SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (32 page)

By day he watched
his chance carefully, stealing scraps of food and comfort as each opportunity
presented itself. He was careful, more careful than he had ever been. To be
caught and recognised by the authorities was the way to obscene suffering and a
death whose horrors would have shamed the meanest creature. But the ordeal of
prison had taught him patience. He might not save Jane Midge by waiting, for
the child could be dead even now. But he believed as an article of faith that
he had only to stay alive and watch quietly in order to destroy Sealskin Kite
and his entire empire of suffering.

With such consolation in his
heart Stunning Joe moved through the summer crowds like a broken child whose
enemies had no cause to fear him. At night he found the same resting-place
that he had known with Jane Midge. The Chain Pier was deserted after sunset,
except for the watchman who rarely moved from his cubby-hole at the landward
end. Against the flush of starlight the graceful suspension wires hung in a
series of loops from the iron arches of the decking, holding up the wooden
promenade which ran out to the pier-head and landing-stage. Under each of the
iron archways through which the steel cables rose and dipped, the pier received
additional support by wooden piles rising from the shallows and, higher up,
from the shingle of the beach itself. In the darkness, the little spiderman
scaled the weed-hung timbers easily, vaulting over the wrought-iron railings
and on to the deck of the closed pier.

The
four archways of cast iron stood like triumphal gateways across the narrow
pier, each one a structure of Regency elegance with its cornice and pediment.
At the base, the sides of the arch were thick enough to contain small shops or
booths where refreshments or souvenirs were sold. The ornamental lamps above
the cast-iron arches threw sufficient light for Joe to deal with the locks,
though not enough to make him visible from the shore. As he had done with Jane
Midge, he opened the little booths, taking a pie from one or a neatly ribboned
cheese from another. Even in these trivial thefts his skill remained
instinctive. He stole carefully, so that the pie-woman would not be quite sure
next day if she had not counted wrong. The apple-seller would not see precisely
that one pyramid of fruit was smaller than it might have been.

After he had eaten, Joe would
find the corner of the arch most sheltered from the night wind. There he would
curl himself up and sleep. He woke always with the first cold light of the
pre-dawn sky. Before the stirring of the watchman or the rattle of the
earliest stable-door, the little spider-man was down the lichened timbers and
moving away across the shingle.

At last there came a night
when Stunning Joe felt so weary from his constant searching that he took the
only coin in his pocket and paid for an entrance to the pier half an hour
before it closed. By this time he was tired of climbing, of walking, and longed
only to throw himself down in a quiet corner and sleep the rest of his life
away.

He
made his way the full length of the pier where the decking, no more than a
dozen feet wide, broadened out at the landing-stage. There, across the base of
the final arch, he sat and looked out across the dark water towards the French
coast far beyond the horizon. He had been there for almost half an hour and the
last strollers had gone when he heard a sound. It was not as much as the creak
of wood, hardly more than a pressure of a man's boot upon the timber. Crouched
in the shadows he kept motionless, only his eyes turning to catch sight of the
intruder. The Figure standing over him was taller and stronger than the watchman.
Its shoulders were those of a coal-heaver and its heavy pouched face loomed six
feet above him.

'Why, Stunning Joseph,' said
Jack Strap humorously, 'you never meant to give yer friends the slip? Eh?'

Joe
pulled himself up slowly until he was standing with his back to the cast-iron
flank of the arch. The top of his head was not quite level with the bully's
shoulders. All hope of concealment was gone, he knew that. Only his wits could
now avoid or postpone his destruction.

'You never found me here by
chance, Mr Strap,' he said admiringly. 'You never did!'

Jack Strap
chuckled.

'Not quite, little Joseph.
Jane Midge told us this afternoon. She'd been asked previous, of course. Only
I never had put the question as strong as today. She's pining for you, Joe. We
all are!'

She
was still alive then, Joe thought. She must be. If they wanted him badly enough
they would never have finished her off until they were sure she spoke the
truth. And now the only hope for her continued survival was that he should
remain alive in spite of all that Strap could do.

'What
you after, Mr Strap? What you want with me and little Jane?'

The big man chuckled again in the darkness.

'Hold still, little Joseph. Hold still!'

Stunning
Joe knew that he was about to be killed. They would never have sent the
towering bully for any other reason. Through his mind the thought passed repeatedly
that as soon as he was dead it would be Jane Midge's turn. Now at least he was
prepared.

It
came like the swish of a sword blade through the darkness, the heavy belt
which had given Jack Strap his name. Joe sprang to one side, feeling the thick
leather fan his cheek and hearing the heavy metallic impact of brass against
the cast-iron arch.

' 'old still!' bellowed Strap.
Once again the doubled belt with its lethal brass fitting swung down through
the darkness. Joe scampered on hands and knees to escape, splinters from the
rough decking of the landing-stage tearing at his bare palms. He was almost
clear but the brass weight caught the fleshy part of his right upper arm with
the force of a truncheon. Like a wounded animal he slithered and rolled away, a
paralysing anguish spreading from shoulder to fingers. One blow to the skull
and Jack Strap would finish him.

At the
wrought-iron railings he pulled himself up, one arm still hanging as though it
might have been broken. For himself he cared nothing. If Jack Strap put him to
death now with a single blow, quickly and surely, it would be the end of all
his misery. It was for Jane's life that he fought. Pretty Jane under sentence
by Jack Strap! Joe thought of the agony and humiliation which would make her death
a blessing and he lunged away as the heavy belt scythed down through the
darkness again.

'You give me trouble, you
bleeding little squeak!' roared the bully. 'You give me trouble and I'll see
your dancing orphan weep herself dry afore she gets her quietening!'

They faced one another, Joe with his back to the rails
at the end of the pier-head, Strap in the archway of the promenade which led
ashore. The width of the arch was no more than a dozen feet, all of it within
range of the loaded belt.

'You got no sense, Mr Strap!'
Joe panted. 'You never thought that affydavy on her was the only one? There's
two more copies. They'll be opened if I can't be found. They got your name in
'em!'

It was
a last despairing lie and it failed him at once. Strap grunted.

'You
could have six affydavies, with Mr Kite's compliments. When you can't be found
and when you're known to be dead and buried off Portland, them papers is just
someone's joke. You think they can hurt a respectable broker like Mr Kite?
You're dead, little Joseph! You ain't no business to be wandering free!'

Strap
was coming for him now, the hideous doubled belt whirring at his side as he
wound it through the air like a blade. In a few seconds more there would be
nowhere on the little square of decking which was beyond its range. Joe looked
helplessly about him, thinking of the sea below. But the wooden piles stretched
out under the pier-head. A man who jumped would be broken by them before he
reached the churning water. Jack Strap was hardly six feet from him now and
Stunning Joe was ready to scream with terror. Then, quicker than he could
think, he turned and snatched at the red warning light which hung on the end of
the pier-head to guide shipping. It was no more than a large hurricane lamp
suspended there. Like a bomb, Joe hurled it at the bully's feet. It shattered
and burst into flame, the fire running across the planks as the oil spread.

Jack
Strap sprang back towards the archway, cursing the little spiderman but not
daring to walk through the fire which now separated them. Worse still, the
bully knew that the flames would be seen at once from the shore and that the
watchman with his assistants would be there in a moment more. Shouting
obscenities and blasphemies, the assassin moved further away, following the
last of the promenaders towards the pier-gates.

While fire and darkness
flickered alternately about him, Stunning Joe edged to the ornamental rails at
the pier's end. He stepped over them, his toes on the thin edge of wood outside.
Then he dropped down until his fingers held the rim of wood where his toes had
lodged. In a few seconds he was hanging below the pier, lost to Jack Strap and
the watchmen alike, moving hand over hand along the dry rusted girders. He
reached the first damp timbers where they supported the pier-deck, but the tide
still swirled beneath him. Then he launched himself on to the girders once more
and made for the next wooden pile. At its foot the shingle was dry and he
sprang down in three well-judged leaps. By the time that Jack Strap emerged on
to the promenade, Stunning Joe was already hidden by the crowd. He looked back
once at the pier-head but the flames had almost died away. Perhaps the
Brighton
Gazette
or the
Herald
would spare a paragraph for
the quirk of breeze which had lifted a warning lamp and smashed it on the
decking. So far as the world was concerned it was no more than that.

As he
walked among the swells under the coloured lights, Joe knew what had to be
done. There was no safety for him any longer, nor perhaps for the girl. Pretty
Jane would die or live as her captors pleased. They would hunt him and destroy
him, there was no escaping that. But suppose, Joe thought, suppose that before
they did he could succeed in coming face to face with Sealskin Kite? And suppose
that before anyone could stop him, he should kill Sealskin Kite as an act of
open murder? A man had as well die on the Newgate trap as under the loaded belt
of Jack Strap.

With
this in mind, he forgot that he had not eaten that day. Just now there was something
more important than eating. He walked through the little streets beyond the
market and waited until he saw the girl. He had seen her passing there before
and knew that sooner or later he would meet her. She scurried, unescorted, in
her pink silk dress, almond eyes and profile sharply downcast to avoid the
glance of admirers.

'Miss!' he said
softly. ' 's me, Stunning Joseph!'

Jolly stopped as
though struck by terror.

'I ain't dead, miss,' said Joe
softly. 'If you heard that, you heard wrong. That's just a story.'

Jolly relaxed a
little.

'What
is it, then?' she whispered. 'I never had to do with you before!'

'You're with a jack,' said
Joe, still gentle with her. 'Everyone knows. You turned nark. Didn't yer?'

The fear returned
to her eyes.

'What's it to you?
You've no business. . .'

'Listen!' said Joe
impatiently. 'I want to help you, that's all.' He drew out a package from his
coat. 'Give him this. Don't open it. Give it him as it is. Tell him that the
villain is Mr Sealskin Kite. And tell him there's nothing a jack can do. Mr
Kite couldn't even be prosecuted for beating his horse. But tell him not to
worry. I mean to have justice, and I shan't need the law to help me.'

They stood together for a
moment in the darkness of the street, Jolly's height several inches more than
the little spiderman's.

'And what shall I
have, then?' she asked quickly.

'A purse of gold.' The
solemnity in Joe's voice put the promise beyond doubt. Jolly drew her cheeks
in, rounded her mouth, and rolled her eyes in a humorous appreciation of her
own good fortune. Then she looked once more at the childlike figure beside her
and hurried away.

'Well?'
said Old Mole. 'Is it done then?'

Jack
Strap looked at his master with large animal eyes. His slow mind had had ample
time to ponder the consequences of Joe's escape. Mr Mole's displeasure would,
at the very least, be followed by the denial to Strap of the reward promised
him. But Mole's anger had sometimes taken far more brutal forms than that.
Strap promised himself that first thing next morning he would hunt out the
little squeak and finish him.

'Yes, Mr Mole,' he said, his
eyes lovingly obedient. 'It's done. Off the end of the pier with no one around.
Burnt the face off 'im too so's he’ll never be known if washed up. Made it seem
like a lamp caught fire, that's all.'