SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (33 page)

Old Mole looked uncertainly at
the bully, but it sounded a safe enough way. The burning of the dead man's face
was particularly good, far beyond the resources of Strap's intellect on other
occasions.

'Bravo, Jack Strap!' he said
gently. 'Then you know what more's to be done. Me and Mr Kite leaves the
Bedford Hotel Sunday morning and takes the London train. After that, you snuff
them two doxies and follow next day. Take all your time with 'em, Jack. Just as
you please. Then dump 'em as arranged like sacks o' coals.'

Jack
Strap could hardly be spoken to after that. Whenever Old Mole looked at him, he
saw the bully's face creased and his eyes moist as if he could almost have
cried for happiness.

Four
of them stood round the bare kitchen table, Ruth and Stringfellow at one end,
Verity and Jolly scowling at each other across its width. On the scrubbed pine
the riches of the Shah Jehan clasp glowed and blazed in purple and green. A
sheet of writing in Joe's scrawl lay beside it.

'Right, miss!'
said Verity for the third time. 'You got nothing to fear if you tell the truth
now. Whatever you done, I shan't be vexed. But it gotta be the truth!'

'Stunning
Joe!' she wailed, and the dark enigmatic eyes flashed with the intensity of her
anger. 'I know him, don't I? Used to take his serving of greens off Vicki
Hartle, didn't he? Regular as Sunday!'

'He's dead!'
Verity insisted. 'Died on the hulks, buried off Portland!'

'Well,
he says different. So's that paper!' Jolly turned grumpily away as though
dismissing the entire affair from her notice. It was Stringfellow who made the
peace.

'Lissen!' he said. 'Lissen,
Verity! It don't matter if it's him or his ghost. Someone calling hisself
Stunning Joe knows the score of this. He knows the clasp was took from
Brunswick Square but what was really needed was the case with slips of paper
worth a fortune.'

'Notes of credit,' said
Verity. 'Banker Lansing's. They gotta be.'

'Right,' said Stringfellow.
'And all the taking of Bella and the rest o' it was to get them bits of paper.
Worth a mint o' gold. And if this note's to be believed, it's all down to a
broker called Sealskin Kite. Take it all to Mr Croaker. Now.'

'Stringfellow!'
shouted Verity. 'Ain't you got the least sense? Me go to Mr Croaker with a note
writ by a man that's been dead a month? First off, he'll say I wrote it meself!
As for Mr Kite, he may be fly as a monkey but the law got nothing against him.
Nothing!'

'Kite's a
mobsman!' howled Stringfellow. 'You know that!'

'So
far's the law knows, Stringfellow, he's no more a mobsman than is Lord
Palmerston or Prince Albert. Can't yer see that?'

'And
Miss Bella?' wailed the old cabman. 'What's the law to do for her? They'll
bloody kill her, Verity, now they got what they want!'

Verity assumed a
confidence he did not feel.

'Not
while there's you and me, Stringfellow. Now listen. First we find Sealskin Kite
and stop Stunning Joe or whoever it is from murdering him. That's the way to
Miss Bella.'

'You'll
never find Kite!' sobbed the old man. 'Never! Never!'

That
night Verity completed his plans. With the two young women and Stringfellow he
had four pairs of eyes, though when it came to a fight he must rely upon
himself alone. To find Kite, that was the first task.

It was easier than
Stringfellow had suggested. If Kite was in Brighton, he guessed how to track
him down. At eleven the next morning, Verity took up his position with a clear
view of the corner where Folthorp's Royal Library and Reading Rooms stood near
the Pavilion gates. He watched the faces of the men who came and went as the
latest prices, telegraphed from the Stock Exchange in London, were posted up.
Not one of them resembled Sealskin Kite.

Fearing
that the old mobsman had bolted already, Verity crossed to the library and
spoke to the uniformed flunkey who stood by the polished brass handrail.

'Message
for Mr Kite?' he inquired meekly. 'Mr Kite. Broker on the 'change.'

The
flunkey looked disdainfully away and called to someone in the cool temple-like
interior of the reading rooms. Then he turned back to Verity.

'Mr
Kite returns to Town. Messages directed to Bedford Hotel.'

Verity
touched his hat with a gratitude that was entirely unfeigned. Moving almost at
a run, he disappeared down East Street towards the flash of sun on water, and
turned on to the promenade. The square facade of the Bedford with its columns
and awnings shone far ahead of him. With the perspiration soaking his dark
clothes Verity panted onward. He would get no further than the porter at the
door, he knew that. But that would be far enough. The condition of his plump
breathless face was sufficiently convincing for the role he had chosen.

'Message for Mr Kite!' he
gasped. 'Ain't gone yet, 'as he? Most important message from gent at Folthorp's
Library. Consequential on the posting of the share prices this morning!'

The porter was
impressed by the hint of a fortune made or lost. He went inside, leaving the
door temporarily unattended. When he returned he was confiding and hopeful.

'Stay today, go tomorrow.
Morning train. Message requiring reply?'

Verity shook his head, as if
too winded for speech. Into the porter's hand he thrust an envelope addressed
to Sealskin Kite. It contained nothing more than a card advertising Glaisyer
and Kemp, the chemists in North Street. When Kite read the card, with its puffs
for corn solvent or stomachic and digestive candy, he might be irritated but
hardly suspicious.

Then there was nothing for it
but to wait while Stringfellow and Miss Jolly found him. It had been decided
that Ruth must stay in Tidy Street with the children while the two men and
Jolly continued the search. Verity was also aware that his colleague Sergeant
Albert Samson of the Private-Clothes Detail had been posted to Brighton as his
replacement. Samson had appeared as the guard in Brunswick Square several
times, another burly figure with red mutton-chop whiskers. Until the right
moment, however, Verity had decided not to involve Samson in his plans.

Stringfellow's coach, yellow
and as lopsided in movement as its owner, appeared early in the afternoon.

'What
you got, then, Verity?' the old man inquired eagerly.

'Sealskin Kite.
Put up at the Bedford Hotel till the London train tomorrow morning.' 'And
Stunning Joe?'

'Dunno, Stringfellow,' said
Verity reluctantl
y. 'I ain't seen a living soul here in
three hours that could be 'im.'

From
the darkened interior of the coach Jolly flashed a quick slanting glare at this
imputation upon her honesty. Stringfellow too now saw the promise of Bella's
safety taken from him.

'She
ain't 'ere!' he wailed. 'They couldn't have took her to a hotel like this! Not
without someone knowing or her being willing!'

'Stringfellow!'
said Verity sharply. 'Don't you see yet? It don't matter where she is. We could
search every house in Brighton and she might be a prisoner in London all the
time. But if Sealskin Kite's at the bottom of all this, we shall get to her if
we get to him. And if Stunning Joe should be alive, as we been told, we shall
know for certain by watching Mr Kite. See?'

The
cabman mumbled to himself, miserable and unconvinced. After that he sat in
silence until the reflected fire of sunset had faded from the channel waves.

'I never seen Stunning
Joseph,' he said at last. 'I never seen anyone who could even look like
Stunning Joseph. Not all the time we been here.'

'No,' said Verity
shortly.

'And you mean to sit 'ere all night?'

'Yes.'

'Why?’

' 'cos I got no bloody reason
to do anything better, Stringfellow.'

There
was another long and reproachful silence. This ended when Verity heard a quiet
sob from Jolly. It startled him from his thoughts. The beautiful enigmatic eyes
had glared with anger or glittered with desire. To his knowledge they had never
brimmed with tears except when she was being whipped by her keeper. Now the
first sob was followed by several more.

'It
was 'im!' she wept. 'It was Stunning Joseph! I hope to burn in hell if I never
told the truth of it!'

'There, there,' said Verity
softly, patting the slim warm arm. 'You been a good girl. No one disbelieves
you now.'

From the box of the coach
Stringfellow emitted a grunt of scepticism clearly audible to those within.

Only
Verity saw the night through without closing his eyes. But unlike the others he
was used to such duties and knew all the old soldier's devices for holding
sleep at bay. The sea mists of the summer dawn lightened slowly and then the
morning turned into the palest and most delicate shade of blue. There was a
bustle of activity as the windows of the Bedford Hotel began to open and the
awnings were rolled out on their metal frames. By seven o'clock Stringfellow
and Jolly were awake and watching too. At eight the cabs for the London train
began to leave.

There!'
said Verity suddenly. Two men were approaching a cab, the younger one helping
the elder. 'That's 'im! That's Kite! And that other! 'ere, Stringfellow, it's
Old Mole! Once for thieving and twice for handling stolen goods! This is it,
Stringfellow! It gotta be!'

The old yellow coach pulled
out and rattled after the trim cabs. Verity saw the cab carrying Kite and Mole
as it turned up West Street away from the sea. Far in the distance rose the
cast-iron pillars and glass canopies of the London and Brighton Railway
Company's terminus.

'They ain't got
Miss Bella with 'em!' howled Stringfellow as he drove. 'Where's she to?'

'Never mind, Stringfellow! Keep after 'em!'

They
drew up in the station yard. Verity handed out six shillings to a porter to
fetch two tickets for the 8.30 London train. Then he bustled Jolly out on to
the pavement.

'Wait
with the cab, Stringfellow. If we have to go on the train, drive back to Tidy
Street and wait there. I won't let 'em go, Stringfellow! Not now I got 'em!'

Without
staying for a reply, he snatched the tickets from the porter, gripped Jolly's
arm, and plunged into the crowd on the heels of Kite and Old Mole. In the
steamy, soot-laden air of the glass canopy the little engine of the London
train waited with a dozen individual carriages. Verity stopped suddenly but his
eyes were no longer on Kite or Old Mole. He squeezed Jolly's arm
affectionately.

'You
are
a good, truthful girl,' he
whispered. 'I ain't a man that sees ghosts. But if that ain't Stunning Joe
stood in a doorway, may I be shot!'

20

He was
not mistaken, Verity was positive of that. Beyond the platform, in an archway
of smoky brick which led to the crowded refreshment room, the little spiderman
stood. In his shabby black and crumpled hat, Joe O'Meara looked a cross between
an undertaker's mute and a comic drunkard in a stage farce. He saw neither
Verity nor Jolly. His eyes turned steadily to follow the progress of Sealskin
Kite, Old Mole and the three porters who carried their luggage. Then Stunning
Joe pulled himself upright, following the men towards the London train.

It was
the 8.30 'Parliamentary' train, so called from its legal obligation to
transport the poor as well as the rich. Behind the dark iron and polished brass
of the little engine, with its tall stack and the double domes of its boilers,
there were a dozen individual carriages. At their head were yellow and brown
first-class coaches, no more than dumb-buffered boxes on wheels for all their
quilted seating and new lights. Behind these came the paler brown second-class,
and at the end the third-class passengers. The company made slight profit from
its third-class passengers. Accordingly, their wagons were low-sided, open to
the weather as if they were animal trucks. The seats were no better than planks
without backs, set so uncomfortably that many third-class travellers preferred
to stand.

As Verity watched the waiting
train he saw that another coach had been attached to it behind the luggage van
which normally made up the rear of the assemblage. It was the most luxurious of
all the vehicles provided by the London and Brighton company, a private saloon
coach painted in royal blue and cream. The saloon was hired exclusively by a
single traveller and represented a well-furnished drawing-room on wheels. There
were cushioned seats round its sides, fixed armchairs and a polished rosewood
table. At one end the carriage was partitioned off to accommodate a pair of
servants and a water-closet.