shadow of britain

Chapter 925 Are you treating the jazz as a corrupt official?!

The morning fog was thick and cold, and inside the rented carriage, Elder yawned three times in a row.

Needless to say, this second-class clerk of the Naval Chart Survey Bureau was working until 2 a.m. last night.

However, although both of them went to bed at 2 a.m., Arthur was surprisingly energetic. Eld was so sleepy that he could barely keep his eyes open, but Arthur still had the energy to look through the manuscripts he had brought from the editorial office.

Perhaps because he couldn't take it anymore, Elder habitually took out his pipe and put it in his mouth. However, after rummaging in his pocket for a while, he realized that he didn't have a lighter.

He raised half an eyelid and nudged Arthur's boot with his toe.

However, this lazybones didn't even want to say a word; he just pouted and got the matchbox he wanted from Arthur.

He lit his pipe, squinted, and took a deep drag. The smoke slowly dissipated in the narrow carriage, mingling with the leather smell, which had a somewhat refreshing effect.

"What are you looking at so early in the morning?" Elder leaned against the car wall. "You got home later than me last night. Is it a love letter?"

Arthur gave a perfunctory reply: "The manuscript."

"Manuscript?"

"That's right, it's the manuscript for 'Spark'."

Elder, who had been half-opening his eyes, rolled them up completely: "What's so interesting about the articles in Spark? Articles that The Englishman doesn't like are put in Spark. Isn't that our consistent approach?"

“That’s true, but that article in John Bull gave me a bit of inspiration.” Arthur said without looking up from the manuscript review, “After Albert left the editorial office yesterday, I had them bring out all the reader letters from Spark magazine over this period, and we unexpectedly discovered a few authors who were even more popular than Charles.”

"Isn't it normal for me to get more attention than Charles?" Elder said dismissively. "Don't I get more letters from readers than that bald Charles?"

“A bald man?” Arthur put down his manuscript. “I’m not talking about Charles Darwin, I’m talking about Charles Dickens.”

Upon hearing this, Elder coughed repeatedly, smoke billowing from his mouth and nostrils, clearly choked: "What did you say?"

Arthur raised his eyelids slightly and said in a flat tone, "I said that there are several authors in 'Spark' who have received more letters than Dickens."

“Bullshit!” Elder exclaimed almost reflexively. “You must have miscounted.”

Although Elder felt that he and Dickens were evenly matched in terms of writing alone, Dickens had the advantage of subject matter, and he was also a leading figure in London's major theaters, so it was normal for him to be more popular.

However, just because he could accept Dickens surpassing him doesn't mean he could accept others surpassing him, especially since those authors who surpassed him were regular contributors to "Spark".

Elder, who had just been so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open, suddenly became anxious: "That Dickens kid's letters could pile up into a small mountain, and I wouldn't dare say I can easily outdo him. 'Spark'? Arthur, you must be joking."

“Believe it or not,” Arthur said, straightening the manuscript on his lap. “The numbers are there, and they won’t change just because you grumbled a few times. Besides, I must admit that Mr. Edward Lloyd, the editor of Spark, is indeed a rare talent.”

“Hmph? Talented? That book thief?” Elder didn’t take Lloyd seriously: “Edward Lloyd what was it again? That kid’s nickname on Fleet Street used to be ‘The Penny Thief King.’ I heard he was scared to death when you sent people to storm his printing workshop.”

Arthur clearly didn't take this to heart, and he corrected him, "Eld, please show some basic respect to our editor-in-chief. Although he did do some unsavory things in the past to make money, such as piracy and plagiarism of works from 'The Englishman,' he has completely reformed since Mr. Lloyd joined Imperial Publishing."

As Arthur said, Edward Lloyd, like many publishers in London, made his fortune through piracy.

Or, to be more precise, his first fortune came from plagiarizing Dickens's works. Lloyd only entered the publishing industry in 1832, so he was lucky enough to escape Sir Arthur Hastings's effective anti-piracy campaign and published a series of pirated works plagiarized from Dickens, such as "Penny Pickwick," "Oliver Twist," and "Nicholas Nickleby."

Even more astonishingly, Lloyd's edition of "Penny Pickwick" sold a staggering 50,000 copies, more than ten times the sales of the original "Pickwick Club." Of course, this was mainly because "Penny Pickwick" was priced at only one-twelfth of the original.

When The Englishman, representing Dickens, sued Lloyd, the judge surprisingly ruled that The Englishman's case did not prove that Lloyd had committed plagiarism, and thus the Englishman and Dickens lost the case.

Lloyd was overjoyed with the victory. He threw a three-day banquet at his small workshop on Fleet Street, telling everyone he met, "Even the judge said I didn't plagiarize! After all, my book has sold more copies than Dickens' original!"

He even patted his chest in front of the printing apprentices and said that the thing he was least afraid of in his life was going to court with The Englishman.

However, his triumph did not last long.

Because less than six months after the lawsuit ended, Sir Arthur Hastings ended his icy adventure in Russia and returned to London.

When Lloyd first heard that Arthur wanted to meet him, he didn't take it seriously at all.

He even specifically instructed his assistant: "If Sir Arthur brings up the plagiarism again, tell him that I won the case and that I am perfectly legitimate."

In fact, Arthur hadn't bothered him before, until last October when he suddenly received a strange envelope.

The envelope contained only a small note torn off at random, with a brief sentence: "Mr. Lloyd, I don't like wasting time. You can choose to continue being a lucky pirate, provided God still blesses you. Or, you can come to 4 Whitehall Street to clear up the misunderstanding; I'll wait for you until after get off work."

The signature reads: Sir Arthur Hastings, Commissioner and Secretary General of the Commission of Police of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Whether Lloyd actually went to the meeting alone is unknown; all we know is that a few young men came to Lloyd's small printing shop that afternoon. The next morning, he became the new editor-in-chief of *Spark*.

Even more dramatically, after Lloyd joined Sparks, he neither threw a tantrum nor resorted to those underhanded tricks.

Conversely, this small publisher, who was originally a "marginal figure" in Fleet Street, transformed Spark magazine in just three months.

Although Arthur had high hopes for Spark when it was first launched, in truth, it was mostly wishful thinking on Arthur's part.

In reality, both Dickens, Dumas, and Disraeli, the pillars of *The Englishman*, and the entire British literary circle regarded *Spark* as a low-end magazine. Any writer of any renown was reluctant to submit to *Spark*, and if it weren't for Arthur's influence, Dickens and others wouldn't have submitted a single piece.

For this reason, everyone naturally assumed that *Spark* was a replacement magazine for *The Englishman* and *Blackwood*. However, its poor quality and inaccurate market positioning meant that despite its advantageous location at train station newsstands, *Spark*'s sales remained lukewarm.

However, after Lloyd took over, Spark suddenly became the literary magazine that best understood the tastes of Londoners overnight.

This was something neither Empire Publishing nor the British literary world had anticipated.

After all, the aristocracy liked to read Blackwood, the middle class liked to read The Englishman, and bankers and stockbrokers liked to read The Economist.

But what do textile factory workers, dockworkers, shoemaker apprentices, blacksmiths, and domestic maids like to watch?
Not many people have actually researched this matter.

But Lloyd had studied it, and he knew it better than anyone else.

After all, he himself started out by printing pirated books for these people for a penny.

Thus, under Lloyd's direction, "Spark" quickly produced a wealth of fresh and compelling subject matter.

The villainous novel "The Pearl Necklace: A Everyday Romance" starring Todd, the Fleet Street serial killer barber; "The Secret History of London" which imitated the French novel "The Secret of Paris"; and "Lady Godiva, or Tom the Coventry Spy" which won by skirting the edge of eroticism. He even personally serialized "Lloyd's Political Jokes" with the backing of Imperial Publishing and Sir Arthur Hastings.

What pleased Empire Publishing's shareholders even more was that the fees demanded by the serialized novelists in Spark were pitifully low compared to the well-known authors who frequently appeared in The Englishman.

While the publishing industry values ​​book quality, booksellers prioritize sales. Therefore, they tend to be lenient with books by established authors but nitpick with those by unknown authors.

As long as a currently popular author has the intention to publish, booksellers can sign a contract even without ever having seen the work. Furthermore, even if an author hasn't started writing and the work is only in the conceptual stage, they can still sell the book and receive payment.

For publishers, it's better to spend a little over £300 to gamble on a minor author becoming an overnight sensation than to invest more money for a stable return.

After all, not every publishing house is like the Empire Publishing under Sir Arthur Hastings, capable of discerning the gems from the crowd and distinguishing between worthless bargains.

However, although publishers unanimously agree that Empire Publishing represents the highest level of peer review in the industry, even someone as strong as them cannot guarantee 100% accuracy.

Especially in the first two years after the founding of Spark, Sir Arthur, the greatest talent scout in British literature, repeatedly misjudged authors when recruiting cheap novelists. After all, although Sir Arthur had a keen eye for detail, in his time, the 19th-century British literary works that continued to circulate did not include the "poisonous weeds" novels that were heavily criticized by John Bull.

If it weren't for Elder's anonymous vignettes keeping *Spark* afloat, this new magazine probably wouldn't have lasted until Lloyd took over. "I knew it! London readers have absolutely no taste!" Elder slapped his thigh, his disdain practically overflowing the carriage. "What do these people like to read now? Blood! Violence! The kind where heads fly halfway down the street with a thud! And those ridiculously obscene passages… tsk, I don't usually like making moral judgments, but this time *John Bull* said these people are writing poisonous weeds that corrupt social morals, and they're absolutely right."

Upon hearing this, Arthur simply offered a light reminder: "If I remember correctly, the first sentence of the story you anonymously wrote in Spark magazine, 'The Paddington Night Murder,' was 'A severed hand struck a gas lamp post.'"

“That’s different!” Elder retorted emphatically. “What I did was literary presentation! It’s artistic exaggeration! It’s to expose the darkness of society! I wrote those things to let readers know the dark side of real London!”

Arthur flipped through the manuscript in his hand, not even looking up, and said, "What about 'The Handmaid's Secret Revealed' and 'The Groom's Confession'? Elder, isn't the real London a bit too dark? The way you write it makes it seem like the work I did at Scotland Yard was a failure."

Upon hearing this, Elder's neck stiffened instantly.

“That…that’s still an exposé!” He forced himself to remain calm, and even waved his pipe seriously. “A maid’s secret is a secret. What’s wrong with exposing it? Do you think those wealthy families are really so innocent? This is social realism! London documentary! It’s also documentary literature. You can’t just praise Charles’s Oliver Twist!”

"At least Charles's Oliver Twist doesn't mention 'In the middle of the night by candlelight, the lady suddenly came close to me and gently touched my collar with her fingers.' Luckily you didn't write too many details, otherwise those people from the publishing committee would definitely have come after me."

Just as Elder was about to explain, the carriage suddenly swayed slightly and slowly came to a stop at the entrance of Whitehall Street.

Arthur didn't give Elder a chance to explain. He put away his manuscript, patted his coat, and was about to get out of the car when he suddenly noticed a few familiar faces sitting in the bakery at the street corner.

"Hmm?" Arthur frowned.

Blackwell, Ridley, and Lewis—he never imagined these three could form a group.

Elder got out of the car and saw Arthur looking towards the bakery. He assumed Arthur hadn't eaten enough for breakfast: "What? Hungry again? Let's go in and have something to eat, there's still plenty of time."

Before he could finish speaking, he followed Arthur's gaze.

Three blurry figures were sitting together inside the window.

“Huh?” Elder squinted. “Isn’t that Blackwell? And… Ridley? How come those two are at the same table… Who’s that dark-haired kid over there? He doesn’t look like he’s from the Admiralty, or the Foreign Office… Is he your Scotland Yard’s new assistant?”

……

The bakery's heating system fogged up the windows, filling the shop with the aroma of freshly baked bread.

Lewis glanced at the silent Blackwell and Ridley, then put down his coffee cup and started the conversation.

“Gentlemen, let me be frank,” Lewis said in a low voice, his eyes unusually bright. “You both work for Sir Arthur, don’t you?”

The spoon in Blackwell's hand clattered into the cup.

The senior scribe at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs thought his job of stealing documents for Arthur had been exposed.

Ridley, on the other hand, seemed much more experienced. He didn't move, but slowly raised his eyelids and took a bite of the sandwich in his hand.

Lewis was completely oblivious to the subtle tension; instead, he grew even more confident: "Well, I don't really mean anything by it. I just want to... learn about Sir Arthur's likes, habits, taboos... things like that, the more the better."

At this point, Lewis paused deliberately: "We might have the opportunity to work together again in the future. It's always better to help each other than to fight alone. Don't you agree?"

Hearing this, Blackwell finally felt relieved.

So it wasn't an investigation into his accounts, that's good!

Although Blackwell himself was unsure of who he was helping, that didn't stop him from immediately putting on the polite smile standard for the Foreign Office: "Yes, mutual assistance... very good... excellent."

As Arthur's private secretary during his time in Russia, Blackwell, while not knowing all of Arthur's habits, still remembers exactly when Arthur gets up, when he eats, and what kind of tea he likes to drink while reading the newspaper.

But knowing Arthur's habits doesn't mean Blackwell will confess honestly.

He readily agreed, but he dared not admit he didn't understand, for that would sound like shirking responsibility. Nor did he dare reveal any details that might cause trouble, because he had already experienced firsthand the consequences of revealing such details during his three years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Lewis had no idea he was getting close to Blackwell's red line; he only thought the diplomat's smile was very friendly: "In that case... I'll ask more specifically. Does Sir Arthur have any hobbies? For example, tea, tobacco, wine, sports... anything is fine."

"Ah... Sir Arthur's preferences... well... mainly depend on the work schedule."

Blackwell threw out the most irresponsible statement first, buying himself two seconds to think.

Lewis frowned, clearly not understanding: "Depends on the work schedule?"

“Yes,” Blackwell nodded seriously. “Sir Arthur has always maintained that personal hobbies should not interfere with official judgment. Therefore, he does not allow himself to become dependent on any particular drink, tobacco, or pastime for an extended period of time.”

Hearing this, Ridley, who was standing next to him, just rolled his eyes at him and thought to himself, "No wonder he came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he can make up such nonsense."

Lewis was taken aback by the phrase "won't allow himself to become dependent on it long-term," and he pressed on earnestly, "But everyone has habits, right? For example, does he drink black tea every morning? Or does he prefer coffee? Does he have a favorite brand? Or does he smoke a pipe, and what kind of tobacco does he like?"

These questions are not difficult for a personal secretary to answer.

But how to answer that question will truly test Blackwell's abilities.

He cleared his throat: "Sir Arthur's work pace is very tight. His three meals a day... are often taken care of incidentally, depending on the meeting time, the progress of document approval, and the carriage route."

“But there must be some general preference, right?” Lewis persisted. “For example, does he prefer black tea or green tea? He can’t possibly be drinking porter first thing in the morning, can he?”

Upon hearing this, Ridley lowered his head and took a large bite of his sandwich as a cover-up.

Blackwell replied earnestly, "Sir Arthur has no prejudice against any type of tea, provided that he can remain clear-headed and not affect the efficiency of document processing. The specific type of tea chosen usually depends on the habits of the person responsible for brewing the tea that day, as well as the remaining stock in the tea canister."

Lewis was confused by this question: "So, whatever you make him tea, that's what he'll drink?"

“You can’t say that,” Blackwell immediately corrected. “That would make it seem like the Jazz are easily influenced by external factors.”

Lewis wanted to dig deeper: "What about tobacco? Is he a heavy smoker? What if it's a gift..."

This time, Blackwell didn't even dare to pause, preemptively cutting off the conversation: "In official settings, it is inappropriate to present any gifts that could be misinterpreted as 'an attempt to influence the judgment of a public official.'"

So, you mean it's fine in private?

Blackwell's eyelids twitched violently.

Ridley tapped his fingers lightly on the table, as if counting down the seconds.

If Blackwell answers "no problem," it would be an admission that Arthur is accepting bribes in private.

If he says "there's a problem," he's implying that Lewis shouldn't get too close, or Sir Arthur, who might cut off his source of income, will also be unhappy.

If he refuses to answer, it would seem too deliberate, more like he has a guilty conscience.

Blackwell's head was starting to tingle, and he could clearly feel his scarf tightening around his neck.

Just as the air was about to freeze, Ridley, who hadn't said much, suddenly slowly raised his head, as if he had finally grown tired of listening to the two of them go on and on.

He wiped the crumbs from the corner of his mouth, his tone as casual as if he were discussing the weather: "Mr. Lewis, may I ask you a question? Which department are you from?"

(End of this chapter)