The "accidental" revelation offered by Sir Clark fell upon the London Stock Exchange like a lit torch tossed into a room soaked in rum.
The article occupied only a modest corner of The Times, a space commonly reserved for society gossip and colonial dispatches—but for the financial predators lurking in the shadows, eternally watching the Future Industries like vultures circling an imperial battlefield, it was not a mere article.
It was deliverance.
"Look—Sir Clark's interview!"
"What does it say? That Her Majesty is unwell—and that he advised Prince consort to suspend the Ironclad project?!"
"Good Lord… is this true?!"
"Of course it's true! The man's the Royal Physician—The Times wouldn't dare invent such a thing!"
Across the city, in a lavish office hidden behind a façade of weathered brick in the heart of London's financial district, the mastermind behind the grand short-selling operation threw the newspaper onto a polished steam-heated table.
His name was Baron Wilhelm von Krupp, a German-Jewish banking prodigy, a man whispered about in the salons of Berlin and Paris as the Wolf of Königsberg.
Arthur Lionheart had called him, with reluctant respect, The Other Wolf of Wall Street—and indeed, Prince Albert had summoned him from the Continent precisely to counter Lionheart's financial ascendancy.
Von Krupp's eyes blazed with manic triumph as he slapped the newsprint with the back of his hand.
"For weeks," he declared to the traders assembled before him, "we have siphoned profit after profit from that arrogant industrialist—Arthur Lionheart, the so-called saviour of British industry!" His lips twisted into a predatory grin. "But now, gentlemen… now the heavens themselves favour us!"
He held the newspaper aloft like a general brandishing a captured flag.
"Her Majesty ill. The Royal Physician advising suspension of the Ironclad. The project on which Lionheart has bled every last shilling!"
He paced across the steam-lit office, the brass tubes overhead hissing like serpents reacting to his excitement.
"His capital chain is stretched to breaking. This," he declared, "is the final weight that snaps the rope!"
His voice rose to a feverish command.
"Gentlemen! Mobilise the funds—all of them! Borrow every share that can be pried loose! Pile on the leverage! I want a short assault that tears the very floorboards from beneath Future Industries!"
He slammed a fist upon the oak desk.
"I want Arthur Lionheart begging on the streets of London by nightfall. I want his vaunted Ironclad rusting in the shipyard, a monument to his ruin."
He raised a glass of champagne—the finest that continental smuggling could procure.
"For Germany! For Prince Albert's revenge! And for the mountain of sovereigns that shall soon be ours!"
"Salute!"
The room erupted in thunderous cheers.
To them, the war was already won. All that remained was dividing the corpse.
The Next Morning — London Stock Exchange
At the moment the Exchange bell rang, chaos exploded.
Like an avalanche of steel and ink, massive sell orders for shares of the Future Industries Group cascaded onto the market—originating from dozens of concealed accounts, most routed through continental banks and shadowy trading houses.
The price plummeted instantly.
Within ten minutes of opening, the stock had crashed 15%.
Retail investors—clerks, merchants, small factory owners—watched their life savings evaporate on the trading boards, their faces blanching to sheets of wax.
"It's over—God help us, it's over!"
"I always said Lord Lionheart was bluffing—now look!"
"Sell! SELL! Before the price hits the floor!"
Panic became contagion.
Contagion became frenzy.
20%.
28%.
34%.
By the time the Exchange paused at midday, the stock had collapsed a catastrophic 40%.
Nearly two hundred thousand pounds of market value—gone in a single morning.
London's financial elite celebrated as though Waterloo had been won all over again. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Tavern keepers toasted the "Great Collapse." Rumours spread that Arthur Lionheart would flee the country before dusk.
Von Krupp and his team uncorked more champagne, their laughter echoing monstrous across the brass pipes of their office. They watched the graph plunge like a guillotine blade.
"If we buy back the borrowed shares at this price," one analyst stammered, scarcely believing the numbers, "our profit exceeds one hundred thousand pounds."
"Enough to buy a duchy," another muttered, his voice breathless.
Von Krupp, flushed with victory, leaned back and exhaled.
"Gentlemen… feast your eyes. The Lionheart Empire dies today."
Not one of them noticed the quiet shift beneath the surface.
As the market drowned in panic—
strange orders began appearing.
Buy orders.
Large ones.
Subtle.
Fragmented.
Routed through dozens of banks, domestic and foreign.
Each timed with surgical precision.
They consumed every panicked share the moment it appeared.
Like leviathans lurking beneath black waters, these invisible buyers swallowed the flood of cheap stock with bottomless hunger.
Buckingham Palace — The Queen's Study
Victoria clutched Arthur Lionheart's hand so tightly her knuckles whitened. Her palm was damp with fear. Before them lay the latest telegraph report from the Exchange—its red ink marking devastation.
"Arthur…" Her voice trembled like a clockwork bird losing power. "Are we… truly all right? The shares have fallen forty percent. Perhaps we miscalculated—perhaps the trap was too reckless—perhaps—"
But Arthur was calm.
Almost unsettlingly calm.
He lifted a delicate porcelain cup and sipped his black tea as though reading the morning gardening column, not witnessing the potential implosion of his empire.
He looked at his young wife—her wide blue eyes glistening, her lower lip quivering—and he smiled gently, brushing a stray curl from her cheek.
"My love," he murmured, "have you already forgotten the lesson I taught you?"
She blinked. "Which one?"
"To lure the tiger into its cage."
He set down the cup and walked to the great strategy table—an enormous sand-table battlefield, dotted with miniature flags marking every division of his industrial empire.
He placed a hand atop the small pennant representing the Future Industries Group.
"The Wolf of Germany," Arthur said softly, "has transformed every pound he owns—and a substantial amount he borrowed—into bullets fired at us."
He glanced toward the palace window, where distant clouds cast the city in iron-hued gloom.
"He believes those bullets will kill us."
Then Arthur's expression shifted—dangerous, razor-sharp.
"But what he does not know…" He turned back, eyes aglow with lethal certainty.
"Is that every bullet he fires lands safely in our pockets."
Victoria gasped. "The buy orders… those were—?"
Arthur nodded.
"And now the Wolf has nothing left. No bullets. No capital. No leverage."
He snapped his fingers.
"The cage closes."
Henry—called Big Henry in the underworld and Sir Henry in respectable circles—stood at attention beside him, sweat rolling down his temples. He had been awaiting this moment.
Arthur spoke with quiet finality.
"Henry."
"Yes, Chief!"
"Send the signal. Unleash every reserve we possess. Mobilise the private treasury of Her Majesty. Deploy the sovereign fund. Activate the hidden consortium."
Victoria swallowed hard. "All of it?"
"All of it," Arthur affirmed.
"Begin the counterstrike."
His eyes burned like twin furnaces stoked by imperial ambition.
"Before market close today, I want the stock price not merely recovered—but doubled from yesterday's value."
Henry almost choked. "Doubled?! My lord, the amount required—"
"Is already in our hands," Arthur cut in. "Bought cheaply from the panic Von Krupp himself engineered."
He leaned closer, his voice dropping into a silken whisper edged with steel.
"I want that self-proclaimed German wolf, and every shadow backing him, stripped of every shilling they own. I want their boots, their pocket watches, even their undergarments sold at auction to pay the margin calls."
Victoria shivered—not from fear, but from awe.
Arthur Lionheart turned back to the sand-table, tapping the miniature flag of his empire.
"Today," he whispered,
"London shall learn who the true master of the market is."
He raised his hand sharply.
"Begin."