SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman

by Francis Selwyn

  "Look! There!"

  "Where?"

  "Look at 'im on 'is 'orse! "

  "Dook of Cambridge?" said Samson bewildered. "No, not 'im! The one behind! Frenchie uniform! Touch of the tarbrush! Fat-looking chap!" "Yes?"

  "It's 'im! I'd take my Bible-oath! 'e's the one on those shilling portraits that came to nothing, 'e was the one whose picture I took, twice, standin' on the steps in Langham Place and talking to Ned Roper! I'd know 'im in ten thousand!"

  "It's coves like you. Verity," said Samson glumly, "as starts wars between people."

  "It was 'im, I tell you! "

  "And if you'd had his picture, you'd most probably have had him arrested by Inspector Croaker and the whole detail?"

  "What of it, if it was 'im and 'e was conspiring with a criminal? Bit of gold lace don't put a man above the law."

  "You know what you did?" said Samson, swinging round to face his truculent colleague; "you took a pair of shilling portraits of the nephew of Old Boney himself, cousin to the present King of France, coming out of a common whorehouse! And all you can say to that is that you wish Mr Croaker had arrested him while he was here as Her Majesty's guest, just for the fun of seeing little Vic herself stand bail for him!"

  "Is that who he is?" said Verity with calm satisfaction.

  Sergeant Samson turned to face the procession again.

  "If you was to keep your nose out of places where it don't belong, my son," he remarked, "the world might be an easier billet for the lot of us."

  3 CRACKSMAN'S MOON

  The little plot of land was no more than a court, hemmed in by the back walls of mean, dank houses on every side. Only a single archway with an iron gate offered a tunnel to the narrow cobbled street beyond. The turf of this enclosed ground was littered with the paraphernalia of death and burial, accumulated over two centuries. In the crowded earth, it was impossible to bury the newly arrived coffins more than two or three feet below the surface, while in one corner of the little green a pile of old, discoloured bones made up the human debris which the diggers had thrown to one side as they reopened the earth for a new generation of the poor. Even in the hot July afternoon, the poisoned air above the Shoreditch burial ground seemed damp and vaporous.

  With the slow, deliberate movements of a mime, the four grave-diggers gently raised the coffin, its wood stained black with damp, from the shallow trench in which it had lain. Moving with the laboriousness of sleepwalkers, they raised it higher still, and slid it into the open back of the glass-sided hearse. If they seemed not to notice the disagreeable vapours which their spades had pressed from the spongy earth, this was the consequence of a generous allowance of "sexton's rum" with which they were supplied. It was an accepted condition of their trade that no man should be expected to endure the stench of a city burial ground while in a state of cold sobriety.

  The hearse, with its black-plumed horses, and the black iron scrolling round its glass panels, was a cut above the hand-carts on which the dead were usually trundled to such burying grounds. In more prosperous areas it would have seemed common enough, though in the case of an exhumation great care was taken to keep the coffin decently covered during its journey to a new resting-place. A black velvet pall, fringed with white and set with silver fleurs-de-lys in each corner was draped high above the mortal remains of Major Edward Habbakuk, late of the Honourable East India Company's service.

  The major, now the object of so much solemnity, had died six months earlier, a prisoner for debt in the Queen's Prison. After years of service in India, where mess bills were lower and commissions more cheaply bought, he had returned broken in health and spirit. But three months of hopeful trading in Eastcheap as an "East India Merchant" had ruined him utterly, and three months more had brought him to the desolate burial ground behind John's Court. There was hardly room for the major, and as soon as the officials who witnessed the funeral were out of sight, two grave-diggers had danced a macabre minuet upon the coffin to force it down a few inches in the earth.

  But Major Habbakuk was more fortunate in death than in life. A brother officer, hearing belatedly of the death of a comrade who had no family or friends to give him decent burial, had paid the entire cost of exhumation and re-interment. On a July afternoon, the major began his last journey, from the courtyard of a Shoreditch slum to the little churchyard of Appleford in Kent, where he was to be buried near his more prosperous ancestors.

  Verney Dacre heard and felt every movement and vibration as Major Habbakuk's coffin slid and bumped along the floor of the hearse. The hearse itself had been hired from Pontifex and Jones in Finsbury, though the driver had been persuaded to take a day's holiday and the price of a spree, while Roper's bully, Coggin, deputised for him. In a mews stable near Langham Place it had been a simple matter to remove the catafalque on which the coffin usually rested, and to substitute for it a more lofty one, of the kind which Prince Albert had designed for the Duke of Wellington's funeral car.

  Verney Dacre was in no position to admire this "improvement," for he rested in his own coffin, immediately under the lofty pall of black velvet, and not twelve inches above the insanitary remains of Major Habbakuk.

  Dacre's was no ordinary coffin. It had been occupied several times before, and never by a corpse. Invaluable in transporting reluctant girls from one country to another, it still had leather anklets and manacles screwed to its inner sides. The manacles retained their uses, since Dacre found that by clutching them he could steady himself a little against the violent bouncing and rocking of the hearse on the cobbled surface of the little streets. For all the buttoned velvet of its interior, there was little padding on the hard, close sides of the box. The base was a laying-out board, with a deep hollow for the head of the corpse to rest in, so that it should be held in position for any final leave-taking. But Dacre had no room to raise his shoulders and the strain of holding his head up from the hollow soon became a slow torture for the muscles of his neck and upper spine. The sweat of exertion and of the airless heat began to gather in pools over his closed eyelids.

  He had gambled upon Ned Roper's bewildered loyalty, counting upon the calculation that the man's admiration for Dacre's own gift for strategy would not be overruled by some short-sighted and rat-like cunning of Roper's own. The coffin was so constructed that its left side could be removed, being held in place otherwise by one of two sets of little bolts. One of these was on the inside, but if someone were to close the outside set as well, the man in the coffin was helpless. The exterior bolts were disguised as brass ornamentation and would never be detected. Dacre allowed his mind to run once through the possible horror, the sudden panic of a trap, the half-conscious terror in the swooning heat, and the final thunder of earth, followed by the complete and unspeakable silence of living burial. Then he put the fear resolutely from him and thought of more urgent matters.

  After half an hour more, the jolting rhythm began to slacken. The wheels of the hearse still rumbled, but it seemed as though it now rode on air. There was an abrupt jerk, and then a halt. Dacre heard voices and, briefly, the thunder of an engine. He braced himself against the straps, as his little world of darkness lurched and spun. There was a moment of twisting and plunging, the beginning of a sudden drop, and then at last came stillness and the comparative silence of distant activity.

  As the hearse had moved sedately from Gracechurch Street into King William Street, rolling towards the river and London Bridge, several other vehicles had stopped to let it pass. One of these, drawn by a pair of grey horses, had the heavy black outline of one of the early horse-omnibuses of the reign of William IV. But it was a plain black van with no windows except for a little grill just behind the driver, and a single door in the downward curve of its back. Two men sat, one either side of the driver, on the high perch above the horses. Their greatcoats and tall hats resembled a uniform without quite being one. As the hearse passed in front of them, they removed their hats, revealing the faces of men whose sense of suspicion had been trained as
carefully as their muscles. Their features had the hard, practised anonymity of experienced police officers.

  Ned Roper saw them as he paid the driver of the hansom cab and then stood alone for a moment in the forecourt of London Bridge station. His carpet bags had been delivered to the luggage office that morning by Tyler, where they awaited him in the name of "Mr Archer." They were to be despatched by the luggage van of the 7.00 p.m. tidal ferry train for Dover, on which "Mr Archer" would be travelling. Roper himself carried no more than 30 lbs. weight of shot, distributed between the courier bags strapped against his shirt and the leather bag which he carried in one hand.

  Before he turned his back and walked towards the station arcade, he satisfied himself that the hansom which had followed his at a discreet distance, all the way from the rank in Regent Street, had drawn up a little way off. The passenger, whom he could only make out as a dark, bulky shape inside the cab, showed considerable reluctance to emerge. It was all that Roper needed to know. He had the jack, Verity, in tow, according to Verney Dacre's instructions. To Ned Roper's way of thinking, this was not the game to play, but Lieutenant Dacre had never been wrong yet.

  At 6.15, according to their arrangement, Roper walked slowly down the arcade of bow-windowed little shops, at the end of which Cazamian stood, apparently taking the air to escape for a moment from the heat and smoke of the glass canopy under which the platforms were built. Cazamian saw Roper, lifted his cap and casually mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. Roper, his attention apparently caught by a display of harness in a saddler's window, stopped, turned so that Cazamian could see the leather bag that he was carrying, and then carefully changed the bag from one hand to another. No further signal was necessary. But as Roper turned, he was momentarily aware of a dark shape behind him which moved suddenly into a shop doorway. He appeared to pay no attention to it. For all that, he felt a slight trembling in his bowels. What if Verity were not alone? But he must be. Verney Dacre swore that the bastard Croaker hated Verity as much as anyone. And Lieutenant Dacre had never been wrong yet.

  At 6.30, Ned Roper joined the little knot of travellers by the booking office and took a first-class ticket for Dover. After leaving the vestibule he waited a moment, retraced his steps, and stared at the broad back of Verity, who was handing the clerk a sovereign in exchange for a ticket. Then Ned Roper, with his mind at ease, went to the luggage office and superintended the wheeling of his carpet bags to the tidal ferry train. He did not go straight to his carriage, for Verney Dacre had given him one other instruction. From his pocket he drew an unsealed envelope, and then some nervous precaution made him draw from the envelope a single sheet of blue notepaper and read it for a last time. The block lettering was spidery and in a copperish ink.

  ASK MR VERITY WHY HE IS GOING TO FOLKESTONE TONIGHT

  Roper slid the paper in and sealed the envelope, with its penny stamp in the corner. He chuckled as he crossed the station vestibule towards the posting box. Often enough he had taken his oath on the Bow Street testament "to be even with that bugger," and here was the great opportunity. He dropped the letter through the slot and caught a final glimpse of the crude capitals on the envelope.

  INSPECTOR H. CROAKER, PRIVATE DETAIL, SCOTLAND YARD, LONDON.

  As he walked up the length of the train towards a first-class carriage near the engine, a porter began slowly and lugubriously tolling his little handbell as a five-minute warning of departure. Roper noticed that the luggage van appeared to be bolted from the interior on the side furthest from the platform. On the near side, which would be used for access at Reigate and Folkestone, the sliding door had to be closed from the outside. A railway constable, having just inspected the interior, had closed the door, dropped the iron bar across it, and was now fastening a formidable iron padlock upon it. Grudgingly, Ned Roper admitted to himself that Verney Dacre was right. The railway company believed robbery to be impossible in this case, and that was the best hope of succeeding in it.

  He found an empty carriage near the engine, without difficulty. The recent spate of collisions had instilled a prudent choice among railway travellers for carriages near the middle of the train. As he reached for the handle of the door, he heard another carriage door opened and slammed to, very quickly, at a little distance behind him. Ned Roper gave a foxy smile at his reflection in the window glass, then closed the door and settled down against the thick, soft cushioning. In their separate little carriages die passengers were totally isolated from one another. It was true that a lady in distress would sometimes tie a handkerchief to an umbrella and wave it desperately from the window in an attempt to catch the attention of the guard at the end of the train. But even this was usually futile, and there was in any case little that the guard could do.

  Roper went to the window and put his head out, as if to observe the scene on the platform but, in fact, to give Verity every opportunity to confirm where he was. Red-faced fathers of families were bellowing at porters to inquire after the safety of their luggage, while children in straw hats and sailor suits sucked impassively at oranges. The shriek of a whistle cut across the pandemonium. With a vigorous snort, the litde engine jolted its diminutive carriages forward and the tidal ferry train began to glide clear of the smoky glass dome of London Bridge.

  In die little shell of darkness which enveloped him, Verney Dacre's heart seemed to beat with the audible rhythm of a trip-hammer. Even to draw breath cost him an effort. But the first rumble of iron wheels on rail signalled the start of the cracksman's race: twenty-five minutes to Reigate and a fortune to be won. As he shifted his body, reaching for the slender brass bolts of the coffin side, the movement of cramped sinews and the pulse of excitement beating in his throat set up an uncontrollable shaking in his arms and fingers. He gasped, to exhale some of the tension, lay back, calmed himself, and reached out for the bolts again.

  Once the side of the coffin was free it opened upwards on a pair of interior hinges. Dacre felt the wood brushing against the black velvet pall which covered it and guessed that he must be lying on some raised surface. Very carefully, he swung his long, thin legs through the gap and tested the drop to the ground. It was no more than two or three feet. The coffin had been laid at the rear of the luggage van on a fixed wooden table, which had once served the guard as a desk.

  He straightened up and stood in a dappled twilight. The interior of the van was almost dark, but here and there the sunlight of the summer evening projected spears of dust-filled brilliance between the boarding of the sides. Ghostly outlines of boxes, portmanteaus, trunks, and hampers rose all about him in the gloom. At the far end of the van, he could just make out the broad rectangle of the iron safe, half luminous with its white-painted sides. But for all the weight which it carried, the van seemed to lurch and roll with unpredictable violence, swung by the speeding train as a snake might thresh its tail.

  Dacre steadied himself, reached into his pocket for a "Glim" and struck it. After such intense darkness, the flare drew water to his eyes until he could see nothing but a blur. Then, holding the flame to one side, he began to search for "Mr Archer's" carpet-bags. They were all together, four of them, near the closed door of the van. He needed to open only one, which contained his tools: a storm lantern, a hammer, several box-wood wedges, and a balance with a pair of large brass pans. Dacre lit the lamp and hung it from the low, curved roof of the van, close to the iron bullion safe.

  In the thick yellow light, he moved about the van again, searching for another cluster of luggage, two leather bags and a "governess" travelling box, the property of Miss Martineau, of Westerham, to be called for at Reigate railway office. The calling would not be long delayed, since "Miss Martineau," alias Jolie, had left Langham Place several hours earlier in a hired brougham, driven by Tyler, to be at Reigate before the train.

  He found the travelling box and bags, which seemed unusually heavy for the possessions of a pretty young governess, and dragged them over to the safe. Then he set to work, a slender, stooping figure, w
orking intently in the heat of the van, which resembled nothing so much as a chicken shed on wheels. Its interior smelt strongly of sawdust and straw, warmed by the summer air. Dacre's breathing was harsh with the closeness of the day and the exertion of his labours, while even the tallowy light of the lamp still brought the water to his inflamed eyes.

  The bright rough keys, which he had filed for the two locks of the safe, were not perfect enough to work in the hands of an amateur. They needed the touch of a virtuoso cracksman to guide them in the locks. Dacre had to stop twice to wipe the sweat from his palms, and to feel more intently the many little pressures of the lock-barrel. Then, the tumblers moved quite suddenly and effortlessly, and the heavy bolts fell back with a ponderous thud. He turned the handle, and raised the weight of the iron lid until it slanted backwards to the full length of the safety chains.

  Inside the thick iron walls, the lamplight fell upon a dozen oak bullion boxes, each bound with iron hoops, locked, and sealed by a wafer of red wax across the crevice where the lid of the box closed on the front wall of it. The boxes were almost uniform in shape and approximated in every case to a cube of about twelve to fifteen inches. Dacre judged that the contents of each must weigh about half a hundredweight. The blood pounded in his ears with the strain of lifting the first one clear of the safe and setting it on the floor of the van.