SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. Page 18

  Verity lay on the straw mattress in a fit of self-reproach. He knew that when he recognised his companion as Jolly rather than Bella he had allowed himself to go on caressing and fondling her. Such crimes against chastity, he had been taught to believe, constituted a harm that could never be made up for. In the solitude of the starlit room his self-disgust mastered him completely. He thought that if Bella had indeed left him of her own accord, it was the justice he deserved.

  The next day was no more fruitful than its predecessors. From time to time, Verity thought that Stringfellow looked at him rather oddly and he prayed that the events of the previous night had not somehow come to the cabman's notice. Ordinarily, Stringfellow's enthusiastic appreciation of young Ruth would have left him in no position to complain. But since his daughter's disappearance, Stringfellow had avoided the young servant girl's company with uncharacteristic fastidiousness.

  It was two days after Jolly's offer of consolation that Verity received his final instructions from his tormentors. By the time that a muddy-faced little happyjack slipped the note through the door at Tidy Street, Verity had given up all thought that Bella's kidnappers meant to contact him again.

  The final note was in block capitals with no pretence that it had been written by Bella herself. Indeed, it was neatly printed on a square of card, as though it had been a formal invitation.

  Mrs Bella Verity begs to announce that she will take leave of friends and former acquaintances Saturday the 27th of July at three in the afternoon prompt. She will receive for this purpose at number 33, Brunswick Square, from which address she will depart at half-past three exactly.

  Despite his fears for Bella, Verity's heart rose with a new hope and he could almost have loved the man who had sent the message. But the hope was quickly checked.

  'It can't be right, Stringfellow!' His plump hand slapped the scrubbed wood of the kitchen table. 'Not Brunswick Square! There's still a guard on it! Meiklejohn was outside when I spoke to him day before yesterday!'

  'Well,' said Stringfellow glumly, 'it ain't nowhere else, 's the only place mentioned. And the time's four hours from now. Better do something quick. Show this paper to Mr Croaker.'

  Verity shook his head.

  'Waste o' time. They got a man back and front. They won't do more 'n that, will they? They see who comes and goes.'

  'Verity,' said Stringfellow thoughtfully, 'you never thought this means just what it says? Miss Bella there of her own free will? Then leaving of her own free will?'

  Verity slapped the table harder.

  'You know your own daughter better 'n that, Stringfellow!'

  'Yes,' said Stringfellow meaningfully. 'Only I was disturbed the other night. P'raps Miss Bella felt something the same.'

  Jolly was sitting in a low nursing-chair darning a smock. Verity felt his cheeks burn.

  'Don't judge, Stringfellow!' he said warningly. 'What you hear of me at nights and I hear of you is a bit different. See?'

  The old man shrugged, as if the matter were no longer his concern.

  'What's to do then, me old sojer?'

  Verity thought for a moment. Then he looked at the card again.

  'First off, we probably been set up. They 'spect us to go there at three o'clock and just put our heads in the noose.'

  'Ain't much else to be done,' said Stringfellow morosely.

  'Yes there is, Mr Stringfellow. They expect us then. But what if we was in there already, before 'em, waiting for 'em to show up? Then it's our noose and their necks. See?'

  'How d'yer get in with law back and front?'

  'I'll do it, Mr Stringfellow. There's a window down the basement you could put a child through to open the bolts from inside.'

  'You ain't got a child,' said Stringfellow reasonably, 'and you ain't got time to find one.'

  But the glint of combat was in Verity's eyes. He nodded in the direction of the nursing-chair.

  'What's wrong with 'er?'

  Without looking up, Jolly said, 'I wasn't servant there for nothing. There's not just bolts, you'd need keys as well.' She stood up and came towards him. 'Keys?' said Verity uncertainly.

  The beautiful odalisque eyes regarded him with the quiet disdain of a pedigree cat.

  'Yes!' she said insistently. 'These!'

  They jangled on the table, three of them on a small iron ring.

  'Where the 'ell d'you get these?' snapped Verity.

  'Took them, didn't I?' cooed Jolly. 'Spare ones from the kitchen shelf. Only present I ever got there.'

  Verity's face contorted, astounded and disapproving. But Stringfellow reached out, seeking a little fold of flesh on Jolly's hip and pinching it knowingly.

  'There's a clever little 'orse!' he said encouragingly.

  17

  Concealed by the laurel shrubs of the Brunswick Square gardens, Jolly drew a deep breath and sang a long shrill soprano note. She paused and peeped over the bush in the direction of the house at the corner of the square. The private-clothes man looked about him uncertaintly. She sang another note at the top of her range, frantic and despairing. Then she put words to this cadenza of terror.

  'Oh no-o-o-o! Oh please! N-o-o-o! AHHHHHH!'

  He was crossing the square now, coming towards the private gardens at its centre, moving towards the source of the disturbance. Jolly let out a final scream, less piercing but with a suggestion of a throttled windpipe. The policeman broke into a run, though still looking to right and left as if he could not decide precisely where the cries had come from. Jolly, in a snug-fitting vest and riding trousers in the familiar tight blue genoa cotton, moved quietly away. Her hair was gathered into a black woollen helmet which covered her head so that, at a distance, it was hard to distinguish her sex, let alone her appearance.

  As the private-clothes man floundered into the shrubbery, threshing among the laurel bushes, the girl walked briskly over to the corner house. Another figure was already disappearing through the little gate in the black-painted railings which led to the steps going down to the basement area of the building. Its burly outline seemed emphasised by tight black trousers and vest, as well as a black woollen helmet identical in style to that worn by the girl. At the top of the basement steps this stouter of the two paused and pulled down the helmet so that it covered the face, leaving only two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth. Jolly imitated the same gesture and followed quickly through the little gate in the railings, shutting it after her. They met at the foot of the steps and the burly figure turned upon her at once.

  'Right, miss!' it said. 'Sharp's the word and quick's the motion. That little performance of yours won't hold him for more 'n a minute or two!'

  They found the little window to one side of the kitchen door. It had been built to ventilate the pantry and, at first glance, Verity feared that it was too small even to admit a girl of slender figure. But this also meant that it was ill-protected. Bunching his gloved hand into an impressive fist, he punched out a little square of glass between the glazing-bars, slid an arm through and moved the catch. The lower half of the tiny sash-window moved up easily. Stretching her arms out before her, Jolly appeared to dive through the narrow space until her shoulders were inside and her hips outside. Then she seemed to be held fast. Verity guessed that she had found nothing to grip on the far side.

  There was a bizarre pause. With mounting anxiety Verity looked about him. At any moment the private-clothes guard would return. In the meantime he was confronted by the grotesque view of the girl kneeling through the window. As though in a suggestive work of art, the window acted as a frame round the spectacle of Jolly's stretched trouser-seat, the taut round buttocks distinctly separated and marked by the suggestive seam between them.

  'Push the-e-n!' she wailed.

  Verity's face grew hot as a furnace as he watched his hands cupping the cheeks of Miss Jolly's bottom. He tried not to look as she wriggled with apparent eagerness against his palms. The absurd but necessary vulgarity renewed his earlier remorse. With relief he f
elt her move suddenly and then she vanished through the space. A few seconds later the bolts of the kitchen door rattled, the lock snapped back, and he stepped into the darkened basement after her.

  The kitchen was deserted. He led the way softly to the top of the servants' stairs, where she had warned him that the door might have to be forced. Verity tried it and found that it was open. Perhaps, he thought, his tormentors were here already. He swung it open and moved cautiously through, keeping his back to the wall as he looked from the hall into the rooms of the ground floor.

  After the warmth of the summer afternoon, the elegant house was cool, dark and still. There was a mustiness of closed rooms which suggested that it had not been opened since the day of Cosima's departure. Just before Jolly began her cries of alarm among the shrubs, Verity had checked the time. It was then half past one. He guessed from the state of the house that those who had lured him to it had not yet arrived themselves.

  Convinced of this, he relaxed and moved away from the wall. Then he motioned Jolly from the darkness of the stairs where she was crouching apprehensively.

  ' 's all right, miss,' he whispered. 'We stole our march on 'em. Now, you keep out o' harm's way and leave this to me.'

  He went into the housekeeper's room at the back where the door curtain still hung on its brass rail. The room was cold and smelt of damp. He was quite sure that it had not been entered in the past few days. Had his adversaries brought him here merely for their own pleasure in seeing him rise to any bait they offered? Verity shrugged and went across to the window of the room. He slid the catch open and made sure that the frame moved easily on its sash-cords. They thought him a fool, of course. But he was not such a fool as to leave himself without some easy means of escape.

  In the double drawing-room of the first floor the sunlight from the square fell in beams that were heavy with dust particles. Verity stood back and stared with experienced eyes at the furniture. The arms of the chairs, the surfaces of the inlaid tables and cabinets were all covered by an immaculate powdering of dust. It lay evenly and undisturbed, no finger-trail of brightness marking it. From the state of the room, Verity guessed that no one had entered it since Cosima had slipped away from the house.

  He frowned. For the first time he had no idea as to why he had been brought to Brunswick Square at such a time. All his expectations of villains lying in wait or devices to trap him had come to nothing. Jolly hovered apprehensively in the doorway as he turned and walked through into the back drawing-room of the first floor. In front of him was a polished table of mahogany inlaid with a walnut leaf pattern. The table was empty, except for a small gold ring which lay exactly at its centre. Verity's heart beat faster as he stooped forward and examined it. The dust on the table was undisturbed and the ring had evidently lain there for several days. He picked it up, knowing even before he examined it more closely that it was Bella's wedding ring. When he looked at the inner surface of the little gold band, he saw their initials which he had had engraved there as a symbol of their marriage for eternity.

  He stood quite still, listening for any movement in the rooms above or below him. There was none. Then he glanced ahead of him towards the windows of the rear drawing-room which looked out across the backs of Brunswick Street West. Between him and the window was a green velvet day-bed, its carved back facing him and its cushions angled towards the window. The surface upon which its occupant would recline was hidden from him by the raised back. But looking more closely he saw something protruding just beyond the end of that. It was a woman's shoe, and the shoe encased a dainty foot.

  Sick with the apprehension of what he was about to find, Verity crept forward and looked falteringly over the back of the day-bed. The young face stared up at him, the fair hair neatly arranged, the blue eyes opened and untroubled, the lips parted, the features cold and immobile in death like a marble effigy. Despite all his preparedness and his courageous resolve, he let out a little cry of fear. Cosima Bremer's body, when he touched her cheek, was still faintly warm. Her composure and stillness was unmistakeably that of the dead.

  Verity turned and raced up the stairs to the remaining floor. After his tortured longing to see Bella again, he could almost have cried with relief at finding that she was not here. His mind sifted a confusion of thoughts. Cosima had died somewhen that day. He guessed that she had been smothered by a pillow or cushion to judge from the state of her body. Either she had been killed by a man who entered the house, or she had been killed elsewhere and her body brought here. In either case, the murderers had been able to find their way past the private-clothes guard. A suspicion which had lurked in Verity's mind now began to take a precise form. All that had happened was explicable only if his tormentors had a tame jack working in the Brighton police office. Surely that was the answer.

  Then all his suspicions were submerged in an agony of terror at the thought of Bella's fate. The men who held her would kill without compunction. He had thought at first that she was merely taken in order to make him obey such orders as were given. Now he knew that he had embarked upon a blind and frantic race to find her before she was put to the same death as Cosima.

  He raced down the stairs to where Jolly was waiting, still with no clear idea in his mind of what he was about to do. Perhaps the best thing would be to hide and wait for his adversaries to appear at three o'clock. But he was no longer sure that they meant to appear. A cruel message had been delivered by allowing him to discover the body of Cosima and Bella's wedding ring. The ring was a token of assurance that one young woman would go the way of the other once her purpose had been served.

  At the foot of the stairs he faced Jolly, the agony of his face reflected in the dismay of her own expression. He stood there, trying to find the words which would convey his helplessness. From the other world of the sunlit square he heard voices and footsteps. There was a thundering on the wooden panels of the front door, not the sound of a man knocking for admission but the splintering of staves and the thud of axes as the door was broken down.

  Verity dashed to the window of the upstairs drawing-room. He almost expected to see the body of the private-clothes guard lying on the pavement as Cosima's murderers forced their way in to seize him. But the murderers would surely find an easier way, as they had already done. The carriage outside was unmistakeable. So was a dark police van parked several yards down the road. Among the voices he could now hear Inspector Croaker's impatient braying.

  The confusion in his mind vanished. Of course, he thought. Sergeant Verity in burglar's clothes, discovered in the act of ransacking a house and, indeed, standing over the dead body of its recently-murdered tenant. There was only one thing to be done.

  Jolly's dark almond eyes were a study in simple fear.

  'Move!' roared Verity at her. 'Downstairs and out the back window, 'fore they get a man on the mews gate! Run! And don't stop till yer see Mr Stringfellow's cab up Western Road!'

  She scuttled like a frightened mouse down the stairs and into the housekeeper's room at the back. Verity threw up the window, pushed her out, saw her scamper across the lawn at the back and disappear into the narrow mews of Brunswick Street West. He had given her a start but he knew that Jolly would never out-distance Inspector Croaker's men to Western Road once they took up the pursuit. There was a bolt on the inside of the door in the housekeeper's room. He ran back, grateful to his own foresight in providing the Balaclava helmets with their woollen masks which concealed the face. As he reached the hall, the private-clothes men burst through the shattered panels of the front door, Inspector Croaker at their head, followed by a dozen powerful shapes, each with its truncheon drawn and held out at the approved angle.

  'Stand where you are!' Croaker shrieked, bearing down on the masked figure.

  They would overwhelm him in a minute, Verity knew that. But in the doorway of the housekeeper's room they could only get at him singly. With improbable speed and agility, he delivered a resonant blow with his fist, which took Mr Croaker full on the mouth,
and drove his knee into the inspector's belly. Croaker doubled up with a scream of nausea and fell back into the arms of the constable behind him. For a precious moment the way was blocked. Verity slammed the door, shot the bolt across, and sprinted for the open window.

  As he dived through it, he heard the first splintering of the door under the axes of the private-clothes detail. By the time that it gave way, Verity had reached the wall beyond the grass, scaled it and raced away up Brunswick Street West. Croaker's men watching the back of the house would, of course, see the two fugitives from their attic room above the little tavern, but they would be in no position to give chase. He turned into Western Road and saw Jolly ahead of him, close to Stringfellow's yellow hackney coach. Verity had snatched off his mask as he emerged from Brunswick Street West, relying on his speed to keep him clear of the pursuit. He scrambled after Jolly, through the open door of the coach, and heard Stringfellow yelp at the old horse. Then the wheels moved and the cab turned sedately into the stream of carriages rolling toward Hove. It was well on its way by the time that Verity pressed his face to the little rear window. He was just quick enough to catch the first sight of men pelting out of Brunswick Street West, pausing and looking to right and to left, before they slowed down with abrupt indecision.

  Far away from him now, as they approached the sunlit streets of Hove and the sea glittering at the far end, Old Mole sauntered down Brunswick Place towards the square and the promenade. Mole made his way beyond Brunswick Lawns where an old invalid man took his ease under the canopy of a swan-neck carriage. The scrub-haired mobsman spoke half a dozen words to the frail gentleman. Whereupon, Sealskin Kite's genial old smile faded. His lips drew back on his teeth in a sharp little snarl of displeasure.

  ' 'ave some sense, Stringfellow!' said Verity for the seventh or eighth time that evening. 'What else could I a-done? Stood there over the poor dead person with a mask on me face, having broke into the house, 'n just shook Mr Croaker by the hand? It's my neck they'd bloody stretch for it, me being suspended already!'