SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob.

SERGEANT VERITY

AND THE SWELL MOB

FRANCIS SELWYN

STEIN
AND DAY/
Publishers
New
York

FIRST STEIN
AND DAY PAPERBACK EDITION 1984
Sergeant Verily and the Swell Mob
was first
published in hardcover in the United States of America by Stein and Day/
Publishers
in 1981.

Copyright
1981 by Francis Selwyn

All rights reserved, Stein and Day,
Incorporated

Printed in the United States of
America

STEIN AND DAY/
Publishers

Scarborough House

Briarcliff Manor. N.Y. 10510

ISBN 0-8128-8050-1

The
Shah Jehan Clasp

In those ever-famous days of
September 1857, when our infantry and light horse stormed the rebel city of
Delhi, the treasury of the Mogul Emperors was broke open. Its masterpiece was
the rich clasp of Shah Jehan, or Shah Jahan, ruler of India two centuries
since. This great clasp formed a
sarpesh
or turban-ornament, a fine
tall plume cut in white jade and encrusted with gold. It bears a perfect galaxy
of diamonds of the first water, a leaf-pattern of emeralds with precious
stones. But who shall describe that blood-red ruby at its base, that most
exquisitely carved Burmah stone?

Tradition avers that Shah
Jehan's curse shall fall wherever unlawful hands despoil his treasure. For
this, his
sarpesh
was nicknamed 'The Devil's Clasp'. Of its recent
history, but little is known. It was sold for an unnamed vendor in 1858 by
Dubouq, Rivery & Fils, in Paris. During two weeks it was displayed at the
Crystal Palace among souvenirs of the late Sepoy rebellion. Where it now rests,
or what fortune attends its owner, I am not able to discover.

—Captain J. H. Monck-Learmont
A Rider
with Hodson's Light Horse
London, 1860

CONTENTS

1
    
STUNNING
JOE

2
    
A
TAME
JACK

3
    
TICKET
OF
LEAVE

4
    
SEALSKIN
KITE'S LITTLE
TICKLE

STUNNING
JOE

1

Stunning
Joe O'Meara hung by his fingers in the high starlight, like a thin black
spider. Fifty feet below him, the shaded cobbles of the stable yard held their
promise of shattered bone, the lingering death of a body broken on the wheel.
He pressed himself gently against the rose-coloured brickwork of Wannock
Hundred. Even in naming a Sussex mansion, Baron Lansing had given it an air of
bogus antiquity.

Stunning
Joe's bony fingers were hooked over the dressed stone of the highest window
ledge. His spread legs had found lodgements for his toes where the mortar of
the Georgian bricks was loose and crumbling. Lean and light-boned as a child,
he was hardly visible in the night, wearing his black breeches of tight
moleskin, his dark vest and thin canvas shoes.

He
worked his way along the high mansion wall, the cold memory of a drop to the
cobbles always behind him, the tiled eaves a few feet above him. Holding the
ledge by one hand, he stretched the other out, caressing the rough brick
surface to one side. The little file between his fingers dug at the mortar.
Tiny fragments rattled on the stones far below. Stunning Joe tested the
finger-hold, trusted it, and slowly moved his other hand along the stone
window-ledge.

Clamped
like a limpet against the wall, he drew a deep breath of air in the crisp
November night. Below him a light breeze stirred the remaining leaves of the
park elms. A fox barked clear and cold on the moonlit flank of downland.
Further still, where the starlight struck a flat pale reflection, he caught the
distant shell-sound of the flood tide running between Seaford and Beachy Head.
In the shadow of the eaves his head moved in sharp brief glances. The slick black
hair shaped a skull that had the narrow keenness of a ferret.

Alone in the cold silence of
his spider-perch, he touched the toe of a canvas shoe along the line of mortar,
feeling for his next foothold. A stable clock in its white-painted cupola
chimed the half hour. Time was not important to him just then. What mattered
was that he should achieve complete surprise. The window of the Baron Lansing's
library would be armed against any upward attack. But it was beyond imagination
that a thief could walk round two sheer walls of the house and come from above.
No other spiderman in London would have looked at such a route.

Two men had tried the simple
method of scaling the house front. But razor-sharp glass was set cunningly in
the mortar and the pipes and ledges coated invisibly with tree-grease at a
cruel height. The first man was now serving a ten-year sentence in the penal
colony of Parramatta. His companion was in the hospital of Clerkenwell prison,
his shattered body held in the agony of an iron brace.

Clutching the tiny crevices of
the sheer wall, Stunning Joe glanced aside and saw the next window ledge almost
within reach. His fingers touched it, the other hand moved to the niche vacated
by the first. As his weight shifted, he snatched hand over hand and swung
easily along the stone projection.

Round
the next corner of the building, though at a lower level, was the library
window. The room contained the Lansing emerald, and diamonds to the value of
£10,000. Its other treasure was beyond price. The Shah Jehan clasp,
sarpesh
or turban-ornament of the
Mogul emperors, had been seized by the British army during the sack of Delhi in
1857. How it came to be sold in Paris, or what the Baron Lansing had paid for
it was a mystery. With infinite patience Stunning Joe edged his way toward
such treasures as no other Bramah safe had ever held. Old Mole and Sealskin
Kite, the putters-up of the robbery, had promised him it should be so.

And
neither Old Mole nor Mr Kite had ever been mistaken before.

The
corner of the wall posed the greatest danger, though there was a pipe running
up to the gutter on the near side. Lower down the smooth metal would have a
lethal smear of grease. At this height, Stunning Joe tested it with his fingers
and found it clean. Gripping it with his knees, he could just see the outline
of the darkened library window beyond the projection of the wall. He adjusted
the canvas strap on his shoulder, feeling the weight of the small bag on his
back. The thin metal frame of the jack-in-the-box and the other tools which it
contained would be more than equal to any safe which Joseph Bramah could
construct.

Immediately
above the library was a "blind window', a decorative relic of the days of
the window tax. It was a shallow recess, matching the shape of the one beneath
to complete the symmetry of the facade. Stunning Joe looked down and saw the
broader stone of the sill below. He knew that to set hand or foot on it would
probably be the end of him. Instead, he hung by his hands from the upper
recess, then released his grip and fell. For a fraction of a second the wind
roared at his ears and then the rough coping stone above the library window
smacked into his hand like a blow. His other fingers stung with the coldness of
torn skin, but the grip of one hand was all that he needed.

He worked with great care,
though he knew that the Baron Lansing himself was at his town house in Portman
Square and would not be expected at Wannock Hundred for two more days. The tiny
diamond in the ring on Stunning Joe's finger took out the little square of
glass above the window catch. The glass itself fell on the carpet inside
without a sound. In a moment more the top half of the window glided down and
the agile bony legs swung in over it, dropping to the floor of the room like a
gymnast.

With the curtains open the
moonlight of the clear November night was all the assistance he required.
First and most important, he went to the door of the room, putting his eye to
the crack and seeing that it was unlocked. He slipped off the canvas shoulder
straps and took from his bag a small picklock with a hooked end. So much
ingenuity was given to preventing locks being opened but closing them remained
relatively simple. Stunning Joe eased the tumblers gently, one at a time, and
heard the metal bolt click home under the pressure of its spring. He took a
steel watch-pin and jammed it in the space where one of the tumblers had been.
It would take a locksmith to move it now. Turning round, he went to work
undisturbed on the safe.

The Bramah stood behind a
green velvet curtain next to the Baron Lansing's desk. Old Mole had told him
that much. It was the usual iron box which trusted to the weight of its bolt
rather than to the strength of the mechanism. It was a job for the
jack-in-the-box.

Stunning Joe took out the
heavy brass stock of the instrument. Into one end he fitted a steel wedge,
like the blade of a huge chisel. Into the head of the shaft at the other end
went a steel lever, a foot long and an inch thick. By winding the lever round,
the steel wedge was driven slowly forward with a pressure between three and
four tons. Ignoring the lock, Stunning Joe applied the thin edge of the steel
to the crack on the hinge side of the safe door. Kneeling at his task, the
veins of his forehead contoured with exertion, he wound the steel lever like a
mill-blade. There was no sound but the shrill scraping of metal. Several times
he stopped for breath. Then at last he felt the door of the safe start, as one
of the hinge screws jarred loose. When that happened, he knew he had won.

Patience
and effort brought the screws out, one by one, each easier than the last, until
the safe-door was free on that side. Stunning Joe laid the door aside and
inspected the interior. There were several jewel cases in dark red or green
leather and a diamond pendant in a nest of black velvet. He scooped them out
and put them in a square of thick cloth.

There
were half a dozen wash-leather bags of sovereigns, and he added these as well.
Then he did the cloth up, like a workman's lunch, and put it in the crossed
webbing of his shoulder-straps.

He was
about to leave when someone rattled the china handle of the door. There was a
spoken exchange between two men outside. He could not make out the words, but
the tone was one of irritation rather than alarm. Their footsteps receded.

He
tightened the shoulder-straps again and pulled himself out over the window
frame. By standing on its wooden top he could just reach the lower ledge of the
sham-window above him. And that, for Stunning Joe, was enough. It was hardly
midnight. There were six or seven hours of darkness before him with no more to
do than retrace his route and walk away into the Sussex lanes. As a final
precaution, he released his grip with one hand and pulled out the thick cloth
with its bundle of jewel cases. It was no larger than a pineapple and just as
light. Gently, he lobbed it out into the darkness, so that it fell into the
yew hedge beside the drive. He followed the gentle parabola of its descent with
his eyes, knowing that he could find the bundle again within a few seconds.

After that, it was a matter of
patience and infinite care. If he should lose his hold or disturb the guardians
of Wannock Hundred, at least there would be no evidence upon him. Not that Joe
O'Meara had any intention of doing either. As he told himself, he was now a
very rich man. Caution was the best policy. His only unease was over the Shah
Jehan clasp. It was famous, repeatedly illustrated in the picture papers after
its capture at Delhi. For two weeks it had even been on public display. A man
could neither eat it nor sell it — except to some rummy cove who would gloat
over it in secret behind his locked door.

Old
Mole and Mr Kite had abler brains than his for such matters and Stunning Joe
was content to leave the disposal of the heathen
sarpesh
to them.