SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman (5 page)

"Don't do so bad for a distressed milliner, do I?" She drew up her skirts. "I got nice boots, ain't they. You don't get them working in a slop shop. Walk three miles there and back every day for four bloody shillings a week? I'd a sight sooner starve
!
"

Verity grunted.

"Did they starve you in India?"

"India?" she repeated with unconvincing disinterest. "East India Dock is the nearest I'd ever get. Don't you feel frisky then?"

The sofa was between them.

"Come over here and sit down," said Verity innocently. She kept her eyes on him like a Siamese cat on its prey, and
began to unfasten her gown. It fell to the floor in a whisper of cloth. Gaslight shone on her bare shoulders as if on pale gold satin.

"Dress yourself!" said Verity sharply, half hoping to be disobeyed.

She ignored him. Her bodice came away and she laid it down carefully, turning her firm, uptilting little breasts towards him, and looking him straight in the eyes. Verity stood up hastily, but she moved round again so that the sofa was still between them. There was a quick rustling at her waist and her petticoats joined the discarded gown on the carpet. She stepped from behind the scroll of the sofa-end, into full view, her flat brown belly narrowing to a shading of dark hair between the thighs.

"Damn you, miss! " said Verity, perspiring. "Come here!"

She ran to the farthest chair and slouched down in it, opening her knees wide.

"Is that it?" she asked derisively.

Verity lumbered forward, but the girl jumped up and dodged round the sofa again, the light catching the gloss of her smart black boots and black silk stockings, the only garments she still wore. Facing the other chair, she hollowed her stomach in and bent forward. Leaning on the chair arm, she rounded the cheeks of her bottom, watching him tauntingly over her shoulder.

"Is that the sort of thing you prefer, eh?"

The momentary ache of desire on seeing her naked had passed. Verity was possessed by righteous anger that he, representing the majesty of the law, should be treated in such a manner by an impudent slut. He ran the sofa aside with a crash, overturned the chair and managed to catch her by one wrist. The girl fell under h
im, wriggling and panting deter
minedly. She twisted a hand free and her nails drew four parallel furrows across his cheekbone. It was not how he had imagined their encounter and, as she twisted half over on top of him with her thigh against his face, he fleetingly thanked God that Inspector Croaker could not see him.

At length he pinioned her face-down and reached for the hair at the back of her neck. She twisted her head clear each time until he had hit her with his open hand twice across the bottom and, when that failed, across the face. Then she lay still and allowed him to turn up the soft dark hair, to examine the mark which Roper's hot iron had branded there. Verity pushed the hair back and swore an oath at what he saw.

The skin from her shoulders to the crown of her head was smooth and without the least blemish!

The McCaffery dodge! Sergeant Verity caught in the act of beating up a naked girl! He scrambled to his feet, while Jolie, having recovered her breath, began to scream loudly enough to be heard in the street outside. Thank God, thought Verity, for Fred French's letter. The McCaffery dodge had worked in the Punjab—but it should not work in Panton Street! He pushed his way past the overturned chair and the sofa askew across the room. There were voices and lights already in the courtyard below. No going down! He must go up to the top landing and slip down when they were busy elsewhere.

Verity was not the most agile of the detective police, but no man was more adept at melting into the shadows. From the darkness of the landing above the girl's room, he watched three men hurrying up from the courtyard. One was Ned Roper, the second was a stranger, probably one of Roper's bully boys. The third man's face was hidden, but the tall hat, long belted tunic, and the bull's-eye lantern was enough to identify him as one of Roper's tame constables from "C" division.

The McCaffery dodge, thought Verity, and they had damned nearly had him with it. Yes, sir! They damned nearly had! From the room below he could hear the tone of the voices but not the words. Jolie was tearful but vague, now that the dupe had escaped. The constable was sympathetic, inquiring, but, in the end, inconclusive. The three men came out again.

"Got down the stairs while we were in there, or just before," said Roper. Their footsteps faded down the iron stairway and into the street. Verity waited.

It was hardly five minutes before Roper returned alone to the girl's room. He opened the door and said,

"You dull-witted little bitch! "

The door closed. Verity heard the girl's shrill whine of protest and then the sound of a hand striking in a series of sharp, explosive slaps. He edged his way cautiously down the iron stairway, past the light that showed beneath the locked door. He had almost reached the foot of the stairs when a man with shoulders like a stud bull stepped from the darkness. Verity guessed it would be Tyler, Roper's companion bully boy, who had been waiting there patiently ever since the whole charade began.

Verity did not enjoy brawling but he accepted what was inevitable. He clamped his teeth hard together, knowing that a loose jaw more easily becomes a fractured jaw. Then, as Tyler's dark bulk came on, Verity moved to one side, caught the man's right arm in a lock and spun him by his own momentum so that he thudded back against the banister rail with a bellowing gasp and a cracking of wood. He swung back again, eyes glittering and shoulders hunched, fencing for a grip on Verity. Twice he lunged forward, knuckles smacking on Verity's plump cheeks. But Verity knew better than to raise his guard higher and expose himself to worse damage. He waited for the third lunge, went back with it, and then threw himself forward with one knee jabbing into Tyler's groin. Tyler flung his arms back to find support, failed to find it, and crashed down in a salvo of buckets and pots.

Verity was upon him as he sprang to his feet, and carried him down again with his own weight. Tyler snatched at the stair rail as he fell, tearing it away from its struts and leaving it dangling vertically from the first landing. He kept hold of a loose strut and drove Verity back until Verity, with a heavy wooden peg, sidestepped and aimed a blow to Tyler's head which carried him through a ground floor doorway that burst open under his weight.

In the confusion of the brawl, Verity could hear dogs barking, a woman screaming, and the crash of bottles as he and Tyler went sprawling over a crate of flagons. But he had matched Tyler, he knew he had. Hold him for a few minutes more and he would be blown.

Then there was a soft explosion deep inside Verity's head, and a pain that seemed to swell like a balloon across the back of his neck. He broke away from Tyler, stooping and vomiting. The man whom he could not see, hit him again, and he sank to his knees in a bright dazzle of nausea. He heard them speak but could not catch their words. He heard, rather than felt, the first boot that sent a remote pain from the base of his spine. The thudding ache sprang up along his legs and his back, the first blows spreading pain like an anaesthetic, so that he hardly felt the later ones. His mouth was full of salt. They must have hit him in the face but he had not really noticed it at the time. There was one more dazzling spasm in his head. And then nothing.

The house had gone. He could see open sky above him. But the dogs were still barking. Men and women were walking past him, their feet not more than twelve inches from his head. They paid him no attention. A fat drunkard lying in the Panton Street gutter must find his own salvation.

Verity eased himself first to his knees and then to his feet. He staggered a little, but steadied himself against the wall. Passers-by avoided him in a wide semicircle. There was a tear from the armpit to the waist in the left side of his coat, the right knee of his trousers had gone in a triangular rent, and there was no sign of his hat. His clothes shone with wet smears of that insanitary moisture which the colder night air had drawn out on the warm paving. Very carefully, he let go of the wall and hobbled forward on bruised legs. At the first step he swayed sideways into a young woman in a crinoline. The girl gave a little cry, gathering her skirts away from him, while her male escort's eyes bombarded Verity with hate and unspoken threats.

Steadier now and with growing determination, he shuffled from Panton Street into the Haymarket, following the line of the gutter among beggars and vagrants.

"Why, Mr Verity! Oh, my poor Mr Verity! What
has
happened to you?"

Verity stared at the neatly-cut fawn suit and matching top hat, the blue silk stock and the almost ladylike boots. The moustache was palest ginger and the eyes an almost equally pale blue. Ned Roper. Verity stared again, hardly believing that the man could dare to confront him.

"My dear Mr Verity! " It was the voice of the racecourse confidence trickster. "My dear sir! Who has done this to you? Take my arm, please. We must find you assistance at once. Permit me to send for one of your other officers. For Mr Croaker perhaps?"

Verity gave a gasp and then followed this with a frog-like bleat from the throat.

"Roper!"

"My poor Verity! "

"Stand out of my way, you son of a whore!" "My dear fellow! I shall at least call the constable for you."

"I will break your foul neck. Roper, before I have done with you!"

"Constable! Constable! This way! And smartly, if you please!"

Verity recognised the newcomer without knowing his name.

"Why!" said the man. "It's Sergeant Verity! "

"Leave me be," said Verity softly.

"Best give you an arm," said the constable.

"No!"

Roper continued to stand insolently in Verity's way "Someone's done you villainy and no mistake. You ain't
been robbed have you, old fellow? Best see you've not lost
your watch."

Without taking his eyes off Roper, Verity checked his own pockets. Watch, pocketbook, and keys remained. Even his handkerchief and loose change. Only a single piece of paper was missing. Inspector Croaker's reply to his request for fuller investigations into McCaffery's death. How could he have been so damnably stupid as to put it in his pocket and carry it from the Whitehall office?

"Nothing gone, then?" said Roper softly. "Quite sure?"

"Strikes me," said the constable slowly, "the same villains that beat the young lady in Panton Street just now have worked off their spite on Mr Verity too."

"Stand out of my way!" said Verity again, and this time Roper stepped aside.

"Call on my assistance, Mr Verity, at any time. Should Mr Croaker want a witness to what you have suffered, I'm your man."

There was one blemish on Ned Roper's happiness. For safety's sake, he had to walk all the way to his expensive brothel in Langham Place, and wait until Tyler had bolted the door again, before he could release a series of thunderous guffaws which were heard all over the house, except in the pair of specially sound-proofed rooms. He flung open the door of his own private apartments and sat down, cross-legged, on the sofa, flourishing his silver-topped stick like a drum-major. In front of him, Ellen Jacoby stepped out of her black satin skirts and loosened her bodice. The sight of the tall blonde girl, with her thin smile, energetic hips, and long thighs, sent Ned Roper's hat skimming away like a top. His fawn coat and trousers followed it. On the velvet sofa, the girl's white skin shone brightly against the black pile. Roper's tongue flicked her nipples and his fingers played remorselessly between her thighs. Her head thrashed to and fro, eyes closed, teeth clenched on her lower lip. Her legs began to squirm and her hands gripped the sofa edges frantically. Ned Roper watched her for a moment and then grinned.

"And now, my love," he said softly, "here's a
reward for a good, clever girl!
"

"Why, Mr Verity!" Bella stood in the doorway, regarding her father's lodger
with wide blue eyes and her charming mouth open in amazement.

"Leave us, Bella!" said Mr Stringfellow, dabbing a wet flannel over Verity's swollen face.

"Oh, Mr Verity!" cried the girl, scurrying forward into the room.

"Clear out, miss!" roared Stringfellow. "Get upstairs this minute, or I'll have the strap off my wooden leg and leave the leather of 'un on your hide!" He pointed meaningly to the thong which secured a wooden stump that had served him as a left leg since the siege of Bhurtpore. The girl looked quickly and longingly at Verity, and then ran from the room, sobbing.