'Pray God you bring my brother's murderer to justice, sergeant, or there shall go back such a report to your inspectors as shall live with you and them the rest of your days!'
'Evidence is evidence, sir, and accidents is accidents,' said Verity softly, rocking a little on his heels.
'What do you know of accidents, Mr Verity?'
'Don't follow, sir. With respect, sir.'
'Do you not? Then I must lead you. You will no doubt have heard that I sit here, a man with half a body, because of what they call a hunting accident.'
'I 'ave understood so, sir, and very sorry I am it should be so.'
Jervis slapped his hand on the table.
'No, sergeant, you have not understood. I see the hunters in my mind as clearly as I see you now. I see them close upon me, the devil masks of hate. Even in my dead limbs I feel the blows. Can you imagine, Mr Verity, what it is to feel blow after blow and to know that each one is doing such damage to your body that can never be mended?'
Verity was aghast, his face creased with incredulity.
'I 'ope to God, sir, you don't mean you was maimed deliberate?'
'What else should I mean, sergeant? Don't I make it plain?'
'But the villains that did it, sir? Who might they be, and why never brought to account for what they'd done?'
'Their faces were changed to devil-masks, Mr Verity. I could not name them. It is many years ago and it may be that some of them are now dead. But those who killed my brother are not dead.'
'You don't suspect the same persons, sir?'
Richard Jervis sniffed and said in his most level tone,
"There is a curse upon our house, it seems.'
He became silent, sitting in deep thought, as though no longer aware of Verity's presence.
'Sir,' said Verity gently, 'I must have evidence. The villains that 'armed you, them that you say made away with Lord Henry Jervis, I can't touch 'em without evidence.'
'Justice,' said Jervis flatly, 'vengeance. What of that?'
'It goes on evidence, sir. It must do.'
'And where there is no evidence, the evil man must go free?'
'Yessir. But there always is evidence, sir.'
Richard Jervis slapped his hand upon the table again.
'Then, by God, sergeant, you shall have evidence enough. There shall be nothing in this house or this family hidden from your eyes. You will go first to Bole Warren and examine the scene of Lord Henry's death. I will instruct the gunmaker who testified at the inquest to make his evidence and the gun available to you. My late brother's physician, Dr Jamieson of Burlington Street, shall answer your questions upon the medical evidence. He was with the shooting party at Bole Warren when my brother met his death. My brother's private apartment in this house has not been opened since the inquest. You will be given access to it, and you will search the contents.'
'Search 'is private things, sir?' asked Verity in some alarm.
Richard Jervis' mouth twisted slightly.
'I am not interested in repeating the mistakes of the previous investigation, Mr Verity. Your inquiry is to be complete. You will act on my instructions and my authority. If it is at any time suggested to you that there is something you had best leave alone, that is the very thing you will examine most diligently. Do you understand your instructions?'
'Yessir. Being as the weather might turn to rain, sir, I shall make it my business to see the place where it 'appened first off, sir.'
'Good,' said Jervis. 'See it done tomorrow.'
Verity's tone indicated a change of topic.
"ave the honour to request, sir, 'ow I may stand with regard to Captain Ransome. It ain't my business, of course, who may be your valet, sir, but he does have a certain reputation.'
Jervis nodded.
'I take people as I find them, sergeant. Jack Ransome was .a brave soldier who met with ill fortune. I do not employ him in any confidential manner but merely as my servant.'
'See, sir,' said Verity, relieved.
'However,' said Jervis, 'Jack Ransome owes you some explanation, which he now makes through me. His dealings with the person Aldino, which you came upon, were not the result of Aldino attempting to blackmail him.'
'No, sir,' said Verity, 'didn't see 'ow they could be, Captain Ransome not being of enough substance to satisfy Aldino.'
'No,' said Jervis. 'Jack Ransome had gone on the part of a brother officer to obtain compromising material held by Aldino or his associates.'
'Ah,' said Verity with soft satisfaction, 'that was it then! And 'oo might this brother officer be?'
'Captain Ransome will not tell me, Mr Verity, and you may be very sure he will not divulge the confidence to you. However, he acknowledged his debt to you for saving him great injury and now forgives the blow you struck him. He was pressed, I understand, by one of your inspectors to lay an information but quite refused.'
‘ ‘andsome of him, sir.'
'Indeed,' said Jervis, 'it was Captain Ransome who advised me in the matter of selecting you from among the officers whose services were tendered.'
'Very 'andsome, sir.'
Verity sought some way of steering Richard Jervis back to the story of the hunting 'accident' in which he had been so savagely crippled, but the young man was calm again by this time and it hardly seemed propitious to excite him further. At least the role of Ransome was clear. He was exactly the type whom one of Aldino's victims might have employed as go-between in order to avoid entering the Wag's premises.
Richard Jervis unlocked a drawer in the table, took out a metal coin-coffer, unlocked that as well and counted off three sovereigns.
'You are to take these, Mr Verity, so that you shall be supplied for your journey. The sum will be discounted against your final payment. Perhaps you will have the goodness to sign a form of receipt.'
With this mundane transaction, Verity took his leave.
A stormy east wind strained at the yellow-green of the trees in their young foliage where the broad gravelled carriageway passed between weathered limestone pillars, marking the boundary of Bole Warren. Spruce trees arched overhead in a natural vaulting which obscured the low sky and the rain clouds, the colour of a drawing in Indian ink, lowering on the Sussex weald. Having dismissed the dog-cart which had brought him from the station, Verity followed the directions Mrs Butcher had given him. The terrace and gables of the house, the two little towers with their conical roofs, grafted on in a moment of chateau-inspired building, were hidden from the gates by the intervening woodland. Copses and spinneys, the carefully landscaped view of a retired East India merchant seventy years before, had run riot. The dark bridle-paths and alleys, where only the faintest dappling of sun penetrated, had become the paradise of the hunter and keeper with dog or gun.
In accordance with Mrs Butcher's instructions, Verity turned left where the gravel carriageway forked, veering away from the house towards the scene of Lord Henry's death. The driveway dwindled to a path with dark leafmould underfoot. Those trees which rose on either side to interweave their thin branches above him seemed to Verity as dark and leafless as they might have been in winter. All about him he heard the measured dripping of the rain as it ran through the tangle of twigs and fronds, soaking deep into this gloomy arboreal cavern.
He stopped abruptly, seeing ahead of him a recently-built structure in the centre of the bridle-path. It was the mausoleum of the Jervis family, the greater part of which rose above the ground, though it was approached by steps leading downwards to the iron latticework of the gates. In general appearance, it resembled a huge and ornate hearse, copied in stone and set down in the dank parkland. Iron posts and chain surrounded it, a pair of stone lions sat timelessly at the beginning of the steps, and the tomb-house was topped by an octagonal Gothic column. Its precise setting, in the centre of the path, strengthened the impression for Verity of being in the darkened nave of a dilapidated church. He approached cautiously.
The mausoleum had been built a dozen years before, unde
r the will of Lord Samuel Jervis, father of the three brothers. A more ancient house would, of course, have had its own parish church upon the estates, but the Jervis wealth was new wealth. Where there was no church on the land, a fashionable tomb-house would serve the purpose. Lord Samuel's inscription was already darkened by the dampness of the place, the characters partially obscured by mosses and lichen. Below this, the new lettering was cut lighter and sharper.
Within this mausoleum are deposited the mortal remains of
LORD HENRY FREDERICK JERVIS
Master of Arts of New College, Oxford
Captain, Duke's Own Infantry, before Sebastopol
Justice of the Peace Born 12 March 1827
Died 4 May 1860
'Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.'
Verity removed his tall, worn hat and stood in respectful silence for a moment. To his mind, at least, the late Lord Henry seemed to have been an unexceptionable, even admirable, young man. There was, of course, no accounting for the fancies some murderers took to people but the admirable Lord Henry, with his mild manner, sense of civic duty and hesitant inclination towards Holy Orders, seemed an unlikely choice for homicide. The moment of respect passed and Verity put his hat back on.
'Leastways,' he said softly, 'if we should require Lord Henry in the course o' investigations, we shall know where to find 'im.'
The pathway narrowed still further and Verity soon found himself knee-deep in wet bracken, which soaked the lower legs of his baggy black trousers. None the less, this was the way the shooting party had come, beating the undergrowth to rouse their prey. He looked about him in the silence and the dankness of the place, the only sound coming from the now intermittent splash of rain dripping from leaf to leaf. Across a veritable sea of bracken, through which he was wading, there was no more than a thin screen of saplings.
The wood opened out at last and he could see the so-called sunken fence on which Lord Henry had been walking at the time of the accident. It was really a stone wall built against a rise in the ground to hold the earth back so that it resembled a rough terrace. This was the point at which the wooded area ended and a more cultivated slope of lawn - or grass, at least - led up to the house. The raised ground with its crude stone facing stretched across the entire view ahead of him. Not hard to see, Verity thought, how an accident might happen if a man was walking along the edge and stumbled. Not hard to see, either, how a man like Lord Henry, shooting only because it was expected of him and secretly giving his mind to other things, might lose his footing from time to time.
It was just as he was lifting his left foot upwards and forwards through the tall fronds of bracken again that there was a sound within an inch of him, a reverberating, metallic crack, as though a pile of iron sheeting had fallen almost on his head. Verity jumped with the fright of it, starting forward, and in so doing saved himself the worst of the injury. For all that, he found his leg absurdly immobilized, half raised from the ground. Something deep in the bracken and yellow-brown as the bracken itself had seized upon him. There was a deep slow consciousness of pain in the left leg, but he had not been hurt badly. It was the ample black cloth of his trouser leg which had fed the fearsome maw. Gingerly he put his left hand down and felt the cold, encrusted teeth. He drew his fingers back quickly.
'Ugh!' he said with a shudder of revulsion, 'Mantraps!'
He tried not to think of what might have happened if the mechanism had not rusted, if he had not moved faster instinctively at the first faint sound, if the thick cloth of his suiting had not gagged the obscene and cruel teeth. Again he put his hand down. The loose fold of the trouser leg was held fast in the iron mesh of the teeth. There was nothing for it but to tear himself free. He stooped down to see if he could wrench the worsted cloth apart on the blunt iron. Even as he did so, there was an explosion from somewhere behind him and a 'twing-g-g . . . twing-g-g' just above his lowered head. A sudden shower of torn leaves fluttered down upon him as he crouched, helpless, in the bracken. There was another abrupt report and this time the shot came whipping among the fronds where he crouched, scything off the fern-like heads. It crossed Verity's mind that whether or not someone had killed Lord Henry Jervis, they were certainly intent on killing him. He planned quickly and instinctively. First rip the cloth loose at any price. Second lie still. Let them come at him. Then jump. If they stayed back, wait for the dark and then crawl through the bracken towards the boundary of the estate. His first wrestling with the trouser-leg was interrupted by a voice, closer now.
'You just stand up, my fine lad, where I can see you nice and clear. You won't poach me out of my cottage, not you nor the rest of your bastard tribe.'
The tone was triumphant rather than angry. It did not sound to Verity like the voice of a murderer.
'If you ain't a-going to stand,' the voice said, 'then it'll be my pleasure to raise 'ee with a pound o' soft shot up the arse.'
Verity clambered to his feet, scarlet with indignation. The man who approached him with gun levelled was slight of build and wiry. His dark eyes seemed restless and cunning, his mouth and chin bristling with coarse, hard stubble. His mouth hung open with the appearance of a ghastly smile, quite unconnected with good humour, so that his few discoloured teeth gave him the look of a panting dog. He was dressed in a high-crowned hat, limp neckerchief, a shabby old greatcoat, breeches and gaiters. The hands which held the gun were rough and coarse, the fingernails long, crooked and yellow. Seeing Verity caught by the trap, he rested the gun against a tree.
'You'm new to this caper, my fine friend,' he said thrusting his grinning face towards the helpless sergeant.
'You'll answer for this, my man!' said Verity furiously.
The gamekeeper laughed uproariously.
'I'll answer for it! Oh, I will, will I?'
He busied himself with a clasp-knife, cutting a long thick switch from a spruce tree.
‘You get this contraption off me, sharp!' roared Verity. 'You'll answer in the dock for setting cruel and unlawful devices!'
The gamekeeper whittled away at the stout switch.
'We don't a-set nothing,' he said, 'only there was so many set under the old law that we ain't never found the half of them. And when a poacher do step into one, and his friends hear of it, you've no idea how they avoid this place for months after.'
'Don't you 'ave the impudence to call me a poacher!' said Verity struggling.
'And what might you be then?'
'I'm a police officer,' Verity snarled, 'Scotland Yard division.'
'Oh!' shouted the wiry little man, 'that's good, that is! Police officer!' And he laughed till he had to wipe his eyes on the back of his hand. 'Now,' he said more seriously, 'I got one way with poachers. No law, no fuss. While you're in that trap, I'm going to thrash you with a big stick. When I'm done you shall go free. You'll probably have to crawl from here, on account of hurting too bad to walk, and you'll keep your bed a week or two. Then you'll be able to hobble about, and the end of next month I daresay you'll be as good as new. Only,' the voice grew sharper, 'you'll be in no hurry to come back poaching on my lands. I got a snug little lodge and a full larder. I ain't a-going to lose my place through villains like you. And as for the traps, there's notices set, "Attention. Mantraps". Supposing you can read 'em.'
He raised the stick.
'There's no notice at the main gate,' said Verity quickly.
The gamekeeper lowered the stick.
'You never came in through the main gate?'
'I'm here on the orders of Mr Richard Jervis.'
'Never mind that. If you came through the main gates, a poacher would hardly do that. Hold on a minute.'
The man walked away and emitted a low mellow whistle. He entered the trees and there was an exchange of voices. Ten minutes passed before he returned.
'Your name ain't Verity, is it?' he asked suspiciously.
'Course it bloody well is!' said Verity angrily. 'You never said so.'
'Fat
chance I had of saying, or you of listening!'
'Rumer,' said the man, 'that's me. Jem Rumer. Gamekeeper to Lord Henry and his father before him, and now to Lord William.'
He took a tiny key from his pocket and knelt at Verity's feet. There was a click as the toothed iron relaxed its grip.
'They never said,' Rumer remarked, as casually as though he and Verity were now old acquaintances, 'never said about you coming today. What they know up at the 'ouse and what they tell me about it is two quite different things.'
'You'll answer to Mr Richard Jervis for this,' Verity muttered, freeing his trouser-leg from the iron fangs. Rumer shook his head.
'No I shan't, Mr Verity. Mr Richard don't own a stick of furniture nor a leaf on one of these trees. This is Lord William's land and I'm his lordship's man. It was old Lord Samuel Jervis', then young Lord Henry's, and now Lord William's. The part you was on, I got very strict orders about. That's the scene of the tragedy, that is,' Rumer continued with relish. 'Lord William won't have a soul near it. Not even you. Mr Richard ain't got no rights there, Mr Verity. And nor have you.'
'Should you happen to know why I'm here?' Verity asked, in a calmer, professional tone.
'Course I do,' said Rumer, surveying the damaged trouser-leg. 'There ain't a person in Bole Warren don't know. Mr Richard, being a poor crippled gentleman with nothing to do but fret, gets to thinking. Thinking ain't much good to a person, Mr Verity, when it's fretful thinking. He gets to believing that poor Lord Henry was 'orribly murdered.'
'Which he wasn't?'
'Mr Verity, I ain't saying a word against poor Mr Richard. But when a man is shut in a chair all day, when he can't have the comforts of an ordinary man, it takes his mind, somehow, and gives it a funny turn. Things you or I wouldn't notice gets turned into a funny way.'
'And how might you, Mr Rumer, come to know just what happened?'
'A-cos I was standing not fifteen feet from where we are now, Mr Verity. There was me and the boy and four men hired as beaters that morning. Way behind us, there was the half-sovs, which we call half-sovs because that's all they tip. Up in front there was Lord William, Lord Henry, Mr Richard, and the sovs.'
Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Page 8