Chapter 86: Diplomatic cases

Chapter 86 Diplomatic Cases
The thirty-fourth policing of the year in the Greenwich Police District was attended by Inspector Arthur Hastings and four sergeants in conjunction with a number of undercover police officers.

Arthur scanned the material at hand and opened his mouth.

“The meeting is now in session then. By order of the Home Office and Scotland Yard, undercover police officer parade rallies continue to be scheduled this week. I’m sure you’ve all received the pay increase notice, starting this week, all police officers will receive a twenty-five percent increase in their pay packages.

The Prime Minister and the Home Office are very pleased with the results of our work, and a special bonus may follow as a result of the detection of a major disappearance in the parish of St. Giles in this police district.”

Hearing this, everyone here couldn’t help but reveal a smile.

And Arthur also turned his words to Sheriff Jones, “Jones, you’ve done a great job this time. Not long after you took up your new post, you took down several gangs of body snatchers in one fell swoop, and in terms of ability and mission fulfillment, you are undoubtedly the most outstanding in this police district.

To be honest, your work ability is much better than that old boss of mine, Willox. In this year’s work report, I will consider giving you a higher rating grade at my discretion. When you have accumulated enough years of experience as a sergeant, my promotion recommendation letter will be sent to you immediately.”

When Jones heard this, his heart first shuddered, then he hurriedly stood up and saluted, “All from you, sir!”

The Red Devil leaned against the window and narrowed his eyes, “Arthur, there’s something wrong with this kid. Doesn’t it all show clearly in your missing investigation report? The gangs of body thieves that this kid has found out about are basically all related to those missing people who can’t be seen alive or dead.”

Of course Arthur knew there was something wrong with Jones, he had been running back through the recent internal cases at Scotland Yard these days.

Starting with the lost gun case in Willox, then the loss of stolen goods from the police district, followed by this missing person case in the parish of St. Giles.

Coincidentally, Jones had been involved with basically all of these cases, starting with the fact that it was Willox’s position as sergeant that he had come to the Greenwich police district to pick up.

Secondly, when Arthur went further up Jones’ history and promotion documents, he realized that this kid was actually recommended by Superintendent Clemens, who was in charge of St. Giles Parish.

With this highly overlapping career history, it was almost impossible not to suspect him.

If we follow this logical reasoning, then it means that all the people in Clemens’ faction in Scotland Yard have problems.

Although Scotland Yard had only been established for a year, there were similarly mountains within it.

The middle-level cadres in Scotland Yard basically all came from middle and lower level officers who had retired from the Army.

However, although they are also from the Army, due to the different types of soldiers and service regiments, they have also divided themselves into a number of factions.

Those who used to serve in the cavalry regiment clung together, those who served in the infantry clung together again, and of course, there was the noble close guard regiment, as well as the bombardiers who had their noses up in the air and looked down on anyone.

Arthur could often hear the inspectors joking about the gags of the opposing regiments when he held his mid-level policing meetings at Scotland Yard every Monday.

For example, several police inspectors from the 15th Infantry Regiment were regularly mocked for being ‘airgunners’.

The reason why they were called that was because three battalions of the 15th Infantry Regiment had emptied their bullets during the Battle of Brandywine Creek in the American Revolutionary War back in the day, so they allocated the rest of their bullets to the best shooters. The rest of them simply loaded their guns with powder and no bullets to avoid embarrassment, and fired blanks to bolster the guys’ morale.

And as the 1st Close Guard Infantry Regiment, which held both the noble modifiers ‘Throwing’ and ‘Close Guard’, and which defeated the elite French Throwers at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and which was thus given the Royal prefix and renamed the Royal Close Guard Throwing Regiment, did not escape the Mockery.

The police inspectors never mentioned the regiment’s Royalty, nor the Throwers or the Close Guards; they simply called those 1st Close Guards Infantry Regiment inspectors ‘coal diggers’.

The reason for this was also very simple, as the regiment’s commanding officer used to rent out his soldiers to haul coal to raise money for the renovation of the officers’ mess at St. James’s Palace.

Of course, it wasn’t always the infantry who were mocked, and the police inspector, who had been discharged from the cavalry, couldn’t run away from being mocked by the group.

The 11th Light Dragoon Regiment, for example, were called ‘cherry stealers’ because the regiment couldn’t resist the urge to steal orchard cherries when they were attacked by French troops, and so had to take part in battles on foot.

There was also the 14th Light Dragoon Regiment, who were gagged as ‘The Emperor’s Maids’, due to the fact that the regiment had fought heavily at the Battle of Victoria and had captured the nightjar of Napoleon’s own brother, Joseph Bonaparte. As well as the 17th Light Dragoon Regiment known as the ‘Naval Horse Guards’ because it was sent to serve in the Royal Navy for a time.

And the hill that Superintendent Clemens was on was the regiment of the Close Quarter Cavalry nicknamed ‘The Butchers of Piccadilly’, earning this title because the regiment had been involved in suppressing the riots in the Piccadilly area of London that year.

Considering that Willox was also from the cavalry, it didn’t seem like it would be hard to understand that he had some connection with Clemens.

Arthur glanced at Agareth, who was leaning against the window, and he seemed to understand why the Red Devil didn’t let him look into this case.

If it was related to the Konoha Cavalry Regiment, was it going to be stabbed to the War Ministry?

But now the War Ministry was completely under the Duke of Wellington’s domain, and the current Secretary of State for War, Henry Harding, was even the Duke of Wellington’s deputy and loyal little brother for many years.

And the Secretary of State for War’s salary up to 5,000 pounds a year, other ways to get money are also a lot of ways, really can not, he can also do the same trick, the close infantry leased out to pull the coal, why would you want to think about this indentured servant’s money and the dozens of guns in Scotland Yard?

You know, Scotland Yard’s annual funding is only more than 300,000 pounds, even if the hard deductions can be deducted out of a few oil?
Arthur couldn’t understand how to think about it.

Since he could not figure it out, he simply did not think about it.

He cleared his throat and continued to speak, “Now then, let’s report on this week’s work, the situation in the precincts are all still normal, right?”

“It’s the same as always, minor crimes are popping up all over the place, but not many violent crimes.”

“The protest rallies are all limited to a certain area as well, and it’s clear that the rallies this time are all very well organized and basically didn’t cross the line.”

“Surveillance activities for several key organizations and associations in the precinct are also running smoothly, and so far we can’t see that they have any intention of trying to start criminal activities.”

The sergeants and undercover officers reported back one by one on what they had been doing this week, Arthur listened and took notes, and before long the meeting was drawing to a close.

He straightened out the papers on his desktop, “One last point, next week the Home Office has arranged for this precinct to deploy officers to support Liverpool City Council to ensure the successful opening of the Manchester-Liverpool railroad. In addition, if anything happens in the precincts, remember to keep me informed.

Although this French revolution seems to be progressing at a rapid pace, and based on the news reported in the newspapers over the past two days, it seems that Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, has been confirmed to have gained the throne, and the situation within France has begun to stabilize, the revolution seems to be coming to an end.

However, Scotland Yard has asked us to closely monitor developments in London, after all, no one can be sure how much fallout this French revolution will cause.

The nerves of the entire Cabinet are very high right now, so don’t get confused at work at a time like this, or it won’t be something a resignation can fix when the time comes.”

“Yes, sir!”

Arthur organized the documents at hand and was planning to go out to hang around for a while.

Suddenly, Tom was knocking on the open door of the room, “Arthur?”

Arthur looked up and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Tom looked around, raised his hand over his ear and spoke, “There’s a man from the station reporting a crime.”

“Just register the report normally, why do you need to let me know specifically.”

Tom’s face was full of bitterness as he smiled bitterly, “No, this time this case feels a bit tricky. That person who reported the case said that one of his friends was lost, and he speculated that he might have suffered a kidnapping. Of course, on top of that, that friend of his is also a Frenchie.”

(End of chapter)