From Corsica to the Fourth Rome

Lawrence and his entourage followed the sweaty butler into Du Barry's single-family villa.

The servants in the residence seemed to have been summoned long ago. It was probably the housekeeper who summoned them here after discovering Lawrence's carriage.

A dozen maids and maids were waiting at the entrance hall, looking warily and uneasily at Lawrence and Grosso, who were following the butler.

Behind them you can even see sticks and hatchets hidden in a hurry.

It seems that if Lawrence insisted on forcing his way in, these people would not hesitate to break into a violent conflict with Lawrence and his party.

And these people would rather draw a knife on a royal envoy than let Lawrence go inside to investigate. This in itself is a very strange thing.

In other words, these servants have put the protection of the secrets in this mansion on equal footing with their own lives.

"This bastard Du Barry seems to be hiding some terrible secrets."

Lawrence glanced at the servants with strange expressions and thought to himself.

After noticing this series of strange phenomena, Lawrence couldn't help but become more interested, and was convinced that he would never return empty-handed today.

"Come in, gentlemen."

The butler smiled stiffly and greeted everyone to enter, and then scolded the servants:

"What are you lazy idiots doing here! Go back to your posts!"

The servants immediately dispersed, and the butler continued to lead Lawrence and his party into the living room.

There is nothing special in the living room. The decoration style is Rococo style with golden color as the main color. This is also the favorite style of the nouveau riche who made their fortune in industry and commerce. They may think that being in the golden splendor can make up for their Those disadvantages in class.

The walls are covered with second-rate landscape oil paintings and portraits from the last century. Although the artistic value is limited, the owner here has made a gilt frame for all the oil paintings, in order to show his appreciation for art. His taste is still to show off his wealth.

However, the sofa chairs here are quite soft and hard, and there is no discomfort after sitting on them.

"Don't worry, gentlemen, I'll bring you hot tea and desserts right now."

The housekeeper said to Lawrence diligently, and then left.

"Wait a minute." Lawrence called out to the butler directly, beckoned him to come closer, and said in a deep voice:

"We are not here as guests. Tea and snacks are waived. I have some questions to ask you."

The housekeeper walked to Lawrence cautiously, nodded with erratic eyes and said:

"Of course I will fully cooperate with you."

"Very good, does Jean Du Barry usually live here?" Lawrence asked.

"Yes, Lord Du Barry should only have this property." The butler quickly replied:

"But he often stays overnight at his properties, you know, those casinos and bathhouses and stuff like that."

Lawrence nodded slightly. If Du Barry really only had this residence, he would most likely leave some important items and information here instead of in those shops.

After all, those industries were more unsafe with too many people, and he would never have expected that he could be searched at home under the protection of the Duke of Richelieu.

So Lawrence twirled his fingers and asked casually:

"When you were outside the door just now, were you deliberately trying to prevent us from coming in?"

"How dare I obstruct your investigation."

The housekeeper wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, a hint of subtle cunning flashed across his face, and said with a bitter smile:

"It's just that many of Monsignor Du Barry's properties and personal documents are in this house, so I must be cautious. I hope you can understand my difficulty."

"Oh?" Lawrence raised his eyebrows at the butler in surprise. Unexpectedly, he took the initiative to mention Du Barry's private documents.

Lawrence expected that the butler should try his best to bury Du Barry's secret, so he frowned and ordered:

"You said Du Barry's property and personal documents are here? We need this evidence for our investigation."

"Of course, of course, I'll get it for you right now."

The housekeeper nodded and bowed quickly, then trotted out of the living room with Lawrence's acquiescence, and called a few servants to go to the large study room on the second floor.

Seeing that the butler agreed to Lawrence's request without any hesitation, Grosso also said a little strangely:

"I didn't expect it to go well. I thought I was going to force a confession out of this little old man."

Lawrence nodded, but said nothing, just lowered his head in thought.

He also felt that the change in the butler's attitude was too strange. He had just summoned all the servants to fight against him, but now he was willing to hand over Du Barry's secret.

Although Lawrence also threatened the butler and asked him to assist him, Lawrence did not feel that his words could make him betray everything about Du Barry to him so actively.

Lawrence and the others waited in the living room for a long time before they saw the butler commanding six tall valets to carry a silver-white safe downstairs.

The safe was half the size of a table. Even carrying it a short distance made the valets so tired that they placed the safe in the living room while breathing heavily.

"call"

The housekeeper put his hands on the safe and said with a flattering smile:

"Your Excellency Bonaparte, if Monsieur Du Barry has something important, he will definitely put it in this box. Even I don't know what is in it. I only know Monsieur Du Barry's important real estate title deeds, gold, silver and jewelry. The documents and letters should all be in there.”

Grosso stood up and walked around the safe, then reached out and patted it like a watermelon, making a dull sound.

"It's really strong. This is not an iron box, it's just a big iron block."

Grosso said with surprise and excitement that it would certainly not be something simple that could be tightly guarded by such a box.

Lawrence glanced at the safe. There were layers of light patterns on it, which seemed to be well-made.

In particular, there is someone's initials engraved below the keyhole. It is not Du Barry's. If nothing else, it should be the name of the locksmith.

This also shows that the locksmith is very confident in the lock and will use his reputation to guarantee its safety.

Lawrence looked at the keyhole above and asked:

"Where's the key? We just want what's inside as evidence."

"I'm very sorry, Your Excellency Bonaparte." The butler sighed, shook his head regretfully and said:

"Of course a servant like me will not have the key to the safe. You have to ask Monsignor Du Barry yourself about this."

"Yeah, I know."

Lawrence looked at the butler's facial expression carefully, nodded slightly at this reasonable reason, and then ordered to his bodyguard:

"Come here, move this box onto the carriage first."

"Hey, Lawrence." Grosso suddenly frowned and said to Lawrence in Italian:

"Du Barry didn't mention last night that he had any keys, and he didn't have any on him."

"I know." Lawrence nodded slightly, glanced sideways at the butler and said:

"But it's not on this person. Even if it was there before, he must have disposed of it yesterday. If you throw such a gadget into the Seine River, no one will find it."

"So the key is probably nowhere to be found."

Grosso frowned and looked at the thick safe, sighed and said:

"The locks on this box are built-in, so it will probably take a lot of effort to open them."

"It doesn't matter. There must be a locksmith in Paris who can open this box."

Lawrence said nonchalantly.

Even if he really couldn't find a suitable craftsman, Lawrence would probably move the box to the Tuileries Palace, where there was a master locksmith.

"Your Excellency Bonaparte, I will send someone to help you move out."

Seeing Lawrence accept the box, the housekeeper said with joy, and quickly personally called several servants to carry the safe out of the door.

"What should we do next? All the valuable things should be in that box."

Grosso looked at the attentive figure of the butler, yawned out of boredom and said:

"Shall we go back directly?"

Lawrence watched with a gloomy expression as the housekeeper walked out of the door with the servant carrying the safe, then squinted at the sticks and hatchets scattered at the entrance, and shook his head slowly.

"Don't leave? Do you think there is anything else?" Grosso frowned and asked:

"Du Barry probably wouldn't have expected that his lair would be raided, so that's probably all that's in the safe."

Lawrence raised his chin and pointed at the sticks, shook his head and said:

"No, have you noticed? When we were just about to break in, they were really prepared to resist with force. If it were just Du Barry's personal property and private documents, they wouldn't be able to do this."

"You mean? What else are they hiding?"

After hearing this, Grosso immediately touched his chin and began to think deeply. He also noticed that the housekeeper was a little too attentive, as if he wanted to quickly give them the safe and urge them to leave.

"It should be, and it's something that can kill them all." Lawrence said seriously.

Lawrence did not believe that the butler and servants would be loyal enough to fight him to protect Du Barry's property. What they wanted to hide must be something more important.

"Hehehe, that's interesting. I like dangerous and deadly things, of course to others."

Grosso stood up immediately, looked at the servants in the courtyard who were still struggling to carry the safe, and said proactively:

"They won't be back for a while. I'll take people to search?"

"Go ahead and pay attention to the secret compartments in the basement or secret rooms." Lawrence nodded in approval.

When Grosso returned to the living room and found Lawrence, only ten minutes had passed.

Those outside had finally moved the safe to the carriage and were trying to find a way to lift it into the carriage, which was nearly one meter above the ground.

"Hey, kid, you're right."

As soon as he entered the living room, Grosso said directly to Lawrence.

His expression was extremely serious and dignified, without any trace of ordinary cynicism.

As for the precision shooters following Grosso, they all frowned and cursed in a low voice, obviously seeing something that impressed them.

Lawrence stood up, looked at Grosso, nodded, glanced out the window, and said in a deep voice:

"Grosso, take me over. The rest of the people are lying in ambush at the door. When those people come back, control them immediately and try not to kill them."

Everyone took action immediately, and Grosso led Lawrence through the living room and down a flight of stairs to the basement of the house.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong here, it's just a basement used to store sundries and discarded items, with wooden boxes scattered everywhere.

Lawrence even saw a set of rusty half-plate armor. Judging from the scrap iron thrown next to it, it was obviously not a cultural relic and antique, just a set of garbage.

"Do you smell something?" Grosso asked with a frown.

"Smell." Lawrence sniffed twice, and then he noticed that in addition to dust, there was an unbearable rancid smell in the air.

It smelled like the undigested food residue in a disemboweled whale, and also had a bit of the stinky smell of human feces.

"This isn't some kitchen scraps, Lawrence."

Grosso glanced at Lawrence who noticed the abnormality and said, walked straight to a corner of the basement and kicked away a completely inconspicuous wooden box.

I saw that there was a slightly smaller hole under the wooden box, connected by a wooden ladder to the lower level.

"A secret room? Wait"

Lawrence frowned and walked towards the hole, but suddenly he heard a strange sound in his ears.

The sound came from the secret room below. It was very noisy and seemed to have gone through hundreds of reflections and refractions before reaching Lawrence's ears.

And the composition of this sound made Lawrence stunned on the spot:

"Dogs barking and women crying?"

"That's right, Lawrence."

Grosso glanced down into the hole, his face gloomier than ever, and whispered:

"There are more than a dozen iron cages below."

"What do you mean?" Lawrence asked standing there.

Grosso was silent for a while, as if some words were too difficult for him as a sailor to say.

"Let's put it this way, there are about ten flat-coated retrievers, all male, one year old and full of teeth."

Grosso looked at Lawrence, as if he didn't want him to see the scene below the cave in person, and said in a low voice:

"Six women, no more than twenty-five years old, young and beautiful, naked."

Having said that, even a murderous man like Grosso showed pity and anger in his eyes. He hammered his fist on the wall and growled:

"I really regret not having fun with him yesterday, Du Barry."

Lawrence covered his mouth, closed his eyes to slightly overcome the feeling of vomiting rising from his stomach, then shook his head and said:

"Don't worry, Grosso, you still have a chance, many, many opportunities, but not before I squeeze out the last bit of his value."