Verity walked slowly round its side and then returned.
'Back door, Mr Samson, 'ave the goodness to see the back door ain't used.'
Samson disappeared on this errand, his spirits rising now that the macabre business of grave-opening had given way to recognizable routines of police search and seizure. Verity approached the front door of the little lodge, raised its small brass knocker and thundered on the resonant panelling.
'Jem Rumer! Open this door in the name of the law! There's officers all round the house! We mean you no harm, but you shall open in the name of 'er Majesty!'
There was a pause, almost as though Rumer might after all be stalking his prey far across the dripping woodland of the Jervis estate. Then a candle wick glimmered at a crack in the curtains and there were movements within. A pair of bolts slid back and the door opened a fraction on its stout chain. Verity's lantern showed the emaciated features of Rumer, absurdly highlighted, under a white night-cap.
'It's me, Jem Rumer, Sergeant Verity, Scotland Yard division. We don't mean you harm but there's questions must be asked, and asked now.'
'You'm come at a funny time,' said Rumer nervously, taking care not to open the door further.
'Funny or not,' said Verity, 'we're here and must be admitted."
Rumer rubbed his bristly chin.
'It ain't exactly convenient.'
'Don't you "convenient" me, Jem Rumer, or there's six constables here that'll have your door open on the hinge side.'
'Light at the back!' shouted Samson belatedly.
The sound of a second voice convinced Rumer. He pushed the door to, rattled the chain clear and then opened the door wide. Verity entered the warm hall with its lingering smell of dogs and cooked game. Followed presently by Samson, he made his way into the little parlour. Rumer sat on a chair in nightshirt and cap.
'It ain't exactly convenient,' he said with a twist of the mouth.
'No,' said Verity, 'and I daresay what happened to poor Lord Henry wasn't exactly convenient to him neither.' Rumer wagged a finger.
'I told you, Mr Verity. These ain't Mr Richard's lands, and what happens here is none of his affair.'
'Mr Rumer, I ain't here for Mr Richard. I'm here for Scotland Yard and I'm inquiring into the murder of Lord Henry Jervis. The man that did it shall have a noose about his throat as sure as I say it. Witnesses that tells the truth has nothing to fear. Them that don't is liable as accessories to murder and, in course, must swing alongside the party that did it.'
Rumer swallowed. Just then there was a disturbance. A small closet door opened and a girl appeared. She was a blonde of sixteen or seventeen, her long hair worn loose. The blouse she wore left her sturdy young figure naked from the waist down. She took one look at the two sergeants and ran precipitately towards Rumer's bedroom. Samson followed hastily.
'Weill' said Verity. 'Well, Jem Rumer! And what's Lord William to say to a keeper that gives a poacher a night's hunting on the understanding that the poacher's daughter keeps his bed warm? I am right, ain't I, Jem? That is the way the bill do add up?'
'You leave my Jan Parry out of this,' said Rumer hastily. 'You ain't no cause to make trouble. Ask what you want to know.'
Just this,' said Verity gently. 'Might there be any sand about here?'
'Sand?' said Rumer. 'Sand! You come waking me at three o'clock, taking me from my bitch, just to ask if there's any sand in these parts?'
'Yes,' said Verity simply. 'Any sand on the estate or anything like it?'
Rumer thought. In the interval, Verity heard Samson's voice from the bedroom.
'Oh no, miss you leave them off. You won't be needing them while I'm in here. I ain't having such a pretty pigeon escape!'
"There's sand in a pile behind the stables,' said Rumer, 'where they do mix the cement for repairing some of the walls. Do 'ee mean that?'
Verity sighed with satisfaction.
'I fancy, Mr Rumer, I do fancy that's the very thing I mean.'
In the bedroom, there was a creaking of springs under sudden weight, a resonant smack and then the murmur of voices alternating with giggling.
'I 'ave been given to understand,' said Verity confidentially, 'that the fatal gun was kept in Lord Henry's private room here, never unlocked during his lordship's absence?'
Rumer nodded.
'And even during his lordship's residence,' said Verity with the hope still in his voice, 'the room was never unlocked and unattended long enough for the gun to have been took away and tampered with.'
'It was all gone through by the constabulary weeks ago,' said Rumer. 'Not a chance the rifle could a-bin took from the room, and the man as wanted to tamper with it in there would hardly have had five minutes. And he'd have to be a gunsmith. And there was no sign it had ever been tampered with. What you got on that gun is precisely nothing, Mr Verity.'
Samson's voice came from the bedroom.
'You ain't never in town, I suppose, Miss Jan? You no idea how much gold a girl with legs like yours might make in a penny gaff. Why, I happen to know a cove as runs the swellest of the lot!
'Mr Samson!' called Verity, 'smartly, if you please!'
Samson emerged slowly from the room with only a single, reluctant backward glance. Verity motioned him outside, giving Rumer time to put on a coat. Then the three men set off to the place where the sand was kept. It was to one side of the main part of the house, which they reached just as the first light appeared in the sky to the east of them.
'Now,' said Verity, 'might there be a sieve hereabouts, Mr Rumer?'
Rumer shuffled off, entered a wooden lean-to by the stables and returned with a sieve and a trowel in it. Verity squatted, humming a nondescript little tune, and scooped the first trowel of sand into the sieve. The sand-heap was three feet high and a couple of feet long. He sieved with great care pausing only once to speak to Rumer.
'Mr Rumer, if I was a gaming-man, which I ain't and never would be, I'd wager you a sovereign that one of them rooms there is where Lord Henry had his apartment.'
'End of the first floor there,' said Rumer, not seeing the usefulness of such discussions.
Verity nodded, shifted his position slightly and continued his task. Presently he paused, listened, felt and handed something to Samson.
"ave the goodness, Mr Samson, to wrap that in your kingsman.'
Then he resumed his sifting, pausing occasionally to ease his cramped legs and knees. The sun had flushed the sky with pale summer gold, its warmth even detectable in the piles of sand, when he stood up and handed two more small objects to Samson. He gave the sieve and the trowel to Rumer.
"We ain't got cause to bother you further, Mr Rumer. I expect you'll be ready to get back to your bed. O' course, I'd appreciate your not mentioning last night's events to a soul, and, in return, I should prevail upon myself not to acquaint Lord William with 'ow his lordship's gamekeeper guards the estate of a night.'
'Can't answer for 'er, however,' said Rumer hopefully, remembering the two sovereigns of Verity's previous visit.
"Then you must, Mr Rumer,' said Verity firmly, 'and if you can't leave a little sense in her head, then you must leave a little leather on your Jan's backside. One way or another, she ain't to talk.'
An hour later, as they entered Lewes among the market-carts and farm-wagons, Samson said,
'They could be from any gun, them three bullets what you found in the sand.'
'So they could,' said Verity, 'only they ain't. Them three and at least one more was fired from Lord Henry's window into the sand. A man could hardly miss with a rifle at that range, and I don't doubt it was done when there was one of them firework evenings or whatever they have after summer hunting parties, so no one heard anything rum.' 'What for?'
'You look at them bullets, Mr Samson. They got the marks of the rifle on them but otherwise they're hardly more spoilt than before they went into Lord Henry's gun. It's the sand. It gives 'em a nice soft landing. Anyone who knows about guns knows that's the way bullets is
fired for examination. That's why I asked Jem Rumer where there might be sand. Now, Lord Henry's murderer couldn't a-had it more convenient than just outside the window. Why, he never even needed to take the gun from the room, but just slipped in there while it was unlocked and empty for five minutes.'
Samson walked in silence for a minute. Then he said reproachfully,
'You never needed to bring me 'ere and make me a body-snatcher just to find that. And it don't get you far. A man can play with a flashy gun when no one's looking and still not be a murderer. Course 'e'd fire it into sand! He'd hardly shoot the 'orses or the groom, would 'e?'
Verity sighed with great tolerance, but kept silence until they were safely out of earshot of the other passengers and seated in a second-class compartment of the early train for London Bridge.
'I gotta tell you, Mr Samson,' he said generously, 'that I had to see the body first. When I saw that picture of the wound at Dr Jamieson's there was no sign of the little dark ring that sometimes goes round the wound.'
'Smokeless powder,' said Samson.
'No, Mr Samson, it ain't nothing to do with powder. It's the force of the bullet that bruises the poor skin round the 'ole it makes. The Rhoosians taught us that at Inkerman. All my poor friends who was killed there, them as was shot real close, showed this black bruise, thin as a wedding ring, round the wound. We saw it when we came to fetch in their poor bodies and I do remember the regimental surgeon saying how it happened. A man as ain't got that bruise has been shot from five or ten yards off. Now, Lord Henry's body on the picture didn't show it. But I had to see with my own eyes to be sure. There ain't a bit of that bruising, and it don't wash off like powder. Accidental or deliberate, he was never shot from his own rifle, unless he had arms that could reach out twenty feet!'
'Cor!' said Samson slowly, regarding Verity with awe.
The pink smugness of Verity's face deepened a shade. He said,
'And then, o' course, I saw it. If you pack the wadding right, you can fire a rifle bullet from a shot-gun. Only you never would waste rifle bullets that way unless you had some special reason. Now, a rifle bullet that was just fired like that could never have come from Lord Henry's rifle a-cos it wouldn't have the marks on it. But a bullet fired into sand, to get the marks of the rifle, but undamaged otherwise, might be fired from a shot-gun and look as if it was fired from Lord Henry's own gun. There'd perhaps be another scratch or two, which we'd have put down to it hitting bone, but there'd be no getting away from the marks of his own rifle barrel on it. Clever, wasn't it?'
'Then 'ow the 'ell,' asked Samson, 'did they hear Lord Henry's rifle go off when the real shot was fired somewhere else?*
'For all we know it may have gone off when he fell,' said Verity, 'but it didn't matter. There was four and a half feet of solid stone wall throwing the other crack back the way it came. Even if his own rifle never went off as he fell dead, they actually heard the sound of the gun that killed him thrown back from the wall he stood on. Though there was so many guns going off that morning, that I doubt if they noticed very much.'
'Course,' said Samson, 'you don't actually know yet that these bullets in the sand were shot from his gun.'
'No,' said Verity, 'but you wait till Mr Somerville sees 'em. All in all, Mr Samson, I'm ready to tell Mr Croaker that Lord Henry was murdered. Only thing is, I got no idea who done it.'
11
There was an unaccustomed stillness in Inspector Croaker's room, the calm broken only by the busy wings of a large fly, beating against a glass pane and striving for the open sky above the Thames at Westminster. Croaker put the tips of his fingers together, as he sat at his desk, and appeared to be framing a judgment in his mind. Lord William Jervis sat at his ease in a dun-leather chair by the empty grate, his youthful and black-whiskered face presented in disdainful profile to the other occupants of the room, as though the proceedings were no concern of his. Paraded at attention, though without an escort on this occasion, Verity waited before Croaker's desk. Presently, Croaker spoke, as though courteously airing a proposition in a philosophic argument.
'Sergeant Verity, you were under no misapprehension that your hire by Mr Richard Jervis was ended?'
'No, sir.'
'Yet you went, with Sergeant Albert Samson, to Lord Jervis' estate at Bole Warren. You entered those lands and broke in upon the gamekeeper, Rumer, in the middle of the night?'
'Trespass!' said Lord William, turning, half-profile, with an impatient twist of his mouth.
'With respect, sir, it ain't trespass for me nor any man to visit Mr Rumer. And now I know there were murder done, as Mr Richard swore, I must talk a little more with Mr Richard. You saying I'm not to see 'im again can't alter that, sir. With respect, sir.'
In his self-assurance, Verity settled his head a little lower and a flushed bulge of superfluous flesh began to form round the rim of his stiff ollar.
'Murder!' said Croaker in exasperation, bringing his fist down on the desk. 'Lord Henry's body was medically examined by Dr Jamieson and the evidence was heard by a coroner's jury, who brought in a verdict of accidental death. What murder?'
"ave the honour to ask, sir, if Dr Jamieson might ever have been a military man.'
Lord William supplied the answer.
'No Why?'
'Just it, sir,' said Verity firmly, "im being a gentleman that practised among the better classes in Burlington Street, he probably never saw a man that was shot to death. If he'd been a month in the Rifle Brigade, he'd a-told how far a man was shot from, what with, and who by. And he'd a-learnt all that without the expense of going to a medical school, sir.'
Momentarily, Croaker seemed prepared to indulge Verity with the aim of bringing him down in a harder fall later on.
'So you set yourself up as a pathologist, do you, sergeant?'
'No, sir. But I got two eyes and I seen the picture took of Lord Henry's poor head. If he'd been shot from less than twenty feet, there'd a-bin a dark ring of bruising round the wound. And there ain't
'Photographs don't always show every detail, sergeant.'
'No, sir, but then there's the bullets in the sand, sir.'
Lord William swung round.
'You fooll There were a hundred times when Lord Henry might have fired his rifle into that sand, merely to test the action. Of course there were bullets from his rifle there!'
Verity stared impassively ahead of him.
'It ain't just that, sir. The last thing Mr Richard Jervis swore to me, sir, was that his brother, Lord Henry, was murdered, that he saw it done with his own eyes, and he named to me the party that he accused. With respect, sir. Now, sir. Mr Richard may be mistook. The camera may be mistook. The bullets may be in the sand by mistake. I can believe one mistake, even two. But when it gets to three sir, then I say there's evidence enough for me to be allowed to see Mr Richard again and ask him what he meant."
'No!' Lord William's voice rang across the room, as it might have done across the quarter-deck, and he sprang to his feet. 'By God, you shall not!'
'Don't see why, sir. With respect, sir.'
'Damn your thick skull!' shouted Lord William. 'Have I not told you before? My poor brother is more hurt in his mind than ever he was in his body! Richard Jervis, sir, is insane. Even you must have seen how brooding and impulsive and ill-balanced his conduct was!'
'Yessir, but a man can be all those things and still not be lunatic'
'Fiddle-faddle!' said Lord William. 'Richard Jervis has the rage of a madman against the world. He might kill me, I suppose, for putting Jack Ransome over him.'
'Over him, sir?'
'Ain't it plain?' said Lord William more softly. 'Jack Ransome is his keeper. The little money that goes from me to Richard Jervis goes through Jack Ransome. Captain Jack don't get trusted with much but he's a power of attorney to Richard Jervis till the crack of doom.'
T was 'ired to humour Mr Richard?' asked Verity, his plump face creased with incredulity.
'Something of that,' said Lord
William gruffly. 'By God, had I been at Portman Square and not with the fleet, it should have been stopped.' He returned to his chair and sat, tapping his boot irritably with his cane.
'I shall 'ave to see Mr Richard just the same, sir,' said Verity gently, 'and ask the poor gentleman to explain his words to me.'
'He's in a strait-waistcoat,' said Lord William gruffly, 'committed to an insane asylum by Dr Jamieson and another physician. My family has suffered quite enough for Richard Jervis. Let the matter end there.'
'Don't alter facts, sir. With respect, sir.'
'Facts?' said Croaker, his face going a deeper yellow as he swallowed. 'Do I understand, sergeant, that in the name of your so-called facts you propose to interrogate a patient in an asylum?'
'Very sorry I am it should be so, sir. But I gotta be sure there ain't anything to what he says. Poor Mr Richard may not be a well gentleman. But he's still got his eyes and he swore that with them he saw murder done. Now, sir, murder was done all right. I gotta know what he saw. His reason may be touched but his eyes is clear.'
'Sergeant Verity,' said Croaker in a dry matter-of-fact tone which he reserved for giving orders, 'you are forbidden from making or attempting to make any contact with Mr Richard Jervis. If I hear that you have so much as tried to find where he has been committed, your dismissal from this force will follow the next day. Do I make myself clear?'
'Yessir. One thing to say, sir.'
'Yes, sergeant?'
'I was 'oping, sir, that me seeing poor Mr Richard might save Lord William and the family a deal of unpleasantness. Course, I can be forbidden from seeing him. But I can't be forbid from doing a citizen's duty, which is to go to the Westminster coroner and tell him what I know. There'd have to be a new inquest with poor Lord Henry disinterred. And then, of course, the newspapers must be full of it, morning and evening. You no idea, sir, how they like exhumations, though I never saw why.'
'I formally forbid you to reveal any of this to the coroner or anyone else!' said Croaker, his voice shrill and his eyes gleaming. 'Your oath of loyalty forbids it!'
'Couldn't say, sir. 'owever, I ain't the only one. There's Mr Rumer and a few others that knows it all. They ain't sworn oaths and might just as soon go to the coroner. The truth's out, sir, and had best be told.'
Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Page 17