Chapter 159: Chapter 159

"Very interesting," he said, "but it must be tedious as a career."

"Yes. At first my neck cramped from watching the signals constantly, but after a year I got used to it. And we do get time off, and holidays."

"Those are real holidays for me! I spend all day in the garden, planting, pruning, trimming, killing insects."

"How long have you been here?"

"Ten years as an operator, five as an apprentice. Fifteen total."

"Fifty-five years old."

"How long must you serve to claim a pension?"

"Twenty-five years, sir."

"And how much is the pension?"

"Poor humanity," Monte Cristo murmured.

"What was that, sir?"

"I said it’s very interesting."

"Everything you’ve shown me. You really don’t understand any of these signals?"

"Have you ever tried to learn them?"

"Never. Why would I?"

"But surely some signals are meant specifically for you?"

"And you understand those?"

"They’re always the same."

"Nothing new. Either ’You have an hour of rest’ or ’Report tomorrow.’"

"Simple enough," the Count said. "Look, isn’t your correspondent signaling now?"

"Ah, yes! Thank you, sir." Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs N()velFire.net

"It’s asking if I’m ready."

"With the same signal. That tells my right-hand correspondent I’m ready while alerting my left-hand correspondent to prepare in turn."

"Very clever," the Count observed.

"You’ll see," the man said proudly. "In five minutes, he’ll send a message."

"Five minutes," Monte Cristo murmured to himself. "More time than I need." Aloud, he said, "My dear friend, may I ask you a question?"

"You love gardening?"

"Would you be pleased to have, instead of this twenty-foot terrace, an enclosure of two acres?"

"Sir, I would make it a paradise on earth!"

"You live poorly on your thousand francs?"

"Poorly enough, but I survive."

"Yes, and your garden is miserably small."

"True, it’s not large."

"And what you have is infested with dormice who eat everything."

"Ah, they’re my curse!"

"Tell me, suppose you had the misfortune to turn your head while your right-hand correspondent was signaling?"

"I wouldn’t see him."

"Then what would happen?"

"I couldn’t repeat the signals."

"For that negligence, I’d be fined."

"A tenth of your yearly income. Quite harsh."

"Indeed," the man agreed.

"Has it ever happened to you?"

"Once, sir, when I was grafting a rose bush."

"Now suppose you deliberately altered a signal and substituted another?"

"That’s different! I’d be fired and lose my pension."

"Three hundred crowns?"

"A hundred crowns per year, yes, sir. So you see, I’m not likely to do either of those things."

"Not even for fifteen years’ wages? It’s worth considering, isn’t it?"

"Fifteen thousand francs?" The man’s eyes widened.

"Sir, you’re frightening me."

"Sir, are you... tempting me?"

"Exactly. Fifteen thousand francs. Do you understand?"

"Sir, I should check my right-hand correspondent-"

"On the contrary, don’t look at him. Look at this instead."

"Don’t you recognize these pieces of paper?"

"Precisely. There are fifteen of them."

"Yours, if you wish."

"Mine?" the man gasped, half-choking.

"Yes, your own property."

"Sir, my right-hand correspondent is signaling!"

"Sir, you’ve distracted me! I’ll be fined!"

"That will cost you a hundred francs. You see it’s in your interest to take my bank notes."

"Sir, he’s signaling frantically now, he’s getting impatient!"

"Never mind. Take these." The Count pressed the money into the man’s trembling hands. "But that’s not all. You can’t live on just fifteen thousand francs."

"I’ll still have my position."

"No, you’ll lose it. You’re going to alter your correspondent’s message."

"Sir, what are you asking me to do?"

"It’s merely a jest."

"Sir, unless you force me-"

"I believe I can." Monte Cristo drew another packet from his pocket. "Here are ten thousand francs more. With the fifteen thousand already in your pocket, that makes twenty-five thousand. You could buy a charming little house with two acres of land for five thousand. The remaining twenty thousand will earn you a thousand francs per year in interest."

"A garden with two acres!"

"And a thousand francs annual income."

"Come, take them." Monte Cristo forced the notes into his hand.

"Simply repeat these signals." The Count produced a paper with three symbols drawn on it, numbered to show the order in which they should be transmitted.

"You see? It won’t take long."

"Do this, and you’ll have your nectarines and everything else you desire."

The words hit their mark. Flushed with fever, sweat pouring down his face, the man executed the three false signals one after another. His right-hand correspondent made wild, frantic gestures, clearly thinking the gardener had gone mad. The left-hand operator, however, dutifully copied the signals, which were eventually transmitted all the way to the Minister of the Interior in Paris.

"Now you’re rich," Monte Cristo said.

"Yes," the man replied shakily, "but at what cost!"

"Listen, my friend." The Count’s voice was earnest. "I don’t wish you to suffer remorse. Believe me when I swear that you’ve harmed no one. On the contrary, you’ve benefited humanity."

The man stared at the bank notes, felt them, counted them. His face went pale, then flushed red. He rushed into his living quarters to drink water but fainted before reaching the pitcher, collapsing among his dried herbs.

Five minutes after the false telegram reached the minister, a man named Debray ordered his carriage prepared and drove to the house of a wealthy banker named Danglars.

"Does your husband own any Spanish bonds?" he asked Danglars’ wife urgently.

"I believe so! About six million worth."

"He must sell them immediately, at any price."

"Because Don Carlos has escaped from his captivity and returned to Spain."

Don Carlos was a pretender to the Spanish throne whose movements affected the stock market dramatically. News of his escape would cause Spanish bonds to plummet in value.

"How do you know this?" the baroness asked.

Debray shrugged dismissively, as if the question were absurd.

The baroness didn’t wait for explanation. She ran to her husband, who immediately contacted his broker and ordered him to sell everything at any price. When other investors saw Danglars selling, they panicked. The Spanish bonds crashed. Danglars lost five hundred thousand francs but managed to rid himself of all his Spanish holdings.

That same evening, the newspaper Le Messager published: "[By telegraph.] The king, Don Carlos, has escaped his guardians and returned to Spain through the northeastern mountains. The city of Barcelona has risen in rebellion to support him."

All evening, everyone spoke of Danglars’ remarkable foresight in selling his shares, and his luck in losing only five hundred thousand francs from such a disaster. Those who had kept their shares, or bought Danglars’ discarded ones, believed themselves ruined and spent a sleepless night.

The next morning, the official government newspaper Le Moniteur published a correction:

"Yesterday’s report in Le Messager regarding the escape of Don Carlos and a revolt in Barcelona was entirely unfounded. The king remains in custody, and the country enjoys complete peace. A telegraph signal was misinterpreted due to fog, causing this error."

The bonds immediately rose one percent higher than before they’d fallen. Calculating both his losses and his missed gains, Danglars had lost a difference of one million francs.

"Excellent," Monte Cristo said to his friend Morrel, who was visiting when news arrived of Danglars’ financial catastrophe. "I’ve just made a discovery for which I paid twenty-five thousand francs, though I would have paid a hundred thousand."

"What have you discovered?" Morrel asked.

"I’ve discovered how a gardener can rid himself of the dormice that eat his peaches."

By which he meant: he’d learned exactly how to manipulate the telegraph system, and through it, destroy his enemies’ fortunes.