Chapter 226: Continental Showdown (K8)

Chapter 224 – Continental Showdown (5K8)

“Be honest, or I’ll shoot you in the head!”

In the box on the second floor, the moment the barrel of the gun was shoved into Elder’s mouth, the Royal Navy cartographer finally realized that something was wrong.

“Huh?”

The black cloth that was over Elder’s eyes was pulled off with a single hand, and it was then that he realized that Miss Coconut Tree, who had been so charming in his eyes just a moment ago, had disappeared, and in her place was a French bruiser with semi-short hair.

Coconut Tree’s eyes widened as she questioned, “Say! Where is Alexander Dumas? I’ll warn you first, don’t sneak around in front of me or I’ll send you to God right away!”

Elder woke up as if in a dream, and I don’t know whether it was because of shame or anger, but he was not only not afraid, but he broke into a rage.

“You …… you fucking dare to cheat my feelings!”

“Deceive your feelings?” Coconut tree is also on fire, he cursed, “You fucking still play with my flesh!”

“Ugh?” Elder said in surprise, “So, we’re even?”

“What the fuck is your logic?!”

Dumas and Tom, who were lying under the bedpan, heard the two arguing, and the two couldn’t stop muttering.

“What’s going on here? The two are arguing?”

“I told you, how could anyone look at Elder, probably trying to blackmail him.”

“Why don’t I go out and relieve him, it wouldn’t be good if the two of them got into a fight here.”

“Don’t, just ignore him, he’s caused his own trouble, let him deal with it himself.”

Just as Tom was hesitating to go out, suddenly there was another knock on the door in the room.

Only a creak was heard, the door to the room opened, and a voice that sounded familiar to Dumas instantly rang out.

“Coconut Tree, just clean up the person without making a scene. No matter what, this is also a friend of Mr. Hastings, we are only here for Mr. Dumas on this trip, otherwise don’t offend him too much.”

Coconut Tree gritted his teeth and glared at Elder, if it wasn’t for the position of section chief, would he be sitting in this position?
Coconut Tree let out a long sigh, then responded with a face full of humiliation, “Chief, don’t worry, I’ll do it with a sense of propriety.”

Vidocq just glanced around the room, and soon, his eyes fell on the two chairs placed in front of the window.

A playful smile suddenly appeared on his face as he glanced at the room’s king-sized bed and then at the two chairs, “I seem to recall that this is Mr. Hastings’ personal lounge, isn’t it?”

Coconut Tree nodded, “That’s right, he’s quite good at enjoying himself, there’s a bed and furniture, so he could just live here if he packed it up.”

Vidocq asked again at Vakur beside him, “As I recall, we investigated before, it seems that Mr. Hastings hasn’t established a special relationship with any lady yet, right?”

Wakul also nodded: “Boss, according to your instructions, I sent my brothers to follow him in turns when we first arrived in London, that kid is almost three points a day, Lancaster Gate, Whitehall Street, Wheatstone Musical Instrument House, his itinerary doesn’t change for a few days in a row. With such a regular life, and no women in Scotland Yard, he certainly had no time for love affairs.”

When Coconut Tree heard this, she couldn’t help but ask, “No, I remember the other day, didn’t you tell me that Hastings was in the café with a lady ……”

Wakul’s heart was in his throat when he heard this, and he rushed to glare at Coconut, but it was too late.

Vidocq’s sharp, appalling eyes locked onto Vakul in a flash, “What’s going on here?”

Vakul only felt his throat dry up as he swallowed heavily, “Chief, it’s really no big deal. It’s just an unassuming woman, Mr. Hastings just sat with her in the cafe for a while.”

Vidocq sniffed and directly lifted Wakul’s collar, “Fuck, why didn’t you say something like that earlier? Didn’t I tell you to tell me all the information, everything?”

Vakul reluctantly smiled, “Chief, although the words are like that, but I thought that if I have any information, it’s best to investigate it clearly before telling you, after all, you’re usually quite busy, aren’t you?”

“Then have you investigated clearly?”

“This ……” Wakul said with a trembling voice, “I sent someone to follow that chick for two days, the first day she went to the Russian embassy, the second day well…. . the next day she was lost ……”

“You lost her?”

“No, no, not the chick ……”

“Oh, that’s okay ……” Vidocq’s heart had just dropped, but in a split second, Vakur’s words once again raised his blood pressure.

“It’s the guy we sent over to follow the chick that got lost ……”

“Waste!” A wave of bad luck washed over Vidocq, “That chick is definitely not a good person, you’ve fucking been found out by her! Wait, you just said she’s been to the Russian Embassy, can’t it be that she’s an old Maoist?”

Vakul hurriedly looked back and added, “Chief, you are really wise! It was only after our follow-up investigation that we realized that that chick did seem to work at the embassy.”

Hearing this, Vidocq was so angry that he raised his hand and slapped Vakul, “In other words, our people have fallen into the hands of the Russians? Do you know how Mr. Talleyrand would react if he knew about this? He would kill us!”

Wakul also panicked when he heard this, he tried his best to clear his name: “Mr. Vidocq, the man who lost is just a local gangster I hired, even if the Russians capture him, they won’t be able to find out anything from his mouth. I believe we will be fine.”

Vidocq looked at Wakul’s face, and after taking a long time finally suppressed the fire in his stomach, he impatiently shook his hand and said, “Forget it, let’s finish this order first. The things behind it are to be considered later.”

Agares, who had been lying on the window sill watching the show, heard this and just covered his mouth and snickered, “Wow, our Miss Fiona is really a capable woman, if Arthur, this little bastard, had known that Fiona not only privately took someone to hide a hand, but also did not report it knowingly, then I’m afraid that the one who’s being tied up on the bed today wouldn’t have been the Elder brat. ”

Elder listened to the Frenchmen as they spoke to each other, and wondered if it was because of the two feet off the ground that after the passion ebbed, the clever intellect took the high ground again.

“Wait, you guys are going after Alexander? You’re the new French assassins?”

Vidocq sniffed, but just smiled kindly and said, “This gentleman, don’t talk so harshly. We were just asked by someone to ask Mr. Dumas to return to Paris.”

Elder said with a big grin, “Return to Paris? Then you guys are quite cheap, I thought you guys were going to take him back to the plantation. But you are unlucky today, Alexander is not in the theater.”

“Is that so?” Vidocq glanced at the two chairs in the window and slowly leaned over to look under the bed, “That’s not necessarily true.”

His eyes met Dumas’ face exactly.

For a moment, the air fell into a dead silence, and after the two of them looked at each other, Dumas just turned around slowly with an expressionless face, propping his head up with one hand, leaving only his broad back to Vidocq.

But this kind of cover-up was obviously of little use.

It didn’t take long for him and Tom, along with Elder, to be thrown to the ground, tied up.

“Elder, look what the fuck you’ve done! Even if you picked up a guy to pick up a girl, you still got me into it together!”

“Why don’t you talk about you! Who brought the flies here today? Oh, God! You see what I’ve done! I rubbed a Frenchman’s ass, and a man’s too! Tom, why don’t you just shoot me later? I’ve been humiliated enough today. If I die at the hands of a Frenchman, it’ll be the worst humiliation of my life. Please don’t let me sully the honor of the Royal Navy.”

“Mr. Carter, don’t you notice that I’m tied up here too?”

“Yes! Why are you tied up here too, and where is your gun?”

“Mr. Vidocq just bet my gun was empty.”

“And what happened?”

“He bet right.”

“Why don’t you carry bullets then, are Scotland Yard’s sidearms usually used by you as burning sticks?”

Tom felt only a little aggrieved, “Mr. Carter, you don’t know. Scotland Yard is not like the Royal Navy, our gun regulations are really too strict, Arthur is now transferred out of his real power position, and all these things like ammunition are kept independently by each police district. If he wants to get some bullets, he’ll definitely have to go through a paperwork process from Director Rowan, but as you know, there’s been a bit of a falling out between the two of them lately, and the paperwork approval shouldn’t go that smoothly.” Vidocq leaned over in his chair to look at the three living creatures, his pipe in his mouth, his legs crossed as he lifted his skirts, and he had the leisure to chat with them while Vakur went off to call for the carriage.

“Wow, so Mr. Hastings’ life hasn’t been very pleasant lately either, that’s for sure. Generally speaking, he has absolutely no need to pay any attention to a Frenchman who has lost his protection order. It seems like he, like me, is trying to use this opportunity to make a comeback?”

When Elder heard this, he just got angry and said, “What do you, a Frenchman, know about anything, Arthur is doing both for his friends, and we, graduates of the University of London, have people at the top now!”

“People at the top? You need to play ditties here on the side to have people at the top?”

Vidocq pinched his chin, which had just been shaved of stubble this morning, and looked down from the window to the theater stage, where Mendelssohn raised his white gloves and bowed with a smile in the midst of thunderous applause, while behind him in the dark shadows of the curtains, Arthur, dressed in a black ink tuxedo and with a figure as straight as a sword, pushed back the hair that adorned his forehead, and his oily black hair contrasted with the white gloves! Arthur’s eyes, glowing with a light red light, flickered and darkened, and he was about to make his entrance.

Vidocq stared at Arthur as he stepped onto the center of the stage and sat down on the bench in front of the piano with a flick of his tuxedo back hem as the legend of French crime and police ordered in this moment, “Mr. Hastings, excuse me. Now, all hands prepare for evacuation.”

And so at the same time, almost at the same moment, not far from the box where Vidocq was, in another box, Mrs. Levine was snuggled in the arms of Austrian Prime Minister Metternich, and Mr. Metternich, who had a full head of white hair, amused Mrs. Levine so much that she couldn’t straighten up with a laugh in a few words.

However, in the liaison of feelings, the two people still have a sentence without a sentence to test each other up.

Mr. Metternich, as if he had mentioned it offhandedly: “Dorothea, next time you go back to St. Petersburg to visit your relatives, you must remember to greet His Majesty the Czar for me. I’ve heard that he’s different from his brother, the current tsar pays special attention to these details, and if you don’t contact him often, the relationship will soon become distant.”

Mrs. Levine just winked playfully, “Greetings? Of course. It’s just that I don’t intend to go back just yet for a while, because I’ve heard that His Majesty is very angry about Belgium’s independence and said that they must be given a stern lesson. You know, my dear, the Tsar’s anger is a very serious matter inside the Russian court. At times like this, it’s best not to touch him.”

“Ah ……” Metternich smiled, “Then, if you can bring back a good news for him, I think it must be able to soothe his anger, right?”

“Good news?” Mrs. Levine feigned ignorance, “You mean Austria intends to stand with us? But you’ll probably upset the British if you do?”

Metternich sniffed and just took Mrs. Levine’s arm, “My dear, I would do anything for you.”

Although Mrs. Levine knew that nine out of ten sentences of this man in front of her were lies, at this moment, she didn’t mind playing along.

“Clemens, you’re always so naive. But that’s why I love you so much.”

The two foxes were playing chatty here, while Viscount Palmerston and Mrs. Cowper in the next box were much more matter-of-fact.

They had taken a short break with their glasses of red wine and were planning to enjoy an outstanding song from Arthur.

Mrs. Cowper slightly straightened her messy clothes, raised her glass to clink with Palmerston, and asked with a smile, “Henry, I saw Mr. Metternich go into the next room earlier, won’t you, the new foreign minister, go and greet the Austrian chancellor?”

Hearing this, Viscount Palmerston simply reached out and embraced Mrs. Cowper in his arms, as he proudly puffed out his chest and said, “My dear, in my opinion, Metternich should have come to visit me if he knew what he was doing. If he thinks he can accomplish anything by virtue of Austria, then I shall give him a severe lesson in the London Conference on behalf of Great Britain.”

When Mrs. Cowper heard this, she was suddenly a little worried, “But …… Henry, if you do this, will you not show too strong? As you understand, whether it’s the Tories or the Whigs, the mainstream view now is that they want peace.”

When Palmerston heard this, he just smiled and comforted, “My dear, hope for peace because they are not sure they can win. Besides, the Duke of Wellington already took care of me yesterday, telling me not to show the slightest concession to Austria, and Metternich just touched his nose with him two days ago. The old fellow can’t set himself straight till now, and I want him to understand that he is nothing as Chancellor of the Austrian Empire without the support of Great Britain.”

In the Coburg Theater, everyone had something in mind, and just as the group was calculating how to make the most profit, God, as if he had heard their call, suddenly dimmed the lights in the entire hall.

The darkness came in like a tidal wave, and the intrigue was all but hidden.

The audience gasped, and just as they were about to complain about why the theater had taken the lighting problem so lightly, the piano burst into life.

“God! So this is some sort of brand new form of performance?”

The lights above the stage were so dimly lit that the audience could see almost nothing, and as they beat their heads against the wall, all they could see was a pair of hands leaping over the keys.

“Perhaps this will focus us more on the music itself?”

“I’ve heard for a long time that the Bells are difficult, so is this an intentional demonstration of what that up-and-coming pianist, Mr. Hastings, has accomplished in terms of technique?”

One by one, the audience was making wild guesses, but invariably stopped complaining, and the last bit of dissatisfaction in their hearts soon vanished along with the blistering notes.

And in the midst of the music, they could intermittently hear a solid, heavy footstep.

Thump, thump, thump!
It sounded as if someone were marching forward on the stairs, and as if someone were ringing a bell, but there were others who thought that it might not be a bad accompaniment to the novelty.

White gloves gripping a police officer’s knife, paired with a brand-new black bowler hat, all that could be seen in the pitch blackness was a pair of faint, almost imperceptible ruddy awns on the staircase that were gradually climbing with the footsteps.

Arthur’s form blocked the path that Vidocq and his party were bound to take, and the two groups tacitly did not say a word, for the group knew it was not a good idea to make a big deal out of this.

On stage, Mendelssohn poured out the score of The Bells, and although he had heard Mr. Moscheles brag about its difficulty many times, and it did feel a bit overwhelming the first time he took it on, the young musician, who was committed to becoming the greatest pianist since Bach, was not overwhelmed by it.

The butterfly-like notes came out one after the other, the orchestral instruments playing, accompanied by a tinkling and crunching from the second floor.

The moonlight shone through the window on Mendelssohn’s fingers, and as he played, sweat fell down Mendelssohn’s cheeks, dripped down his neck and onto his chest, and stained the pleated edges of his white shirt, which was like a brocade cluster of flowers.

In the darkness, the arc of a sword flashed.

Red awnings dotted and leapt like phosphorescent shimmers in a churchyard.

The encounter between the classical French swordsmanship and the Apennine Fiorentina flow started at this moment.

There were two thuds, like the sound of a back falling on the floor and rolling down the stairs.

A muffled thud, like a fist hitting the chest.

Above the stage, leaping fingertips went into a frenzy, as if the piano shook with them and the earth shook.

Suddenly, the sound of the piano lurched to a halt, accompanied by an agonizing cry, and the silent hall resounded with a cry of fear to the extreme: “Surrender!!!”

The staff who had been standing on the ladder with candles, waiting to relight the lights, immediately lit the chandeliers in turn, and in the middle of the hall, light reappeared on the earth.

Everyone’s eyes were focused on the area where the sound had just been made, and that was the two moving ‘ladies’ who seemed to be emotionally moved by Mr. Hastings’ moving performance, kneeling on the floor to cover their faces and crying more than once, while the one lying beside them was even more powerful, he actually fainted to death directly foaming at the mouth.

“Whoa! My God!”

The ladies and gentlemen in the audience all exclaimed, they had just been amazed by the piano skills, but now they were stunned by the rather shocking scene.

Perhaps before, there were still people who would feel disdain for Arthur Hastings’ nickname, ‘The Paganini of the Piano Class’, but now, there was no longer anyone who would question this appellation.

In the shocked gazes of the ladies and gentlemen, Arthur, who had already taken advantage of the confusion and switched places with Mendelssohn, slowly raised his hand, the tuxedo on his chest heaving violently, gasping for breath, obviously in order to make these three ‘ladies’ tie their hands, he was also very tired.

After adjusting his breathing, only then did Arthur finally have the time to smooth out his messy tuxedo, and with one hand pressed to his chest, he slightly bowed and greeted the audience at the scene, “An adaptation of Mr. Paganini’s The Bells, for all the guests present, and also wishing Mr. Paganini, who will soon be heading to France to hold a recital, all the best.”

As soon as the words fell, a thunderous applause immediately erupted from the audience.

Arthur smiled and raised his hand to greet the audience, while Mendelssohn, who was standing at the bottom of the stage, also asked in a whisper with an excited face, “Arthur, looking at you, did you win the fight?”

Arthur didn’t say much, he just walked off the stage after the thank you, quietly pulled back his tuxedo and showed Mendelssohn a few rips on his shirt, “Mr. Vidocq is a better fighter than I thought, it’s just a shame that it’s too old.”

Just as Arthur was planning to exchange a few pleasantries with Mendelssohn, he suddenly noticed that there was an additional beautiful figure on the spiral staircase leading from the first floor to the second floor, it was the hurriedly walking Mrs. Levine and the two Tsarist military officers who were guarding her, and from the analysis of their expressions, it looked as if they had learned some bad news.

And on the second floor, Viscount Palmerston and Mrs. Cowper seemed to be very satisfied with Arthur’s song, they purposely pushed open the window and smiled and applauded to Arthur.

When Arthur saw this, he only felt as if something was wrong.

Just as he was still pondering over it, the Red Devil suddenly grinned and put his arm all the way around his shoulder, “Yo! Arthur, it seems that the operation team you sent to the Russian Embassy is working very well, I seem to see that they are already on their way to you.”

(End of chapter)