At last she stood with her back to him, entirely naked as she faced the mirror with her slender arms crossed over her small tight breasts. Dacre surveyed the girl's trim calves and firm thighs, the curve of her narrow back, the slight heaviness of her whitey-brown buttocks. He lifted up the glossy black hair from her neck, touching the dainty nape with his lips and kissing the neat whorls of her ears. In the glass he saw the cat-like beauty of her eyes suffused with silent hostility. That was nothing to him, since his actions were dictated by his own pleasure, not hers. However, he held her gaze in the mirror and moved his hand down slowly, brushing the velveteen lustre of pale copper skin in the small of her back. Then the smooth ovals of her bottom came under his hand, his fingers slipping between the cheeks, probing the intense and intimate heat of her body. Finally, between her warm thighs, he touched the most sensitive spot of all. She checked the involuntary shudder that ran through her by tensing the muscles of her legs and thighs.
Dacre fingered her skilfully until, despite herself, the girl began instinctively to hold her breath as the tension of pleasure increased, which obliged her to release it in a long sigh. Her muscles started to relax, her thighs softened and yielded more easily. She turned her face from Dacre's gaze and dropped her head a little, so that he should not see her expression in the mirror. With his free hand he took her dark, soft mane, and firmly pulled her head back again, watching with calm satisfaction as her eyes turned this way and that, while her teeth tightened on her lower lip. In a few minutes more she ceased to resist him. Supporting herself with her hands on the dressing-table, she bent more fully to his caresses, her eyes closed, her teeth set, and the warm smoothness of her legs squirming restlessly against his hand. Then Dacre drew back from her.
"Arrange yourself on the bed," he said quietly.
She obeyed, without looking at him, walking neatly with her hips held in check like some demure temple-maiden of the Nile. Dacre shrugged off his clothes and approached her, erect. She watched with the frank curiosity of a girl examining her lover for the first time. As soon as he was crouched over her, she adjusted her body to him, so that he entered her with ease. Her raised legs crossed lightly over his back, her hands clenched into fists and bent upwards against the pillow. Quickly but erratically, her heavy-lidded eyes scanned his face, though she still struggled to preserve her silence. Dacre moved rapidly, intent on taking his pleasure with the least delay. Had it only been Ellen Jacoby, he might have prolonged it more fastidiously. Throughout his labours, Jolie kept her hands clenched and her face turned aside on the pillow. As she felt his movements quicken, she turned to watch him with the contemptuous curiosity of a street-girl. He tried to kiss her, and she stuck her tongue out defensively, as though it were a childhood trick to ward off the coster boys' kisses. But then she lifted her head, wound her arms round his neck, and touched him with the flickering of her tongue. It was not done passionately, nor out of love for Verney Dacre, but in a manner which suggested that she might have been taught it by another girl as a well-rewarded trick of the trade. Then her body quivered, her heels beat impatiently on the small of his back, and in that moment the tension of Dacre's own pleasure burst at last.
Lying beside her in the warm room, he was disagreeably aware that the girl's thoughts had been elsewhere, and that such excitement as she enjoyed was by memorising the love-making of some absent partner. Though he knew it to be the common practice of her kind, it was not to be borne without a reprimand. As if to confirm his misgivings, she said sharply,
"You ain't going to forget, I hope, that such favours have a price?"
Dacre laughed.
"Fetch me the purse that's on the dressin' table."
She was on her feet in an instant, half running to bring him the little wash-leather pouch with its heavy metallic weight. He took out a sovereign, and the girl's eyes followed it, unblinking and expressionless. He crooked his forefinger round the little coin and threw it hard against the furthest wall. It spun and rang against the plaster and on the floor, running away under the washstand of grey marble and inset basin. She flew naked after the tiny gold disc, as it glinted in gaslight and shadow, her movements suggesting the alertness of a puppy fetching sticks. But before she could find the first coin, Dacre threw a second one in the opposite direction, so that she twisted round and temporarily abandoned her search for the first. In her eagerness to lay hold of this second golden prize, she threw herself into every variety of outlandish posture, her head twisted against the carpet as she squinted under tallboy or chiffonier, her haunches absurdly elevated and spread to show a dark straggle of hair between her thighs.
Dacre gave a short, barking laugh of derision. Looking at her, as she crouched on the floor waiting for the next coin to be thrown, it seemed to him that she now knew who her master was. Pulling himself up a little, he took a half-sovereign and lobbed it expertly, so that it fell into the concave bowl of the gasolier.
"There's a half Victoria up there," he said with another snort of laughter, "supposing you can get it out before it melts."
She wriggled up the tall brass corner-post at the foot of the bed, "like a monkey up a stick," as Roper had phrased it, reaching perilously close to the white gas mantles and giving a sharp squeal when she once burnt her fingers. Watching the light made Dacre's eyes water badly, so he looked aside at the reflection of her coppery nakedness, as she perched with knees tightly locked round the brass pole.
"You'll do well to remember," he said in his most precise manner, "that gold has to be earned. When a woman is awkward in giving her favours, I can be deucedly tiresome in paying the account."
With that, he took a button from the purse and tossed it to the far end of the room. She could not see it from her perch, though she heard it land.
"And that's the last you'll get," he added, wearying of the sport. He gathered up his clothes and went into the day-room, locking the door of the bedroom to keep her in. When he had dressed again, he rang for more hot water, added it to his brandy, and lit another cigar. Later on, when he went to his own room for the night, he could still hear the girl scrabbling determinedly for the final, non-existent coin. As he closed his eyes, Verney Dacre smiled.
"Why," he said softly but audibly, "the last part, of itself, was worth two and a half sovs of any fellow's money."
Stringfellow stood with his back to the horse and cab, which he had brought round from the mews so that the animal might have its nosebag outside the house.
"Dover?" he said incredulously. "On your own hook?"
"Own hook," said Verity solemnly. "And there's no denying the consequence. I went in for the running and got distanced."
"Superior numbers," Stringfellow shook his head. "What's a man to do against superior numbers, Verity? 'oo was they?"
Sternly, Verity avoided the injudicious question.
"You want to keep the leavings from the last nosebag," he said, with a nod at the horse's bony flanks. "Always scatter them on top of the next feed. Somehow, it gets a 'orse eating. We learnt that in camp before Sebastopol. That creature of yours hardly eats enough to keep the parish cat alive."
Stringfellow hoisted himself to the seat of the hansom with his hands and his one good leg. He set his hat right and looked at Verity with gruff disapproval.
"If it was on your own hook, and not for Mr Croaker, you might as well tell a friend," he said, delivering the words as a statement rather than a request.
"It was Roper," said Verity, "and his dollymop."
"Was it?" said Stringfellow thoughtfully. "And what did they do at Dover, this Roper and his woman?"
"Went ratting at the Hope and Anchor," said Verity with irritation.
Stringfellow shook his head, as though Verity should have known better than to offer such an explanation.
"Now you ain't trying to persuade me, Mr Verity, that you went to Dover last night and come back here at six in the morning, all to watch a magsman and his whore catching rats?"
Even in the cool earl
y sunlight, Verity's cheeks glowed the colour of port wine.
"It ain't that," he said: "there's something afoot, and Dover's the place for it."
"I don't sec what you can do at Dover as you mayn't do better in London," said Stringfellow doubtfully, "except catch fish and smuggle contraband. Did they look like they was going smuggling?"
"They watched the dogs killing rats," said Verity. He kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot. "I never lost Roper for a blind second. I only missed the girl for two minutes, when he went out of the room to ease nature and I followed him. Even then she couldn't have got out past the door without me seeing her."
"Ah," said Stringfellow, shaking a finger, "they split I Superior numbers, Verity. That was how they had you before. One man can't follow two, however much he may want to."
"I'd follow those two to 'ell and back to see Roper quodded," said Verity widi a melodramatic tremor.
"Whereas," Stringfellow persisted, "if I'd been there, splitting wouldn't have helped them. And they wouldn't have twigged me, a-cos they don't know my phiz from the Princess Royal's."
"It ain't exactly work for you," said Verity in a huff.
"Ain't it, though?" said Stringfellow indignantly. "Miss Bella may be good enough to cook, and sew, and nurse, but that's as far as the joint stock company's a-going, eh?"
"No," said Verity wearily, "that's all gammon, as you well know, Stringfellow."
"Then we'll try it together."
Verity looked up with some anxiety.
"Try what?" he inquired.
Stringfellow leant down and patted the bay horse, which responded by lifting its tail and depositing a dozen rounds of dung on the roadway.
"Bella! " roared Stringfellow. "Brush and shovel! Sharp's the word and quick's the motion!"
The girl hurried out of the doorway, swept up the droppings, and scuttled indoors again.
"Let that dry and the air's thick with the dust of it by suppertime," said Stringfellow ruefully. "But seeing as you spent half the night in Dover, travelled by a train at some unholy hour ..."
"Ferry train," said Verity gruffly, "a very decent sort of train."
"... and then walked from London Bridge to Paddington Green at daybreak, I'm a-going to make an exception for you. Today you goes to Whitehall Police Office in the 'ansom."
Verity puffed and grumbled.
"Not a word more," said Stringfellow steadily.
At the Cumberland Arch, he looked down through the little hatch on to his plump passenger.
"Care killed a cat, Mr Verity."
"No doubt," said Verity, and they rumbled without speaking past the houses and gardens of Oxford Street. At Regent Circus, Stringfellow lifted the hatch again.
"I don't suppose," he said half-diffidently, "it ain't possible, I suppose, that this Roper and his blowen went to Dover just to do what you saw them do?"
"What's that?" asked Verity with suspicion.
"Catch rats," said Stringfellow hopefully, flicking the horse.
"No," said Verity in his sourest manner, "it ain't possible."
Stringfellow shrugged, and the elderly horse ambled the rest of the way to Whitehall Place without another word being spoken by either man.
10
The blonde hair that normally hung loose to her shoulders was now put up in an elegant coiffure. Ellen Jacoby was in mourning. Her boldly flared dress and its cape were of black satin, heavily trimmed with crape. Yet with her coquettish little parasol, in black with a white silk lining, and the sweet trail of perfume diffused by the heat of her young body in the warm vestibule, she displayed a perversely intriguing combination of the costume of death veiling an animal eroticism. As she held up her skirts a little, to climb the grand staircase in the wake of the footman, she offered a furtive glimpse of ankle and calf in the patterned silk of black stockings. But the gesture betrayed her. A born lady would have sailed confidently up the broad stairs, not clutching at her skirts like a housemaid.
It seemed that the gaze of every man and woman in the vestibule of the Grand Pavilion Hotel was drawn by the tall girl in her narrow-waisted funeral dress, her broad hips swelling more fully as she laboured in her climb. Even the long veil, anchored by the back bonnet with its silk bands, marked her out as a young woman of intrigue rather than a cast-off widow. It was just as Verney Dacre intended. The witnesses, if they were ever asked, would remember his charming visitor as a tall girl in fashionable mourning. Whether she was Ellen Jacoby, or Laura Bell, or the Princess Louise, they would have no idea.
The men, in their black or bottle-green evening coats, glanced wistfully upwards at her retreating shape, and then continued their slow promenade towards the public dining-room. At the first landing, with its Indian carpets in burnt red and its palms in fat-bellied bronze jars, Ellen paused. The bewigged footman tapped at the door of Dacre's rooms and murmured an inquiry. Then the girl was admitted and the flunkey withdrew. As soon as it was safe, she lifted off her bonnet and veil, still breathless from the stairs.
"Roper's on the Parade, by the bandstand, 'e's tooled up and ready, 'e said to tell you that."
Silently, Verney Dacre put out a bony hand and touched her face with the back of it. There was no affection in the gesture, he merely wished to feel her skin, in case there should never be another time. Ellen smiled awkwardly, and rubbed her cheek against his knuckles like a kitten. She was Roper's girl, but where was the harm in obliging the young soldier who was going to make them all rich? So, at least, Ned Roper had hinted.
"What's tonight's game, then?" she asked softly, though not as if she expected to be told.
Dacre almost snorted with derisive laughter.
"It won't be vingt-et-un at sixpence a dozen, my girl, you may be sure of that much."
She drew back from his touch. Dacre swung round, looking from her to Jolie, who sat in an elbow chair by the fire, which was lit despite the heat, watching the play of hot coals between the bars of the grate, as though absorbed in some secret drama that was being acted out there.
"And I want it understood," resumed Dacre, fastening his cape and adjusting his hat, "that neither of you is to leave these rooms, nor ring for the servants, until Ned Roper or I shall come back."
He picked up his white kid gloves in one hand and a small sealed package in the other, addressed to the Credit Etranger in the Rue Royale, Paris. Then he gave a final glance at the two girls, who seemed anxious to look anywhere but at him, and went out. Once on the landing, however, he turned a key softly in the lock of the door. With Jolie's continual fidgeting to show off her new clothes, and with Ellen whimpering like a filly for a stallion, it seemed wise to him to take such a precaution.
The Marine Parade lay in a forlorn and sunless gloaming. Unkempt horses were rattling the last of the bathing machines over the shingle and away from the glimmer of the flooding tide. Ned Roper saw Dacre coming and took the lead, easily recognisable in his brown sportsman's suit and tall, pale grey hat. Dacre walked carefully a dozen paces or so behind him. At the approach to the Harbour Pier, Roper dropped back, and when the two men drew level, he emitted a loud, barking belch.
"Ease afore convenience," he remarked unapologetically.
Dacre's thin dry lips twisted briefly with anger. Though he had the taste of East Indian sherry on his own tongue, always preferring a warm belly for a job like this, it was clear that Roper had been drinking steadily for most of the day.
"I'll be fucking smothered if our ferry train ain't in already," said Roper foolishly.
"It's of no consequence," said Dacre, not trusting himself to look at his companion. "Follow me at a distance, and do exactly as I order, unless you want to ride back to London between a pair of private clothes constables."
Ned Roper seemed to steady himself a little. Dacre, striding ahead down the platform, recalled with dismay that he had once thought of letting Roper play the part of cracksman on this preliminary job. He opened the door of the luggage office, leaving Roper to wait in the shado
ws. The same traffic clerk and the same boy were on duty behind the broad wooden counter. The boy, with pop-eyes and fullblown cheeks, looked at the little parcel in Dacre's hand.
"All them packets is gone down to the steamer, sir," he said earnestly, "you'd have to catch the carriers down there."
Dacre ignored him and turned to the thin, balding clerk.
He held a sovereign between his finger and thumb, the little coin glowing a deeper and richer gold in the light of the oil lamp.
"It's a matter of some importance that this packet should be in Paris tomorrow night," he said languidly. "Oblige me by seein' to it at once."
The clerk's expression hardly altered. Dacre gave him credit for that. A whole sovereign was as much as the man could expect in six months of normal bonuses and gratuities. He entered the details of the packet in his ledger and held the page for Dacre's signature.
"Ain't no bother, sir," he said softly. "She don't sail for more 'n half an hour yet. Chaffey! Down to the post-van with you, and see the gentleman's packet goes in with the mail."
Dacrc waited until the boy had gone out before putting the sovereign on the counter.
"That boy'd eat 'isself silly, if he wasn't found something to do," said the clerk self-consciously, pocketing the coin. With the pride of one who was not entirely a menial, he could not quite bring himself to acknowledge the gift directly. Dacre nodded to him and went out, elbowing his way across the platform through the straggling groups of passengers, and the evening strollers with nothing better to do than to watch the Boulogne steamer come in. Among the tall hats and parasols, he watched the Lord Warden blowing off gusts of steam from her paddle-boxes. Now it was up to Cazamian and Roper to give him time for the job. Roper stood a few yards from the door of the luggage office. He looked so obviously furtive, with his quick eyes and rodent smile, that Dacre regretted bringing him. Of Cazamian there was no sign. Dacre turned his gaze on the guard's van in the distance; his habit of running the safety chain of his watch between fingers and thumb was the sole betrayal of his nervousness.
SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman Page 10