Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (9 page)

'Good for you!' he said admiringly. 'Good for you!'

The acrobat laid a hand lightly on the shoulder of the plump sergeant and urged him gently towards the wooden barrow. It was just big enough for him to sit in with his knees hugged up to his chest and his feet inside. Blondin moved him easily and Verity was abruptly aware that the solidity beneath the wheel had gone. The entire barrow seemed to be swaying wildly and perilously. They were on the rope.

He must not look down. The instinctive fright of his reaction would be enough to make him dislodge the hairbreadth equilibrium of the little wooden conveyance. At first he kept his eyes closed, feeling only that they were going down and down, as the incline of the slack rope drew them to tin- centre of the rapids, from time to time he felt Blondin pause, legs weaving to retain his balance and the barrow heeling over sickeningly. Once, in his secret terror, Verity knew that the angle of the wooden side was such that another inch or two would throw him helplessly to his death. He turned his weight the other way, sweating with fear, and felt the man behind him pull urgently against this.

'Keep still!' breathed the voice of his invisible companion. 'Quite still, or we shall both be overset!'

There was no panic in the words but a vast and controlled confidence. Verity crouched motionless and slowly opened his eyes. They were far out from the cliff now, still descending the slack cord toward the centre. Below him the blue waters dimpled and gurgled in their menacing vortex, at what seemed an enormous distance. A wider ring of angry froth swirled the trapped logs and branches into the suction of the liquid green chasm. From the direction of the falls a rising wave, spreading dark and terrible from cliff to cliff, roared down upon the gorge in a headlong tumble of spray. Swallowing a rising sob of fear, Verity raised his head to train his eyes upon the safety of the American shore. As he did so, a gust of wind, following the direction of the stream, lifted his tall stove-pipe hat from his head and carried it gently away. He watched, sick with dismay, as the dark high-crowned hat circled easily as a bird, down to the waiting river beneath him. At the first touch, the waves smashed it over and over, into the churning rim of the whirlpool. The beaten and shapeless remains flew faster and faster round the successive circles until they reached the spiralling centre where they paused inexplicably for an instant, before being thrust down from the sight of the onlookers.

Verity's cheeks still quivered uncontrollably with alarm. He and Blondin were level with the royal party on the bridge and he heard a half-admiring and half-derisive cheer. But his eyes were on the American shore now. For the first time, he began to believe that he would not, after all, die in the horror of the whirlpool below. And he had been braver than any of them, except the Prince. Now that it was almost done, he assured himself, he would do it again any time he was asked.

Confidence was swelling in his breast when he saw the tall stranger on the American bank. The man was scanning the royal party through a pair of field-glasses. His other hand lay against his belt. The cloth of his coat, at that point, betrayed the outline of a holster whose size and shape suggested one of the new Colt revolvers. Then, as Blondin wheeled him closer, he could see clearly that the tall young man was Miss Jolly's escort on her tour of the Broadway jewellers' shops. The pattern of villainy changed in Verity's mind. Miss Jolly, as an agent of death and assassination, might gull the American police authorities. Her accomplice, the marksman of a hundred organizations who hated England's royal blood, would somehow be placed where he could fire without missing his target. And all this through the girl's double-dealing. The sum paid for the death of the Queen's heir would be an ample reward.

At any moment, Verity feared to hear the
twing-g-g-g
of shots overhead, which a man might mistake for the sound of large stinging insects unless he knew better. When he had been in camp with the 23rd Regiment of Foot before Sebastopol, the sounds had been followed by half a dozen of his comrades falling back with blood pumping from their shattered breasts or the ghastly sockets of their eyes.

'Dear God!' he said softly. ' 'is Royal Highness!'

At the centre of the dainty suspension-bridge, the young Prince stood, eager and smiling at the performance on the rope. Verity twisted his head and shouted.

'Sir! Get down, sir! Get down!'

An air of puzzlement clouded the Prince's expression. Only the mirth of the well-fed staff-officer acknowledged the cry.

'Hero, eh? Find this a bit stiff though! Can't take it without blubbering a bit, eh, what? Told you, by Jove!'

There might even be an assassin in the trees, with a marksman's rifle, for whom the tall young man merely acted as range-finder. By now, Blondin had almost reached the far bank with his passenger. Verity set his eyes grimly on Miss Jolly's accomplice.

'Right, Captain Smiles!' he said aloud. 'So he don't exist, don't he? We'll soon have a see about that, sir!'

His jaw was set with intimidating ferocity as the barrow jolted on to the turf and the spectators applauded Blondin's arrival on the safety and solidity of the cliff-top. Verity pushed himself out of the barrow and parted the grinning crowd.

'One side! Mind yer backs! Quick-sharp!' he barked sullenly.

Miss Jolly's tall young escort wore a hat of grey felt, moccasins and deer-skin trousers. A bullet-pouch and a knife, as well as the revolver holster, were shaped by the fall of his jacket over his belt. He was lowering the field-glasses and turning away as Verity bounded towards him.

'No you don't, my fine fellow!' Verity's words, like thunder, drew the attention of the entire crowd on the American side. The tall young man paused for what was, in his circumstances, an injudiciously long moment. Verity ran forward and leapt, throwing all his weight on to the man's back and knocking him sprawling. The stranger was stunned by the unexpected impact. Verity had had no time to discard his equipment before surrendering to Blondin's orders. He snatched the handcuffs which still hung at his belt, snapped the first one on the man's right wrist, wrenched the arm behind his back, and clicked the other steel cuff onto the left wrist.

Gathering his breath for a moment, he then jerked the prisoner to his feet and propelled him with blows of his knee toward the party on the little suspension-bridge. Captain Smiles, smooth and expressionless, awaited him.

'Sir!' said Verity smartly. ' 'ave the honour to report that there was going to be shooting at 'is Highness from the cliff, while I was taken across. This person 'ere was using field-glasses as if to give out the aim, sir. And another thing, sir. He's also the fancy chap that was going the rounds of the New York jewellers as Miss Jolly's accomplice. He's the one that you and the others said you'd never heard of, sir! With respect, sir. There might be a marksman in them bushes on the bank, sir. If this one in custody can be made to talk quick, sir, we could have the name of the marksman out of him before that party does a bunk. Sir!'

'Take those handcuffs off him, sergeant!'

'Sir?'

'Get the bloody things off! Or did you leave the keys in England ?'

'No, sir.' Unhappily, Verity took the little key from his belt.

'You fat, officious fool!' said Captain Smiles bitterly.

'Sir ? 'e was spying on His Royal Highness most suspicious, sir. And he'd got a hand on his gun.'

'There was no spying! No marksmen, no assassins! Damn you, you idiot!'

'Then what about 'im, sir? With respect, sir.'

'Him? Oh, yes,' said Captain Smiles miserably. 'You have just arrested Captain Thomas Crowe of the United States Marine Corps., assigned by his own government as a bodyguard to His Royal Highness during the American stages of the tour. In short, he is to be your partner!'

'But 'e can't be, sir! It don't make sense!'

'He not only can be, sergeant, he
is! '

Verity, his face downcast and lowered, swallowed hard.

'Dunno what to say, sir,' he mumbled wretchedly. ‘I couldn't a-made a worse mess of all this if I'd tried deliberate!'

The hurricane lamp hung from the central pole of the little tent, casting a white glare on the table where the two sergeants sat. Verity assembled the dark brown flagons of Buttery's County-Bottled Allsopp, like riflemen to be drilled. He handed Crowe a regulation-issue canteen and took a bottle in his pudgy fist. He tipped a generous pint into Crowe's canteen.

'You'll 'ave another sup, Mr Crowe,' he said encouragingly, 'consequential on the unfortunate affair this afternoon. Makes me feel better about it, being able to stand you chummage now.'

The night seemed filled by the steady roar of the falls and the cataract. Crowe raised the corner of the metal canteen to his mouth.

'Mr Verity,' he said gently, 'it's forgot.'

Verity's cheeks filled abruptly with wind as he put his own canteen down. He wiped his moustaches appreciatively on the back of his hand.

'Now there, Mr Crowe, we 'ave to disagree. I can't forget what I don't understand.'

Crowe spread out his hands, his high thin face a study in honest bewilderment.

'Folks can't always be allowed to understand, Mr Verity. Not you, not me. I guess I can't tell you anything you don't know already.'

'There too, Mr Crowe, we have to disagree. True, you wasn't trying to assassinate the young Prince, after all. I acted in 'aste there, Mr Crowe. But I never saw wrong in New York, did I ? And what I saw was you and that little bunter Jolly setting up the wax-under-the-counter dodge all the way along Broadway. That randy little piece never done the law a good turn, Mr Crowe, only once when a cracksman tanned Miss Jolly's bum for her and she peached on him out of spite.'

'Did you hear that a jeweller was robbed?' asked Crowe mildly.

'No, Mr Crowe, I never did. Not hear it for a fact, that is.' 'Then I guess you never saw robbery being put up, did you ?'

Verity tilted his head back, his thick flushed throat pulsing rhythmically at the descent of half a pint of dark ale. He put down the canteen.

'And that house you saw her to, Mr Crowe, that was a Magdalen Asylum, was it? You know it never was! Now, Mr Crowe, you and me is going to be working together. It's time I was told something of all this.'

Crowe's lean sun-browned face was a study in innocence.

'A police refuge,' he said quietly, 'that's what it was. You sure did pick the worst house in the city to burgle, Mr Verity.'

'But they was expecting someone, Mr Crowe. I was the wrong one. They said so. 'oo might they have been waiting for?'

Crowe shrugged.

'Sure don't know, Mr Verity.'

'And why was Miss Jolly there, if she hadn't been arrested ?'

'Safekeeping,' said Crowe equably. 'When a young woman volunteers her services, they like to keep her safe and decent.'

Verity's dark eyes bulged with indignation.

' 'er
services!
Mr Crowe, you got any idea, 'ave you, what her services been in the past ? There's men dead a-cos of her services. She's a right tight little villain, she is! You don't want to listen to 'er nor trust 'er!'

'You really don't take to her at all, do you, Mr Verity?'

'Mr Crowe, I gotta know what all this is about. We shall have the devil to pay if that little bitch starts trouble here.'

'What I know,' said Crowe firmly, 'is that I was to meet her from the boat, show her the town a bit, and then deliver her safe to the police house that evening. And I never asked why.'

'There's more to it, Mr Crowe. There got to be.'

'Then you'd better ask your own people or ours,' said Crowe wearily. 'If I knew the whole story, which I don't, I sure as all hell wouldn't get my ass kicked from here to Washington and back by telling you!'

'Your
what,
Mr Crowe?'

'My ass,' said Crowe, suddenly becoming self-conscious.

'Oh!' Comprehension began to dawn in Verity's eyes. 'Cor, 'ere, ain't you got a funny way of saying things in this part of the world? Don't think I shall ever understand the 'alf of it.' He beckoned Crowe's head forward across the table, as though to ensure that they would not be overheard. 'We say arse, Mr Crowe. Ass is a sort of donkey.' He sat back with a brief nod of intellectual authority.

Crowe stretched out his long thin legs. Then he yawned and got to his feet.

'An ass is what you sit on,' he said firmly, 'and being a king or a commoner makes no odds as to that. Being a commoner, however, it is also liable to get other folks' boot-prints on it when you don't mind your own concerns. Not that your Miss Jolly wouldn't be a tight little wriggler, I daresay, if a man had her under his instruction.'

Verity bade his guest good night and watched him move leisurely away across the turf with his long, loping stride. He had met few Americans and none whom he felt would typify their race. Yet in Thomas Crowe he found a new friend, despite the Marine's laconic dourness, and an invaluable guide in the unfamiliar ways of the American continent.

Some ten minutes later, Verity walked out into the night air. In his mind there was a confusion of trails, none of which led to any conclusion. At least if there was some ingenious conspiracy afoot, he was sure that Crowe was as much a victim of it as he was. But what had they said to Crowe, what orders had been given him to account for his complicity with Miss Jolly in the matter of the Broadway jewellers? To what purpose was the girl allowed to appear to be robbing the shops without actually doing so? As for Jolly's lynx-eyed beauty, for whose benefit was it displayed in a new and strange country? Verity stood, scowling in thought, before the iron fretwork of the white suspension-bridge, where Blondin's rope still hung slackly across the swirling rapids.