'Younger brother of Lord Henry Jervis, deceased.' 'Oh,' said Verity,' 'im!'
'Quite,' said Swift. 'There are three brothers, Lord Henry deceased, Lord William, who now holds the title and estate, and Mr Richard, the youngest. A month ago, Lord Henry was killed in a shooting accident. The party was beating for game on the Jervis lands at Bole Warren in Sussex. Lord Henry was following a raised stone path with a ditch below it, when he stumbled and fell. The rifle he was carrying hit the stone, jarred and went off. The bullet passed through his skull on the right-hand side, killing him at once. There was never a doubt that the bullet was fired by his own rifle, and there was no one within thirty yards of him when it happened. There must have been a dozen witnesses. The coroner's jury returned accidental death and the police investigation confirms it. There were rumours - just gossip, you understand - which said that Lord Henry might not have stumbled, that he shot himself deliberately.'
'Destroyed 'isself, sir?'
'Quite, sergeant. There is, of course, no evidence that he did and not the least reason for him to do so. It was never suggested at the inquest.'
'Then why am I sent for, sir? With respect, sir.'
'Mr Richard Jervis is a crippled gentleman,' said Swift softly, 'and as such he mayn't undertake much investigating on his own behalf. The suggestion of Lord Henry's suicide has greatly distressed him. He does not believe that his brother destroyed himself, nor does he believe there was an accident.'
'Don't follow, sir. With respect, sir.'
'Mr Richard Jervis,' said Swift patiently, 'claims that Lord Henry was murdered.'
'Don't see 'ow, sir. Not if he was killed with his own gun and there wasn't no one near him at the time.'
Swift spread out his hands.
'There is no way that the police or the coroner's jury could see, sergeant. But young Mr Jervis is insistent that he will have a new and private investigation into Lord Henry's death. It is his money, sergeant, and his privilege.'
'And the present Lord William, sir?'
'The present Lord William is a captain in the Royal Navy, sergeant. He is at present at sea in HMS Hero. He is also the companion in pleasure of some of the highest and - between ourselves, sergeant - some of the lowest in the land. His interest in the family, the estate, his brother dead and his brother living is not intense. It is Mr Richard Jervis who will be your employer.'
"ave the honour to request, sir, do I 'ave to be 'ired for this? There ain't nothing to be investigated, sir!'
'Sergeant Verity,' said Swift gently, 'be a good fellow and do as Mr Jervis asks you. It is not your fault if his belief about Lord Henry proves wrong. Walk smartly and talk sensibly. When you return here, it will not be to the hiring-room. But if you choose to be troublesome now, be sure that Mr Croaker will give you very little grace in the hiring-room before submitting to the commissioner of police that there is no further employment in the force for which you are suited.'
Verity swallowed again. 'Yessir. Very good, sir.'
He followed Swift into an office furnished with black leather chairs and a satinwood bureau. A young man in his late twenties sat at a fine walnut table. He was, thought Verity, groomed neat as a fashion plate, his fair hair trimly worn and the dundreary whiskers carefully barbered. It was clear at a glance that the young man was prey to some long-established sickness. The wan, pinched face gave the blue eyes with their large pupils a disproportionate size and brightness. The pallor, visible as clearly in the thin elegant hands as in the face itself, was enhanced by a black silk coat, black stock and cravat, and the mourning gloves in black kid which lay folded on the polished walnut. Verity faltered at the prospect of being immersed in the young man's grief and sickness.
'Mr Jervis, sir,' said Swift in his soft Irish voice, 'this is Sergeant Verity, of whom I spoke.'
Richard Jervis looked up slowly and surveyed Verity with a long and careful stare. He nodded, as though in reluctant approval, and addressed all his remarks to Swift.
'He is experienced in the detection of murder? In distinguishing between murder, misadventure and self-destruction? He is, shall we say, au fait with the evidence and the methods?'
'As are all our officers, sir,' said Swift with the merest hint of reproach.
Richard Jervis nodded, as though he had heard all that was necessary. Swift intervened again.
'I trust, sir, you will find no cause for complaint with Sergeant Verity. However, sir, you must know that an officer can only detect what there is to be detected. He cannot make murder where there was none.'
'And he should not convict a poor soul of self-destruction, whose life was robbed from him,' said Jervis sharply. 'But I must be guided by you, Mr Swift, must I not? I am to do as you bid, as all of you bid in the matter. And so I shall. But I will have justice, sir, for all that. I will have justice done!'
'It is to be hoped you will, sir,' said Swift blandly.
Verity looked furtively at Richard Jervis, the brightness of the eyes reflected and intensified the bitterness of the voice.
'As to the matter of a fee,' said the young man more composedly, 'have the goodness to direct to my steward at Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square. Whatever is customary shall be paid.'
Swift bowed his head a little and Jervis laid his pale hands, side by side, on the table.
'Please to call for my man and leave us,' he said quietly.
Swift motioned Verity from the room, went to call Jervis' servant and then returned to the plump sergeant.
'Remember,' said Swift in a whisper, 'he can't bear to be watched when he's moved.'
Verity turned a little and saw a man of indeterminate middle-age entering the room where Jervis sat. He took in the bull-like shoulders the shabby bottle-green coat, the dark hair and moustaches now dusted with grey against the burnt face, the dark spaniel eyes. He turned to Swift again.
'Captain Ransome, sir,' he said softly, "im as was in with Charley Wag that night! Wot the 'ell's he doing as valet to Mr Jervis?'
'Alack and alas, sergeant,' said Swift, in his gentle, ironic manner, 'that is something which you are not paid to investigate. If a gentleman chooses to employ Honest Jack Ransome as his valet, what of it? Charley Wag knew of some peccadillo and he bled poor Captain Jack even of his miserable half-pay allowance.'
'The person Ransome threw the evidence in the water and destroyed itl' said Verity indignantly.
'Ah,' said Swift, 'and so might you have done in his place, sergeant. What was evidence to us was disgrace and shame to him, stories of Captain Jack and another man's wife, or Honest Ransome and a stable lad or two.'
'Captain Ransome and the thimble-and-pea caper at every fair and race meeting!' said Verity sceptically.
'And so it was once,' said Swift genially, 'when times were hard for an old soldier. But now, like many a rough and tough old warrior, Honest Jack finds shelter in a gentleman's employment.'
Half-turning his head, Verity glimpsed the slight pale figure of Richard Jervis, manoeuvring himself forward with a pair of sticks while Ransome's heavy arms supported him with unexpected gentleness. The gentleman and his valet turned a corner.
"ave the honour to request, sir,' said Verity to Swift, 'if I'm to ride to Portman Square on the box of the gentleman's coach now.'
'No, sergeant,' said Swift. 'Whatever your movements, you may make them on foot or by twopenny bus. Learn thrift, sergeant. There's no end to what a man may do, if he'll only be thrifty.'
'That's very true, sir.'
'First collect your belongings, clothes, accoutrements. Then proceed to Mr Jervis' town house. Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square. When a man is hired, he lives in. You'll find the servants' quarters comfortable enough. Many a uniformed officer on the beat and living in a station-house might envy you.'
'Then I ain't to live 'ome, sir?'
'Sergeant,' said Swift gently, 'an officer, when hired, serves his master. Like all servants, he may have a half day off from time to time, or even a Sunday. But he mustn't
expect to be paid for working in one house when he lives in another, any more than if he was a butler or valet.'
'Then I ain't to live with Mrs Verity!' said Verity aghast.
'A man doesn't join the force for who he can live with!' said Swift reproachfully. 'But now you know why such good care is taken to avoid the hiring-room. You mayn't be your own master in the division, but you're never less your own master than when on hire.'
'I might a-took the Queen's shilling again and done no worse,' Verity said with a growing sense of grievance.
'So you might,' said Swift, 'and then again you might have took it and been shot like a blackcock in some foreign war. You be thankful for a snug billet, my lad, and that you aren't sleeping tonight under the bridges or the Adelphi arches, like twenty thousand other poor wretches. When a gentleman hires you and pays your board, you've got a lot to think yourself lucky for!'
4
'Course,' said Stringfellow reasonably, 'you can't 'elp feeling for the poor young gentleman. You can't 'elp being sorry that his brother met a bloody end and that self-destruction and all its attendant 'orrors was hinted at.'
Playbills outside the Britannia at Hoxton or the Coburg, advertising the latest melodrama, were Stringfellow's favourite reading and their style was apt to influence his own in speaking of the great issues of life and death.
'It's me I feel sorry for,' said Verity bitterly, 'put to an investigation what the coroner's jury and the constabulary have already finished, 'ow the mischief can it be anything but an accident? The bullet came from the poor young fellow's own gun, which was in his own hand and which hadn't been tampered with. And there was no one in thirty yards of him. He must a-shot 'isself, accident or not.'
' 'e was never victim to the fell demon of self-destruction!' said Stringfellow incredulously. Verity shook his head.
'Not unless there was more to it than appears. Why, he'd got the title and the estates. True, he 'adn't yet got a wife but there was every prospect. He was a well man, 'ealthy and 'olesome I don't see self-destruction in it.'
They stood in the Upper Berkeley Street mews which led to the rear of the Jervis town house. Two kitchen-boys were struggling with a polished wooden box whose lid bore the initials 'W.C.V.' It had accompanied the twelve-year-old Verity from the miner's cottage at Redruth to the grandeur of Lady Linacre's house in the Royal Crescent at Bath, where he was first page and then footman. His father had painted the initials on the lid, with their scrolling and flourishes. His mother had papered the inside with a rose-patterned paper so finely textured that it felt like damask. The varnish was a little cracked and the gloss somewhat dimmed but the sight of the box brought back so many poignant images to his memory that it seemed entirely fitting that it should contain all his worldly possessions. The two boys struggled through the doorway with it and began the ascent of the narrow wooden stairs at the back of the great house, leading to the servants' attics. In one of these little garrets, Verity was to live during the period of his hire by Richard Jervis.
Stringfellow and his son-in-law stood forlornly in the yard, Stringfellow's vehicle, a lumbering square coach in bilious yellow with green wheels and axletree, waiting just behind them. On the door was a faded coat of arms which resembled a dissected bat. Lightning, the old cab-horse, stood with drooping head, his scanty mane and tail twitching as he winced and rattled the harness. An apple-cheeked old woman in cap and apron appeared at the kitchen steps and gestured at the two men.
'Coach!' she shouted.
Stringfellow moved towards her with the rolling gait which his wooden leg gave him.
'I ain't for 'ire just this minute ma'am,' he said apologetically.
'Do have done, then!' said the old woman laughing. 'Course you ain't for hire. Do'ee just put some straw under the animal's feet and take a drop of the right sort.'
Stringfellow's face brightened and he beckoned Verity.
'I'm Mrs Butcher,' said the old woman, 'housekeeper here since the time of old Lord Samuel Jervis, him that was father to Lord Henry and Lord William and Mr Richard.'
They followed her into a pleasant little parlour with a brick floor and a doorway which gave on to the kitchen, showing its stoves and hot closets, its scrubbed pine tables and rows of copper pans. Mrs Butcher opened a corner cupboard and produced a dark bottle and three glasses. She went to a small oak sideboard and returned with an earthenware jug of water and some sugar lumps in a blue and white china bowl. Stringfellow placed seats for the three of them and they sat down round the table.
'A drop of the right sort don't come amiss after a journey,' said Mrs Butcher, winking at Stringfellow.
'I shouldn't say no,' Stringfellow conceded, 'but Mr Verity ain't got much use for it.'
'Just a little drop,' said Mrs Butcher firmly as she prepared the potion, 'a little drop o' gin with cold water and a lump of sugar to take away the sharpness of it.'
They raised their glasses.
'Your 'ealth, Mrs Butcher,' said Stringfellow, taking a long pull at the gin and water, then emitting a contented sigh.
Mrs Butcher turned to Verity.
'And you'm the detective officer that's to bring Lord Henry's murderer to light?'
Verity was thunderstruck that what he had taken to be a confidential assignment was known to the servants of the house.
"oo says there was murder done?' he asked suspiciously. Mrs Butcher pulled a face.
'Someone must a-said it, Mr Verity, or you wouldn't be sitting 'ere now, would you?'
'You seen what was in the papers, Mrs Butcher. The bullet that killed Lord Henry had the marks of his own gun on it. It was fired from his own gun, which was in his hand, and no one in thirty yards of him when it happened.'
He supped at his gin and wiped his moustache on the back of his hand. Mrs Butcher pulled another little face, as though she did not greatly care either way.
'It ain't everything that gets into the papers,' she said.
'Meaning?' asked Verity.
'Meaning,' said Mrs Butcher, 'that I ain't going to repeat gossip and be got in trouble for it. You find what you can find, and if it looks to point towards a certain party, you come and tell me. Then I can say if it matches what I know.'
They drank in silence for a minute or two.
'Mrs Butcher,' said Stringfellow presently,' 'oo might it be as is master of this house?'
'Of old,' said Mrs Butcher, 'it was Lord Samuel Jervis', the house here and the country place at Bole Warren, down Lewes way. Lord Samuel died and it went to the eldest son, Lord Henry, who was very taken with being a clergyman at Oxford, but never did. Very bookish 'e was. With his head and his money, 'e might a-bin a bishop if he'd gone through with it. Instead, he goes for a sojer in the Rhoosian war and then comes home to this 'ouse and the country estate. Never married, though who can say he mightn't in a while more? When he died, everything passed to the present Lord William. Being a naval gentleman, he's as often at Portsmouth or Plymouth as he is here. And though I ain't particular to talk about it, even when Lord William is in London he ain't in the house much. There's dances in the season and shooting parties at Bole Warren, but for the greater part of it, poor young Mr Richard might be master here if he chose.'
'So all the inheritance don't mean much to Lord William?' said Verity hopefully.
'The rate he's racketing along,' said Mrs Butcher, 'it'll mean something when he has to raise every penny on it to keep him out of a debtor's prison.'
She spoke with a finality indicating that she had already said as much as she proposed to on the subject of the Jervis family. Verity and Stringfellow took their leave of her and retired to the cobbled yard again. Lightning raised his head slightly and regarded them with equine disinterest. Stringfellow braced his good leg on the coachwork and hauled himself up on to the box where an old greatcoat was spread for comfort.
'Seems to me,' he said philosophically, 'that the entire house thinks there was murder done.'
'Servants' gossip,' said Verity indignantly
, 'that's all it is. Why, Mr Stringfellow, I thought you'd a-known better than to truck with that sort o' thing when you know the evidence is all the other way. It's evidence that puts gossip in its place!'
Stringfellow looked down at the smug pink moon of his son-in-law's face with its neatly waxed moustaches.
'I ain't averse to a bit o' gossip,' he said firmly. 'It helps to make the day go round smooth. And if you think it ain't evidence, Mr Verity, then you got a bit to learn about evidence!'
The room in which Richard Jervis received Verity on the following morning resembled a counting-house rather than any domestic apartment. It was the place where the master of the house might have called his steward or his butler to account. Jervis, appearing slim to the point of frailty in his mourning suit, sat in a black leather chair. His slightly crouched posture suggested distortion as well as paralysis of his body from the waist down. In their first meeting alone he seemed to Verity to exhibit an invalid's tetchiness in his resentment of sympathy and a manic determination to show himself master of events. The blue eyes searched Verity's face carefully.
'Mr Verity, I am a careful man. I pay attention to detail and though I have more than enough money for my needs, I spend it scrupulously.'
'To be sure, sir.'
'I say this because there are those who will tell you that I am about to waste your time and my money on a foolish investigation. What I want from you is no less than a full inquiry into my brother's death.'
'With respect, sir, I can examine the evidence at the scene of the tragedy. Only being some weeks since it 'appened, there won't be so much to be found as there was when it was first examined. I can examine the rifle, sir, though it's been done by men whose business is rifles. And I can talk to the gentlemen who saw the tragedy, sir, one of whom is yourself. But I don't suppose there's any questions that haven't been asked already, 'owever, I gotta say, sir, that when all's said and done, I can't make a murder out of an accident, nor I mustn't neither.'
Richard Jervis' pale blue eyes narrowed, the sharpness of his pale face accentuated by the trim triangle of his fair beard.
Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Page 7
