SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (10 page)

As the
men turned away Verity glanced at the second photographic card which Bunker had
handed out. His eyes bulged a little and he gave a rich chortle of excitement.

‘Don't
prose so!' said Meiklejohn wearily. He and Verity were alone in the room which
served as office for the men of the Private-Clothes Detail during their
Brighton secondment. The noon sunlight, heavy with dust, fell on a pair of
counting-house tables and two high stools.

'I
tell you I seen her before!' Verity whispered insistently. He glanced back
nervously at the closed door, as if fearing interruption. 'She was one of them
young persons bred up at Miss Lammle's in Cheyne Walk. Bred up to be a
governess. Me and Mr Samson had an eye on the house after a young beauty called
Judith Perry was sent there. German governess this one was. Name o' Cosima
Bremer. She's no more 'n eighteen or nineteen now. Bit flighty but no real harm
in her. Will yer look at that likeness again, Mr Meiklejohn!'

Meiklejohn
glanced unenthusiastically at his copy of the photograph which Bunker had
handed to each man of the detail. He saw a girl who looked no more than
seventeen, the dark governess skirts still delineating in their folds the long
agile legs and firm hips. There was an animated prettiness in Cosima's face
with its blue eyes and the fair hair which was worn loose, though tightly
shaped as it waved to shoulder-length.

'Banker Lansing's fancy!' said Verity triumphantly.

Meiklejohn shrugged.

'All
right. You know her then. What I wouldn't give for a pint of gin-shrub!'

'Can't yer see it,
Mr Meiklejohn? I know her!'

'Rum-shrub,
even,' said Meiklejohn. 'If I was in London now, I'd be sitting in Ma Freeman's
with a warm belly and a glass on the table.' He sighed at the unfairness of it
all.

'Listen
to me, Meiklejohn! I had dealings with this young person! It's me that can make
her see reason!'

'You tell Mr Croaker, then.'

'You
gone stoopid, 'ave you?' said Verity, reddening with exasperation. 'Old man
Croaker'd have me off this detail so fast I'd never know I'd been on it. No, Mr
Meiklejohn. What I got is a stratagem!'

Meiklejohn
looked up, the apprehension clear in his face, and Verity snuffled humorously.

'Ain't
the first time I've brought such young persons to see reason, Mr Meiklejohn.
First chance I get I’ll have Cosima in a corner and put it to her good and
straight. Let her hand over that heathen ornament and every good word shall be
spoke for her. Else she'll be took for handling stolen goods. Ten years under lock
and key in a place where beauty fades remarkable sudden.'

Meiklejohn appeared thoroughly alarmed.

'You listen, Verity. . .'

''s
all right, Mr Meiklejohn! Trust me and we'll all be shaking Mr Gowry's hand
tomorrow.'

'Verity?
Meiklejohn's shout interrupted his plump companion's
enthusiasm. 'What's going to happen to us all when Croaker finds you scared the
bird off the nest and she can't be found this side of Christmas? Have some
sense!'

Verity
thrust his large head forward, glaring pugnaciously.

'Won't be like that, Mr
Meiklejohn. I
know
her!' Meiklejohn became reasonable.

'Look,
old friend,' he said gently, I’d rather have Whitehall or Haymarket. Who
wouldn't? But Brighton ain't a bad billet for now. 'If you want to end up down
Mr Croaker's privy, that's your affair. But me and four other poor bleeders on
the detail don't fancy it. Act sensible and we’ll all have a bit of a jolly
here with the races and the chits on the promenades. So you just leave her be
and proceed as instructed. All right?'

'You forgot something, Mr Meiklejohn,' said Verity solemnly.

‘Have I? What's that, then?'

‘I
ain't one to say it without
some cause,' said Verity, ‘but since that unfortunate affair in Langham Place
over Miss Helen Jacoby, you been reduced to the ranks. I'm your superior
officer. In fact, ‘I’m superior to anyone else that'll be watching the front of
the house. What I say goes.'

Meiklejohn let out a breath of forceful exasperation.

'See
here, Verity,' he said gently. 'You take a single step towards Miss Cosima
whoever-she-is. Say one word to her. That's all. I’ll be in Mr Croaker's office
there and then. And
I’ll
tell him
that you know the young person and she knows you. An officer that can be
recognised has no use in surveillance. Why, you won't be on this detail then.
You won't even be private-clothes any more. They'll have you wearing your legs
out, up and down the Waterloo Road in a tall hat and uniform. Can't say I
should like to have your feet when that happens.'

Verity's
face fell. Under the flattened black hair and the waxed moustaches his round
red cheeks went slack as if in a token of surrender. He seemed bereft of any
answer. Then he pulled himself together.

'You
ain't a man of confidence, Mr Meiklejohn,' he said reproachfully. 'Not a man of
confidence at all.'

Meiklejohn's triumph was not marred by this.

'P'raps
not,' he said thoughtfully, ‘But I know a soft billet when I see one. And I
seen one here. Mind you, though, I wouldn't say no to a pull or two of shrub
before we all got Mr Croaker's harness on our backs.'

It was
the following morning when Verity and Meiklejohn took their first watch in
Brunswick Square. Verity himself had not previously walked as far west as this
during his time in Brighton. After the narrower streets of the town, the market
area still reminiscent of an old fishing village, the grandeur of Brunswick
Town, as the neighbourhood was called, seemed undeniably impressive. The square
was built on a slight incline, the lower side open to the promenade and the
sea. At the top end there was a gap between the buildings where Brunswick Place
entered. The fine white houses of the square thus formed two L-shaped blocks.
Baron Lansing's love-nest was in the corner of the western block.

Verity
stood at ease in the morning sunshine which danced on the bottle-green waves
where the buildings opened out to the sea. He had begun to take a proprietorial
interest in the majestic sweep of Georgian facades. Against the tall cream
houses, the black paint of area railings and drawing-room balconies shone with an
immaculate gloss. Behind the long sash windows of the first floor, veiled by
silk curtains, he could almost imagine the swish of evening gowns and the
strains of a waltz or a quadrille.

Below
the handsome bowed windows of the principal apartments, flights of steps led up
from the pavement to the brass-furnished doors of each house. A gate was set in
the pavement railings, giving access to the basement steps which led down to
the kitchen and servants' quarters.

While
Inspector Croaker and his colleagues of the Brighton Constabulary watched the
rear of the house from their hired room, Verity and Meiklejohn surveyed the
front. It was easily done. At first, Verity had been apprehensive that they
would have to stand immediately outside the building, or at least directly
across the square from it. Even a helpless young woman like Cosima Bremer would
soon have recognised them for what they were, even if she failed to identify
Verity himself. But the design of the square enabled them to watch without
being seen.

They
stood a few yards up Brunswick Place, which divided the two blocks of houses as
it entered the square from the hill above. This gave them an oblique view
across the front of the corner house. Anyone entering or leaving must cross
their gaze, while they themselves could not be seen from the windows of the
Lansing mansion. If the girl who lived there wished to scrutinise them, she
would have to come down the steps as far as the pavement to do so.

In any
case, Verity and Meiklejohn had a pretext for their guard. The house outside
which they appeared to be standing watch was one of the grandest of all, tall
Corinthian pilasters rising between its long windows. During the summer
recess, the mansion was the home of the Right Honourable Henry Layard, lately
appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs upon Lord Palmerston's
insistence. The Right Honourable gentleman had been greatly flattered when
offered a private-clothes guard upon his front door. To the entire
neighbourhood, as well as to the Queen's Messengers arriving with despatch
cases, his newly acquired grandeur was advertised unchallengeably.

Verity
and Meiklejohn stood either side of the front door with its polished brass,
their boots planted firmly astride, hands behind their backs, the rear of one
hand resting in the palm of the other. It was the approved posture for a
private-clothes detective on surveillance duty. Only one feature betrayed their
purpose. The eyes, which should have stared unswervingly ahead, slanted
sidelong at the opening of Brunswick Square and the view across its
north-western corner.

Verity
shifted apprehensively as a young woman came into sight, walking from the
dazzling sunlight of promenade and sea. She was making for the top of the
square, accompanied by a child in red velvet carrying a hoop. It was the
oldest dodge in the business, a pickpocket or a flash-tail who used a child to
give a semblance of innocence to such movements. But before she reached the
shaded corner of the square, she crossed to the green space of its private
central garden. On the long sweep of grass, stretching down to the promenade, a
dozen lime trees, warped by the prevailing sea-wind, rose among the paths and
flower-beds. The child gave a cry of delight, produced a stick and began to bowl
the hoop vigorously. Verity sighed.

The
morning passed in heat and stillness, broken only by the distant surge of
breakers and the shouts of children on the beach itself. A milkman, pulling his
little cart with several churns upon it, passed the two policemen and turned
into the square. He stopped outside the corner house and leant over the area
railings.

"Milk down
below!'

Presently
he returned to his float, carrying a jug, ladled out milk from a churn, and
went back to give it to someone on the basement steps.

'Bloody
useless!' said Meiklejohn, breaking the silence between the two men. 'He could
be going off now with that Shah Jehan clasp in his milk churn! There's a
hundred ways!'

'No he couldn't, Mr
Meiklejohn.' 'Course he bloody well could.' ‘No he couldn't, Mr Meiklejohn.' ‘Why
couldn't he?'

Verity
turned his plump face smugly upon his companion.

' 'Cos
he's one of Mr Bunker's men from the London Indemnity, Mr Meiklejohn. That's
why. And so's the baker, and the cat's meat man. They got this square sewn up
tighter 'n a curate's pocket. What a curse that jool brought on Miss Cosima! A
legacy o' doom, Mr Meiklejohn! She can't admit having the clasp without a
charge of stolen property or fraud. And she can't trust a living soul with the
story. And she ain't a wicked girl, as such. Not reely bad.'

Meiklejohn
was silent for a moment, as though something had begun to weigh upon his mind.

'P’raps
you was right, Verity. P'raps the best thing would be to have it out with her,
face to face.'

Verity chortled indulgendy.

‘No,
Mr Meiklejohn.
You
was right. I thought about it after.'

'About what?'

'That
jool ain't just a jool, Mr Meiklejohn. Can't be. If it was Banker Lansing's
inheritance there was more to it. And the trouble someone's taken to try and
sweeten me! What for? That jool'd be the biggest give-away a thief could have.
Ain't a magsman that would touch it, unless he was to throw it in the sea. I
don't suppose Miss Cosima got the least idea what it's worth, nor why.'

'Ten thousand, old
Bunker reckoned.'

'Double
it, Mr Meiklejohn. Treble it. Put a nought on the end and double it again.
Banker Lansing's fortune, that's what it was. This whole thing got a real rich
aroma about it. A real ripe smell.'

He
broke off suddenly as a figure scuttled out from the little gate above the
basement steps of the Baron Lansing's mansion. It was a servant, a girl in a
green cotton dress. The girl had a cloth in her hand. She flapped it vigorously
in the air, as though to shake dust or crumbs from it, and then scuttled back again.
As she turned, Meiklejohn let out a gasp of surprise.

'Blimey!' he said. 'Jolly!'

'Tighter
'n a curate's purse, Mr Meiklejohn,' said Verity firmly.