Italian Connection (2)

All this time I’ve been shoutin’ we oughta smash Napoleon’s army, mash ’em to bits, but from now on I’m sayin’ this! “Let’s save France’s freedom!”
-Giuseppe Garibaldi, moved by the taste of the pasta gratin Croziflette—made with France’s traditional crozets pasta and Morbier cheese—and overcoming his long Anti-French Sentiment-

“Yah, yakhoo…….”

A little later, Rossetti, who had fainted and come to, had eyes that had completely lost the will to fight.

“Do you feel like talking now?”

While he was down, I finished an early supper, then put a cold slice of pizza on a plate and held it out.

Rossetti recoiled in terror, stumbling backward as if the edge of the plate were a dagger.

“I’ll talk, so please get that horrible thing away from me……!”

His frightened look was so pitiful that Mrs. Hudson set back on the table the special pineapple pizza drenched in Heinz Tomato Ketchup.

“To refuse pineapple pizza. A dreadful fundamentalist.”

I had heard Italians’ love and pride for their local food surpassed even the French, and indeed the rumor was true.

“That’s a shame. I did my best in my own way. Was it still not enough to satisfy a proper native?”
“Don’t say such a thing, Mrs. Hudson. I enjoyed it. Didn’t Watson and the minister both clear their plates clean? Food, by nature, reflects one’s habits and tastes deeply. There’s no need for you to trouble yourself.”

When I comforted her, Mrs. Hudson finally smiled brightly and began tidying up.

Meanwhile, Rossetti kept sniffling through tears, calling for his own mother, and, apparently, mine.

Mrs. Hudson’s cooking, carried out in the open kitchen, seemed to him no different from a massacre scene that had betrayed the bonds of heaven.

“Still, that was something, Holmes.”

While Rossetti took deep breaths to calm himself, Watson, using Breath Control to blow away her drunkenness, came up and asked.

“From what I can see, the Italian Mafia’s rules are terribly strict, and its members seem to fear them. Yet I never thought Rossetti would open his mouth over something as simple as showing him a few foods.”

Perhaps still unsatisfied, Watson finished the remaining slice of pizza, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and continued.

“How did you know Italians fear altered cuisine more than ghosts? I’ve never seen you mingle with Italians.”
“There was once an Italian duelist who often came to visit my master. By observing him and speaking of this and that, I learned that Italians treat traditional recipes like ancestral tablets.”
“If he had ties with your master, then that Italian gentleman must also have been quite the expert.”
“Probably so.”

Instead of telling Watson the name of that outsider who sometimes visited my master’s estate, I gave a vague answer.

The reason was simple: it was a story that could wait.

‘If I mention his name for no reason, Watson and Mrs. Hudson will surely make a fuss…….’

No. Those two weren’t the only ones. Rossetti, too, would surely react to an unexpected name.

There could not possibly be an Italian in the world who didn’t know that name.

‘How many years has it been since I last met him.’

The people my master, Phileas Fogg, associated with were without exception masters who had founded a school in their own field.

Since he had never brought me to a Reform Club gathering, I couldn’t know the group’s members beyond Sir Fawcett, Master Newton, and the two masters of Henry Poole & Co.

But at the very least, among those invited to my master’s estate, every duelist I had ever faced, be it orthodox or unorthodox, was a powerful figure whose name resounded through Europe Murim Union.

Among them, there was one Kung-Fuist who left a particularly deep impression: Giuseppe Garibaldi, head of the Red Shirts, who delighted in discussing Italian culture and Kung-fu with my master.

The three heroes who contributed to Italy’s unification, the Three Unification Heroes.

Garibaldi, regarded as the strongest among them, was a hero every Italian looked up to, and he would come to 14 Savile Row at dawn, when all slept.

In the kindest terms, he was optimistic. In harsher terms, he was the sort who didn’t know how to use his intellect except when necessary.

Garibaldi was versed not only in Italy’s Kung-Fu, but also in the Kung-Fu of North and South America, and his military tactics, including mercenary tactics, were without peer.

By way of comparison, he was a man like the incarnation of war.

But God did not allow Garibaldi two gifts.

In matters of Kung-Fu and struggle, he produced marvelous ideas beyond the imagination of ordinary bones, carried out complex calculations perfectly, and even possessed the force and charisma to bring every necessary step to success.

Yet in daily life, Garibaldi behaved so strangely that one might suspect he had intelligence below even Lestrade.

No wonder my master judged that “Garibaldi’s head contains nothing but patriotism and pasta.”

Personally, I thought it an accurate assessment.

For it was true that he was a madman obsessed with pasta.

In ’59, when he ceded all conquered lands to Victor Emmanuel II and completed the foundation of a unified Kingdom of Italy, he answered the prime minister who asked what reward he wanted, “Just give me macaroni to eat all year, an’ that’ll do.”

Even on the day he defeated the Bourbon Two Sicilies, a collateral line of the Namgung Bourbon Family Of Versailles, and liberated Naples, he proclaimed, “Listen, macaroni’s just right for unifying Italy, y’hear?”…

Still, his eccentric conduct certainly had the effect of producing fanatical followers.

One could tell as much from the fact that “Garibaldi macaroni,” printed with his portrait, went on sale in America and recorded explosive sales, and that in Britain, a biscuit maker called Peek Freans released currant biscuits bearing his name.

‘I only wanted to eat my fill of one macaroni, but I dunno why folks keep callin’ me a hero an’ whatnot.’

I recalled the words Garibaldi had spoken with a laugh at the dinner table.

People praised Garibaldi as a true gentleman unconnected to selfish desire, but the man I knew was no more than a lunatic, happy so long as there was pasta, and willing to do anything to eat it.

The joys he valued most in life were, first, Italian food led by pasta, and second, struggle itself.

My master, sick of Garibaldi stubbornly coming to Savile Row to challenge him to a duel, sought a way to drive him off and found the most effective move: serving “improved” Italian food.

At dinner time, upon seeing a plate of British-style Italian cuisine on the table, Garibaldi screamed on the spot and immediately fell into Qi Deviation.

Witnessing that scene, I learned the most effective way to inflict suffering upon an Italian, and even after becoming a consulting detective, I would sometimes serve British-style Italian food when interrogating Italian criminals.

“You seem calmer than before. Now speak. Rossetti, who are you working for?”
“……”

The short, bald underworld man was glaring at me with venomous eyes.

He did not seem to open his mouth easily. Should I feed him dessert as well, then?

“Mrs. Hudson. Would it be all right to ask for gelato?”
“Of course. What flavor would you like?”
“To help our Italian friend here recover his spirits, I thought we might mix in lemon-scented jelly to give it a tart taste.”
“Ah-ha. Jelly is fine. I happened to buy some at the market.”

-Flinch.

Perhaps my answer was unexpected; Rossetti looked this way with a puzzled expression.

“You bastards. Don’t tell me you knew how to eat normal food—”

The moment hope glimmered in Rossetti’s eyes, expecting a conciliatory move, Mrs. Hudson took jelly from her basket.

-Koong.

The East End’s local food.

“If I flash-freeze it with ice crystal, it’ll be done within thirty minutes.”

Jellied Eels.

“……”
“Ah, shall I mix in chili vinegar as well?”
“Hkkiyaaaah!!!!!!”

Rossetti fainted again, vomiting blood.

I grabbed him by the collar, hauled him up, and sprinkled smelling salts.

“Kulkeok!!”

Only then, coming to his senses, did he give the answer I had been waiting for.

“A-Alright! I’ll talk, okay! It was all that bastard Venucci’s doing!!”
“…?!”

The problem was that the name of the mastermind we had finally uncovered was rather familiar to the ear.

“…Say it again. Whose orders were you taking?”
“Venucci.”
“First name?”
“Pietro! Pietro Venucci!”
“Huh….”

Pietro Venucci.

It was a familiar name.

No wonder. I had seen Venucci in my previous life.

Yet if someone asked what conversation I had shared with Venucci, I could not answer easily.

To add this lest one misunderstand, there had not, in particular, been any secret talk between us.

Only, dead men tell no tales.

“…How strange.”

That’s right.

Pietro Venucci, the notorious Naples-born mafia man, was found as a cold corpse.

And the one who killed him was none other than the sculptor Beppo.

“What is it, Holmes. Why have you been muttering to yourself—”
“Be quiet for a moment, Watson.”

I sealed Rossetti’s points again, then took out my pipe and lit it.

The history I remembered was as follows.

Years later, Beppo would be thrown into prison for stabbing Venucci with a knife.

His motive was to seize the black pearl Venucci had stolen using his younger sister, from the Italian royal crown princess visiting London.

Having achieved his goal, Beppo ran to Gelder Workshop, hid the black pearl inside one of six Napoleon plaster statues that had not yet hardened, and was dragged away by the police.

Then, after a year, he left prison, tracked the plaster statues made at Gelder Workshop, and in the process ended up killing Pietro Venucci, who had returned to retrieve the black pearl.

Having deduced the truth of the case, I laid a trap, caught Beppo, then purchased the final plaster statue and broke it.

The story ended with me obtaining a reward of 1,000 pounds in exchange for returning the black pearl inside to the Italian royal family.

In this world, I intended to prevent Beppo from committing his crime, and to arrest Pietro Venucci at an early stage, taking the reward the moment the black pearl theft occurred.

Yet to think a kidnapping would occur, and that the mastermind would be Pietro Venucci.

‘Why is that man in London now….’

Because my memories of the previous life remained so vivid, I could not help but be shaken.

By the original history, there was still a long time before Borgia’s black pearl would be stolen.

Even accounting for the fact that London Murim and the world I lived in differed in the order events occurred, the pearl was still safely kept by the Italian royal family, so the two Italian men should have had no reason to become entangled.

And yet Pietro Venucci had chosen as his kidnapping target Beppo—who would become his enemy in the near future.

“……”

Dozens of possibilities rose in my mind and vanished.

Had fate played a prank?

Or was something unimaginable happening somewhere beyond my knowing?

Either way, this case was powerfully provoking my curiosity.

“I need to confirm it.”

I released Rossetti’s sealed points.

“Take me to where Venucci is. Right now.”

A miraculous moment awaited me. When the known would become the unknown.