The electrical currents of the telegraphs traveled along the crisscrossing copper wires, spreading panic and murderous intent throughout all of America.
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
This place was once Old Morgan's financial transit hub and command center in America.
But at this moment, for Clive Cavendish, this city had turned into a death trap that could close in on him at any time.
An inconspicuous row of brick houses on the edge of the city.
This was originally a safe house used by Cavendish to store smuggled cigars and private ledgers.
Except for a few of his most trusted subordinates, not even Old Morgan knew of this place's existence.
In the safe house's living room, the curtains were drawn tightly, and wooden planks were even nailed over the gaps.
The room was filled with the smell of moldy newspapers and cheap whiskey.
Cavendish was wearing a shirt he hadn't changed in days, its collar buttons all torn open.
He paced back and forth in the narrow living room like a rat trapped in a cage.
Several of today's newspapers were scattered on the coffee table.
The massive bold headline on the front page, "President Assassinated! Argyle Family Involved in a Shocking Conspiracy!", was like a hammer, continuously pounding against Cavendish's fragile nerves.
"They're crazy, they're all crazy."
Cavendish picked up the bottle and took a large swig directly from it.
The day before yesterday, when he learned that Argyle had been ambushed by automatic rifles on Fifth Avenue in New York.
His first reaction was that Old Morgan had finally gone mad and had used the last million-plus dollars in bounty money from his underground bank in Philadelphia.
At that moment, Cavendish felt unprecedented fear.
He knew the Argyle Family's methods of retaliation all too well.
Since Old Morgan had already planned to carry out an assassination, the Argyle Family's butcher knife would definitely immediately turn toward him, the proxy who was out in the open in America.
Therefore, he decisively abandoned his luxurious villa in Philadelphia and hid in this safe house overnight.
Not only that, he also spent a large sum of money to bribe several gangsters, arranging for George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison to flee to New York Harbor in advance, preparing to board a ship and run away.
As for himself, he intended to wait for the wind to die down a bit, then get a fake passport to Halifax, Canada, and then take a ship back to Europe.
"But why was the President assassinated?"
Cavendish grabbed his hair with both hands, his mind in a chaotic mess.
"And, the assassin was holding a gun from the Argyle Family?"
Cavendish collapsed onto the worn-out sofa, his eyes revealing an extreme sense of confusion and terror.
"Did Old Morgan do this? He hired those western killers to assassinate Argyle, and then the killers ran off to Indiana to shoot the President? This logic doesn't make sense. Old Morgan wants to kill Argyle, what does that have to do with Grant?"
"Or is this Argyle' crazy counterattack? He felt the President was going to move against him, so he just struck first? Deliberately using his own guns to create the illusion of being framed?"
The more Cavendish thought about it, the more his heart pounded with fear.
No matter what the truth was, he only knew one thing.
That was that he was now caught in a shocking whirlpool where even the President of the United States had been riddled with bullets.
That backer far away in London, Junius Morgan, not only had all his industries in America wiped out, but now he couldn't even care about the life or death of his own spokesperson.
"No, I can't just wait here to die."
Cavendish stood up abruptly.
He walked to the fireplace in the corner and used fire tongs to pry open the loose blue bricks. He dragged out a heavy leather suitcase from inside.
Opening the suitcase, it was filled with rolls of bearer drafts and several gold bars.
This was the money he had secretly intercepted while doing dirty work for Old Morgan in America over the past few years.
"With this money, as long as I can leave Philadelphia alive, I can go home and reunite with my wife and children. America is too dangerous."
Cavendish stuffed a few gold bars into his pocket and picked up the suitcase. He walked to the window and looked out vigilantly through the gaps in the wooden planks.
The street was empty, with only a few stray cats rummaging through the trash. There were no killers from the Argyle Family wearing black trench coats as he had expected.
Cavendish let out a long breath.
"It seems I am still clever; they will absolutely never find this place."
Cavendish tidied up his somewhat disheveled clothes, picked up the coat draped over the chair, and prepared to push the door open to leave.
Just as his hand touched the doorknob.
"Boom!"
An explosion blasted in his ears.
That heavy solid wood door, along with the door frame, was kicked into pieces by a tremendous force.
Wood chips and fragments of the iron lock splattered everywhere in the narrow hallway.
Cavendish didn't even have time to gasp; his entire body was violently knocked away by the shockwave of the explosion and the heavy object that had burst through the door.
Like a broken sack, he flew over the coffee table and slammed heavily onto the living room floor. The suitcase in his hand flew out of his grasp, and the drafts inside scattered all over the floor.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Cavendish coughed violently, a sharp pain coming from his chest. He struggled to lift his head, looking toward the door with a face full of blood.
The thick smoke dissipated.
Several men in dark trench coats, carrying sawed-off shotguns, stepped over the wood chips covering the floor and walked in.
Walking at the very front was that man with a scar on his face and extremely vicious eyes, Ketchum.
Ketchum used his gun barrel to casually push aside the broken chair blocking his path. He walked up to Cavendish and looked down at this British proxy.
"Mr. Clive Cavendish."
"Hello there, where are you planning to go with that suitcase? Are you planning to run away?"
Ketchum grinned, revealing yellow teeth, his smile filled with cruel mockery.
Then he lifted his foot, wearing a heavy leather boot, and stomped hard on the back of Cavendish's hand as he was just about to reach for his revolver.
"Ah!"
Cavendish let out a pig-like scream, his cheeks twitching.
"Who... who are you? Why did you break into my house!"
"Ha? Why are you playing dumb, Mr. Clive Cavendish? How could you not guess who we are? Otherwise, why would you be hiding here? You rat hiding in the gutter, you really made us look hard for you."
Ketchum bent down, grabbed Cavendish's hair, and shoved his face right in front of his own.
"Oh right, you probably don't know yet. That batch of people and things from the laboratory you sent away this afternoon, we just burned them all in a fire in the wilderness of Pittsburgh."
Ketchum's words instantly made Cavendish feel as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.
He knew it was over.
Everything was over.
They had been monitoring them from the very beginning, and he had actually thought he could evade these people and return home safely; he had simply been thinking too much.
"Hey... don't make that face, Mr. Clive Cavendish. Don't be in such a rush to leave, our boss has something to discuss with you."
Having said that, Ketchum slammed his gun butt hard against the back of Cavendish's head, knocking him unconscious.
Ketchum's rifle butt shattered the last shred of hope for Cavendish, while on the top floor of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, New York, another battle without smoke was beginning to unfold.
In the spacious reception room, cigar smoke swirled slowly in the air.
Members of the joint advisory investigation team from Washington sat on the leather sofas.
Leading them was senior Senator Arthur Pendleton, and sitting beside him were senior agent Samuel Higgins of the Secret Service, along with two clerks responsible for taking minutes.
Felix leaned back in a single armchair with his legs crossed, holding a steaming cup of black coffee.
"Mr. Argyle."
Senator Pendleton cleared his throat, breaking the somewhat oppressive silence. His tone was very polite, with a hint of probing.
"We have come to New York, and you must know that the task Congress has authorized us with is an inquiry. Therefore, you should understand that the President was assassinated in Indiana, and the murder weapon was stamped with the emblem of the Southern Development Company. Washington is like a powder keg right now, and we must give the public an explanation."
Obviously, everyone in Congress knew the truth. It was unlikely that the Argyle Family would send someone to assassinate the President, especially since the Argyle Family itself was a supporter of the Republican Party.
Moreover, when Grant came to power, it was the Argyle Family and the Clark Family who had exerted great effort behind the scenes.
Even if there were conflicts, they would only be resolved internally. It was impossible to use such extreme measures.
Felix took a sip of coffee and placed the cup on the mahogany coffee table in front of him.
"Of course. I fully understand your position, Senator." Felix's tone was very calm.
"If I were one of those people in Congress and saw a gun stamped with my own anti-counterfeiting mark, I would also jump up and point fingers immediately. But that is exactly the most absurd part of this whole affair."
Agent Higgins leaned forward, staring at Felix.
"Mr. Argyle. In the Secret Service files, your recent relationship with President Grant has been somewhat strained. He halted the personnel appointments of your people in the intelligence agency and even set up significant obstacles for the entry of European capital under your name. You absolutely possess the motive."
"Excuse me, what do you mean by 'my people'? Although they once worked for me, they have had little contact with me since joining the Secret Service."
"And you talk about motive? Agent Higgins, how many years have you been in intelligence work?" Felix asked in return.
"Ten years, sir."
"Ten years. Then have you ever seen a businessman with a net worth of over a hundred million dollars send someone to open fire at a train station just to vent his dissatisfaction with the President, and specifically instruct the killer to bring a specially-made weapon stamped with his own company's name to the scene?"
Felix spread his hands, a mocking smile on his lips.
"It's like me killing someone on Fifth Avenue and then sewing my own business card into the victim's mouth. Do you think I look like an idiot?"
Higgins frowned.
"I admit that it doesn't make logical sense, but the gun is solid physical evidence. We checked the arsenal's records, and it is a special edition from Vanguard Military Industry."
Felix nodded, not denying this point.
"That's right, the gun was indeed produced by Vanguard Military Industry. When the Civil War just ended, the South was in a chaotic mess. To prevent the plantation security teams from reselling weapons to gangs, I ordered that every gun shipped to the South be engraved with an emblem and serial number. This means that the gun was definitely not bought on the open market."
Senator Pendleton immediately seized upon this point.
"Since you admit that the guns only circulate within the South, how do you explain its appearance at the assassination scene in Indiana? Isn't this ironclad proof that the armed forces under your name participated in the assassination?"
"Mr. Senator, I am in the business of doing business. My subordinates are also human; they can make mistakes and hide things."
Felix turned his head to look at Frost, who was standing to the side.
"Show them the things."
Frost immediately stepped forward and placed the thick copies of telegrams and several old account books on the coffee table.
"Gentlemen. These are all the communication records and arsenal inventory books I had transferred from the Atlanta headquarters of the Southern Development Company this morning." Felix pointed to the documents on the table.
"See for yourselves."
Higgins picked up the telegram copies, while Pendleton opened the account books.
"Look at the last urgent telegram; it was sent by Silas, the general manager of my Southern Development Company."
Felix leaned back into the chair and massaged his temples.
"A few days ago, our No. 7 cotton plantation in Georgia was hit by an armed attack. We lost hundreds of bales of cotton, dozens of black laborers died, and fourteen security team members were killed."
Higgins looked at the text on the telegram, his brows knitting tighter and tighter.
"After the attack occurred, the service weapons of those fourteen fallen security members were taken away by the fleeing bandits. A total of fourteen lever-action repeating rifles. That idiot Silas, in order to avoid being affected at the year-end meeting, actually concealed the fact of this attack and the lost guns from headquarters. It wasn't until the President was assassinated, and I used a dedicated line in New York to inquire with the South, that the lid was blown off."
Pendleton closed the account book and took a deep breath.
"In other words, the weapon used to assassinate the President was a batch of stolen weapons taken by bandits? I'm sorry, Mr. Argyle. I think this is too much of a coincidence. How can we be sure that this telegram isn't just an excuse you just fabricated?"
"Senator. The sending end of the telegram is in Atlanta, and the receiving end is at the Imperial Bank. The telegraph office has complete line receipts; you can send someone to verify the sending logs of the telegraph office at any time."
Felix looked at Pendleton without backing down.
"And you mentioned motive earlier, but you seem to have forgotten the most important point."
"What?" Higgins asked.
"Just two days before Grant was assassinated, I also encountered an assassination attempt on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. If it weren't for my carriage being fitted with bulletproof steel plates, I might already be lying in a graveyard now."
As he spoke, Felix's voice turned cold.
"Someone wanted to kill me, and then took the stolen gun to assassinate the President. Do you still not understand the connection here?"
Agent Higgins's expression changed.
"You mean to say that someone is deliberately trying to incite a full-scale war between you and the Federal Government? This whole thing was a conspiracy from the very beginning?"
"Isn't it obvious enough?"
Pendleton wiped the sweat from his forehead.
It seemed the complexity of the matter had exceeded the projections from Washington.
"Mr. Argyle, if it is truly as you say, then who do you think did it? To have such great power—to be able to hire people to ambush you on the streets of New York, to go to the South to rob your arsenal, and finally to accurately track the President's itinerary in Indiana?"
Felix stood up and walked to the window, watching the bustling streets below.
"I think it is likely that old madman hiding in London. Junius Morgan. To take revenge on me for defeating the industries he invested in, I heard he even put a three-million-dollar bounty on my life in the underground black market."
"My God."
Pendleton gasped.
A bounty of this magnitude was enough to drive every desperado in all of America into a frenzy.
"But Mr. Argyle, all of this is just your speculation. We need witnesses, we need evidence to report back to Congress."
Higgins stood up; as a veteran intelligence officer, he had to pin down the chain of evidence.
Felix turned around, looking at the two special envoys sent from Washington, and adjusted his cuffs.
"Want evidence and witnesses?"
"You are in luck. Half an hour ago, my people just brought back Old Morgan's agent in America. That guy is in the interrogation room downstairs in my building right now."
Felix walked to the door, opened the reception room door, and made a gesture of invitation.
"Gentlemen. Since this is a joint investigation, let's not just drink coffee. Come with me to the basement and listen together to what interesting things this agent, who controls the flow of Old Morgan's funds in America, can spill."
Pendleton and Higgins looked at each other, both seeing surprise in the other's eyes.