Chapter 68: Where’s Fred?

Chapter 68 Where’s Fred?

It was raining heavily in London today, and lightning flashed and thundered outside the windows of Scotland Yard.

The rumble of thunder and the occasional flash of lightning chains set Superintendent Clemens’ face in a particularly ugly light.

But fortunately, most of the Superintendents’ faces were like his, so it was not unique among the crowd.

The Superintendents left the doors of the conference hall, each looking at the other.

“Things seem to have gotten out of hand?”

“Didn’t you hear our young commander, Inspector Arthur? The roads out of the city from London are guarded by military police companies, and the station is now guarded by military police, so if we don’t hurry up and dig out all those who are doing business with the dead, we’ll have to suffer in the future.”

“Let’s go back and run through all the recent deaths, maybe we’ve got a few dead rats on our hands.”

“What a bunch of idiots! What’s wrong with selling, selling corpses! Tonight, we’ll work overtime collectively and search the hotels in the precincts, maybe those who make a fortune from the dead have really saved some corpses in their hands.”

“Are you out of your mind? Didn’t you listen to the young man in charge?

Check the hospitals in the district first, corpses don’t stay fresh, so they’ll definitely have to rush to the hospital after killing someone.

Investigate the hospital’s autopsy records first, anyone who can’t explain the source of the body, cuff them all for scrutiny.”

“The hotel has to be investigated as well! Didn’t they say that what’s-his-name laughing gas would be used for murder? Oh yeah, and laudanum, anything related to anesthesia, if you find a large stock in an inn, nine times out of ten there’s a problem.”

“Shops and itinerant vendors who sell these things must also be questioned, and anyone with a record of large transactions must be asked carefully, one by one!”

“The cemeteries must also be checked, it’s possible that those teams of mourners are not clean either. These corpse sellers should be more than just killers, after all, digging up graves to steal fresh corpses has been going on since the last century.”

“Fuck! I know of a few unclean grave diggers, I’ve been too lazy to deal with them in the past because these ground rats have learned to be smart, they only want corpses and don’t steal the accompanying belongings.

So even if they were arrested, at most they’d be convicted of illegal possession of a corpse, fined a little and given a release.

But now since they’ve been forced to this point, I’ll simply take them to the police.”

“Are you just too lazy to catch them then? The ground rats are all very rich. I’ve heard that the ground rats can get about ten to twelve pounds for selling a corpse, are you sure you or your men aren’t taking benefits from them?”

The superintendents were engaged in a lively discussion, but Clemens took no part in it.

He grabbed a quick goodbye to his colleagues and then rushed at a fast pace to his liaison office at Scotland Yard.

No sooner had he opened the door to his office than he realized that a familiar figure was already waiting there; it was none other than Braden Jones, the sergeant under Arthur who had taken over the duties of Arthur’s old boss, Sergeant Willocks.

Clemens breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly closed the office door behind him.

He took off his hat and placed it on the desk and asked, “You weren’t seen coming, were you?”

Jones noticed a rare hint of nervousness in his old officer and wondered, “Did something happen?”

Superintendent Clemens pointed to the door and said, “Your current boss, Arthur Hastings, is in the conference room.”

“Inspector Hastings is here?”

Now Jones was a little flustered too, and he asked, “Why is he here?”

Clemens took a deep breath and frowned, “The Ministry of the Interior ordered a thorough investigation into the disappearance at St. Giles Parish, and the War Department sent military police to back it up.

As for your boss, I don’t know how he obtained authorization from the Ministry of the Interior, he’s now the operational commander of the investigation team, and I and the other superintendents of the precincts involved in the case are all at his disposal now.”

“This ……” Jones obviously panicked, he spoke, “St. Giles can not be investigated ah! If he investigates it, then won’t our affairs be exposed along with it?” Clemens pounded his fist on his desk, “Fuck! These corpse sellers almost ruined my business. If I had known it would turn out like this, I should have straightened them out in the first place! I managed to block Duke Sussex’s application to report and investigate, but I never thought I’d end up planting them here.”

Jones hurriedly asked, “Sir, what do we do now? To block Inspector Hastings’ investigation?”

Clemens stood by the window and looked at the heavy rain that filled the street, his mind slowly regained its composure and his mind became gradually clearer.

He suddenly spoke up and asked, “No. Haven’t you ever heard the proverb?

As soon as the rooster begins to crow, there is no silence unless the morning hours have passed.

People always worship the rising sun, not the setting sun.

That boss of yours is on a roll right now, don’t touch him, it won’t end well to go against him.

I can see Sir Peel thinks highly of him, and the man who thinks highly of us isn’t in his place right now, so we’ve got to get through this.

I don’t think the Tories will last much longer. When the Whigs come up, we’ll have something to fall back on.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have to actively cooperate with Inspector Hastings’ investigation, not only do we cooperate, but we also have to investigate faster than him, and we have to rush to uncover a part of the corpse sellers before he does. Only then can we blame the other part that went missing, along with the group of corpse sellers.”

Jones froze, “But you say that, but how? This is not a good case.”

Clemens asked, “Where is Fred now?”

Jones heard this name and immediately understood what Clemens wanted to do, he hurriedly returned, “I arranged for him to pick up the cargo from the old ship prison two days ago as you instructed, and he shouldn’t be out yet.”

Clemens calculates, “You find a chance to hurry to release him, that batch of goods first put in prison, anyway, and can not run away.

First go and let him use his connections in the underground to pull out a few of the group of people selling the corpses for me.

You go and tell him to do things quickly and neatly, the group of people selling corpses, I’m in a hurry!”

Jones suddenly gulped when he heard this, remembering the last time he saw Fred.

“But …… but what if Fred doesn’t agree? That man …… doesn’t seem to have a very good brain ……”

“No?”

Clemens turned around, he glared and picked up Jones by the collar, “Then you can tell him that I still have the case he committed back in the Close Guard Cavalry Brigade in my hands.

He can play rough with Willox, but he can’t play rough with me! I’ve got plenty of ways to get rid of him.

When you meet him, bring your gun. If he refuses, you’ll kill him on the spot!

In fact, it makes no difference in the outcome, it’s just that we have less extra income.

Let’s hand over Fred’s body, and the disappearance can be explained just as well.”

Jones looked steadily at this old boss of his, the cold sweat on his back ceasing to flow.

Only after a long time did he remember to raise his hand and salute, “Yes, sir!”

(End of chapter)