The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 611 - 306 Three Files

"Chief, the investigation into the source of the firearms has yielded results,"

Chief Field placed a document on the desk in front of Arthur.

"Oh? So soon?" Arthur picked up the document and leaned back in his chair to read, "Such efficiency is not common, even in London, our own turf, getting to the bottom of the source of six guns is not a matter of just a few days."

Field reported, "The reason we were able to make a breakthrough so quickly with the firearms issue was mainly because we found the receipts for their firearm purchases in the hotel where the three gunmen were staying. According to the receipts, two of the revolvers are undoubtedly from the hand of Mr. Samuel Colt. As for the two flintlock guns from the East India Company and the Beretta Company, they were exchanged from London’s Mokeson Gun Shop.

Our detectives sent to investigate in London visited these two sources of firearms, and their ledgers also confirmed the information written on the receipts as true. The assailants were all refugees residing in the Polish refugee neighborhood in the northeast of London, and all three held Polish nationality.

After learning their identity information, our detectives went to the refugee district to look for clues and successfully located their residences. According to the testimony of the assailants’ neighbors, these three individuals moved into the area in different batches between August and October of this year.

Considering that your assassination attempt is very likely due to your special status as a special commissioner, I personally believe that the gunman gang couldn’t have started planning since August, and I suggest that you may consider preliminarily ruling out the possibility of an assassination under a forged identity.

Moreover, I have written all the descriptions of the nearby residents about them in the appendix of the document. Due to the urgency and complexity of the case, I haven’t condensed and refined the information, so you might need some time to go through these files."

"Well done, Field. Scotland Yard needs responsible and clear-headed officers like you,"

Arthur praised briefly before his gaze quickly returned to the document.

Soon, the information of the three men was laid out before his eyes.

[File No. 1831-12-A1]

Name: Czeslaw Kowalczyk

Age: 30-35 years old

Belief: Catholicism

Marital Status: Married

[Summary of Information]

According to the testimony of the local parish priest:

The Kowalczyk family moved into the area in August of 1831, with a total of four members in the household, including the perpetrator, two boys around the age of eight, and the perpetrator’s spouse—a young Polish female refugee in her twenties named Agnieszka.

According to the priest’s observations, the Kowalczyk family appears to come from a middle-class Polish background, as both children behaved very properly. Moreover, Mrs. Kowalczyk was not familiar with housework. From her delicate fingers and occasional literary quotes in her speech, it could be discerned that she must have been a sheltered rich girl before marriage.

It is worth noting that, unlike most Polish refugees, the house they rented, although not luxurious, was an apartment with decent conditions in the area. This indicates that they must have brought a certain amount of savings with them to Britain.

According to neighbors:

Mr. Kowalczyk was a rather somber and repressed person, not often communicating with other residents of the parish. Due to his limited English, he struggled to find work for a long time. After being introduced by a kind-hearted neighbor, he managed to secure a short-term job as a laborer at the docks. When he became more proficient in English, he even helped run errands for a local grocery store.

However, neither of these jobs lasted long, as Mr. Kowalczyk, not skilled in social interactions, was quickly dismissed by employers. After that, Mr. Kowalczyk secluded himself at home for a long time, and the family’s house often erupted in arguments in the middle of the night.

According to local residents who couldn’t understand Polish but indulged in speculation, the couple argued mostly over income issues. And indeed, this proved to be true. It wasn’t long before people noticed that Mrs. Kowalczyk, in order to make ends meet, started working as a laundress, swapping her fine velvet dresses for the plain but durable Welsh flannel aprons.

By around November, parish residents noticed that Mrs. Kowalczyk’s attire had reverted back to her previous ladylike fashion, and her makeup became increasingly exquisite. Correspondingly, there were more intense arguments coming from Kowalczyk’s home and the children’s crying late into the night.

Although the gossipy parish residents had no evidence, they all assured our detectives, emphatically claiming that Mrs. Kowalczyk, the woman named Agnieszka, was able to become prosperous so quickly because she took up some immoral work.

After one particularly violent argument, the parish residents who nightly used the sounds of the Polish couple’s disputes as a sleep aid saw through the filthy window glass Mr. Kowalczyk storm out on a rainy night. After that, he was not seen for several days.

When he next appeared in the parish streets, his demeanor had become even more menacing than before. He knocked on his own front door, handed a small bag to the two children who stayed at home, and kissed their foreheads before leaving without looking back. After that, he was never seen again.