SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments

by Francis Selwyn

  '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.

  'Pray God you bring my brother's murderer to justice, sergeant, or there shall go back such a report to your inspectors as shall live with you and them the rest of your days!'

  'Evidence is evidence, sir, and accidents is accidents,' said Verity softly, rocking a little on his heels.

  'What do you know of accidents, Mr Verity?'

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

  'Do you not? Then I must lead you. You will no doubt have heard that I sit here, a man with half a body, because of what they call a hunting accident.'

  'I 'ave understood so, sir, and very sorry I am it should be so.'

  Jervis slapped his hand on the table.

  'No, sergeant, you have not understood. I see the hunters in my mind as clearly as I see you now. I see them close upon me, the devil masks of hate. Even in my dead limbs I feel the blows. Can you imagine, Mr Verity, what it is to feel blow after blow and to know that each one is doing such damage to your body that can never be mended?'

  Verity was aghast, his face creased with incredulity.

  'I 'ope to God, sir, you don't mean you was maimed deliberate?'

  'What else should I mean, sergeant? Don't I make it plain?'

  'But the villains that did it, sir? Who might they be, and why never brought to account for what they'd done?'

  'Their faces were changed to devil-masks, Mr Verity. I could not name them. It is many years ago and it may be that some of them are now dead. But those who killed my brother are not dead.'

  'You don't suspect the same persons, sir?'

  Richard Jervis sniffed and said in his most level tone,

  "There is a curse upon our house, it seems.'

  He became silent, sitting in deep thought, as though no longer aware of Verity's presence.

  'Sir,' said Verity gently, 'I must have evidence. The villains that 'armed you, them that you say made away with Lord Henry Jervis, I can't touch 'em without evidence.'

  'Justice,' said Jervis flatly, 'vengeance. What of that?'

  'It goes on evidence, sir. It must do.'

  'And where there is no evidence, the evil man must go free?'

  'Yessir. But there always is evidence, sir.'

  Richard Jervis slapped his hand upon the table again.

  'Then, by God, sergeant, you shall have evidence enough. There shall be nothing in this house or this family hidden from your eyes. You will go first to Bole Wa
rren and examine the scene of Lord Henry's death. I will instruct the gunmaker who testified at the inquest to make his evidence and the gun available to you. My late brother's physician, Dr Jamieson of Burlington Street, shall answer your questions upon the medical evidence. He was with the shooting party at Bole Warren when my brother met his death. My brother's private apartment in this house has not been opened since the inquest. You will be given access to it, and you will search the contents.'

  'Search 'is private things, sir?' asked Verity in some alarm.

  Richard Jervis' mouth twisted slightly.

  'I am not interested in repeating the mistakes of the previous investigation, Mr Verity. Your inquiry is to be complete. You will act on my instructions and my authority. If it is at any time suggested to you that there is something you had best leave alone, that is the very thing you will examine most diligently. Do you understand your instructions?'

  'Yessir. Being as the weather might turn to rain, sir, I shall make it my business to see the place where it 'appened first off, sir.'

  'Good,' said Jervis. 'See it done tomorrow.'

  Verity's tone indicated a change of topic.

  "ave the honour to request, sir, 'ow I may stand with regard to Captain Ransome. It ain't my business, of course, who may be your valet, sir, but he does have a certain reputation.'

  Jervis nodded.

  'I take people as I find them, sergeant. Jack Ransome was .a brave soldier who met with ill fortune. I do not employ him in any confidential manner but merely as my servant.'

  'See, sir,' said Verity, relieved.

  'However,' said Jervis, 'Jack Ransome owes you some explanation, which he now makes through me. His dealings with the person Aldino, which you came upon, were not the result of Aldino attempting to blackmail him.'

  'No, sir,' said Verity, 'didn't see 'ow they could be, Captain Ransome not being of enough substance to satisfy Aldino.'

  'No,' said Jervis. 'Jack Ransome had gone on the part of a brother officer to obtain compromising material held by Aldino or his associates.'

  'Ah,' said Verity with soft satisfaction, 'that was it then! And 'oo might this brother officer be?'

  'Captain Ransome will not tell me, Mr Verity, and you may be very sure he will not divulge the confidence to you. However, he acknowledged his debt to you for saving him great injury and now forgives the blow you struck him. He was pressed, I understand, by one of your inspectors to lay an information but quite refused.'

  ‘ ‘andsome of him, sir.'

  'Indeed,' said Jervis, 'it was Captain Ransome who advised me in the matter of selecting you from among the officers whose services were tendered.'

  'Very 'andsome, sir.'

  Verity sought some way of steering Richard Jervis back to the story of the hunting 'accident' in which he had been so savagely crippled, but the young man was calm again by this time and it hardly seemed propitious to excite him further. At least the role of Ransome was clear. He was exactly the type whom one of Aldino's victims might have employed as go-between in order to avoid entering the Wag's premises.

  Richard Jervis unlocked a drawer in the table, took out a metal coin-coffer, unlocked that as well and counted off three sovereigns.

  'You are to take these, Mr Verity, so that you shall be supplied for your journey. The sum will be discounted against your final payment. Perhaps you will have the goodness to sign a form of receipt.'

  With this mundane transaction, Verity took his leave.

  A stormy east wind strained at the yellow-green of the trees in their young foliage where the broad gravelled carriageway passed between weathered limestone pillars, marking the boundary of Bole Warren. Spruce trees arched overhead in a natural vaulting which obscured the low sky and the rain clouds, the colour of a drawing in Indian ink, lowering on the Sussex weald. Having dismissed the dog-cart which had brought him from the station, Verity followed the directions Mrs Butcher had given him. The terrace and gables of the house, the two little towers with their conical roofs, grafted on in a moment of chateau-inspired building, were hidden from the gates by the intervening woodland. Copses and spinneys, the carefully landscaped view of a retired East India merchant seventy years before, had run riot. The dark bridle-paths and alleys, where only the faintest dappling of sun penetrated, had become the paradise of the hunter and keeper with dog or gun.

  In accordance with Mrs Butcher's instructions, Verity turned left where the gravel carriageway forked, veering away from the house towards the scene of Lord Henry's death. The driveway dwindled to a path with dark leafmould underfoot. Those trees which rose on either side to interweave their thin branches above him seemed to Verity as dark and leafless as they might have been in winter. All about him he heard the measured dripping of the rain as it ran through the tangle of twigs and fronds, soaking deep into this gloomy arboreal cavern.

  He stopped abruptly, seeing ahead of him a recently-built structure in the centre of the bridle-path. It was the mausoleum of the Jervis family, the greater part of which rose above the ground, though it was approached by steps leading downwards to the iron latticework of the gates. In general appearance, it resembled a huge and ornate hearse, copied in stone and set down in the dank parkland. Iron posts and chain surrounded it, a pair of stone lions sat timelessly at the beginning of the steps, and the tomb-house was topped by an octagonal Gothic column. Its precise setting, in the centre of the path, strengthened the impression for Verity of being in the darkened nave of a dilapidated church. He approached cautiously.

  The mausoleum had been built a dozen years before, under the will of Lord Samuel Jervis, father of the three brothers. A more ancient house would, of course, have had its own parish church upon the estates, but the Jervis wealth was new wealth. Where there was no church on the land, a fashionable tomb-house would serve the purpose. Lord Samuel's inscription was already darkened by the dampness of the place, the characters partially obscured by mosses and lichen. Below this, the new lettering was cut lighter and sharper.

  Within this mausoleum are deposited the mortal remains of

  Lord Henry Frederick Jervis

  Master of Arts of New College, Oxford

  Captain, Duke's Own Infantry, before Sebastopol

  Justice of the Peace Born 12 March 1827

  Died 4 May 1860

  'Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.'

  Verity removed his tall, worn hat and stood in respectful silence for a moment. To his mind, at least, the late Lord Henry seemed to have been an unexceptionable, even admirable, young man. There was, of course, no accounting for the fancies some murderers took to people but the admirable Lord Henry, with his mild manner, sense of civic duty and hesitant inclination towards Holy Orders, seemed an unlikely choice for homicide. The moment of respect passed and Verity put his hat back on.

  'Leastways,' he said softly, 'if we should require Lord Henry in the course o' investigations, we shall know where to find 'im.'

  The pathway narrowed still further and Verity soon found himself knee-deep in wet bracken, which soaked the lower legs of his baggy black trousers. None the less, this was the way the shooting party had come, beating the undergrowth to rouse their prey. He looked about him in the silence and the dankness of the place, the only sound coming from the now intermittent splash of rain dripping from leaf to leaf. Across a veritable sea of bracken, through which he was wading, there was no more than a thin screen of saplings.

  The wood opened out at last and he could see the so-called sunken fence on which Lord Henry had been walking at the time of the accident. It was really a stone wall built against a rise in the ground to hold the earth back so that it resembled a rough terrace. This was the point at which the wooded area ended and a more cultivated slope of lawn - or grass, at least - led up to the house. The raised ground with its crude stone facing stretched across the entire view ahead of him. Not hard to see, Verity thought, how an accident might happen if a man was walking along the edge and stumbled. Not
hard to see, either, how a man like Lord Henry, shooting only because it was expected of him and secretly giving his mind to other things, might lose his footing from time to time.

  It was just as he was lifting his left foot upwards and forwards through the tall fronds of bracken again that there was a sound within an inch of him, a reverberating, metallic crack, as though a pile of iron sheeting had fallen almost on his head. Verity jumped with the fright of it, starting forward, and in so doing saved himself the worst of the injury. For all that, he found his leg absurdly immobilized, half raised from the ground. Something deep in the bracken and yellow-brown as the bracken itself had seized upon him. There was a deep slow consciousness of pain in the left leg, but he had not been hurt badly. It was the ample black cloth of his trouser leg which had fed the fearsome maw. Gingerly he put his left hand down and felt the cold, encrusted teeth. He drew his fingers back quickly.

  'Ugh!' he said with a shudder of revulsion, 'Mantraps!'