SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (16 page)

'I
never peached, Mr Mole! They never had a word from me! And if they had stripped
the skin from me, I'd a-bit off my tongue before I'd peach to bastards like
them!'

Old
Mole drew a deep breath into his burly lungs. He walked up to Joe and clapped a
friendly hand on his shoulder.

'You're
all right, Stunning Joseph. You're a safe cove. Ain't in your nature to peach
on old pals, is it?'

Joe
snatched a blanket as a girl with a deformed idiot face appeared in the doorway
carrying a tray. She set it down and went meekly away again. Without waiting
for an invitation, Stunning Joe took the tray on his knees and cut hungrily
at the mutton chops in their dish.

'I
know what was done for me,' he said through a mouthful of meat. 'You and Mr
Kite himself. I mean to show myself grateful.'

Old
Mole watched the knife cut vigorously across the dish.

'Oh yes,' he said gently. 'You'll show yourself
grateful all right. That's what I'm here for.'

The
last words woke a sudden memory in Joe's mind, the voice which had spoken when
all hope was lost. He put down the knife and fork.

'It was you, Mr
Mole! In the boat last night!'

Old Mole inclined
his head, modestly.

'Me
and Jack Strap. Mr Strap ain't even a swimmer. He can't abide the water. Even
when he's had to send an awkward cove to his last long home, he won't do it by
water. Turns him quite rummy. Even Strap got a bit of sensitive nature, ain't
he?'

Old
Mole's mouth extended in huge and silent appreciation of his own wit.

'I was
let go by Mr MacBride,' said Joe insistently. ‘
I
was saved by Miss Claire. And
I was took from the water by you.'

Old
Mole shrugged and watched Joe start his second chop.

'When
Mr Kite wants a thing, he generally gets it. You was watched over like a child
in its cradle, Stunning Joe. It was never sure you could get clean away from
the quarries, what with bounty-hunters as well. But then there was the hospital
to see you safe out again, if caught. When they came to bury you, it was me and
Jack Strap had you safe in sight. Mind you, Joseph, I don't say we should have
found you easy again without you calling for us. The tide that carried you was
driving us back.'

Joe looked up from
his food.

'You was watching?
All the time?'

Old Mole shook his
head solemnly.

'You've
no idea, little Joseph, no idea whatsoever how you've been watched over these
past months.'

'And
you sweetened MacBride? A flint-hearted brute like him?'

Old Mole grinned
again.

'Jimmy MacBride
got weaknesses, Joe. Ain't we all? Likes

his helping of nancy.' ‘MacBride?'

'What
could be told might put him on the hulks for good. And he knows it. But let him
act reasonable, and he can stiff all he wants, with Mr Kite's compliments.'

Stunning Joe blew out his cheeks.

‘You must a-wanted me bad,' he
said. 'You really must, Mr Mole.'

'True,'
said Old Mole. 'And Mr Kite more so. You wouldn't believe how set Mr Kite was
on having you sprung. The things have been done for you, Stunning Joseph!'

'And my young
person, Mr Mole? What about her?'

'Millbank,
Joseph, the penitentiary. She'll be there five years if she's there a day.
Arranged the matter. Same block as where Missy Ludd is boss. Sad accidents can
happen there, Joe. Vicki Hartle bathed in water boiling fresh from the copper.
A good scrubbing or two with them wire brushes. Fed on piping gruel to get the
beauty of it warm. Why, being locked alone in the dark on bread and water’ll
be heaven on earth for your
Miss Vicki. Scores is settled, Stunning Joe, have no fear.'

But
Joe was on his feet, the quick dark eyes glinting with anger.

'I
don't want none of that, Mr Mole! Just let her rot there Five years and forget
it. I seen enough cruel tricks these past few months and I don't wish 'em on a
living soul. Let the law have her, Mr Mole, but Missy Ludd ain't to touch her!'

Old Mole nodded
submissively and spread out his hands.

'As
you want it, Joseph. Then Missy Ludd shan't raise a hand to her. I'd say them
hulks had made you a changed man, my son. What they call humane. Mind you,
there's times when a man can be too humane for his own good. But that's between
you and the bitch that done you harm.'

Old
Mole turned to the door, as if about to leave, and then swung back again.

‘In course, you'll
be seeing Mr Kite this afternoon. I’ll have some togs for you before that. Act
sensible, Stunning Joe, and remember your pals and what they've done for you.
That way you won't go far wrong.'

He
moved towards the door again, but Joe called him, getting to his feet once
more.

'Mr
Mole! That heathen clasp was never there, never with them other jools in the
safe. I had no chance to make away with it. You got to believe that.'

'I
believe you, Stunning Joe,' said Old Mole reasonably. 'Who wouldn't?’

'I
never so much as seen it, Mr Mole. And if I knew where it might be, ‘I’d tell
you and Mr Kite straight off.'

Old
Mole's yellowed mouth hung open again but there was no longer any semblance of
humour in its grin.

'Oh,
you would, Stunning Joe,' he said reassuringly. 'Yes, you would. Not at first,
p'raps. But you'd marvel at the things you might tell once your mind was put to
it proper.'

The
waves on the shingle were no more than a distant thunder as the afternoon sun
caught the dark gloss of mahogany furniture in Sealskin Kite's parlour. There
the old man sat, hunched in his chair. Kite's face was brown and wizened as a
walnut, so that he seemed the twin rather than the husband of the old woman
who now sat beside him. Mrs Kite squirmed in her seat as she adjusted her black
bonnet and shawl.

Sealskin
Kite had never seen a police office. His closest acquaintance with a constable
was when he saw an officer standing protectively at the gate of his stockbroker
villa near Hammersmith Mall, touching his hat as the master's carriage rolled
in. Kite was the merchant banker of the swell mob, a man who could turn goods
into gold, gold into notes of credit, notes of credit into goods, stocks or
bonds. In a long life he had worked with great dexterity and complete impunity.
His neighbours saw in him a benign and childless old man, who contributed to
the relief of 'distressed trades', and dropped a gold sovereign into the
collection plate of the chapel which he attended on Sunday mornings.

The
turf and the whorehouses of the Haymarket were the basis of his wealth, though
he had long passed beyond such obvious means of subsistence. He had not been on
a racecourse for a dozen years, and he knew no more of the Haymarket than
could be seen from a closed carriage driving between Regent Street and Pall
Mall.

At
this stage of his life, he really had no idea how great his investments might
be in this group of betting offices or that, in property whose tenants lived by
prostituting themselves in the ill-lit streets near Piccadilly. From time to
time he read of vengeance exacted on a rival bookmaker or a recalcitrant
debtor. An iron stave might break a man's legs so that they would mend again
and allow him to walk with a little difficulty. Or, if the crime warranted a
second blow, he would do no more than sit out the rest of his days by a street
wall, a tin cup collecting the coppers of those who were moved to pity his
destruction before they hurried on their way.

Sealskin
Kite could not have guessed, to save his life, which of these injuries were
carried out in his own interests. The men who inflicted them were employed by
others who themselves were strangers to Kite. When he read of a man crippled by
his attackers, or a young woman disfigured, he folded his copy of
The Times
or the
Morning
Post
and shook his head in dismay.
Then he would turn to the old woman at his side and lament that he had no idea
what the world was coming to.

All of
which made it very odd that Kite should have involved himself personally in the
plans for robbery at Wan-nock Hundred. In the normal way of business he would
never have allowed himself to be seen with Old Mole, let alone Stunning Joe or
a common bawdy-house bully like Jack Strap. Yet the prize of the Shah Jehan
clasp had swept away all his sense of caution.

And still Joe
himself could not understand it. Sealskin Kite was not a man to covet the
bauble for himself. He had little taste for beauty or splendour of that kind.
Why, then, should he want it desperately enough to spring Joe O'Meara from the
dark prison-hulks? Even if the clasp could be found and stolen, Kite would
never find a buyer for it. It was too easily identified. Even its separate
stones would hardly escape detection. And if the stones had to be cut and
reset, losing much of their value in the process, why not steal a different
treasure in the first place?

Such
were the thoughts which had occupied Joe O'Meara in the hours preceding his
audience with Sealskin Kite.

In the
sunlit parlour, Kite and his wife snuggled in their adjoining chairs, their
shrewd old faces peering up like two mice in a glove. Old Mole and Jack Strap
stood either side of the door, like footmen. Jack Strap was a fat, grizzled
bully, whose age might have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. His
jowls hung in lines of sullen despondency but there was no mistaking the
strength in his shoulders, broad and powerful as a coal-heaver on a Thames
wharf.

'Come,
my dear young sir!' said Kite, the little eyes twinkling in the old bulldog
head. 'Be seated by me!' He beckoned Joe to the chair which was placed on the
side opposite to Mrs Kite.

When
Joe had perched himself uneasily in the place of honour, his host took
O'Meara's hand between his own.

'Sealskin
Kite keeps open house, sir. Always did and ever shall. You may call for what
you choose, sir. Whatever you do not see here shall be sent up at once.' He
turned to the old woman beside him who was rattling the plates on the table. 'A
new-laid egg or two for the young gentleman, my sweetness. And a round of
buttered toast.'

Mrs
Kite nodded, taking her dismissal in good part. She got to her feet and the
train of her black dress scurried over the carpet towards the door, which Old
Mole held open for her.

'Now,' said Kite
turning to Stunning Joe. 'And now welcome, my dear sir! Welcome again to all
your friends!
^’

Joe had determined
to say his piece early.

'I
shan't forget, sir!' he said quickly. 'I shan't forget what was done for me, Mr
Kite, nor what I owe to them that did it. Try me and see.'

Sealskin
Kite smiled, shaking his head gently from side to side, as if such gratitude
was beyond all expectation.

'Mr
Mole,' he said, without turning his face from Joe. 'What is the news today from
Portland?'

'Buried
him, Mr Kite. Buried him just on noon in the name of Joseph O'Meara. Seems that
Surgeon Doyle was quite poorly after last night's frolic. His assistant had to
do the business. Surprised to find Joe dead in his sleep, of course. But no
question of it. Thought he might have been smothered to death, yet who'd want
to do that?'

They
had murdered for him then, Joe thought. A man smothered, a body without mark
upon it. Kite looked at him, took his hand again and smiled. In the intervals
of speech, the old man's breath came in a faint buzzing sound as if he was
always framing words even though he might not utter them.

'Only
tell me what you want, Mr Kite,' he pleaded. 'Only tell me and
I’ll
do it for you.'

Kite patted the hand and then released it.

'My
dear young sir, ain't I a man of business? And what's a man of business to do
unless it's to protect his investment?'

'If I
knew where that heathen clasp was, I'd tell you, Mr Kite,' said Joe earnestly.
'And I'd fetch it for you this minute.'

Kite
clicked his tongue and shook his head again, as if speechless with admiration
of Joe's loyalty.