Chapter 233: Parliamentary Immunity (K)
Chapter 232 Parliamentary Immunity (4K)
London, Westminster, 4 Whitehall Street, Greater London Police Station.
Compared to half a year ago, Arthur’s office today had produced many, many changes.
The most obvious was the addition of a few nameplates outside the door of the office, which were used to emphasize the functions and authority of the office.
In addition to the intimidating Criminal Investigation Department of the Greater London Police, there was also a sign that didn’t seem to have much of a role to play – the External Liaison Office of the Greater London Police.
Of course, the External Liaison Office is only a public term for the outside world; under the Home Office system, most people would refer to it as the London Police Intelligence Service.
After this year’s Public Sector Budget was voted through Parliament, Arthur, who had just done Great Britain a great service in the London Conference, received a generous appropriation from the Home Office.
Although the funds he was able to mobilize at hand were still far from being comparable to the growing scale of Scotland Yard, but as an independent second-tier agency with an initial size of only five people, he was able to gouge down 10,000 pounds from the Ministry of the Interior’s hands of financial allocations, which was already enough to make him satisfied.
What exactly does this £10,000 financial allocation amount to?
According to the “London Police Intelligence Service Regulations” drafted by Arthur and approved and promulgated by the Ministry of the Interior, the London Police Intelligence Service temporarily categorized the intelligence officers under its jurisdiction into two categories: regular and temporary.
Among them, the regular employees were divided into three levels, from the first level to the third level, and they could respectively receive one hundred pounds, eighty pounds and fifty pounds of intelligence allowance from the bureau every year.
Therefore, even if all the staff in the Bureau are considered to be first-class intelligence officers, the annual expenditure is only a mere five hundred pounds.
What kind of name should be used to spend the remaining 9,500 pounds, this question can be considered to have worried Arthur badly.
According to Arthur’s experience in the history department, expanding the establishment is of course the best and the most practical solution, because whether it is ancient or modern or domestic or foreign, the more people under the department, the more power naturally.
However, as an organization with more sensitive job functions, the Police Intelligence Bureau could not just fool around even if it wanted to recruit people.
Otherwise, if you recruit a few unreliable, and cause something to happen, the London Police Intelligence Service, a small organization that has not been established for a long time, can not withstand the Cabinet and Parliament’s test of questioning.
So in order to be on the safe side, but also in order to spend money suddenly, Arthur can only first put their own several old friends are hung on the Police Intelligence Bureau’s establishment.
Darwin and Elder, who were far away in South America, had been coaxed into signing work contracts by him in a small hotel in Plymouth Harbor in a haphazard manner long before they left.
Not long after the wealth of the landlord Mr. Wheatstone was also forced by him to press the handprints on the contract, signed the deed of sale, now Mr. Wheatstone has changed into a scientific adviser to the London Police Intelligence Service, of course, in the open this identity is still hanging in the name of the Scotland Yard.
Even Alexandre Dumas, a fat French curly-haired man with big eyebrows, has betrayed republicanism and voted for Britain.
As for Miss Fiona Ivan, who has just been promoted to Deputy Head Maid at the Russian Embassy, Arthur has generously settled all the arrears so far with her at once. But due to too many heart eyes all over her body, Arthur felt that her official status might still need to be reconsidered.
After all, compared to Fiona, an old fart who had already formed her own ideas, Arthur thought that it might be better to have the eyes of a college student who had just left the campus a little bit clearer.
Moreover, there was another obvious benefit of developing personnel from the university, I wonder if it was due to the fact that the guys who could afford to go to university in this era generally had good family conditions, they even had the option of not having money.
This phenomenon is not limited to college students, but is also particularly evident among middle-class groups such as poets, painters, and writers, who have a lot of free time on their hands.
I don’t know whether they were influenced by the gradually increasing sales of “Cockney” magazine, these middle-class readers who read “The Hastings Mysteries” written by the fashionable novelist with the pen name of Arthur Sigma became very interested in the emerging profession of detective.
Although Scotland Yard police officers are still poorly regarded today, the mention of a police detective inspires respect.
If you told them we were looking for police informants, they would not like it, and not only would they not like it, but they would call Scotland Yard out on its police rule and centralization of power.
But if you tell them that London is in a state of decline, that crime is soaring, that we are short of staff and that we need good citizens to volunteer as detective assistants, then these educated ladies and gentlemen will be happy to lend a hand.
However, although the liaison staff of the London Police Intelligence Bureau has grown more slowly, the Criminal Crime Investigation Department of the Greater London Police Department, led by Arthur, has grown rapidly within these six months.
Nowadays, the Criminal Investigation Department already has twenty-five professional detectives who are responsible for specializing in investigating all kinds of vicious cases.
Perhaps understanding that Arthur’s rise within Scotland Yard had become unstoppable, in front of the tide of history, Director Rowan chose to open the pendulum intermittently on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to consistently find someone to lead the shift, and rest on Sundays for his work style.
And after Director Rowan was out of sight and out of mind, the Criminal Investigations Department finally began to consistently receive requests for assistance in investigations from various police districts.
As for why so many cases were received, this could not be blamed on the poor capabilities of the police districts, but rather the times were progressing too fast.
Nowadays, murders are no longer as obvious as they were in the medieval times, and the use of chemicals to commit crimes is gradually spreading in the dark corners that most citizens cannot see.
And for the frontline patrol officers who lacked relevant knowledge, asking them to solve such a case was a bit difficult for them.
Under the early morning sunshine, Arthur, with a thin layer of water vapor on his oily back, leaned back in his office seat, holding a copy of this morning’s freshly published Times in his hand, and ate cookies with his black tea while continuously drawing useful information from the news for himself.
For him, there was nothing more enjoyable than lying back in his office and pawing at the fish after having just captured a suspect.
The headlines of today’s news looked explosive, but to Arthur, this looked and felt flat.
‘Prime Minister Charles Earl Grey’s Bill for Parliamentary Reform Voted Down by the House of Commons’
“Whigs make rapid rightward shift after election victory”.
General Thomas Cochrane, Whig MP: This steering rudder is hitting faster than our Royal Navy ships”.
Lord Russell: There are crooks in the party! I am firmly opposed to anyone engaging in political speculation in the Whig Party! The reason we came to power was to reform corruption, yet some see this as an opportunity to rise to power.
Viscount Palmerston: It is natural for there to be dissenting voices in the party, and we need to take the voices of all members into account, but I have no doubt that under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Earl Grey, we will resolve this issue. “Earl Grey has called an impromptu meeting of the party to ask all Whigs to strengthen their cohesion and look towards reform.
“Tory leader Sir Robert Peel and former Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington have no comment on the blockage of the Reform Bill.
Viscount Palmerston: Peel’s heart is in the right place and the Tories are the biggest obstacle to the Reform Bill being passed.
Sir Peel fires back: “I saw with my own eyes that Viscount Palmerston went to the door on the left in the Reform Vote, and it is well known that that door was for No”.
Viscount Palmerston declared: “Nonsense. I’m just old and lost.
The Red Devil stood behind Arthur, glancing over the newspaper headlines and laughing so hard he could hardly keep his mouth shut, “These people are so funny, slinging mud, playing mind games, conspiring against each other, it’s been thousands of years, how come it’s still the same thing?”
“What’s all the fuss about?”
Arthur shrugged, “Even if another few thousand years pass, I guarantee you can still see the same scene. For that matter, those people in the Parliament are really no better than Eldar. But thank goodness for parliamentary politics, without it we’d have no way of knowing that the original gang was so funny they could practically go to the theater and be harmonizers.”
“Ohhhh ……” said the Red Devil with a bad smile, “and yet it is such a bunch of people who can decide the fate of Belgium in a few words. Look at the newspaper in your hand, that old son-in-law of your Britain, Prince Leopold, seems to have been officially admitted as King of Belgium.”
“Whatever makes the Belgians happy, they’ll have to accept this reality anyway whether they’re happy or not, hopefully Prince Leopold will be nice to them.”
After Arthur finished speaking, he picked up another document in his hand.
The Red Devil just glanced at it, then smiled and narrowed his eyes again, “Yah, Arthur, you’re really unlucky! After working as a dog for the cabinet, you always run into this kind of thing. What are you going to do this time? Your friends are planning to revolt again.”
Arthur looked at the document and couldn’t help but press one hand to his forehead as well, only to feel his chest gasping for air.
It was a debriefing document that had been passed to him by a liaison in the Oxford area, and long-windedness aside, there was only one central theme in it – the clerics in Oxford appeared to be preparing for a big story.
The Oxford clergy were certainly not a flattering position for Arthur, but he couldn’t help but owe one of the leaders of the Oxford clergy – John Newman – a favor.
After pondering for half a day, Arthur finally put down the document in front of his desk and relegated it to the unimportant side.
The Red Devil raised an eyebrow, “What? Are you going to let them off so easily? I can’t see that you’re quite sentimental.”
Arthur just glanced at Agares, “Agares, do you really not understand or are you pretending not to understand? This has nothing to do with feelings, but from the Pfhor’s point of view, right now they can’t be enemies with the clerics. I’m not sure what Earl Grey thinks in his heart, but I know that if he doesn’t go and push for parliamentary reform, then he won’t be able to stay in that position for a single day. Now that those in favor of parliamentary reform are a minority in parliament itself, if I then capture the clergy who turned to the Whigs due to the Catholic Emancipation Act, do you think I can fall on any good ground?”
Hearing this, the Red Devil merely raised an eyebrow as he licked his reddened lips and said, “Wow, my dear Arthur, you live quite understandably. In that case, why did you go and move Bernie Harrison this morning?”
“Bernie Harrison?” Arthur spoke up, “He’s not a clergyman and he’s a murderer with a compliance issued warrant, what’s wrong with me arresting him?”
“Heh ……” Agares rubbed his hands together with a wicked grin, “Let’s hope so Arthur, I wish you luck.”
When Arthur heard this, he had a feeling that something wasn’t right.
He frowned slightly, and before he could think clearly about the reason, suddenly a sharp knock sounded outside the door.
Tom rushed into the office in a hurry holding a document, he was sweating profusely and opened his mouth, “Arthur, something big is wrong!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just take a look at this.”
Tom handed Arthur the paper in his hand.
Arthur just lightly scanned it and his face immediately grimaced.
The weight of this document is not heavy, but the hidden power after a few paragraphs makes Arthur have to weigh it properly.
Tom chagrined: ”The police district those people also do not know what to do for food, why even the most basic suspect background investigation are not good. The magistrate’s court is also ridiculous, actually did not review clearly and directly issued a warrant for the arrest of a member of parliament. Right now is the time when the Parliament is in session, the House of Commons has asked us to release Mr. Bernie Harrison immediately, do you think we should release him or not?”
Arthur looked at this document in front of him and also felt that his head was two big heads.
According to the law, during the convening of parliament, members of parliament enjoy the right of speech immunity and the right not to be arrested, even if a member of parliament is involved in treasonous felonies, the Speaker must be notified and approved before his arrest can be carried out.
However, now Arthur had directly arrested a member of parliament to Scotland Yard squatting under the premise of not reporting to the parliament for approval, in the eyes of the parliament, this was tantamount to provocation in the face, completely disregarding their authority in their eyes.
As soon as Arthur thought about the causes and consequences of this incident, a possibility suddenly surfaced in his mind.
“Rowan, damn you, you dare to take this kind of thing out to fix me?”
As soon as his words fell, another knock sounded outside the door.
A small police officer timidly poked his head in, he gulped and grudgingly smiled stiffly, “That …… Superintendent Hastings …… Director Rowan asked you to come over.”
Tom asked sharply, “Did the chief say what it was about?”
“Uh ……” As soon as the small police officer heard this, he immediately laughed harder than he cried, “Tom, don’t be difficult for me, this kind of thing where do I dare to ask him? But guess …… probably …… it’s about that incident this morning, isn’t it?”
(End of chapter)