Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (22 page)

Behind this phalanx of protectors stood Miss Jolly, slim and upright, her dark Turkomen eyes watching Verity impassively. Standing in the cabin, with its ground-glass solar lamp and its table of white marble, he sensed that he and Crowe had interrupted something, though he could hardly imagine what. He looked again at Jolly. Her trim figure was oddly dressed in a red singlet and a pair of blue denim trousers in Genoa or jean cotton. The jeans were creased and baggy, totally at variance with the neatness of her normal appearance. The woman, whose name was Mrs Lily, spoke briskly.

‘If she got to be dry again by two o' clock, I reckon we'd better do her now!'

'Shall we leave you, Mrs Lily?'

'No Cap'n Oliphant. I reckon this little piece would as soon you stayed to watch. Wouldn't you, honey?'

She chucked Miss Jolly under the chin and was flashed a dark glare in response. Verity shifted nervously from foot to foot. Then Oliphant and the two guards moved aside to reveal a tin bath, half-filled with water.

'Take a plunge,' said Mrs Lily reasonably, and Jolly stepped in with a grimace at the coldness of the water on her feet. She held the trouser legs well up.

'Sit down!'

'Not in my things!'

Mrs Lily's response was a hearty downward shove on the slim shoulders. There was a splash and water slopped on to the polished boards.

'And stay down!'

'Ugh-h-h! It's horrid!'

'Get them really soaked, honey. If the customers can see you without taking off your things, it'll be a lot easier on you in the saloon, believe me!'

'They're wet through!'

Verity stared, uncomprehending, until Mrs Lily's broad and powerful hands released their pressure on the girl's shoulders. Jolly sprang up with a cascade of water falling from her. She stepped from the bath, bow-legged in a pantomime of discomfort and let the older woman lead her to the far side of the cabin.

'Just here, honey, where the heat from the boilers goes up to the stack.'

Verity whispered in bewilderment.

'Mr Crowe?'

'Shrinkage,' said Crowe knowledgeably. 'Tightest tights you ever saw.'

'Ah!' said Verity, understanding at last.

Half an hour before the time of the auction, the shrunk denim had dried to a fit that was smooth as drumskin. The girl stood before the long wall-mirror and surveyed her reflection. She drew in her cheeks, her mouth forming an ‘Oooo!'
of admiration, while her almond eyes widened and she rolled them in humorous envy of her own appearance. Then, more self-consciously, she drew one of her slim hands upward over the taut denim of her seal, the red-painted nails bright against the blue cloth.

Mrs Lily intervened, completing the last details of the fancy-girl's toilet. With unnecessary scrupulousness, she pressed the denim to a flawless fit round the hips and crotch of her protegee, administering a couple of final pals to the seat, either as a matter of filling or a gesture of approval. She touched the crop of dark hair into place, where it’s cut just brushed the back of the singlet collar. Playfully, she lifted it and imparted a quick kiss to the smooth golden warmth of the bared nape. Jolly evaded her.

Stop that!'

The older woman exhaled a sigh, wistful but resigned. Then the procession made it’s way to the grand after-saloon, the scene of the auction on the main deck. Verity's eyes widened slightly at the tight, purposeful swagger of Miss Jolly's quick little steps in the straining denim.

'Mr Verity,' said Crowe at his ear. 'That's the third time I've spoke to you!'

'Oh,' said Verity, 'is it? It never is, Mr Crowe!'

'Much you'd know if it was or wasn't, my friend!'

And then Crowe explained the trap which had been prepared for Dacre. The auction saloon was at the rear of the main deck. It could be approached only by the two open galleries at either side of the ship. At the after end of the ship, there was no means by which Dacre could escape with the girl, nothing but a sheer drop to the water thirty feet below. Once a man passed the plain-dollies guards on either of the two galleries leading all. he was in a cul-de-sac and the trap had closed. Three doors opened from the auction saloon on to the gallery and the ship's rails. Two of these opened at either side and the third was the after door, which opened on to a larger space at the stern of the steamboat with several seats and tables.

‘I guess it should hold him,' said Crowe hopefully. 'Once he's in this part of the ship, he ain't going to leave without your Miss Jolly. And unless she goes willing, there ain't a way out except past the guards on either side. To make it certain, however,
the Fidele
casts off in five minutes more and steams down river and back while the sale is held.'

'I don't care for that, Mr Crowe,' said Verity thoughtfully.
¹
'e might push her over the back and have his own little boat waiting. I'd sooner we was at St Louis.'

Crowe nodded, as though he found this perfectly reasonable.

'However, Mr Verity, there's a dozen men on this boat, all dressed to bid in the auction but standing in different parts of the vessel. Each one a Ranger or a Marine that can put a bullet in a man with a Colt's revolver at sixty feet, every shot. Any little boat that gets near us is going to have more holes in it then a Swiss cheese before it can come alongside.'

Verity paused and faced his colleague.

'Mr Crowe, where Lieutenant Dacre is concerned, it'll take more than twelve men with revolvers.'

Crowe patted him on the back.

'Come on now, old friend, your Mr Dacre ain't immortal!'

'No,' said Verity, as if conceding the point with some doubt, 'I s'pose he ain't.'

They entered the auction saloon, light and airy with its windows looking out to the river on either side. It was furnished with stools, settees, sofas, divans and ottomans, all of them occupied by those who had come to attend the sale. The majority of these dealers, young and old alike, sported cream or buff suiting with sticks that were topped in either silver or gold. There were a few swallow-tailed coats in blue or green, and a few dark-suited westerners with broad-brimmed hats. Among the hundred or so nun present, a few were playing cards in small groups while others sauntered past the marble-topped tables looking for an empty arm-chair. At the forward end of the saloon was a small wooden platform raised eighteen inches or so above the floor. Upon it there stood a lectern and a bedroom screen whose panels were of crimson silk. Vignie, in his white linen suit and red cravat, stood with his gavel at the lectern waiting to begin the sale.

'Remember,' said Crowe to Miss Jolly, 'if there should be a winning bid and if Mr Vignie lets you go with the bidder, trust him. Mr Vignie will know him for one of our men. If not, you won't be let go.'

She nodded quickly and stepped on to the platform, where two of Vignie's men waited, as though they might be about to carry forward a selection of furniture to be auctioned off.

'Messieurs,' Vignie tapped the lectern with his gavel, the slightest suggestion of French intonation in his voice. The murmur of conversation in the saloon died away. 'Messieurs, we will now turn to the business of the afternoon, if you please. It is not for me to claim your attention. I see from your eyes that that has already been done by the young person who comes before you now, Miss Jolly, properly called "Gentleman's Relish".'

Vignie made an unambiguous motion to her, with some impatience, and Jolly began to walk irritably up and down the platform, her leg movements constricted by the tightness of the jeans.

'Rarely,' crooned Vignie, 'rarely has it been my chance to bring before you a creature of such delicate, almost Oriental charm. The property of a European gentleman whose greatest desolation in the ruin of his fortunes is that he must part with such a jewel. Observe, if you will, the fineness of her features, the fierce challenge of those dark eyes, the warmth of that golden tan. Notice the slim back and firm bosom, as she turns. Why, gentlemen, there's a breast for you!'

Verity nudged Crowe.

'There ain't a face here to match Lieutenant Dacre, but he must be 'ere somewhere. Tell you what, see if you can notice a man that might be crying, with silk to his eyes.'

'Crying?' asked Crowe doubtfully. 'What about?'

'Not about anything, Mr Crowe. The Lieutenant got this complaint of watering eyes. Has to keep wiping them, 'e can be clever as any cartload of monkeys, but that's one thing he can't disguise'

Crowe surveyed the bidders as their eyes widened, their tongues passed over their lips expectantly, and their gaze followed Miss Jolly's every movement. Vignie had stepped forward now to demonstrate his commodity more persuasively.

'The legs,' he said suavely, 'observe, messieurs, their lithe firmness. The tight waist. Imagine, if you will, the warmth of the bare flesh against the silk sheets of your boudoir. Picture her, while you bid, as the nude Eastern damsel who waits upon your table, the warm silky gold of her body-moulding itself to every call that a man might make upon his bed-slave. May I say a thousand dollars to start, messieurs? I dare not say less!'

Jolly surveyed the room with stony-eyed hostility.

'Where the mischief is 'e?' whispered Verity savagely, "e gotta be 'ere, Mr Crowe!'

'Well, Mr Verity, I guess there ain't a handkerchief touching an eye in this whole roomful of sinners.'

The two sergeants looked about them again, as Vignie turned the girl round and round slowly to display her to the bidders.

'One thousand at the back of the room, do I hear? Only-see the roundness of the dark hair touching just to the nape of the neck! Consider the slim back, and the rounder hips. . . . Twelve hundred, then . . . the wantonness of the backside, seen in a sloop. . .'

The girl's almond eyes and sharp features turned on Vignie with bleak hostility. But she bent at last, the trim seat of her jeans broadening, each of Miss Jolly's hind checks tightly and separately rounded. Then came a sharp rending of seams, and open-mouthed delight from the bidders at the sudden prospect of palest coppery smoothness.

'Gentlemen!' cried Vignie happily. 'May I say fifteen hundred ?'

Verity had frozen into immobility.

'Mr Crowe!' he hissed. 'That's 'im! In the after doorway! And 'e ain't disguised at all!'

There was no mistaking Verncy Dacre, the tall, narrow body with its languid posture, the spoilt face and the light-coloured dundreary whiskers. His cream suiting and tall matching hat were set off by a dark brown coat and gold-topped stick. He surveyed the room, his eyes passing over Verity and Crowe without appearing to recognize them. Crowe turned to the plain-suited guard accompanying them, as Dacre moved to withdraw from the doorway of the after deck.

'The stern entrance! Cover it with your revolver and let no one through, either way. Mr Verity and I shall go out through the two side-doors and round to the stern of the ship by the galleries. There's no way he can get pas; us, and no escape over the stern. One way or another, we've got him!'

The Marine Corps private in the plain suit strode to the after door, through which Dacre had disappeared. Verity and Crowe made for the two side-doors of the saloon with ample time to seal off Dacre's avenues of escape. Like Crowe, Verity felt the weight of a Colt revolver at his side, but it brought him little comfort. He had come to regard the rifle as his 'best friend' in the siege of Sebastopol. The close-range duel of revolvers was something with which he was unfamiliar.

He slipped out on to the open gallery and began to edge his way slowly round to the stern, where he would meet Samson coming from the other side to confront Dacre simultaneously. At least, he thought, no one had given the least hint of recognition when the cracksman appeared in the doorway. He and Crowe had been well prepared, but he had feared the girl's response at seeing her tormentor again. Fortunately, Miss Jolly had been bending over displaying the tautly rounded seat of her jeans to the bidders.

She had seen nothing of Dacre.

Following the curve of the saloon wall along the outer deck, he came to the open space at the stern, an oval area some thirty feet along. It was almost deserted, its seats and chairs empty. Close by the stern rail itself, however, there was a wooden seat, double-sided and with a tall back. In the event of shipwreck, it could be inverted to provide a life-raft, the back acting as a keel. Sitting on the far side of the seat, staring thoughtfully over the stern rail and with his back to the saloon, was the figure of Verney Dacre.

The excitement of such an opportunity made Verity's hear! leap to his throat. He had not really intended to use the Colt, but now he drew the heavy gun from his belt. Staring at the back of the brown coat, the cream hat, and the clearly identifiable slick with its gold top lying to one side, Verity knew that even he could not miss the target now. Not that he intended to kill Dacre if he could help it. To take the cracksman alive would be the greatest feat in the entire history of the Private-Clothes Detail. In his imagination, voices addressed him as Inspector Verity, Superintendent Verity, Verity of Scotland Yard. . .

He was close enough now to sec the wisp of Dacre's cigar, and he moved with the stealth of a shadow. Sergeant Crowe had appeared from the other side of the saloon's stern-wall. Verity mouthed the unmistakable shape of, 'We got 'im!' We got 'im, Mr Crowe!' He hunched forward towards his quarry. He was hardly ten feet from Dacre, who still stared out over the rail oblivious of danger, when Crowe shouted.

'Get back. Verity! Get back here!'

'That's all right, Mr Crowe. Keep yer gun on 'im, and leave this to inc. Right, Lieutenant Dacre, sir, let's be having. . .'

With intense annoyance he was aware of an impact on the deck behind him, a skidding of feel, and a thump that drove the breath from his body and knocked him sideways against the ship's rail. Verney Dacre ignored all this and a sudden thought crossed Verity's mind, even while he was still falling behind another upturned life-raft with Crowe's weight on top of him. Could the cracksman be dead, sitting so still, the poison in his throat or the bullet in his brain? He tried to raise his head and look. With a sense of deep injustice he felt Crowe's fist connect with the nape of his neck and he slumped in a daze on the planking of the deck. Before he could protest, his ears went deaf, there was a muffled roaring like the draught of a dozen blast-furnaces and a wave of heat to match. Like a storm of hail, fragments of wood pattered about him, and he heard something carry over his head and splash into the river far below.