He explains to Hanks and his mother that he has been recruited by telegraph clerk Henry Newlove for a male brothel for upper class customers run by Charles Hammond, but soon goes silent, with Emily seeking help from her Member of Parliament Barwell.
Meanwhile Euston and Lord Arthur Somerset discuss their gay relationships and Inspector Frederick Abberline faces the release of a hostile enquiry on his handling of the Whitechapel murders investigation and a dishnourable discharge from the Metropolitan Police.
Hanks and Abberline's interviews with Charlie and Newlove not only reveal the brothel's address (19 Cleveland Street) but also that it has protection from high figures in the nobility and police – the pair thus decide to keep their investigation secret from their superiors for the present.
Hammond begins an escape to a bolt-hole in America promised him by Bertie, but he is murdered en route at Portsmouth, where Hanks and Abberline find his body with a fake suicide note.
Meanwhile, Barwell's party leader William Gladstone convinces him that the scandal could affect their chance of getting their progressive policies through Parliament and that he should bribe Emily to reveal Charlie's whereabouts by offering her enough money to buy the lease of her house.