This morning had been intended to be one of hard work. After racing in pursuit of a gang of thieves (and one of them a murderer), George was ready to settle in at work. However, when he arrived, he found the other men also employed in the building's restoration standing in a corner smoking. No one seemed to be working.
"What's going on?"
"The paint's still wet! Franklin put one thick coat on instead of a few thin coats yesterday. Idiot wanted to save time and now we can't do anything without risking smearing it or leaving debris in it."
"It's not even tacky?" George looked at the wall nearest to him, the strong stench of paint in the air hitting him now.
"No, we found that out the hard way." One man held up a hand covered in faded paint, his trousers marked in an attempt to wipe it off. "We're thinking of finding some other work for the day."
"I have other tasks so I won't join you. I will let the building owner know about the delay though." Nodding to the disgruntled men, Lusk turned on his heel and disappeared out of the open doorway. The others would be doing some sort of day work and he would usually be with them, but today George Lusk knew exactly where he'd rather be and for once he'd prioritise wants over needs.
Drake was first to enter the cell where the young man was being kept, delivering a harsh nudge to the boy's side.
"Oi, wake up." He snarled, watching as the boy scrambled to sit up. He looked no older than fifteen, but he'd been involved in a murder and Drake could allow little sympathy.
"What is your name, boy?" Reid asked, following the Sergeant and standing tall and wide over their suspect. There was silence as the lad contemplated his best move (or simply recovering from the pain-induced sleep he'd just been through).
"Theo." He finally answered voice hoarse.
"Theo who?"
"Sanders, sir. Theo Sanders."
Reid suddenly knelt, close to the boy and face a terrifying stony glare.
"Theo, I would like to know what you were doing on Whitechapel high street this morning."
"Nothing sir, I was just mindin' my own business and-"
"Do not lie to me." Reid's voice was low and steady, but carried as much of a threat as if he had bellowed. Hopefully fear would work to his advantage. "You were seen running away with a group of men who had robbed and murdered a shopkeeper. You would likely have gotten away too, if you hadn't been shot as a distraction. Who were the other men you were with, and who sent you there in the first place?"
"I can't tell you that, sir." The lad swallowed, daring to stare Reid in the eyes. He brought his hands up to his chest and fiddled with the buttons of his shirt. "I can't tell you. Put me in prison, but I won't say."
Drake knelt now, and snatched one of the boy's hands in his much larger and stronger one. There were several faded tattoos of cards over the back of his hand.
"He was one of Carmichael's boys, sir."
"Well trained in the art of silence. Do you remember Thomas Gower? The boy who killed for Carmichael and agreed to tell us of his master's crimes? We saved him. He is alive and your master Carmichael was killed. We intend to prevent innocent death in the same way. You will not hang for just assisting a robbery and you will not face punishment from your current master if you tell us what you know of him."
"You won't get all of 'em. Someone will come find me. I'd rather live in prison than get a snitch's beating."
"Who will beat you?!" Reid pressed. "Because I can assure you boy, you won't be treated with gentle hands here either!" he was losing his temper and Reid was very aware of it, trying to reign himself in. These past months had taken their toll on him and judging by the expression on Bennet's face, it was obvious to everyone else too. "If you will not speak willingly my Sergeant here will employ other methods. You can escape all of that if you comply with us and accept our protection until the men behind these crimes are caught. You will be safe."
Silence followed, so Reid stood and moved back for Drake to take over. Still holding Theo's wrist, he yanked the lad up onto his feet with a grunt. The boy cried out as he was forced to put weight on his injured leg, and fell back against the wall. Drake pulled him away, stopping him from supporting himself on anything. He released the boy and threw his right shoulder back, rolling it forward to deliver a hard punch to the lad's face, knocking him back until he fell into a seated position.
"Get up." Drake growled as the teen started to cry, red soaking through the material of his trouser leg. Drake kicked it and elicited a scream that stopped only when he needed to breathe, and the lad was pulled to his feet again. It did not please Drake to hit a crying boy. Thomas Gower had ended up trapped in an awful situation that he didn't deserve, and maybe this lad was the same. But a beating to a boy was worse than more people being killed.
He struck again and the boy yelped, slamming against the wall and hunching over to hold his leg. Between sobs, he said a word that caused Reid to jump and hold a hand in front of his Sergeant to stop.
"Repeat that." He demanded.
"Silk." The lad whimpered, shaking against the wall and holding his bad leg up to relieve some of the pain. "He goes by the name of Silk."
The two lawmen looked at each other knowingly, and Drake stepped back.
"Where do you meet him?"
"He finds us." Theo panted, sinking down to the floor. "He knows where we are all the time. You have to keep me in here, please. I've already got four legs on my mark, this will have me killed for sure."
"Legs on your mark?" Reid's brow furrowed, and he watched the boy sit up enough to pull his shirt up. Around his navel was a mark, angry red and oval in shape. From it, four lines roughly two inches in length extended – two on each side of the oval. "Spider legs. Snitching is six or eight legs dependin' on what you said, and eight legs is death. He'll kill me if he finds me. He'll beat me so no one knows who I was."
"This man tattoos you with a spider to count your wrong-doings?"
"Scars us, sir. Lasts longer and its part of the punishment. Please don't take me out of here until it's safe, sir. If you take me to a prison he'll have someone in there and they'll kill me." He was still crying, snot running down from his nose. It was a pitiful sight but at least the fellow seemed genuine.
"How can you be so sure of it?"
"He knows everything, sir. No one gets away with doing him wrong." The boy shook his head, crumpling up a bit to hold his leg again. Reid chewed this information over for a moment before beckoning Drake to follow him. "You will stay locked up in here for now, but the moment you refuse to cooperate I will place you in a prison. If he reaches you now that you have told us of him, that is beyond my control. Do you understand me?"
"Crystal clear." The boy nodded frantically, pressing himself against the wall as the men left his cell and locked it behind them, disappearing out of the room.
As the two men swept into the station reception, Reid had already decided upon their next move.
"Spiders weave silk, do they not?" he said aloud, continuing before Drake could answer. "Bennet, you read a great deal don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"How are you with writing?"
"I wouldn't know, Inspector. Never really sat down and wrote much aside from letters or criminal reports"
"We'll find out now, then, how deep your talents reach. I want to write something for Best to place in his damned newspaper. We are chasing a man who is at best theatrical and at worst insane. If we cannot find him, we will encourage him to find us."
The maid answered the door again, but recognised the visitor and immediately called for the lady of the house. Moments later, a well-dressed Marie Mountford arrived at the door smiling.
"I hope you will permit the visit so soon after yours last night, Mrs. Mountford, but I had some free time and thought I would see how you and your daughter are faring." Lusk removed his hat as she invited him in, the faint smell of lavender in the air around her.
"She's recovering remarkably, thank you for checking in on us Mr. Lusk. Would you like to take me up on that offer of tea now? One of my elder daughters Margaret and her son are here too."
"I think you could twist my arm over it." He joked, following her into the drawing room where a girl looking not much older than Lavinia sat, an excitable young boy restrained in her lap as he played with wooden blocks on a table.
"Margaret, this is Mr. Lusk, the man who rescued Lavinia."
"Oh, I've heard about you!" she smiled, placing her son aside on the seat so she could rise and greet him, sitting as her mother and their guest also took a seat.
"Mr. Lusk is the chairman of the Vigilance Committee, we owe him and his men a great thanks."
"Oh yes! Not just for Lavinia, but goodness knows how much those men could have cleared off with if they'd gotten away."
"It's what we are there for. Both business and innocent people do not deserve to fear their livelihood in Whitechapel. The Ripper may have drifted away but there has always been a vile crime that the police cannot control on their own."
"There's always someone every week talking about seeing a drunk policeman." Mrs. Mountford said, a look of disapproval on her features. "Frank has always been inwardly praising of them although you'd never catch him gushing to their faces. Sarah, dear?" she caught the maid's attention as she walked past the door. "Tea for three of us, and some fruit juice for Timothy."
The maid nodded and disappeared, although George's eyes remained on the doorway for a moment, aware of how very young their domestic looked. Yet she seemed to carry all of the responsibilities of the house.
"Are you a policeman?" the little boy asked him, piling up blocks of wood on the table to form an archway.
"No, little one, I'm not." He smiled, used to the inquisitive minds of young children.
"But mother said you saved my auntie and stopped bad men."
"Well that I did do, but I'm not in the police. I'm just a man who tries to help other people."
"I think that's a good way to be."
"Wise words, I think." He smiled up from the boy to his mother, who petted his curly blonde hair down a little. "You look to be building a sturdy little arch there. Perhaps you'll use that wise mind to be a fine architect one day."
"I made a tower as tall as me once!" Timothy exclaimed, throwing his hands up to the sky.
"He's much like his father. Always aiming high." Margaret smiled, looking up as the maid entered with a tea tray. Her son excitedly reached out for his own drink and was busied with that, eyeing up the biscuits on the tray with keen and large eyes. George thanked the maid and insisted on pouring tea for the other women out of gentlemanly habit.
"I wondered, Mrs. Mountford, if your husband has considered the offer I gave you yesterday." He asked, allowing the tea to cool a little.
"I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it, I'm afraid. He was home for dinner, but I don't allow business talk at dinner. Then he was off in his study and then to bed. I will try again tonight."
"He won't see Vinnie either." Margaret said with pursed lips. She looked less like her mother and sister, but had the same pout as them. "I think it's some kind of midlife crisis."
"Well whatever it is, it won't last forever. I hope you won't mind if it takes a little while for him to take you up on the offer."
"Not at all, Mrs. Mountford. Good nature is not time-sensitive." He smiled at her, taking a sip of the tea but finding it still too hot. George had always preferred his tea almost luke-warm, which Susannah could never understand. Mrs. Mountford seemed to be downplaying the concern her husband's apathy caused her, but then with her own child and grandchild present that was to be expected.
"You are far too kind, Mr. Lusk. Forgive my assumptions but we did not expect to meet many personally nice people in such a busy and populated city as London."
"Whitechapel has its history and charm, and there are plenty of us who've lived in the borough all our lives. You learn to love the place and the people in it. There's more kindness out there than the newspapers would suggest. Have the police contacted you with any progress on the case?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Frank said he'd be paying them a visit today before work so he may have some updates."
"If you do not hear anything soon, let me know. I would be happy to pursue it for you, as the coppers can be disorganised with it all."
"I appreciate the offer, Mr. Lusk." Marie smiled, and her eyes moved to the doorway as a figure blocked it. "Lavinia! I thought you were sleeping."
"I was starting to get restless so I thought I might sit in the garden for a bit if Victor was out there, but he isn't. May I sit in with you?"
"Of course, dear. Mr. Lusk has visited and was asking about you."
"Hello again!" she said, perking up a bit at a new face. Lusk imagined that seeing the same faces while bed-bound became unpleasant after a while. She wore a simple white day dress without a corset, but rather laced loosely around what was probably still a very sore abdomen, judging from the blood she'd been covered in when he saw her at the station days before. Her face had healed remarkable well, though, considering she was injured on a Monday morning and it was now Wednesday. Her eye was no longer forced shut by a swollen cheek and the scab was much smaller, the angry redness around it subdued into a fading purple. She padded barefoot over to them and sat next to her mother, brushing hair from her face.
"Darling, I told you to plait your hair if you leave your room."
"It's too much work." The girl complained quietly, and George could see why. Her hair was thick, and now that he saw it completely untied it did look very long – well past her shoulder blades.
"Well you're in company dear, so why don't you go and ask Sarah to help?"
"It's really alright, Mrs. Mountford. I am not a man concerned with social rules when applied to an injured girl." He felt a little guilty that she was being scolded, and hoped his comment would diffuse the situation.
"You were right Auntie, he's not a policeman." Little Timothy pointed out, pulling the cup of juice from his mouth. Lavinia smiled at her nephew and nodded before looking up at their guest.
"News of your heroics has travelled fast in our house, Mr. Lusk. Tim has been as eager to hear stories of your committee's triumphs over crime as I am. You did say you would tell me some time."
"Oh, I did didn't I?" he laughed, hoping she understood his regret was sarcastic, and that he really took no issue in talking about the committee. "What would you like to know?"
"What's the most dangerous person you've ever caught?" she leaned forward with her elbows in her lap, blinking a few times as a twinge of discomfort hit the injured side of her face. Her mother began pouring her a cup of tea, but both Lavinia and her little nephew were transfixed by the story their guest began to tell.
"Well, there was one man who'd been stealing washing from people's clothes lines in the night-"
"That's not dangerous!" Timothy interjected with outrage on his face. George held a finger up to beg pause.
"It didn't sound so to us either, but locals were upset at the loss of clothes and so we had a few men wander around. Sure enough, the fool was in a garden that night and three of our blokes all tried to catch him. He managed to strangle all three of them with some poor woman's bloomers until they fell unconscious. Never in my life have I encountered a man who could fight off and incapacitate three men on his own. As strange a weapon as he wielded, he had a dangerous kind of luck on his side." He grinned as he saw the young boy laughing at the thought of a man wielding bloomers, and Lavinia seemed to be suppressing a giggle herself. Marie had had a look of concern on her face regarding discussion of vile crimes, but that expression faded to an amused smile as she realised her guest knew better than that.
"How did any of your men admit to being taken out like that?!" Lavinia laughed, covering her mouth a little bit. "No one with knives or guns were as dangerous?"
"Vinnie, I don't think Mr. Lusk would want to sit and talk about such things in the company of ladies." Marie warned her softly, sliding the fresh cup of tea towards her daughter. "And anyway, Mr. Lusk is not just a chairman of the Vigilance Committee. You work as a builder too, don't you?"
"Most days, yes. It depends on who needs work done; some of it is very fun and some very difficult. That's the way work is though." George smiled at the young boy who was drinking his juice again. "Perhaps another time I can tell you of the committee, Miss Mountford. I'd hate to speak of violent men in front of a girl recently injured by such people."
"It doesn't bother me. I find it fascinating how you risk yourselves. The police too. Men who put their lives on the line even a little, and put all that effort into stopping bad men. You deserve to be able to brag about all the gun and knife-wielding fiends you overpowered and outsmarted."
"You flatter me, Miss. I think my men would enjoy knowing they are thought of in such a way too." He bit his lower lip so as not to smile too wide and seem pompous, watching the girl take a sip of her tea and react in annoyance to how hot it was. She added more milk herself, leaving it to sit.
"Can't you at least tell us one story? How does the committee achieve so much when you don't have money like the police? You patrolled so far during the Ripper murders."
As George Lusk tried to work out a way to speak of the sort of crimes he'd seen in a way suitable for present company, Marie glanced from the man to her younger daughter, watching her brush an insistent strand of long hair from her face as she listened intently. There was a sparkle in her eyes; a brightness that radiated out into the rest of her face even with the sore bruise still taking over part of it. Rarely did Marie see her daughter so lit-up, and she could take an educated assumption as to its cause.
"Margaret, would you help me in the kitchen? I want to speak with Sarah about the menu for our Sunday dinner when the rest of the family arrive. Timothy can contribute too; he won't be the only little one there." Rising, and regarding her guest with a smile, she added "I hope you won't mind, Mr. Lusk, but I'm sure Lavinia will keep you entertained."
Sensing there was a reason for their departure, Margaret did not object and lifted her son to sweep out of the room, bidding Mr. Lusk a polite goodbye to leave the two alone. George had guessed their motives too, of course. Meddling mothers were not uncommon in any social class. Lavinia did not seem to notice (or perhaps she simply didn't care), sitting up a little and clapping her hands together in her lap. George noticed that brightness in her eyes now; completely different from the dull, fearful look she'd had in the police station or the tired and sore look she'd worn in her bed after the attack. Now she was bright and happy and, whilst not typically feminine with her loose dress, untied hair and strong jaw, she was in her own way quite pretty; George would never have said otherwise but it was far clearer now. She smiled and leaned forward a little bit, another question on the tip of her tongue.
"Now tell me, how many men have you encountered with guns?!"