressler has his dead.
And what should we learn from this, sir?
I know not. Not yet.
Sergeant Drake, have a Maria brought to the porter's exit.
Sir?
I think we have the Captain's case study.
- What's your name? - George.
George. George, I have a mind to take you from here.
- To where? - To peace.
Four walls, a bed.
Devils that chase you will not find you there.
It tests positive for ergotism.
But that cannot be all.
My husband. Dead. Some 10 years now.
I had not been told you were also bereaved.
Yes.
Our daughter.
I see.
Hmm. You lose a girl and come to me seeking the funds to house a hundred.
He seems strong. He'll fight.
In which case, he's ideal.
Inspector Reid.
I bring out my dead.
In our shelter, women would find care and compassion
and we would make them safe, Mrs Gable.
And improve them also?
If they seek to improve themselves, we will help them.
Through prayer and their promise of chastity?
Through whatever means they choose for themselves.
No mention of their sin?
On God's place in their redemption?
Ma'am, I fear such emphasis will only turn them away
in the fear that judgment and punishment await them.
Mrs Reid,
my husband was held as a good man.
A good husband to myself. And how,
our family made a point of saying,
how unlucky we were not to be blessed with children.
The imputation being how unlucky he was
to find himself burdened with so barren a wife.
Mrs Gable, I'm deeply sorry for your trouble but...
Do you not wonder at the reason for this curse, hmm?
At my husband and his prowling
through your Whitechapel laneways?
At the dripping pinchcocks with whom he lay
and whose foulness he came home to put inside his wife.
That man, this, this Ripper.
I celebrated his judgment and his punishment.
Please, ma'am, I'm... I'm not well.
And I have no pity for you.
I considered your proposal perhaps worthy of endowment,
that indeed an institution where these women may come to see
the sin and error of their ways
might prove a corrective to their number on the streets.
But instead you come here to insult me with your talk of compassion
for whores, Mrs Reid! For whores!
I must...
- We have ergot. - That can't be all.
You think a cocktail?
Then this is not contamination by misadventure.
- It is poison. - Deliberately constructed.
It does not act immediately.
There are those afflicted who have not eaten for days.
The body absorbs it in increments,
becomes weakened and then death follows.
Your men continue their survey of all afflicted?
They do. First results are inconclusive.
It's a lot of gin. More than half are on the skillet.
Skillet?
Water and flour in a stir.
And what is made with it?
It's drunk, Mr Ressler, by those who cannot find nutrition elsewhere.
Get these dead open.
Find out what relationship the contents of their insides bear with each other.
There are many still live.
You decipher this poison, they may remain so.
Bennet? Bennet, will you... Will you do me a service?
- Name it, sir. - Mrs Reid. I, uh...
I may not leave her at this time but I would know she was well.
It'll be my pleasure, sir.
Drake. Take a turn past Tenter Street as well, will you?
God, help me!
So, you boil all water,
you eat nothing that cannot be heated first.
And nothing preserved or canned
that has not been made so in the last six month.
Thank you.
And should you see Miss Rose...
I'll keep her safe, Sergeant.
Mrs Reid?
Mrs Reid, it's only me, Sergeant Drake.
Mrs Reid?
Mrs Reid.
You'll be all right.
His temperature soars. His pulse, too.
Sir, your name.
Name's Jackson.
And I am George.
It's good to know you, George.
No, sir. It's not.
I am a bad man.
Now, George, there are none of us that are good.
Now, listen to me. I need you to tell me what you feel.
My guts, sir.
They churn like they're full of nails.
What else? Do you burn?
You see things?
Yes, sir.
Demons that rise from me.
I would speak of my sins.
All men sin.
But none so bad as I.
Reid, is that preacher still lurking by your door?
They talk of the Ripper as if he was the first to bring violence to a woman.
I know that feeling, sir.
How they bend to a fist driven hard into their kidneys.
The fear in their eyes to see a knife at their throat.
My God.
Am I forsaken?
I'd wager so, brother.
I'd wager so.
Name is George, Preacher.
George, my son.
Joy shall be in heaven
over one sinner who have repenteth
more than nine and 90 just persons
who need no repentance.
Was anything learnt here?
I don't know. Get him to the lab.
His eyes, they were conjunctival.
And? What of it?
Well, this other substance that you look for
could be some kind of heavy metal compound.
- Arsenic? - Perhaps, but how?
How is it packaged and delivered to these men?
There's alum husks here.
Lodged. Resisting digestion.
Alum? From unprocessed flour?
From a skillet, most likely. A pie, perhaps.
And in these first men?
Bread. Much processed.
Processed?
Ground to the extreme. All nutritional value removed from it.
White bread.
- But still flour. - Yes.
So this cocktail that our poisoner constructs
is made, ground, powdered and then milled into flour?
Oh, my God!
Skillet, pies, pastries, cakes!
It is in everything.
Run your tests, Captain. Find what it is we face.
Fetch the Inspector!
Tell him Mrs Reid is sick.
Get the Inspector's bed out.
Help me with her in, then.
That's it, that's it.
How bad is it, Bennet?
She'll be fine.
She's a strong woman, sir.
Please, bring towels and water.
Towels and water, quickly!
Emily, we have you safe.
We have you safe
and we apply ourselves to what will take this sickness from you.
The Marsh Test, gentlemen.
If this residue dissolves, it is arsenic.
And if it does not?
Then there is but one other.
- Reid, should you not be... - I'm of no use to her there.
Well?
It is antimony.
A fatal toxin.
In amalgam with ergot.
Oh, such a death.
This man, he is an evil one.
Then we must find him, sir, and stop him.
Easy to say, Sergeant.
He may do his work at bakery,
at mill, at wholesale. He may be in Dundee, for all we know.
No. He will be hid in these streets somewhere,
watching.
I know this type of man.
He wants his work seen.
Our pimp here gives up his life yesterday
and we must assume others also.
Yet these...
These first we may study.
They must show us the way to our poisoner.
Mr Ressler, you must have thought of the details of these men.
The circumstances and the commonalities that might bind them?
Yes, I have, of course. But nothing.
No! We do not allow nothing.
There must be a connection!
Reid, iodine in the cabinet.
What are they doing now?
If you don't know, and I don't, sir, it's often best not to ask.
First to last, if you please.
First to die, Mr Ressler.
Yes, um... Of course, um...
First.
- Name? - Uh, Dursley.
If I may...
Hackett.
Blackstone.
Grubb.
And Winston.
Correlation?
They made their living within Corporation Land.
We are there already, Mr Ressler.
Beyond that, nothing.
Dursley, a surgeon. Practice on King William Street.
Hackett, a clerk at Barings, third level.
Blackstone, a busboy at Sweetings Restaurant.
Grubb, an under-manager at Lloyd's of London.
This man, your man, name of Winston, a broker at Goldman's.
No sign or record they knew one another from a hole in Bishopsgate.
Then we must look harder!
Sergeant Drake, do you have your map?
Yes, sir.
- Dursley, Grubb. - Places of work.
Here and here.
Mr Dursley could've disembarked here, sir.
Cut down Commercial Street to his work.
All roads lead to Whitechapel, indeed.
And our waiter, Blackstone, on foot to Sweetings also.
That doesn't wash, Reid.
These two, Winston and Hackett.
He in the Square Mile itself. He west of there.
What would bring them here?
What has always brought men here?
Captain, a hand lens.
In his rooms I found a sugar mixture, a knife, some muslin.
I thought it for his woman,
but Sergeant, if you remember, she was a blonde
and naturally so.
The remaining hair on the muslin was dark.
He strips himself?
On his chest, yes.
His legs are also stripped, sir.
You're asking yourself does this man like to play lady?
This man Hackett, I found something, uh,
- irregular in his gut. - What?
Semen.
And you thought not to say?
Well, it had no relevance!
Look, whatever raises another man's flag is no business of mine.
Mr Ressler, whether these two played backgammon together or no,
it is a current upon which they both float.
Ready a carriage for Winston's apartments.
We shall pick it clean for anything which speaks of these desires.
And we may have our link.
You know what this is.
Can it be stopped?
In a body that's recently ingested its first dose,
an enema or lavage might remove it.
But beyond that...
Reid, you've seen this for yourself. It does not kill in one strike.
A strong body might fight it off.
For those with whom it has already taken its grip...
science, medicine, they only take you so far.
And then they drop you, like a stone.
Captain, I only ask you this.
Will you keep watch over Mrs Reid?
Consider it done.
Reid...
Your wife...
You have what men have always had.
What is that, Captain?
Hope.
Mr Reid, sir?
Word comes from the dispensary and the London as well.
They start to die.
God of all creation, you cleansed the lepers,
and by simple command empowered the crippled to rise up and walk...
I know this bawdy house.
Mr Reid.
♪ Mother's grave ♪
Police! Everybody stay calm!
Sit, sit, sit, sit.
Everybody stay where they are. Stay calm.
This is no raid. This is no raid.
- Sit down. Ow! - Get your hands off!
Then calm your men.
- Calm yours, madam. - You have my word.
All this quarter know I prosecute no bawdy house.
- Even one such as mine? - Even that.
Madam,
there are two men I would seek your help in placing.
Mr Ressler, your likenesses.
Prepare yourself, they might have looked differently when they lived.
They visited here, yes.
Regular?
Lunchtime each day.
And you fed them, madam?
No, sir.
This is no chop house.
The Molly House, here.
Mr Winston's work at Barings,
Mr Hackett's, Goldman's.
So, they find their lunch on the way back to their desks?
We must presume so.
Mr Ressler, the omnibus stations you spoke of.
Dursley here. Grubb here.
And Blackstone, our waiter, his home and route?
Here to here.
This web of streets, a convergence where they meet.
- We walk these routes, then? - We do.
We must find the place at which their lives intersected
and hope to learn from it why they are joined in death also.
Inspector, look here.
I could do without the interruptions.
A milling for new customers, Mrs Gable.
A special bunch.
The bakers of London will all soon be shouting our names, ma'am.
Mmm.
These can go, Harris.
This way, ma'am.
As you see, all is ever as it should be.
Yes, I can see. As it ever should be.
It is you that insists on these inspections, not myself.
It is your mill, ma'am.
It is ever important to us that you see what work we perform for you.
Of course. Lead on, Mr Claxton. Lead on.
Same time next week, Mr Claxton?
Of course, Mrs Gable.
You'll be ready, I'm sure.
Ready as ever, ma'am.
Sergeant, no man leaves.
Inspectors Reid and Ressler. Police.
Your names and business here.
Flora Gable, I am proprietor.
Claxton. General Manager.
Well, Mrs Gable, Mr Claxton, a batch of flour you sold went bad.
- Bad? - Men died.
- This sickness? - Yes, ma'am.
- Mr Claxton, help these men. - Yes, of course.
Please, come with me.
The batches are all logged and recorded.
- You have the number? - I do.
- The number, sir? - Mr Ressler will give it to you.
Thank you, sir.
This your office, Mr Claxton?
It is, sir. Yes, sir.
You install these cabinets yourself?
If memory serves, sir.
Reid, every man likes a good cabinet, but is this quite the time?
Did you notice the dimensions of this room from without when we entered?
It was a rectangle, Mr Ressler.
- How does it look? - Like a cube, Reid.
It does so.
Mr Ressler.
Reid.
I have worked hard, Mr Reid.
It is synthesised as a liquid.
Much faster in its actions.
An increased agony in death also.
Those papers on the desk,
take them, please.
The steel bin at your feet. Drop them in there.
There's matches on the desk, strike them.
And burn the papers.
The delivery details.
Please, don't...
Drake! Sergeant Drake!
Mr Reid, sir!
Stand your man down, Reid!
Drake, he has the poison!
Stay back!
Drake, do you recall a conversation we had some while ago
on the subject of John Stuart Mill and his philosophy?
Oh, I do, sir. His principle of happiness.
And do you recall what, when faced with a choice,
he held the proper course of action to be?
Whatever would lead to the greater well-being, sir.
Tell me where it is! Tell me where the rest of it is!
I will tell you nothing! Nothing!
Only this, there is more.
More even than before.
Making its glorious way into this world this very moment!
Reid!
- Your evil has poisoned my wife! - You'll get nothing if you kill him!
Not if I kill him immediately, no.
Get him strapped to a cot in our dead room.
You're going to save lives, Claxton.
No!
Edmund, I see her. Our darling.
I see her aflame
and in water.
You listen to me. You listen to me.
You stay alive!
Stay alive. You live.
Curious as to your interest, Mr Claxton.
That man...
the Ripper! His brutality.
How many? Seven? At most?
And his name all set to haunt this city for a thousand years.
I have already tripled his score.
Think how long they'll talk of me!
They will talk of you to the same extent
they have the length of your life so far.
Precious little, I should think.
Which may go some way to explain your need to make it otherwise.
Now, it is already abroad that this was an accident.
Terrible, but a contamination, not a poisoning.
Your employer, Mrs Gable, stands by to confirm this to all who ask.
You, Mr Claxton, will be quite, quite forgotten,
I promise you.
But not by those whose loved ones are in our hospitals.
Not by you, eh, Mr Reid?
Not by you.
Nor by your wife.
Steady, sir. Steady!
Captain Jackson?
My surgeon, he is American.
Now, which is the more urgent?
The pain of your arm or the ergot and antimony
that sprint even now through your innards?
There's still time for you, I'd imagine.
- Then, please, wash it from me! - Really?
Would you rather not have me examine this break?
A pity for you that we have had a run on our stores of anaesthetic.
If you tell us where your last consignment is sent for,
we might find that, after all, we have some spare.
I shall never tell you.
My death shall join the great number I have put in this world.
Again.
Until he tells you.
Dearest Father of all mankind...
He's given it to you?
Yes, sir. Everything.
We have the delivery details and batch number.
Thank you, Bennet.
Emily.
My own sweet Emily.
If you will only come back to me, I will...
I will tell you.
I will tell you why I am the way I am.
And why I cannot mourn her
like you do.
Please. I will do anything.
Emily! Emily! Emily!
Edmund,
she was waving to me.
My darling was calling me on.
Mrs Reid...
You may have heard that the mill is to be sold.
I did.
Your first endowment.
More will follow on the first day of each and every month.
Without judgment?
Without punishment and without God, if need be?
As you would have it, Mrs Reid.
- Thank you. - I must go.
You are fixed on this plan, then?
Despite all that has passed?
I am. And with greater conviction.
Edmund, it was your will kept me alive those hours.
It is a powerful force.
Please do not set it against me.
Reid, I...
I cannot help but think the man's further excesses,
his need to move beyond that initial batch.
Dozens have perished, your wife almost among them.
Had I not bowed to pressure to keep those bodies secret,
the public knowledge of those deaths
might have been enough to sate his madness.
Word of advice, Ressler.
This work we perform, it does not serve to look backward.
This city, wickedness will ever leave its spores here.
You and I, we are not magicians.
We cannot see through walls or into men's minds.
Dozens perished
but hundreds who were ill are now well once more.
We fight.
We fight with all the skills we may muster.
Beyond that, we may do no more.
Can you remember what it was brought you here?
His blood was shed all upon you.
What did you see?
Just my darkness.