SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman (22 page)

The wheels of the carriage jolted over the crossing and then ran more evenly alongside the platform of the Harbour Pier. Verity put on his tall b
lack hat, the brim tilted a littl
e over his eyes, and shifted so that he might see if anyone so much as opened the door of Roper's carriage to get down on to the platform. Almost at once, the door opened and Roper stepped out, striding away down the platform. Verity followed him, dodging and peering among the crowd of travellers, until Roper pushed his way into the refreshment room. Through the window. Verity watched him in the brightly lit interior, holding a glass of steaming toddy and favouring the serving girl with a thin, whiskery smile.

With a sense of some relief, he realised that Roper was not leaving the train at Folkestone but travelling on to Dover, as he had expected. A few seconds before the departure whistle, the man left the refreshment room and ran to a carriage in the middle of the train, apologetically pushing himself in among a family party for the last fifteen minutes of the journey. At Dover, Verity was out first, watching for Roper to emerge and carry his luggage from the van. Instead, it was a porter who carried the luggage to the rank, where several hansom cabs still waited in the warm darkness. As usual, a railway constable was in attendance at the rank to take down the number of each cab and its destination. Verity strained to catch the words called out by the porter. "Number s
ixteen. Wellington Arms, Walmer!
" The driver cracked his whip and the cab rattled away across the cobbled courtyard. Verity watched it go. There was no hope of carrying out an overnight surveillance at Walmer, since he had to parade for duty before Inspector Croaker the next morning. But though he might not be able to do it, there was one man who could take over the task for him. Julius Stringfellow must now show that he was as good as his word.

"Here," said Verity, clutching at the porter's sleeve, "what time does this train go back to town, my man?"

The porter disengaged himself and looked superciliously at the fat, unkempt traveller, his tall hat askew and his clothes hanging baggily about him. This was no moment for respect.

"Twenty-five minutes," he said grudgingly, and turned away.

Verity stood in deep thought for a while. Then he turned and walked resolute
ly back towards the harbour stati
on and the telegraph office.

Ned Roper waited until the cab was safely round two
corners, and then he banged with his stick upon the roof. The wheels slowed and the cabman opened the little roof-hatch.

"Were you the one he said 'Wellington Arms, Walmer' to?" Roper inquired.

"Yes, sir," said the cabman firmly.

"Damn the fool
!
" said Roper in mock-frustration, "that's the other passenger. I'm for the Dover Castle Hotel."

"Ain't that easy sir. Very strict the railway constables is about destinations being entered."

"Look," said Roper ingratiatingly, "set me down at the Dover Castle. Drive on to Walmer or not, as you please. And here's the sovereign for the Walmer fare and another half sov into the bargain. It's worth that much to me for a night's proper rest before I take the shilling sicker for Boulogne tomorrow."

"Right-o, guv'nor," said the cabman cheerily, and turned off towards the Dover Castle.

Five minutes later, Ned Roper and his carpet-bags crossed the vestibule of the hotel.

"Mr Archer," he said to the footman, "travelling from Ostend to London, a private room reserved for dinner, for Mr Archer and one other gentleman."

The footman bowed slightly, turned, and led Roper and the two luggage boys down a broad passageway, brightly lit by the glare of gas brackets.

Verney Dacre sat patiently at the table in the private room, surveying the fine linen, cut-glass, and silverware. He looked up at Roper as the door closed.

"I passed your cab on the way up, standin' idle in the road. As for that jack of yours, damned if he ain't called the dogs off and started back for London Bridge on the ten o'clock."

With that, the two men began to laugh.

"Come on, though," said Dacre at last, "I'm so famished I swear I may die if I don't get a good tightener soon."

The clock of St James's Church chimed the half hour as Dacre and Roper walked down the East Cliff road towards the Harbour station. Ahead of them, the starlit night was blacked out by the mass of the Western Heights. In half an hour more, at
2
a.m., the night ferry train, from Dover to London Bridge, would be on its way.

Each of the two men carried his own carpet-bags, but the weight was much less than when they had contained lead-shot. More than a hundredweight of the gold ingots had been carefully distributed in the coffin and neither man now carried more than half a hundredweight di
stributed among th
e leather bags. However, even this was a burden over so long a distance and neither of them spoke as they walked, firmly but breathing heavily, along Townwall towards the harbour.

Just short of the station, Dacre stopped.

"Have the goodne
ss," he said, gasping a littl
e, "to throw away your other ticket and take this."

Ned Roper looked at the proffered slip.

"Ostend to London Bridge?" he said foolishly.

"Take it!" Dacre picked up his bag
s again. "It's worth a hundred ti
mes what it cost. It makes us passengers from Ostend on this evening's boat. If there's a screw loose over the bullion, there's an even chance of showing that we were on the high seas all the time that the ferry train was between London Bridge and Folkestone."

Roper began to cackle with delight, but Verney Dacre ignored him and made for the palely lit outline of the railway office. They had hardly reached it when a dark figure approached them.

"London Bridge, gentlemen? May I find you your carriage, gents?"

Ned Roper showed every sign of clinging on to his carpetbags unless forcibly parted from them, but Verney Dacre set his down for the porter to carry.

"Tickets, genl'men?" said die porter hopefully. Dacre handed them to him and the man looked briefly at the details.

"Ostend steamer?" he said casually. "Then I fear I ain't able to take you to your carriage. All steamer luggage has to go through the custom 'ouse for opening and inspection by the waterguard before it goes to the train."

It seemed to Verney Dacre that he stood dumbfounded by the impact of this information for a full minute, though it could hardly have been more than a few seconds. Worse still, as he fought for words, he saw Roper reaching inside a pocket for what could only have been a life preserver to strike down the porter in the full light of the station lamps. Dacre took a step to place himself between the two men, and turned his most arrogant manner upon the porter.

"I don't believe," he said contemptuously, "that th
e water-guard officers would th
ank us for putting them to the same trouble twice. We came by last night's Ostend steamer and have been stopping at the Dover Castle since. You may see the receipted bill, for that matter."

He reached in his pocket, as though for a sheet of paper, and waited. The porter wavered, judged that a handsome tip was about to elude him if the argument was pressed further, and gave way.

"You need only have said, sir," he murmured ingratiatingly. "There ain't no call for yesterday's passengers to go through the waterguard at all.

Dacre followed him down the platform to a first-class carriage in which the oil lamps were already burning."

"Thank you," he said, handing the man a half-sovereign, "we'll have the bags with us. I don't care to be kept standin' about the luggage van at London Bridge waitin' for them."

He sat back against the cushions, closed his eyes and kept them closed until the train had begun to move. When he opened them again, Ned Roper was holding a gold coin between thumb and forefinger, holding it close to the lamp for admiration. Seeing Dacre's eyes upon him, he hastily put the gold Eagle down and opened his other hand in a litde gesture of reassurance.

"It was only two or three," he said reasonably. "They change hundreds of foreign coins at hotels like that. And no one even knows we were there. After all, half of it's mine, ain't it?"

Dacre was too tired for anger, too weary even to feel disgust. He closed his eyes again, and slept.

Daybreak began just before they reached Reigate once more. Dacre looked carefully on both sides of the train and then felt a sudden exultation. In the station yard, beyond the further platform, a pair of black
horses, their heads bowed a littl
e, waited patiently in the shafts of an elegant hearse. He saw plainly the outline of Coggin in the driver's seat. The bully had been told to expect a companion who might, or might not, join him from the Dover train at Reigate. It was never Dacre's intention that there should be such a companion. For him, the appearance of Coggin and the hearse at Reigate was merely a signal that the entire plan had operated without fault.

At London Bridge, he and Roper took separate cabs for Euston, and then a single one to the Great Western Terminus, though on the way they gave the driver new instructions to take them to Camden Town. At Camden Town, they walked to Chalk Farm, and there called a cab off the rank for Langham Place.

As they drove through the mean streets of north London, the sky blue with the coming day, Verney Dacre stared without thought or feeling at the shoeless children curled asleep on doorsteps. Already at street corners, the homeless poor and early workers were gathered round breakfast stalls, blowing saucers of steaming coffee drawn from the tall tin cans with their fires glowing underneath. The cries of a little slattern girl screaming watercresses through the sleeping streets made him turn his head. He looked at Roper, whose auburn whiskers were parted in a confident smirk, now that the work was over. Poor mark, thought Verney Dacre, he was not to know that for him only the triumph was over, and the long agony was about to begin.

13

At four o'clock on the following afternoon, at the Gare du Nord, the Chef de Surety of the Messageries Imperiales turned two keys in the locks of the bullion safe. In the presence of several armed guards of the Banque Imperiale and three
né
gotiants
from the French bullion vaults, the boxes were laid out, unlocked and their lids raised for
inspection. The Chef de Sûreté
leaned forward and then, without warning, fainted clean away into the arms of the Directeur of the Banque Imperiale, who chanced to be standing immediately behind him.

14

"I ain't saying," remarked Stringfellow carefully, "that there ain't no such hostelry as the Wellington Arms at Walmer. And I ain't saying there is. What I am saying is that I have walked the highways of Walmer until I know them as well as I know my own phiz. And I ain't found any such. More than that. I have been into every inn and made careful inquiries about a friend of mine corresponding to the description of your Ned Roper. I'll swear he's never been near Walmer. He never was going there. He must have known you were salting his tail again. It's how you were put down before. Verity. You got no eye for superior numbers."

Verity spat on a boot and rubbed it with a scrap of cloth.

"A soldier ain't to be put down by superior numbers," he said severely, "and I ain't sure I
was
put down. I shouldn't be surprised if Ned Roper wasn't telling me more than he thought when he took that cab for Walmer.
And I
shouldn't be surprised if superior numbers wasn't to be what hung him in the end."

⁴

SERGEANT VERITY AT BAY

15

"Sealskin" Kite's fingers played on the table's edge as defdy as though it were the keyboard of a Broadwood or an Erard. The hands were soft and plump as a dowager's, though marked on their backs by a scattering of pale brown freckles. Kite's head, round, plump and bald, the eyes and mouth pouched by ample flesh, reminded Verney Dacre of the old white bulldog curled up on the parlour chair at the Hope and Anchor. Then Kite turned to Dacre.

"You tell me, sir, what man o' business don't suffer the same hardships. Why, let me see, it must be ten years since I was last on a racecourse—me, Sealskin Kite!—and more than that since I saw the inside of a gaff."

He stared at Dacre defiantl
y, as though inviting contradiction.

Mrs Kite, the third and most grotesque member of the trio, laid a hand on her husband's arm.

"You're a wearing old soul to a 'ooman," she said, winking confidentially at Dacre, "and that's the truth."

Dacre brushed his moustache self-consciously with his right hand and gave a slight, unsmiling acknowledgement of her affability. In her black bonnet and shawl she had a complexion that was brown and wrinkled as a nut by contrast with Kite's pale smoothness. Dacre still stared with amazement that such a dull pair of codgers should be monarchs of the underworld, and the terror of petty thieves, magsmen, or whores alike.

Then Mrs Kite lifted the silver tea-pot and tilted it over a cup. The pot was evidently over-filled, for it spurted hot tea beyond the cup and on to the linen cloth.

"Drat the creetur! " said Mrs Kite ambiguously. She swung round in her chair and gestured towards a servant girl in a plain grey dress, who hovered near the doorway.

"Charity! Work'ouse! Come here this minute! Take this pot off and fill it properly. And p'raps our visitor would like to try a new-laid egg or two. Likewise a few rounds of buttered toast, first a-cutting off the crust in consequence of tender teeth."

She waved the girl away and favoured Dacre with another hideous smile. This time he made no attempt to return the pleasantry. Two days before the bullion robbery had been committed, he had made this appointment with Kite, offering several hundredweight of bullion for sale, and Kite had evasively agreed to the meeting. Now, within twelve hours of carrying the gold back from Dover, Dacre had come to seal the bargain. There was a certain aptness, he thought, in concluding a sale in the very room through which, a few weeks earlier, he had entered Kite's villa as a burglar.

Dacre had not anticipated the ceremonial of the tea table with Mrs Kite present. However, Kite himself seemed indifferent as to whether the matter of the sale was discussed at first, and appeared almost to have forgotten that this was the reason for his guest's presence. Yet Dacre had laid the second part of his plan with even more care than he had prepared the robbery. If he were now to succeed in it, he must work with such speed that his victims had no time to recover from one blow before another was struck.

"That young 'ooman," said Mrs Kite at length, "mayn't come amiss for having her ears boxed about the compass! Nasty charity school creetur! "

As soon as the two men were alone together, Dacre was about to speak, but Kite moved a hand slowly as though asking forbearance.

"I was so glad, my dear young sir, that you were able to honour me by this visit. So glad. Sealskin Kite keeps open house. Always did and ever shall."

He spoke with the deference of a proud man, in the tone of a gamekeeper addressing his young master.

"It ain't nothin' but the need to trade gold for specie that obliges me to call on you in this fashion," said Dacre pointedly.

Kite patted his forehead with, a folded handkerchief and pouted his lips in perplexity.

"Gold ain't the spec it used to be, my dear sir, not by 'alf. And there being such a quantity in your hands makes it hard to dispose of in the way of business. Hundredweights! Why, I never knew a man that had
hundredweights
of gold, and I can't think 'ow he should come by them, for the matter of that."

"Five hundredweight, less a few pounds, all at twenty-four carat," said Dacre with flawless arrogance, "but if it's too big a chance, old fellow, you need only say the word."

The faintest flush coloured Kite's forehead and cheekbones at the familiarity and the carefully balanced insult.

"You'd do well, young sir," he said softly, "to recall that nothing you have is too big for Sealskin Kite. You may bring your bullion and whatever else you have, and Sealskin Kite will spend pound for pound with you from here to Jericho. As to five hundredweight of gold, however, you'd do better to sell it to the Bank of England at three guineas an ounce."

"I don't choose to sell it to the Bank," said Dacre flatly.

Kite stroked his chin.

"No," he said, "banks is apt to be fussy about a quarter of a ton of bullion."

"You ain't sayin'," Dacre inquired, "that this may be dishonest gold?"

"No," said Kite.

"You ain't heard of five hundredweight that's been missed anywhere?"

"No," said Kite, "but that's not to say that I mightn't." And with that, the pale dropsical face creased in a smile which indicated that the preliminaries of negotiation were over.

Verney Dacre took a package from his inner pocket, unwrapped the wash-leather and slid the miniature ingot across the table for Kite's inspection. Kite examined the assay mark of the Royal Mint, using an eye-glass for the purpose, weighed the bar in his hand, and then passed it back.

"You'd do best to take it to the Bank," he said finally. "You won't find anyone else to give you three guineas an ounce. It ain't that many that has got thirty-six thousand pounds to give."

"Have the goodness," said Dacre wearily, "to name a price."

Kite pushed his chair back a little from the table.

"Not three guineas," he said firmly. "We must sell abroad. Spain, Egypt, where there's a paper loan to be raised and they want gold to back it. Even they won't pay you three guineas, a-cos there's nothing in it for them if they do. Two pounds ten is their going price. Now, if I must undertake the whole of the transaction, at my own cost and risk, and not knowing or asking where the gold came from, I mayn't go above two pounds an ounce, my dear sir. Really, I mayn't."

It was as much as Dacre had expected and he knew that argument would be useless.

"It ain't far removed from extortion," he said casually, "since you may dispose of it to the Bank in due course and take thirty-six thousand quid for the twenty thousand you give me."

"But I give you twenty thousand, sir," said Kite, "for what may never have cost you near that. And I take the risk and I lose the use and interest of all that money until I can sell the bullion. I can serve you, sir, but a servant must be paid his hire."

Dacre nodded.

"Now, sir," Kite resumed, "you may bring whatever bullion you wish to the Cape and India warehouse in Bermondsey tomorrow afternoon at three. My assayer shall be there. After the assay and weighing, he shall have my authority to pay you two pounds an ounce for whatever you may bring. The sum shall be paid in specie, in notes of a hundred pound denomination. The transaction shall include only gold assayed at twenty-four carat. As to the warehouse, it is a business premises of my own to which you may safely bring your bullion."

Dacre nodded.

"You have m
y word," said Kite. "Sealskin Kite's word, for good or ill, is never broken."

And then he smiled once more, and, dismissing the subject, resumed the manner of a suburban host at his well-provided table.

Dacre glanced round the room, so that Kite might see him admiring the Regency sofa in banded silk; the elegant chairs; the mahogany or walnut gloss of sideboard and sofa-table; the framed silhouettes, miniatures, and oil portraits in gilt surrounds with which the green velvet of the walls was hung. His heart beat faster but his voice was carefully controlled as he came to the second and more dangerous negotiation.

"Y' have a fine collection of heads," he remarked, nodding at the wall, "uncommon fine."

Kite was on his feet at once, shepherding Dacre towards them.

"Devilish fine, though," said Dacre admiringly, "now ain't these some of the originals of the miniatures you see sold all over town?"

Kite regarded him with a forced smile.

"There you are mistaken, my dear sir, these are my family and my little ones. They were all painted for me by Mr Frost, more than ten years ago. They have never left this house."

Dacre gave a shrug of genial bewilderment.

"Then I have seen some very like," he conceded. "That head of the little girl with blue ribbons in her hair—deuced fine!—I swear I saw the very spit of that not a month ago. The kitten in her arms, too. I wish now I had bought it, so that you might have seen for yourself."

"Was it for sale then?" There was the first note of a tremor in Kite's voice.

"In a manner of speakin'," said Dacre. "A common rough lookin' fellah had it. A pickpocket, an amateur magsman who sells what he can. Seem' he had it, I thought it must be stolen, or else a cheap copy. They tell me he brags of the cribs he's cracked and the trinkets he's found, but I take it for gammon."

"Now, my dear sir," said Kite softly, "this touches me very close. You may know or you mayn't—it's of no consequence —but I must see that miniature and your magsman." Dacre laughed.

"I should not care for you to meet him I He's an uncommon rough sort of cove! He ain't the sort to play at tip and run. He'd be even with you and even with me, if you were to press hard on him! "

"If he's got that miniature, as you describe," murmured Kite, "he won't trouble you after."

"But someone else may," said Dacre evasively.

Kite had sat down again, his face paler than before. He seemed short of breath, as though even the exertion of talking had been beyond his strength.

"Your meaning?" he said.

Dacre sat down on the far side of the table.

"It don't take the judgment of Solomon to see that you've been wronged by someone, and that may be our magsman. It ain't a secret that you suffered a cruel robbery. If I put you in his way, you may be revenged, and you may thank me for it."

"I should," said Kite earnestly, "and neither you nor any friend of mine should be troubled by the man after that." "Favour for favour," said Dacre smoothly. "Meaning?"

"You might oblige me by squarin' an account of mine with a troublesome cove. I know they call you a killin' man, Mr Kite, and I don't want that. I know you can break a man so that he never walks straight again. And I shan't want that. All I want is an affidavit or two, so that a certain party shall be far enough away from me that I may never hear of him again."

Kite shrugged.

"Affidavits can be bought," he said amiably. "Only tell me of your magsman and you shall have a hundred affidavits."

Their conversation, earnest and abrupt, was ended some minutes later by the return of Mrs Kite. When tea was over, and Kite rang for his servant to show his guest out, Verney
Dacre took a last look at Sealskin and his wife, nestling side by side on the sofa, like two old mice in a glove.

Ned Roper had slept soundly the length of the hot July afternoon, while Verney Dacre took tea with Sealskin Kite. He had woken only when the jangle of music, two floors below him in the Introducing Room, proclaimed the opening of the evening's business in Langham Place. He got up, dressed, and remembered that since early morning he had been a very rich man. Richer, he thought, than manufacturers and country squires; quite rich enough to have a house in St James's Square, a spanking new carriage and pair, and such an income that would make him a gentleman for life. But that should come later. For the moment he willingly obeyed Lieutenant Dacre's inst
ructions to the very letter. Unti
l half past ten and after, he was to be seen at his post in Langham Place, giving orders to Tyler and Coggin or supervis
ing Ellen's accounts in the littl
e parlour. Just before eleven o'clock, he slipped out and called a cab for Tooley Street.

The hansom set him down a few yards from the dingy, dockside facade of the Green Man. The light from the murky windows fell thickly through the insanitary river mist of the warm night, the outpourings of sewers and gas factories drawn into the very air of the great city. To one side of him, the huge brick arches and buttresses rose like a cliff to London Bridge station. It hardly seemed possible, Roper thought, that it was only the evening before that he and Verney Dacre had set out from there on the bullion caper. Why, it would be hours yet before the shocking news from Paris even reached Folkestone.