piratefiction Chapter 178: More Money No Problem
Chapter 178: More Money No Problem
-Dante Alighieri-
The moment we opened the boarding house’s front door and stepped inside, Mrs. Hudson greeted us.
“Was everything all right?”
“Yes. The Butler Agency people were looking after this and that. Perhaps because of what happened earlier…”
Mrs. Hudson trailed off and glanced sideways.
On the first floor of the boarding house, two Butler Agency agents with expressionless faces and three inspectors from Scotland Yard were holding their posts at a proper distance from each other.
The inspectors were guarding this place because earlier, a swarm of intruders had rushed in and attempted to steal the Vatican Cameos.
Meanwhile, the Butler Agency agents seemed to be waiting here under Mycroft’s orders to provide the help I needed to steal the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg.
The way they all kept their mouths shut made it feel as if a strange battle of nerves was unfolding between the two groups.
I had heard that since the Butler Agency dealt in secret with foreign spies carrying out plots in Britain, their scope of work sometimes overlapped with Scotland Yard’s, which arrested criminals, but perhaps the emotional rift ran deeper than I had imagined.
It was a rather interesting topic, but right now there were more important matters than the relationship between police and counterintelligence agents, so I would have to think about it again later.
“Our guest is waiting, so we’ll go upstairs.”
I headed for the second floor, taking Watson with me.
“My, to summon someone and then make him wait like this. What kind of discourteous behavior is this?”
Ulrich Zuckerberg, who had arrived first, was elegantly drinking tea in the sitting room, but the moment he saw me, he sprang to his feet.
“…But I can’t say that, since I owed you greatly last time. I’m joking. I’ve been thinking I had to repay the favor somehow, so I’m glad I can help, even like this.”
“Thank you for making time. Understand that the matter is urgent and grave, so there was no other way.”
“Of course. I don’t know what it is, but it’s fortunate beyond measure that I happened to be staying in London.”
Ulrich offered me a handshake with a rather oily smile.
“I knew you were in London.”
“Hm? I’m surprised you’d show such interest in me.”
“Not interest, exactly. Zuckerberg & Co.’s Founding Thanksgiving Festival is underway, so the head of the England branch wouldn’t leave his post, would he.”
“…So you’re the type to read the papers carefully.”
“Everyone overlooks it, but advertisements are an information lode.”
“Strangely, I find I can speak with you, great hero. Hahahahaha.”
The moment Ulrich heard my words, he immediately grasped where the information came from.
His head turned quickly indeed. As expected of a member of the Zuckerburg Family.
“So then, who exactly were the people who brought me here? They suddenly said I had to meet Great Hero Holmes for something connected to Her Majesty, so I almost thought I was a spy.”
He seemed quite displeased with the Butler Agency’s attitude.
Surely the agents had maintained a high-handed manner without providing even the details. I didn’t have to see it to know.
I knew that most of the Butler Agency’s missions required secrecy, but from the receiving end, it would be terribly awkward.
No matter that London’s fate was at stake, the fact they provided no information until he arrived here meant the Butler Agency was an organization far more rigid than imagined.
Unless one belonged to it, one could not judge them carelessly, but for a businessman like Ulrich Zuckerberg, who had a far more flexible way of thinking than they did, it would have been difficult to accept.
“Could it be that Her Majesty urgently seeks a product from our Zuckerberg & Co.?”
Hm. He was misunderstanding the reason he was called in an optimistic direction.
I would have to correct him.
“The truth is…”
With no other choice, I summarized only the necessary information briefly and told it to Ulrich.
The one fortunate thing was that his reaction was so grand that it was entertaining to watch.
“…How can this happen during Founding Anniversary Week!! Even heaven is heartless!! I have raised the England branch this far, breaking through my brothers’ interference…!! Ah, Zhuge Wuhou, look down upon me…!! My dream of becoming patriarch has burned away in vain, like the ships you burned at Red Cliffs!!”
The sight of him pulling out a fan, waving it, and seeking the southeast wind was truly a spectacle.
He seemed to have lost his mind at the thought that the business foundation he had built so far to become patriarch might turn to ashes in a single day.
“I didn’t know he was such a strange man…”
“Understand. Anyone becomes like that when they face a situation where they must accept massive losses.”
If I let him go on lamenting and calling for ancestors like this, it seemed I would get no help at all, so I quickly pressed an acupoint and paralyzed Ulrich’s sagging body.
“Huh? What the hell! Ah, shiX! I was going to return to Germany because something urgent came up, but this is driving me crazy!”
“Where do you think you’re running off to by yourself?”
“Great hero! No, Detective Holmes! What the hell are you doing!! The Vermilion Phoenix is flying in, and you’re illegally detaining a German!!”
“If you want to do business in London for a long time, shouldn’t you contribute to the local community?”
“Don’t ask so much of me when I’m not even British to begin with!!”
“If this matter is resolved well, I will personally report Young Master Ulrich’s exploits to Her Majesty.”
“I might turn into charcoal, and you’re talking about honor! Huh?! What use is it!”
Ulrich screamed in fear for a while, his body paralyzed, but I had no intention of releasing him.
“Rest easy. If we take the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg and bring it to the sea, London will be safe.”
“Perfect for getting burned to death. Stealing the egg is at least somewhat realistic, but how do you plan to make peace with the Vermilion Phoenix? If you carry the chick to the sea, it’ll go, ‘Perfect,’ and try to kill you.”
“The Butler Agency has prepared a fast boat. We steer into the channel, then jump off midway, and it’s solved. There’s no need to deliver the egg directly with human hands.”
“That’s a marvelous plan indeed…”
As expected.
Since I began with the hardest part of this plan, returning the egg to the Vermilion Phoenix in time before it was too late, Ulrich seemed to feel the rest was relatively easy.
It would not be easy in itself to spirit away the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg hidden somewhere within Irene Adler’s Green Willow Manor, where ironclad security was maintained, but I had to induce even a small misunderstanding like this to obtain cooperation more smoothly.
“Still, to bind me using acupoints and all. Someone might think Great Hero Holmes has that sort of hobby.”
“A taste only Frenchmen would enjoy. So, can you help?”
“To take away the choices and then tell me to choose isn’t fair… Well, at this point, it can’t be helped.”
“Since we’ve detained a busy man, there should be sufficient compensation. You can bill Buckingham Palace.”
“Understood.”
He would not later complain to me that Buckingham failed to pay properly, would he?
“You called me because you need Civil Engineering, yes? What do you want? If it’s manpower needed for Civil Engineering work, I can gather it quickly.”
Seeing that Ulrich had finally made up his mind, I released the acupoints.
It was only bitter that I had to treat a man who was not even a criminal like this.
“We need two formations that use only natural things, and are difficult for those caught inside to notice. One must be installed at a designated location in the London streets. The other I intend to unfold at the Mistress of Green Willow’s estate.”
“…It’s not impossible. If we hurry, it will be finished by tomorrow morning. However, if the type of formation is difficult, I cannot guarantee completion.”
“For the former, I’m thinking of an Eight Trigrams Formation. The longer it can keep those who step into it trapped, the easier things become. As for the latter… it must create smoke and heat within the space where the formation is unfolded. So it looks as if a fire has been set.”
“Hm… You mean you’ll disguise a fire?”
“That’s right.”
Just as Ulrich said.
In my previous life, I used the same method when infiltrating Irene Adler’s estate.
At the time, I disguised myself as a clergyman flawlessly, then after becoming caught up in a street fight, acted as if I were injured.
By staging a scene where I collapsed while protecting Irene Adler from ruffians, I won her sympathy and succeeded in receiving care at her estate.
After that, it was easy.
When I used a smoke tube prepared in advance to create confusion as if a fire had broken out, the flustered Irene Adler checked whether the photographs she had carefully hidden for blackmail were safe.
Unfortunately, I failed to seize them in time and lost them, but if I used human nature, the tendency to secure important items first when a fire breaks out, I would be able to find where the Vermilion Phoenix’s egg was this time as well.
Most likely, the Irene Adler of this world could not even imagine that inside the jeweled fake egg she stole, there was a real spirit-beast egg.
Even if she did know, it didn’t matter.
As long as I caused confusion, she would certainly react.
“Smoke and heat. That’s a bit difficult. It’s a different matter from making someone experience hallucinations…”
Meanwhile, Ulrich furrowed his brows as he mulled over my request.
It seemed the latter formation, unlike the Eight Trigrams Formation, could not be handled easily.
“Making others lose their way is what my family specializes in, so there’s no problem there… I don’t know why it must be installed in the city streets, but if you want it, we can do it. The problem is the Mistress of Green Willow’s estate…”
“It’s not in a location that’s difficult to install formations in, by geomancy, is it?”
“Not at all. For now, there are two problems.”
Ulrich rolled the arm that had been acupoint-struck, then raised his index and middle fingers.
“First, no matter how much it uses natural things as mediums and has little dissonance, if there are many people guarding the estate, the installation process will inevitably be noticed.”
Watson and I nodded at the same time.
If we had to spread smoke and heat across the entire estate, the formation’s scale had to be enormous enough to swallow the garden and buildings.
The mediums that make up a formation increase as the area grows. Installation and construction take time, and there is also the risk the plan will be exposed to the Afternoon Tea Party members guarding Irene Adler’s estate.
If word that the Tsar was in London reached Irene Adler’s ears, the number of Kung-Fuists standing guard would have increased compared to usual.
If we acted suspiciously, there was no knowing how the suspicious Irene would react.
“And one more. To unfold the formation’s efficacy within the estate, we need to install the medium at its center. But unless they’re fools, who would allow suspicious work to be done in the middle of their own home.”
Unexpectedly, Ulrich seemed to find this problem the more difficult one.
Fortunately, I had a solution.
“The latter problem can be dealt with somehow. I’ve been invited to the Mistress of Green Willow’s estate, so I will go in myself and complete the formation.”
“Then it’s a different story. If we can only bring in the natural things that will serve as the formation’s mediums, it’s fully possible.”
“Then what remains is how to place the other components besides the center without drawing others’ eyes…”
It was then.
“Thinking it over, since London has fallen into the worst crisis, there’s no need to be picky about means and methods.”
Ulrich suddenly took out a notebook and drew a small circle with a Judge Pen.
“What do you mean?”
“If the budget is sufficient, there’s no need to take risks and prepare a formation with a precariously tight area that surrounds the Mistress of Green Willow’s estate walls.”
“Don’t tell me.”
Ulrich drew a large circle, sharing the same center point as the small circle he had just drawn, but with an area dozens of times larger.
“Since nothing is really burning anyway, why don’t we play big?”
“…That feels like we’ll be a nuisance.”
A massive formation frame that encompassed the entire wealthy district along Serpentine Avenue where Irene Adler’s estate stood.