SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (22 page)

'Mr Samson, there's accessories enough without you. I thought all about poor Lord Henry's scar jumping from leg to leg. Now, he never destroyed himself deliberate, though someone wanted me to think so.'

'Why should they do that?' asked Samson without much interest.

Verity chortled again.

'Why, Mr Samson! Fancy you 'aving to ask that! Ain't it plain? They wanted self-destruction talked of a-cos they knew poor sick Mr Richard was right. Lord Henry was murdered. Mr Richard puts it down to his brother Lord William, which is as may be. And then I'm took off the case, the investigation is closed and I'm told to put it from me mind. Well, now, Mr S
amson!
'

There was the ringing of a handbell on the platform, the shriek of a whistle, snort of steam, and then with the sound of Fifty iron doors banging in quick succession, the little steam-train jerked and jolted out of London Bridge.

'You wouldn't 'appen to know who murdered Lord 'enry nor 'ow?' asked Samson sceptically.

Verity looked crestfallen.

'Not just this minute, Mr Samson. But once let me find how and I'll soon tell you who.'

'Only,' said Samson, 'we know as every scrap of evidence is on the other side.'

'I'll need a little time, Mr Samson.'

The train clattered through Croydon and the whistle of the little engine shrieked again at the opening of the Merstham tunnel. It was Samson who broke the silence.

'Course,' he said, 'a cove that couldn't have been murdered, but has been murdered all the same, it ain't no worse than a man what's dead and buried being so inconsiderate as to get out and walk about the streets saying how d'ye do to all his old friends.'

'Whatcher mean?' asked Verity, scowling.

'Charley Wag,' said Samson, 'what you coopered good and proper, head split open, buried in Kensal Green. And then presently, word goes round on the streets that there he is saying hello to that little whore Elaine, feeling her in Shoreditch and half strangling the life out of her.'

'Mr Samson!' said Verity, 'you never been took in by what that little slut says? She'd sell her own mother, only her mother's probably
sold herself too often already!
'

'She didn't act like she was lying,' said Samson thoughtfully. 'Run screaming for her life and never sight nor sound of her in London since.'

Verity thought about this.

'They couldn't a-buried the wrong one?'

'Not unless you killed the wrong one,' said Samson.

'Then your Miss Elaine is a lying little bitch,' said Verity with unaccustomed ferocity.

'Course,' said Samson again, 'today being your rest day, you wouldn't have heard the best bit what came into the division.'

'What's that?'

'Ziegler and Meiklejohn was questioning some of them prime little burners up and down Haymarket. Charley Wag used to collect from a few of them personally. Took his money and had a serving of greens off them at the same time.'

'Huh!' said Verity disparagingly.

Samson smiled, as though the best were yet to come.

'Thing is,' he said, 'the morning after you done in Charley Wag, it seems his corpse left the Horseferry Road mortuary, and went the rounds of his girls collecting the money.'

'Gammon!
' said Verity with spirit. 'Some bloody sharper that heard he was dead, got himself up like Charley and went for the dibs.'

'Verity, my old son,' said Samson softly, 'he was Charley all right. That doxy Adeline, with the docked tail of hair and the big bum, he had his greens off her in broad daylight. Cor, you no idea 'ow she took on this morning when Meiklejohn told her she'
d been rogered by a corpse!
'

'They must a-known Charley had snuffed it,' said Verity, still unconvinced.

'In a day or two they did,' said Samson, 'but not the very next morning. And that ain't all. One bunter who never heard the news for weeks had her pants took off by him a fortnight after he was put in Kensal Green. I do 'ope she was worth digging his way out for, Mr Verity. Oh-ho-ho-ho!'

Verity's small dark eyes glowered at him.

'Well,' said Samson triumphantly, 'whatcher going to do now, old friend?'

With all the dignity at his command, Verity pulled himself upright.

'What I'm going to do, Mr Samson, is think. If there was only a little more thinking done by constabulary officers such as yourself, the division wouldn't get into this sort of pretty pickle quite as often as it do.'

And, in frowning silence, Verity thought all the way from Redhill until the train drew, hissing and panting, into the station platform at Lewes.

After an hour and a half of walking through the warm, moonless night, Verity and Samson saw in the faint opalescent glimmer of starlight the low dry-stone wall surrounding the Jervis estate at Bole Warren.

'Now, Mr Samson,' said Verity kindly, 'o' course, you might wait here, by the wall, and never set foot on the Jervis lands. Only, standing out here in the open, you can't but cause suspicion, if seen. You'd best hop over the wall with me and stand in the dark among the trees.'

'And what of gins and traps and such?' asked Samson uneasily.

'Come, now, Mr Samson,' said Verity easily, 'them poaching traps is illegal, and you know Lord William as a gentleman that respects the law. In any case, we shall follow paths.'

He swung one fat trouser-leg over the wall and pulled himself across. They were clear of the main gates but the path which ran under the over-arching trees was close to the wall at this point. Verity led the way, still not daring to draw back the shutter on his dark-lantern. Samson walked, unhappily, a dozen paces behind.

'I was to be left on the public road,' he said reproachfully as the dark trees engulfed them.

Verity walked more slowly, peering ahead of him, searching to identify the darker silhouette of the mausoleum against the arch of starlit sky which indicated the end of the avenue of trees. Presently he saw it clearly enough, already closer than he had imagined.

'Now, Mr Samson,' he said gently, 'you might stay out here on the path. Only, as with the road, you'll be more easily seen here than if you was inside with me. And you no idea how much I should be obliged for your assistance.'

'What sort of assistance?' asked Samson suspiciously.

'Why,' said Verity innocently, 'only in moving doors what might otherwise be heavy and rusty in such a place as this is.'

He climbed over the links of the iron chain and walked slowly down the steps to the solid-looking door of the mausoleum itself. The dark bronze panels suggested strength and impregnability. But Verity knew that whatever the weight of the door, the lock on such a place as this would be a mere toy. It was made for a large and, no doubt, impressive key but those were always the first to fall victim to a cracksman of average ability. He probed the lock with a thin steel pick and felt the places where the tumblers moved. It was better than he thought, there was no need to shine the lamp upon the place yet. He was no cracksman but even so it was a child's game to him to open the lock on the heavy door. He stood up and pulled the double doors open towards him, motioning Samson inside. Then he closed the doors after them and, standing in total blackness, slid back the shutter of the dark lantern at last.

The mausoleum was the size of a small room, though the prevailing impression for Verity was of the sickly scent of rotting flowers. Funeral bouquets lay lank and dead, white petals long since turned to rust and the green stems to a dry brown. The dampness of the place gave an edge to the cold stillness which almost made him gasp. Already the walls which had been cleaned for Lord Henry's interment were fluffy and dusty, the spiders' webs hanging like tattered rags in the corners. The stone ledges on either side were capable of accommodating several generations of the Jervis family but there were only, as yet, two coffins in the entire mausoleum. They lay on opposite sides of the tomb-house at the lowest level. One of them, its wood darkened by damp and rot, its silver fittings misted over by neglect, was that of old Lord Samuel Jervis. On the other side, in light clean cedar-wood and with silver which still shone like a new mirror, was the second casket whose polished plate bore the simple legend, 'Lord Henry Frederick Jervis, obit 4 May 1860'.

'Right, then,' whispered Samson, his voice trembling a little with the cold. 'You seen what you wanted to see, now let's get back to the road. It's all in order here.'

"ave the goodness to hole the lamp for me, Mr Samson,' said Verity firmly.

'Don't talk so loud,' said Samson, 'we might be heard outside.'

Verity chortled again.

'Why, Mr Samson! You don't do much thinking, do you? Suppose we was heard. Imagine what a voice from the tomb would do to Jem Rumer or his poachers, in the dead o' night. Why, they'd show such a clean pair o' heels that you'd never see 'em within a mile of the place again. Now, 'old that lamp steady, do, Mr Samson.'

Verity rubbed his hands together for warmth. He said more seriously,

'I 'ope the young gentleman could forgive what I gotta do. Where 'e is, I suppose he knows it's no disrespect but only to clear his honour and let proper justice be done him.'

He took his hat off, partly as a gesture of respect and partly to enable him to work more easily. The coffin had been fastened with large-headed and ornamental silver screws. Very imposing, thought Verity, and like most imposing things a good deal less efficient than they looked. The workmen of Pontifex and Jones of Finsbury, 'Undertakers to ladies and gentlemen of fashion', had taken such care with the silver, trying not to mark it, that the screws could almost be undone by hand. With the aid of an iron clasp which he had borrowed from Stringfellow, Verity did the job effortlessly.

'Lamp up a bit, Mr Samson, if you please,' he said softly to his companion, who was standing with head fastidiously turned in the other direction. The yellow glimmer of oil-light now fell squarely on the coffin top as Verity took it and slid it gently aside, propping it against the ledge. He shared little of Samson's horror of the dead. As a boy in Cornwall he and his father had paid their last respects to the bodies of miners crushed in the roof-falls and small tragedies of the tin-mines. In Her Majesty's Volunteer Rifle Brigade before Sebastopol, he had seen death in its most gruesome forms. What had to be done now was a necessary task, neither more nor less. A man must not shrink from that.

Despite the dampness of the place, the air of the coffin had been dry enough to preserve Lord Henry's body quite well during the few weeks since burial. The odours of death were strongly overlaid by spice and cedar, almost as if the corpse were embalmed. Preserving the outer form of the dead was a speciality of Pontifex and Jones. The mortal remains of Lord Henry had been dressed in a black silken suit, a single bandage about the head holding the mouth closed. No rings remained on the folded hands, neither the plain gold nor the bloodstone, but Verity knew they would have been removed before burial. From the capacious pocket of his ancient frock-coat he took a small razor and made a careful slit in the burial suit, laying back a triangle of cloth from the thigh.

'Have the goodness to keep that lamp up, Mr Samson,' he said gently. Then he shook his head, as though it were too much for him. 'Here's a rum go, all right,' he murmured to himself.

Shrugging off a respectful immobility, he stepped aside to avoid being in his own light and looked askance at the right-hand side of the corpse, peering with a frown at the head. The bandage customarily used to hold the jaw of the dead man closed had been extended to cover the right ear and the place immediately behind it, where the bullet had entered. Verity eased the cotton forward and peered at the wound with a grimace which conveyed sympathy rather than distaste.

'Well I never!' he said presently. "Then I wasn't hired for a fool's errand after all
!’

He had seen the wound before, on Dr Jamieson's stereotype, and its contours were identical. But steel engravings showed little more than contours and there was something else which counted now.

'You seen all you need?' Samson asked nervously.

'What I seen, Mr Samson, some people is going to wish I never had.'

He manoeuvred the lid of the coffin back into place and tightened the silver screws.

'And what might you have seen exactly, Mr Verity?' Samson judged it safe to turn and face his colleague once more.

"What I seen, Mr Samson, is foul and beastly murder done, as sure as if I'd been standing with Jem Rumer and his crew the day poor Lord Henry fell. In fact, I seen it clearer, a-cos they was all took in by the plan of the devil that did it!'