Princess of the 19th Century Department Store - Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Daisy sat behind the counter, opened the account book, and crossed out every item on the inventory restock list with the tip of her pen.

At that, she looked up. “They need that much flour? Does the shirt factory provide meals for its workers?”

Penochi Shirt Factory was a well-known large shirt factory at the end of Jude Road.

It specialized in contract work for two famous clothing companies, producing mid-range ready-made men’s clothing for export to the European continent.

“How could they? They only feed the pattern makers in the office, the accountants, salesmen, and managers. A dozen people at most.

Before this, their office ordered staff meals from a restaurant.

Now the factory owner doesn’t want to pay for the meals anymore, and he doesn’t want to raise the employees’ wages either.

So he simply hired two cooks and plans to make the staff meals himself.”

The coachman had seen plenty of things like this. “My guess is, they won’t be able to keep it up for long.”

With that, he still pulled his battered felt hat down over his head and ducked into the carriage shed through the heavy rain.

Daisy listened and thought for a while, deciding to keep an eye on the matter.

When she came back to herself, she opened the cabinet to take out a new account book and saw a roll of newspapers delivered that morning stuffed inside.

Daisy remembered she had not read The Times yet today, so she casually pulled out a copy.

Opening it, she saw the front page of The Times written in bold:

“The culprit in the Tower Bridge Murder Case and the Whitechapel Female Corpse Case was arrested early this morning, but cut his wrists and committed suicide. Authorities suspect another mastermind behind the scenes…”

Expressionless, Daisy folded the newspaper shut. The murderer was dead, and the trail ended there.

The person behind the bill-of-lading fraud and the two murders had gone to all this trouble. Could it really have been just to get a batch of goods into Whitechapel for smuggling?

That seemed like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

So would the police keep investigating?

She had a prediction in her heart.

That afternoon, the showers in London stopped, and the sky abruptly cleared. A slick, pale-purple sunset glow floated overhead as the dark clouds gradually drifted away.

After the rain, all of Clark Street was filled with the damp smell of moldy wood, mixed with the smoke drifting out from coal-burning stoves.

The rain had stopped at just the right time, precisely when the workers were getting off work.

Daisy had just hung the blackboard with the written menu onto the door with nails when a wave of customers came into the grocery store.

“The new ready-made foods on this blackboard are made in our own kitchen and will go on sale starting tomorrow morning.

You can take a look. There’s bread, meat-broth pudding, and jam.”

As she spoke, the people lined up to buy things all became interested in the items on the blackboard.

Delaney, a part-time worker at the hat factory who lived diagonally across the street, studied the blackboard by the door for a long time before joining the line.

Delaney’s family were old neighbors of the Nash family. Four or five of them squeezed onto one floor to live, and they all worked nearby.

She and Daisy were about the same age and fairly familiar with each other. When they met, they could at least nod in greeting.

Recently, Nash Grocery had often been running discounts and promotions, and it had new products she could afford, so she frequently came by after work to browse.

“Raisin bread, garlic bread, ten farthings a loaf.

Coffee-flavored hard biscuits, eight pence a pound. Diamond Cookies, seven pence a bag.

Meat-broth pudding, four pence each with the tin, two pence each if you leave the tin behind.

Apricot-cinnamon jam, one shilling a jar.”

Delaney quietly read down the menu for a while, considering whether to come here tomorrow morning to take a look.

She planned to bring a plate, buy two pieces of meat-broth pudding, then buy two pounds of garlic bread and a few ounces of cheese.

It would only cost a little over ten pence, enough for her whole family to make do with for breakfast.

Having solved the great dilemma of what to eat tomorrow morning, Delaney saw that the counter had cleared out, so she did not have to wait long.

She said to Daisy, “I want two packets of scented tea, three-pence soap, and a jar of pickled olives.”

After saying that, she handed Daisy the glass bottle in her arms.

“And another bottle of milk.”

Daisy gathered everything and wrapped it up in a few quick motions. Then she took the glass bottle, lifted the long-handled ladle from the milk jug beside her, and slowly filled it.

The store had so much milk today because two small restaurants had recently stopped renewing their orders.

For the sake of his own performance, Mr. Nash could only leave an extra barrel of milk in the grocery store.

The glass bottle was a dim translucent green. Once filled, it was sealed with a wooden stopper.

“Fifteen pence in total.”

Delaney confirmed what time Daisy would open tomorrow morning, then paid and left with her bottles and jars in her arms.

Daisy placed a small dish on the table specifically for loose change.

She poured the coins received that afternoon into the drawer and roughly counted them.

Mr. Nash had watched the store in the morning. When he handed over the accounts, he said he had taken in two hundred and sixty-eight pence.

From noon until now, Daisy had taken in four hundred and thirty pence.

Today’s total turnover was six hundred and ninety pence, very close to three pounds.

For a gloomy rainy day when everyone disliked going out, this was already quite good.

However, Daisy had noticed that sales of the three farthings products were not as high as yesterday, though they had only fallen by a quarter.

She guessed Lobit Grocery must have pulled some little trick again.

It had siphoned away a few customers, but still had not done better than her.

That old man Lobit had been bribing Nathan from the tavern across the street to come to her store and spy on the situation.

Most likely, he had started copying her the moment he turned around.

Daisy remained unmoved, waiting for him to keep learning.
If Daisy wanted to remove this opponent in one stroke, she would need to wait patiently for the perfect opportunity.

Right now, Lobit had already tasted the benefits of imitating her and fallen into the habit. In the future, dealing with him would only take a little maneuvering.

She tidied up for a while. Just as dusk began to dim the sky, Penny returned to Clark Street with her little satchel on her back, walking with the other students.

Not long after, Mr. Nash and Fred pushed their cart up to the door as well.

The two of them carried the jars down. The moment they came inside, Daisy noticed the complicated looks on their faces.

“What happened? Did someone say they wanted to cancel their milk order again today?” Daisy asked curiously.

Mr. Nash nodded. “Yes. Two more small shops brought it up today.

“The sanitary inspector said the milk they’re using now is too thin.

“They had no choice but to cancel and change suppliers.”

He was talking about that sanitary inspector, Ollivander Mossana.

Aside from sanitation, he also had the authority to supervise the quality of goods sold in the nearby markets.

Dorothy Street and Clark Street both fell under his jurisdiction.

Dairy products, which were written into the Public Safety Act, were indeed supposed to be a key target of inspection.

“How is that possible? The milk from the farm has always been like this. We haven’t watered it down.”

Fred could not make sense of it, but he was still optimistic.

“Still, losing those two places doesn’t matter. We still have plenty of customers. Worst case, we’ll go sell to other shops.”

Fred and Mr. Nash had to help the farm sell eighty pounds’ worth of milk every month before they could earn eight pounds in commission.

If they could not reach that volume, they would have to shift more of the milk to the grocery store to sell there.

Daisy felt that the problem most likely lay with Inspector Mossana.

Even though the law was clearly written, how many people in all of London actually followed a small rule like not watering down milk?

As long as the common people did not complain, the officials would not investigate. When there were too many lice, one stopped itching.

Unless some major public health incident occurred, forcing their hand, the inspectors would only then strictly enforce the law and make an example of someone.

Otherwise, were these inspectors really so diligent on ordinary days that they would earnestly go around checking everything?

If every inspector in London were that devoted, and every resident lived exactly as the law prescribed, London would probably have entered its third industrial revolution by now.

Most likely, someone wanted to target her family and had spent money to bribe the inspector into making trouble for them.

However, her family also gave Mossana plenty of gifts during festivals and in ordinary times.

The inspector had not put much effort into acting for the other side either. He had only nitpicked two small restaurants.

From the look of it, Mossana probably had not received much benefit-at least not enough to make it worth his while to go to great lengths to trouble her family.

There were dozens of merchants on Dorothy Street who ordered milk from her family. No one had enough influence to make Mossana pick faults with every single one of them.

But who would do something like this?

“You mean Lobit did this?” Mr. Nash understood what Daisy was implying.

She nodded. “Business at our shop has been very good lately, and the two shops are so close together.

“It’s normal for him to get jealous and want to make things difficult for our family.

“Grandmother often greases the inspector’s palm, so it’s not convenient for him to come directly and find fault with our shop.

“That leaves him with no choice but to start making trouble through the work the two of you do.”

Mr. Nash had already suspected as much. Hearing Daisy say it only confirmed it further.

He set down what he was holding and gave a cold snort.

“Since our family came here to do business, we’re bound to compete with others.

“If we’re afraid of offending people no matter what we do, then we might as well not open a shop at all and stay poor like obedient fools.

“He used to look down on your grandmother, and now he wants to make trouble for us.

“In my opinion, it’s time we found a way to deal with him too.”

Fred hesitated.

“How? People like him are all slick talk to your face and dirty tricks behind your back. If we make a scene, he might turn around and bite us instead.”

Daisy said, “If we want to deal with him, then we have to make use of those dirty tricks of his.

“I do have a way. Only, we’ll have to take it slowly.

“In a couple of days, it’ll be time to pay the sanitation fee. When the inspector comes, we’ll slip him something nice first and smooth things over.”

“That murder case has caused a big stir recently. The killer is dead now, but the mastermind behind him is still out there. Investigating from the top down won’t work anymore.

“If the police still want to investigate, the only clues left will have to be followed from the bottom up.”

Both Mr. Nash and Fred understood what Daisy meant.

“You mean smuggling?”

Mr. Nash stroked his beard and asked doubtfully, “Why do you think the police will definitely keep investigating?”

Mr. Nash could not be blamed for saying that. At Scotland Yard, there were plenty of complicated unsolved cases like this with no way forward. If the police gave up the investigation, at most they would drag out a chief inspector or superintendent to resign and take responsibility. Once a new case appeared, the matter would pass.

Many times, when the upper-class and powerful were involved, policemen with no background could not withstand pressure from above. Even if they could investigate, they would not continue.

But Daisy had inside information from the original setting in her head, so she was completely confident.

Right now, she only wanted to test whether the old man and her father had the nerve to do what needed to be done.

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