SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (37 page)

'C'mon!' whispered Verity. He
was leading the way through the gap into the chamber beyond. It was tall and
narrow with a thin circle of light round the edges of an iron cover above. They
were now beneath the basement area of one of the houses.

Ahead of them the domestic
culvert ran into the foundations of the house itself, under the kitchen floor
presumably. Here too the brickwork had been disturbed. Though the bricks
themselves had been replaced it was easy enough to lift them out, revealing a
gap big enough to admit a man's body under the basement floor. There was a
space under the joists and boards in this case, sloping like the square
outside. At the higher end the builders' rubble and broken bricks lay piled up
almost to the level of the floorboards. At the other extreme there was a cavity
about four feet high against the foundation wall of the adjoining house.

Daylight shone through
occasional cracks in the walls. As Verity turned the lantern in a semi-circle
he heard a sudden shuffling of stone and the squeak of rats. At the level of the
foundations the partition wall between the two houses was pierced by a narrow
gap at one end, as if to facilitate inspection of the premises by officials of
the gas and water companies. Somewhere above him, then, there might be a
convenient trapdoor or at least a place where the floorboards could be easily
moved. He was so preoccupied in examining the joists and boards that he almost
cried out with fright and disgust as his feet blundered into the soft fetid
shape on the rubble.

Disgust gave way
to horror as the lamp showed him the blue embroidered band of Bella's
crinoline. The dead face looked up at him. Surely, even the ravages of death
could never have altered her to the swollen idiocy on which he now looked. He
could think of this only as a stranger in Bella's clothes. Then, with Samson at
his side, he found two floorboards so loosely nailed back into place that he
could knock them up again with his clenched fist.

The two men heaved themselves
up into an unfamiliar kitchen. Its shape was approximately that of the Baron
Lansing's, except that it occupied the entire basement area. Moving softly to
the stairway, Verity pressed the latch and led the way up to the ground floor.
It was a sparsely furnished house with none of the buhl and velvet which Cosima
Bremer had enjoyed. However, there appeared to be a more sumptuous room on the
first floor glimpsed through a half-open door. It was a woman's dressing-room
and, as they drew closer, Verity could make out the tiny sounds of skirts being
put on or off.

There was no doubt
that they were in the Brunswick Academy. Every glimpse from the windows
confirmed the position of the house at the top of the square looking directly
down towards the sea. The sergeants edged their way into the doorway, still
unobserved. Verity stood there, fascinated by the figure before him.

Madame
Rosa's black bombazine was unmistakeable. But like the contrivance of a
freak-show, there emerged from the bulky skirts and bodice a cropped and
grizzled head. The pouched face was dusted with rouge and coarse with
ill-shaven stubble. A wig with a veil attached lay on the table. It was Samson
who recovered his wits first.

'Oh dear, Jack Strap! Ain't
you a pretty thing, though? 'f I'd a-seen you like this first off, why I don't
s'pose I should've had a glance to spare for Miss Maudie!'

Strap
turned upon the two men with a roar. In a single gesture he ripped the skirts
and bodice clear, standing in trousers and shift as if prepared for battle. He
snatched up a chair by one leg and charged upon Verity, whirling the piece of
furniture like a claymore. Verity sprang aside in time, but Jack Strap was upon
Samson as the chair smashed harmlessly against the door. The bully seized
Samson by a leg and an arm, lifted him and launched him horizontally through
the air towards the window. There was a shattering of wood and a rending of
curtains as a small occasional table broke Samson's fall. Shaking his head
stupidly, he picked himself slowly out of the wreckage, while Strap turned upon
Verity again.

The bully had hold of Verity
by shirt and trousers and was slamming him back repeatedly against the wall.
Verity's fists beat on the pouched face but Strap seemed to feel nothing. And
then, as the breath was beaten from his body, Verity's arms fell limp and the
light from the window began to grow black. He tried to shout for Samson but the
words came only as spasms of breath from his exhausted lungs.

Then Samson was back in the
fight, clutching at a leg from the broken chair and bringing it down on Jack
Strap's head. But Samson was too short to deliver the blow effectively. Strap
shook his head, as though to dislodge a troublesome insect, and then began to
beat Verity against the wall again. Satisfied that one of his adversaries was
out of action for the time being, he left Verity to slide down the wall to the
floor, and swung round on Samson. From the waist of his trousers, the bully had
drawn his brass-weighted belt. The time had come to finish Samson once and for
all. Whirring the weighted leather at his side he closed upon the dazed
policeman.

Samson staggered back,
stumbling over fallen furniture in an attempt to get beyond Strap's range. It
was Verity who got first to his knees, then to his feet, and attacked the enemy
from the rear. To hold him back from Samson, he leapt upon Strap's shoulders,
hanging there with his arms locked round the bully's throat. Strap hardly
seemed to notice. He moved forward, driving Samson into a corner of the room.

As
they passed the dressing-table, Verity snatched up a large bottle of lavender
water and began to beat the massive skull with the thick glass. And still Strap
hardly appeared to notice. With Verity's weight riding on his back, he whirred
the loaded belt faster and faster as he prepared Samson for the
coup de
grace
.

His
arms thrown up before his face, Samson was crouched in the corner beyond all
possibility of self-defence. Strap had begun his career as a fairground
fighter, taking on three men simultaneously in the exhibition ring. It would
have needed the greater part of the Private-Clothes Detail to match him now.

And
then Verity came to his senses. He stopped beating Strap on the skull and
loosened his grip on the leathery throat. Very gently he undid the top of the
lavender water and poured the contents of the bottle down over the bully's face
and into his eyes. Strap thrashed about him with a bellow of fury, fists
scrubbing at his eyes to wipe away the blinding pain. Samson edged away from
the corner in which he had been trapped. He grabbed a fallen curtain, ran a running
noose round Strap's ankles and brought the bully down by a tremendous heave.

As Verity fell on his
adversary's back, Samson took the handcuffs from his belt and managed to snap
one of them round Strap's right wrist. The second wrist defied all his efforts.
It was Verity who reached out and drew the bed closer until the free cuff could
be locked round its iron frame.

'Samson!' he shouted. 'Get
Meiklejohn! All of 'em! Anyone yer can! Call from the window!'

He
jumped clear and left Samson in the room with his prisoner. His last glimpse
was of Samson shouting through the open window, while the half-blinded bully
bellowed and roared his way round the room, towing after him the iron bedframe
to which he was now shackled. Verity opened the door of the only other room on
this floor and found it empty. On tiptoe he went up the next flight of stairs.
He had no idea who, if anyone, might be in the attics above but it was quite
possible that Strap was not the only one of Kite's men in the house. And if
Kite and Old Mole had ordered the deaths of Madame Rosa, her maid, and Cosima
Bremer, they would not have hesitated to add his own to the list.

He opened the first attic
door. The sunlit little room contained three beds, presumably used by Madame
Rosa's pupils during term. Otherwise the apartment was empty. He opened the
next door and saw two empty beds. Where else could she be? He took a step
forward into the room. And then, worse than anything that Strap had done to
him, there was the sudden shock of an atrocious impact on his skull. He slid
down in an explosion of light and a slow darkness closed above him.

He had
no idea how long he had been lying there. As he drifted towards consciousness
again there was such pain in his head that he could not bear to move it.
Bella's voice came to him, weeping and far off.

‘Oh, Mr Verity!
Oh, Mr Verity!'

He
opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on the little bed nearest to the
door. Bella was looking down at him.

'Mrs Verity!' His voice rasped
and thickened however much he tried to prevent it. 'Bella!'

Her hands were
clasped in consternation.

'Oh, Mr Verity! We never
thought it was you! We never meant it for you!'

To one side of him, on the
floor, was a length of metal pipe.

'Mrs Verity!' Admiration and
reproach were finely balanced in his voice.

'Oh, Mr Verity!
Poor, dear, Mr Verity!'

There were two other people in the room. He saw, in
double vision, the adolescent figure of Jane Midge. Then, as his eyes cleared,
he made out Meiklejohn working with a hacksaw at another length of piping. He
looked back at Bella, scandalously attired in nothing beyond bodice and
pantalets.

‘ 'ere Mrs Verity!' he said excitedly. 'Where's yer
clothes?'

'They
took the dress for the servant girl,' she said primly. 'The big man and that
other one with dark cropped hair.'

'Old Mole,' Verity said
thickly. 'Meiklejohn! What's been happening while I was lying here?'

'Nothing much,' said
Meiklejohn sawing determinedly to free Jane Midge. 'Half of Brighton
constabulary is in the square outside. That's all.'

'And Jack Strap?'

'They caught him
just below, on the promenade. Pulling a bed behind him. He's cuffed and ironed,
in the lock-up.' 'And them bodies?'

'Madame
Rosa and her maid. While you was decoyed to the beach that time, seems that
Sealskin Kite's lot took over this house and coopered the pair of 'em. On'y
Strap was to pretend to be the old girl coming and going. That way they could
keep Mrs V. and Midge prisoners here. And they could come and go through the
foundation wall to get from this to next door.'

Verity lay there, too
exhausted to discuss the matter further. In any case, he knew all there was to
know by this time.

A dress was found for Bella
and early in the evening they were taken home. In the corner of the square
stood the yellow hackney coach with Stringfellow and Jolly on the box. Verity
followed Bella inside after the cabman's tearful reunion with his daughter. All
Bella's tears of joy had been shed on her husband's recovery. She sat in the
coach with him, calm and contented.

'I never would a-done you such
damage, Mr Verity,' she said softly. 'You know that.'

'There, there, Mrs Verity!'

'Only
it was that nasty Strap person we was expecting. And I got this bit of lead
pipe free yesterday. And though I couldn't quite reach the door, being chained
to the iron pipe by an ankle, I could make the lead one reach there. So, of
course, when the door opens and someone comes through. . .' 'There, there,
Bella! There, there!'

They passed the evening crowds
and the quiescent tide, but their eyes rested tranquilly on one another.
Presently, however, Bella sat back and wrinkled her pretty nose.

' 'ere, Mr Verity!
Where you say you been exactly?'

22

Three
times Verity had stood to attention in front of the desk to receive Croaker's
reprimands. But this time there was a difference. The lime-washed office of the
Brighton constabulary was familiar enough, but the face behind the desk had
changed. Brushing his white cavalry commander's moustaches compulsively,
Superintendent Gowry seemed to pierce the plump sergeant with the gaze of his
calm blue eyes. Gowry was the supreme 'Governor' of the Private-Clothes Detail,
a stickler for discipline. But, unlike Croaker, the ex-artillery supply
officer, Gowry had been a fighting soldier. As such, he had been trained in the
old-fashioned military ideals of decency and loyalty towards the men who served
under him.

'Sergeant,'
he said quietly, 'it is a matter of great regret to me that I should be
compelled to perform this duty in Mr Croaker's place.'

'Yessir,' said Verity
as contritely as he knew how.

'Mr
Croaker, gallant officer and leader of men that he is, will remain an invalid
for the rest of the month. Both arms and one leg in plaster.'