Dolly sat behind the counter, flipping open the ledger, her pen tip crossing off all the items on the inventory list that needed restocking.
Hearing this, she looked up: “They need so much flour—does that shirt factory also provide meals for its workers?”
The Penochi Shirt Factory was a well-known large shirt factory at the end of Jude Road.
It specialized in contract manufacturing for two famous clothing companies, producing mid-range ready-to-wear men’s clothing for export to the European continent.
“How could that be? They only provide meals for the pattern makers, accountants, salesmen, and managers in the office—just over a dozen people.
Before this, their office used to order staff meals from restaurants.
Now the factory owner is unwilling to pay for these meals anymore and refuses to give the employees a raise.
So they simply hired two cooks and plan to prepare the staff meals themselves.”
The carriage driver, accustomed to such things, said: “I reckon this probably won’t last long either.”
With that, he still pulled his worn felt hat onto his head and ducked into the carriage shed in the heavy rain.
Listening, Dolly pondered for a moment, deciding to keep an eye on the situation.
Coming back to her senses, she opened the cabinet to take out a new ledger and saw a rolled-up newspaper from this morning stuffed inside.
Dolly remembered she hadn’t read The Times today, so she casually pulled out a copy.
Opening it, the front page of The Times boldly stated:
“The murderer of the Tower Bridge homicide and the White Chapel female corpse case was apprehended this morning, but the suspect slit his wrists and committed suicide, suggesting another mastermind behind the scenes…”
Dolly expressionlessly folded the newspaper. With the murderer of this homicide dead, the trail ends here.
The mastermind behind the planned bill of lading fraud and the two murders went to such great lengths—was it just to get a batch of goods for smuggling in White Chapel?
That seemed like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
So, will the police continue investigating?
She had a prediction in mind.
In the afternoon, the London showers stopped, and the sky suddenly cleared, floating with a slick, pale purple sunset as dark clouds gradually drifted away.
After the rain, the entire Clark Street was filled with the damp, moldy smell of wood, mixed with the smoke from coal-burning stoves.
The rain stopped quite conveniently, just as the workers were getting off work.
Dolly had just nailed the blackboard with the newly written menu onto the door when a wave of customers entered the grocery store.
“The new ready-to-eat items on this blackboard are made in my own kitchen and will be available starting tomorrow morning.
You can take a look—there’s bread, meat broth pudding, and jam.”
As she spoke, the people lining up to buy things became interested in the items on the blackboard.
Delanie, a part-time female worker from the hat factory living diagonally across the street, studied the blackboard at the entrance for a long time before joining the queue.
Delanie’s family were old neighbors of the Nash family; four or five of them crowded into one floor, all working nearby.
She was about the same age as Dolly and fairly familiar with her, exchanging nods when they met.
Recently, Nash Grocery Store often held discount promotions and introduced new products she could afford, so she frequently stopped by after work.
“Raisin bread, garlic bread—ten farthings per loaf.
Coffee-flavored hard biscuits—eight pence per pound; Diamond Cookies—seven pence per bag.
Meat broth pudding—four pence per piece with the container; two pence per piece without taking the container.
Apricot cinnamon jam—one shilling per jar.”
Delanie softly read through the menu for a while, pondering whether to come here early tomorrow morning.
She planned to bring a tray, buy two meat broth puddings, two pounds of garlic bread, and a few ounces of cheese.
It would cost just over ten pence, enough for her family to have a simple breakfast.
Having solved the century-old dilemma of what to eat tomorrow morning, the line at the counter had cleared, and Delanie didn’t have to wait long.
She said to Dolly, “I’d like two packets of flower tea, three farthings’ worth of Soap, and a jar of pickled olives.”
With that, she handed the glass bottle she was holding to Dolly.
“And a bottle of milk, please.”
Dolly quickly gathered the items and wrapped them up, then took the glass bottle. She picked up a long-handled ladle from the milk jug beside her and slowly filled it.
The reason there was so much milk in the store today was that two small restaurants had recently stopped renewing their orders.
To maintain his performance, Mr. Nash had kept an extra bucket of milk in the grocery store.
The glass bottle was also a dim, translucent green. Once filled, it was sealed with a wooden cork.
“That’ll be fifteen pence.”
Delanie confirmed the opening time for tomorrow morning before paying and leaving, carrying her bottles and jars.
Dolly placed a small dish on the table specifically for loose change.
She poured the coins she had received that afternoon into the drawer and counted them roughly.
Mr. Nash had been minding the store in the morning. When he handed over the accounts, he mentioned he had collected two hundred and sixty-eight pence.
From noon until now, she had collected four hundred and thirty pence.
Today’s total revenue was six hundred and ninety pence, very close to three Pound Sterling.
For a gloomy, rainy day when people weren’t keen on going out, this was quite good.
However, Dolly noticed that sales of three-farthing items weren’t as high as yesterday, though they had only decreased by a quarter.
She guessed that Lobit Grocery Store must have pulled some small trick again.
It had drawn away a few customers but wasn’t doing any better than her.
That old man Lobit had been bribing Nathan from the tavern across the street to spy on her store.
Most likely, he was copying her methods right after.
Dolly remained unfazed, waiting for him to continue learning.
To eliminate this competitor in one go, she needed to patiently wait for the most opportune moment.
Now that Lobit had gotten a taste of success by imitating her, it had become a habit. In the future, dealing with him would only require a little maneuvering.
She tidied up for a while. As dusk began to darken the sky, Penny returned to Clark Street with her small bag, along with the other students.
Shortly after, Mr. Nash and Fred arrived at the door, pushing their cart.
The two of them carried the jars inside, their expressions somewhat complicated, which Dolly noticed immediately.
“What’s wrong? Did someone else say they want to cancel their milk order today?”
Dolly asked curiously.
Mr. Nash nodded and said, “Yes, two more small shops mentioned it today.
The Inspector thinks the milk they’re using now is too diluted.
They had no choice but to cancel and switch to another supplier.”
He was referring to the Sanitary Inspector, Olivander Mosana.
Besides sanitation, he also had the authority to oversee the quality of goods in the nearby market.
Dorothy Street and Clark Street were both under his jurisdiction.
Dairy products, as written in the Public Safety Act, were indeed a key focus of supervision.
“How is that possible? The milk from the farm has always been like this, and we haven’t diluted it with water.”
Fred couldn’t quite understand it but remained optimistic:
“Still, losing these two doesn’t matter. We have so many other customers. At worst, we can just promote elsewhere.”
Fred and Mr. Nash had to sell eighty pounds’ worth of milk for the farm each month to earn an eight Pound Sterling commission.
If they couldn’t meet this sales target, they could only try to sell a bit more through the grocery stores.
Dolly felt the issue likely lay with Inspector Mosana.
Despite clear legal regulations, how many people across all of London actually followed such minor rules as not diluting milk?
It was all a matter of no complaint, no investigation—like having so many lice you stop feeling the itch.
Unless there was some major public health incident, under the pressure of specific events, inspectors would strictly enforce the law by making examples.
Otherwise, would these inspectors really be so diligent in their usual inspections?
If every inspector in London were that conscientious, and all residents lived strictly by the law, London would probably have already undergone its third industrial revolution.
She suspected someone wanted to target her family, having bribed the inspector to make trouble for them.
But her family gave Mosana plenty of offerings during holidays and on regular occasions.
This inspector wasn’t fully committed to helping the other party either, only nitpicking at those two small restaurants.
It seemed Mosana probably hadn’t received much benefit—not enough to make it worth his while to go to great lengths to trouble her family.
There were dozens of businesses on Dorothy Street that ordered milk from her family. No one had the influence to make Mosana find fault with each one.
But who would do such a thing?
“You mean this is Lobit’s doing?”
Mr. Nash understood what Dolly was implying.
She nodded: “Our shop’s business has been very good lately, and our two stores are so close together.
It’s normal for him to be jealous and want to cause trouble for our family.
Grandmother often gives gifts to the inspector, so he can’t easily find faults with our shop directly.
He can only start making trouble through your work.”
Mr. Nash had already suspected this; hearing Dolly say it confirmed his thoughts.
He put down what he was holding and snorted coldly:
“Since our family came here to do business, it’s inevitable we’ll compete with others.
If we’re afraid of offending people in everything we do, then we shouldn’t open a shop at all—we might as well stay poor honestly.
He always looked down on your grandmother before, and now he wants to make trouble for us.
In my opinion, we should find a way to deal with him too.”
Fred hesitated somewhat:
“How do we deal with him? People like him are smooth-talkers to your face but only scheme behind your back. If things escalate, he might turn around and bite us.”
Dolly said:
“To deal with him, we have to use his own tricks against him.
I actually have a plan, but we need to take it slowly.
In two days, it’s time to pay the sanitation fee. When the inspector comes, we’ll give him some good things first, to smooth things over.”
“That recent murder case has caused a huge stir. The killer is dead now, but the mastermind behind it is still out there. Investigating from the top down won’t work anymore.
If the police still want to investigate, the only remaining clue is to work from the bottom up.”
Both Mr. Nash and Fred understood what Dolly meant.
“You mean smuggling?”
Mr. Nash stroked his beard, questioning: “Why do you think these police will definitely continue investigating?”
No wonder Mr. Nash said that at Scotland Yard, there were many such complex unsolved beheading cases. The police would abandon the investigation, at most pulling out a police chief or Police Superintendent to take the blame and resign. When new cases emerged, it would all be forgotten.
Often, when upper-class nobles were involved, these background-less police officers couldn’t withstand the pressure from above—even if they could investigate, they wouldn’t.
But Dolly had some information gaps from the original background settings in her mind, giving her full confidence.
Right now, she just wanted to test whether the old man and her father had the guts to take action.
Author’s note: