Part 1 The Joker Chapter 91 The Solution
The image began to distort, began to fade, began to disappear.
Klein detached himself from that dreamlike experience and his vision followed as he adjusted to the claustrophobic darkness of his bedroom.
He knew that his brother Benson was working pretty hard to support both himself and Melissa at normal civilian standards on a weekly wage of 1 pound 10 sousl, or 30 sousl.
He assumed that the vast majority of workers made up to 20 Sools a week.
He had heard Melissa mention that in the lower streets of Iron Cross there were families of five, seven, and even ten living in the same room.
He knew from Benson that in the previous months, the kingdom had experienced an economic slump due to the situation in the southern continent.
He had learned that the handyman maids who were provided with food and lodging could get 3 sousl 6p to 6 sousl per week.
Klein reached out his hand and pinched his brow, not speaking for a long time, until Sir Devereux, who was lying on the bed, spoke:
”Sergeant, won’t you say something? I’ve had psychiatrists before who would talk to me and ask questions in a setting like this one at this time of night.”
”I do feel peaceful though, I was almost falling asleep just now and I didn’t hear any moaning or crying.”
”How did you manage that?”
Crane leaned against the back of his rocking chair and said in a calm voice without answering:
”Sir, do you know about lead poisoning? Know the dangers of lead?”
”……” said Deville, lying on the bed in silence for a few seconds, “I didn’t know about it before, but I have since learned about it, do you mean that my psychological problems, or mental illness, are due to feeling guilty, to feeling guilty about the lead-making women and glazing women workers feeling guilty?”
Without waiting for Klein to answer, he said to himself as he did every time he seized the initiative in a negotiation:
”Yes, at one time I did feel guilty, but I have long since compensated them by paying each worker in my lead and white and porcelain factories a good deal more than in the same places, and in Bécquerade the weekly wages of the lead-makers and glazers do not exceed eight souslées, whereas I pay them ten souslées, or even more. ”
”Heh, a number of people accuse me of making it difficult for them to recruit workers by making them lose their morals. If it hadn’t been for the repeal of the Grain Bill and the bankruptcy of a number of farmers who came into the city, they would have had to follow me in raising their salaries.”
”And I’ve told factory supervisors to get workers who repeatedly feel headaches and have blurred vision out of places where they can come in contact with lead, and to apply for assistance from my charitable fund if they get very sick.”
”I think I’ve done enough.”
Klein spoke without the slightest waver in his tone:
”Sir, there are times when you can never imagine how important a paycheck can be to a poor person, even if they are unemployed for only a week or two, and their family is irreversibly and tragically damaged to the core.”
He paused and turned to the question:
”I’m curious, so compassionate as you are, why don’t you add protection from dust and lead poisoning to your factory?”
Deville looked up at the ceiling and gave a bitter laugh:
”That would cost me an unacceptably high amount of money, and would be completely unable to compete with other lead-making factories and porcelain factories; I’m no longer too concerned about the profitability of this, and I’m even willing to subsidize a portion of the money, but what’s the point of doing it all the time? It would only help a very small percentage of workers, and could not become a standard for the industry and drive them to make changes.”
”This will diffuse into me purely spending money to support people. I’ve heard that there are factories that are still secretly using slaves to save costs.”
Klein crossed his arms and clasped them together and said after a while of silence:
”Sir, your psychological problems stem from this little bit of accumulated guilt, though you thought they had faded and gone away. It wouldn’t have had too noticeable an effect, but something irritated you and set all the problems ablaze, all at once.”
”Something irritated me? I wasn’t aware of anything like that.” Deville said with confusion and certainty.
Klein let his body sway gently with the rocking chair and explained in a calm tone:
”You were actually asleep for a few minutes earlier and told me something.”
”Hypnotherapy?” Deville made his customary guess, pre-judging.
Klein didn’t reply positively and said directly:
”You once saw in a carriage a workwoman who died on her way to work, sick with lead poisoning, glazing your china while she was alive.”
”……” whispered De Vere, rubbing both temples, not quite sure, “there seems to have been such a thing …… but I don’t remember it very well ……”
His long insomnia had left him in poor mental condition, and vaguely he seemed to have actually seen a similar scene.
He thought about it, stopped squeezing his poor brain, and asked instead:
”What was the name of that woman worker?”
”Well, I mean, what should I do to cure my mental problems?”
Klein answered in a low, succinct voice:
”Two things.”
”First, the woman worker who died on the side of the road was named Harriet Walker, which is what you told me, and she was the most immediate irritant, so you need to find her parents and make more amends.”
”Secondly, publicize the dangers of lead widely in newspapers and magazines, get your charitable fund to help damaged workers more, and, if, by some chance, you become a member of the House of Lords, then push for legislation on the subject.”
De Vere sat up slowly and smiled to himself:
”Anything else, I’ll do, but legislation, heh, I don’t think that’s possible, because there are still foreign competitors, legislation will only cause these industries in the Kingdom to fall into a wholesale crisis, one by one going bankrupt, with a large number of workers losing their jobs with it, the Relief Organization can’t save that many people.”
He rolled out of bed in an unhurried motion, straightened his collar, and looked over at Klein:
”Harriet Walker, right? I’ll have Karen go to the china factory right away to get her information and get her parents over here, Officer, please wait with me and assess my mental state at all times.”
”Okay.” Klein slowly stood up and patted down his black-on-white checkered police uniform.
……
Eleven o’clock in the morning, the first floor living room of the Devereux’s house.
Klein, who hadn’t been saying much, sat on the single sofa and watched in silence as a man and a woman were guided in by the housekeeper Karen.
The two guests had rough skin and wrinkles had begun to appear on their faces, the male had a slightly hunched back and the woman had a black mole on her eyelid.
They basically matched what Klein had seen through Harriet, but were older and more emaciated, so thin that they could almost see their bones, dressed in old and tattered clothes, and rumored to be on the verge of not even being able to live in Lower Iron Cross Street.
Woo ……
The chilly wind began to swirl in Klein’s inspiration.
He pinched his brow and turned his gaze back to Sir Devereux, seeing a pale white, transparent, distorted figure somehow emerge behind the other man.
”Good morning, good morning, Honorable, Honorable Lord.” Harriet’s parents saluted in an unusually formal manner.
Devereux rubbed his forehead and opened his mouth to ask:
”You are Harriet Walker’s parents? Doesn’t she have a brother and a two-year-old sister?”
Wincing, Harriet’s mother replied, “She, her brother broke his leg at the docks some time ago, broke his leg, and we left him at home to look after his sister.”
Devereux was silent for a few seconds and sighed:
”I sympathize with Harriet’s misfortune.”
Upon hearing these words, both Harriet’s father and mother instantly reddened their eyes, and each opened their mouths, saying in a jumble of words:
”Thank you, thank you for your kind words.”
”The police told us, told us, that Harriet died of lead poisoning, I believe is the word? Oh, my poor child, she was only seventeen, and she was always so quiet and headstrong.”
”You sent someone to see her, financed the burial, and she is buried in Raphael Cemetery.”
Devereux glanced at Klein and changed his sitting position, leaning forward, his tone heavy:
”This was actually an oversight on our part, and I need to apologize.”
”I’ve thought about it, I have to make it up to you guys, to Harriet, her weekly paycheck is 10 Soule right? That’s 520 Sooler a year, well 26 pounds, and we’re assuming she’ll be working for at least another 10 years.”
”Karen, you take 300 pounds and give it to Harriet’s parents.”
”Three, three hundred pounds?” Harriet’s father and mother were stunned.
At their most generous, they didn’t have more than a pound of savings on hand!
Not only them, but the bodyguards and servants in the parlor were shocked and envious, and even Sergeant Galt couldn’t help but breathe heavily – his weekly salary was a mere two pounds, and the constable, who had only one “V” under his command, was only one pound.
In the midst of an unspeakable silence, the butler, Callum, emerged from the study with a bulging sack in his hand.
He hit the bag, revealing stacks and stacks of banknotes, including 1 pound, 5 pounds, but more often 1 and 5 sousl.
It was obvious that Devereux had had “change” from the bank ahead of time.
”It is a token of Sir’s esteem.” Karen, who had gotten her master’s approval, handed the cloth bag to Harriet’s parents.
Harriet’s father and mother took it, rubbed their eyes, and looked at it again and again.
”No, this, this is too generous, we shouldn’t accept it.” They said as they clutched the cloth bag tightly.
Devereux spoke in a hushed voice:
”This is what Harriet should get.”
”You, you are truly a noble and kind Sir!” Harriet’s parents bowed repeatedly in excitement.
Their faces revealed smiles, uncontrollable smiles.
They praised Sir Devereux over and over again, they repeated those few adjectives over and over again, and they repeatedly stated that Harriet would surely be grateful to each other in heaven.
”Callum, send someone to take them back, well, to the bank first.” Devereux sighed in relief and instructed the butler.
Harriet’s father and mother clutched the cloth bag tightly, not daring to stop as they walked quickly towards the door.
Klein saw the pale white, transparent figure behind Sir Dwyer try to reach out to them, try to follow them away, but they smiled unusually brightly and didn’t look back.
The figure grew fainter and fainter, and soon disappeared completely.
And in Klein’s senses, the gloom of the living room normalized for a moment.
He just watched quietly from beginning to end without comment.
”Officer, I feel much better, can you now tell me why my butler, servants and bodyguards are equally able to hear the crying and moaning? Shouldn’t this just be a psychological problem uniquely mine?” Deville looked over curiously.
Inspector Toller, who knew the inside story, became tense for a moment.
Klein replied without much expression:
”In psychology, we call this phenomenon mass hysteria.”