SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman

by Francis Selwyn

  Slowly she straightened up, turning again, arms twining above her head, and thighs squirming sinuously together as though trying to hold some slippery and elusive lover between them. The rhythm of the music increased, her hips swaying faster and faster, until there was a crash, a drum-roll, and the tension seemed to fall away from her body. Her knees bent slowly, and she sank to the floor in a gesture of grateful sexual fulfilment.

  After such a performance, an information laid by the top-hatted Society for the Suppression of Vice would have brought the girl and the management of the gaff before the Bow Street magistrate on Monday morning. But the Vice Society angled for bigger fish, and so did Verity. As the girl scrambled up and ran from the stage, to the stamping and cheering of the costers, he slid from his place and walked, unnoticed, to the entrance. There was no way out except through the front of the gutted shop. That was the way the girl must come.

  In the street, waiting to catch the customers as they poured from the gaff, a running patterer, in a shabby coat and threadbare hat, stood with his penny pamphlets. He announced them in a rapid, mock-educated chant.

  "A Woice from the Gaol, being the story of William Calcraft, public hangman! Let us look at William Calcraft in his early years. He was born of poor but industrious parents ..."

  Verity joined the group of spectators, placing himself to watch the entrance of the gaff.

  "Alas!" droned the patterer, "alas for the poor farmer's boy! He was never taught to shun the broad path leading to destruction! His secret debaucheries soon enabled the fell demon of vice to mark him for her own! He is tortured by remorse heaped upon remorse! Every fresh victim he is required to strangle . . ."

  Verity saw her. She slipped from the shadow and away towards St Martin's Lane, scurrying along the pavement. She wore a plum-red merino gown and a pork-pie hat with a waving white feather. With one hand she gathered up her skirts a little, holding them clear of the moist film that seemed to ooze at night from the very paving and cobbles. With small, hurried steps she was returning to whichever part of the streets Roper made her walk.

  Verity hung back. It was enough to keep her in sight as she came out into Trafalgar Square, where the moon shivered on the surface of the pools and the silhouette of Nelson rode high against a pale flush of starlight. She crossed the great space and made for Cockspur Street. Verity had no doubt that she was one of Roper's high-class girls. The beds that Jolie now shared were those of Pall Mall gentlemen, not of common soldiers like McCaffery.

  In Cockspur Street the omnibuses for Hammersmith and Kentish Town were drawn up. Their horses stamped or snorted clouds of warm breath into the damp air; the oil lamps flickered as the driver lounged on his perch, his whip askew and his hat tipped forward over his eyes. The girl flitted along the pavement into Pall Mall East and Verity closed on her a little.

  Outside the lofty classical portico of the United Service Club, she slowed down to a leisurely hip-swinging stroll, staring enviously through the tall windows at the brightly lit mouldings of ornate ceilings and the heroic full-dress paintings of Waterloo generals. Verity hurried after her as she passed the private carriages, waiting in the white light of gas globes on the wrought-iron pillars, and turned the corner into Waterloo Place.

  By the time he saw her again she had been cornered by two troopers of the "Cherry Bums," the 11th Hussars, in their tight scarlet trousers, royal bluejackets laced with gold, and fur caps. One had her trapped against the wall, leaning his palms on the stonework on either side of her shoulders. The other, brushing up his ginger moustaches impatiently, said something which Verity could not hear. Nimble as a squirrel, the girl ducked down under the other hussar's arms, and hurried across Waterloo Place with frightened little steps. The two soldiers let her go, knowing that she was beyond their price. Once safe from them, she began to walk slowly up and down a short stretch of the paving, her allotted and shadowy sentry-go.

  When Verity approached she turned her back to the wall and cocked the sole of her boot against the masonry behind her.

  "Won't you be good-natured to me?" she said softly.

  "To you, miss?" said Verity cheerfully. "I could be. I'd be a sight better natured than Ned Roper ever was to you. I'm not one for spoiling a pretty girl's skin with a hot iron. Not my style."

  Jolie's voice sharpened, and a faint reflection of moonlight caught the whites of her eyes. "Who the hell might you be?"

  "I might be your friend," said Verity, patting the belly of his waistcoat significantly. "I might do a lot for you, miss, if we were to have a little talk."

  "You're a bloody jack!" she said indignantly. "I ain't talking to a jack in the middle of the street for Roper and his bullies to see! I ain't that fond of a beating! "

  "You have a room, though," said Verity, moving a step nearer the girl and breathing over her. But it was too dark to see properly, even if he had turned her hair up there and then.

  "I get paid for something more than talking when I take a man to my room," she said. "I got my own room in Panton Street now, not in Roper's dress-house."

  "I don't pay," said Verity calmly, "but you'll find it worth a shilling or two to pay Roper out for what he did to you. We know about it, you see. And we know about McCaffery."

  The girl shrugged.

  "You know more than I do, then," she said sulkily. "But I ain't fussy who I take back to Panton Street, so long as they pay."

  Turning and gathering up the skirts of her plum-coloured gown again, she hurried before him, leading the way between the horses and hansoms of Pall Mall towards the Haymarket. It seemed to Verity that, like so many whores, she was playing her owner a double game. Ned Roper ran dress-houses where the very clothes on the girl's back were his property. The girls were allowed out only to solicit clients and were often watched by Roper's bully. All the money went directly into Roper's pocket, until a fly bitch set herself up in a room of her own. Oh no, thought Verity, there was no love lost between this one and Ned Roper. Moreover, now that he knew of the secret apartment, he needed only to mention it to Roper for the man to have the skin off her back.

  Sergeant Verity hummed a little tune in the darkness. Why, the mystery of McCaffery's death would be explained by midnight. Once it was a question of hanging, then Jolie would betray Roper, and Roper would betray his mysterious benefactor. When the constables came to escort their charges from "C" division lock-up to Bow Street, on Monday morning, Ned Roper's crew should have the honour of leading the dance.

  The Haymarket was thronged with girls of all ages and conditions, bartering their bodies with Regent Street swells and mustachioed clerks. Verity followed the flitting figure of the girl, past the steam of the coffee-stall with its tall, simmering urns, through the rustle of silks and laces, where the air hung heavy with the scent of penny cigars. Several of the Panton Street houses had their blinds drawn, lights burning low, and notices over the door promising that "Beds may be had within."

  Ignoring all these, the girl turned a corner, and slipped into the shadows of an ill-kept house, built in yellowish London brick and drab as any slum. An iron stairway with a loose handrail led up to a gallery that ran round the four sides of an inner courtyard with a shabby doorway leading off at each little corner-landing. The girl stopped at the last landing but one, by which time Verity had a familiar pain in his right abdomen and was breathing like a winded dray-horse.

  "In here," she said expressionlessly.

  It was only when she set a match to each of the mantles that he saw how sumptuous the room was by contrast with its surroundings. There were comfortable Coburg chairs and a sofa, a small chandelier, pier glasses, and heavy green curtains across the windows. He turned to the girl, taking in the almond slant of her eyes as her glance flicked towards him and away again, almost feeling the warmth of her slender waist under the silk. She held out a small hand determinedly. Verity sighed and deposited two shillings in the palm.

  "A paying concern, miss," he said, lowering himself heavily into one of the chai
rs, "that's what you've got here."

  "Don't do so bad for a distressed milliner, do I?" She drew up her skirts. "I got nice boots, ain't they. You don't get them working in a slop shop. Walk three miles there and back every day for four bloody shillings a week? I'd a sight sooner starve!"

  Verity grunted.

  "Did they starve you in India?"

  "India?" she repeated with unconvincing disinterest. "East India Dock is the nearest I'd ever get. Don't you feel frisky then?"

  The sofa was between them.

  "Come over here and sit down," said Verity innocently. She kept her eyes on him like a Siamese cat on its prey, and began to unfasten her gown. It fell to the floor in a whisper of cloth. Gaslight shone on her bare shoulders as if on pale gold satin.

  "Dress yourself!" said Verity sharply, half hoping to be disobeyed.

  She ignored him. Her bodice came away and she laid it down carefully, turning her firm, uptilting little breasts towards him, and looking him straight in the eyes. Verity stood up hastily, but she moved round again so that the sofa was still between them. There was a quick rustling at her waist and her petticoats joined the discarded gown on the carpet. She stepped from behind the scroll of the sofa-end, into full view, her flat brown belly narrowing to a shading of dark hair between the thighs.

  "Damn you, miss! " said Verity, perspiring. "Come here!"

  She ran to the farthest chair and slouched down in it, opening her knees wide.

  "Is that it?" she asked derisively.

  Verity lumbered forward, but the girl jumped up and dodged round the sofa again, the light catching the gloss of her smart black boots and black silk stockings, the only garments she still wore. Facing the other chair, she hollowed her stomach in and bent forward. Leaning on the chair arm, she rounded the cheeks of her bottom, watching him tauntingly over her shoulder.

  "Is that the sort of thing you prefer, eh?"

  The momentary ache of desire on seeing her naked had passed. Verity was possessed by righteous anger that he, representing the majesty of the law, should be treated in such a manner by an impudent slut. He ran the sofa aside with a crash, overturned the chair and managed to catch her by one wrist. The girl fell under him, wriggling and panting determinedly. She twisted a hand free and her nails drew four parallel furrows across his cheekbone. It was not how he had imagined their encounter and, as she twisted half over on top of him with her thigh against his face, he fleetingly thanked God that Inspector Croaker could not see him.

  At length he pinioned her face-down and reached for the hair at the back of her neck. She twisted her head clear each time until he had hit her with his open hand twice across the bottom and, when that failed, across the face. Then she lay still and allowed him to turn up the soft dark hair, to examine the mark which Roper's hot iron had branded there. Verity pushed the hair back and swore an oath at what he saw.

  The skin from her shoulders to the crown of her head was smooth and without the least blemish!

  The McCaffery dodge! Sergeant Verity caught in the act of beating up a naked girl! He scrambled to his feet, while Jolie, having recovered her breath, began to scream loudly enough to be heard in the street outside. Thank God, thought Verity, for Fred French's letter. The McCaffery dodge had worked in the Punjab—but it should not work in Panton Street! He pushed his way past the overturned chair and the sofa askew across the room. There were voices and lights already in the courtyard below. No going down! He must go up to the top landing and slip down when they were busy elsewhere.

  Verity was not the most agile of the detective police, but no man was more adept at melting into the shadows. From the darkness of the landing above the girl's room, he watched three men hurrying up from the courtyard. One was Ned Roper, the second was a stranger, probably one of Roper's bully boys. The third man's face was hidden, but the tall hat, long belted tunic, and the bull's-eye lantern was enough to identify him as one of Roper's tame constables from "C" division.

  The McCaffery dodge, thought Verity, and they had damned nearly had him with it. Yes, sir! They damned nearly had! From the room below he could hear the tone of the voices but not the words. Jolie was tearful but vague, now that the dupe had escaped. The constable was sympathetic, inquiring, but, in the end, inconclusive. The three men came out again.

  "Got down the stairs while we were in there, or just before," said Roper. Their footsteps faded down the iron stairway and into the street. Verity waited.

  It was hardly five minutes before Roper returned alone to the girl's room. He opened the door and said,

  "You dull-witted little bitch! "

  The door closed. Verity heard the girl's shrill whine of protest and then the sound of a hand striking in a series of sharp, explosive slaps. He edged his way cautiously down the iron stairway, past the light that showed beneath the locked door. He had almost reached the foot of the stairs when a man with shoulders like a stud bull stepped from the darkness. Verity guessed it would be Tyler, Roper's companion bully boy, who had been waiting there patiently ever since the whole charade began.

  Verity did not enjoy brawling but he accepted what was inevitable. He clamped his teeth hard together, knowing that a loose jaw more easily becomes a fractured jaw. Then, as Tyler's dark bulk came on, Verity moved to one side, caught the man's right arm in a lock and spun him by his own momentum so that he thudded back against the banister rail with a bellowing gasp and a cracking of wood. He swung back again, eyes glittering and shoulders hunched, fencing for a grip on Verity. Twice he lunged forward, knuckles smacking on Verity's plump cheeks. But Verity knew better than to raise his guard higher and expose himself to worse damage. He waited for the third lunge, went back with it, and then threw himself forward with one knee jabbing into Tyler's groin. Tyler flung his arms back to find support, failed to find it, and crashed down in a salvo of buckets and pots.

  Verity was upon him as he sprang to his feet, and carried him down again with his own weight. Tyler snatched at the stair rail as he fell, tearing it away from its struts and leaving it dangling vertically from the first landing. He kept hold of a loose strut and drove Verity back until Verity, with a heavy wooden peg, sidestepped and aimed a blow to Tyler's head which carried him through a ground floor doorway that burst open under his weight.

  In the confusion of the brawl, Verity could hear dogs barking, a woman screaming, and the crash of bottles as he and Tyler went sprawling over a crate of flagons. But he had matched Tyler, he knew he had. Hold him for a few minutes more and he would be blown.

  Then there was a soft explosion deep inside Verity's head, and a pain that seemed to swell like a balloon across the back of his neck. He broke away from Tyler, stooping and vomiting. The man whom he could not see, hit him again, and he sank to his knees in a bright dazzle of nausea. He heard them speak but could not catch their words. He heard, rather than felt, the first boot that sent a remote pain from the base of his spine. The thudding ache sprang up along his legs and his back, the first blows spreading pain like an anaesthetic, so that he hardly felt the later ones. His mouth was full of salt. They must have hit him in the face but he had not really noticed it at the time. There was one more dazzling spasm in his head. And then nothing.

  The house had gone. He could see open sky above him. But the dogs were still barking. Men and women were walking past him, their feet not more than twelve inches from his head. They paid him no attention. A fat drunkard lying in the Panton Street gutter must find his own salvation.

  Verity eased himself first to his knees and then to his feet. He staggered a little, but steadied himself against the wall. Passers-by avoided him in a wide semicircle. There was a tear from the armpit to the waist in the left side of his coat, the right knee of his trousers had gone in a triangular rent, and there was no sign of his hat. His clothes shone with wet smears of that insanitary moisture which the colder night air had drawn out on the warm paving. Very carefully, he let go of the wall and hobbled forward on bruised legs. At the first step he sway
ed sideways into a young woman in a crinoline. The girl gave a little cry, gathering her skirts away from him, while her male escort's eyes bombarded Verity with hate and unspoken threats.

  Steadier now and with growing determination, he shuffled from Panton Street into the Haymarket, following the line of the gutter among beggars and vagrants.

  "Why, Mr Verity! Oh, my poor Mr Verity! What has happened to you?"

  Verity stared at the neatly-cut fawn suit and matching top hat, the blue silk stock and the almost ladylike boots. The moustache was palest ginger and the eyes an almost equally pale blue. Ned Roper. Verity stared again, hardly believing that the man could dare to confront him.

  "My dear Mr Verity! " It was the voice of the racecourse confidence trickster. "My dear sir! Who has done this to you? Take my arm, please. We must find you assistance at once. Permit me to send for one of your other officers. For Mr Croaker perhaps?"

  Verity gave a gasp and then followed this with a frog-like bleat from the throat.

  "Roper!"

  "My poor Verity! "

  "Stand out of my way, you son of a whore!" "My dear fellow! I shall at least call the constable for you."