124 – Charles Augustus Milverton (1)
Charles Augustus Milverton, a journalist who is also the owner of a small magazine in London, is like a banker who suffers from boring and repetitive work. He was looking through various types of papers in front of him with an expression on his face.
He entered middle age, but fortunately, except for the fact that his head was slightly wider than when he was young, he still boasted a full head of hair, so his shiny hair was parted to the point of feeling greasy with a lot of pomade.
However, he couldn’t lie about his age and his weight was increasing these days, so someone might mistake him for a pig with a wig lightly placed on his head.
In reality, his actions as he looked through the various letters and sometimes trivial documents he had collected and checked their contents one by one were somewhat sluggish.
He may have looked even more ridiculous because he was wearing small gold-rimmed glasses and even though he was in his office, he was wearing only a bathrobe as if it were his private space.
But his eyes were shining like a lion looking for prey. At least those who are observant would have noticed that he was far from ordinary.
There is nothing but trash. Maybe he just wasted all his money this time.
That’s what Milverton thought as he finished checking one by one more than half of the papers in front of him.
Of course, if you think about it with common sense, if you compare the difference between the amount of money he earned each time he succeeded and the reserve funds he used to purchase papers, it was not only a loss, but only a trivial investment for work.
However, because he was as greedy as his fat mass, he couldn’t help but feel more sick to his stomach from the few pennies he had already wasted than from the money he could have earned.
“Trash…. Like the trash of society, you brought only trash… ….”
When he finally checked almost all of his documents, he spewed out vulgar swear words, even forgetting the dignity of living while disguising himself as a social intellectual.
With that, he lit an expensive cigar and had to exhale for a moment to appease his anger towards the stupid servants and maids.
Of course, swearing at people from the lower class was a natural trait of upper-middle class British people. It was as if they shared a happy hobby of criticizing Jews.
However, no matter how much you share such tastes, just as someone who seriously calls for killing all Jews is treated as a vulgar person, someone who openly despises the lower class like Milverton will only be treated as a vulgar person.
However, considering Charles Augustus Milverton’s main means of making money, he was indeed a man worthy of vulgarity.
People often fail to connect the fact that Charles Augustus Milverton was the owner of a small magazine and was a nouveau riche who had amassed a disproportionate amount of wealth.
Of course, it was understandable if he had been born as the son of a wealthy aristocratic family or factory owner in British society, where class and position were determined from birth, but Charles Augustus Milverton was born as the son of an ordinary middle-class family head, so he was typically He was a self-made man.
The magazine published by his magazine, like most newspapers and magazines in London, was like a piranha always looking for provocative stories, but the magazine itself could not be said to have had much influence.
However, since the magazine itself was only one of the means for his work, Milverton did not care.
Thanks to his title as the owner of a small magazine and the wealth he had amassed, he often attended social gatherings with the owners of famous newspapers and magazines in London, and often used their newspapers and magazines as a vehicle for his own work. Because I could.
What Charles Augustus Milverton was doing was something that people with a natural tendency to deceive people would have thought about at least once.
Just as James Moriarty often made the natural villains of society’s imagination of a criminal empire into reality, it was clear that Charles Augustus Milverton was also unique in his field.
What he did was simple.
Even an ordinary middle-class family hired one or two maids. In British society, servants and maids existed somewhere similar to street beggars.
And their treatment was not that good.
Of course, in any case, if you are lucky and are hired by people from a good family, the treatment may be good.
However, just as it cannot be said that living as a slave is objectively good just because there are good slave owners, living as servants and maids was the second most unlucky group of British people after beggars.
Milverton took advantage of such people.
Of course, from Milverton’s point of view, stealing money from the trash of society by deceiving it would only amount to pennies, just like taking money begged from a beggar, so they themselves were not very interested.
But what was fortunate for Milverton was that such servants and maids could steal and sell a variety of important information for a pittance at most.
This society is full of lowlifes who will sell everything their owner owns, including his secret letters and documents, for as little as 10 pounds.
Of course, there were times when human conscience prevented those who worked under good masters from doing so, but fortunately for Milverton, there were very few good employers, and there were also very few good servants and maids who could not betray their good masters.
As James Moriarty once lamented, technological advancement was still low, and although some wizards used magic to communicate over long distances, it was a time when there was no telephone.
The essential means of all communication was letters, and naturally these letters were easy to use as evidence.
In Milverton’s case, of course it was a threat.
Often, young ladies from wealthy aristocratic families exchanged letters with their lovers before they were engaged, while others engaged in secret crimes such as tax evasion, prostitution that was unbecoming of a gentleman, or frequented clubs where they were whipped by prostitutes. Evidence was also left in the form of letters and documents.
The more people had to lose, the easier it was to take advantage of it.
Such people valued their honor more than anything else, and were afraid of losing their reputation in society if their family broke up, or of breaking off their engagement to a wealthy family.
Milverton was accumulating wealth by frequently threatening wealthy nobles and people with evidence he had collected at low prices from various places.
Of course, his notoriety was secretly spread among the upper class and intellectuals, but since many of those people were also disgusted, no one could openly criticize Milverton or have any thoughts of getting rid of him.
There were quite a few people who wanted to do that if possible, but they were more afraid that everything about them would fall apart.
And then Milverton began to read almost the last letter with a sigh. But soon, his eyes sparkling, he quickly extinguished his cigarette and began to concentrate on the letter.
“Tidkin… …. Yes, that criminal who recently died in prison.”
In order to do this job, you had to be knowledgeable about people. Milverton’s memory was so extraordinary that he was able to remember information about many people without even having to look up a personal almanac.
He was the body smuggler that the London newspapers were talking about a few weeks ago. The news that Anthony Tidkin, who was originally quite famous as a wealthy merchant, was actually a criminal aroused the interest of many people, and the news that he ‘committed suicide’ while waiting for trial in prison without knowing why also led to many wild speculations. Was paying
But it was not the dead that interested Milverton. Also, he was not the owner of this letter. After recognizing the owner, Milverton realized that he was a poor man with little money to spare.
“James Moriarty… …. So, was he a promising mathematician? He said he often attends the Royal Society. More than anything…… He was a wealthy investor. I see, the young man had a bit of a bad side. Is that why he was successful? Well, I’m good.”
What caught Milverton’s attention was Professor James Moriarty mentioned in the letter. Although he was neither the recipient nor the sender of the letter, his presence mentioned in the letter was enough to tarnish his reputation.
Above all, a few lines of the letter that intimately hint that the renowned Oxford professor and mathematician may have a deep connection with Anthony Tidkin’s body smuggling business would be a good tool for him.
“Tsk tsk, that’s how you should live a good life. “Well, you’ll only get about 7,000 pounds to recover the money you contributed to the crime, so don’t worry too much, Professor Moriarty.”
Then, Milverton immediately began writing a polite letter to Professor James Moriarty.
Of course, Moriarty and Milverton may be the same type of criminal, but their worlds were clearly different.
If Milverton had been living innocently in a relatively bright world, at best dealing with tax evasion by the upper class or threats against trivial matters that could damage one’s reputation, the person he was trying to threaten now was a being called by many names.
Of course, Milverton also had some interactions with upper-class people, so he had heard of ‘M’, whose existence is questionable, and who secretly gave advice on the help of some people, but he could not connect M with the professor. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes is the only one in London who is not a subordinate of Moriarty.
If he could go back in time, the future Charles Augustus Milverton would have immediately knocked on the window and cried to his past self to stop, but Milverton finished the letter and wrote it to James Moriarty in anticipation of new money coming in. Sent.
And the letter was received by Sebastian Moran, who returned from vacation.
