Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments

by Francis Selwyn

  Verity addressed Elaine sternly.

  'Now, miss. Let's 'ear you give Mr Jump a notion o' Charley Wag. And remember what's waiting for you at Mrs Rouncewell's if it ain't a ringer for him.'

  Jump sat on the steps of the wagon with his board, paper and chalks. He drew shapes of faces until there was one which, the girl swore, was the contour of Charley Wag's.

  'Dark 'air, sort o' tight curls,' she said. Verity and Samson nodded at one another in agreement.

  'Like that?' asked Jump, showing her the board.

  'Bit bald at the front, though,' she said, 'and sort of grey, like it was powdered just on top.'

  Samson looked at Verity in bewilderment, but Verity was grinning like a schoolboy. He put his mouth close to Samson's ear.

  'I thought I'd got it, Mr Samson! And I have tool'

  They watched the artist at work, peering over his shoulder.

  'I'll be damnedl' said Samson, as the finishing touches were added to the sketch.

  'Very probably, Mr Samson,' said Verity jovially, 'and you'll still feel comfortable compared to this young person if she's told us a pack of lies.’

  'I swear it!’ she howled. 'Ask the other girls that saw 'im!'

  'Charley Wag!' said Verity, his shoulders jogging with mirth.

  'Captain Jack Ransome!' Samson murmured dismally. 'But how!'

  'Ain't difficult, Mr Samson. He may have been in league with Charley or he may not. If he was, then some girls that paid their dues to Charley never saw him but in the person of Ransome. Natural enough to think he was the Wag if he said so. Then, if the law was ever to move in, Jack Ransome goes down and Charley stays free. Even when Captain Jack got his hooks into the Jervis family, he may have worked the dodge with Charley. The faked pictures of Lord 'enry was done on Charley's premises.'

  'Then what you heard the night Charley was killed was thieves falling out?' said Samson.

  'I half thought so, Mr Samson. No wonder Honest Jack was so quick to destroy the evidence! It was more faked letters to squeeze Mr Richard and Lord William. It must a-bin! And it was all to do with Lord 'enry or someone being put in the sea from a little boat after a ship went down. And then Jack Ransome made his mistake. Seeing the Wag dead, he goes straight out next morning, round all the girls, and this time he keeps for himself every penny that he takes.'

  'And now he might cooper Mr Richard Jervis, seeing as he's got him.'

  Verity shook his head.

  'Not ‘im! Poor Mr Richard's too useful to him for that! Why, even when three medical men found him lunatic, Captain Jack wasn't going to part with him but got some poor delirious wretch and had him entered at Friern House in Mr Richard's name.'

  'He's never holding him to ransom?'

  Verity shook his head.

  'No. And it ain't for Mr Richard's little allowance that passes through Captain Jack's hands. There ain't enough and I daresay it stops altogether if he's supposed to be in an asylum.'

  Dismissing Adam Jump and taking Elaine with them, the two sergeants retraced their steps towards Trafalgar Street and the train for London Bridge. As Verity chose a carriage, Samson escorted the girl to the refreshment room. The pair reappeared just in time to catch the train but not in time to reach Verity's carriage. With a shrug of resignation he heard them in the next compartment to his own. He tried to concentrate his thoughts upon Richard Jervis and John Ransome, upon the seemingly pointless compromising of the dead Lord Henry, and the charge of murder made against Lord William. From the other side of the wooden partition he was aware of the descending slither of cotton against female flesh, soft patting noises and the murmur of voices rising occasionally to audibility.

  'You got strong hips for a girl just starting off,' he heard Samson remark, 'but I'm partial, meself, to a girl what's big in the right places.'

  It was Verity's second meeting with Dr Jamieson, whom he had not seen since his preliminary inquiries into Lord Henry's death. But the atmosphere in the room with its partners' desk, Orleans clock and nymphs, the fine cabinets and the fire burning in the grate, was entirely changed. Dr Jamieson's meagre jowls and watering eyes expressed an incalculable weariness and melancholy. He had even invited Verity to take a chair opposite to him.

  'Sir,' said Verity gently, 'I must have the truth this time, all of it. There's a man's life in peril, the law's already been broke, and if you was to conceal matters now, you might soon be accessory to the most serious crime of all.'

  Jamieson nodded, as though he understood all this, and Verity resumed.

  "The picture Miss Elaine gave of the so-called person Aldino, or Charley Wag, was shown to other girls that had "seen" him after he was killed. It was Captain Ransome in every case. And it was 'im that got the blackmail letter written to Lord 'enry, though his lordship was already dead.’

  Jamieson sighed.

  'No, sergeant. The girl wrote the letter, as you describe it, to the man who lost that ring in the struggle when he was put into the sea. It was not Lord Henry's ring but Mr Richard's.’

  'See. sir.'

  'I very much doubt that you do. Mr Richard was a subaltern with his regiment in 1852, shipped on the Birkenhead for the Cape. The truth of what happened has long been known to his brothers and I, as their physician. We knew it from his ravings and his nightmares, waking and sleeping, in the months after he was found. He was picked up after he had been carried shoreward clinging to a timber for support. The hours of cold and the battering of the reef had done such damage to the nerves of his body that he was never to feel, let alone use, his legs again. He had been struck a fearful blow on his spine, perhaps as he was being put into the sea. If he was a coward, sergeant, he paid dear enough for it. Ransome put the letter in Lord Henry's bureau to stop your inquiry.’

  'Very sorry I am to hear it, sir.'

  'The injury to his mind was worse than the damage to his body. He was possessed by hatred of his would-be murderers. Lord Henry was a loving brother to him but Lord William never forgave the cowardice. For nearly two years, from 1853 until 1855, Mr Richard was confined in a private sanatorium. In 1855 he was judged recovered enough to return home and, in time, Captain Ransome was employed to care for him, a comrade from his old regiment. And still the secret was kept. But who knows what ravings Ransome may have heard and how long he may have searched for the girl who had the ring and could tell her tale! Lord William thought Ransome a bluff honest fellow but I never held him in much esteem. He fed Mr Richard's obsession, till that young man loved Lord Henry and hated Lord William as his deadliest enemy.'

  'And he charges Lord William with Lord Henry's murder, sir,' said Verity solemnly.

  Jamieson shook his head again.

  "Impossible. I was with Lord William and Captain Loosemore for ten minutes before the fatal shot, and when it was fired, and while we ran together towards Lord Henry's body.'

  'However, sir,' said Verity persistently, 'Mr Richard says he saw it with his own eyes.' Jamieson sniffed sceptically.

  'And he said more often still, sergeant, that Captain Ransome was his eyes, ears and legs. If Ransome told him that he had seen Lord William shoot Lord Henry, Richard Jervis would regard it as the evidence of his own eyes.'

  The Orleans clock chimed in a tiny silvery sequence.

  'Someone shot Lord Henry, however,' said Verity, hoping not to provoke Jamieson's professional hostility, 'with a rifle bullet wadded into a shotgun. It ain't no disrespect to you, sir, that you didn't see it first off. It was done with great cunning.'

  'And who do you suppose did it?' asked Jamieson, unconvinced.

  'Well, sir, you, Lord William and Mr Loosemore swear each other's innocence. The two clergymen likewise. Mr Rumer and the beaters was all in one place. That leaves Mr Richard and Captain Ransome. But Mr Richard ain't likely to shoot the brother he loved more than any other creature. So that leaves Captain Jack for number one, sir. Though I ain't clear why.'

  Dr Jamieson said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world,

&nb
sp; 'Shoot Lord Henry and foster Mr Richard's hatred against Lord William. Come to me, as Ransome did, urging that Mr Richard be confined again. Send another wretch into confinement, make off with Mr Richard and use him to accomplish the destruction of Lord William for a murder he never committed. Mr Richard, though lunatic, is heir to the Jervis lands but with Jack Ransome holding his purse. Arrange the transfer of the supposed Richard Jervis from one asylum to another, as a Chancery lunatic. It is the unknown wretch who leaves the first place, but it is the real Richard Jervis who enters the second, certified as irremediably insane. He is lost to the world forever, leaving Honest Jack Ransome as controller of the Jervis estates.'

  'Why!' said Verity. 'Why, sir! You might be commander of the whole detective police with such an eye for a dodge as that!'

  Jamieson shrugged,

  'An eye for the laws of lunacy, sergeant, their use and abuse. God knows I have seen enough of it in my time.'

  'Only thing is, sir, the dodge won't work. So soon as ever Lord William was brought to trial for killing Lord Henry, your evidence of being with him would set him free.'

  'A man may be destroyed without trial, sergeant. Richard Jervis employed you, under Captain Ransome's advice. But every item of evidence, as Ransome arranged it, confirmed either accident or even suicide as the cause of Lord Henry's death. Who is to say what means of despatch might be found for Lord William? Mr Richard would no doubt prefer to see him drowned than hanged.'

  "ow's that, sir?'

  'In his raving, Richard Jervis heard how Lord William sneered at him as a coward for concealing himself among the women in the boat and he swore that nothing would please him better than to see his brother suffer as he had done during his time in the water, and die as he had nearly done.'

  'In which case, sir,' said Verity, getting to his feet, 'Lord William had best be told everything at once, for his own protection.'

  Jamieson laughed.

  'I hardly think you need concern yourself for his protection as yet. He is on board HMS Hero for the gunnery trials, off Plymouth. There are ninety-one guns, a full crew, and a detachment of Royal Marines with him. I cannot suppose that Richard Jervis and Captain Ransome will come close enough to harm him there!'

  'No, sir. Just so, sir,' said Verity tactfully and prepared to take his leave. At the door he turned a last time to Jamieson. 'Sir, you having seen such abuses of the law over poor lunatics, if you was asked to examine a man locked away but what was in all probability sane . . . if you was asked, might you be prepared to do it, sir? I shouldn't forget the favour easy.'

  'Call on me for the service at any time,' said Jamieson gruffly, and the interview ended.

  Verity, stiff at attention, heard Inspector Croaker pacing the carpet somewhere behind him.

  'Your instructions are plain enough, sergeant, aren't they?'

  'Sir?'

  'You will proceed to Plymouth by third-class rail. You will meet HMS Hero at the dockyard on her return from gunnery trials, and you will deliver to Captain Lord William Jervis a despatch from me in which I have minuted the details of the police investigation and the evidence which has been elicited by the officers under my command. When you have delivered it, you will return forthwith. Do you understand that?"

  'Sir!'

  'You will not indulge in any heroics or sorties of your own, exhibitions of the sort by which you made yourself and your colleagues ridiculous in India. You will carry out your orders to the letter and I have the word of the commissioner himself that should you deviate one inch from them, your dismissal will follow at once.'

  'Sir!'

  'Finally, sergeant, you are to be accompanied by your colleague. Sergeant Samson. His business in Plymouth is nothing to do with you, and yours is nothing to do with him. You will neither seek nor divulge details in respect of your two assignments. Just see that Lord William is warned of his brother and Captain Ransome. And see to it that he receives the warning in the form of my despatch!' 'Sir!'

  'And don't try boxing clever, damn you!' 'No, sir.'

  4

  THE TEETH OF THE WOLF

  'A constabulary officer ain't nothing,' said Samson gently, 'not but what he ain't got discretion.'

  He had pronounced the same judgment, with slight variations, a score of times during the day and a night in the third-class compartment of the train which had brought Verity and himself from London to Plymouth. Every time that Verity shifted on the hard wooden seat and tried some new approach in his endeavour to find out why Samson had simultaneously been sent to Plymouth, Samson remained unmoved.

  'When a man gets employed on a 'igher class of duties, Mr Verity, it's best they ain't talked of.'

  The two sergeants had just crossed the Stonehouse Bridge, striding towards the dockyard wall. The scattered quadrangle of the Royal Naval Hospital lay on the bank of the Tamar behind them. On the glittering water of Plymouth Sound, twenty or thirty warships rode at anchor. Their hulls, with rows of square ports along either side for the guns, had altered little since the broad wooden battleships of Nelson's fleet. But between the masts, whose white canvas shrouds were tightly reefed in the anchorage, each vessel showed a squat black funnel amidships. Here and there, the relics of a previous age, a large-rigged sloop and an old bomb-ketch, lay rotting on the mud of the shallows. Across the cobbled street, several luggers, made fast to the piles of a jetty, served as bum-boats to the fleet.

  Leaving Samson at the gate, Verity showed his warrant-card and was admitted to the dockyard as a visitor to the Master's office. Once beyond the dockyard wall, he entered a world of rowdy and varied activity. On the slipways beyond the harbour basin of Hamoaze, three battleships were in differing stages of construction, surrounded by bustling timber-wharves and the metallic din of smithies. As a precaution against Fire, many of the buildings were of iron, so that the noise rang still more loudly from the rigging-houses, sail-lofts, hemp magazines and the spinning-house for ship's ropes.

  At the Dockyard Master's office, Verity checked the progress of the Hero. The ship had been at sea for two days on her gunnery trials. The trials would be completed on the following day. The ship would enter the Sound somewhen after midnight, and would dock later that morning.

  It seemed a matter of mere routine as Verity began to walk back to the gate. Then he paused. To one side of him, where there was an open space beside the quays, he heard the sharp words of parade-ground command and the piping of a Royal Marine band. 'Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men. . . .’ He walked more slowly. The tune ended. An officer's voice, hoarse with exertion, roared out, 'General salute! Pre-e-sent arms!' Slow and subdued at first, but rising midway to a blare of trumpets, came the notes of the Anthem.

  No one was watching him. He turned back and strolled towards the jetties where several ships which had recently been dry-docked were now taking on stores. On the deck of a frigate he spotted the bosun supervising the caulking of the decks by an unfortunate rating. The bosun's hair was done in ringlets, his brilliant white shirt-collar so high that it almost touched his cheekbones, and his keen eyes followed every movement of the seaman's. In his hand he carried the traditional 'persuader', three rattan canes twisted into one. He was yapping at the sailor in a sharp monotonous voice.

  'You are spilling tar upon the deck, sir! A deck, sir, I had the duty of seeing holy-stoned this morning! You have defiled Her Majesty's fo'csle, sir! If you neglect your duty, then by God I must remember mine! Take that! And that! Will you not hold that bucket steady, you yelping, half-starved abortion!' He paused, as though belatedly aware of an intruder, and turned with a look of ill-tempered apology to Verity. 'You must excuse me, sir. The service makes brutes of us all. In my responsible situation, I am too often obliged to sacrifice my gentility. Your servant, sir.’

  He performed an awkward little bow.

  'Might you,' said Verity nervously, 'might you, bosun, have an idea when the guard of honour is to parade for HMS Hero?'

  "The day after tomorrow, s
ir,' said the bosun sharply, 'Every man must know that. A fine ship, sir. Sent to shoot between Scilly and the Lizard, previous to crossing to America. If you choose not to wait for her return, why, you may watch the guard and hear the band now, for they have been at practice since early morning.'

  Verity thanked him and turned away, a gleam of triumph in his eyes. The bosun returned to the pig-tailed sailor, his voice rising to a scream that was almost feminine in its shrillness.

  'Spill one more drop from that bucket, sir, and you shall make the acquaintance of my swiving deck with your swiving tongue! Every inch, damn you, sir!'

  Settling his frock-coat more firmly on his shoulders and patting Inspector Croaker's despatch in its sealed envelope, Verity returned to find Samson reading a printed bill. It was a warning to literate seamen of the disagreeable contagious diseases in store for the careless philanderer.

  'All right?' said Samson innocently. 'Told yer all about when Lord William and the Hero docks, did they?'

  Verity stared at him, and Samson laughed.

  'Ain't hard to work it out, my son. You been sent here to tell Lord William that he's in peril of his life from Mr Richard and Captain Jack. You ain't quite got the art of concealing confidences. Takes a bit of learning.'

  Verity beckoned his companion to the open gate.

  'Mr Samson, 'ave the goodness to listen.'

  As they stood there, the hoarse command echoed across the parade-ground again.

  'Royal salutel Present. . . .’

  'Mr Samson,' he said kindly, 'it ain't your fault you couldn't keep the secret. When there's royal salutes being practised by a guard of men that's to meet the Hero, a man don't have to be a detective officer to add it all up. Especially when the world knows that the young Prince is to be sent to America in a few weeks more and that the Hero is the ship to take him. Only natural he should want to visit her first. When she docks the day after tomorrow, you'll just be escort to Windsor or St James', I daresay.'