Chapter 283: Bishop’s Visit

Chapter 282 Bishop’s Visit
London, Westminster, 4 Whitehall Street, Greater London Police Station.

Today’s Scotland Yard looked exceptionally lively, in addition to the still-busy various police officers, there were also many more clergymen dressed in Shusheng’s black robes here.

They are the clergy invited by Scotland Yard and volunteered to go here to give moral counseling to the ladies who have lost their way.

Among them were Anglican priests appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as well as members of other Protestant denominations such as Scottish Presbyterians, Baptists and Quakers.

Although the Catholic Church, which owes allegiance to the Pope, has always been unpopular with the English elite, perhaps out of respect for Superintendent Hastings, who calls himself a Catholic, or in consideration of the diversity of beliefs among the ladies, several Catholic priests were invited to Scotland Yard today to absolve them of their sins.

Arthur stood in front of the window sill of his office and looked out, he took a sip from his steaming cup of tea, he sighed softly, “Obviously I don’t have to be so facetious, inviting a few Catholic priests, what if they get excited and have to discuss a few passages of scripture with me?”

The Red Devil also sneered and laughed, “Oh, my dear Arthur, now you’ve lifted a stone and smashed your own foot. Who gave you nothing to do but call yourself a Catholic? Just to be able to save half an hour of sleep by not going to the State Church to say your prayers, look at the mess this has made.”

Arthur stared at the priests and ministers who were getting out of their cars in groups on the street downstairs, and just shook his head, “It’s just that, it seems that I’d better not show my face freely today.”

The red devil teased, “Don’t you take advantage of the fact that so many priests are there and take the opportunity to change your religion or something? With all due respect, Arthur, it’s still pretty important to have an Anglican faith in order to mix in the political world of Britain. Your King and the bigwigs at the top are not going to be comfortable with a Catholic who has sworn allegiance to the Pope. Sooner or later you’ll have to make that plan if you want to move further up the ladder.”

Arthur sniffed neither agreeing nor disagreeing, he simply spoke, “Agareth, I appreciate your advice, but now is not the time.”

“Hm? What do you mean by that?”

Arthur took a sip of his tea, the warm tea sliding down his throat a little as Arthur smiled, “What I mean is that I’ll have to put in to see who will be bidding against my faith at the end of the day. While the guys say faith is priceless, I’m not like them, faith is clearly priced with me. Incidentally, Agareth, you have the highest bid so far.”

Agareth grinned at that, “Wow, really? My dear Arthur, what an honor to hear that from you.”

Arthur surveyed the clergymen’s attire, and then looked at the various police superintendents who were responsible for greeting them downstairs as if they were enemies, as well as Director Rowan, and couldn’t help but shake his head, “There’s actually two bishops in here as well, so it looks like Director Rowan has his work cut out for him today.”

He had just finished saying this when he saw two neatly dressed young men coming down from the carriage, one of them was very familiar to him, that was naturally his old friend Mr. Benjamin Disraeli.

As for the other young man, who was stout and neatly tuxedoed, he could also guess from Disraeli’s expression of disgust at him that it was probably Mr. William Gladstone, the rising star of the Tories, whom he regarded as a thorn in his side.

Disraeli, just out of the car, did not choose to go straight to Scotland Yard, but looked around and found a familiar clergyman to join in the conversation, and under the clergyman’s introduction, the Jewish lad, who believed in the state religion, soon became acquainted with the rest of the several clergymen as well.

From the smiles on their faces, it seemed that the clergymen liked this young man with his lively personality and beautiful words.

And although Gladstone wasn’t as eloquent as Disraeli, he obviously knew people as well. As a distinguished graduate of Oxford University and a firm believer in the state religion, Gladstone quickly spotted several clerics from the Oxford University Diocese.

And coincidentally, Arthur was also somewhat familiar with these Oxford clerics.

One was his old friend, the strange Oxford clergyman, Mr. John Newman. As for the other few, although they did not know Arthur, Arthur knew their information by heart.

For no other reason than that last year Sir Peel, as MP for the Oxford constituency, had failed to fulfill his promise to Oxford to block the Catholic Emancipation Bill for them in the House of Commons. Not only that, but when Oxford criticized the Cabinet’s policies, Sir Peel, the former pride of Oxford, in order to share the fire for the Duke of Wellington, actually turned his guns back on Oxford, saying that they should keep up with the changes of the times and not be slaves to their own vanity.

Because of this very thing, Sir Peel was directly announced by Oxford University to be removed from the alumni roster. More than that, the Oxford clergy launched an anti-Robert Peel campaign over this. There were several speeches and protests, and every now and then Sir Robert Peel was brought out to be criticized.

At that time, Arthur was appointed by the Ministry of the Interior and Scotland Yard, had led people to Oxford University to carry out a certain degree of investigation and surveillance of this movement. And after observing for a while, Arthur finally submitted an investigation report to the Ministry of the Interior, that the Oxford clergymen are just in a small fight to vent their violent temper that has no place to rest, so there is no need to worry too much.

And the facts also verified Arthur’s view, after the fall of the Tories, this anti-Robert Peel movement soon subsided, and they began to turn their attention to other things again.

But although this movement was over, a few of the leaders who started it at the time were not forgotten by Arthur. These leaders included, in addition to Arthur’s old acquaintance, Mr. Newman, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and an Anglican priest, Mr. John Keeble, Distinguished Professor of Poetry at Oriel College, Oxford, and an Anglican priest, Mr. Edward Piyouz, also a heavyweight, who was also visiting Scotland Yard today, and Mr. Edward Piyouz, an Anglican priest, who was an Admired Professor of Hebrew and Ecclesiastical Law at Oriel College, Oxford.

Arthur felt his head spinning at the sight of these old ones, and while he didn’t mind chatting with Mr. Newman for a while, it would be a big deal to piggyback on a few others.

Perhaps Director Rowan had considered the sensitivity of Arthur’s beliefs, so he hadn’t arranged for Arthur to come out and receive these clergymen today, but instead had allowed him to stay in his office and mess around with some of the knickknacks he cared about.

Arthur casually copied out a letter from the pile of letterheads sitting beside his desk, which were some official contact letters from the Foreign Office forwarded to Scotland Yard this morning. But although it said business, all that was written in it was personal. Or, to put it more bluntly, it held the resumes of some ladies of Polish origin.

Viscount Palmerston was not a trustworthy friend, but you had to admit that he was very much on the move when it came to business.

Since Arthur had advised him last week, he’d had a brainstorm of dozens of suitable candidates to recommend to the editorial board of The Cockney & Arthur’s mansion.

Arthur had just opened the letterhead when he saw a familiar name in the header position.

“Defina?”

Arthur leaned back in his chair for a moment to mull it over, he seemed to remember that the lady who had been sent to lure Bernie Harrison into the bait was by that name.

Earlier Arthur had thought that De Fina’s Polish experience was made up, after all, he had dealt with Ms. Fiona long enough to know that in most cases you would have a hard time getting half the truth out of these ladies.

But occasionally there was no shortage of people like De Fina who took real experiences and embellished them a little, and then went out to do business.

Just as Arthur was thinking about whether or not to circle a name first, suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

As soon as the words fell, Arthur saw Tom leading two people inside the office.

Tom walked forward while taking advantage of the duo’s inattention to make a wink to Arthur, while speaking, “Sir, these two are ……”

Arthur just smiled and put down his epistle, “Mr. Newman and I are old acquaintances, as for the gentleman next to him, I guess it must be Mr. William Gladstone, right?”

Gladstone was a bit surprised that Arthur recognized him in one breath, “How did you know who I am?”

Arthur smiled and gestured for him to sit down first, then spoke, “It’s simple, most of the people visiting Scotland Yard today are clerics. The fact that you are not wearing a friar’s robe means that you are not a priest, and there are only two visitors today who are not priests. One is Mr. Disraeli and the other is you. Mr. Disraeli did not go to college, while you are a brilliant graduate of Oxford. Being able to appear with Mr. Newman, the Oxford chaplain, then I can only guess that you are Gladstone.”

After hearing Arthur’s analysis, Gladstone couldn’t help but nod his head and say, “I have to say that your reasoning ability is really as amazing as the newspapers said.”

Newman also smiled softly, “William, I told you so. Mr. Hastings can be different from ordinary police officers, his ability is outstanding, which is not only reflected in solving cases, but also in his speeches. What’s more, he also has a fair and kind heart.”

Hearing Newman praising him one by one, Arthur just said modestly, “Mr. Newman, you are still overpraising me, I was just doing my share of things. If the police can’t even do these most basic things, neither being kind and just nor capable of solving cases and reasoning, then what exactly is the use of setting up this department?”

Saying this, Arthur got up again and poured them a pot of tea, “But then again, did you and Mr. Gladstone specially come here today specifically to catch up with me, or is there something else going on?”

No sooner had Arthur finished speaking than Newman fished a newspaper out of his pocket and spread it flat on the table.

Arthur glanced at it, and sure enough there was that report again about the number of prostitutes and the Bishop of Exeter’s series of exaggerated descriptions.

With a serious look on his face, Newman asked, “Arthur, I know you would never lie to me. For the love of God and your devout faith, can you tell me just how far things have reached in London now?”

Gladstone also reminded, “Mr. Hastings, you may not know that since I graduated from Oxford, I have been doing similar persuasive work on the streets of London for the past few months. So …… I hope you will be able to act with impartiality in this regard and not hold back, I think the current situation is perhaps far worse than the official figures from Scotland Yard.”

Hearing this, Arthur simply pulled out a document from the filing cabinet behind him and handed it over as he spoke, “Mr. Gladstone, there is no need for Scotland Yard to lie in this regard. I also realize that the situation may be worse than we say. But we can only speak on the part that has been confirmed so far, at the request of the House of Lords’ Bishops, we have recently conducted another detailed census of the rogues in the city of London, and there are 1,895 in the brothels, 2,612 street prostitutes, and of course, most notably, the dark prostitutes, and there are 3,864 in that section that we can confirm.”

“Dark prostitutes?” Gladstone was flabbergasted by this emerging term, “What is a secret prostitute?”

(End of chapter)