The Shadow of Great Britain
Chapter 969 - 45: Deadly Pursuit_2

Chapter 969: Chapter 45: Deadly Pursuit_2

As for the other gunman, Arthur could see through the shattered wall that he was hiding in the alley across the street, reloading his bullets, with two companions helping him from behind.

Together with the explosion, there were also screams coming from inside the Kaidao Sai Mansion.

The mansion was in chaos; the gentlemen and ladies who were just leisurely chatting and gracefully dancing were now all in a panic, running around like headless chickens, not daring to rush out, but also not willing to squabble inside and risk being burned alive.

At this moment, it was the loud roar of the Guard Commander that pointed them to the escape route: "Jump out the window!"

The more cautious gentlemen immediately grabbed nearby chairs and broke open a window after getting the escape plan. As for the more rough ones, they directly chose to dive and break through the glass to jump out.

The ladies in their full dress were troubled by their voluminous skirts; even if they wanted to jump out of the window, they couldn’t be as agile as the gentlemen. Luckily, some of the gentlemen kept a calm head, disregarding any propriety issues, directly holding their female companions by the waist and vaulting out of the window like in a hurdle race.

However, tall-legged gentlemen were still a minority, so the landing postures of most unfortunate couples were quite ungraceful.

Among the distressed crowd, Mr. DelaSalle, a banker in his fifties, was still full of vigor. Carrying his daughter on one shoulder and his dance partner on the other, he disregarded their screams and flailing, rushing through the debris of the main entrance of the mansion, breaking through the fire. He practically demonstrated how well-trained the French who served in the army during the Great Revolution period were.

However, even with such performance, Mr. DelaSalle was not the most eye-catching person in this life-and-death escape.

Because behind him in the fire, a woman dressed in men’s clothes broke out, even more remarkably with a man on her shoulder and holding another by the hand.

The one being carried on her shoulder was Arthur’s old friend Chopin, and the one she pulled out of the fire was the currently popular poet Musset.

Great Dumas, seeing the woman, couldn’t help but swear: "Damn it, George Sand, that tomboy! I had warned him before not to mess with my dear Frederick; he’s not that kind of casual person. It seems she didn’t take my words seriously at all!"

However, Arthur wasn’t interested in listening to Great Dumas’ complaints. He glanced at the assassins fiercely battling with the guards across the street, disregarding his wounded shoulder, and directly grabbed a cane and vaulted over the broken wall, dashing forward.

"Arthur, where are you going?"

Before Great Dumas could finish his question, he saw Victor excitedly darting out after him.

"Mr. Victor! It’s dangerous!"

Victor ran and turned around, shouting at him, "Alexander, you don’t get it, danger is the best climate for people like us! Where did all your courage go when you stormed the arsenal? I heard from Honoré before that, on the day of the July Revolution, you didn’t actually put in much effort; there was hardly any resistance at the arsenal—it was a walkover. Could that be true?"

"Mr. Victor! Balzac talking and you believe it? He’s just talking nonsense!"

Great Dumas, who was originally thinking about safety issues, was also emboldened by Victor’s provocation, disregarding any thoughts of safety. He threw his hat hard on the ground, picked up a brick, and chased after Victor: "I was just thinking about getting a gun for better security; without a gun, I, this sharpshooter, can’t perform. But a brick will do, barely manageable."

During the time that Great Dumas and Victor were bickering, one of the three gunmen across the street had already been killed. Seeing the unfavorable situation, the remaining two emptied their bullets, threw their handguns, and began running towards the dispersing crowd.

The guards, seeing the assassins trying to escape, also left their cover and chased after them, intending to overwhelm them and pin them to the ground.

The three assassins, noticing this, jumped directly onto a taxi coach that didn’t have time to turn, snatched the reins from the coachman, and charged head-on toward the oncoming guards: "You Orleans Party lot, dare challenge us head-on!"

"Quickly spread out!"

The wheels splashed the sewage on the street, and the guards urgently dodged. Then came a scattered gunfire, the coach’s carriage was riddled with bullet holes, the driver groaned, holding his wounded abdomen with one hand, but kept a firm grip on the reins with the other.

Pedestrians on the street exclaimed and made way for them. Just when they thought they were about to escape, a figure suddenly leapt out from the crowd.

Arthur jumped, landing on the coach’s step, using his cane to secure his position by lodging it between the door handle.

The two assassins inside the carriage, gasping heavily for breath, were startled by the sudden appearance of a face at the window. Before they could react, Arthur had already swung the door open and pounced inside.

The three began wrestling inside the carriage, and the ruckus caused the already unstable coach to topple instantly. The two horses pulling the coach slipped and fell, dragging the carriage sliding along the street until it overturned two lamp posts and crashed to a halt against a roadside store’s display window.

One assassin was thrown out of the carriage by the inertia, while the other was unluckily knocked unconscious.

Arthur’s robust body was also not spared from such impacts, but luckily his head was fine, so he still managed to crawl out of the carriage.

Just after crawling out of the carriage, Arthur first saw not the assassin who was thrown out, but a crowd of Parisians watching the commotion.

These people were both exclaiming over Arthur’s sturdy physique and discussing his identity and purpose.

Some enthusiastic citizens directly pointed out the escape path of the assassin to Arthur.

"Sir, are you looking for the man in the black coat and white pants? He went that way."

Hearing this, Arthur instinctively wanted to tip his hat in thanks but realized his hat had long flown away: "This information is very valuable. If I manage to catch that guy in the end, you can visit the Breaux Detective Agency at 21 Closier Percet Street for a reward someday."

Arthur spoke without stopping, pursuing in the direction pointed out by the crowd, and soon chased into a narrow alley.

It wasn’t until entering this area that Arthur realized why Victor always boasted of being Paris’s living map.

Although the urban planning in London isn’t vastly superior to Paris, the Great Fire of London in 1666 led to a significant reconstruction in the city’s center, making it more traceable.

But Paris apparently didn’t have such a luxury, as most of its planning was a build-on from predecessors, with alleys layered over alleys, and crossroads everywhere.

Arthur constantly checked for fresh bloodstains on the ground after every stretch, but pursuing for several hundred meters, what confronted him was unexpectedly not another road but a dead end.

Arthur lifted his head to see the over two-meter-high wall in front of him, took a deep breath, backed up a few steps, then did a somersault off the wall bricks and climbed over it.

Just as he landed and was about to lift his head, he heard a furious voice before him: "Is Louis Philippe worth your effort? Chasing me all the way here, you surely are diligent!"

Arthur straightened and brushed off the mud and water from his hands: "I’m not with Louis Philippe; I chased you just to get an explanation."

"Oh, is that so? Well, it’s fitting—we want an explanation from you too."

Click, the sound of a bullet being chambered.

The cold gun barrel pressed against the back of Arthur’s head, with two burly men pinning his shoulders, one on each side.

"If not with Louis Philippe, then who are you? Could you be Metternich’s?"

PS: Recommending a new book "The Raven of Naples", a story about a protagonist traveling back to the 1960s Italy, becoming the pet crow of a mafia heiress.