Mary's Nineteenth Century

A secret hidden in the City of London.

It has three characteristics at the same time, many people want it, but dare not ask for it, and it is absurd and bizarre.

What would it be?

Friday, August 24, 08:13.

Watson woke up from the bed and opened his eyes. He turned his head and saw the sunlight through the cracks in the curtains. It was actually sunny in London today.

He didn't know whether it was the bright sun that made people sober, or the influence of alcohol from the delicious brandy. He began to feel that the exploration activity that he vaguely agreed to last night was a bit unreliable.

Regret seems a bit late.

It's not his character to go back and forth, and there are less than two hours left before the agreed departure time.

At ten o'clock sharp, a carriage stopped at the door of the hotel.

"Good morning, Mr. Watson."

Mary chartered a car to pick him up, "Let's go to the Municipal Engineering Management Office to check one thing."

Watson looked at the energetic man in front of him, but he was still confused, not knowing the cause and effect. "Mr. Minton, could you please describe in general terms what we are going to do?"

"Don't worry, it's easy to do."

Mary's tone was relaxed. If it weren't for the technological hardware of this era that couldn't keep up with her footsteps, no one else would have needed to help.And she thinks that she is not ignorant of the importance, and she still needs to find someone to help.

"Wait to verify some information, just change into a suitable set of clothes and go to a magical place for a stroll."

Watson: Is there any difference between this explanation and not saying it?

Could it be that his lack of understanding of the revolving lantern numbers made Mr. Minton lose his enthusiasm for explaining him in detail?

Mary pulled a smile.

Of course it’s hard to say much now, what if someone jumps out of the car in shock?

The two remained silent, and the carriage continued on its way.

Thank you for holding the staff identity certificate of the research room of the British Museum, which makes it a little more convenient to go to the Municipal Engineering Office to inquire about the information.It's not confidential information, just look up the distribution map of the sewers near the Financial City, and the recent construction and maintenance registration.

Mary had very valid reasons.

In order to write a travel guide, how can you not understand the road conditions.The surroundings of the subway include not only the ground, but also the situation of underground pipelines.

"Very good. From July 55st to today, for [-] days, there is no record of an underground pipeline repair report near the City of London."

Mary quickly flipped through the log book, not limited to the past two months, and then flipped forward from the beginning of the year, not to mention that no maintenance was completed by the "Wallace Engineering Team".At the same time, I looked through the registered underground pipeline maintenance companies or organizations, and there was no one named Wallace.

To put it simply, the construction sign on the side of the manhole cover in the cul-de-sac with the words "Wallace Engineering Team" on it is fake.

Watson watched the review process, and that bad premonition resurfaced.It's not about exploring the secrets of the Financial City. Why are they all looking for information about underground pipelines?

Finally, the two left the data access hall.

As soon as he came to the street, Watson couldn't help asking, "Mr. Minton, does the so-called secret have something to do with the underground?"

"As expected of you, you really look like a torch."

Mary looked at the busy traffic on the street, "There are always many unknown secrets hidden underground."

Watson: Please don't praise him casually with rhetoric. If he really sees everything, he won't still be confused.

"Mr. Minton, please clarify."

Watson was helpless, "Please don't test me, what is the so-called secret to be explored?"

Mary: "I think it's obvious."

Hearing this overly natural tone, Watson seemed to have returned to the moment when he was trapped in the secret room and unlocked the code.

Why does he have to embarrass his IQ again?What was it that bewitched me yesterday to agree to find the secrets of the Financial City together?

Mary didn't keep her mouth shut when she saw this, "Mr. Watson, please boldly think about what's underground?"

What's underground?

Of course Watson can blurt out some common sense, "There are dirty sewers, and you don't want to take the subway unless you have to."

Mary nodded slightly, signaling Watson to continue.Her eyes couldn't be more obvious, what else?

What else could there be?

Watson was confused, "Could there still be treasures that have been buried for many years? Like in the story, dig out the piles of gold coins buried by pirates in the last century?"

"Well, what an artistic conjecture. I have to say that you have the talent to become a literary master."

Mary looked sincere, and she didn't seem to equate this answer with cranky thinking. "However, for the underground gold coin you mentioned, it is much less likely to be a pirate cache than another source."

Watson was puzzled, "What source?"

Mary raised her eyebrows, "I said, you might as well make a bold guess."

Want to be bolder?

Watson looked around and saw seagulls flying by in the sky. He said uncertainly, "It can't be that there is a sleeping dragon in the underground of London, guarding some shining golden treasure cave, right?"

Mary: ...

She knew that the occult thought was flourishing in the nineteenth century, which was accompanied by natural science, but she did not expect a quasi-medical student to give such a 'bold' answer.

"OK. Although I don't 100% deny the existence of magic in the world, let's focus on humans."

Mary didn't ask Watson to guess again, always feeling that the topic would be biased in a strange direction. "We're talking about the City of London. What's in there? There's a bank. What's in a bank? There's an underground vault."

Mary lowered her voice, "You know, for example, the Bank of England, the underground building is three floors deep, not only has no windows around it, but also has a stone wall around it. Not only the British government, but other countries' central banks or commercial banks , in order to protect the safety of property, gold will be stored there.”

Today is the age of the gold standard.

The importance of gold as a hard currency is self-evident.

Mary immediately reported a string of data, "You know, thousands of gold nuggets are neatly placed in the underground vaults of England. There are two types of gold nuggets, gold nuggets from the ancient Roman era, each about 0.5 kilograms; and New contemporary gold nuggets, like building bricks, are about 28 pounds each, and each is worth about 12 pounds. Each of them has a code number, and... ①”

"Mr. Minton!"

The more Watson listened, the more something was wrong, so he interrupted in time.Subconsciously glanced around, but fortunately no one passed by them at this time, so he breathed a sigh of relief.

What does he know?

No!he does not know.I never knew the specific security situation of the Bank of England, let alone what kind of gold nuggets were stored in its underground vaults.

Fortunately, no one else heard this series of words, otherwise it might lead to speculation.

Watson had no choice but to lower his voice, "What do you want to do after investigating the Bank of England's reserves so clearly?"

"Me? I don't want to do anything."

Mary has returned to her normal speaking volume, and asked frankly, "The focus of this trip is not on the Bank of England, I just use it as an example. Mr. Watson, do you have any special guesses? Sorry, it may come true No."

Watson: Are you kidding him?You are making fun of him.

Don't pretend, Mr. Minton, please don't look at him with "tsk tsk tsk, how dare you think. Want to rob the Bank of England? Can't see you are the kind of Watson".Whose words caused ambiguous speculation.

"Mr. Minton..."

Watson was about to complain a little, when suddenly he had a flash of inspiration and thought of something back and forth.

There is more than one bank in the City of London, so there is more than one underground vault. Could it be that the Bank of England is not the one that will be robbed?

"Oh, God!"

Watson had a guess, "Could it be that someone wants to dig through the underground vault of a certain bank through underground water pipes? Wait a minute, the information I just checked is in the north of the Financial City, where there are..."

Watson carefully recalled the situation on the ground. He had only been to the Financial City twice to save money, and he was not very familiar with the row upon row of buildings in the narrow streets. "There seems to be a foreign bank there, isn't there?"

"Congratulations, you got it."

Mary gave the specific name, "Last year, London ushered in the first foreign bank, and the French AB Bank is above the sewer area under investigation. It is said that its security measures are very good, just like the French army." Solid as gold."

Watson: The French army is impenetrable, are you sure you are not ironic?

The era of Napoleon is long gone. Since the loss of Napoleon, the French army is no longer invincible.

Watson shook his head, now is not the time to discuss the combat effectiveness of the army.He still couldn't believe it. Stealing the vault from the underground water pipes sounded too far away.

"Mr. Minton, could it be that you are worrying too much? Take the Bank of England as an example. Since its establishment at the end of the seventeenth century, it has never been heard that it will be robbed in such an incredible way."

"Since 170, there has indeed been no similar case."

But Mary changed the topic, "Don't forget, London couldn't bear the stinky sewage environment ten years ago, and finally began to comprehensively rebuild the sewer project, which was officially completed four years ago. Just like the construction of subway lines That’s what happened in recent years.”

This means that world - the underground world extending in all directions but dark and unpredictable, it has just taken shape.

In the past, no one wanted to dig tunnels to rob vaults. It may be that the external environment is immature, but it does not mean that there will be no future.

Mary can easily list the famous cases known in her previous life.

The Baker Street bank robbery in 1971 and the Société Générale robbery in 1976 both dug underground passages to the underground vault, and then carried out the gold transportation smoothly.

Of course, these cases cannot be spoken bluntly in front of Watson.

Watson was already shaken, but he still hesitated.

"Although the Wallace engineering team is not registered, and there is no recent maintenance project application information, it does not mean that they must be robbing the treasury. Maybe, just maybe, it is just an irregular construction team taking an irregular private job. "

"Yes, we cannot rule out this possibility. What if the following clues are added?"

Mary used the excuse of casual thinking yesterday to tell what she had seen and heard in the subway.

"Because of the pursuit of Tori's case, I have paid more attention to Egypt. Yesterday, I met two sewer workers who were suspected of being ex-soldiers on the subway and knew Arabic."

Mary also talked about what she had learned from the track, "The candy wrapper found in the dead end, guess the price of the candy it belongs to. The cheapest small jar costs five pounds."

Yesterday, Mary went home and asked Sophia, the maid, if she had heard of "Britney Spears Rainbow House".The answer was that it was a more famous and expensive candy brand in London.

The monthly salary limit for sewer workers is at most 10 pounds. If you are not addicted to sugar to a certain level, you will never be able to buy such expensive candy.

At present, we cannot be 100% sure that it is the candy eaten by Z and C.

The candy wrappers may have fallen with the wind, and then picked up and looked at, leaving dark fingerprints stained with sewer oil on them.

"It's worth noting that the oddities are not limited to unregistered construction crews and construction records, candy that doesn't match the purchasing power of a monthly salary, and that Arabic number."

What Mary said was the word "four days", "counting yesterday, four days later will be Monday, August 8. Please allow me to remind that England has added bank holidays this year, and the latest one happens to be next Monday. ② "

That means this Sunday and next Monday will be off consecutively.

There are no bustling traders in the Financial City. Even if there are security personnel, it is hard to say how vigilant they are.This time is very suitable for quietly robbing.

If one or two strange behaviors can be explained by coincidence, but how to explain the successive abnormal situations?

There must be a demon in the abnormal situation.

Watson has to admit that there is no sleeping demon dragon underground in the financial city, but there is very likely a robbery team that wants to be a demon.

"Mr. Minton, your doubts are very reasonable. In fact, it is not difficult to prove it. We just need to open the manhole cover in the dead alley and go down to find out."

"Exactly, glad we reached an agreement."

This is what Mary was waiting for, "We don't have much time left. I've already arranged for someone to buy the equipment for the sewer. Recharge your batteries, and I'll be able to go to the field to investigate in the middle of the night today."

Why a midnight probe?

Because the target suspect should be resting in the middle of the night.

Considering that the target suspect is under the banner of repairing the sewer, the construction time of this kind of repair generally does not include midnight, in order to prevent the sound of beating underground from disturbing the sleep of people on the ground.

If someone really digs a vault passage by repairing the sewer, they should also carefully consider the sound issue.Undoubtedly, the noisy construction during the day can better deceive people's eyes and ears.

As for the possibility of being unlucky and bumping into each other?

Watson was also a little worried, but he didn't want to go to Scotland Yard to report the crime, or directly warn the French AB Bank.He knew too well that the police and the bank would only treat the two as lunatics before seeing any evidence.

After all, not everyone is willing to go to the dirty sewer world just because of some reasoning, like he was saved once by Mr. Minton.Those police detectives and bankers sometimes have to hit the south wall before admitting that their heads hurt.

**

Time always flies by.

Before you know it, the hands of the clock are biased towards 22:45.

Watson caught up on sleep early in the afternoon, and now he went to Pall Mall Street to change into the investigation suit for going to the ground, quite refreshed.

Later, he will drive to the financial city.The two of them did not go down from the manhole cover in the dead alley, but went deep into the ground from the sewer mouth two streets away from it, and then found out according to the route map.

Where's the wiring diagram?

Mary checked the information from the Municipal Engineering Department in the morning, and then drew a clear route map.

Use red and blue ink to mark planned routes A and B, as well as an escape route outlined with a golden oil pen, in case there are accidents underground.

everything's ready.

"May God bless! The evidence can be found smoothly tonight."

Before going out, Watson made a sign of the cross in front of him, trying to calm down his excited and inevitably nervous mood.

He remembered the important question that hadn't been discussed yet, "Mr. Minton, if evidence of bank robbery is found underground, what's the next plan?"

"The mantis catches the cicada, and the oriole is behind."

Mary seemed to answer without thinking, but seeing Watson's confused look, she added an explanation. "To put it simply, it's black and white, what do you think?"

Quiet.

A strange silence spread in the room in an instant.

Watson never thought of ordering his own front-page headline in the newspaper news, let alone the headline "Under Queen Victoria, London's first foreign bank. The big robbery is confusing. Who is the real culprit?"

I was stunned for less than three seconds.

"Ha ha……"

Watson smiled awkwardly but politely, "Mr. Minton, you are telling a bad joke again. This is trying to divert my nervousness, just like you once proposed to divide the pile by diverting Miss Georgiana's fear." Gold coins. I understand everything, and I will not misunderstand your gentlemanly spirit. Please rest assured, I will try my best not to be nervous."

Mary: Are you sure you really understand?

Why does she occasionally speak her mind, but few people take it seriously.

She once wrote "Teaching You to Rob a Bank from the Sewer" and wanted to publish it, but unfortunately, the godfather finally gave it to the senior management of the security department of the submitting bank, in exchange for a high security consulting fee for her.

Any complaints about this?Not to mention dissatisfaction, a lot of money in hand.However, there are too few readers, which is a little regrettable.Really, she promises only a little regret.

At this moment, Mary finally smiled slowly, "Thank you, I also think this is an excellent cold joke. I don't have any special plans in the future. I should be able to have a deal with the bank for several thousand pounds, which is the reward we deserve."

"Fine, that's fine."

Watson secretly breathed a sigh of relief.Mr. Minton is good everywhere, but his perception of humor is not the same as that of ordinary people, and he always makes the atmosphere a little weird when it is not critical.Maybe just get used to it?

The two seemed to have reached an agreement, and went out and got into the carriage.

Ahead is the dark underground world.

The author has something to say:

①Data reference "City of London", Xinhua Publishing House, by Xue Yongxing

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②Information found on the Internet: In the [-]th century, British banker Sir John Lubbock proposed to set bank holidays on working days.Because British cricket is popular, but the game is not played on weekends, the hard-working bank workers can't watch the game on non-rest days.

Sir Lubbock was a huge cricket fan, so he submitted a proposal to Parliament for bank holidays. Later, from 1871, England, Wales and Northern Ireland had 4 public holidays a year, and Scotland had 5 days a day.

~~

The timeline of this article has changed, since 1869 there have been bank holidays.