Episode 5

**The Dancer on the Bridge** is the 5th episode of the MORIARTY THE PATRIOT anime.

## Synopsis

Lucien Atwood, one of William's students, fails to come home for three days, while the pub waitress Lucien declared his love for leaps to her death from a bridge. However, one of the school's administrators assures William that there is no cause for alarm.

## Summary

A homeless man witness how a woman dances on a bridge during a rainy night and then jumps off it into the river.

During his lectures, William notices that Lucien is missing again and his friend Tate, nervously explains that he has a cold and that they are in same dormitory room and he takes care of him. William decides to look into Tate and Lucien and sees the nobility families they come from. William then visits Tate and Lucien at their dormitory room and realizes that Lucien is gone and Tate has been looking for him. Having no choice, Tate explains that Lucien has been missing for three days and that normally he doesn't go missing for that long. He checked the pub where Frida, a waitress that Lucien loves, works but was splashed with water and chased away. William comments that Tate seems really concerned about Lucien and Tate confirms as he is his best friend. William decides to look into it and tells Tate to stop looking into the matter.

Going out of the dormitories, Dudley Bale introduces himself and explains that he assists with the university administration. Dudley wonders if there is something amiss with a student, and William comments that Lucien Atwood has been missing for several days. Dudley assumes he is just drinking somewhere and says they shouldn't inform the police as he is nobility and it may reflect poorly on his family name. Dudley explains that he has a bit of influence with the local police and wants to take the matter and discreetly look into it.

William goes into the pub where Frida worked. After paying the woman there, she explains that Frida was a great person and dancer, but fell and died while dancing on a bridge. The student William is looking for and Frida had fallen in love, but their social status was different, yet Lucien still proposed to marry her. The woman tried to stop them, but Frida revealed that she was pregnant. A man then came and spoke with Frida, which left her crying, making the woman realize Frida was abandoned by Lucien, yet Frida still gathered her strength and decided to raise the child alone, but then had died. Meanwhile, Dudley visits the place he holds Lucien and tells him he must stay there until his emotional wounds heal.

William tells Louis to send telegrams to Fred Porlock and Sebastian Moran. He calls Fred first, who finds Lucien and explains that he is still under the opiums effect and can't think straight. As Sebastian arrives too, William tells them there is no client this time, but they will deliver some punishment on behalf of the whole town.

Near the bridge Frida died, Lucien wakes up. Dudley comes running wondering how he got out of his room and whats up with the letter he sent him. He wonders if he is going to confess what he did after all the cleaning he had to do and how stupid it was of him to make a common woman pregnant. Frida then comes out of the river, surprising Dudley, who comments she must be dead after the amount of opium he gave her and she jumped to her death. William then reveals himself, and reveals that "Frida" is Fred in disguise. William comments that he did research on Dudley and found that he owns several brothels labeled as hospitals, and that way is able to get sizeable quantities of opiates. He then entices the sons of aristocrats to indulge in evil pleasures and then demand their parents purchase his silence. William explains that he won't be turning him in to the police but will make him dance in a frenzy and then take his life. Dudley finds that absurd, but then Sebastian using his silent rifle starts shooting next to him, causing him to start running and rotating to avoid the bullets, resembling a dance, and eventually fall into the river to his death. Moriarty and his crew are then seen watching over Lucien as he places flowers on the new grave he erected for Frida

## Characters

* Frida Macaulay
* William James Moriarty
* Tate Percival
* Dudley Bale
* Lucien Atwood
* Louis James Moriarty
* Fred Porlock
* Sebastian Moran

## Trivia

* This is a rare case of Moriarty getting personally involved, rather than being hired. Since Dudley Bale had disgusted him immensely by destroying the happy future of a commoner, whom was genuinely loved by a noble; even going out of his way to let the boy watch Bale suffer in order to give the grieving fiancée some closure.