Chapter 251: Arsenic Eater of London (K)

Chapter 250 Arsenic Eating Ghosts of London (4K)

London, Greenwich Borough, Woolwich Royal Arsenal.

A horse-drawn carriage pulled up in front of the Arsenal’s gates, solid black hard riding boots on the slippery tiles.

Arthur slightly raised his hat, the noon break, today’s arsenal as usual a group of big and thick workers in the playground kicking a ball, except that today he was not in the mood to go up and accompany them to swing a couple of kicks, much less sit on the sidelines of the field to guide a couple of interest.

After all, to guide the arsenal to play soccer this job, or the French to do more appropriate.

As one of the highest level of protection in London, Woolwich Arsenal guard work by the long-term stationed here, the Royal Mounted Rifles is responsible for the artillery regiment, although this is the rest time, but in view of the frequent occurrence of small-scale riots in London over the past few years, the soldiers have not relaxed vigilance, the streets near the Arsenal can be seen everywhere in the three a team of patrolling soldiers.

Arthur stepped down from the carriage and took out his credentials from his pocket and displayed them in front of the arsenal guards, “Arthur Hastings, Senior Superintendent of the Greater London Police, Head of the Criminal Investigations Department, previously your chemical engineer Mr. James Marsh was commissioned by the Royal Society of Medicine to assist Scotland Yard with the investigation of a murder case. I heard this morning that there had been some progress on his side, and I’ve come to talk to him about the case.”

The loaded guard took the ID and glanced at it, then promptly nodded, “Mr. Hastings, please come in. The local police department has informed us in advance that you will be here at noon today, and Mr. Marsh is already waiting for you in the chemistry lab.”

Arthur nodded, “This case is very urgent, so I’ll skip the pleasantries, please lead the way.”

Led by the guards, Arthur walked through the arsenal’s playground into the production hall, just as he walked into the factory, he saw rows and rows of neatly placed strange machines, by identifying the explanatory markings on the machines, Arthur roughly understood what these things were.

A steam-powered hammer made by Naismith, a stock, rifling, and barrel lathe made by a factory run by Henry Mozley, the father of mechanics, and a 1776 horizontal boring machine with only the year of manufacture visible, and the rest of the labels muddled and unrecognizable, to name a few.

With machines spanning the ages, from the 18th century through to the 19th century, the glorious present and past of Great Britain’s mechanical industry are almost all coalesced in this workshop, which can accommodate thousands of people at a time.

Arthur saw here, could not help but joked: “part of this old antique have been used for half a century, is not the Bureau of Ordnance to consider the arsenal allocation for some new products?”

Hearing this, the guard smiled and replied back, “When there’s no war going on, it’s usually very difficult to ask the council for funding. However, this year is quite lucky, the higher-ups have approved some new money, look over there, aren’t there lathe merchants coming to the door to sell?”

Arthur raised his eyes and looked, as expected, at the back of the production workshop, a gentleman wearing a black bowler hat and a dark green vest was rushing to a senior officer wearing a neat light red uniform to enthusiastically introduce something, while he was talking, he also commanded the apprentice beside him wearing a thick blue rag uniform to take out the drawings to show to the other party one after another.

Seeing this, Arthur smiled back and said, ”Looks like it won’t be long before Woolwich Arsenal can get some new products. If you ask me, you should have stopped the production of Baker-type wire-bore rifles long ago, that thing has been in use since the time of the Napoleonic wars, and it’s still in use after more than twenty years. Even if the army doesn’t get tired of it, we at Scotland Yard do. And carrying such a long flintlock rifle on the street patrol is really easy to cause discontentment among the citizens of London. Have you guys considered coming up with a line of portable pistols, preferably still percussive, I think that Mr. Forsyth’s design of that ‘perfume bottle’ percussive mechanism is quite good, although it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to maintain, but can’t help but make that thing look really beautiful.”

When the guard heard this, he couldn’t help but give Arthur a high look as he spoke, “You know your stuff, sir. But yes, it’s not convenient for the officers of Scotland Yard to use an infantry gun, so it’s best for you to carry a pistol when you’re on patrol.”

They were enthusiastically discussing the advantages and disadvantages of various gun types, when suddenly a burst of warm greetings interrupted their conversation.

“Good noon, gentlemen. If my ears are not failing me, then surely one of you two must have just said something about being interested in a striker-fired pistol?”

Arthur turned his head to look at the young man standing behind him with a little wavy hair, his face was flushed, skin texture slightly rough as if after a long time of sand, the knuckles of his right hand can be seen vaguely some hardened yellow calluses, calf stomach to the ankle tied round after round of white cloth leggings, behind the buttocks of the cowhide tube on the end of the end of the brass monoculars.

Arthur saw him dressed like this, couldn’t help but ask: “You are a seaman?”

The young man was stunned by Arthur’s question, and immediately said in surprise, “How did you know?”

The guard helped Arthur back, “Yankee, haven’t you ever read a detective novel? Go buy a copy of the latest issue of Yankee, the Hastings Mysteries are full of Scotland Yard officers. Not to mention the fact that you’re standing in front of a senior Scotland Yard officer.”

The young man was skeptical, “Are police officers that godly?”

“Are you a Yankee?” Arthur looked the young man up and down, “No wonder, I told you your accent was a bit strange.”

The young man seemed to take offense at being pointed out as an American, and he returned with a reddened face, “Sir, it doesn’t matter where I’m from, but what does matter is that I can provide you with the percussion pistol you want. I’ve been here for almost three days now, but none of these old London bureaucrats have taken me seriously. I assure you that my Colt revolver is by far the best portable weapon in the world, and it would definitely help the officers of Scotland Yard immensely if you were equipped with it! Once upon a time you had to reload for each shot, but now you can take down six enemies with a single reload, that’s a six-fold increase in combat power, are you sure you really don’t want to consider it?”

“Colt revolver?” When Arthur heard this term, he first froze for a moment, he pondered for half a day before he remembered the name he had once read in a certain military magazine and tentatively asked, “Samuel Colt?”

Colt heard Arthur directly burst out his own name, shocked open mouth simply do not know what to say good: “You …… you see that I once floated at sea for a year also even if, why do you even know my name?”

Arthur sniffed, just mysteriously pulled out his pipe, “That’s right, the detective is like this.”

The guard on the side saw that Arthur was about to light a fire and was so frightened that he quickly snatched the match along with the matchbox, “My God! Mr. Hastings! There’s a gunpowder warehouse next door, are you planning to blow us all up together?”

It took Arthur a moment to remember what this place was, and he hurriedly lowered his tiny hands that had nowhere to rest and gave an embarrassed laugh, “Sorry.”

He turned to look at Colt again for a split second, and after pondering for a moment, he spoke, “Wait here for a while, and when I’m done, we’ll continue to talk about that pistol of yours later. While I don’t have the ability to intervene in Scotland Yard’s overall equipment purchasing decisions, I still have the autonomy to make decisions on some of the smaller things within this department.”

After speaking, Arthur then rushed to the guard and spoke, “Come on, sir, let’s go to the lab first.”

While Colt, who was standing behind him, revealed a look of delight after being stunned, this nineteen year old American boy shouted at Arthur, “Mr. Detective, I haven’t even eaten my lunch yet, I’ll just go and wait for you at the cafe outside! You are so skillful, you must know which cafe I am talking about, right? We’ll see you there!”

Just after saying these words, Colt twisted his head and ran outside, he was still bouncing while running, and from time to time, he also clenched his fists and swung at the air.

It was obvious that this kid was very happy about the chance to get a new order.

Seeing this scene, Arthur just turned his head and asked the guard beside him, “How many cafes are there outside the factory?” “Just one.”

“That’ll do.”

Led by the guard, Arthur traveled through the workshop to the small red brick building located not far behind it.

Walking through the concrete-paved vestibule and just up to the second floor, Arthur smelled a strong pungent odor.

After pondering over it for a while, he always felt as if the smell was somewhat familiar.

After searching for half a day, Arthur finally determined that this smell was extremely similar to those French Pesto that Dumas planted in his garden.

Just when Arthur thought that the guards had brought him to the arsenal’s laboratory restaurant, as the door was pushed open, Arthur’s eyes were greeted by neither the hot scene of cooking, nor the sweating chef.

The overall layout of the room was not unlike that of the laboratories reserved for chemists by the Royal Society, with several shelves filled with colorful solutions and clear beakers, and a heated beaker sitting on a lab table in the center of the room.

The guard knocked gently on the door with his finger and voiced a warning, “Mr. Marsh.”

The man standing in front of the beaker, who was frowning in contemplation, looked up and spotted Arthur and the guard, who opened his mouth and asked, “Who is this beside you?”

“Mr. Arthur Hastings, Superintendent of Scotland Yard.”

“Ah! So it is you, come in quickly.” James Marsh invited Arthur inside and introduced himself while pointing to the bubbling heated liquid in the beaker, “I must say, Scotland Yard got very lucky with this case. If this case had taken place a few weeks ago, the truth about it might have had to sink in stone.”

Hearing this, Arthur followed and asked, “So …… Mr. Marsh, are you discovering any interesting phenomena?”

“Interesting to say the least, but I think it should be a tragedy.”

Marsh spoke, “This kind of human life is a matter of great importance, so I will not talk about it with you. You may also have heard something from the Royal Medical Association that just a short time ago I discovered the arsenic test method for detecting residues of the element arsenic. This beaker before you is filled with hydrochloric acid, bicarbonate of sulphate, and food residues extracted from the victim’s stomach, and according to the arsenic-testing method, when these mixtures are subjected to heat, if there is any elemental arsenic mixed up with the food residues, arsenical trihydrogen is produced, which, of course, if it is put in a more intelligible way, is the strong odor of garlic that you are smelling now.”

“Arsenic?” Arthur couldn’t help but frown when he heard this element.

It was perhaps still too academic to say arsenic, and if you said its common name – arsenic – then it would be familiar to the group.

Arsenic as a poison with a long history of being used to kill people, both in the East and the West, can be traced back to several centuries BC.

First of all, as James Marsh said, for a long time, mankind did not have the scientific means to consistently test for arsenic residues.

Secondly, as a perfect poison, arsenic itself has no flavor, and its dissolution in water only makes the water slightly sweet, so it is not easy for the victim to notice that he or she has been poisoned.

Moreover, the symptoms manifested after poisoning, such as diarrhea and vomiting, can be easily confused with other diseases.

After all, these days, in London perennial epidemic disease almost all with diarrhea and vomiting, the average person poisoned, will only think that they are unlucky to get sick.

And the most important point is that, arsenic is very easy to get, since the Industrial Revolution, a variety of metal smelting industry in Britain in full swing, and as a by-product of the metallurgical industry, a variety of arsenic compounds, but also carefully packaged as a factory owners as rat poison, fly paper and other types of pests to prevent the sale of special pharmaceuticals.

And even more outrageous is that the London society of all classes of beauty ladies since the time of Elizabeth I, began to use a variety of arsenic-containing cosmetics, this kind of cosmetics from the simplest snow cream to a variety of high-level perfume and other products can be found in arsenic almost all the traces of the product.

And in the London public recognized as effective medicine against malaria also has a kind of arsenic-containing products called Fowler’s solution.

Thinking about this, Arthur finally understood why Bernie Harrison would act so emboldened.

Because taking an overdose of elemental arsenic to cause death this kind of thing, it is not really sure that he can be convicted of murder, unless Scotland Yard holds the complete chain of evidence of the perpetrator of the crime.

Otherwise, even with the results of the stomach food tests, it would not be possible to convict him completely.

There are plenty of ladies in this society who actively take arsenic in pursuit of rosy skin, and not a few have died as a result.

Trying to bring down a member of the House of Commons through such a small matter, especially a perfume merchant who was well versed in the art, was really not an easy task.

Arthur couldn’t help but fall into a deep thought when he thought of this.

He was thinking about how to convict Bernie Harrison, but unexpectedly, the rest of his eyes caught a glimpse of Agareth, who had entered through the wall in a hurry.

The Red Devil, as if startled by something, grabbed Arthur and was about to walk out, “Arthur! For fuck’s sake, come out and look, I saw those fucking idiots fishing for people along the Thames again!”

(end of chapter)