SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (27 page)

Verity shook his
head.

'Waste o' time. They got a man
back and front. They won't do more 'n that, will they? They see who comes and
goes.'

'Verity,' said Stringfellow
thoughtfully, 'you never thought this means just what it says? Miss Bella there
of her own free will? Then leaving of her own free will?'

Verity slapped the
table harder.

'You know your own daughter
better 'n that, Stringfellow!'

'Yes,'
said Stringfellow meaningfully. 'Only I was disturbed the other night. P'raps
Miss Bella felt something the same.'

Jolly
was sitting in a low nursing-chair darning a smock. Verity felt his cheeks
burn.

'Don't
judge, Stringfellow!' he said warningly. 'What you hear of me at nights and I
hear of you is a bit different. See?'

The old man shrugged, as if
the matter were no longer his concern.

'What's to do then, me old sojer?'

Verity thought for a moment.
Then he looked at the card again.

'First
off, we probably been set up. They 'spect us to go there at three o'clock and
just put our heads in the noose.'

'Ain't much else to be done,' said Stringfellow
morosely.

'Yes there is, Mr
Stringfellow. They expect us then. But what if we was in there already, before
'em, waiting for 'em to show up? Then it's our noose and their necks. See?'

'How d'yer get in with law back and front?'

'I'll
do it, Mr Stringfellow. There's a window down the basement you could put a
child through to open the bolts from inside.'

'You
ain't got a child,' said Stringfellow reasonably, 'and you ain't got time to
find one.'

But
the glint of combat was in Verity's eyes. He nodded in the direction of the
nursing-chair.

'What's wrong with
'er?'

Without looking
up, Jolly said, 'I wasn't servant there for nothing. There's not just bolts,
you'd need keys as well.' She stood up and came towards him. 'Keys?' said
Verity uncertainly.

The beautiful odalisque eyes
regarded him with the quiet disdain of a pedigree cat.

'Yes!' she said
insistently. 'These!'

They jangled on the table,
three of them on a small iron ring.

'Where the 'ell
d'you get these?' snapped Verity.

'Took
them, didn't I?' cooed Jolly. 'Spare ones from the kitchen shelf. Only present
I ever got there.'

Verity's face
contorted, astounded and disapproving. But Stringfellow reached out, seeking a
little fold of flesh on Jolly's hip and pinching it knowingly.

'There's a clever
little 'orse!' he said encouragingly.

17

Concealed by the
laurel shrubs of the Brunswick Square gardens, Jolly drew a deep breath and
sang a long shrill soprano note. She paused and peeped over the bush in the
direction of the house at the corner of the square. The private-clothes man
looked about him uncertaintly. She sang another note at the top of her range,
frantic and despairing. Then she put words to this cadenza of terror.

'Oh no-o-o-o! Oh please! N-o-o-o! AHHHHHH!'

He was
crossing the square now, coming towards the private gardens at its centre,
moving towards the source of the disturbance. Jolly let out a final scream,
less piercing but with a suggestion of a throttled windpipe. The policeman
broke into a run, though still looking to right and left as if he could not
decide precisely where the cries had come from. Jolly, in a snug-fitting vest
and riding trousers in the familiar tight blue genoa cotton, moved quietly
away. Her hair was gathered into a black woollen helmet which covered her head
so that, at a distance, it was hard to distinguish her sex, let alone her
appearance.

As the
private-clothes man floundered into the shrubbery, threshing among the laurel
bushes, the girl walked briskly over to the corner house. Another figure was
already disappearing through the little gate in the black-painted railings
which led to the steps going down to the basement area of the building. Its
burly outline seemed emphasised by tight black trousers and vest, as well as a
black woollen helmet identical in style to that worn by the girl. At the top of
the basement steps this stouter of the two paused and pulled down the helmet so
that it covered the face, leaving only two holes for the eyes and a slit for
the mouth. Jolly imitated the same gesture and followed quickly through the
little gate in the railings, shutting it after her. They met at the foot of the
steps and the burly figure turned upon her at once.

'Right,
miss!' it said. 'Sharp's the word and quick's the motion. That little
performance of yours won't hold him for more 'n a minute or two!'

They found the little window
to one side of the kitchen door. It had been built to ventilate the pantry and,
at first glance, Verity feared that it was too small even to admit a girl of
slender figure. But this also meant that it was ill-protected. Bunching his
gloved hand into an impressive fist, he punched out a little square of glass
between the glazing-bars, slid an arm through and moved the catch. The lower
half of the tiny sash-window moved up easily. Stretching her arms out before
her, Jolly appeared to dive through the narrow space until her shoulders were
inside and her hips outside. Then she seemed to be held fast. Verity guessed
that she had found nothing to grip on the far side.

There was a bizarre pause.
With mounting anxiety Verity looked about him. At any moment the
private-clothes guard would return. In the meantime he was confronted by the
grotesque view of the girl kneeling through the window. As though in a
suggestive work of art, the window acted as a frame round the spectacle of
Jolly's stretched trouser-seat, the taut round buttocks distinctly separated
and marked by the suggestive seam between them.

'Push the-e-n!'
she wailed.

Verity's face grew
hot as a furnace as he watched his hands cupping the cheeks of Miss Jolly's
bottom. He tried not to look as she wriggled with apparent eagerness against
his palms. The absurd but necessary vulgarity renewed his earlier remorse. With
relief he felt her move suddenly and then she vanished through the space. A few
seconds later the bolts of the kitchen door rattled, the lock snapped back, and
he stepped into the darkened basement after her.

The
kitchen was deserted. He led the way softly to the top of the servants' stairs,
where she had warned him that the door might have to be forced. Verity tried it
and found that it was open. Perhaps, he thought, his tormentors were here
already. He swung it open and moved cautiously through, keeping his back to the
wall as he looked from the hall into the rooms of the ground floor.

After
the warmth of the summer afternoon, the elegant house was cool, dark and still.
There was a mustiness of closed rooms which suggested that it had not been
opened since the day of Cosima's departure. Just before Jolly began her cries
of alarm among the shrubs, Verity had checked the time. It was then half past
one. He guessed from the state of the house that those who had lured him to it
had not yet arrived themselves.

Convinced of this, he relaxed
and moved away from the wall. Then he motioned Jolly from the darkness of the
stairs where she was crouching apprehensively.

' 's
all right, miss,' he whispered. 'We stole our march on 'em. Now, you keep out
o' harm's way and leave this to me.'

He went into the housekeeper's
room at the back where the door curtain still hung on its brass rail. The room
was cold and smelt of damp. He was quite sure that it had not been entered in
the past few days. Had his adversaries brought him here merely for their own
pleasure in seeing him rise to any bait they offered? Verity shrugged and went
across to the window of the room. He slid the catch open and made sure that the
frame moved easily on its sash-cords. They thought him a fool, of course. But
he was not such a fool as to leave himself without some easy means of escape.

In the
double drawing-room of the first floor the sunlight from the square fell in
beams that were heavy with dust particles. Verity stood back and stared with
experienced eyes at the furniture. The arms of the chairs, the surfaces of the
inlaid tables and cabinets were all covered by an immaculate powdering of dust.
It lay evenly and undisturbed, no finger-trail of brightness marking it. From
the state of the room, Verity guessed that no one had entered it since Cosima
had slipped away from the house.

He
frowned. For the first time he had no idea as to why he had been brought to
Brunswick Square at such a time. All his expectations of villains lying in wait
or devices to trap him had come to nothing. Jolly hovered apprehensively in the
doorway as he turned and walked through into the back drawing-room of the first
floor. In front of him was a polished table of mahogany inlaid with a walnut
leaf pattern. The table was empty, except for a small gold ring which lay
exactly at its centre. Verity's heart beat faster as he stooped forward and
examined it. The dust on the table was undisturbed and the ring had evidently
lain there for several days. He picked it up, knowing even before he examined
it more closely that it was Bella's wedding ring. When he looked at the inner
surface of the little gold band, he saw their initials which he had had
engraved there as a symbol of their marriage for eternity.

He stood quite still,
listening for any movement in the rooms above or below him. There was none.
Then he glanced ahead of him towards the windows of the rear drawing-room which
looked out across the backs of Brunswick Street West. Between him and the
window was a green velvet day-bed, its carved back facing him and its cushions
angled towards the window. The surface upon which its occupant would recline
was hidden from him by the raised back. But looking more closely he saw
something protruding just beyond the end of that. It was a woman's shoe, and
the
shoe encased a dainty foot.

Sick
with the apprehension of what he was about to find, Verity crept forward and
looked falteringly over the back of the day-bed. The young face stared up at
him, the fair hair neatly arranged, the blue eyes opened and untroubled, the
lips parted, the features cold and immobile in death like a marble effigy.
Despite all his preparedness and his courageous resolve, he let out a little
cry of fear. Cosima Bremer's body, when he touched her cheek, was still faintly
warm. Her composure and stillness was unmistakeably that of the dead.

Verity turned and raced up the
stairs to the remaining floor. After his tortured longing to see Bella again,
he could almost have cried with relief at finding that she was not here. His
mind sifted a confusion of thoughts. Cosima had died somewhen that day. He
guessed that she had been smothered by a pillow or cushion to judge from the
state of her body. Either she had been killed by a man who entered the house,
or she had been killed elsewhere and her body brought here. In either case, the
murderers had been able to find their way past the private-clothes guard. A
suspicion which had lurked in Verity's mind now began to take a precise form.
All that had happened was explicable only if his tormentors had a tame jack
working in the Brighton police office. Surely that was the answer.

Then
all his suspicions were submerged in an agony of terror at the thought of
Bella's fate. The men who held her would kill without compunction. He had
thought at first that she was merely taken in order to make him obey such
orders as were given. Now he knew that he had embarked upon a blind and frantic
race to find her before she was put to the same death as Cosima.

He
raced down the stairs to where Jolly was waiting, still with no clear idea in
his mind of what he was about to do. Perhaps the best thing would be to hide
and wait for his adversaries to appear at three o'clock. But he was no longer
sure that they meant to appear. A cruel message had been delivered by allowing
him to discover the body of Cosima and Bella's wedding ring. The ring was a
token of assurance that one young woman would go the way of the other once her
purpose had been served.

At the
foot of the stairs he faced Jolly, the agony of his face reflected in the
dismay of her own expression. He stood there, trying to find the words which
would convey his helplessness. From the other world of the sunlit square he
heard voices and footsteps. There was a thundering on the wooden panels of the
front door, not the sound of a man knocking for admission but the splintering
of staves and the thud of axes as the door was broken down.