Silas

Professor Silas was a British citizen who lived and worked in London during the mid-nineteenth century.

Silas was the colleague and acolyte to Professor Byng, a most-esteemed anthropologist who had written several books and discovered a tribal village in the African Congo. It was Silas' dream to surpass his mentor's knowledge, and in 1868, he discovered a method to do so by studying the very culture Byng had discovered.

He sent Byng a statuette with a venomous spider hidden within, which caused Byng to fall into a comatose state. He then used his work at the university as a cover to purchase the cadaver after it had been buried, carting it away to an abandoned house. There, he planned to cut open Byng's skull and eat his brain while wearing a carved jackal mask, burning incense, and chanting. He, like the natives he studied, believed this would grant him the wisdom hidden within the brain of his mentor.

While Silas was cutting into his mentor's skull, however, the professor woke up, putting up a struggle and managing to flee the scene. Byng managed to make it to his home, where he collapsed in the parlor and died of his wounds. Silas was confronted by the Assassins Jacob and Evie Frye the following day, who were investigating Professor Byng's death.

When Silas was confronted with the evidence, which included his broken glasses at the murder scene, he confessed to the murder, claiming it was the only way to gain enough knowledge to surpass his mentor and become the greatest anthropologist in the British Empire. Immediately following his confession, Silas was taken away by the Metropolitan Police Service.

Reference

 * Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - The Dreadful Crimes