SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (35 page)

Verity heard rather than saw
what happened. Old Mole's shout came to him as the mobsman tried to jump
between the coach and the wall of chalk flying past. In the darkness there was
a wild animal cry as the door swung back, crushing fingers or unbalancing the
mobsman on his perch. The sound ended as Old Mole hit the wall of chalk and his
body rebounded under the slicing wheels of the coach. The terrible shriek
faded down the dark tunnel as Verity clung to the little coupling-platform and
prayed.

Now he
was certain of the bitter vengeance which Stunning Joe had planned. It was the
revenge of a man doomed to destruction, who valued his own life only as a
weapon to turn against his destroyers. In the darkness beyond the oillight's
glimmer Verity heard a sound deeper than thunder. The walls of chalk speeding
past seemed to shudder as at the approach of an avalanche. There was a wild
shriek in the distance, and the first red glare of Joe O'Meara's vengeance.

In the
dark nightmare of the tunnel events moved with macabre logic. At the Brighton
end, the signalman in his sham medieval lodge above the tunnel's mouth had
signalled 'Train in' as the 8.30 Parliamentary express roared into the earth.
At the Clayton end the second man would have telegraphed back 'Train clear',
as he saw the pillar of smoke and heard the engine of the 8.30 thunder into the
light again. Now, already within the tunnel, the following train, the 8.40 express
to London Bridge, bore down on the slipped saloon coach in the darkness. Even
if the driver should see the coach in his path, it would take almost a mile
before each brakeman on each carriage of the express combined to bring the
train to a halt.

Verity beat desperately on the
little circle of glass and shouted at Stunning Joe. Either the spiderman heard
nothing of the cries or else chose to ignore them. His thin strong fingers
were locked on Kite's right wrist and left shoulder, forcing the old man to his
knees. Kite was screaming and babbling, promising and praying by turns, cursing
and imploring, drooling in a last terrible self-abasement.

Verity's own fear was steadier
and more certain. With Kite dead the only hope of finding Bella would be lost.
It mattered little after that whether she was put to death like a criminal at
execution or had already been abandoned to starve in her chains. He must get to
Stunning Joe or stop the express. Nothing else would do.

There was no way into the
coach from the buffer-platform on which he stood, and no way down either side
of the carriage with the doors swinging open. He dared not risk jumping down
from the platform on to the track. It would be a jump into the path of the
moving coach, under wheels which sliced their way down the rails. Even at ten
miles an hour they could cut a man in half.

Before he had thought clearly
what he was going to do, he balanced on the low guard-rail, gripped the edge of
the roof and pulled himself on to the top of the saloon coach. The roughness of
crusted soot was like pumice under his hands and grit between his teeth. Above
him the curve of the tunnel roof flew away in a stream of warm air. Gauging
the sway of the coach and the curve of its roof to either side of him, he
pulled himself forward. The wind rushed at his feet, carrying the drifts of
engine smoke over his head and swirling it away down the long receding arch.
Down this narrow perspective of the track he could see the next London Bridge
express clearly enough now. Like a child's toy the flame of the furnace lit the
cylindrical outline of the boiler, the windshield beyond with the driver
standing at his controls.

There was no time to argue
with Stunning Joe, he knew that. But at the rear of the coach was the
individual brake which every carriage had. A signal from the driver's whistle
and the application of the brake separately on every wagon was the only means
of stopping any train. Verity lowered himself gingerly to the rear platform,
seized the metal lever where it rose from the planking and pulled it with all
his strength. He felt the wheels lock and heard the scything of metal on metal
but to his dismay the coach slid onward with its speed little diminished.

Unless the express could be
stopped there was no hope for the occupants of the saloon car, whatever their
speed. Now that he was at the rear of the carriage, he thought, he could jump
down without fear of being killed under its wheels. Taking a breath he
floundered on to the shingle between the rails, rolling and knocking the breath
from his body. Then, in a mime of despair he picked himself up and ran, arms
raised and outspread, towards the thunder of the London Bridge express.

With every second, he thought,
with every yard he covered he would increase the time for the driver to avoid
a collision. In the distance the engine still looked like a toy but then, as in
the illusion of a stage magician, the toy became a machine and the machine
became a monster, its pistons galloping towards the catastrophe which lay
ahead.

'Stop!' he shouted, standing
in its path with his arms still outspread. 'Stop!'

It was
almost upon him, the tall stack with its banner of fire rising like a tower of
hell in the darkness. He sprang aside and spreadeagled himself against the wall
of chalk, feeling for the first time that it was wet as if the hill streams
found a natural course here. Then the terrible pistons and the iron wheels were
thrusting and flashing by him while he shook in abject fear. Panes of light
from little windows flickered past. He had a shadowy vision of the driver
turning in the light of the furnace, the first brakemen rooted in astonishment
at the sight of him.

Then the London Bridge express
had gone by and the echoes in the tunnel began to subside to a long rumbling. A
second later the shrilling steam of the whistle sounded and there was a long
screaming of metal on metal, the last demonic cry as the locked wheels of the
express slid uncontrollably towards their impact.

It
came to him as a splintering of matchwood, far away. The demonic cry was still
and instead there was a puff of fire and the first wails of human grief.

Verity ran until he saw the
faint daylight, yellow in the smoke, which marked the Clayton end of the
tunnel. But it was not daylight that glowed ahead of him. The rear of the
London Bridge express had come to rest safely enough and heads were peering
from carriage windows. Beyond that the smoke was white in the redness of fire.
The powerful engine had hit the saloon coach in its path, mounting on the wreckage
like a splendid beast of fable rearing vindictively above its prey. The tall
stack was crushed against the roof of the tunnel and the scattered coals from
the furnace had set light to the varnished matchwood of the coach.

It was
several minutes before Verity reached the ruins of the saloon coach, averting
his eyes from the remains of Old Mole as he passed. The mobsman was so
disfigured that only the fragments of clothing distinguished him from a stray
animal caught in the darkness. Under the engine's roar of steam and flame the
chassis of the saloon coach, derailed by the impact, had slewed across the
width of the tunnel. Several men from the train and the tunnel's mouth had
reached the debris. Verity, his clothes torn and blackened, his face smeared by
soot and the blood of several grazes, joined them.

The
oil from the lamps had started several pieces of varnished coachwork blazing
like pine kindlings. In the firelight Verity saw the body of Sealskin Kite,
open-eyed in the last moment of despair before the rending and burning. He
looked for Stunning Joe. Had the little spiderman jumped clear at the last
moment, knowing that Kite would never have the agility to scramble down and
throw himself from the path of the express? Perhaps he had.

Then
Verity saw two men standing over a shape in the periphery between darkness and
flame. If Joe had thrown himself clear, it had been to no advantage. All the
same he walked across.

'Almost gone,' said one of the
men, as if deprecating the dying spiderman's unpunctuality.

Verity thrust himself through
and looked down. The body, twisted and broken, could never be moved during its
owner's lifetime. It was a kindness to let Joe O'Meara die as he was. The
threshold of life and death was so uncertainly defined that Verity could hardly
determine whether Joe was still breathing or not. Then there was movement in
the dark little eyes and Verity knelt beside the spiderman in the light of the
flames.

'Lissen, Stunning Joe,' he
said softly. 'Lissen if you can hear me. It's me, Verity. Whitehall Police
Office. Can you hear, Stunning Joe?'

As if
there was pain in even so slight a movement, the dark eyes turned in Verity's
direction.

'Joe,'
said Verity, his lips close to the little man's ear. 'I got the message you
sent me. I got the message Miss Jolly brought. And I meant to be even with
Sealskin Kite and his friends.'

Now the eyes registered nothing.

'You gotta tell me, Joe. If
you know of it you gotta tell me. There's a young person took by the villains
to be foully put to death. If Kite said anything before he died, where she
might be, you gotta tell me. Please.'

The
spiderman's lips moved and there was a faint breath behind their shape.

'Jane Midge. . . took. . .
left with Jack Strap to be snuffed.'

'And another young person,'
Verity persisted. 'Bella Verity. You and me both got accounts to settle.'

Stunning
Joe made a slight movement as though, if he had been able, he would have shaken
his head. The breath came again through the slow movements of the lips.

'Left Jack Strap. . . snuff 'em. . . too late.'

'No, Joe, no! Where are they?'

In his desperation
Verity could almost have shaken the dying man. 'Snuffed,' said the silent lips.
'Where?’

This
time the voice broke into a harsh crackle. 'Brunswick Square.

'They can't be, Joe. The law's there. In the house and
out.'

The lips moved again.

'Trains.'

'Trains?'

And
then, though the lips were still, Verity understood. 'Drains!'

He
wanted to thank the little spiderman, promise him that Jane Midge should be
safe after all. But Stunning Joe

O'Meara
had received all the thanks and promises he ever would. Verity stood up and
strode towards the daylight at last.

He was
in a long cutting, the tunnel entrance in sooty, yellow brick rising like a
second castle with the signalman's lodge above it. The folds of the Sussex
downs, now wild and open, rose beyond the trees on either side. Verity found
the flight of steps which led from the tunnel mouth to the field above. He
climbed them, crossed the bridge and came to a little village with an old church,
a tavern and a dozen cottages. The idlers had begun to gather already, drawn by
the gangers and officials hurrying down the embankment. Beyond these was a boy
in a pony-cart. Verity approached him.

'Right, my son! I'm a
private-clothes officer. Scotland Yard. You have me in Brighton by ten o'clock
and these two sovs is yours!'

21

'C'mon,
Stringfellow!' said Verity urgently. 'That horse of yours must be able to go
faster 'n this!'

Between
the shafts of the yellow hackney coach Lightning moved in his elderly shambling
gait. Stringfellow snarled at the animal and Lightning laid back his ears, as
if to return the threat, then resumed a sedate progress down Western Road.
Verity had stopped long enough at Tidy Street to dismiss the boy with the cart
and put on his best frock-coat over the torn and blackened shirt. The old
cabman whimpered with frustration and the growing fear for his missing
daughter.

'Can't
be Brunswick Square!' he wailed to Verity, beside him on the box of the coach.
'How can it?'

Verity
gestured furiously at the horse as if to shoo it forward.

'I dunno, Stringfellow. I
dunno how it can be. All I do know is that Joe O'Meara said as much with his
dying words. A man like that don't deceive. Not when the parties have taken his
own young person, Jane Midge. Not when he's killed himself to be even with
them.'

They
turned at last into Brunswick Place and came out into the square itself with
the sea stretching peacefully beyond it. It was a scene of great tranquillity,
not a sign of movement near the tall white houses except where Sergeant Albert
Samson stood like a sentry at the door of the corner building. Verity got down
from the box and called back to the cabman.

'Go to the station,
Stringfellow! They'll have stopped the first train beyond Clayton and I daresay
Jolly’ll be fetched back with the rest. Bring her here quick as you know how. I
gotta have another pair o' hands.'