SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (38 page)

'Sir?'

'Your inspector's valiant attempt to apprehend Jack
Strap in Brunswick Square, as the villain was fleeing towards the promenade, is
an example of courage to you all. Indeed, had you and Samson not been so remiss
as to attach the man to a potential weapon, the injuries might have been
avoided.'

'You mean Strap
hit Mr Croaker with the bed, sir?'

'Yes,' said Gowry shortly. 'Mr
Croaker was furthermore the victim of a cowardly assault by a masked villain,
still unidentified, during the search of Brunswick Square and the discovery of
Fraulein Bremer's body there.'

'Well I never, sir!'

'Be that as it
may, Mr Croaker is now
hors de combat
.'

Verity's
honest face creased in total incomprehension. Gowry looked at him coldly.

'Which
brings us to the matter of your suspension, sergeant.'

'Yessir.'

'You were in the wrong, of
that there is no doubt,' Gowry's fingers played indecisively upon the desk as
he sought for words. 'I find you wrong in leaving your post. I find you
foolish, as I hear from Mr Croaker, in merely pretending that your wife had
gone off with another man in a cab. Never once did you offer evidence of the
gravity of what had happened in fact.'

Verity opened his mouth
protestingly but Gowry waved him to silence.

'However, sergeant, the ordeal
you have suffered and the courage you have shown must be weighed in the scales
likewise. Your suspension is lifted, your pay is restored. There will be no
board of inquiry.'

' 'umbly grateful, sir.'

'You
have saved two lives,' Gowry continued. 'The evidence of Strap and the dying
testimony of O'Meara has thrown the fraud in reverse. A good deal of the money,
though perhaps not all of it, will be recovered from the thieves, alive or
dead.'

'Very gratified to 'ear it, sir.'

Gowry opened the folder in
front of him. It was Verity's dossier.

'Not much here to sing about.
Eh, sergeant?' 'No, sir. 'fraid not, sir.'

'Reprimands,
warnings, insubordination,' Gowry's fingers flicked through the pages,
'assault, suspicion of complicity, complaint by a young person Cox.'

'Yessir.'

'To which I must
make my own addition,' said Gowry solemnly. 'Yessir.'

'Commander's
commendation for valour.'

The blood surged to Verity's
head and his plump cheeks glowed with the pride of recognition at last.

'Dunno what to
say, sir!' he gasped.

'No need to say anything,'
Gowry's quill was scratching on the cerulean blue paper. 'Mr Croaker would have
known how to reward you, had he been here.'

'Oh yes, sir,' said Verity
heavily. 'I 'spec he would all right.'

Gowry closed the
folder and looked up.

'Two
weeks compassionate leave in respect of Mrs Verity's recent distress. Absence
to commence at noon today.'

'Sir!'

The
dark eyes in the plump red face were nearly brimming with tears of jubilation.
Under the sturdy right arm the tall hat was dented by the pressure of
excitement as he held it smartly in its place.

Gowry
pushed back his chair and stood up. He held out his right hand.

'Oh,
damn it,' he said reasonably. 'Don't go round with a swollen head acting like a
conquering hero, sergeant. But congratulations! Well done, man!'

Verity stood
before the superintendent, as bewildered now as he had ever been after
Croaker's reprimands. So much had been given him. But he had still to ask a
favour of Gowry, a request which he had promised himself, promised Bella, even
promised the soul of Stunning Joe.

'Sir,' he said shamefacedly. '
'ave the honour to make a request, sir. With respect, sir.'

Gowry sat down again, the
lines of his white-whiskered old face suggesting that he sensed ingratitude on
Verity's part.

'Request, sergeant?' 'Yessir. For a young person,
sir.' Gowry looked at him bleakly. 'Miss Jolly may think herself extremely
lucky. . .' 'No, sir! Not 'er, sir. Poor young dancing orphan, sir. Jane Midge
that was kept prisoner with Mrs Verity.' 'What about her, sergeant?'

'Well,
sir,' said Verity awkwardly. 'She's not old, only fourteen, and she been a real
brave soldier. Being an orphan and having to flash her legs in a gaff ain't her
fault, sir.'

'Well, sergeant?'

'Well,
sir, what it means for her is Mrs Rouncewell, ex-police matron, sir. Steam
laundry down Elephant and Castle. I gotta great respect for Mrs Rouncewell,
sir, but. . .'

'But what, sergeant?'

'Jane's
on'y a pretty child yet, sir,' said Verity firmly. 'She been brave and she done
no wrong to speak of. It ain't the place for her, sir, not with persons of
fallen virtue. And there's no call for a child like Jane to be birched over and
over, or have that opening medicine put down her, same as Ma Rouncewell has to
do with hardened creatures, sir.'

'Then come to the point of your request, sergeant.'

'Just this, sir. You being who
you are, sir, p'raps you might know of a respectable lady and gentleman that'd
be glad of a clean, honest girl to be took in and made useful. She been a
faithful girl, sir, as well. Faithful even to Stunning Joe O'Meara in her
way.'

Gowry sighed, as if the problem were hopeless, but
Verity knew that he had won his point. The superintendent, former cavalry
officer on active service, had the old-fashioned strengths and weaknesses of
his kind. He would cut his way murderously through a press of dark-skinned
enemy in a colonial skirmish. And then he would stand close to tears at the
sight of an abandoned child of the batde or a fine horse in its death agonies.

'Mrs
Rouncewell ain't took her yet, sir,' said Verity gently. 'She's still in the
other room.'

In a
moment more Jane Midge stood beside him at Gowry's desk. It was Verity's idea
that she should keep on the dancing clothes in which she had been abducted.
Gowry glanced up at the cut of her straight brown hair with its narrow slant
of fringe, the firm pretty features of her pale face. When she touched her
lower lip with her teeth it might equally well have been apprehension or
knowing impudence. But the thin silk of her tight harem pants showed all too
clearly the muddy bruises left by Jack Strap's belt. Gowry's face tightened
with anger at what he saw. Then he looked up gently at her.

'Can you sew,
Jane?'

The girl nodded.

'Will
you sew for Mrs Gowry? Should you like to be her milliner, Jane? To read to her
and keep her company? And perhaps, one day, to learn to play and sing for her?'

It was
plain to Verity that Gowry had no clear idea of the proper duties. But the girl
curtsied and cried out her answer.

'If you please,
sir!'

Verity sighed with
satisfaction. He knew his commander well enough to guess his reaction when the
sight of such distress was set before him. Of all the couples whom he knew,
Superintendent Gowry and his wife were the most likely to bring up the dancing
girl in the best way of all, like their own lost daughter.

There
was a reverential hush in the little kitchen at Tidy Street as Verity described
the interview with Superintendent Gowry. It was Stringfellow who spoke first,
after Verity had finished.

'Always told yer,' he said
smugly. 'Mr Gowry's a gent. Croaker's not. That's the difference between 'em.
Show me a man that's ridden into battle with his men, and I'll show you a gent.
That Croaker was nothing but commissariat supplies for the artillery. Any
wounds he ever got was in the backside, running away.'

He got
up, lolloped over to the cupboard and pulled the cork from a bottle with his
teeth. It appeared to contain horse linament but when poured into glasses the
smell was more palatable. He raised his own glass to Verity, Bella and Jolly in
turn.

' 'ere's to me old sojer.
'ere's to a true brave girl. And 'ere's to the prettiest little nark that the
constabulary ever 'ad!'

He
drained the glass and refilled it hastily before Bella could speak the unease
that was in her gaze. They all drank toasts and then luxuriated in the sense of
unaccustomed ease. Two weeks' leave by the sea was a holiday beyond anything
which they could have afforded under normal circumstances. Ruth, the
servant-maid, and even Jolly, were still bemused by the good fortune which had
spread to them as well.

They were still sitting round
the wooden table in the kitchen when there was a hammering on the street door.
Ruth, her brown eyes widening prettily under her cropped fair curls, scurried
to answer it. They heard her voice saying coquettishly: 'I’ll see if Mr Verity
and Madam is at 'ome.'

'Mrs Verity!' hissed Verity.
'This gotta stop! She ain't to talk like that! 'alf Paddington Green is
laughing its head off over us!'

But Ruth returned with
something like an appearance of fright in her soft young face.

' 's a gentleman!' she gasped. 'To see Mr Verity
personal!'

There
was a sudden bustling about. Verity snatched up his frock-coat and put it on.
Then he walked into the little front parlour while Ruth ushered the visitor in.
He was a young man dressed in black who made a particular effort at refinement
of speech and manners in the presence of humbler families. As though beginning
a formal dance he executed a florid little bow in front of Verity.

'Hoskins,' he said solemnly.
'Steward of the Household to 'is Excellency the Earl of Stephen.'

They sat down and Hoskins
explained the reason for his visit. Verity was uneasily aware of the shifting
floorboards just outside the door and the silent presence of witnesses each
pushing for position to overhear what was passing between the two men inside.

'Lord
Stephen,' said Hoskins,' 'as the honour to be director of the London and
Suburban Bank. A bank what stood to lose almost £10,000 by the late notorious
fraud of Mr Kite. Fortuitously, seeing as so much of the money been traced back
and recovered, the loss shan't come to even half what it might have been.'

Verity made an agreeable little
sound of pleasure at this disclosure, and Hoskins continued.

'In consequence of a
felicitous outcome, 'is lordship desires to make a show of appreciation towards
your good self and the young person Jolly also instrumental in the matter. To
wit, one hundred pounds to yourself and fifty to the young person.'

Verity looked solemnly at his visitor.

'The
young person, Mr Hoskins, shall have whatever she's given. There's no bar to
her taking it. But I mayn't. A man mustn't be rewarded for doing what's only
his duty. You know that.'

Hoskins
hardly bothered to disguise the contempt in his eyes.

'His
lordship anticipated some such objection. Is there a boy?'

'What
sort of a boy?' inquired Verity suspiciously. 'A boy Verity, o' course.'

'Oh,' said Verity, 'a son, you
mean? There's only Billy. He's three.'

Hoskins
nodded.

'Among his many other
benevolences, Lord Stephen is a governor of the 'ospital school. He anticipated
some such difficulty as you made but felt it could hardly extend to depriving
your own son.'

'Billy
Verity ain't deprived of nothing!' said Verity indignantly.

'Quite
so,' Hoskins waved the objection away. 'I therefore been instructed to tell you
that when the governors of the school meets again, Lord Stephen's nomination
for the coming year shall go to Master Billy Verity.'

Verity
stared at the young man, not understanding.

'Nomination?'

'Your son,' said the steward,
'shall receive the finest education in the land without a penny cost to
yourself. He shall be a great man, if he has it in him. A man of learning, a
soldier, a judge.'

'I dunno what to say, Mr
Hoskins.' He struggled with the imagined portrait of Billy in judicial ermine.

'You don't need to say,'
replied the steward. 'Lord Stephen's nomination shall be made. You must be a
hard man, Verity, if you would deny such a gift to your son.'