Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments

by Francis Selwyn

  Verity felt dizzy, whether as a reaction from the exertion of the fight, or loss of blood, or the sight and smell of blood all about him, he could not tell. He leant heavily against the wall.

  'It ain't fair,' he said feebly.

  'No,' said Samson unsympathetic ally, 'there's a lot ain't fair in this world. I daresay me and Meiklejohn and Ziegler is going to feel it ain't fair either.’

  'Mr Samson, you got it wrong, all of you. It ain't blackmail. It can't be. Charley Wag isn't - wasn't - so stoopid that he'd try to blackmail a broken down old captain like Jack Ransome with no money to his name.'

  'No?' said Samson unimpressed.

  'No, Mr Samson. Captain Jack ain't held a commission in five years and was last known of going the round of fairs and race meetings doing the old three-thimbles-and-a-pea trick,'

  'You let them as have worked on the case be judges of that,' said Samson wisely. 'You done enough.'

  'I never killed a man before, not fighting face to face, Mr Samson. And I wouldn't a-done now, but it was him or me.’

  Samson walked over to the door to admit his two accompanying constables.

  'Being your acquaintance, Mr Verity,' he said, 'I'm glad, in course, that it was you came out of it. But I can't say that Meiklejohn and Ziegler wouldn't rather have had Charley Wag and a road to follow home.'

  Smells of horse dung and warm straw rose faintly from the stable beneath the kitchen of the little mews dwelling. Julius Stringfellow's possessions, the old silhouettes in mahogany frames, the ornamental plates celebrating the coronation of William IV, and the forage cap worn at the siege of Bhurtpore thirty-eight years ago, were now penned in by the newly-acquired treasures of his daughter and son-in-law. There was an imitation French clock under a glass dome, a steel engraving done from a photograph which showed the young round-faced Queen seated with her Consort standing beside her, there was even a brand-new Windsor chair with its tall pointed back in the shape of a Gothic arch.

  Below the kitchen, in the mews stable. Lightning, the elderly cab-horse, snorted in his sleep. Stringfellow moved lopsidedly across the kitchen on the wooden leg which had served him ever since the loss of his own at that same siege of Bhurtpore, in the war against the usurper Doorjun Saul. The old cabman paused and regarded the plump detective sergeant, once his lodger and now the husband of his beloved child, Bella. Verity sat dressed in his baggy trousers on a small stool. His shirt was off and the extent of his wounds displayed.

  'You had it bad, chum,' said Stringfellow thoughtfully.

  'I've had it worse before now, however,’ said Verity, tight-lipped.

  Stringfellow hobbled to a cupboard, unlocked it and took out a china bottle. There was a faint aroma of brandy as he pulled the stopper with his teeth.

  'Course,' he said, 'I ain't saying you'd want to be a cabman. What I say is, if you did want to be a cabman, there ain't no reason you shouldn't apprentice yourself along of me and, consequential, be your own master after my time.'

  He tipped some of the brandy on to lint.

  'Paddington Green ain't a bad area for it,' he continued, pausing for reflection, and then he applied the raw spirit to Verity's wounds. Verity's eyes widened, his mouth worked and puffed, and at last he emitted a windy groan.

  From the open doorway of the little kitchen there was a stifled whimper. Stringfellow's dark, bushy eyebrows gathered in a frown as he peered through the darkness. He moved a pace forward and pointed at the leather thong which secured his wooden leg.

  'Miss Bella!' he said, 'see this? Now I ain't going to tell you again that this ain't proper work for a woman. But if you ain't out of here in two seconds, I don't care if you'm married and have a cradle going upstairs. Off comes this 'ere strap and leathers your hide for you smart enough to keep you dancing for a week after!'

  'Run along, Mrs Verity,' said Verity faintly and there was a scampering on the stairway.

  'I know the spirit do catch the rawness,' said Stringfellow, retrieving the lint. 'Howsoever, I wish the regimental surgeons had had it to spare after Bhurtpore. I'd a-got two legs now.'

  He examined Verity's arm, blood seeping from the deep wound where Charley Wag had cut himself free from the head-lock.

  'That ain't a-going to heal of its own accord,' he announced. 'It'll weep like that until it festers.'

  Humming a little tune, he rummaged in a drawer and produced a needle and thick twine. He twisted the needle in a candle-flame.

  'What can mend a 'orse can mend a man,' he said philosophically.

  Verity looked away and Stringfellow went to work.

  'You no idea the satisfaction of a cab,' he said, as Verity bit back a gasp of pain, 'jogging on, seeing places.'

  'Don't prose so!' said Verity breathlessly. 'I was a sojer against the Rhoosians at Inkerman, and in a manner o' speaking I'm a sojer now against Charley Wag and his kind.'

  Stringfellow broke the twine in his teeth.

  'Likewise,' he said, 'I have had cause to remark that you was never obligated to fight the Rhoosians in Paddington Green, nor expect your wife to caper about like one of Miss Nightingale's ladies.'

  'Mrs Verity ain't soft,' said Verity at length.

  Stringfellow stood back a little to admire his surgical skill more fully.

  'Soft?' he said thoughtfully, 'she went soft the first night you set foot in this 'ousel Whimpering to see the brave sojer that'd beat the Rhoosians at Inkerman! And then pining after the brave policeman that beat Ned Roper and all the swell mob, one-handed. Mind you, if Mrs Stringfellow 'adn't gone off with the cholera that summer of the Hyde Park exhibition, there'd a-bin a firmer hand on 'erl See her married to a 'usband that comes home four o' clock of a morning, cut to tatters, and sits in the kitchen a-bleedin' 'isself silly! A cabman's daughter, too!'

  'If it's all the same,' said Verity weakly, 'I ain't particular to discuss cabs tonight.'

  'What don't get discussed is liable to be forgot,' said Stringfellow sternly. 'Mind you, though, an old 'orse do get you by the throat a bit these warm summer nights, don't 'e?'

  3

  'Sergeant William Clarence Verity, you have been paraded on a charge of having made an unwarranted and brutal assault upon a member of the public, Captain John Ransome, late 73rd Foot. Of that charge I find you guilty. It is my duty to reprimand you severely and to inform you that you will lose twelve months' seniority in the rank of sergeant for this offence. The nature of the offence, the finding and the punishment will be entered in the divisional record. It is also my duty to warn you that you have now been reprimanded three times in all, once for insubordination and twice for assaults upon members of the public, and that a fourth such breach of discipline must result in your automatic dismissal from the force.'

  Inspector Henry Croaker looked up from the papers on his desk as he spoke the final words. There was an expectant gleam in his eyes at the promise of one mere reprimand standing between him and the dismissal of the portly, self-righteous sergeant. Hero of Inkerman or not, another reprimand would be the end of him. Croaker's dark whiskers were finely trimmed and his thin yellowish face, the colour of a fallen leaf, seemed a perfect match for the dry withered tone of his voice. At Verity's back, Sergeant Ziegler, the escort, breathed heavily on the nape of his neck, as though he might be chewing something slowly.

  'Defaulter stand fast!' said Croaker in his brittle voice. 'Escort dismissed!'

  Ziegler stamped about and marched from the room with the slow, swinging gait he had perfected for such occasions as this. It was the usual form. Once the official proceedings were over, the unofficial 'roasting' of the culprit followed. Verity stared ahead of him. When the house in Whitehall Place, Scotland Yard, had been a gentleman's residence, thirty years before, Croaker's office had served as upstairs drawing-room. Through the panes of the window Verity, stiff at attention, watched the coal wagons and collier brigs of Whitehall wharf. Beyond them the waves of the murky river sparkled in the morning sun. Penny steamers trailing a banner of black smoke from
their tall stacks bore their top-hatted passengers across from Surrey to the Middlesex shore.

  Croaker kept him at attention, pushed back his chair a little and for several seconds indulged in the sheer pleasure of surveying his victim.

  'Sergeant Verity,' he said at length, rolling the words on his tongue as though savouring them, 'you imagine, I suppose, that you have come easily out of this affair?'

  'No, sir,' said Verity firmly, presuming that an answer was called for. 'Never thought that, with respect, sir. Still 'ave considerable twinges in the arm and side, sir.'

  'Do you?' said Croaker, as though the news brought him deep satisfaction. 'Do you?' He sat silent for a moment and then asked, 'And what of your colleagues, sergeant? What of the men who devoted months of hard, unremitting work to the discovery of a vile criminal conspiracy, only to see their efforts destroyed by you in the course of a simple and routine piece of surveillance?'

  'Don't see that, sir. With respect, sir.'

  'Don't see it, sir?' said Croaker derisively. 'Don't see it? In the first half hour of your part in the investigation, you destroy the evidence, murder the chief suspect, and assault the only available witness! Don't see it!'

  "ave the honour to suggest, sir, as it wasn't me that destroyed the evidence. It was Captain Ransome as threw them papers in the water.'

  'And you, a trained detective officer who had been present throughout, did not even see fit to suggest to him that he ought not to do sol'

  'Wasn't like that, sir. I was engaged with the person Aldino.'

  'And killed him!'

  'Didn't mean to, sir. 'ad to lay 'im cold, sir, or he'd a-coopered me and Captain Ransome.'

  'So you say. And who would Captain Ransome have coopered?'

  'Don't follow, sir. With respect, sir.'

  'Why was it necessary to break his teeth for him?'

  'Just it, sir. When I saw what he'd a-done with the evidence, destroyed it and all, I wasn't quite meself for a minute. Loss of blood and faintness it must a-bin, sir.'

  'You were overheard by a witness making some foolish remarks about Captain Ransome's treatment of his wife and mother before you hit him. Was that the result of faintness or loss of blood?'

  'Must a-bin, sir, or I wouldn't 'ave done it, would I?'

  Verity was relieved to see that this shot brought Croaker down from his flights of official irony.

  'I will just say this, Sergeant Verity. For some reason of his own, Captain Ransome has declined to bring criminal proceedings for assault against you. Had he done so, there can be no doubt that you would not only have been dismissed the force, you would now be serving twelve months in Horsemonger Lane Gaol, attended by hard labour on the treadmill and the crank. Do I make myself clear, sergeant?'

  'Yes sir. Very clear, sir. One thing to say, sir.'

  'Well?'

  'There's a funny smell about it, sir. I don't think you got a blackmail case, sir. Least, not ordinary blackmail, sir. Captain Ransome is known on race-courses and fairgrounds and such places. He ain't got two groats for a farthing. Charley Wag wouldn't a-wasted time squeezing him.'

  'Indeed?'

  'Yes, sir. O' course, there's blackmail going on. But that ain't the heart of it, somehow. However, if I'm given permission, I'll find out what is, sir.'

  'Four of your colleagues have been arranging that matter for several months, sergeant. They were within arm's length of the heart of it, as you call it, when you intervened. It is not intended that you should be given any further opportunity to display your peculiar skills in this case.'

  Verity swallowed.

  'Sir?'

  'Yes, sergeant?'

  "ave the 'onour to request, sir, what duties I shall be allotted to, if it ain't the blackmail dodge.'

  'Have no fear, sergeant. You will very shortly find out that duties have been found to match your talents in every respect.'

  Inspector Croaker rarely smiled and would never have permitted himself to do so in the presence of a subordinate. But there came into his eyes, as he regarded the fat perspiring sergeant, a dark glitter which suggested a deeply-felt and almost animal satisfaction.

  The room in which the dozen men of the Private-Clothes detail paraded reminded Verity of Hebron Chapel School in his childhood, the masters and ushers standing at the front, the pupils lined up before them. Inspector Swift, as duty officer, was about to combine the roles of educator and disciplinarian. While the men waited, Samson, who was next in line to Verity, said from the corner of his mouth,

  'You never came to the wake for Charley Wag, then?'

  'No!' said Verity, shocked, "ow should I?'

  'Some of us went,' whispered Samson. 'Wasn't half a do before they packed him off to Kensal Green! Porter and gin, and that gassy foreign wine what do fizz up your nose. And them fancy pies and cakes. Oh, my eye! Ain't they prime, though?'

  'Mr Samson! 'ow could you a-done it?' 'Those two doxies,' whispered Samson happily, 'Simona and Stefania, what no one had a use for. I went into their room with them. Stripped off in a twinkling. The dark-haired one gets on her back, and that young baggage Simona gets over her with her tight little bum waggling in the air, and then. ..." 'Parade: 'Shun!'

  There was a scraping of boots and Samson stood rigidly to attention, staring piously ahead of him in his obedience to the demands of duty.

  Inspector Swift detailed the men for their various beats, one by one, until all had been accounted for except Verity. He dismissed the others to their tasks.

  'Sir?' said Verity hopefully.

  'Downstairs, sergeant,' said Swift, half sympathetically. "The ground-floor back, I'm afraid.'

  Verity swallowed with visible apprehension. 'Ground-floor back, sir?'

  'The hiring-room,' said Inspector Swift sadly. He was a large freckled Irishman who was reputed to love Mr Croaker like a dose of rat-bane. 'Orders of your own Inspector,' he added gently.

  Verity turned away slowly, bewildered at the sentence passed upon him. After the death of Charley Wag, he had been prepared to face dismissal from the force or even criminal proceedings, but the ground-floor back was a crueller fate than either. It was the hiring-room, as Swift called it, where detective officers without suitable employment in the division were paraded for hire by members of the public. In practice, their employers came from a very limited class of the wealthy and the noble who had chosen to explore some family mystery, or wished to exercise surveillance over an errant wife or scapegrace son. It was a place generally reserved for officers who had not given quite sufficient pretext for dismissal but whose age or habits made them of little value to the detail. As Mr Croaker well knew, a man who was relegated to the hiring-room had only one path ahead of him, the path of rejection by his peers and superior officers alike.

  Verity walked towards the ground-floor back, and for the only time in his police career he felt that he was close to tears. Other officers of the Private-Clothes detail were busily setting out on their beats and assignments. With their departure the building grew silent. Verity opened the scrubbed oak door of the room, which was sparsely furnished with a few wooden benches and painted in a lime-coloured wash which since the eighteenth century had been supposed to render police offices and prison cells proof against typhus and gaol fever. Four other men sat, widely-spaced, on the benches. One, a ruffianly-looking fellow, kept his head lowered and picked his teeth. Another sucked with furious energy on a short clay pipe. There was an emaciated dark-haired sergeant whose breath betrayed the sweet acidity of gin as Verity passed him, and a well-dressed man, neat and clean, who had been sent to the hiring-room merely because of his grey hair and advancing years.

  Verity found a space on one of the benches, as far removed from the others as possible, and sat down glumly. From time to time, the duty inspector would enter and call the men to attention. They stood in an irregular line, aware that from some spy-hole they were probably being surveyed by an intending customer. 'Like whores on a fucking pavement,' the cadaverous sergeant remark
ed in his slurred voice, after each intrusion. The entire morning passed and not one of the customers was inspired to make his choice from the men in the hiring-room. After a time, Verity found a natural empathy with the cleanly, neatly-dressed old man who sought only a tolerant if unresponsive audience for his conversation. He talked of gardens and flowers, of roses he had grown and of roses he proposed to grow. Verity nodded and made acquiescent sounds, which seemed to be all that was required. The ruffianly detective sneered at the old man's gentility and the cadaverous drunkard complained of the noise.

  As morning turned to afternoon, the old man unwrapped a spotless 'kingsman' or neckerchief, and cut his bread and cheese. Verity refused the proffered slice. The emaciated sergeant moaned for a pull of crank or sky-blue or mexico, while the two rougher men suggested he might stash his gab.

  It was mid-afternoon when they were called to attention again. Shortly afterwards, Inspector Swift returned.

  'Mr Cuff,' he said gently. The elderly man got up, turned to Verity with a half-bow, and followed the Inspector out with great jauntiness. Verity and the others waited in a morose and depressed silence. At four o'clock or thereabouts another call to attention came. The four men stood in varying poses of rigidity, the thin drunkard half leaning on Verity's shoulder. There was a pause before Swift reappeared.

  'Sergeant!' he said in an abrupt whisper, and Verity saw that he was looking at him. Swift beckoned and Verity followed him out of the room. In the passageway the Inspector turned to him.

  'It's not much, sergeant, but you may work at it. It goes hard to see a good man sitting in that room. Whether you care for the job signifies little so long as it gives you your quittance.'

  'Not like it, sir?'

  'No,' said Swift. 'Your employer is Mr Richard Jervis.' 'Mr Jervis, sir?'