The blueprint was complete. The work began.

I approached each institution with care. There was no single method. Each archive, each office, each registry required its own strategy — tailored, quiet, and plausible.

At Somerset House, I requested birth and death records under the guise of verifying pension eligibility. At Scotland Yard, I reviewed personnel files for a supposed Home Office audit. At the British Museum Reading Room, I examined volumes of The Times and The Illustrated London News, noting which articles would need to vanish. At Poplar Coroner’s Court, I accessed inquest findings under the pretext of procedural review.

Each retrieval was timed to coincide with institutional distractions — staff turnover, reclassification drives, public exhibitions, or seasonal audits. I worked alone. I used no names. I left no trail.

The documents were destroyed in stages. Some were burned in the hearth at Rolls House. Others were soaked and pulped. A few were simply removed and never returned. I made no copies.

I kept a detailed list and marked each document off along with the date I secured it. The ledger was precise. It had to be.

By the end of July 1889, the retrieval phase was complete. The records were gone. Not all at once. Not conspicuously. But gone.

The names were beginning to vanish. The operation was underway.