2. Scotland Yard
Newspaper:
October 24, 1932
"A body of a young woman was found in her apartment"
The body, whom relatives and friends have identified as Taylor Smith, showed clear signs of violence. Police sources have revealed that, although the victim's home also presented evidence of the fight and struggle that took place, apparently the entries had not been forced. This seems to indicate that the lady knew her attacker. Taylor Smith worked as a dressmaker in an atelier, she was single and at her death she leaves two brothers and two parents behind.
“La Araña”, “Arachni”, “Araignée” and “Spider”. The name of that damned insect was everywhere, and yet Arthur was no closer to understanding what it was. Some kind of organization by the looks of it.
Focusing on that unknown while he was on his way to the police station helped him stop thinking about what had happened, about the fact that he had seen his father, that he had traveled back in time... if he hadn't experienced it firsthand, I would say it was crazy, nonsense. Even though he knew what had happened, he wasn't entirely sure he didn't need to go to an asylum.
He banished those thoughts and fears and tried to appear normal as he entered the police station and approached reception.
He asked about the files. Luckily, he had made quite a few friends during his years at the academy because he doubted that his badge number, as a lowly field policeman, would have granted her access without an order from his superiors.
They led him to the oldest part of the warehouses and, with an apology for the disaster, left him to register the documents for the selected year. The place was full of boxes and boxes of papers. They were so old that no one had bothered to digitize them, many weren't even typed. He spent several hours searching and sneezing thanks to the dust until he found what he was looking for.
The mugshots of Taylor Smith, Lily Edgar-Jones, Charlie Brown, Rhys O'Connor, and his own great-grandfather didn't give him much more than he already knew other than a few gruesome descriptions of the state the men were in. they had found every one of them. There was nothing about "the Spider" with that or another name, nothing that could reflect some light on that situation.
With a sigh, Arthur grabbed one of the newspaper stories from the file.