SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (24 page)

Groups
of young women with their escorts emerged from the streets converging on to the
sea. Like clouds of butterflies the dainty parasols opened against the sun,
white, lilac and lavender. By the middle of the morning the promenades from
Hove to Kemp Town seemed afloat with crinolines, light bonnets, airy dresses,
organdies and brilliantes. Languid young men, their hands thrust into the
pockets of peg-top trousers, eyed the expanse of water where the breeze was
chopping the wavelets into white spray. A silver band played Rossini on the
enclosed lawns.

Here and there, the groups of
less affluent trippers thrust themselves forward, men in shallow-crowned straw
hats and fat women eating prawns. They gazed at the two buoys, each carrying a
small Union Jack, which marked the start and finish of the regatta. A dozen
urchins pushed and struggled against one another on the shingle below, urging
the spectators above them to throw coins to be fought over.

'Make a scramble, gents! Gi' us a scramble!'

Just
then there was a boom from the starting-gun on the lugger-yacht and the little
white-sailed boats bucked forward into the waves. Telescopes, single and double
Dollands, appeared from the cases of several expensively-suited gentlemen who
watched the progress of the
Sarah Ann, Prince Consort
and
Lord of the
Isles.

Bella tugged little Billy
Verity's leading reins to check the boy's insistent progress towards the
promenade rails. She glanced quickly at her companion. Ruth held the younger
child, Vicky, in her arms. Solemn-eyed and wondering, she watched the marine
pageant before her.

Bella glanced
again, her mind going back to Verity's stern warnings over Stringfellow's
behaviour to the young maidservant. Bella had tried to raise the subject
gently with Ruth herself. 'You sure Mr Stringfellow ain't no inconvenience to
you, Ruthie?' But sixteen-year-old Ruth had looked back with such pretty
solemnity and such an air of innocence under her cropped fair curls that it had
been impossible to pursue the conversation. No inconvenience whatsoever, it
seemed. After that, Bella was certain Mr Verity was wrong. Having so much to do
with the criminal class, she thought, it must give his mind a bit of a turn
that way.

'Ruthie,'
she said presently, wearying of Billy's efforts, ' 'itch his reins on your arm
for a minute, do.'

And then, relieved of maternal
duties for the time being, she opened an elegant new turquoise parasol and
luxuriated in a sense of sunlit indolence.

She
had drifted into a reverie, almost forgetting where she was, when someone
touched her arm and there was a voice behind her.

'Mrs Verity,
ma'am?'

It was
a stranger, a sombre-looking man in black with a tall hat and frock-coat. He
seemed to her like an undertaker.

'Yes?' she said,
frightened a little by his appearance.

'Mr
Inspector Croaker's compliments, ma'am, and he begs your attendance at his
office most urgently.'

The sunlit afternoon around
her was frozen by a sudden chill which struck her heart with the force of a
blow.

'Mr Verity?' she gasped, and
then her voice strengthened to a cry. 'Is it Mr Verity?'

The man inclined
his head a little.

'Best you should come now,
ma'am,' he said gently. 'You'll be with Mr Croaker in two minutes. He sent his
own cab special-to find you, when you wasn't at home.'

By now she was terrified at
the thoughts which rushed through her mind. The man indicated the dark
official-looking cab which stood by the kerb. Bella turned a wild, distraught
face to her young servant.

'Take
them home, Ruthie!' she cried. 'Take them home and care for them!'

And
then she blundered through the crowd towards the cab, where the grave-looking
man held open the door for her.

15

Tranquillity
had passed into tedium. Each morning Verity watched the early mist rising from
the placid sea like the gauze curtain in the transformation scene of
Sinbad the
Sailor
at the Suffolk Music Hall.
Then there was the noon glitter, the bottle-green surges of the afternoon tide,
and the crimson ripples before twilight. He was stationed in the corner of the
square now, immediately outside the Baron Lansing's house with the curve of
stone steps to its front door. They were watching an empty nest, every man of
the detail knew as much. Even the girl's own behaviour confirmed that the Shah
Jehan clasp had flown of its own mysterious accord on the night of the curious
burglary. Now she smiled and inclined her head at the men on duty as she
entered or left the building. Verity acknowledged this each time, touching his
hat as a matter of formality.

Mr
Croaker was bored as well. No one imagined that Cosima could doubt the true
purpose of the guard upon her. Yet the surveillance was to be maintained until
orders to the contrary were received from London. The inspector relieved the
monotony of his own watch on the rear of the house by reverting to his literal
duty of inspecting. The primary task of a uniformed inspector was to tour the
beats of his men to catch malingerers or those who associated too freely with
the criminal class.

Two or
three times a day, a plain black cab which was as nondescript as one hired from
a stand drove slowly down the far side of the square, travelling from Brunswick
Place towards the sea. Verity was aware of the thin sour face of Inspector
Croaker gazing balefully in his direction. The plump sergeant's jowls
lengthened in a slow grimace as he yawned behind closed lips.

Once, as a diversion, he
formed a little sentry-go for himself, marched smartly from the corner
railings as far as the other end of the next house, Madame Rosa's academy,
stamped about, and marched back again with a rolling military gait. To pass
the time he counted out to himself the steps and the turns that he made.
Presently he was aware of a door opening and, stamping round, saw Madame Rosa
coming down the steps, tall and imperious, one hand gathering the black skins
of her dress to hold it from the ground.

She stood above him, her voice
quivering slightly with indignation but her tones those of a woman born to command.
'Stand off!' she said angrily. 'Stand off these premises!'

Verity,
quite taken aback, made the mistake of hesitation.

'Beg pardon,
milady?'

There
was something so innately aristocratic in Madame Rosa's bearing that he
responded at once in the manner used when he was a footman at Lady Lineacre's
in the Royal Crescent at Bath. Madame Rosa came down the steps in a fury.
Standing before him she lifted the black net of her veil and revealed a face
crazed by the wrinkles of age and dusty with powder. Her voice was quiet and
close but no less angry.

'Trespass once more,' she
hissed, 'and your superiors shall hear of this impudence!'

Verity's
brow furrowed. So far as he knew the law of trespass, it had never applied to
a man who walked in front of a house. He sought for conciliatory words, but the
old woman turned her back, gathered up her skirts again, and sailed up the
steps where the double oak door stood open for her.

Denied
even this modest exercise, Verity drew out a red spotted handkerchief and
patted his cheeks with it. Once or twice when Madame Rosa appeared he touched
his hat in an attempt to make amends. She ignored him on every occasion. After
that he stood forlornly in his corner of the elegant square of houses, fat,
embarrassed and warm.

He had
lost count of the hours of duty spent on the surveillance, and there seemed to
be no end of it. Then, in the middle of one of the afternoons of bottle-green
waves and summer sun, another cab entered the square. Verity looked at it and
frowned. The bilious yellow of its paintwork, the driver's emblem on the door
in the form of what looked like a dissected bat were familiar enough to him.
Stringfellow, in the driving-seat, was belabouring the aged horse, Lightning,
and cursing like a lunatic. The ramshackle hackney coach lumbered towards the
corner of the square and then Stringfellow dragged desperately on the reins.
Verity was vaguely aware that Bella had promised the children that they should
one day be driven past to see their father performing his constabulary duty,
but this hardly seemed to be the occasion. Indeed, as he glanced into the cab
he heard the frightened whimpering of Ruth as the servant-maid clutched to her
the bawling figures of the two Verity children. Stringfellow clambered down
from his box.

^‘
'ere!' said Verity suddenly
perturbed.' 'ere, Stringfellow! Draw it mild! You mustn't speak to me now. I
ain't allowed! Not on duty! S'posing Mr Croaker comes by?'

But the old cabman stood
lopsidedly on his wooden leg, his mouth stretched open in a howl of toothless
consternation.

''s Miss Bella!'
he wailed. 'She's gone!'

'Gone?' said
Verity stupidly. 'Whatcher mean gone?'

'Lil Ruwfie!' sobbed
Stringfellow, indicating the pretty servant. 'They was on the front! Miss Bella
commends the children to her care, sends her home, and goes off with a man in
'ansom cab!'

Verity
shook his head, as if he were recovering from a punch.

'She
can't a-done, Stringfellow! 'ave some sense! Must be a reason.'

Stringfellow held out a hand.
A slip of paper trembled between his fingcrs. The old man's voice broke again
as he urged it upon his son-in-law.

'This come,' he gasped.
'Slipped in the door while I was round the stables in S'ation Street getting
the 'orse. It's yours.'

'What's it say?'

But
even in his misery Stringfellow spared a look of pity for a man who thought
learning to read could possibly be of equal importance to the cabman's art.

Mrs Verity presents her respects to Mr Verity and begs him
to believe that she has taken this step as the only means to end her
insupportable agony of mind. What Mr Verity has told her of the robbery in
Brunswick Square is too much for conscience to bear. Henceforward their destinies
must therefore part.

Verity read it through twice to ensure that he had
missed no part of its meaning.

'This
ain't from Miss Bella,' he said quietly. 'Nasty-minded joke is all it is.
There's nothing I could a-told her about the robbery here, Stringfellow, a-cos
I don't know nothing to tell.'

Stringfellow
paused in his lamentation. Then he remembered the other cause of his grief.

'Went
off in 'ansom cab!' he bawled. 'Commending the future care of her infants to
the servant's tender heart!'

Verity was thoroughly alarmed.
From the hackney coach he could hear young Ruth's adolescent fear and misery
rising siren-like in a prolonged 'Hoo-hoo-hoo!' It was overlaid by the screams
of the two children.

'Stringfellow,' he
said gently, 'take 'em home and stay there. We don't know what Mrs Verity had
in her mind. Ten-to-one she'll be back in Tidy Street presently, if she ain't
there already. You'll see.'

'The note!' bawled
the old cabman. 'Read the note!'

'Now,
now,' said Verity kindly. 'That's just a piece of nastiness. 'fact I can tell
you what it is. Someone wants me flayed and salted by Mr Croaker over that
burglary, 'spect he's had a copy hisself. Go 'ome, Stringfellow. If Miss Bella
comes back, drive here and tell me. It'll be all right. You'll see.'

But despite
his assurances to the old cabman, Verity's heart was pounding and his stomach
had tightened. The summer afternoon was cold as Christmas and the air seemed
darker. After much persuasion Stringfellow mounted the box again and the
lurching coach with its howling occupants disappeared round the corner of
Brunswick Place.

The truth was that Verity
needed time to think. Every word of the note appeared to be in Bella's hand.
Her italic dame-school script would be easy enough to imitate. But to what
purpose? As for the man with the hansom cab, there must be an innocent
explanation. She would not suddenly drive off with a stranger, abandoning the
children to Ruth's care. The notion of a secret lover was even more preposterous.
The routine of Paddington Green and Tidy Street left her little opportunity for
such rendezvous, even if she had been so inclined.

There was no reason whatever
for alarm, he thought, as a sick terror began to engulf him. It was only the
slow impact of the shock which prevented him from taking to his heels,
deserting his post, and running all the way to Tidy Street to see if she had
not come back after all.