The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1187: Chapter 130: The Unforgivable Hastings (Part 2)

Fiona advised kindly: ”Mr. Wheatstone, if there were fairness and justice in Britain, would you still need to spend a lot of money on lawyers?”

Before a string of curses could leave Wheatstone’s mouth, Fiona’s words stuck in his throat. His face turned red as he struggled for a while before finally deflating under the harsh reality.

”If I could go back in time, I shouldn’t have been greedy about the financial benefits of inventing the phonograph. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have interacted with you so much. If I hadn’t interacted so much with you, I wouldn’t have been forced into making a report at the Royal Society and certainly wouldn’t have been kidnapped to Germany. I could have peacefully run my small music shop, living a life that, while not affluent, was happy, simple, noble, and humble...”

”Simple and noble?” Arthur blocked Fiona from adding more tea for him: ”I don’t think a simple and noble person would spend all day hidden away in his little house deciphering the sappy secret codes couples publish in the newspapers.”

Wheatstone was flustered by Arthur’s exposure of his little secret, and his face turned red, his neck stiffened. Usually so reserved in front of others, he fired back like a rapid cannon: ”That... that’s still better than you! Arthur Hastings, you dirty sewer rat, look at what you’ve done! You sell beer to lead believers astray, you take bribes to keep mistresses, you harbor and indulge crime gangs, you ordered the shooting of protestors, you embezzled government budgets, you bribed Louis to collude with foreign countries!”

Wheatstone’s unexpected eloquence left Arthur momentarily stunned, but in an instant, his face visibly darkened: ”Charles, if you take back what you just said right now, we can still remain friends. Need I remind you how much of the intelligence bureau’s surveillance equipment budget is spent on you, or are you really clueless about that?”

However, Wheatstone didn’t care about any of that. He had already been kidnapped to Gottingen and was likely to be embarrassed at the Europe-wide electromagnetism conference, so at least before facing social death, he wanted to get his revenge on Arthur Hastings and would never bow down to such a vile force.

Even if he couldn’t punish him legally or physically, even venting with words would be satisfying.

He had to make this guy understand, he, Charles Wheatstone, used to hang around in Greenwich in his day, and once his pants were down, he was as much of a man as anyone else!

Wheatstone went all out: ”Arthur, fuck...”

Seeing the situation going south, Fiona quickly grabbed the bread from the table and directly stuffed it into Wheatstone’s open mouth.

Wheatstone’s half-spoken words were forcibly cut off, and he almost rolled his eyes on the spot.

Fiona unfolded an exquisite fan with an ivory handle to hide her awkwardness and said: ”Mr. Wheatstone, if you have so much frustration in your heart, you can come visit me in London someday. If you’re shy, we also have a prayer room like the ones in churches where you can talk to the ladies through a small window. They love listening to stories from well-cultured, deep gentlemen like you. By the way, aren’t you fond of deciphering cryptic newspaper messages? You can exchange notes in code with them; it’s guaranteed that others won’t understand this kind of communication.”

Wheatstone finally caught his breath, and he clenched his jaws fiercely, crushing the bread into pieces.

With arms crossed on the table, he chewed the bread and sulked for quite a while before swallowing it. Unexpectedly, he asked: ”Do the ladies there also understand cryptography?”

Hearing this, Fiona’s heart finally settled, and she responded with a smile: ”They don’t, but can’t you teach them? After all, who is born with a doctorate diploma?”

Wheatstone pondered for a moment: ”That makes sense.”

The Red Devil, who had been watching the scene the whole time, was overjoyed at this and patted Wheatstone’s shoulder while laughing heartily: ”Makes sense? I bet you’re just embarrassed to admit you want to go.”

Arthur calmly spoke to Wheatstone: ”Charles, it was inconsiderate of me to bring you to Gottingen without prior notice. But across Europe, you won’t find anyone more professional than you in setting up telegraph equipment. I know what you’re worried about. Rest assured, I won’t force you to speak at the Europe-wide electromagnetism conference, and if you feel uncomfortable, you can choose to observe from the backstage of the lecture hall.”

”Really?” Wheatstone raised an eyebrow full of skepticism: ”You’re not planning to fool me again, are you?”

Arthur smiled, with one hand on the back of the chair and the other holding a teacup: ”Charles, we’ve outgrown those youthful, reckless years. Why would I want to fool you?”

”Alright... alright then, I’ll trust you one more time.”

”I don’t want to fool you.” Arthur sipped his tea: ”I just want to punch you right now.”

”What?!” Wheatstone stood up in shock: ”You really mean to resort to violence, you bandit!”

”Calm down, Charles, it’s just a joke.”

Arthur took paper and pen from his jacket pocket, signed a small note, and handed it to the servant standing next to Fiona: ”Take this and accompany Mr. Wheatstone to the University of Gottingen’s observatory, show him around. If you’re lucky, you might even run into Professors Gauss and Weber, who have been so engrossed in researching telegraph equipment lately.”

Under normal circumstances, sending Wheatstone to meet strangers in an unfamiliar place would have been unwelcome to him.