SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (2 page)

He
edged his way round to an angle of the mansion wall, where two sets of windows
rose at right angles to one another. Their upper and lower ledges were as easy
to him as a ladder. With a speed which any circus acrobat would have envied, he
made his descent. Standing on the upper ledge of the highest coping, he sprang
sideways and downwards across the right angle, catching the lower ledge of the
opposite casement in his strong fingers. With hardly a pause Joe launched
himself sideways again to seize the next upper ledge of the first flight of
windows. Side to side, he dropped nimbly down the levels of the dressed stone,
his hands finding their hold with the lightness of a cat.

At
last he hung from the upper ledge of the ground-floor window, barred like a
prison cell. He listened intently to satisfy himself that the house was still
in silence. Not a dog barked in the stable yard. Soundlessly he dropped to the
cobbles, turned with his back to the wall and listened to the quiet November
night.

From
the shadows of the house about six feet beyond where he stood, a figure stepped
into the starlight. It had the heavy shoulders of a fighter and a tall
chimney-pot hat. There was just enough light to show the ginger mutton-chop
whiskers.

^‘
'ello, Stunning Joe,' said
Sergeant Albert Samson amicably. 'Come a bit early for the house party, ain't
yer? Guests isn't invited till Saturday.'

Joe
O'Meara, cornered in the angle of the wall, looked desperately about him, the
beaked nose and the ferret-eyes yearning for escape. But there were other
figures coming out of the darkness now, half a dozen burly shapes. With the
instinct of panic he turned back to the wall, leaping for the upper ledge of
the barred window.

'Come
on, Joseph!' said Sergeant Samson firmly. 'We ain't got all night to watch you
capering about on the roof. You'll only be fetched down in the end. And I
shan't half be in a wax over you!'

As
though to chafe his fingers, he was kneading one set of large knuckles in the
palm of the other hand. Stunning Joe turned slowly to face him.

'All right!' he said savagely.

' 'at's the boy, Joe!' Samson
clipped the metal cuffs on O'Meara's wrists until they almost bit the skin.
'What
would
you a-done next?'

'I'd
a-got in, most like,' said Stunning Joe quickly. 'I was just going to find a
better way. 'eard there was a cove going to crack the crib tonight. Thought I'd
steal a bit of a march on 'im.'

Samson
laughed indulgently and turned to one of the shadowy figures who handed him the
cloth bundle, which Joe had lobbed into the bushes. He clapped a friendly hand
on the prisoner's shoulder.

‘You ain't half a caution, my son!'

They turned him about and
marched him into the kitchen of the house. Samson, Stunning Joe and three
uniformed constables stood round the scrubbed pine table. There was also a tall
dark man with the air of a senior clerk.

'Mr
Bunker,' said Samson, for Joe's benefit. 'London Indemnity Assurance. You might
a-cost his firm a penny, my lad!'

The
cloth bundle was opened and its treasures spread upon the table. Bunker stooped
over them, one by one. Finally he stood up, holding a dark green jewel case of
polished leather.

'Just this one, sergeant,' he
said sharply. 'Broken open and emptied.'

Samson's
composure vanished, the blue eyes filling with deep apprehension.

‘What should be in it, then,
Mr Bunker?'

Bunker
drew himself up with the air of an actor about to deliver the concluding lines
of a melodrama.

The Shah Jehan clasp!' he said softly.

The
sense of grievance which Stunning Joe had felt ever since Samson's appearance
was overwhelmed by a feeling of physical sickness.

'It can't be missing!' he
squealed, frightened for the first time. ‘Unless it fell out p'raps!' He was
now as eager to recover the jewel as any of his captors. Bunker turned his
back on Joe and addressed the explanation to Samson.

The locked jewel cases were
placed in the safe as soon as the intended robbery was heard of. The Baron
Lansing has the key to the safe with him, in London. The safe was not opened
again until its door was forced by the thief.'

Samson nodded and turned to Stunning Joe.

'Right, my son. Where's that bleedin' jool to?'

'Not on 'im, sarge,' said a uniformed constable
helpfully.

'Where
is it, Joseph?' The left palm was kneading the right-hand knuckles again.

'I never had it, Mr Samson!'
said O’Meara shrilly. ‘I swear I may be damned if I so much as saw it!'

Bunker and the three constables looked pointedly away.

‘Don't
play me up, Joseph,' said Samson gently. The bunched knuckles came up, short
and fast, into the narrow stomach. There was a start and an abrupt retching
sound from the handcuffed prisoner.

'Now then,'
said Samson pleasantly, ‘Where d'you say that jool was?'

Stunning
Joe, his wrists locked behind him, was bowing over the table with perspiration
starting on his forehead. His words came breathlessly.

If it ain't there now,' he
said miserably, 'it never was in the safe.'

And
then, to the embarrassment of the others, he began to weep silently. Samson
laid a hand on his shoulder again.

'You
mean, Mr Bunker ain't telling the truth? Or Baron Lansing's been having us all
on?'

'I don't know, Mr Samson! I
don't
know!
’
There was no mistaking the abject howl of despair.

Samson sighed.

'Well then, Stunning Joseph,
I’ll tell you how it looks to me. I been brought all the way from the
Private-Clothes Detail in Scotland Yard. And I ain't that partial to countryside,
meself. What I see is all the Lansing jools locked up snug in the safe. And
then, with me own eyes, I see you, going in through that window and coming out
with the spondoolicks. Course, you had a few minutes to make away with any
little trinket, before you and me struck up our acquaintance in the stable
yard. That emperor's clasp, what was sworn to as being in its box before your
game began, ain't anywhere to be seen. No one touched that box but you, my
son.'

O’Meara made his last defiance. 'They must a-done!
They bloody must!' Samson ignored the outburst.

'I
ain't got more time to waste, Joseph, seeing the grounds’ll have to be searched
presently. So I’ll put it to you like this. When the business comes to court,
who's going to be believed? Banker Lansing with more money in Pall Mall than
you ever dreamt of? Or a bleedin' little thief like you?'

2

Stunning
Joe gave his gaolers no trouble in the weeks before his trial at the Old Bailey
sessions. Once before he had been lodged briefly in the grim neo-classical
fortress of Newgate prison, next to the Central Criminal Court. They brought
him in apart from the other prisoners, through the lodge, with its iron-bolted
doors and window grilles. The way led along a narrow gas-lit passage, lined
with the plaster death-masks of the murderers who had been hanged on the public
platform outside the press yard. At the end of this was the great nave of the
prison under its glass roof, five floors of cells rising on either side with
their iron balustrades and spiral ladders.

He was
locked into the last reception cell on ground level. Only the two condemned
cells lay beyond his. The iron door slammed and the lock turned. They left him
to himself in the high cramped space, the lower wall painted with green disinfectant
lime, the upper half whitewashed.

From
time to time he heard the shuffle of feet in the yard outside, the rattle of
iron, and the warder's voice, 'Step out there! Will you step out!' Hoisting
himself to the bars, he saw the slow circling of figures. These were convicted criminals,
dressed in coarse brown uniform. The 'Scotch cap' covered their faces, as well
as heads, leaving only two circles for the eyes. Each man was identified solely
by the numbered disc sewn on the breast of the woollen tunic.

Day by
day, O'Meara swore that he would not give way to despair. Old Mole and Mr Kite
might do something for him. At least they would find a lawyer to present his
case. There would be times when escape, or even rescue, was possible. A prison
van transferring men to the hulks at Woolwich or Portland might be
successfully attacked. But the memory of betrayal at Wannock Hundred and the
mystery of the Shah Jehan clasp began to sour his hope.

One
morning, in the week before his trial, he heard the marching tread of several
warders and their rhythmic shout of 'Governor-r-r!' calling the prisoners to
attention on the governor's approach. The footsteps seemed to halt outside his
own door. But it was the condemned cell next to his which was opened. He heard
the governor's voice reading a document to the convicted man.

'James
Jacob Fowler, your case has received Her Majesty's most gracious consideration.
However, the circumstances of your crime utterly preclude the possibility of
mercy being extended to so hardened a criminal. You are therefore ordered for
execution in fourteen days from the present, by Her Majesty's gracious
command.'

There was a pause as the
condemned man recovered his composure, and then a roar from him as the warders
slammed the door shut.

'She can kiss my
bloody bum, blast her eyes!'

It was
less than ten minutes after this when two warders opened the door of Stunning
Joe's cell.

'O'Meara!
Consulting room! Quick-sharp!

Old Mole had got him a counsel
for the trial! He followed the passageway with the warders beside him, his
heart pounding at the thought that he had not been abandoned after all. As each
iron gate was unlocked, its keeper shouted, 'One off!' when Joe left the near
side, and then 'One on!' when he entered the next area of the prison.

The
consulting room was at the centre of the administration buildings in an area
of double pillars and vaults, like a cathedral crypt. The little room itself
almost resembled a private chapel, with low walls to waist height and glass
above. The warders could watch the lawyer and his client without hearing what
passed between them.

There
was a table in the room and a painted line about three feet in front of it.

'Stand on the
line, prisoner!'

Stunning
Joe obeyed. The warders stepped outside, watching through the glass, and the man
who sat at the table looked up.

'It
won't do, Joseph,' said Sergeant Samson sadly. 'It really won't do at all.'

'You stinking jack! You got no
right coming here! I want a brief!'

He
started forward to the table and the warders stepped to the door. But Samson
waved them away.

'You couldn't have a better
brief than me, Joseph. I'm the only one left who could say a good word.'

'Much chance!'

'You
think I come about that trick of the Shah Jehan clasp? So I have. I want to
know, Joseph. I do. But I never come empty-handed. I got a present for you. The
name of the party who gave your game away.'

Stunning
Joe swallowed and the little eyes fastened expectantly on Samson.

'You were bouncing
a little trollop called Vicki Hartle,' said Samson cheerily. 'Cigar divan and
oriental massage, off Haymarket. After you went down Sussex way, Miss Vicki
prigged a toffs watch and notecase. Turned out to be Inspector Garvey, over
"C" Division. Anyway, Vicki being lined up for a real smacking from
the beak, she lays out the goods on you at Wannock Hundred. Garvey let her go.'

'She never!'

'I got no cause to
lie to you, Joseph, 'ow else d'you think I happened to be there?' 'The damned
bitch!'

'Yes,
Joseph. Now, in course, you'll want Vicki Hartle's hide off her. If we was to
find that heathen clasp before your trial came on, why you might be able to
knock Miss Vicki one side of Haymarket to t'other in seven years. P’raps five.
But if you will be obstinate, my son. I'd say that little whore won't get her
licks for another fifteen years.'

'I never
seen
any bloody clasp, Mr Samson!'