'Stash yer gab!' he yapped in his harsh treble voice.
With Suitor groaning in despair as he supported himself over the counter, and his assistant wringing his hands in token of abject surrender, Little Billy and his ragged boys worked with great thoroughness along the pavement. Billy had finished the section of dummies which represented smiling young gentlemen and was now beginning on their stouter country cousins. The first of these was a plump effigy of a well-covered man in frock-coat and tall hat. Its round red face was ornamented by black moustaches, waxed at the tips, the black hair beneath the hat itself flattened for neatness.
Little Billy looked down to the button which held the frock-coat across the broad midriff. His nimble fingers began to free it. Then, to his dismay, the dummy's hand clamped itself like the collar of the pillory round the back of his neck. The effigy spoke.
'Right, my lad!' it said. 'You done your thieving for today!'
Billy attempted to struggle but he felt himself lifted bodily in a pair of brawny arms. Sergeant Verity, as though holding a mere baby, handed him to the uniformed figure of Constable Meiklejohn who now stepped out of the corner beyond the Emporium. Wrenching himself round in Meiklejohn's arms, Little Billy bawled a desperate warning to the other ragged boy who had been stripping the dummies with him.
'Run Todger! It's the bloody law!'
Todger looked up from his preoccupation with wrenching a pair of Sydenham trousers off the legs of an upturned wax figure. What he saw was the stalwart figure of Sergeant Verity, fixing him with a scowl of disapproval. And then Verity took a strange little stick from the capacious pocket of his private-clothes frock-coat. Attached to the stick was a flat square of wood. Still scowling, he raised the stick above his head, twirled the wood rapidly and set up a raucous grinding sound with it. Todger knew the sound only too well. Verity had sprung his rattle.
Dropping the bundle of Sydenham trousers, Todger sprinted away down Trafalgar Street like a champion, driving the rest of the human chain before him. Verity positioned himself, glowering, in the doorway of Mr Suitor's Emporium. His bulk effectively blocked the escape of the two ragged boys who had gone in there after their ball. One behind the other, they now charged at his belly with heads lowered.
What might have seemed like blubber proved to be solid muscle. The first boy appeared to bounce straight back, losing his footing and tripping over a bale of silk. The second one ran his nose and mouth against the hard base of Verity's palm as the sergeant handed him off. Both got to their feet, swaying dizzily from the impacts.
Without a word, Verity strode forward. He jerked the two youths upward by the scruffs of their necks, holding them off the floor. Next, as though they weighed nothing at all, he held each of them to one side of him at arm's length. Only then did his face grow a deeper red with exertion, as he brought the two dangling boys together. Their two heads, each bowed by the way he held them, met with a crack that was audible in the street outside. When he dropped them, they remained cowering on the floor. Verity took a step backward.
'Right, Constable Meiklejohn!' he called. 'In 'ere! Two sets o' handcuffs and a truncheon just for safety's sake.'
Leaving Meiklejohn to deal with the disorder in the shop itself, he went out into the street again. The last of Little Billy's human chain was disappearing round the corner of the side street, Todger bringing up the rear. It was precisely as he had expected, and he knew that he had sprung his rattle at the required moment. Just as Todger and the last of the young thieves reached the corner, they paused, jigged uncertainly on one leg for an instant, and then turned about. Todger and his followers were pelting back in a rout towards the Emporium. Their forearms worked like pistons in an effort to gain more speed.
The cause of this change in direction was not yet in sight, but Verity could hear the heavy boots of the uniformed men, whom he had positioned behind a door in Tidy Street. Six of them rounded the corner, stalwart figures in belted tunics with truncheons drawn. At Verity's call, he and Meiklejohn stepped into the roadway, cutting off the retreat of Todger and his companions.
After that it was almost routine. Several of the ragged boys stopped running and gave themselves up. Most of the rest had hesitated for too long on seeing Verity and Meiklejohn in their path. Before they could recover their wits, the uniformed men had overtaken them. With wrists handcuffed behind their backs, they stared dumbly at the scene of their defeat.
Only Todger fought on. He came towards Verity at a run, ducking and weaving, though avoiding the error of trying to knock his adversary down. Verity lunged at him, but Todger was under his arm and sprinting away up Trafalgar Street towards the dark iron bridge and the station. Within minutes he would be lost in the crowds, perhaps even on his way back to the Lambeth slums from which the gang had set out at dawn.
Verity and two uniformed men plodded after him up the hill. But Todger was far nimbler and had a good start.
'Stop, thief!' Verity bellowed after him. Todger was running along the pavement past the Emporium. As though to impede his pursuers still further, he was knocking down the wax dummies as he passed. Under the feet of Verity and his men, the slope of the street began to fill with rolling limbs and trunks.
All the dummies stripped by the thieves were down. Just ahead of Todger were those still displaying female fashions. The first of these was a striking example of portraiture. Its profile had the golden enigmatic beauty of Pharonic funeral sculpture, a fine arch of brows above expressionless eyes. The gloss of scented hair was drawn back in an elegant coiffure from the line of the forehead and nose. In casting the figure the artist had given it a straight back and narrow waist, of the best fashion, underemphasising the breasts and making the thighs firm and trim. His only erotic licence appeared to be in a certain tight cheekiness of the rump. The result was displayed in a linen blouse and a pair of close-fitting American riding trousers made of pale blue cotton.
Todger had no time to appreciate such details. He raced up the pavement, making no further effort to delay his pursuers by throwing down the models displayed. As he approached the female effigy, the beautiful eyes under their fine brows looked quickly in his direction and were still again almost at once. It was only when he sprinted past the warm-skinned figure that Miss Jolly thrust a neat foot between his own, and Todger went sprawling into the gutter.
Even then the hunt was not over. Picking himself up,
Todger pounded onward. If anything, his lead over Verity and the other officers was increasing. But Jolly was close behind him. Though the American riding trousers were tighter, they were better suited to running than skirts would have been. More to the point, Todger and his pursuers were far more winded than she. So long as she ran, as if walking, with a tight little swagger of her hips, the young thief would gain on her. Abandoning decorum, she began to stride out. After a few steps the shoddy stitching burst and the seam of the breeches opened with the rhythm of her steps in a smooth golden smile across the seat of the garments. The sun caught this warm silken texture of skin. By now even the uniformed men who had retired winded were taking heart once more. Open-mouthed and eager-eyed, they set off once again, racing after their youthful quarry.
It was not to be expected that the girl could match Todger's strength. Instead she kept pace just behind him, waiting keen-eyed as a cat for his first error of judgement. It came when his foot slipped backward on a cobble through sheer fatigue. He might have regained his balance, but Jolly was too quick for him. A deft two-handed push to one side sent Little Billy's lieutenant sprawling for the last time.
Ten minutes later the dark shape of the police van turned into Trafalgar Street from York Place. Verity had assembled Meiklejohn, the six other uniformed constables and Miss Jolly. Handcuffed and dejected, Little Billy, Todger and eight juvenile accomplices were put aboard the Black Maria. The six Brighton constables and Miss Jolly went with them, Verity and Meiklejohn walking behind.
Only then did the man who had watched the entire incident from the
dark tunnel of the iron bridge move from the shadows, walking in the opposite direction. A thoughtful scowl marked the set of his features. Contrary to this appearance, Old Mole was unusually pleased by the events which he had just witnessed.
• * *
Meiklejohn, like Verity, was an officer of the Private-Clothes Detail from Whitehall Police Office, Scotland Yard. He, too, had once been a sergeant. But then there had been an unfortunate matter of grievous bodily harm inflicted on a member of the public during a raid on a brothel in Langham Place. Thanks to the complaints of a tall blonde whore, Helen Jacoby, he was now a mere constable again. But in his private conversation with Verity, as they walked back through the warm Brighton streets, he showed an easy sense of equality.
'You sure it's right?' he asked for the twentieth time. 'Using a young bitch like Jolly? She's thieved, she's whored, she's perjured herself. If I was to pick myself a copper's nark, she'd be last in the list.'
Verity set his tall hat more firmly on his head, patted his moist cheeks with a spotted handkerchief and blew the ends of his moustaches with the effect of summer heat.
Trustworthy, Mr Meiklejohn,' he said smugly. 'I'd vouch for her — word and deed.'
He gave the dreamy smile of a high-flyer on seeing a sinner brought to redemption.
'P'raps you would,' said Meiklejohn sceptically,' 'cept she could have my neck in a rope as well as yours, if you happen to be wrong. What's she ever done but sing Queen's evidence a couple of times to save her own pretty skin?'
'Saw the error of her ways, Mr Meiklejohn,' said Verity firmly. 'Twice she gave information regarding Lieutenant Verney Dacre and his deeds of darkness. Railway gold robbery here and the matter o' the American mint in Philadelphia. That's repentance, Mr Meiklejohn!'
'Only when Mr Dacre tanned Miss Jolly's bare backside with his pony-switch!' said Meiklejohn sourly. 'Repentance be buggered!'
'All different now, Mr Meiklejohn. 's all different now.' 'Blessed if I see how.'
They passed under the cast-iron colonnade of the Theatre Royal in New Road, the oriental onion domes of the Royal Pavilion rising like a fairy palace beyond the lawns. Verity paused to read a theatre bill, advertising The Colleen Bawn. Then he turned magisterially to his companion.
'Law of 1838, Mr Meiklejohn. That's what's different.'
'Law of what?'
'Conditional pardon. That's what Jolly got for all her crimes. Means she don't serve time in gaol but commits herself to an institution for the reformation of offenders. But she got to stay there the rest of her sentence, keep its rules and take its punishments. Any running off or contrariness to her keepers and it's back to gaol again. The whole sentence begins again from the first day, as if she'd never started it. I think you'll find her trustworthy.'
'But Jolly ain't in an institution.'
'She was till a few weeks since.'
'Where?'
'Mrs Rouncewell’s Hygienic Steam Laundry, down Elephant and Casde. Old police-matron Rouncewell. Cor, the rules she got there!' Verity chortled at the enormity of it. 'Brimstone and birch-rod for sneezing out of tune! Sergeant Samson goes down one day and Jolly keeps on desperate to him. Swears she can't stand another seeing to from Ma Rouncewell. On her knees she begs to be took for a copper's nark if the justices 11 approve. And so she was. Mind you, Mrs R. took on something awful about it. Said she was just getting a taste for the little piece.'
'And you trust Jolly on account of all that?' Meiklejohn's freckled face was contorted with anxiety.
Verity chuckled again as they turned into Market Street, the summer tide sparkling beyond the fish-stalls.
'Not just that, Mr Meiklejohn. Mind you, one little naughtiness and it's back to the female penitentiary at Millbank to start her time again from the first day. But there's more, o' course. When robbery is prevented or goods recovered, like today, shops and insurance companies can be unaccountable generous. You and me can't take such rewards, being officers of the law. But Jolly can. I saw Mr Suitor slip her a guinea or two this morning.'
'I saw him slip a hand in them riding trousers of hers,' said Meiklejohn sceptically. Verity ignored the innuendo.
'Reward hunter,' he said smugly. 'Copper's nark and reward hunter. That's Miss Jolly from now on. She ain't no cause to kick against the pricks.'
'Do what?
Verity stopped in mid-stride and glowered at his companion.
'Mr Meiklejohn, you ain't a Scripture-read man, o' course. Nor you ain't a man that studies much at all. All things considered, there's a lot you might do to improve yer mind!'
And then, seeing that they were almost at the Town Hall, where the detail was based, he strode forward with military precision, eyes glaring and fists swinging shoulder-high, like the soldier he had once been.
The day ended quite as well as it had begun. Verity and Jolly were walking separately along Kings Road, as though unknown to one another. In her pink silk dress the straight-backed beauty moved with her habitual tight little swagger. To one side of them, beyond the promenade rail, the bottle-green afternoon sea rolled towards the graceful ironwork of the Chain Pier and the pale cliffs beyond. Ahead of them walked a tall, pale man, dressed in an expensive black suit with a mourning-band round his silk hat. Under the hat brim there was a glimpse of crisp blond curls. He turned the corner into Ship Street, and Jolly followed him.
By the time that Verity reached the corner, the young man had disappeared. But Jolly was standing helpfully outside number 34, the shop of Mr Ellis, whose board advertised Romford Ales and Golden Sherry. Verity hurried down the street and peered through the window. The young man had made his purchase, a bottle had been wrapped for him, and he was about to pay. It was time to enter the premises. Verity, with the girl behind him, pushed open the door and stood back from the wooden counter as if waiting his turn.
The young gentleman handed a gold sovereign to the shopman who, as a matter of habit, spun it on the wooden counter to see that it rang true. Satisfied, he dropped it in the till, then counted out the change: a half sovereign, which he also spun for the customer's satisfaction, and eight shillings in silver. The young gentleman was about to pocket the money when he seemed to have second thoughts. He handed back the half sovereign to the shopman.
'Let me have silver,' he said airily. There's a good fellow.'
The shopman took the half sovereign and counted out ten shillings in change. Verity stepped forward.
'Oh dear, oh dear, Mary Ann! You done it this time, ain't yer?'
The young gentleman spun round and the shopman looked up uncomprehendingly.
''s all right,' said Verity to the man behind the counter. 'He's called Mary Ann up and down Haymarket. 'Cos of his way of walking and all that. He just caught you with the old twining dodge, sir.'
He showed his warrant-card to the shopman, who shook his head dumbly, the plump comfortable jowls shaking like dewlaps. Mary Ann began to move his hand to his pocket but Miss Jolly was too quick with him. With a dark avaricious gleam in her eyes she sprang forward and sank her neat little teeth into the fleshy junction of forefinger and thumb. A half sovereign fell to the floor as Mary Ann gave a shrill cry and his silk hat tumbled off.
'Cross-eyed little trollop!'
'Oh dear, oh dear,' said Verity humorously. He stooped to pick up the fallen coin, still barring Mary Ann's path to the shop door. 'P'raps, sir, you'd have the goodness to spin your half-sov on that counter again.'
The shopman dropped the little coin which now made a dull wooden sound.
'It's different!' he said with plump astonishment.
Verity chuckled again.
'Course it is, sir. That's the twining dodge! Mary Ann comes in with a real sov and a dud half-sov in his palm. You give him change for the sov including a real half-sov. He thinks better of it, asks you for silver, hands you back your own half-sov. You don't try it to see if it rings true. Why should you? You only just give it him yourself. Only, o' course, it ain't your coin but the dud that he's had in his
palm. Right then, Mary Ann, p'raps well just try your size in bracelets, shall we?'
The shopman took in Verity's explanation slowly as the handcuffs went on the young man's wrists.
'I never heard of such a thing!' he said indignantly.
'You have now, sir,' said Verity reassuringly. There's a dozen other shops in Brighton reported slum coins being passed in the last couple of days. Being from London, I twigged it as Mary Ann's little caper. He's down here for the races really — or was — that's when he passes them by the hundred. He was just keeping in practice with you. Wasn't you, Mary Ann?'
He clapped the silk hat back on the young man's shaken curls. The shopman came round the counter, the full extent of his obligation clear to him at last. He grasped Verity's hand.
'My dear sir!' he said clutching the hand tighter. 'I am most inexpressibly indebted to you and to this dear brave young lady!'
From the shadows of the counter, Miss Jolly's odalisque eyes watched him with feline expectancy.
'Whatever I may do in return,' the shopman continued earnestly, 'only name it!'
'Nothing for me, sir,' said Verity firmly. 'A man ain't to be rewarded for doing his duty. However, I shall leave that young woman to your own generous instincts.'
‘Who has destituted herself in the cause of justice,' said Jolly's lilting soprano from the counter.
The shopman returned to his till. His plump hand descended on Miss Jolly's nimble fingers with a chink of coin. He coloured self-consciously as he whispered quickly into her ear. Verity marched the tall pale figure of Mary Ann out into the street.
As the culprit and escort disappeared toward the Market Street lock-up, Old Mole turned from his furtive contemplation of the Ship Street vintners. In the sallow face the yellowed mouth now hung open in an almost dog-like expression of good humour. At the turning into Kings Road he so far forgot himself as to drop sixpence into the hands of a little beggar-girl who had come up from her knot of companions on the warm shingle.
Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. Page 3
