Chapter 244: Listening Network (K4)

Chapter 243 The Listening Network (5K4)

If we were to ask Londoners to cite which geographical areas could represent the residences of London’s powerful nobles and prominent businessmen, then Maribyrn and Mayfair would definitely be at the top of this list, and at the junction of the Maribyrn district and Mayfair sits none other than the shining architectural star of the Maribyrn district.

In close proximity to the bustling commercial street of Oxford Street and the royal gardens of Regent’s Park, there exists such an up-and-coming residential area – Regent’s Crescent.

Royal architect Sir John Nash was responsible for many of the most prestigious architectural projects of his lifetime, such as the Buckingham Palace renovation, the landscaping of Regent’s Park and Marylebone Park, and the construction of Trafalgar Square, St. James’s Park and the Haymarket Theatre.

The Regent’s Crescent, however, was not the least of his outstanding works.

Since its inauguration in 1820, the Regent’s Crescent has been sought after by royalty, dignitaries, merchants and businessmen alike, and by socialites who aim to build relationships with them as a venue for the highest level of socializing and partying.

The completion of the Regency Crescent naturally led to a rapid rise in nearby housing prices, countless luxury stores, large commercial areas have been established in the neighborhood.

Once Arthur also had the opportunity to take a small suite here, at that time he just had a vague concept of the price of housing here, until after the follow-up understanding, he was quite happy that he did not take this place from the hands of Lionel Rothschild, otherwise this favor can seem too thick.

But thinking back, did not take this place and some pity, after all, in addition to Buckingham Palace, there should be no other place like the Regency Crescent, in the morning after waking up to see so many celebrities shocked Europe.

However, fortunately, a friend of Arthur’s was recently moving to a new home, and his new home was here.

In the early morning of London, the fog had not yet lifted, in a thin vapor, the wheels slowly stopped in front of the Regency Crescent.

With a black riding boot on the hard gray brick road, and smoke puffing out from under his large-brimmed hat, Arthur looked up at the ivory-white, moon-like complex with its sinuous beauty, and behind him was a stunning view of Regent’s Park, the late King George IV’s greatest masterpiece.

With that single movement, his figure was caught by the guards manning the entrances to the Crescent.

The guard stomped his way to him, first looking up and down at his clothing, and then opened his mouth to ask, “Sir, may I ask who you are looking for?”

Arthur simply returned, “Mr. Charles Wheatstone, I have an appointment with him.”

The guard dawned on him, “Then you must be Mr. Hastings, right? Mr. Wheatstone already greeted us last night, just go straight up when you arrive, door number 2-1B, let me show you the way.”

Arthur nodded slightly, under the guard’s guidance, Arthur soon arrived at the door of the room with the black iron and gold trimmed door plate.

The guard gently rang the bell, accompanied by a few jingling sounds, the door of the room was pulled open in a short time, and the face that appeared behind the door was none other than Mr. Wheatstone, who had heavy black circles under his eyes.

He wore a sleeping cap on his head and stretched with a yawn, “Arthur, so early?”

Arthur glanced at his appearance and simply asked, “Are you just going to bed?”

Wheatstone let him inside, poured himself a cup of coffee, and nestled into the couch next to the fireplace in the living room, “I’m a little too excited about just moving to a new home, and I can never fall asleep when I’m lying in bed tossing and turning.”

Arthur surveyed the six-bedroom room with two floors up and down, placing the gift he carried in his hand on the coffee table, “Looks nice, this place shouldn’t be cheap.”

Wheatstone sank into the sofa with satisfaction, squinting his eyes only to feel his head giddy as if stepping on clouds, “Indeed it’s not cheap, the whole four thousand pounds, if it were in Greenwich, this money is enough for me to buy a street.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow, “No wonder you were dead set against taking the perfume yesterday and had to let me pay cash, so it’s because of this house. Mr. Eitel really wasn’t wrong, women are fine with coaxing, a bottle of perfume will do the trick, but men mostly aren’t.”

While sipping his coffee, Wheatstone asked, “Who is Mr. Eitel?”

Arthur took off his hat and hung it on the coat rack, “A painter and a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, I still have his business card here if you’re interested in getting a portrait from him. But incidentally, it’s not cheap.”

Wheatstone thought about it for a while, but finally spoke up, “It’s better to do it a while later then, this house has almost taken out the money I made from the sale of my gramophone. I also plan to open a branch on Regent Street, the rest of the money can’t be messed with for the time being. But then again, what are you doing running over here so early today? It can’t be specifically to give me gifts, right?”

When Wheatstone said this, he suddenly asked again, “By the way, that perfume you had yesterday, Rui Mystery, was it really expensive?”

Arthur lifted his coffee cup, “That depends on how you define it, if it’s two hundred pounds a bottle, it’s definitely not worth it. But for those upper class noblewomen to pay a few pounds or even a dozen pounds to book a subscription, I’m sure there should be people willing to do so. You’ve never met Mr. Ree Mystery, so you shouldn’t know that he’s actually quite experienced in holding noblewomen. Hunger marketing, private orders, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have known that someone had pulled this off in the 19th century.”

Wheatstone savored it for a moment, “Then …… perhaps I should pitch him before he gets it up and running. Would Mr. Riddle be interested in setting up store on Regent Street? When I dish up a store there, perhaps I could consider dedicating half the area to him to sell perfume.”

Arthur just laughed as he flung the business card in his pocket in front of Wheatstone, “Talk to him yourself. I don’t think Mr. Rui Puzzle would want to see me again anytime soon, he seems to hate the police. I can understand that though, it’s kind of a common French thing.”

Wheatstone shook his finger and said, “That’s different Arthur, he hates the police because he thinks you’re going to knock him around, but if you can help him make money then his attitude will soon change. Look, take me for example, I hate dealing with people, but the two of us are getting along just fine now because I’ve made such a nice house off of you selling records and phonographs, then those things are in the past.”

Arthur pulled a pen and paper out of his jacket pocket and took notes, “Charles, it looks like your social phobia is pretty much over. In that case, would you be interested in taking the stage at the Royal Society next month to give a talk to the group? Mr. Faraday’s side I have been procrastinating is not a thing, incidentally, I have a bit of gossip here, because of the invention of the phonograph, it seems that the Royal Society is planning to get an acoustics laboratory and let you be the director of the subject, I don’t know if you have any interest in it?”

When Wheatstone heard this, his entire body stiffened, “Even if it’s a lecture, a special lab? How did they come up with that? I’m fine staying at home and getting it myself, a lab doesn’t interest me.”

Arthur asked, “You won’t go even if there’s special funding and a salary for the position?”

Wheatstone shook his head and said, “Arthur, you did it at Scotland Yard, so you have no idea how lowly the Royal Society is treated, can’t you see that Mr. Faraday’s tuxedo for his speeches is washed and re-washed and he can’t afford to get a new one for years? My life now is much more comfortable than staying at the Royal Society, let me go to be the director of the laboratory, I might as well go back to open my musical instrument company.”

Hearing this, Arthur suddenly pondered, “Then you say, if I persuade Mr. Faraday to come out and do it, is there any chance of success?”

Wheatstone just thought he was joking: “Come out and do it? Mr. Faraday would most likely be reluctant, he doesn’t care much about money, he just wants to do his own experiments quietly. He just wants to do his own experiments quietly. It’s not as if there were no companies that wanted to hire him before, but they were all rejected by him one by one. If you ask me, although Mr. Faraday is already highly respected, his status is still underestimated.

People say Sir Isaac Newton was the closest man to God, as it says on his tombstone in Westminster Abbey – Nature and the laws of nature are hidden in darkness. And God said, Let Newton go! And so everything turned to light.

And it seems to me that Mr. Faraday is the nearest thing to Sir Isaac Newton. The mysteries of electricity and magnetism, also in a state of obscurity, in a state of darkness, it was Mr. Faraday who showed us the way.

Yet it was such a distinguished man who suffered from being too much of a stickler for poverty. If Mr. Faraday had been half as good a driller as Sir Isaac Newton, he would have been a rich man by now.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow and asked, “Camping? You mean the time Sir Isaac Newton took calculus to calculate stocks and ended up losing ten years of his salary in the South Sea Company case?”

Wheatstone argued, “People make mistakes all the time, and Sir Isaac Newton was no exception. Besides, didn’t he admit his mistake? He said, I can predict the movements of the planets, but I can’t predict the movements of a mad crowd. Besides, Sir Isaac Newton had an unlimited tax exemption from the King, so losing a little money was nothing to him. If Mr. Faraday could only learn a trick from Sir Isaac Newton, he would be better off than he is now.” Arthur heard this, but just shook his head, “I on the contrary think that it is a blessing that Mr. Faraday is not like Newton, Charles, you belong to the category of not knowing the blessing when you are in the midst of it. I went to a specialty store on Regent Street a while back about Sir Isaac Newton, so I happen to know something about it.”

Wheatstone wondered, “Such as?”

Arthur savored the slightly bitter coffee in his cup and spoke, “Like Sir Isaac Newton’s famous quote, If I can see further than others, it’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. A good number of people thought that it was Sir Newton’s self-effacing remark, but in reality it had nothing to do with modesty, he was merely shading his rival, Mr. Hooker.

It’s just that most people don’t know much about Mr. Hooker because Sir Isaac Newton ordered all portraits of him burned after his death. I’ll just emphasize one thing here, Mr. Hooker was a notorious shorty, so you see now what Sir Newton really meant by that statement, don’t you?”

Wheatstone couldn’t help but laugh out loud when he heard this, “Is it true what you say? I hadn’t realized he had originally done that.”

Arthur said, “So now you see how happy the Royal Society is to have Mr. Faraday at the helm? If Mr. Faraday had been replaced by Sir Isaac Newton, guys like us who dared to compete with him in the same field of scientific research would have had to be tied up and thrown into the Thames sooner or later.”

“Hahaha, that’s true.”

Arthur saw Wheatstone laughing so happily, and suddenly, the smile on his face also brightened.

Wheatstone was furious in his heart by his look, and tremblingly asked, “How …… what is it? Is there something on my face?”

Arthur leaned back on the sofa, “Nothing, I just suddenly thought of something. It is true that Sir Isaac Newton was a very great scientist, but for his reputation to be so prominent, even more than his actual accomplishments, and for his position in the public’s mind to be far superior to that of the equally great Mr. Faraday, Charles, have you ever thought about the reasons for this?”

“Arthur, have you?” Wheatstone’s brow furrowed slightly as something occurred to him.

Arthur spoke up as he pointed to the lavish decorations that filled the room and the guards that patrolled the windows throughout the day.

“Charles, look at you, with just a gramophone, you are now among the richest scientists in all of Britain, and indeed all of Europe. Worldly success, admittedly, is still something to rejoice in for you, but I know that for figures as enamored with science as you are, there must be nobler pursuits at the bottom of your hearts.

It may be a simple but worthy epitaph, or perhaps burial in Westminster Abbey. Or perhaps a simple scientific theorem, like the Newton-Leibniz formula or something. But don’t you think it’s strange? Obviously the Newton-Leibniz formula is written in Leibniz symbols, so why should Newton come before Leibniz?”

Wheatstone gulped, what Arthur had said, he understood perfectly, “You mean, suggesting that I take the initiative to accept the invitation from the Royal Society?”

“Whether you accept or not is entirely up to you.” Arthur smiled back, “I’m just giving you a bit of reasonable ideas and suggestions as a friend.”

“But ……” Wheatstone thought for half a day and struggled to pull out a paper from under the coffee table, “Arthur, this leftover magnetic principle paper, I have already written ah. Although I produced the tape recorder, but this principle paper which is the basis of recording, are you really not going to co-sign with me? After all, from a practical point of view, you’re the one who discovered it. I’m already thankful enough to you for the phonograph and the record, I’ve earned the money, but are you going to give up on the scientific honor?”

Arthur took a sip of his coffee and said, “Charles, like you said, I’m a Scotland Yard policeman, and I’m usually busy enough with my work that I really don’t have time to be distracted from the Royal Society side of things.”

“Arthur, you ……”

“Of course, it’s not as if I’m asking for nothing by letting this go.” Arthur knocked on the coffee table, “Charles, do you know who lives next door to you in this house?”

“Who?”

Arthur smiled as he took a document out of his pocket and placed it on the coffee table, “Joseph Bonaparte, that Napoleon’s brother, the one time King of Spain. You have such a large house, I’m sure the air vents must be spacious as well?”

Wheatstone was shocked in his mind, “Arthur, what are you planning to do?”

Arthur laughed, “I want you to set up a tape recorder in the ducts of the vent.”

“That …… I can do of course, but in what name?”

Arthur laughed, “In the name of national security of course, do you think the Frenchman is to be trusted? Alexander is under my watch at all times, but for this restless member of the Napoleonic family, I’ll have to rely on you.”

“Really?” Wheatstone looked a little skeptical.

Arthur leaned back on the couch, “Believe it or not, but I must also emphasize one thing, Charles. If you want something, then you must accept loss. It’s not so easy to make a name for yourself in history, to formulate theorems, to take the presidency of the Royal Society, to be Isaac Newton. You have to understand one thing – great men are almost always bad men, but of course, you can choose to go ahead and gamble that you’re the exception.”

At the end of his sentence, Arthur pulled out his pocket watch and glanced at it, “Goodbye, Charles, I have to go to work. You now have half a day to think about it, and according to information provided by Fiona, Joseph Bonaparte is having a party tonight at his own mansion, and I am interested in several of the guests. Hopefully, I’ll hear the recording I want in my office at Scotland Yard first thing tomorrow morning.

If you can’t hear it that’s fine, you can likewise come and meet me for a drink and a chat of friendship, I have exactly half a bottle of Lussaluna left from the last time the Duke of Wellington gave it to me. It’s just as well we can clear our hands of all the good wine before I depart from there.”

With these words, Arthur rose and left the Whinstone mansion.

Stepping onto the stone path in front of the Regency Crescent, the Red Devil wandered over to Arthur.

Agareth smiled, “Arthur, are you so certain that he will bring the recording tomorrow?”

Arthur sniffed and just exhaled a smoke ring, “Of course I’m not sure.”

“Then what are you doing?” The Red Devil rubbed his hands together with a bad smile, “One in two odds, gambler’s mentality?”

Arthur glanced at him, “Agareth, I’m not like you, I’m not the devil, I can’t see into the heart, so I need some way to judge how to get along with a person and what kind of approach to use. Especially for the work I’m doing now that can’t be put out in the open. Also, I should remind you that you are the one who made me stay at Scotland Yard, and I’ve come to the position I’m in now, and a lot of things have been out of my hands. But perhaps that is what you wish to see?”

The Red Devil sniffed and just smiled, “Wow! My dear Arthur, you mustn’t always think so badly of me. This is all your own choice, who let you in this society, and have to go to be the leader? But, on the bright side, aren’t you happy now?

There are a lot of people in London who are counting on you to survive. The fat man who got away, Tom and Tony, the two kids, the Brit magazine, Fiona and her gang, or this new rich guy we just met. Arthur, you mustn’t go down; if you do, they’ll all soon be finished.”

Arthur didn’t answer, he just put his hat back on and his figure faded into the London morning mist.

The red devil looked at his figure disappearing a little bit, and the malice on his face intensified a little bit more, “Do you think they will thank you? Arthur, you are too naive, they will only feel that everything is just what they deserve. If they do well, they take credit for it. If they do badly, it’s all because of someone else. That’s human nature. Kid, if you do this, you’ll end up dead sooner or later. I hope when that time comes, your temper will still be as hard as it is now, the devil’s bargain is always out of date, even if I admire you.”

(End of chapter)