Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob.

by Francis Selwyn

  'Left Jack Strap. . . snuff 'em. . . too late.'

  'No, Joe, no! Where are they?'

  In his desperation Verity could almost have shaken the dying man. 'Snuffed,' said the silent lips. 'Where?’

  This time the voice broke into a harsh crackle. 'Brunswick Square.

  'They can't be, Joe. The law's there. In the house and out.'

  The lips moved again.

  'Trains.'

  'Trains?'

  And then, though the lips were still, Verity understood. 'Drains!'

  He wanted to thank the little spiderman, promise him that Jane Midge should be safe after all. But Stunning Joe

  O'Meara had received all the thanks and promises he ever would. Verity stood up and strode towards the daylight at last.

  He was in a long cutting, the tunnel entrance in sooty, yellow brick rising like a second castle with the signalman's lodge above it. The folds of the Sussex downs, now wild and open, rose beyond the trees on either side. Verity found the flight of steps which led from the tunnel mouth to the field above. He climbed them, crossed the bridge and came to a little village with an old church, a tavern and a dozen cottages. The idlers had begun to gather already, drawn by the gangers and officials hurrying down the embankment. Beyond these was a boy in a pony-cart. Verity approached him.

  'Right, my son! I'm a private-clothes officer. Scotland Yard. You have me in Brighton by ten o'clock and these two sovs is yours!'

  21

  'C'mon, Stringfellow!' said Verity urgently. 'That horse of yours must be able to go faster 'n this!'

  Between the shafts of the yellow hackney coach Lightning moved in his elderly shambling gait. Stringfellow snarled at the animal and Lightning laid back his ears, as if to return the threat, then resumed a sedate progress down Western Road. Verity had stopped long enough at Tidy Street to dismiss the boy with the cart and put on his best frock-coat over the torn and blackened shirt. The old cabman whimpered with frustration and the growing fear for his missing daughter.

  'Can't be Brunswick Square!' he wailed to Verity, beside him on the box of the coach. 'How can it?'

  Verity gestured furiously at the horse as if to shoo it forward.

  'I dunno, Stringfellow. I dunno how it can be. All I do know is that Joe O'Meara said as much with his dying words. A man like that don't deceive. Not when the parties have taken his own young person, Jane Midge. Not when he's killed himself to be even with them.'

  They turned at last into Brunswick Place and came out into the square itself with the sea stretching peacefully beyond it. It was a scene of great tranquillity, not a sign of movement near the tall white houses except where Sergeant Albert Samson stood like a sentry at the door of the corner building. Verity got down from the box and called back to the cabman.

  'Go to the station, Stringfellow! They'll have stopped the first train beyond Clayton and I daresay Jolly’ll be fetched back with the rest. Bring her here quick as you know how. I gotta have another pair o' hands.'

  'I got hands!' roared Stringfellow.

  'All right,' said Verity more gently, "but you ain't small enough to be put through windows like her. Go on, Stringfellow! Fetch her for Miss Bella's sake.'

  With consternation still visible in his face, the old man rattled the harness and Lightning ambled off down the elegant Georgian vista. Verity marched determinedly towards his colleague, Sergeant Samson, and stood glowering before him. Under the tall private-clothes hat, Samson's face reddened beneath its luxuriant ginger whiskers.

  'Go away, Verity!' he said indignantly. 'You got no business to speak to me on duty! Go away 'fore bloody Croaker comes round!'

  'Mrs Verity and a young person is held prisoner in that house, Mr Samson. Jack Strap's been left to murder 'em both!' In his fear for Bella, Verity's voice rose to a shrill plea for help.

  'Look,' said Samson reasonably. 'I was happy in London, what with Croaker and your mob in Brighton. Things was easy and peaceful. Me and Fat Maudie was having a bit of a time. Then you have to get yerself suspended and I’mm sent for to stand like a bloody Haymarket doxy outside someone's front door. You done enough damage, my son. Go away!'

  Verity was appalled to realise that Samson had not the least idea of what had been going on.

  'Listen,' he said. 'Mrs Verity been taken away by Sealskin Kite's men. Kite's dead an hour since. So's Old Mole. And so's Stunning Joe O'Meara what was s'posed to be buried off Portland but been walking round alive for a month since.'

  Samson's eyes scanned Verity's face, as if for some sign of lunacy or deep deception.

  'With his dying words O'Meara swore that his young person, Jane Midge, and Mrs Verity is prisoner here in Brunswick Square. Jack Strap was left behind by Kite to murder 'em both. And in case you don't believe me even now, Joe O'Meara give this to me!'

  From the capacious pocket of his frock-coat, Verity drew the jewelled length of the Shah Jehan clasp. Samson looked at it, stupified for a moment, and then recovered his wits.

  'Gimme that!' he squealed indignantly. 'That's stolen property!'

  Verity took a step or two backward, dangling the green and crimson stones tantalisingly before his colleague.

  'Not without I see the inside of that house!'

  He expected Samson to lunge after him. Instead Samson stepped up to the front door of the house where Cosima Bremer had been found dead. He knocked loudly. Presently the door opened and Constable Meiklejohn's face appeared.

  'Who's in there, Meiklejohn?' Samson asked loudly, for Verity's benefit.

  'Me and Constable Betteridge,' said Meiklejohn. 'Why?'

  'You been in every room and cellar today, same as usual?'

  'Course we have, Mr Samson. Why?'

  'You seen Jack Strap murdering a pair o' young persons?' Meikiejohn's face creased with incomprehension. Samson turned to Verity.

  'See? And don't tell me now it was some other house in the square after all, 'cos the rest is all occupied by persons of the first quality that's lived here for years. Now, give me that jool and then go away!'

  Verity continued to glower.

  'What's all this, then, Mr Samson?' said Meiklejohn peevishly from the doorway.

  'Nothing,' said Samson sharply. 'Go back inside.'

  The door closed and Samson turned again to Verity.

  'Happy now, are yer? Let's have that jool!'

  'When I seen the drains,' said Verity defiantly.

  'Drains?' Samson looked at him dumbfounded. 'This bleeding sea air done something to your head, my son! When you seen the drains? Why?'

  'Stunning Joe swore as he died that Jack Strap and the two young persons was down in the drains.'

  'And you believed 'im?' Samson assumed the sympathy of a visitor towards a patient in an insane asylum, 'Jack Strap ain't in any drain. Come to that, Jack Strap ain't in Brunswick Square. Me and Meiklejohn been watching, turn and turn about. Two suffering days and nights. Let's have that jool off yer. Then go 'ome and see if Mrs V. don't come back of her own sweet accord. All right?'

  'No,' said Verity stubbornly. 'I see down the drain first. Then you get the jool.'

  Sergeant Samson sighed. In common with Constable Meiklejohn he sought only the simple things of life: a snug billet; Mr Croaker off his back; a bit of a time with Fat Maudie. The flushed stalwart figure of Verity now stood between.him and all these things.

  'All right,' he said, 'suit yerself then. See the beastly drains.'

  He glanced down into the basement area and led the way

  there. A little distance beyond the kitchen door there was an iron manhole cover about twelve inches across. He got his fingers under the edge and heaved it back with a heavy clang.

  'The drains,' he said. 'All right? I couldn't get down there. You couldn't get down there. Let alone a hulking bully like Jack Strap.'

  Verity peered into the darkness. But Samson was right. He doubted if the opening would even admit Bella, however willingly she had submitted to the indignity. Samson let the round iron cover
fall back into place.

  'You ain't half a caution, old chum. Now, let's 'ave that jool safe and snug.'

  Verity handed over the glowing gems of the clasp. The two men went up to the pavement again. He turned to Samson, as if for a last word. But Samson had drawn himself up piously to attention. He spoke from the corner of his mouth.

  'Watch yerself, Verity!'

  Verity turned, almost expecting to see Inspector Croaker behind him. It was only Madame Rosa, the tall imperious figure in black, thrusting towards the steps of the Brunswick Academy next door. Verity waited until she had gone inside.

  'Stunning Joe never lied to me, Mr Samson. I know what a liar is!'

  'Verity!' Samson pleaded. 'Go away! Bloody Croaker's due on his rounds any time now.'

  'Brunswick Square, he said, Mr Samson. Not an hour since.'

  'Go away!'

  He left Samson to his guard and walked away towards the sea, puzzling out the design of sewers. All the houses had the same iron drain-cover in their basement areas. Evidendy they ran into a common culvert somewhere under the pavement. And where would that go? From the slight incline, he guessed that it must run down towards the sea. Probably into the sea. He walked to the promenade, leant over the rails, and saw an iron pipe about eighteen inches across. It ran low beside a wooden groin to an outfall at the level of low tide. The outfall was covered by water just then.

  So there was a sewer and storm-drain running under Brunswick Square. It must be one of the main arteries of the Brighton sewer system by the time that it came this close to the sea. It would be properly lined with brick and that meant that it had to be maintained. A man would hardly crawl up the outlet pipe from the mark of low tide. There was another opening. There had to be.

  Verity crossed back to the square and found it easily enough. It was a large round of iron set into the pavement at the corner of the houses and Brunswick Lawns. Although the iron was heavy he succeeded in lifting it and laying it back on the stone. A small crowd gathered.

  'Crack in the wall of the drain,' he said hopefully. 'Nothing to concern yerselves about. Company business. That's all.'

  He swung down into the blackness and found the iron staples which offered a rough ladder. A stream of water rippled a dozen feet below. He lowered himself until he was standing in it, darkness everywhere except from the shaft overhead. It was just possible to make out the brickwork arch of the drain, about four foot high and wide enough for a man to make his way through so long as he could go forward at a stoop. In his pocket there was a box of lucifers. He struck the first and felt for the other tool which he had snatched up in Tidy Street: a candle-end from beside his bed.

  It was like an obscene parody of the ordeal in Clayton tunnel. As the candle cast its uncertain light on the low brick curve of the drain, he sloshed his way through the evil stench of the stream running round his boots. On his left, at regular intervals, were the twelve-inch outlet pipes from the individual houses. He tried to count them, as if to determine when he reached the corner at which Samson stood. But it hardly seemed to matter. No one in his senses could believe that Jack Strap was down here with a pair of captive girls.

  And at that moment he saw her body. The shape was indistinct at first, something long and dark floating half above the stream. By accident, it seemed, the corpse was wedged across the drain, as if destined to remain there until it had decomposed and the bones had fallen into dust. Verity gave a hopeless cry and floundered on. Presently he stood over her and the anguish gave way to nausea. He turned back and stumbled towards the manhole through which he had dropped down ten minutes before. The candle fluttered and went out but that was unimportant now. He could see the grey gleam of light and he was there in a few moments more. Pulling himself up he stood blinded for an instant in the glare of sunlight. Then, his boots wet and his clothes soiled, he strode up the square to Sergeant Samson.

  'You gotta lantern, Mr Samson?'

  There was a new determination in Verity's features which caused visible unease to his colleague.

  'Meiklejohn got one inside I daresay. Why?'

  'Cos there's a body under your feet, Mr Samson. That's why.'

  Samson looked aghast. 'Never Mrs Verity?'

  'No, Mr Samson, but it might well be for all the notice you took.' 'Who, then?'

  'The late Madame Rosa of the Brunswick Academy,' said Verity grandly. Samson's face relaxed.

  'Thank Gawd for that!' he said sincerely. 'I thought you was serious for a moment.'

  Then he looked at Verity's face again and his tone changed.

  'Now you see here, Verity. I had about enough of all this. Joe O'Meara what's been buried a month is walking the streets and catching trains to London. Madame Rosa what passed you and me a few minutes since has actually been dead in the drain for the last week. Anything else?'

  'Yes,' said Verity quietly. 'You ever seen Madame Rosa's face, with her veil lifted?'

  'No,' said Samson defensively. ' 'ow should I?'

  'I once had occasion to see her unveiled, Mr Samson. And I just seen her again. Down there. Now, get a lantern.'

  Self-consciously, Samson knocked on the door and spoke to Meiklejohn. The constable went in and reappeared pres-endy with a bull's-eye lantern.

  'Right,' said Samson. 'Meiklejohn, you stand guard outside this door and don't flutter a bleeding eyelid till I get back. See?'

  ' 'ere, sarge! I was on all last night, 's me turn for kip now!' 'Stand 'ere!'

  Samson removed his hat and his dark frock-coat. Then the two sergeants set off down Brunswick Square towards the open cover of the main sewer. Verity led the way down, taking the lantern and shining its yellow oil-light along the wet brickwork ahead of them.

  'Now,' he said at last. 'Take a good look.'

  'How can I say?' pleaded Samson. 'T never saw her face before.'

  'But you have seen a dead body, I s'pose?' Verity snapped. 'And you got sufficient acquaintance with the law to know that murder ain't encouraged by the authorities?'

  But even in the thin light of the lantern, Samson's face was radiant with optimism.

  ''s all right!' he gasped. 'Can't be Madame Rosa. Can't be anyone from round here! Look at them pipes from the houses! You'd never get a body through one of those. She's been swept down by storm water from miles away.'

  Verity snorted derisively. He beckoned Samson onward. They stepped over the body of the old woman and Verity played the lantern on the brickwork of the wall ahead of them. Something was visibly wrong. At first it seemed that part of the roof of the low tunnel had fallen in. Then, as they approached it was clear that several of the bricks round one of the pipes leading from a house drain had been knocked out. The resulting breach in the wall was about two feet across, quite enough to launch the woman's body on its last journey.

  'C'mon!' whispered Verity. He was leading the way through the gap into the chamber beyond. It was tall and narrow with a thin circle of light round the edges of an iron cover above. They were now beneath the basement area of one of the houses.

  Ahead of them the domestic culvert ran into the foundations of the house itself, under the kitchen floor presumably. Here too the brickwork had been disturbed. Though the bricks themselves had been replaced it was easy enough to lift them out, revealing a gap big enough to admit a man's body under the basement floor. There was a space under the joists and boards in this case, sloping like the square outside. At the higher end the builders' rubble and broken bricks lay piled up almost to the level of the floorboards. At the other extreme there was a cavity about four feet high against the foundation wall of the adjoining house.

  Daylight shone through occasional cracks in the walls. As Verity turned the lantern in a semi-circle he heard a sudden shuffling of stone and the squeak of rats. At the level of the foundations the partition wall between the two houses was pierced by a narrow gap at one end, as if to facilitate inspection of the premises by officials of the gas and water companies. Somewhere above him, then, there might be a conv
enient trapdoor or at least a place where the floorboards could be easily moved. He was so preoccupied in examining the joists and boards that he almost cried out with fright and disgust as his feet blundered into the soft fetid shape on the rubble.

  Disgust gave way to horror as the lamp showed him the blue embroidered band of Bella's crinoline. The dead face looked up at him. Surely, even the ravages of death could never have altered her to the swollen idiocy on which he now looked. He could think of this only as a stranger in Bella's clothes. Then, with Samson at his side, he found two floorboards so loosely nailed back into place that he could knock them up again with his clenched fist.

  The two men heaved themselves up into an unfamiliar kitchen. Its shape was approximately that of the Baron Lansing's, except that it occupied the entire basement area. Moving softly to the stairway, Verity pressed the latch and led the way up to the ground floor. It was a sparsely furnished house with none of the buhl and velvet which Cosima Bremer had enjoyed. However, there appeared to be a more sumptuous room on the first floor glimpsed through a half-open door. It was a woman's dressing-room and, as they drew closer, Verity could make out the tiny sounds of skirts being put on or off.

  There was no doubt that they were in the Brunswick Academy. Every glimpse from the windows confirmed the position of the house at the top of the square looking directly down towards the sea. The sergeants edged their way into the doorway, still unobserved. Verity stood there, fascinated by the figure before him.

  Madame Rosa's black bombazine was unmistakeable. But like the contrivance of a freak-show, there emerged from the bulky skirts and bodice a cropped and grizzled head. The pouched face was dusted with rouge and coarse with ill-shaven stubble. A wig with a veil attached lay on the table. It was Samson who recovered his wits first.

  'Oh dear, Jack Strap! Ain't you a pretty thing, though? 'f I'd a-seen you like this first off, why I don't s'pose I should've had a glance to spare for Miss Maudie!'

  Strap turned upon the two men with a roar. In a single gesture he ripped the skirts and bodice clear, standing in trousers and shift as if prepared for battle. He snatched up a chair by one leg and charged upon Verity, whirling the piece of furniture like a claymore. Verity sprang aside in time, but Jack Strap was upon Samson as the chair smashed harmlessly against the door. The bully seized Samson by a leg and an arm, lifted him and launched him horizontally through the air towards the window. There was a shattering of wood and a rending of curtains as a small occasional table broke Samson's fall. Shaking his head stupidly, he picked himself slowly out of the wreckage, while Strap turned upon Verity again.