The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1097: Chapter 95: The Pan-European Spies’ Congress (More Tonight) (2)

Hearing Schneider’s evaluation of the Carter family, Arthur was surprised this time.

Although he had been a British spy committed to uncovering all secrets for a long time, he had never been interested in the secrets of his old friend Eld. He only knew that Eld’s uncle was Admiral John Carter, but he didn’t know that the Carter family was a noble family from Ireland.

But then again...

Arthur’s eyes turned, and a hint of mischievousness suddenly arose in his heart.

The Carter family was clearly an Irish family, but Eld always claimed that he grew up in Nottingham and that his hometown was there. Now it seems that perhaps growing up in Nottingham was not false, because his father died early, so he lived with his mother at his maternal home when he was very young, but in any case, his ancestral home could never be considered Nottingham.

Moreover, this guy always liked to jokingly criticize the Irish, but this wasn’t necessarily done intentionally, as he was more aggressive in mocking the Frenchman compared to his own hometown.

Even Eld’s temperament was quite like his grandfather’s; both were literature bachelors, equally coarse and vulgar. But fortunately, or unfortunately, he didn’t inherit his grandfather’s cunning mind, or rather, the cunning part he did inherit was used in the wrong place.

Nevertheless, Mr. Carter was always his good friend, and also the brave and fearless Royal Navy warrior in ”St. George’s Flag Rises High,” the famous author of ”Robin Hood,” and the hominid species that Darwin studied deeply.

Thinking of Eld, Arthur’s mood improved a lot.

He pulled out a small notebook from his pocket, carefully selected a page, tore it out, and handed it to Schneider.

”What’s this?” Schneider glanced at the note: ”Young Italy divides into two lines, one advancing from Savoy and the other from Genoa, with the assembly point set in Geneva, Switzerland. The leaders of the two armies are...”

”Damn!” Schneider hurriedly stuffed the small note into his pocket, glanced around, then approached Arthur quickly, and in a low voice asked, ”Is the intelligence accurate? Where did you get this from?”

Arthur imitating Schneider’s tone replied: ”August, though we are friends, it’s impolite to inquire about a diplomat’s source of intelligence.”

With that, he lightly patted the box door.

Schneider was first taken aback, then nodded knowingly, his face showing a gratifying smile of a disciple after graduation: ”Arthur, I thought you’d need some time to adapt to this work. But I didn’t expect, in this regard, you have already mastered it without a teacher. You quickly pinpointed the social connections of Mazzini and other Young Italy leaders, captured their lovers, and extracted intelligence, that’s a hefty workload. I will certainly write to Viscount Palmeston, specifically describing your achievements. Having a diplomat like you is indeed the kingdom’s fortune.”

Seeing Schneider stuck in a mental rut, Arthur could only smile helplessly.

He couldn’t understand why these diplomats always liked to complicate simple problems.

To find out the answer to a problem, you don’t necessarily need to take the longest route to get the result.

Perhaps due to professional reasons, whether British, French, or Austrian, these diplomats who still retained quite a bit of aristocratic temperament shared a common nature.

But for the police, whether British, French, or from other countries, as represented by Arthur Hastings and Francois Vidocq, they all believed that the solution process must go directly to the destination from the beginning.

They had already preset countless results in their hearts, and every step of their actions was to verify whether their presumptions were correct.

One is a direct approach, the other is a reverse approach.

At least at present, with a problem already defined, the reverse approach appears stronger than the direct approach.

However, whether it’s a direct or a reverse approach, irrespective of whether the results are right or wrong, no matter how simple or complex the problem-solving process is, there must still be some slight artistic processing when submitting a report to the superiors.

Before joining the government department, Arthur also thought these reports were useless, but after training during his service at Scotland Yard, he finally understood how important this work was.

The esteemed gentlemen in Whitehall, though smarter than ordinary people, are actually limited in wisdom; a well-written report can let them understand how the long-tested British diplomats managed to achieve such significant breakthrough intelligence under such difficult conditions.

Even if this intelligence might actually not be important and could even be wrong.

Nonetheless, credit still had to be claimed.

Back in the Police Intelligence Department, Arthur’s subordinates frequently fooled him in this way. Some informants never even worked on the streets, and they didn’t think they were involved in intelligence work but believed their job was to eat and drink and incidentally write various ’fantasy novels’ to please their superiors.

And after coming to Paris and communicating with Vidocq, Arthur found it was the same here in Paris.

Therefore, although the job types were different, Arthur felt that due to the high similarity of human nature, it was probably the same in the Foreign Office too.

However, compared to some diplomats who were utterly shameless, Arthur, even though he lowered his professional ethics quite a bit, still inevitably remained slightly above the average—after all, having eaten the King’s salt, he should at least do something.

Not to mention, when Talleyrand received several million francs from Austria, the military intelligence he provided to Austria was a mixture of truth and falsehood in a ratio of three to seven.

Having obtained important Young Italy intelligence from Arthur, the shrewd German-descended British gentleman quickly reciprocated with a suggestion: ”Since you’re here today, would you like to meet my old friend later?”

”Old friend?”

Arthur blinked and smilingly asked, ”August, you just told me that meddling in others’ social relationships is impolite.”

”No, it’s impolite if you meddle in certain social relationships, but for others, it’s not, because not knowing some things might lead the Foreign Office’s overall plan into a difficult situation.”

”You mean?”

”Young Italy, this line was discovered by you...”

”No, no, no.” A cunning light flashed in Arthur’s eyes as he lightly interrupted, ”August, this is the accomplishment of both of us.”

Unaware that Arthur intended to drag him into the situation, Schneider thought Arthur was just a loyal fellow.

He affectionately patted Arthur on the shoulder: ”Arthur, you’re always such a good friend. Yes, we discovered it together. So, to prevent our achievements from going to waste, I find it necessary to introduce you to an old friend of mine—Mr. William von Cromar.”

”Von?” Arthur asked: ”A Prussian?”

”No, even worse,” Schneider laughed. ”He’s an Austrian, a subordinate and henchman of Austria’s Ambassador to France, Anton von Apone, the cultural attaché of the Austrian Empire’s Embassy to the Kingdom of France.”

”Hmm... I think I know what he’s up to. I’ve got to say, cultural attaché indeed sounds nicer than a chief of spies.”

Arthur said this as he straightened his tailcoat: ”And you are right, since we are responsible for Young Italy, indeed there is a need to meet with him, the concerned party. If Mazzini and the others launch an expedition, and yet the Austrians are oblivious, Mr. Cromar, the cultural attaché to France, might be in big trouble, right?”

PS: There will be more at night; read it tomorrow morning.