SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (6 page)

The city of saints
shall appear! The day of eternity come!'

For
his own day of eternity he would have been quite content to thunder out the
great hymns of the Whitsuntide revival with Bella and the others at his side.
Beyond that, his expectations were of a city walled with jasper and gold where
those who were now lost to one another would be reunited in something like a
great wedding breakfast. It never occurred to him that it could be otherwise.

For
the moment, he luxuriated in righteousness. If he pitied more earthly comrades
like Sergeant Samson with their flash-tails and shady acquaintances, it was
because they never knew such joy and satisfaction as his. As he looked about
him it seemed absurd that men should make such bother over their rights to
choose gentlemen for parliament. He saw instead a great crusade with Methodism
for its banner and the majestic hymns of the Wesleys as its marching songs.
Before it, surely the power of the squirearchy and the established church
would be broken at last.

When
it was all over for another week, he stood outside in the noon sunlight. As he
shepherded Bella and the others through the crowd on the pavement, his hand in
his pocket touched a pasteboard card and he frowned.

The
card had come to the Tidy Street lodgings two days before, in an envelope
addressed to him.

THE GREAT LAVENGRO Clairvoyant and
Astrologer Royal to the Crowned Heads of Europe has the honour to request the
presence of:

William Clarence Verity,
Esq.
for a complimentary
consultation
Sunday the 14th of
July at 3.

Signor Lavengro's parlour stands twenty
yards west of the Chain Pier. NB
A
prompt attendance will oblige.

Verity's
first impulse had been to tear up the invitation with a sense of disapproval
that such pastimes should be permitted upon a Sunday afternoon. It was Bella
who had urged him to accept.

'Don't be so narrow, Mr Verity! Go on! 's only fun!'

But
when he had yielded to her argument, it was not out of any desire for fun.
Sunday or not, his curiosity was prompted. Why should the Great Lavengro, from
his tented booth by the pier, bother to send such an invitation to
him?
He would go, he told himself,
not with any genial sense of sport but with the trained suspicion of a
detective policeman.

The
Verity family turned out of Black Lion Street and walked ceremoniously along
the flagstones above the shingle beach. At their head strode Verity himself,
his rusty frock-coat brightened by a new red cravat. His plump face glowing
under the brim of the tall hat, he walked as if on parade. Beside him, in her
blue crinoline, was Bella, endeavouring to restrain young Billy Verity. Behind
her was Ruth, the round little face under the crop of fair curls seeming solemn
as ever. She was carrying little Vicky, though starting from time to time as
though touched about the waist and neck. At the rear lolloped Stringfellow on
his wooden leg. Verity noticed that from time to time Bella glanced back at
Ruth's sudden movements. He himself had deep moral misgivings as to the precise
feelings of old Stringfellow for the sixteen-year-old maid-of-all-work. Indeed,
he had already tasted Bella's anger at his first attempt to suggest the
undesirability of allowing her father and Ruth to occupy adjoining attic rooms.

The
bright green sea stretched glassily away in the still, languorous afternoon.
Hardly a ripple seemed to break upon the shingle below them. Gulls hovered and
dipped, as if to frustrate the aim of young men in boats whose guns pop-popped
at them. On Sunday the bathing machines were deserted and most of the yachts
drawn up on the shingle, like fish on a slab. Only the
Victoria
and Albert
and the
Honeymoon
were afloat with their white
sails hoisted and their groups of giggling passengers. A party of young women
on bay and piebald hacks cantered along the firm sand below the shingle. The
girls wore gold and silver beaded nets over their shining hair, with
multi-coloured feathers in their jaunty little hats.

Despite
the width of the promenade, the ballooning crinolines made it seem as
impassable as the Haymarket or Regent Circus. The men in peg-top trousers and
coloured coats appeared dowdy by contrast with the majestic shape of their
women under full sail. Presently, Verity became aware that the tit-tupping of
Stringfellow's wooden leg had stopped. He turned and saw the old cabman some
way behind them. Stringfellow, open-mouthed and intent, was engaged in
conversation with a plump, expensively-dressed man. Verity noticed the
cabman's face set in an expectant grin. His hand came up, palm uppermost, and
the expensive gentle-man dropped a small gold coin into it. Stringfellow ducked
politely and touched his forehead. Then he caught up the others.

‘Pa!' said Bella
furiously. 'How
could
you
^?
'

'Asked if I was a sojer,' said
Stringfellow defensively. 'Asked what me reg'ment was. Where I lorst me leg.
Told 'im how we rode at Bhurtpore. Give me 'alf a sov! Look!'

It
don't excuse!' said Bella haughtily. She turned her back and they walked on.
Stringfellow hummed to himself, as if to show how trivial the misunderstanding
had been.

At
five minutes to three the Great Lavengro's booth looked forlorn and deserted.
It stood upon the bare stretch of sand by the long suspension-work of the Chain
Pier, tall and narrow like a tent from a medieval crusade. Its canvas striped
vertically in yellow and red, the booth seemed hardly large enough for the
clairvoyant, his client and the crystal ball.

The rest of the family stood
back uncertainly while Verity approached. At first he thought there was some
mistake, that he had been invited on the wrong day. Finding the narrow
entrance in the canvas he stood outside and listened.

¹
'ello?' he said hopefully, ' 's me! Verity!'

There
was a movement inside and the flap was pulled open. A small sallow man
appeared. His cranium was tighdy bound in a black scarf bearing the signs of
the zodiac in gold, like a skull-cap. He bowed to Verity with hands pressed together
in an almost oriental gesture of courtesy. Then he ushered his visitor into the
tent.

There was just room for a
small folding table with a chair either side, one for the Great Lavengro and
one for his guest. On the green baize stood a glass ball in a black holder. The
clairvoyant ignored it for a moment and gestured Verity to his seat.

'You honour me, my dear sir,
by accepting my invitation!' the breath whistled slightly between his
ill-fitting teeth. 'Useless to pretend that I know nothing of your public
fame. Why, the world knows of your hairbreadth escapes in America and India,
your skill in bringing criminals to justice!'

'Do it?' said Verity, frankly
puzzled. 'You never invited me 'cos of that, Mr Lavengro. Did yer?'

The clairvoyant
permitted himself a faint smile.

'No,
my dear sir.' The thin hands washed together unctuously. 'You are here because
I believe I can help you. And help the cause of justice.'

'You
mean you been robbed or something,' said Verity cynically.

Lavengro shook his
head.

'I
mean, sir, that the public takes me as an entertainment, perhaps a fraud. I am
no such thing. Sometimes in the depths of my crystal ball I see too clearly
what time must bring. I see crimes committed which, as yet, are unknown in the
minds of their perpetrators. Do you understand me?'

'Go on,' said Verity quietly.

'I ask nothing of you,' said
Lavengro with the same sibilant breath. 'No reward and no thanks. Only that
you will speak for my art in the future when you hear it maligned.'

'Course I would,' said Verity scowling. 'If it's
right.'

Lavengro
put a hand to each side of his face, as if to cut out the sunlight in the woven
fabric of the tent. He bowed towards the glass ball.

'Close your eyes, Mr Verity.
Think of nothing but what I say and the image which rises behind your closed
lids. I see a time soon to come. It grows close. No more than the day after
tomorrow. As the sun declines I see a grassy place, not five miles from here.
Tents and booths in abundance. There is a girl who acts in a charade. I see a
medieval joust. But see! Now she is among the crowds. She walks against a man
and stuns him. A hand enters his pocket where his watch might be. She has a
notecase in her hand. The glass is cloudy. I can see no more.'

Verity opened his eyes.

'All you got is a flash-tail hoisting watches at a
fair.'

'Close your eyes again, my
dear, dear, sir. I see a darker place. Just before midnight of the same day. It
is close to here — so close. Not half a mile. There is a shop, full of the
treasures of Asia. Sparkling stones and glowing jewels. There is a man. So dark
I cannot see. I see him with an implement cutting a hole. A round hole in a
wooden board. . .'

' 'ere, Mr Lavengro!' said
Verity suddenly. 'Now that's something like! Keep on about it! Anything yer can
see! Exact place and time!'

'It is so dark,'
moaned the clairvoyant. 'So dark! The hour is near midnight, before or after. I
can make out little else. Only. . .'

'Yes, Mr Lavengro?
Anything you can!'

'German,'
said Lavengro, as though with a great effort. 'German. . . Duke. . . German
Duke. . . Alas, the shadows come upon me. . . I can see no more. . .'

He sagged back in his chair, as if with total
exhaustion.

'Right,'
said Verity briskly. 'Greatly obliged. And if I should apprehend such villains
on Tuesday, you may hear to your advantage.'

But the sallow little man
raised both hands as if to ward off a blow. 'No, my dear sir! No! I take no
reward or thanks for such things.'

Verity shook his head slowly.

'Still,
if such persons should be took, this’ll be a story for the Whitehall police
office! They'll never believe it! Caught by a magician's art!'

'No!' It came almost as a
shout. 'You must tell no one of this, my dear sir. No one. For they will
not
believe you. You will do harm
both to yourself and to me.'

'Yes,' said Verity reluctantly. 'I s'pose I would.'

Despite
his scepticism, he was impressed. There was no earthly reason why the
clairvoyant should seek to deceive him. If there was no female pickpocket at a
fairground on Tuesday, no attempt to rob a jeweller's, he would have wasted a
little time but no worse. To catch two such thieves, however, would advance his
reputation even further. Added to the apprehending of the Trafalgar Street gang
and Mary Ann it would give the lie to Inspector Croaker's vindictive reports on
his conduct. As for the Great Lavengro, he had absolutely nothing to gain from
a string of falsehoods.

Verity
sat quiet for a moment longer, as if to let the clairvoyant recover. He hardly
liked to speak what was on his mind.

'Mr Lavengro, sir. Can you see
anything
in
that crystal ball? What might you be able to see about me, sir?'

Lavengro seemed visibly displeased by the request. But
he shaded his eyes again and bowed towards the glass.

'Gold,'
he said presently. 'Gold being carried at great speed. A masked man at a safe.
. . India, a great diamond, a heathen fortress. Beauties of the harem. . . The
high seas, a mighty warship, death by water and sudden deliverance. . . The
great cataract of Niagara. . .'

'Yes, yes,' said Verity
impatiently. 'Not that. About me, I mean. At home!'

'Ah!' The Great Lavengro
looked up, then glanced down at the ball again. 'You have a companion of great
loveliness. Fair of feature and graceful of limb.'

Verity basked in
this tribute to Bella's charms.

'You alone,' droned Lavengro,
'are now the happy master of those beauties which she once displayed to all the
world. . .'

'All the world!' said Verity thunderstruck.

'No longer,' said Lavengro
hastily. 'No longer does she flaunt her pretty legs and comely thighs before
her expectant admirers. . .'

Verity was on his feet, face
reddening still further with anger.