Later, as the real disc was locked away in the station’s evidence locker, Julia sat beside Murdoch.

Julia raised an eyebrow. “You’re becoming almost as eccentric as Pendrick.”

“It’s called a ‘DVD,’ William,” Pendrick said, adjusting his spectacles. “A Digital Versatile Disc. I’ve been tinkering with a prototype. This one contains a complete season of theatrical performances. Season ten, to be precise.”

Intrigued, Murdoch borrowed the disc. That evening, he invited Dr. Julia Ogden to his boarding house. He’d rigged a curious machine to a small cathode-ray tube. “Pendrick’s latest,” he explained. “He calls it a ‘DVDRip’—a direct transfer of the visual information.”