676: Chapter 330: News from France 676: Chapter 330: News from France In a small coffee shop by the road, Arthur found a seat by the window and casually ordered so French desserts like roasted Bleu, croissants, and Mont Blanc.
Not long after the desserts were served, Arthur saw a tall gentleman with shiny slicked-back hair pushing the door open to the cafe.
The wind chis fluttered, followed by Arthur’s voice as he waved a greeting.
“Mr.
Coconut, it’s been so long, yet you remain as youthful and radiant as ever.”
Upon seeing Arthur, Mr.
Coconut ca over with a small leather bag, jokingly making fun of himself, “I’m just glad you’re alone today.
If I saw that friend of yours again, I’d have to let him vigorously massage my steel-like pectorals.”
After Mr.
Coconut said that, he noticed the assortnt of desserts on the table: “You’ve gone to so trouble, but honestly, although these desserts taste good, the al I miss the most is the pies covered with herb ash that I used to eat at lousy taverns with old buddies after a day’s work before I made it big.”
Arthur wasn’t in a hurry to delve into the main topic.
Ever since he had t Mr.
Victor, he had been thinking about recruiting this legendary detective and his team.
Although Arthur had managed to construct the Criminal Investigation Departnt at Scotland Yard from scratch, there probably was no one better than Victor in the world when it ca to the application and managent of a detective departnt.
Over the past year, through his correspondence with Victor, Arthur’s respect for this French gentleman in his fifties had only deepened.
Whether it was Victor’s pioneering work in ballistics, forensic science, or the way he had his detectives in Paris masterfully use disguise to effortlessly monitor dissenters in Paris, or even the secret files he kept on all of Paris’s underground cri organizations in the Security Departnt, all were things that Arthur coveted.
It could be said that if Victor were willing to co to London for a higher position, Arthur could imdiately hand over complete control of the Criminal Investigation Departnt to this forefather of the detective industry.
Perhaps, for the senior officials at the Paris Police Headquarters, a capable yet restless person like Victor was a headache.
But for Arthur, a rootless floater at Scotland Yard, watching Victor grow within Scotland Yard wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
After all, with his personal capacity, it was very challenging to stand against the original shareholders of Scotland Yard—senior officers coming from the Army.
He rely went to Liverpool, and Chief Rowan nearly ssed up his entire base.
If it wasn’t for the Ho Secretary, Viscount lbourne, considering the feelings of the High Chancellor, Lord Brougham, it’s likely that Arthur could soon be moving his front line from Scotland Yard to the newly established London District Prosecution Office altogether.
However, as the old saying goes, there is no prince for sixty years, so naturally, there can be no High Chancellor for sixty years either.
Although Lord Brougham seed very secure in his position on the surface, those familiar with Britain’s political landscape knew that radicals like Brougham couldn’t hold high positions for long under normal circumstances.
His current position as High Chancellor was rely a temporary asure by the Whig Party to push for parliantary reforms and thereby stabilize their ruling status.
The situation was the sa for the current Pri Minister, Earl Grey.
Once the parliantary reforms were completed, and these two radicals still insisted on pushing other liberal reforms, it wouldn’t be long before they had to be replaced.
According to Arthur’s understanding of Lord Brougham, his ntor was clearly not a man to compromise easily.
Therefore, to remain undefeated in these turbulent tis, there were only two reliable paths to choose from.
One was to maintain good cooperative relations with both parties.
For civil servants like him, who had to choose sides, firmly taking one side was undoubtedly foolish.
But even though that’s said, maintaining good relations with both parties at the sa ti wasn’t an easy task.
If not well managed, it could easily displease both sides, ending up being attacked by a group.
To solve this problem, it was necessary to spend so effort establishing his own solid base.
As long as the base was stable, whether it was the Whig Party or the Tory Party, they had to weigh whether the benefits of their actions outweighed the costs before making a move.
In other words, Arthur needed to have so reasons that made it difficult for the bigwigs to replace him, so solid work achievents, a good social reputation, and perhaps mix in so minor personal relationships.
And Victor could just help Arthur solve the first problem.
Mr.
Coconut reminisced, “That was truly a wonderful era; we were all still young back then.
The boss wasn’t called Victor; he preferred to use aliases for his missions, like ‘Jean Louis’ or ‘Julius.'”
I still rember the first mission the boss took us on.
We were standing on the street in front of his new residence on Saint Francois, smoking, when we suddenly noticed a few guys with heavy packages darting out of an alley.
But as soon as they saw us, they turned back as though they were avoiding the streetlights and pedestrians outside.
We were about to go up and interrogate them, but the boss stretched out his hand to stop us.
He told us not to spook the snakes.
Let’s follow them for now, these vipers will definitely co out of their holes again.
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