shadow of britain

Chapter 658 Russian Bureaucracy

The vice president's skinny fingers were still pressing on the file, and his eyes moved back and forth between the military police captain opposite him and the sword on the table.

The air was filled with a tense and tense smell. The gendarmes in gray coats stood straight, like the marble columns in front of the Parthenon, without any expression.

The vice president narrowed his eyes slightly, slowly took off his glasses, and pushed the wax-covered file away.

"Here are all Nikolai Ogarev's papers. Take them."

The military police captain stretched out his hand and was about to take the document, but the vice president pulled the document back in an instant, as if he was deliberately teasing the group of military police: "However, if the military police headquarters wants to use the document, it must first sign the transfer record of the Moscow court. This is standard procedure. I think you should have no questions, right?"

"Sign?" The captain frowned, obviously unwilling to do so. The dull office was filled with the smell of gunpowder. A single spark would turn the place into a sea of ​​fire.

As a bystander, Arthur, in line with the principle of watching the fun, was happy to witness the fierce clash between the Russian judicial system and the Third Bureau.

This was not the first time he had seen such a scene, but he had always been the party involved. When he was in London, he was often sent by Director Rowan to the Treasury or the Home Office to seek budgets for Scotland Yard or to request the expansion of temporary law enforcement powers, and thus had a lively and colorful meeting with the gentlemen of Whitehall Street.

How to describe those talks?
In short, these talks were basically expressed in the form of fake smiles, with the main purpose of the meeting being to highlight the main idea through mutual sarcastic remarks, and most of them ended in a bad mood.

As long as Arthur dared to propose to increase the budget of Scotland Yard by even one penny, the Treasury would immediately throw out a lot of high-sounding data - as if every penny could cause the Bank of England to "collapse" and cause the British Empire, which spanned five continents and four oceans, to fall into a state of no longer being glorious.

The most educated gentleman in the Treasury would point sadly to the "Treasury Deficit" on the back of the table, warning Arthur not to let future generations use the term "fiscal disaster" to describe this unexpected expenditure, suggesting that he should not give future generations reason to shout out that the British Empire actually died with Arthur Hastings.

However, the dramatic part is that although they all want to torture each other to death, they have to maintain the most perfect etiquette, with a smile on their faces that says "earnestly hope for everyone's well-being."

You can see them sipping from their tiny cups of tea, their eyes secretly searching for any grounds for criticism.

As soon as they find any loophole, they will ruthlessly reveal it at the next public meeting.

If the person who was exposed was speechless on the spot, others would scribbled down the ugly behavior of this "unlucky guy" in their notebooks in preparation for spreading it to more people's ears.

They could have used an insignificant report to criticize each other for three hours, but they could still give each other exaggerated farewell gifts according to the procedure before the meeting ended, and even call each other "my respected colleague" when shaking hands.

Sometimes you couldn’t even tell whether they were really trying to impose heavy-handed censorship or were simply trying to get an extra line in the Treasury minutes: “We discussed the issue fully.”

After all, the gentleman's face must be put in front first, so that the petty infighting behind the scenes will appear more layered.

It would be unaristocratic to fall out with him in public, like a Yorkshire swineherd.

The captain of the military police had an expression as if covered with a layer of ice. He frowned and glanced at the pile of files on the table: "Signature? Nikolai Sergeyevich, do you really have to go through all this formality?"

"form?"

The vice president smiled politely and slightly mockingly: "The judicial system values ​​form and procedure. Didn't your report submitted to the emperor two years ago say that Russia's judicial system procedures are backward, lack basic fairness and justice, and the level of case handling is still at the end of the 18th century? As you can see, we have made rectifications based on the report of the Third Bureau. We are now in the 19th century, and the greatest progress of the Russian judicial system in the 19th century was the strict implementation of procedural justice."

The vice president held the document in one hand and pointed at the military police with the other and said, "If you don't sign, you won't be able to take anything out today."

The captain sneered and retorted, "Really? I was so lucky to have happened to see the Moscow court invent the filing signature system and the signing pen."

The vice president picked up the teacup calmly and said, "I'm very sorry. You only saw that we invented the filing signature system, but we haven't invented the signature pen yet, or even ink. As you can see, Russia's judicial system has just entered the early 19th century and is far from the level of the 30s."

The military police captain heard the sarcasm in the vice-president's words and his face darkened.

With a gloomy face and his hands behind his back, he walked two steps inside the room, as if he was thinking whether to continue to press forward with the attitude of the third game, or to settle for the second best and not really make the situation awkward.

Finally, he stopped and paused for a moment before turning his gaze back to the file: "There is no pen or ink. So I can only put my fingerprints on it?"

The vice president did not even bother to stand up from his chair. "A fingerprint is fine. This is Moscow, not St. Petersburg. Of course, the premise is that you don't mind letting the people of Russia know that the Third Bureau's voucher for judicial documents has a fingerprint. It's a novel thing."

"Humph!" The captain narrowed his eyes, put one hand on the desk, stretched his head and stared at the vice president with his eyes: "Don't think you can set up obstacles for us by using the so-called 'procedural fairness'. We, the military police, are most afraid of tediousness."

At this point, he turned to the military policeman behind him and said, "Who has a quill pen or ink bottle? Bring it to me now!"

The gendarmes who followed looked at each other in bewilderment, and finally a short gendarme with a briefcase frantically searched for a moment and took out a half-broken quill pen and a brown ink bottle. The ink bottle seemed to have been dropped in the snow, and there was a crack at the mouth of the bottle.

The captain glanced at the mouth of the bottle and said, "Just make do with it."

The vice president looked at the quill that was almost broken in two and raised his eyebrows half-seriously: "I can't believe that you carry a pen with you even when you go to work, just like a cultured college student."

The captain put the ink bottle on the table and said, "This is called preparing for a rainy day!"

The vice president smiled but said nothing, with an expression that said "I don't deny it either."

He pushed the transfer record in front of the captain and said, "Then please fill in your name, position, time and place, and finally sign or put your fingerprint."

The captain almost snorted, but he finally took the brush, dipped it in ink, and wrote a series of tough military-style strokes on the paper.

At the end of writing, he deliberately increased the weight of his pen strokes, almost breaking the half-broken quill.

When he finished, the military police captain slammed the quill on the table and said, "Are you satisfied now?"

The vice president took the record book and carefully reviewed it, especially carefully comparing the position of the captain's signature. Then he nodded and said, "It's just a matter of official business. Why are you angry? I'm not targeting you specifically. Everything must comply with the regulations."

The military police captain scoffed, "So far, these documents have been legally transferred to the Military Police Headquarters? Do you want to put a seal or something?"

It would have been better if he hadn't mentioned it. As soon as he mentioned it, the vice president immediately slapped his head and said, "Thanks for your reminder. I almost forgot that the new law stipulates that all major cases transferred must have a specific date stamp. This is also one of the reforms that the Third Bureau vigorously promoted that year."

The captain saw that he was talking about the "Third Bureau Reform" again. He was furious but had to suppress it. So he could only spit: "Forget it! Give me a seal and I'll stamp it!"

The vice-president maintained a nonchalant expression as he fished out a small wooden box from the drawer. After opening it, he took out a double-headed eagle seal pad with a dull blue sheen and handed it to the captain.

The captain pursed his lips, took a deep breath, and pressed the seal hard on the record.

There was a loud bang, like the sound of a gavel, which finally put an end to the intrigue between the judicial department and the gendarmerie system.

The two men beside the military police captain immediately stepped forward, first took the document and then hurriedly put a cover on it, as solemnly as if they were treating a Bible.

It was clear that they were determined to win the Ogarev case and did not want anyone to interfere.

"Okay, Vice President, I've taken the documents. All procedures are legal and compliant. If you try to create any obstacles again, I will not be polite." The captain seemed to be trying to regain the last bit of deterrence and dignity as a military police. He pulled the buttons of his gray coat, turned around and walked away, seemingly not giving the vice president a chance to fight back.

Perhaps he felt that he had triumphed over the judicial system spiritually, but in the eyes of old British bureaucrats like Arthur, he had been a complete failure.

From the beginning to the end, he was led by the vice president. Not only did he not get any advantage in words, but he even left his signature according to the other party's wishes.

The captain said nothing and walked out of the office quickly with his men.

The door was slammed shut with a bang, and the surroundings returned to silence, with only the faint flame flickering in the fireplace.

"Huh..." The deputy dean let out a long sigh, put down his teacup, turned around and looked at Arthur: "Did you see that? Relying on the support of the emperor, the Russian military police are like this."

Arthur was secretly amused while watching from the sidelines, but he said in a serious tone, "It's understandable actually. They are busy investigating the case, so it's inevitable that they don't want to waste time on the signing procedure."

"Waste of time?" The vice president saw that Arthur was a master at playing dumb, but he didn't point it out: "I think they think that one more procedure means one more responsibility. If there is a mistake in this case one day, they can use 'non-compliant procedures' as an excuse to shift the blame to the court."

The vice president shrugged and complained: "In Russia, the so-called reforms sound grand, but in fact, they can just make up any crime and arrest anyone. It's a mistake to make up for the innate shortcomings. No wonder people always think that the Russian judicial system is still stuck in the late 18th century."

Arthur tapped his fingers on the table twice. "At least you are being decent here and have them tied to the law so that the military police won't dare to mess around."

Although Arthur had heard that the military police and other departments were not on good terms, he had never imagined that the confrontation between several systems would be so strong.

Arthur's previous experience in Druisk gave him a preconceived notion that even if everyone didn't like the third game, they should at least show some respect for the military police. But what he saw and heard in the Moscow court today really opened his eyes.

But if you think about it carefully, it doesn't seem difficult to understand.

The mayor of Druisk, Bakalkin, is only a ninth-rank official, so it is naturally difficult for such small places to stand up straight in front of the gendarmerie.

But it is different in a metropolis like Moscow, where officials of higher ranks than the gendarmes can be found everywhere.

Although the gendarmes had the Tsar and Count Benckendorff as their backers, many of the officials they had to deal with in Moscow and St. Petersburg were themselves backers, such as the ministers of the central departments and second- and third-rank officials like Duke Dmitri Golitsyn, the Governor-General of Moscow.

Although none of these people can compete with the Tsar individually, if three or five of them are offended at the same time, the possibility of the Tsar suddenly having a "stroke" will increase dramatically.

This statement is not an exaggeration, because some people who currently hold important positions in the Russian court did participate in the palace coup more than 30 years ago that killed Paul I, the father of the current Tsar Nicholas I.

Not only Nicholas I was aware of this, but his brother Alexander I was also aware of it. However, neither of the two tsars liquidated these people.

No matter whether they were nobles or the emperor, everyone tacitly avoided talking about this matter.

However, when the nobles gathered privately, there would occasionally be some big mouths who, after getting drunk, would tell the guests the specific details of how they had killed the Tsar.

While complaining, the vice president hinted to Arthur, "The gendarmes are used to being domineering. Not only do I dislike it, but our governor, Duke Golitsyn, also dislikes it. To be honest, Duke Golitsyn's committee has already made a judgment on the case a few days ago. They said that Volkov tried the case for a long time but couldn't find anything, and couldn't provide any evidence that the young man was rebellious. According to the regulations, he should be released and the case should be closed."

"That's it?" Arthur hadn't expected there to be such an episode in the middle of this case. "Then why did the military police come to the court today?"

The vice president waved his hand and said, "Don't mention it. Most likely Volkov reported to the emperor. Yesterday, the emperor sent a special envoy to Moscow, saying that the investigation results of the interrogation committee were not in line with the emperor's wishes. He dismissed Prince Golitsyn from the position of chairman of the committee and appointed Prince Sergei Golitsyn, the dean of Moscow University, as chairman. The other members of the committee were also replaced. If I remember correctly, the current members of the committee are General Staar, the commander of the city defense, Prince Alexander Golitsyn, the special envoy sent by the emperor from Moscow, Shubinsky, the military police colonel in charge of Moscow University, and Olansky, the secretary of the committee."

Arthur was quite regretful when he heard this and said, "No wonder. I thought that with Duke Dmitri Golitsyn's mild temper and his consistent sense of justice, he would not accuse him of a crime that he did not commit. It turns out that a new person came to Petersburg and brought a new turn to the case."

The deputy dean spread his hands and said, "The Duke is indeed mild-tempered and fair, but he would not take the blame for a young man in front of the Emperor. Count Benckendorff is keeping an eye on this case. Who in Moscow is willing to commit a crime at this time?"

Arthur nodded. He knew that the fact that the vice-president explained these things to him today was enough to show that he was an open-minded person.

If I continue to ask, it will not only be impolite, but also seem like I'm repaying a kindness with a hateful one.

Arthur took the initiative to stand up and said, "It's been a pleasure chatting with you. I wanted to invite you to have dinner together, but I have other plans later today. Are you free this Saturday? There is a new French restaurant on Tverskoi Avenue. I tried it once and the taste is quite authentic. I will send someone to reserve a table tomorrow. After the time is agreed, I will send someone to the court to give you the invitation."

The vice president smiled and said to Arthur, "I feel very honored to meet you. In that case, see you on Saturday."

The vice president did not try to persuade him to stay, but just signaled the clerk to see Arthur out.

Arthur walked out of the courthouse and stood on the stone steps at the door, lighting his pipe and taking a puff of smoke. The corridor was still foggy. The two spider plants standing on the windowsill had turned dry and yellow, and the marble floor was as cold as frozen ice.

Arthur was thinking about how to solve the problem, but when he looked up, he suddenly saw a familiar face - Herzen.

Herzen, who had been forcibly taken away by his father before, appeared again at this moment. There was a small wooden suitcase under his feet, as if he had just sneaked out of the house.

"Why are you back again?" Arthur was a little surprised. "Didn't your father want to take you to Ryazan Province to check the serf tax list?"

Herzen looked stubborn: "He just asked me to take the transfer order, but he didn't personally supervise where I went. Of course, I have to find a way to save Ogarev first."

Arthur sighed and said, "Don't do anything stupid. You are challenging your father's authority. And Ogarev's case is not as easy to solve as you think."

As Arthur finished speaking, he heard the sound of wheels turning, and a four-wheeled carriage slowly stopped at the bottom of the gray steps. The window was pulled down, revealing half of an old face - it was Herzen's father, Ivan Yakovlev.

The old man didn't say anything, but as soon as his intimidating face appeared, Herzen was so scared that his calves trembled.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to wait at home for the carriage that will take you to Ryazan?"

"Sir?" Arthur hurried forward to smooth things over. It was rare for him to take the initiative to say hello.

The old nobleman looked cold and frosty, but Arthur couldn't figure out his true temper.

"Sir Arthur, come up, I'll give you a ride." Yakovlev's voice left no doubt: "As for you, Alexander, you are under house arrest! Platon, you must escort the young master home. From now on until he returns from Ryazan, you must keep an eye on him!"

Arthur hesitated for a moment, looked back at the pitiful Herzen, and then got on the carriage.

The car door closed gently and then drove away from the court, stirring up some dust and snow.

"I don't like beating around the bush, especially when someone is pushing my son into trouble."

Just a few seconds after the carriage started moving, the old man spoke directly: "You are a British diplomat. I don't believe that you are unaware of the political atmosphere in Russia, nor do I believe that you can't judge people. What I believe more is that you deliberately instigated him."

(End of this chapter)