Chapter 313: Special Treatment for Sudden Maladies
Chapter 311 – A Special Treatment for a Sudden Illness
The room in the laboratory was quite spacious, and the things furnished inside were very simple, except for a Faraday cage.
But perhaps the room wasn’t so plain from the beginning, at least judging from the unburned-out fabric ashes under the window edge, there should have been curtains hanging here originally.
Inside the Faraday Cage, there was a laboratory table with various materials and parts for experiments.
As for the central figure of the incident, Mr. Charles Wheatstone’s appearance today is obviously much more chic than before.
The electronic wind caused by the strong electric current blew inside the cage, causing Wheatstone’s hair to dance with the wind, and it looked as if his roots were clearly standing up.
This Britannia gentleman, who always wore gold glasses, was completely quiet and silent, only to see him grasping a resistor in one hand and holding an ammeter in the other, and with one foot on the stool, he couldn’t help but laugh maniacally at the crowd of people who were watching him.
“Sons of bitches! If you guys have the guts, come over here! Don’t blame me for not warning you guys beforehand, even if God comes, he can’t invite me out of the cage today!”
Dumas and the others watched with their jaws agape in shock as they looked at the foul-mouthed Wheatstone, who was bursting out of his mouth, and couldn’t figure out how that mild-mannered gentleman was actually capable of doing such a thing.
Where on earth had the shy four-eyed boy of old been thrown?
Arthur was silent for a while, taking off his pipe and exhaling a puff of smoke, he rushed to the apprentice next to him and asked, “How long has this symptom of Mr. Wheatstone lasted?”
The apprentice pressed his head with a headache and returned, “About a week now. He hasn’t stopped since he found the cage.”
The other apprentice sighed as well, “The medical journals say hysteria is only for ladies. But now it seems that the doctors should be wrong, and that gentlemen can catch this disease as well.”
“Hysteria?” Dumas sniffed in surprise, “Has Mr. Wheatstone actually contracted this disease? This …… is really unfortunate for him.”
The apprentice nodded, “We even had the doctors from the Royal Hospital in Bertram come over to look at it a few days ago. The doctors felt at that time that Mr. Wheatstone was perhaps overly stressed mentally, and that he would be cured after some time of recuperation. But I didn’t expect that after a few days, Mr. Wheatstone’s condition not only didn’t get better, but even worse. He would lock himself in his cage early in the morning and wait until we went to bed before sneaking out. Whoever passes near the lab, he curses. This morning the gang couldn’t stand it any longer, so they notified the people at the Royal Hospital in BETHLEHEM, and they sent a car to the Royal Society to pick him up a couple of times, but we couldn’t get Mr. Wheatstone out of his cage in any case.”
When Wheatstone heard this, he immediately glared angrily, “Bullshit! I’ve never been sick, and my current condition is simply better than ever! The ones who are sick are you, all of you are fucking sick!”
The apprentice sniffed and sighed, “You see, gentlemen, he’s doing it again.”
Louis’ face suddenly turned a little odd when he saw this. During this time, he had taught himself a lot about medicine in order to keep up with the pace of Scotland Yard’s cases. And he certainly knew something about hysteria, a disease considered by doctors to be highly prevalent.
Louis asked cryptically, “This …… I heard that the treatment of hysteria in ladies is usually …… well …… by doctors who use their hands to help them release the mental stress. Under normal circumstances, the doctors will also ask the husband to do it himself first, and if it is not possible to do it, then it will be handed over to a professional like a doctor. However, in the case of men who are ill …… can I take the liberty of asking exactly how the Bettlem Royal Hospital intends to treat Mr. Wheatstone?”
When Dumas heard this, as a veteran of merrymaking, the fat Frenchman ‘heard the song and knew the meaning of the song’, he clapped his hands and suddenly realized, “No wonder Mr. Wheatstone suffers from this malady. After all the fuss, he’s suffocating the problem! It’s true that heroes see things the same way, although I only know some knowledge about field first aid, and I don’t have experience in giving medical diagnosis. But I had suggested to Mr. Wheatstone before his illness that he, as a person, deserved to need some love nourishment.”
Hearing this, as if in sorrow and some sadness, Heine, who was not spitting, spoke, “Alexander, though love is very beautiful. But I must say that most love doesn’t bring joy, it doesn’t cure any disease, it only pricks one like a rose.”
Dumas obviously disagreed with Heine, as a best-selling author with countless lovers who practically grew up drenched in love, his mindset was completely different from Heine’s, an unrequited love loser.
But in the way of his friend’s face, Dumas did not point out Heine’s sadness after all.
After all, not everyone can remain optimistic after being rejected by two cousins, and while Dumas intends to impart some relationship lessons to his friend, it’s obviously not now.
With a twist of his head he charged Arthur accusingly, “Arthur, I think you must pay full responsibility for what Mr. Wheatstone has become.”
“Me?” Arthur frowned slightly, “Are you saying that the work quotas I set for Charles were too harsh? Come on, he hasn’t worked in two months. During this past time, he’s been spending his days figuring out how to decipher love letters and acting as an emotional counselor and confidant brother everywhere. And on top of that, I didn’t give him the assignment.
Do you think I would be interested in the mushy, I love you, you love me messages in the Acacia column? What’s the point of me knowing about the Oxford student in training who’s planning to elope by dragging a girl he just met, the vicar of such-and-such a region who’s suspected of keeping a couple of lovers, and the youngest son of the Earl of XX’s family who’s courting a lady who could be his mother?”
Louis smiled at his words and complimented, “Sir, although these are of little use, I still have to say that you have a good memory.”
When Arthur heard this, the smoke he had just drawn into his throat stuck directly in his throat.
He coughed repeatedly, air bubbling up from his nostrils and mouth, “Louis, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“No. I meant it.” Louis smiled back, “I didn’t believe it when I used to hear people say that our archived documents were all in your head. But now it seems that what the guys say is all true.”
Arthur pursed his lips and spoke back, “That’s if you haven’t met our other employee, he’s floating out at sea right now. When he gets back, you can talk to him when you’re free, and maybe get some useless information on cross-species communication.”
Seeing that another little meeting of the Eldar was about to start, Dumas hastily pulled the conversation back, “Arthur, I’m not talking about the stressful job you’ve been giving Mr. Wheatstone. Rather, it’s that recent crackdown on the phenomenon of spring trafficking that your Scotland Yard has been engaged in, which is great, where are we going to find an experienced lady to treat Mr. Wheatstone now?”
Arthur raised an eyebrow at this and said, “Alexander, do you dare to pat yourself on the back and assure me that you’re not saying this with any semblance of selfishness?”
Dumas said with a righteous face, “That’s for sure! Love is everywhere in my life, but Mr. Wheatstone is obviously different, which is why he needs to use money to solve his problems. Now the only thing to be thankful for is that Mr. Wheatstone spends money to at least solve his problems. If it had been Mr. Carter who stayed in the cage today, it would have been a very different story, his needs were so varied that I thought perhaps I would just have to go along with it and put him in the London Zoo with his cage.”
Louis glanced at Wheatstone, who was standing in the cage, and implicitly suggested at Arthur, “Not only have we been rectifying the phenomenon of spring peddling for some time now, but we have also seized several batches of illegal publications along the way. Do you think that if we take out a few copies and give them to Mr. Wheatstone, will it help alleviate his condition?”
Just after he said this, before Arthur could say anything, Dumas was the first to ask, “What kind of goodies have you gotten?” “Shhh! Keep your voice down!”
Louis put a finger to his lips, he looked around until he was sure the apprentices weren’t paying attention to them, then he whispered, “Nothing new, mostly reprints of old works. Things like Collieran’s Fanny Hill: memoirs of a woman of pleasure, Roger Finkwell’s Merryland, John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman’s Pleasure, and a collection of novellas with a pretty long title, I think it was called Rare Truth: Venus’s Cabinet is Opened, and Her Secrets Exposed.”
Dumas exclaimed with a sniff, “Scotland Yard has really done something amazing this time! The books you mentioned are not easy to find on the market, they all seem to have been banned by the church and the government, and even the authors have been in jail, right? This kind of high-grade goods even Elder that bastard there is not a collection, he only has a collection of “Merryland”.
I still remember the descriptive language in that, masterful indeed. Like something like ‘that looks like it has a huge radius …… bigger than anyone else’s’, or ‘the land needs to be plowed carefully’, if you didn’t read the front and back, who would have thought it was an erotic novel And? I thought this was Mr. Cavendish measuring the radius of the earth.”
As soon as Dumas finished speaking, the apprentices who were listening with their ears open gathered around in embarrassment, “Gentlemen, we just heard you talking about Cavendish? To tell you the truth, we are actually interested in the radius of the earth as well.”
Seeing that the crowd seemed to have a tendency to grow larger and larger, Arthur could only hasten to warn, “Recently, Scotland Yard’s shifts are squatting full, and it seems that the council has no intention of giving us a large sum of money to build additional detention rooms for the time being, so it would be best for all of you if you don’t submit your housing applications to us in the near future, so why would you all want to cause trouble for both sides?”
The apprentices heard this and had to go home unhappy.
But when Dumas saw that everyone had left, he was still unforgiving and fished out a Police Intelligence employee card from his pocket and slapped it in Arthur’s hand, “Have you forgotten? I also work for Scotland Yard! As a member of staff, I should have the right to check for contraband, shouldn’t I? At the very least, you’ll let me finish Merryland, won’t you? What Elder has there is only the first half, and the second half has been torn up by some son of a bitch.”
Arthur sniffed and simply refused, “Alexander, if it were normal, I could grant you that request. But not during this time, it’s been tightly watched lately, so if you wait for the wind to pass, you can watch whatever you want. But if you really can’t hold back, then I suggest you go to Bond Street and find Mrs. Berkeley, her store Scotland Yard wouldn’t dare to check, you can totally go there for an offline experience.”
“Why?” Dumas frowned in disbelief, “What’s so special about this Mrs. Berkeley? I can’t believe I got a special recommendation from a Scotland Yard Superintendent.”
Louis helpfully explained, “Strictly speaking, Mrs. Berkeley was not recommended by Superintendent Hastings, but by Superintendent Motherwell of Scotland Yard.”
Heine asked, “Why do you emphasize this point in particular?”
Louis spoke somewhat helplessly, “Because not everyone can accept Mrs. Berkeley’s services either, truth be told, Superintendent Motherwell was retired from Britain’s 58th Infantry Regiment ‘Steelbacks’. And the 58th got that nickname because the regiment’s commanding officer had a fairly long tradition of flogging, and almost every soldier who served there had tasted the dip whip.
And what can be said about Superintendent Motherwell …… well …… what can be said about Superintendent Motherwell is that although he has retired from the army, he still pines for the feverish feeling he had when he was in the service. Every time after Superintendent Motherwell has been to Mrs. Berkeley’s place, he says he feels energetic, as if he is one or two decades younger, he has changed back to that twenty year old lad with whip marks crawling on his back, and even at work he is refreshed.”
“Oh ……” Dumas heard this, and could not help raising his eyebrows and commenting, “I see, after all, the service offered by Mrs. Berkeley is a ‘British vice’ ‘. Before I came to Britain, I heard that all your people here are good at this, and now I finally see the truth. But to let Mrs. Berkeley off the hook for a Scotland Yard Superintendent’s particular hobby, it seems that your Scotland Yard’s level of favoritism has recently risen to another level.”
Arthur returned, “Alexander, if you think so, you are mistaken. It is not Superintendent Motherwell who influences Scotland Yard’s judgment, he doesn’t carry that much weight. On a legal level, Mrs. Berkeley was just flinging the whip in most cases, aka letting her guests fling the whip. I’m talking about real whips, by the way, not the other way around. If that’s all she’s doing, it’s not illegal, and besides, she could easily get a legal writ of license even if she wanted to do something else.
Maybe it’s the British education system, we have bigwigs here who were taught a fair amount of stick in school, so some of them have fallen in love with it just like Superintendent Motherwell. That’s the most reason why Scotland Yard doesn’t bother with Mrs. Berkeley, she has too many people at Scotland Yard’s neck among her acquaintances, and even some royalty.
And this lady is not short of money, she invented an apparatus called ‘Berkeley’s Horse’ last year, which sold two thousand pounds in sales last year alone. So under ordinary circumstances, Scotland Yard can only put a little respect on this rich and powerful lady.”
Hearing this, Dumas couldn’t help but turn his head to look at Mr. Wheatstone, “Then, in my opinion, why don’t we arrange something fresh for Mr. Wheatstone today?”
Arthur just laughed when he heard this, “Why bother, Mrs. Berkeley isn’t the only one in London who can play with a whip, there are professionals among the police officers of Scotland Yard as well. It’s just that ……”
Louis followed suit and laughed, “Unfortunately, our methods are not as professional as Mrs. Berkeley’s though. But the good thing is that we also have Superintendent Motherwell, who not only likes to be smoked, but also knows how to do it. Although he has been retired for several years, the 58th Regiment has left him with all the old skills. Superintendent Motherwell used to say that he could whip a donkey with just ten lashes.”
Dumas shuddered at the words as he imagined the scene, the dank interrogation room, the big, bare-chested, burly man, the steaming heat rising from his shoulders, the chains coupled with the dipped whip.
While exclaiming that he had new material for his novel, Dumas couldn’t help but shiver twice.
Just as he was about to persuade Arthur to spend some money on Wheatstone, he realized that Arthur had disappeared.
Immediately afterward, a thud was heard, the sound of an electric gate closing.
The lightning in the lab room swept away almost instantly as Arthur paced with his pipe in his mouth and walked over to stand in front of the Faraday cage.
He shot a glance at Wheatstone, who was hiding in the cage, and with two fingers he reached into his pocket and clipped out his handkerchief and dropped it against the iron wall of the cage, which, long electrified to maintain a very high temperature, instantly set the handkerchief on fire.
Along with the flames, Arthur’s words rang out.
“Charles, as a concerned friend, I now have two small suggestions for you to consider at your discretion.
The first is that you get yourself out of the cage and I’ll take you up to the hospital to see if you’re really having a seizure or not. While I don’t think there’s any hysteria, if you do have certain needs that you’re not good at addressing on your own, then I can take you with me to the Bluestocking Club meeting next week and introduce you to some beautiful, educated ladies along the way. After all, looking at you as you are now, you can already speak normally in front of them.
Secondly, if you don’t come out, I will now formally arrest you here and now in the name of the Greater London Police Department for the crime of arson. However, I am fortunate enough to inform you that due to the efforts made by all walks of life in Britain for a whole year last year, according to the newly passed Offences Against the Person Act, the death penalty by hanging only applies to arson that occurs in a major military-industrial site such as the Royal Shipyard. So you don’t have to worry about hanging from the gallows by your neck. Seeing as the damage was only a handkerchief, the most you’ll be sentenced to is three years hard labor.
Charles, as a favor to me, you’d better hurry up and get out of that cage. The London District Attorney’s Office is about to be set up, and I don’t want the first case I handle after becoming a representative of the police to be one that convicts my most scientifically literate friend.”
(End of chapter)