SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman (25 page)

It was at this point that Colonel Hanning leant forward and Inspector Croaker sat back.

"Sergeant," said Hanning softly, "before we question you any further, I think it right that you should know of an anonymous note, posted to Mr Croaker before the train left London Bridge. 'Ask Mr Verity why he is going to Folkestone tonight.' It appears that someone must have known your intention."

"Don't see 'ow, sir. Didn't know meself."

"Very well," said Hanning. "But do you now know that the train on which you travelled was robbed of a considerable quantity of bullion?"

"I read what was put in the
Globe
newspaper last night, sir."

"Where were you, and with whom were you, during the journey from London Bridge to Folkestone?"

"In a carriage on my own, sir. Never stirred from it all the way. Near the engine it was, where the train is often quite empty. After Folkestone, I took the train on to Dover and came back on the ten p.m."

Colonel Hanning looked at a sheet of paper in his hands.

"And you have no theory to offer as to the author of the anonymous note?"

"No, sir. No theory, sir."

There was a pause, almost of embarrassment. Then Bryce, the balding Treasury lawyer, took up the questioning.

"Sergeant, when did you first make the acquaintance of Charles Baptist Cazamian?"

"Never," said Verity suspiciously, "first I 'eard of him."

"Did you know that he was guard on the tidal ferry train?"

"No, sir."

"Nor that he has since disappeared and is suspected as a party to the theft?" "No, sir."

"You never passed confidential police memoranda to him?"

"I never even 'card of him."

"Answer the question," said Croaker sharply.

"I never passed him anything," said Verity. "How could I, when I never knew him?"

"When his lodgings were searched," said Bryce suavely, "a confidential memorandum, addressed by Inspector Croaker to you, was found in a table drawer."

Verity's heart sank.

"I knew I lost it," he said defensively, "I couldn't say where. But I still never 'eard of this man." "Lost it! " said Bryce sceptically.

"Yes, sir," said Verity with some irritation, "lost it. It does sometimes 'appen, you know! "

"Not to other officers of the detail," said Croaker with a sniff.

There was another pause, but the Treasury lawyer had not yet finished.

"A second paper was found in the same table drawer. 'This is a duplicate key to the Railway Office at Folkestone pier, removed by me on the thirty-first of May. If it is missed they will change the lock, but won't for a few days. Charles Baptist Cazamian.' Do you recognise that note."

"No, sir," said Verity in his most stolid manner.

"You should do," said Bryce, "it was found in an envelope addressed to you at your lodgings."

"Someone must have put it there," said Verity indignantly.

"Of course someone put it there," said Bryce, with a knowing glance at his two colleagues. "The question is, who put it there, and for what purpose."

Verity stood at attention all this time. He now understood the predicament of men who became wilder and wilder in their search for replies as the questions of a trained mind drove them this way and that at the whim of their interrogator. It was Colonel Hanning who once more intervened on his behalf.

"Sergeant, if you cannot tell us more than this, how are we to help you? Someone knew your intention of travelling by the tidal ferry to Folkestone. You can only tell us that you sat alone in a carriage without a single witness to confirm your statement. It will be alleged by others, perhaps, that you were not in a carriage but, somehow, concealed in the luggage van by Cazamian, who is suspected of being a party to the theft. You admit that you travelled by a train on which he was acting as guard. A confidential memorandum addressed by Mr Croaker to you has been found in the man's room. So has a message, apparently intended for you, which would have involved the man to whom it was written in a criminal attempt against the Railway Office at Folkestone pier. Now, Sergeant, what are we to think unless you can offer us some further explanation?"

Verity took a deep breath and fell back on his last defence.

"One other thing to say, sir. There was a man on that train who is a person of a criminal reputation. His name is Edward Roper. When I lost that memorandum from Mr Croaker, I have reason to believe it was during an assault made upon me. When I recovered consciousness, sir, Roper was not two or three hundred yards distant."

"Yes," said Bryce sardonically, "Mr Croaker has already told us something of your preoccupation with this person. However, we were not aware of your habit of ignoring police regulations by carrying confidential papers away from the divisional office."

"It was pure accident, sir."

"And when a further accident occurred, when the memorandum was lost, it did not occur to you to report its loss to Mr Croaker?"

"No, sir," said Verity, judging humility to be the only answer. "Very foolish, sir. Matter of great regret."

Bryce nodded at Croaker, who took up the questioning once more.

"While you were spying on this man Roper, on the train, what did you see him do?" "He sat in a carriage between mine and the engine." "Alone?"

"I think there was other passengers in it." "Did he get out?" "Not that I saw, sir."

"Not all the way from London to Folkestone?" "Not that I saw, sir, though he's clever as a cartload of monkeys."

"But even if he had got out, unseen by you, there was no way of getting into the luggage van, was there?"

"Not unless he was let in by Cazamian."

"Unfortunately, Cazamian would have had no key, sergeant. But even if he could have let this man Roper in, there was no way of getting the bullion off the train, was there?"

"There must 'ave been a way, sir, or it wouldn't 'ave 'appened, would it?"

It was the first time that he had caught Croaker off balance and, despite his own predicament, it did Verity's morale a great deal of good. Bryce, the lawyer, came to Croaker's aid.

"If Roper remained in his carriage, he could not have robbed the luggage van?"

"No, sir."

"And though you, a trained officer, watched the carriage, you did not see him leave it?" "No, sir. That is correct, sir."

"The evidence, therefore, is that he did not leave it." Verity made no attempt to answer. In a criminal court, he
reflected, this line of questioning would damn him even more completely than at a police inquiry.

"One final point," said Bryce casually, "if Roper were the man who had stolen thirty-six thousand pounds in gold, including a thousand in gold coins, he would now be a rich man?"

"Yes, sir."

"Not in need of money?"

"Hardly likely, sir, not if he had all that."

"Quite, Sergeant Verity. It is perhaps unfortunate for you that you could not have known that Roper was arrested two days ago on a charge of forging a cheque for seven hundred pounds. Hardly the action of a man who has just made his fortune."

"Likewise," said Verity determinedly, "he may have been arrested but he ain't been convicted yet, sir. Don't always follow."

It was something, at least, not to let Bryce put him down. On the whole, Verity considered him a meaner cove than Croaker himself. He thought that the questioning had finished, when Colonel Hanning leant forward again.

"As a matter of record, sergeant, we understand that you have been advised by Mr Croaker that any attempt by a police officer to allow a crime to be committed for the purpose of subsequently apprehending the criminals may render the officer liable to prosecution as accessory before the fact. You have been so informed?"

"Yes, sir."

Verity had expected better from Colonel Hanning. It seemed for one grotesque moment that they were proposing to try Roper with Verity as his accomplice. Moreover, he might appear to have been an extremely useful accomplice. The search of the house at Langham Place, which he had-engineered, had proved so embarrassingly unproductive that the establishment was virtually immune from police interference for months to come. Roper could have turned it into a forger's den or a vault for stolen bullion with more safety than almost any other house in London.

At last he heard Croaker ordering him to withdraw. Verity's flushed jowls trembled as he stamped "about turn" and marched smartly from the room, Sergeant Penzer trotting at his heels.

For an hour, Verity and his escort sat in the Division "schoolroom," where the newly designated "schoolmasters" endeavoured to remedy the illiteracy of the recruits. His gloom seemed to deepen among the distempered walls and bare wooden benches. Sergeant Penzer struck a reassuring note.

"It'll go all right. I seen dozens of these. This ain't nothing, hardly an investigation at all. Strikes me, someone just put you up out of spite."

"Oh, I been put up all right," said Verity, giving the matter deep thought, "and it ain't by Roper, neither. This whole thing is too clever by half for a bawdy-house bully."

When they were called in again, Colonel Hanning and Inspector Croaker watched Verity with great earnestness. Bryce contemplated the cornice of the ceiling. It was Croaker who spoke.

"Sergeant William Clarence Verity, you will be suspended from all active duty pending a fuller investigation of your case. You owe it most of all to Colonel Hanning, and to some extent to your past conduct as a soldier, that you will not be taken into custody this morning. You will, however, continue to parade morning and evening before the duty inspector until the investigation has been completed. You are also under orders to attend the company inquiry to be held by the South Eastern Railway and to answer such questions as shall be put to you there."

After Verity and his escort had been dismissed again, Sergeant Penzer's optimism was undaunted.

"Why," he said, "I only wish I might be suspended and have nothing worse to do than sleep through a Railway Company inquiry."

Within the first half hour of the South Eastern Railway inquiry it was evident to Verity that it would last for two or three weeks and offer no solution to the mystery. Witness after witness came before the long table, where Samuel Smiles, the Company Secretary, sat with his directors like the officers of a court-martial. Every witness swore that there was no conceivable means by which the gold could have been taken. And then every witness admitted that the gold had, none the less, gone. The press began to lose interest after the first day and the reports in
The Times
and the
Morning Post
became increasingly perfunctory.

Every scrap of new evidence seemed only to multiply the uncertainty. The superintendent of traffic and the chief of the railway police swore that the weights were correct at Folkestone. Therefore, it was possible, perhaps even likely, that the robbery had occurred in France. The directors clearly liked this idea, since it removed all responsibility from the South Eastern Railway Company.

On one point there was general agreement. The bullion had vanished without trace and was unlikely to be seen again. A guard called Cazamian had also vanished, though he might yet be found. Beyond that, there was nothing.

The long hall was not unlike a chapel, with benches at one end and the presiding table on a raised step at the other. The setting seemed to have been inspired by recent memories of the Chelsea Board and other inquiries which had followed the administrative catastrophe of the Crimean War. As the voices droned and the waiting witnesses dozed, Verity watched the sunlit sky through the tall gothic windows and considered his loss. The loss was Ned Roper. With Roper, there had been a trail to follow, a man to shadow. Now there was none. But, at least, sessions would come on before the railway inquiry was over. If Roper were to be acquitted and set free . . . Yes, thought Verity, if the man were free, his trail might be more clearly marked than ever.

The minor witnesses came and went very rapidly indeed. But one whole day was given up to evidence concerning the other articles in the luggage van, including the coffin of Major Edward Habbakuk. Even this failed to revive the interest of the newspaper reporters. Official evidence of the exhumation and reburial was taken. The clerk who had been present on both occasions swore that it appeared to be the same coffin, stained by damp but otherwise sound. It had even been verified that Major Habbakuk occupied it. In order to fasten the brass plate more securely, the lid had been removed, revealing the late major lying there "in an almost complete state of preservation." Clearly there were to be no local legends of Edward Habbakuk lying in his grave with gold bullion all around him.