'Damme!' he said with a tone of awe.
Naked but for her blouse, the girl returned to him, kneeling so that her soft young breasts brushed his knees. She busied herself with him for a moment, then lowered her face. Lord William's features were drawn as though by some inner spasm. He tried to free himself from her but she held on with such determination that he could hardly move her head from his lap. He quivered suddenly.
'Curse it,' he said softly, 'you've spoilt the game.'
Elaine looked up at him and grinned. 'Never,' she said, and went back to her previous occupation.
Lord William was bowled over by the youngster's determination. When his vigour was restored, and he drew her on to the bed, she climbed upon him. Then she paused.
'You got three looking-glasses,' she said. 'It's best to turn 'em so you can see me.'
With this done, she resumed her position, drew her hair into a tail and fastened it with a silk band, and then began to exercise upon her lover. During the episode she kissed Lord William as though she intended to smother him, her agile little tongue moving determinedly in his mouth. Lord William, in turn, was moved to a degree of frenzy he had not known for years. In the urgency of desire his teeth found her throat and shoulders, leaving cherry-red blotches. His hands raked her back, as many a woman's had scored his own, and incredible as it seemed to him, Elaine's cries were entirely of pleasure, as though welcoming even the violence of his lust.
At length it was over and after a brief dallying, the girl dressed herself and left him. Lord William pondered on his good fortune in finding such a chambermaid as Elaine, passionate and adaptable at an age when most girls would have been clumsy and nervous. He had never had a girl in his rooms at the White Bear or Dubourg's who had matched such passion. Thoughtfully he rang for Anstey and turned his mind to the dinner-party.
An hour and a half later, Lord William, his medals and sash gleaming and glowing upon his evening clothes, stood in the fine hall with its marble floor, welcoming the guests. At first he had been unable to concentrate on his duties as host for the memory of Elaine kept on interfering. Now he had repressed this until it was merely a permanent awareness of the girl and her capabilities. As soon as the guests had departed again, he thought, he would stoke the little bitch hot and strong, damned if he wouldn't.
Presently, General Lord Bruce was announced, and Lord William collected his thoughts. The elderly General with his air of silver-haired distinction had been a friend of old Lord Samuel Jervis, and was now no less than Governor to the Prince of Wales during the Prince's undergraduate year at Oxford. Lord William saw the figure of the dapper Grenadier Guardsman on the threshold.
It was just then that a footman approached Lord William, bowed and cleared his throat. Lord William looked at the man in his silk knee-breeches and silver buckles.
'My lord,' said the servant, 'a detective person insists upon seeing you as a matter of the gravest urgency.'
Lord William looked further round and saw a portly figure in shabby coat and baggy trousers, red-faced and black-moustached.
'Sergeant Verity of the Whitehall police office,' said the footman mournfully.
'What the devil have I to do with you?' asked Lord William, not daring to express his anger at the intrusion more loudly for fear of being overheard by General Bruce and the other guests.
'It ain't what you got to do with me, Lord William Jervis,' said Verity quietly, 'it's what I gotta say to you. And said in private is best. Just think o' the young person that was in your dressing-room an hour or two ago.'
Lord William looked about him quickly. It was unthinkable that the discussion should continue in the presence of such guests, equally unthinkable that he should have the fat sergeant carried struggling from the hall.
"This way,' he said sharply.
The two men stood face to face in the little steward's room with its counting-house atmosphere where Verity had first encountered Richard Jervis at Portman Square.
'Sir,' said Verity at once, 'you must be told that the person you was with in your room, and 'oo you spent a considerable time in there with, according to your servant, is a Miss Elaine that 'as already admitted to me trying to blackmail your late brother Lord Henry. It ain't my business what you choose to do with her in your own 'ouse, sir, but it's my duty to tell you the truth. She been party to getting gentlemen into compromising positions and then having photographic plates done of same to extort money from them."
'Has she?' said Lord William enigmatically, as though he might equally believe or disbelieve the story. 'And what business might it be of yours to set my servant spying on me?'
'He never spied, sir. He found the dressing-room locked and barred. After half an hour, the young person Elaine come out and you was still in there. But you ain't to blame 'im, sir. It was only me seeing the girl in the scullery and saying what a bad lot she was that made the honest fellow tell me in confidence of his fears for you. He's a good, loyal servant, sir, the best you could 'ave.'
'So you say.' Lord William turned, as though about to leave.
'Sir!' said Verity, 'I don't have to say how sorry I am for taking you from your guests but I should wish to ask where Mr Richard Jervis might be and when I might see him.'
'Mr Jervis is ill,' said Lord William airily, 'not you nor anyone else is to see him. Orders have been given to all the servants. The least disturbance might increase his malady,'
'And sorry I am to 'ear it, sir,' said Verity, puzzled. 'But p'raps I might speak fair with you, then, sir, as head of your house. You ain't unaware I suppose of the evil being said about the late Lord Henry?'
'Evil, sergeant?'
"Them that says he made away with himself on account of dealings with young persons, and them that hints at him being foully murdered.'
Lord William drew himself up tall and brushed his dark whiskers with the edge of one hand.
'Who says so?'
'Persons of an evil mind, sir.'
'Dammit, man,' said Lord William with a breathless growl, 'what persons?'
'Ain't at liberty to say, sir.'
'Then to the devil with you and them!’
'I might silence such slander, sir.'
'Then silence it, blast your eyes, and have done with me!' 'In that case, sir, I only got to ask for you to authorise a police medical man to examine Lord Henry's injury and make his impartial report.'
Lord William, his face deepening to a weatherbeaten maroon colour, stared at the fat sergeant, who now shifted uneasily.
'Disinter my brother's body?'
'Only for the eyes of one constabulary medical man, sir. Might stop a lot of tongues wagging, sir."
Lord William looked at the plump, self-satisfied face with its waxed moustaches.
'You drivelling idiot!' he said, his voice quivering slightly. 'It would start every tongue in the country wagging! Dig him up? This is Mr Richard's doing, no doubt! A pair of madcaps, the two of you!'
As though about to engage in some other business, Lord William strode to the little desk, drew out a sheet of paper, dipped a newly-sharpened quill in the ink-well, and wrote furiously. He sanded the paper, folded it and sealed it in an envelope which he addressed. Then he rang for a footman and handed it to him.
'See this taken at once,' he said sharply, 'Whitehall Place for the immediate attention of the commissioner of police.'
The footman bowed and withdrew. Lord William looked up at Verity.
'By noon tomorrow, Sergeant Verity, you and your possessions will be out of this house. The house is mine, Bole Warren is mine, and every servant upon the estate is mine. I, sir, am the head of this family, not Mr Richard Jervis. What he has, I pay for. Damme, sir, but for me he is a pauper. And now, sir, your Mr Commissioner has my solemn word that if you ever set foot in my house or on my land again, I will prosecute you in every court of the realm. Yes, damme, every court of the kingdom!’
Verity swallowed apprehensively.
'And the duties I was hired for, sir
?'
'Your duties are terminated, sir! You are dismissed, damn you! Dismissed!'
With a glare of irresistible rage, Lord William straightened his coat and stormed back to his waiting guests.
The stair creaked a little as Verity eased his large boot on to it. Deeply perturbed by the interview with Lord William, not least by the uncontrolled fury of the man, he had determined on finding Richard Jervis before he was dismissed from Portman Square. Lord William had spoken accurately in saying that strict orders had been given to the servants that Richard Jervis was to be held incommunicado. Even Mrs Butcher had answered with a refusal, followed by long resolute silence, when Verity suggested that she might care to open the door from the back stairs to the second-floor landing of the house with the key on her chatelaine. He had watched his chance for half an hour, but there was no possibility of purloining a key for the purpose and no way of entering the main rooms of the house otherwise. While the dinner-party continued, the attention of the servants was directed towards it. Once it was over, Verity's chance of moving about the house unobserved in the time remaining to him was very slight indeed.
'A man what's seen as much of cracksmen as I have can't help picking up a dodge or two,' he said to himself philosophically, and moved casually towards the back stairs, as though going to his attic room to pack. At the second landing, the door which communicated with the main part of the house was impressively solid. The panelled oak was unpolished and massive. The lock, too, was resplendent with brass furniture.
'It ain't a Chubb nor a Bramah, 'owever,' said Verity softly. Humming a little tune to himself, he drew a tin from his pocket and a slender metal rod, thinner than a pencil. The tin contained a yellowish wax which smelt of cobblers' shops. With great care, Verity smeared a thin coating of this on the little rod and stood so that the gaslight on the bare stairway fell full on the keyhole of the door. He inserted the rod, as though it had been the barrel of a key, revolved it gently and withdrew it. At three points along the rod the wax had been scraped away.
'Why,' he said to himself, 'it's no more than three sliders.'
Pocketing the wax, he produced three slender metal probes and inserted the first in the lock. After a certain amount of juggling with it, he felt something yield and lift. Holding the probe exactly in this place with the heel of his right palm, he began to juggle the second. When two were in place it was child's play to lift the third and turn the lock. The heavy door opened without a sound.
Verity stepped through on to the richly-carpeted floor of the handsome landing, the sounds of the dinner-party carrying up faintly from below through the airy ovals of the fine staircase. Keeping close to the wall to minimize the risk of being seen from the lower levels, he edged towards the door of Richard Jervis' apartments. The young man might be alone or he might not, but that was a risk to be taken. Indeed, he might not be there at all. Verity reached the door and listened. He thought he could hear the sound of a man breathing deeply, as though in sleep, but he could not be sure. Preparing himself for rapid concealment behind the corner of the wall, he tapped sharply on the panel of the door. There was a movement as though of a sleeper stirring.
'Mr Jervis!' he whispered hoarsely, 'Mr Richard Jervis, sir! Are you there, sir?'
'Who are you? For God's sake tell me, who are you?"
It was Jervis' voice, weak from illness or some opiate given him.
'Sergeant Verity, sir!'
Verity tried the door. It was solid oak again and fastened tight.
'No,' said Jervis feebly, as he heard the movement. 'Locked, bolted. They come and go by the door from the other room.'
'Any chance you might reach them bolts, sir?'
'No chance now. Tied me, by the wrists, to the bed.'
Verity looked round quickly, knowing that the conversation must be interrupted at any moment.
'Sir, I been dismissed by Lord William. I'm to be gone by noon.'
There was the sound of a faint struggle and then a moan, as though of resignation.
'Sir, if your brother, the late Lord Henry, was cruelly murdered, his body oughta be examined again. I can't make Lord William see the use of it.'
To Verity's dismay, Richard Jervis gave a soft, helpless laugh.
'Sir, if I can't have the evidence, and if your brother was murdered, I shan't ever find who the murderer was.'
Again came the soft laughter of the weary, crippled young man.
'I wish you to find how my brother was murdered. Do not concern yourself with the identity of the assassin. I know that already.'
'You know 'im, sir?' said Verity doubtfully. 'And who might he be?'
'Oh, Sergeant Verity, only think. Only think.' 'Are you alone in there, sir?'
'Alone, alone, all all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea.’
Verity rattled the door as far as he could.
'Only think, sergeant. Who hated my brother as he hates me? Who coveted Lord Henry's wealth and lands to pay for his own debaucheries? That was the man whom I saw murder Lord Henry, saw with my own eyes. But I do not yet know how it was done. You must tell me that, sergeant.'
There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs, far below.
'Sir, I can't stop longer! Who was the villain you saw?'
'Why, sergeant, how slow you have been, to be sure!'
'Quickly, sir, or I must go.'
The young man laughed softly, as though he could not comprehend Verity's obtuseness.
'Lord William Jervis!' he whispered sharply.
3
SATAN'S MISTRESSES
'Mr Verity,' said Bella softly, 'why was you so long from home?' The vivacious blue eyes in the round little face were wide with puzzlement as she stroked his cheek.
'Blessed if I know,' said Verity thoughtfully, 'for all the good it did!'
They lay side by side in the large ancient bed, bought by Stringfellow at the time of his own marriage. A scattering of embers in the grate diffused a reassuring, shadowy glow across the darkened bedroom, silhouetting the cradle at Bella's side.
'But now you're to live 'ome,' said Bella happily.
'I don't see 'ow there could a-bin murder done,' Verity said for the twentieth time that day. 'But I do know that Mr Richard was locked prisoner in his room, vowing that his brother Lord William was the 'omicide. And they'd done something to Mr Richard, I swear. Drugged him to sleep or restrained him.'
'This Lord William,' said Bella, 'was he a cruel man?'
'A tartar on his ship,' Verity murmured knowledgeably. 'Flogged the whole starboard watch when they only made nine knots speed with a bowline.'
'And he isn't to be took and questioned?'
'Rum thing is,' said Verity, 'so soon as ever I got back to Whitehall Place, who sends for me but Mr Croaker. I'm to forget everything that ever happened. I'm to forget I ever heard poor Mr Richard prisoner in his room and what he said of Lord William. I'm never to have dealings with Mr Richard again nor to go near the Jervis 'ouse. Which Mr Croaker keeps saying is Lord William's house anyhow. That's to be the end of it!’
Bella edged her plump little knee between his knees.
'Here,' she said, 'if a man says another man committed murder, ain't it got to be investigated?'
'Not necessarily,' said Verity. 'Not if someone in a high place says there ain't primer fishy evidence. Then the likes o' me don't get asked, do they?'
'Someone in a high place says you're not to pay attention to that poor crippled Mr Richard?'
Verity laughed significantly.
'It was never Mr Croaker. Higher up, much higher up. Mr Croaker spoke very straight and calm about it all, which he never does when he's speaking on his own account. Sort o' worried and a bit frightened, I thought. Not a bit hisself. Sour as vinegar and mean as a stoat, that's more his usual way.'
Bella turned her head a little, gazed at the ceiling and shook her blonde curls.
'Ain't it a caution?' she said. 'And what's to become of you now?'
'Blackmail,' said Verity
with relish. 'Charley Wag may have closed his accounts but there's a score o' young persons of a bad reputation what have took the business for themselves.'
Bella thought about this. Presently she said,
'Mr Verity, when these unfortunates is arrested, might you have to lay hands upon them? Might you have to touch . . . might you have to touch their persons?'
Verity puffed up his moustaches.
"ere now!' he said tolerantly.
SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Page 14
