Detective Inspector Edmund Reid adjusted his bowtie in the mirror above the washbasin in his surgeon's dead-room. He dipped his hands in the basin and slowly cleansed them. "Jackson, why do you need a mirror, of all things, in here?" Captain Homer Jackson leaned against a table with his arms crossed, watching the Inspector in his black swallowtails. His reply was soft,
"All the better to see you with…"
"What?" Reid asked while turning. Jackson uncrossed his arms saying,
"I'm making a reference."
"No, you are making yourself the fool." The Inspector replied with certainty.
"I try to leave that part up to you." Jackson shot back flippantly.
"Jackson." Reid growled.
"Reid." Jackson smiled and mimed back happily. Reid glared and Jackson grumbled,
"Alright, fine, I use it to shave, occasionally." Reid stared at the weeks worth of stubble on Jackson's face and said flatly,
"Occasionally."
Jackson tilted his head saying, "Well, once every few days or so. You sometimes keep me here for days, you do know that don't you?"
Reid nodded without pity, "Needs must. I pay you for your services, a sergeant's salary in fact. Are you implying that the amount is…insufficient?" Reid asked with a dangerous glint in his gray eyes.
Jackson shook his head and lifted a hand in exasperation, "I wish you could hear yourself sometimes, I'm just saying, just saying mind, that I'd be nice if I could see what my own bed looks like once in a while, Reid, particularly with me in it." Reid responded softly,
"We could always make you up one in the cell downstairs, if you believe that might be more to your liking, you could look at it any time that you wished." Jackson waved his arms in defeat and said,
"Forget it." Sergeant Bennett Drake entered the lab and hearing Jackson's words said,
"Forget, what?" Reid and Jackson both said at the same time,
"Nothing." Jackson looked to the side, as Reid continued to fiddle with his eveningwear. Bennett looked between them, like a dog shaking fleas, certain that he had missed something. Bennett spoke up, abruptly remembering why he was there,
"Uh, your hansom is outside, ready for you Sir." Reid put his watch chain in his waistcoat pocket and nodded at him saying,
"Thank you, Bennett." Drake frowned, moved forward uncertainly and said slowly,
"If I may ask Sir, this Ball-" Jackson interrupted,
"I think it's more of a private party than a Ball…" Reid ignored Jackson's remark and glanced curiously at Bennett,
"Yes?" Bennett looked uncomfortable for a moment and then stuttered out,
"Well, its just tha-you-you can't trust nobles, Sir!" Jackson smirked and remarked,
"Know many in your time, eh Drake?" Bennett snarled in his direction and said,
"A few, and none of them pleasant, not that you'd know much about it, what with you being a damned Yank an' all. Though if you remember, it was that lord bloke what almost killed Rose in making that moving picture of his." Reid stated dryly,
"I recall Bennett, but you must realize that you cannot judge an entire populace based on the actions of a select few." Bennett nodded slowly without much conviction and said,
"If you say so, Sir. Just be careful though." Jackson interjected knowingly,
"He doesn't know how." Reid swung his stern eyes to Jackson and snapped,
"Please do keep your overly animated opinions to yourself, Jackson." Homer Jackson laughed and slapped his thigh saying,
"You sure don't pay me enough for that." Reid sighed. He then braced himself as if getting ready to face a firing squad and left the laboratory going out to the waiting cab and once more unto the breach. The things he did for love.
He picked up Emily at their home. She wore her new green frock that complimented her complexion so perfectly. Reid held his arm out to his wife to assist her in alighting the hansom. She gave him a tight smile and rested her palm lightly on his sleeve. When her skirts had finally folded inside he joined her and gave the address to the driver through the above trapdoor. As the cab began clopping away he felt her eyes on him and turned to her. She asked pointedly, "Do you like the dress?" Reid started,
"Of course Emily, where are my manners, you look lovely." She smiled prettily,
"Thank you, Edmund." She put a gentle lace covered hand on his arm as she said, "I am sorry to drag you away from your work." Reid put a white kid-gloved hand over hers engulfing it,
"There is no need to apologize Emily, it is my pleasure." She took her hand back and put it in her lap as they sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments, until Edmund mused, "Do you recall when we would often go for a turn about the promenade, you and I?" Emily lowered her eyes and fussed with her skirts,
"That was a long time ago, and I am no longer a blushing girl." Reid caught her eyes with his and said intensely,
"You are still that blushing girl, to me." Emily smiled and said with a sudden wicked look in her eyes,
"Your tongue has always been your finest feature Edmund, silvered or otherwise." Reid leaned towards her and rested his hand on her upper arm as he said,
"Perhaps you would care to test the merit of this finest feature to see if it has faded from disuse?" Emily's smile faded slowly in the face of her husband's ardor. Her mind turned back to the last time they had been together, before their daughter had died. She recalled, once again, who had been the direct cause of her death. Her face closed and she said almost apologetically,
"Edmund, I…" Reid's expression turned fierce, he turned from his wife and looked out the window as he said with feeling,
"Must we constantly-" The cab stopped suddenly cutting him off. The driver opened the trap, and Edmund paid him. He then left the hansom, embarrassingly relieved to be away from his own wife for at least a moment. He turned to help her down and they entered Flora Gable's home. A maid appeared, took Emily's cream cloak and brushed the bottoms of her skirts. They met their hostess, Mrs. Gable. Emily met her flat dark gaze with a polite curtsey. Edmund formally bowed to the short and impressively stately woman in her widow's weeds. Emily greeted,
"Mrs. Gable." Mrs. Gable bowed her stiff neck to them and said,
"Mr. and Mrs. Reid welcome to my home." She took Emily's arm and led her toward one of the couple's relaxing in her large drawing room. She spoke to the Reid's asking, while gesturing to the couple sitting by the fireplace, "Have you met Lord and Lady Haverstime?" Emily shook her head and said,
"No, we have not had the pleasure." Mrs. Gable spoke to the noble couple saying, "This is Mr. and Mrs. Reid." Mrs. Gable left them and moved to another part of the room to speak to a pair of women seated on a settee. Emily exchanged pleasantries with Lady Mauve Haverstime while Edmund spoke with Lord Harry Haverstime. Lady Mauve asked Emily,
"So it is your charity that Flora wished us to invest in, no?" Emily replied,
"Indeed Lady." Harry Haverstime spoke animatedly to Edmund asking,
"I have heard that you are an officer of the law, yes?" Reid answered simply,
"I am." Lord Haverstime fiddled with a pince-nez and said,
"Oh my, how exciting, it was unfortunate that you never caught that Saucy Jack though!" Reid's lips thinned, and he once more silently cursed Fred Best for publicizing those letters. He answered tightly,
"Quite." Lady Mauve Haverstime asked with a sharper eye than her husband,
"Your charity Mrs. Reid, a reformory for the dissolutes of Whitechapel, I believe?" Mrs. Reid nodded,
"Yes, the unfortunates of Whitechapel need our assistance." Lady Mauve laughed behind a hand and said,
"Truly? I fail to see how, are the jails and workhouses not adequate?" Emily's voice firmed as she stated,
"The poor ought not to be punished simply for the crime of being poor." Mauve Haverstime lifted her head and reassessed her judgment of Mrs. Reid.
"Humph. Well answered, I see you are a woman of conviction Mrs. Reid and I would trust no other hands with my funds." Emily smiled winningly,
"I appreciate both your trust and your kind generosity." Lady Mauve took Mrs. Reid's hand in her own and said honestly,
"Not so much kindness dear, as cold calculation. It benefits us all to have our destitute occupied, educated, and reformed."
After the dinner and passionate appeal from Emily for the funds to run her latest charity project, they left Flora Gable's home, and had a long and thankfully, silent ride home. Reid turned up the gas as he entered their house, the familiar hiss and light somehow reassuring. He left Emily to ready herself to retire as he went to his own bedroom to change. Emily snatched his arm as he passed her. "Edmund, I have to thank you again for doing this for me, I know how you detest social engagements." Edmund stared at her indifferently and said,
"It is nothing." She let her hand drop and Edmund turned his back on her and went up the staircase. Emily cupped her hands to her body to warm herself after feeling her husband's chill regard.
Reid dressed in his plaid suit and quietly left the house without disturbing Emily. He walked the familiar roads to Deborah Goren's Jewish orphanage. He stood outside her building and breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the uncomfortable pressure and pain in his mess of a shoulder easing somewhat, just by being in her vicinity. He knew it was wrong to be doing this, to betray Emily in this way. Not so long ago it would have been unthinkable. Yet now, in some fashion, it had become routine, more than routine. It had become necessary. Deborah did not judge him, she just accepted him, the entirety of his being, with a warm and Mona Lisa smile. It did not feel like a betrayal of all that he held to be honorable. Oh, he knew it was, there was little doubt of that. But it did not feel that way. He continued on to the building and knocked discreetly on the side door. He could already picture her, a lantern in one hand, clad in a flowing nightgown and with a soft hand she would pull him to her bedroom, where they would lay together as quietly as possible, in order not to disturb her young charges, and then talk softly into the early hours of morning about anything. He waited a minute and then knocked again a little louder. He heard footsteps approaching and felt his heart quickening. The door opened, and the hand holding the lantern was not Deborah, but Drake who started back in surprise saying,
"Sir?! How did you get here so quickly? I was just about to send for you." Reid looked at him in confusion, asking,
"Why, what is it sergeant, what are you doing here?" Drake looked at him with something like sympathy in his eyes and moved the lantern back into the hall,
"It's Miss Goren, sir. One of her little ones ran for us a little over an hour ago. She's missing Sir, and…there's blood." Reid pushed past him and entered the orphanage. He passed the tired and scared faces of the children, but spared little thought for them. All his focus was on the certainty that Drake must be mistaken. Deborah was the only constant in his life, the Sun to his Earth. Nothing could- His thoughts studded to a halt as he reached her open bedroom and looked in past the constable standing at attention. The room had obviously been disturbed from a fierce struggle. But his eyes froze when they reached a large puddle of dark red blood on the floor by the door. He forced his gaze away and looked towards constable Nodd. He asked him in what he imagined was a calm tone, "Where is she?" Nodd's eyes looked anywhere but as his superior as he said nervously,
"Er...sorry Sir, but we just don't know. She could be anywhere…" Reid wanted to howl his anguish to the moonless sky. Instead he shouted to Bennett,
"Drake, get me Jackson, now!"