Henry Raymond

Henry Raymond (died 1868) was a penny dreadful journalist during the mid-19th century. In 1868, Raymond and his greatest fan, a young boy named Artie, worked together with the Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye to solve a number of murder cases across London.

Biography

By 1868, Raymond had written a number of amateurish penny dreadfuls based on local murders he found intriguing. His books were printed under the auspices of Purlock Publishing, a company which produced few other titles.

While Raymond's works never reached a wider audience, they were enjoyed by Artie and his friends, the former of whom became his greatest fan and began accompanying him to crime scenes around London. While investigating one such scene in Whitechapel, the pair met Jacob and Evie Frye and enlisted their help to solve the murder, as well as several others, so Raymond could adapt them into penny dreadfuls.

Raymond with the Scepter with the Dove, as envisioned in Jacob's mind palace

After their reputation as detectives had grown, the Frye twins were summoned by Queen Victoria, via Frederick Abberline, to solve the murder of one of her guards at Buckingham Palace. Conducting an investigation, the Assassins discovered that the culprit was in fact Raymond, who had posed as the seemingly deceased guard to steal the Scepter with the Dove. His deception involved taking spider venom to induce a death-like state so he could watch the Queen enter the combination to her safe when she assumed a thief was after it, as well as leaving a series of false clues that the palace would be bombed in order to cover his escape.

Artie had already uncovered the true plan and set out to stop Raymond, but was kidnapped. Raymond then successfully stole the scepter, but was cornered on the palace's roof by the Frye twins. Using Artie as a human shield, Raymond was distracted by one of the siblings while the other climbed the palace façade, reaching Raymond from behind and throwing him off the roof to his death to save Artie.

Behind the scenes

The name "Henry Raymond" was a known alias of Adam Worth, a famous criminal mastermind nicknamed "the Napoleon of Crime," a title that would eventually be shared by Professor James Moriarty, the adversary of Arthur Conan Doyle's famed fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.

Gallery

• 
  Artie and Raymond meeting Evie and Jacob for the first time
• 
  Raymond holding Artie at gunpoint

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – The Dreadful Crimes