lovenovelstory Chapter 48 Fiona's Deduction
Chapter 48 Fiona's Deduction
The next morning, Seamus's men quietly took over the streets of Boston.
Willie the Weasel disguised himself as an ordinary apprentice, with a few pennies in his pocket, and spent the morning squatting under the eaves of a shop called Prince Pharmacy.
He did nothing but observe everyone entering and leaving the pharmacy.
Around noon, he went into the pub on the corner, ordered the cheapest dark beer, and sat down by the window.
At the next table, the pharmacy clerk was loudly complaining to the bartender.
"...That weirdo is here again! He comes every week, and every time he buys all our sulfur powder. He never haggles, just throws down the money and leaves, acting like money is nothing!"
"Isn't that a good thing?" the bartender said, wiping the glasses.
"What a load of rubbish! Old Prince is starting to suspect he's the devil's servant! What decent person would hoard so much sulfur for no reason? It's not like we're opening a match factory!"
Willie lowered his head and drank his wine, firmly memorizing the description the guy had given him: "tall, with a scar, and walking like a stick."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, a burly man named "Red Fist" O'Malley used a more direct method.
He went straight into a grocery store, bought a pound of tobacco, and then leaned against the counter, chatting with the equally idle shopkeeper.
He talked about interesting stories from the docks, the new warships that had arrived in the navy, and which tavern had the prettiest girls. Of course, he also talked about how he was a master in bed.
This kind of topic is undoubtedly the fastest way for any man to get closer to another woman.
As the two were chatting, a well-dressed man, though dressed in very ordinary fabric, walked in and asked the shopkeeper in a low voice about saltpeter.
The shop owner glanced at O'Malley, looking somewhat troubled.
O'Malley grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and said, "I was just about to go to the bathroom."
He went into the outhouse behind the shop, but did not close the door; instead, he peered through the crack in the door.
The man poured a handful of shillings from his purse and bought all the saltpeter in the shop.
He walked with a peculiar gait, his back ramrod straight, each step measured as if measured with a ruler, his boots clattering heavily and rhythmically on the wooden floor.
That's a habit that can only be cultivated through countless hours of practice on the parade ground.
O'Malley waited until he was far away before leisurely strolling out and continuing to chat with the shop owner as if nothing had happened.
But the man's silhouette was already etched into his mind.
That evening, Seamus returned to the small house in the back alley.
He sat in the only chair, silently listening to his subordinates' chattering reports.
"...A tall man with a scar on his face bought the sulfur from Prince Pharmacy."
"...a man who walked like a soldier bought saltpeter from Old John's grocery store, and he was very generous with his money."
"...I followed one, and he entered the 43rd Regiment's barracks."
"...I found out that these people only start appearing after the 5th of each month, which happens to be the day the 43rd Regiment receives its pay!"
The information flowed like tiny streams, converging on Seamus.
He didn't have the complex calculations of Li Wei, but he possessed the most primal street smarts, able to keenly sniff out the scent of greed and conspiracy from these scattered, chaotic fragments of information.
After everyone had finished reporting, he stood up, took out a few more silver coins from his purse, and tossed them to the young man who had provided the crucial clue about the "payday".
"Well done."
This was the only compliment he gave all night, yet it made the boy blush with excitement.
Then, Seamus respectfully presented the list filled with names and addresses to Levi.
Behind every name lies the truth pieced together bit by bit by his "rats" using their feet, eyes, and ears in the dirty streets of Boston.
……
Unlike Finn and Seamus's operations in the shadows of the city, Fiona's battlefield is in the vast room of Oak Bay Manor, which the former owner used as a study.
There are floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves filled with law and philosophy classics that the owner has never read, and the air is filled with the dry smell of old leather and paper.
Fiona didn't touch the hardcover books, but instead laid the back of a huge old nautical chart, which she had found in a port warehouse, on the large desk.
The back of the nautical chart is blank, and the rough paper is just right for using charcoal and ink.
Her tools were very simple.
A sharpened quill pen, a bottle of iron-filled ink bought from the city, a brass ruler for calibration, and a pile of seemingly disorganized scraps of paper sent by Li Wei through various channels.
Of course, there was also the black market price list compiled by Boyle.
Unlike Finn and Seamus, Levi had secretly given him 20% of the profits as agreed, a full ten pounds of gold and 30% ownership of Oak Bay Estate, in a way that no one knew about.
It wasn't that I didn't trust Boyle, but as an original shareholder, I had to be extremely cautious when it came to matters entrusted to me by Li Wei.
The scraps of paper on the table hold the secrets of Boston over the past six months.
There were price lists bought from a pharmacy clerk for a few shillings, lists of goods secretly copied by the dock clerk, and information on price fluctuations of various commodities gathered by Madame Boyle from the gossip of noblewomen.
Fiona's job was to get these silent pieces of paper to give Levi the information he wanted.
She first drew a grid on a huge sheet of paper using a ruler and charcoal.
The horizontal axis represents time, stretching from the first Monday six months ago to today, with each day occupying a small square.
The vertical axis represents prices, in shillings and pence.
For the rest of the day, she was engaged in a tedious task that could drive anyone crazy: data transcription.
She picked up a price list from a pharmacy, found the price of sulfur, and then used a quill pen to make a precise dot on the corresponding date.
Pick up another sheet, find the price of saltpeter, and mark it with a dot.
The quill pen made a soft scratching sound as it traced lines on the paper, becoming the only sound in the room.
The light of the setting sun shone through the huge glass window, casting a long shadow on her, which she was completely unaware of.
As night fell, a servant brought dinner, but she simply waved for it to be placed outside the door.
One candle after another burned out, and the candle wax piled up into small hills on the silver candlesticks.
Two days later, a huge price fluctuation chart appeared on the back of the nautical chart.
The price curves for sulfur and saltpeter undulated on the drawing, sometimes flat and sometimes surging abruptly, seemingly without any discernible pattern.
Any businessman who sees this chart will only lament the unpredictability of the market.
But Fiona is not a businesswoman; she is not looking for impermanence, but for regularity.
She produced a second crucial document: a list detailing the paydays for the various regiments of the Boston garrison, which Seamus had painstakingly collected.
On each payday, she would draw a cross in red ink at the corresponding position on the timeline.
Royal Artillery, 29th Infantry Regiment, 43rd Infantry Regiment...
Each cross represents a huge sum of money being injected into Boston's economic system.
Fiona stopped writing when the last red cross fell.
Instead of immediately seeking a connection between them, she stood up, walked to the window, and opened it.
The cold night wind blew in, dispersing the stuffy air in the room and clearing her mind, which had been throbbing from prolonged concentration.
Fiona's usually slightly lowered eyes were now gazing calmly at the stars in the night sky.
A moment later, she returned to her desk.
Her fingers moved slowly along the price curve.
Initially, everything went as expected; the price fluctuations did not appear to be significantly related to the appearance of the Red Cross.
But when her finger traced the forty-third red cross, which was payday for the forty-third infantry regiment, she stopped.
Fiona discovered an amazing coincidence.
Each time, within two to three days after the 43rd Infantry Regiment's payday, the price curves of sulfur and saltpeter would be pulled upwards as if by an invisible hand, resulting in a brief but dramatic peak.
Then, it quickly fell back down.
Once is a coincidence, twice is an accident.
But when this pattern has repeated itself six times in the past six months, it is no longer a coincidence.
Fiona's breathing remained unchanged, but the tip of her finger holding the quill pen unconsciously rubbed the pen shaft, just as she usually rubbed the handle of the small knife in her sleeve.
She found the prey's trail, but that wasn't enough.
Li Wei didn't want guesses; he wanted a name he was absolutely certain of.
Fiona didn't continue burying herself in old papers. Instead, she went to the study door and whispered to the servant standing outside, "Go and invite Mr. Finn over."