"Washington, D.C., Department of Justice."
"That Morgan not only wants to profit from the war."
Stanton said to Attorney General Bates, who was beside him, his voice suppressing a thundering rage.
"He is trying to... manipulate the logistical lifeline of this war. He's treating Congress, the War Department, Union Pacific, and the Argyle family as chips in his private casino. This is treason."
Attorney General Bates, a meticulous and conservative old-school lawyer, looked at the evidence, his face equally solemn.
"Edwin, this evidence... is sufficient. The chain of clues provided by Mr. Argyle is very complete. Especially the testimonies of that customs clerk and Crane's secretary, they are enough to firmly tie Morgan to that assassination attempt."
"I need an arrest warrant," Stanton's reply was simple and direct, "Now."
"I will sign it," Bates nodded, "Under the charge of 'suspected conspiracy to obstruct federal military contracts and fund illegal violent activities.' I will immediately dispatch federal marshals to New York to execute the arrest."
...Meanwhile, New York City, Gramercy Park.
Inside the mansion, which was exceptionally quiet in the late autumn chill, a roaring fire burned in the study's fireplace.
John Pierpont Morgan was throwing the last stack of private letters and transaction memos into the flames.
The papers quickly curled, blackened, and turned to ash in the high heat.
He showed no panic, his movements calm and orderly, as if he were merely conducting a routine document cleanup. His exquisite silk morning gown remained immaculate.
Saul walked in silently, carrying two heavy leather travel cases.
"Sir, everything is ready."
"Understood."
Morgan did not turn around; his gaze remained fixed on the dancing flames, the firelight reflected in his gray eyes, making them appear exceptionally cold.
Last night's "Red Banquet" at Delmonico's had been a complete disaster for him.
Felix Argyle' counterattack was ten times faster and ten times more ruthless than he had anticipated.
He had not been blinded by anger; instead, he had exploited the crisis to form an alliance with that old fox Ames, turning himself, the player, into the prey on the table.
He knew Argyle wouldn't stop there.
Those evidences... "Sir," Saul said in a low voice, "Crane's secretary, Benson, has been missing since the afternoon of the day before yesterday. My men went to his apartment, and it was empty. It seems his surrender to the police is real."
"Argyle moved quickly."
There was no hint of surprise in Morgan's tone.
"He knows very well that Benson is the last link connecting me and Crane."
"And that customs clerk, Timothy Finn."
Saul's expression was somewhat grim.
"When my men went to the Customs House to find him, they were told... he had resigned yesterday. Also missing."
"He's also been protected by Argyle."
"He's taken all the witnesses. Now, perhaps it's time for the law to step in."
He turned around and glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Saul, how much time do we have left?"
"Not much, sir. When I went to book tickets last night," Saul replied, "the Cunard Line ticket agent said that the passenger list for the rms artemis had been taken by the New York City Police Department this morning, under the guise of assisting with an investigation. I guess they'll soon follow this lead to me, and then to you."
"So, the arrest warrants from the War Department and the Department of Justice," Morgan said calmly, "will arrive in New York no later than noon today."
"We must leave before they blockade the port," Saul said.
"The Scotia, bound for Liverpool, will set sail at nine in the morning. I've already booked first-class cabins using the names 'Mr. Harding and his secretary.' All the gold and necessary documents are in these two cases."
"Very good," Morgan nodded.
He took off his morning gown and changed into a well-tailored dark travel suit.
He took one last look at the luxurious study, with no trace of nostalgia in his eyes, only the humiliation of a prey biting back and a deeper calculation.
"Argyle..." he murmured to himself, "He thinks he won. He thinks giving this evidence to Stanton will ruin me?"
"He's too naive," Morgan put on his top hat, "This is New York, but London... London is my home ground. My father will make them understand the price of offending Morgan."
"Let's go, Saul," he picked up a smaller suitcase, "It's time to go back to London."
...At eleven in the morning, when Federal Marshal Garrison and his six marshals presented an arrest warrant personally signed by Attorney General Bates and stormed into the mansion in Gramercy Park.
They were met only by a few frightened servants who had already been dismissed, and empty, impeccably clean rooms.
"Where are they?"
Marshal Garrison grabbed a trembling maid and asked.
"Gone... gone, sir," the maid stammered.
"Mr. Morgan and his valet, Mr. Saul, left by carriage at dawn. They said... they said they were going to Boston to handle urgent family business."
"Boston?"
Garrison rushed into the study, smelling the lingering burnt odor of documents in the air.
He kicked aside the fireplace guard and raked out a watch-sized metal part from the ashes that hadn't completely burned—it was a clasp from some ledger.
"Damn it," Garrison cursed under his breath, "They escaped."
He immediately ordered his subordinates: "Go to the telegraph office immediately. Notify all ports: Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore. Blockade all outgoing ships. Issue an arrest warrant for John Pierpont Morgan and his valet named Saul."
"I'm afraid... it's too late, sir."
A marshal rushed up from downstairs, holding a message that had just arrived from the dock.
"The New York Harbor Authority reported that at nine o'clock this morning, the Scotia, bound for Liverpool, England, had already departed on schedule."
Marshal Garrison looked at the cold ashes; he knew this big fish had gotten off the hook... New York, Fifth Avenue, Felix's study.
Frost had just reported the same news to Felix.
"Boss," Frost's voice carried a hint of regret, "Morgan escaped. The Department of Justice's arrest warrant was one step too late. He boarded a ship to Liverpool."
"Escaped?"
Felix was standing in front of a large world map; he merely smiled at the news.
His modern mind had already predicted all of Morgan's escape routes.
"No, Edward."
Felix's gaze fell on the vast Atlantic Ocean.
"He's not escaping; he's going home."
"He thinks that if he escapes back to London, hiding under the wing of his father, Junius Morgan, I'll be powerless against him."
Felix shook his head, "Morgan still doesn't understand me."
"Flynn," he said, addressing the shadows in the study.
Flynn's figure appeared silently, as if detaching from the wallpaper.
"Boss."
"Have they boarded the ship?"
"Yes, Boss," Flynn replied.
"At the same time that Morgan's butler, Saul, went to Cunard Line to book tickets last night, 'Viper' and 'Echo' also bought two adjacent berths in second class on the same ship, posing as tobacco merchants."
Viper was Flynn's top assassin, skilled in close combat and poisons.
And Echo was a natural master of disguise and infiltration, adept at creating "accidents."
They were the black gloves Flynn had prepared for the most extreme situations.
"Well done."
Felix nodded, his gaze deepening.
"I don't want to see John Pierpont Morgan's name in London. But I don't want this matter to be connected to me, or to America, in any way."
"I understand, Boss."
"Go do it," Felix waved his hand.
Flynn's figure exited through the door.
Felix turned back to the map.
A transatlantic cleanup operation had quietly begun.
And the Scotia, carrying Morgan's hopes and despair, was sailing towards its predetermined... ultimate destiny.
North Atlantic Ocean, approximately two hundred miles southwest of the coast of Ireland.
The Scotia mail ship was like a tired behemoth, struggling through the strong winds and towering waves of late autumn.
This was its ninth day since departing from New York.
The sky was leaden gray, and massive waves crashed against the hull repeatedly, emitting a dull roar.
Most first-class passengers were hiding in their warm cabins, enduring the discomfort of seasickness, and praying to reach Liverpool as soon as possible.
At 3 AM, the ship's internal corridors fell into the deepest silence of the day. Only the creaking sound of the hull, like groaning bones, caused by the impact of giant waves, and the sharp whistling of the wind passing through the rigging, could be heard.
First-class, Suite A-14.
John Pierpont Morgan was not asleep.
He sat at his desk, bathed in the light of an oil lamp fixed on a gimbal, writing a long letter to his father, Junius Morgan.
He needed to clearly lay out his entire strategy in New York, including his grand plans, Felix Argyle' unexpected counterattack, and his eventual escape process, before the ship arrived in Liverpool.
He did not believe he had failed; this was merely a temporary setback.
Once he returned to London, under his father's protection and with the support of European capital, he had countless ways to devour that New York parvenu, skin and bones, from the financial markets.
"Sir."
Saul's voice came from the outer room of the suite.
He was also not asleep, sitting on a chair by the door, a piece of oilcloth on his lap, meticulously wiping his revolver with whale oil.
"What is it?"
Morgan did not turn around, his pen tip still gliding across the expensive stationery.
"The wind and waves are very strong," Saul's voice was calm, "The crew seems a bit lax. I just went to the deck for a look, and there was only one sailor dozing at the gangway leading to the first class."
"That's normal, Saul," Morgan said dismissively.
"We're almost there. Their spirits naturally slacken. Lock the door. By this time tomorrow, we'll already be at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, drinking hot soup."
"Yes, sir."
Saul nodded, rechecking the sturdy brass bolt on the door... 3:15 AM.
Outside the suite door, two figures dressed as ordinary second-class passengers, like ghosts merged with shadows, appeared at the end of the corridor.
They were Viper and Echo.
Echo walked in front. He did not touch the sturdy main door.
He simply walked to the empty suite next door, belonging to a Liverpool cotton merchant.
He pulled out a set of small metal tools from his pocket.
In less than a minute, the locked door was silently opened.
The two slipped inside.
Echo's target was clear: the window connecting the balconies of the two first-class suites, obscured by the ship's structure... 3:20 AM.
Saul had just finished loading the last chamber of his revolver, preparing to put it back in its holster.
Suddenly, his beast-like intuition made his muscles instantly tense.
He heard it.
Amidst the howling of the waves and the wind, there was an extremely faint sound, not belonging to this ship... the sound of glass friction.
The sound came from the balcony.
Saul suddenly stood up, his right hand grabbing the revolver from the table like lightning, aiming it at the floor-to-ceiling curtain leading to the balcony.
"Sir. Stay inside and don't move."
He growled and moved towards Morgan's bedroom door.
The curtain was suddenly pulled open.
But no one was there.
Only a glass door, with its latch opened, gently opening and closing with the swaying of the ship.
The cold sea wind poured in, making the oil lamp flicker.
Saul's pupils suddenly contracted, realizing he had been tricked.
The real threat came from behind him.
In the instant his attention was drawn by the movement on the balcony, the main door of the suite, with the brass bolt he had considered impregnable, had been silently picked open by a slender steel wire inserted from under the door crack.
The door silently slid open a crack.
Viper, like a weightless shadow, slipped in.
Saul heard the faint sound of air current behind him. He spun around abruptly, raising his gun.
But all he saw was a A rush of air (a rush of) darkness, and in the darkness, a cold glint, like a Viper's fangs.
Too fast.
Viper gave Saul no chance to fire.
His left hand, like an iron vice, grabbed Saul's gun-wielding wrist and twisted it upwards.
At the same time, the poisoned military stiletto in his right hand, at a tricky angle, diagonally upward from Saul's ribs, pierced accurately.
"Uh..."
Saul's body suddenly stiffened, all his strength and consciousness rapidly draining away with the withdrawal of the stiletto.
His revolver, which had just been so threatening, fell powerlessly onto the carpet, making no sound.
Viper supported his falling body, slowly lowering him to the floor.
"Saul?"
The bedroom door was pushed open. John Pierpont Morgan poked his head out, a hint of displeasure and confusion on his face, "Who are you talking to?"
Then, he saw it.
He saw the stranger in shabby second-class clothes, with no expression on his face.
He saw the strangely shaped stiletto in his hand, still dripping blood.
And Saul, lying in a pool of blood, eyes wide open, completely lifeless.
"You..."
Morgan's mind went blank in an instant.
"Good evening, sir."
Echo walked out from the open bedroom door behind him, holding Saul's dropped revolver, a nearly polite smile on his face.
"It seems your journey is about to end early."
"It's Argyle..."
Morgan's body began to tremble violently, and he instinctively stepped back, knocking over the ink bottle on the desk.
"He sent you... you Irish bastards..."
"What are you saying? We are just thieves, sir."
Echo shook his finger; he began the second part of the plan.
"Just wanted to borrow some money, but your bodyguard doesn't seem very friendly."
"Money... yes, money."
Morgan seemed to grasp at a straw.
"In the safe, it's all in the safe. Fifty thousand... no, a hundred thousand dollars in bonds, and gold, it's all yours. Let me go."
"How generous." Echo smiled and stepped forward, "But sir, you've seen our faces."
Viper silently walked behind Morgan.
"No... no... you can't..."
Immense fear appeared in Morgan's gray eyes, which were always full of confidence and calculation.
"My father is Junius Morgan. If you kill me... he will..."
Viper didn't give him another chance to speak, leaning close to his ear.
"Mr. Argyle sends his regards."
...At 4 AM, when the two "tobacco merchants" silently returned from the balcony of the adjacent suite to their second-class cabin, filled with the smell of sweat and cheap tobacco.
Suite A-14 had become a perfect scene of robbery and murder.
The safe door was open, and the cash and bonds inside had been plundered.
Morgan's body lay by the desk, his valuable Patek Philippe gold pocket watch and rings were missing.
The room was ransacked, expensive brandy bottles shattered on the floor, as if a fierce struggle had taken place.
Saul's body lay by the door, still "tightly gripping" his own revolver.
A tragedy, perfectly staged, unfolded: a late-night incident of burglary, discovered by the bodyguard, leading to a struggle and ultimately the death of both men.
As the first rays of morning sun shone into Liverpool Harbor, a terrified scream erupted from the first-class cabin of the Scotia, let out by the steward.
Meanwhile, Viper and Echo had already blended in with the eager second-class passengers disembarking, carrying their two shabby suitcases filled with "souvenirs," disappearing into the bustling and chaotic crowds of Liverpool's docks.