Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments

by Francis Selwyn

  'Whatcher mean?"

  'Why, sir, Chancery lunatics are a good spec to be let and sub-let. When a sane man is signed into an asylum, the vultures who mean to feed upon his estates will pay the keeper £200 a year to have him. But the keeper lets him out to another and pays £150 a year for his board, pocketing the £50 and doing nothing to earn it. The second keeper puts him elsewhere for £100 a year and so on, until he ends packed in a ward with a hundred others, crawling with lice and vermin, for £40 or £50 a year. When he dies his very name is unknown, and however sane he began he ends raving mad."

  Verity seemed sceptical but the young man looked calmly at him.

  'If you think me soft in the brain, sir, only ask if it is not so. Ask them outside, in the hospitals and courts. A week from now Mr Jervis may be a Chancery lunatic. A week after that he will be gone, God knows where, and not you nor all your officers will ever find him.

  They took their leave of the young man. Verity approached Sister Liddell again.

  'I must see the book,' he said firmly, 'where Mr Jervis was entered.'

  She led them to a small room outside the apartments of the patients and produced it. There were Richard Jervis' details, and the signature of John Ransome, as his escort, and Sister Liddell, as the person receiving him.

  'Ma'am,' said Verity, "ow might Mr Jervis have come here?'

  'How?' she said uncertainly. 'By cab to the very door.' 'And just Captain Ransome with him?'Yes,' she said, 'but he had a muffler on his wrists and you should have seen how easily he followed Captain Ransome in.'

  'Followed?'

  'Why, yes. Just a step or two away and with our eyes close on him.'

  'Much obliged, ma'am,’ said Verity. 'And this was Captain Ransome late 73rd Foot, was it?'

  'He might be any regiment that I know of,' she said, 'Fair or dark?'

  'Fair more than dark,' she said.

  'Much obliged, ma'am,' said Verity, and led the way back to the wide hall with its antlers and armour. The porter stood on the steps watching them, until they were in the roadway, beyond the main gates.

  "ere!' said Samson, 'Jack Ransome ain't got fair hair!' 'No,' said Verity, 'and it's a few years since Mr Richard could walk without help and without a pair of sticks. That poor lunatic that was tied to that bed ain't Mr Richard, and the cove that brought him here was never Jack Ransome. Dr Jamieson sees off poor Mr Richard under guard of Captain Jack from Portman Square. But another man arrives here with a poor lunatic that's so deranged he'd never be able to say he wasn't Mr Richard, After they shave a man's head and face like that, it ain't so easy to tell his appearance anyhow.'

  'Don't see the use of it,' Samson said with some resentment.

  'It's a prime dodge, Mr Samson. And if we hadn't come here for quite different purposes today, it'd have worked. Mr Richard and Captain Jack is on the loose without anyone knowing. P'raps one may have coopered the other. But is it Mr Richard or Jack Ransome that's the villain of it all? I don't see it, Mr Samson, but there's a caper here that needs to be stopped fast!'

  'Stopped!' said Samson derisively. 'You don't even know which to look for!'

  'Mr Samson! Richard Jervis ain't got legs of his own. He must have a man to lean on. There ain't no question about it. Find Captain Jack and we'll find Mr Richard.'

  'The old three-thimbles-and-a-pea caper,' said Samson. 'He'll be working it round every fair in the kingdom. Try that.'

  12

  Verity and Samson entered Brighton for the races. It was close enough to London, closer still to Bole Warren. If Jack Ransome had gone back to the three-thimbles-and-a-pea dodge, it seemed to Verity just the place he might choose to drive his trade. Making for the race hill, they joined a stream of people in the warm July morning, some walking, others riding in the close-packed traffic of cabs, donkey-carts, gigs, 'sociables', and the occasional phaeton or pilentum with its dashing lines and sparkling green or yellow paint. The balconies of every public house were crowded with gaily-dressed men and women eating and drinking, broad red faces looking down upon the road from every window. Shouts and gusts of smoke were emitted at every tap-room door, outside which were the stalls fashioned from blankets and poles, where gilt gingerbread was sold.

  The brightness of the sea seemed to dance and sparkle on the freshly-daubed buildings of the town itself, among the tumult and confusion. The church bells were pealing and flags streamed from every roof and window. Waiters hurried to and fro across the courtyards of hotels, hooves clattered on the cobbles and the carriage-steps came rattling down as another guest debouched at the York or the Albion. The heavy smells of mid-day dinner and the unmelodious competition of two Irish fiddlers in adjoining public bars characterized the time of day. Verity paused and brushed down his coat indignantly as a four-in-hand dashed teeteringly round the verge of the other traffic, eclipsing the scene in a gritty fog and leaving the stragglers stunned and blinded.

  At the approaches to the course, the two sergeants watched carefully as they passed each cheapjack and trickster. There was Jack-in-the-Box, three shies the penny', and presently the First of those who invited his dupes to guess under which of three thimbles, on the upturned barrel before him, the pea was to be found. They had seen which one it went under but, as Verity might have told them, it was now safely embedded under the sharp's long yellow thumbnail. The trickster continued his chant with doleful enthusiasm.

  "ere's the sort of game to make you laugh seven years arter you're dead, and turn every 'air on your head grey with delight. Three little thimbles and one little pea - with a one, two, three, and a three, two, one. Catch him who can. Keep your eyes open, and never say die! Never mind the change and the expense. All fair and above board. Them as don't play can't win, and luck attends the real sportsman! Wager any sum from a half-crown to a sov that no gentleman names the thimble as covers the pea.'

  The sharp's stooge in the crowd swore it had gone under the middle thimble and regretted that he had left his own purse at home. Hesitantly, one of the dupes placed his half-crown on the tub. Verity knew the outcome before he even heard the trickster's voice.

  'All the fortune of war, sir! This time I win, next time you win. Never mind the loss of two bob and a bender! Now then, ladies and gentlemen, here's the sort of game to make you laugh seven years arter you're dead. . . .'

  The rigmarole began again, as Verity spoke softly to Samson.

  'It don't mean Captain Jack ain't here too, Mr Samson. There's a pitch big enough for both of 'em on such a course as this!'

  As they moved closer, the sharp looked up. Without a word he scooped up the thimbles, thrust them in his pocket and began to stroll off, a figure of top-booted innocence who was a mere spectator at the day's sport. Samson caught him by the shoulder and shepherded him along as though they were old acquaintances. The corner of a wooden barn hid them from view while Verity, as a matter of instinct in Samson's presence, kept watch. He heard a deep groan, which seemed of sorrow rather than of pain. After a few moments longer, Samson reappeared alone. He shook his head.

  'Captain Jack ain't working his pitch here. Not that this sportsman knows of.' Samson breathed affectionately on the knuckles of his right hand.

  'You can't be sure,' said Verity, 'not the way you go about it.'

  Samson grunted.

  'Much you know about that, my son! Show 'im reason once, then ask the question. Say you don't believe him, and apply the second argument, no matter what his answer. Let him speak a second time, and still don't believe him. The third reason has to have a lot of force behind it but if you still hear the same song being sung you must act half-believing. Only, afore leaving him, you must promise that if he's sold you gammon, you'll come back and qualify him to run in the gelding stakes.'

  'Mr Samson,' said Verity nervously, 'you had no right to give him a seeing-to without provocation!'

  'I'm the one as knows when I'm provoked,' said Samson Firmly, 'and you no idea 'ow that thimble dodge do rile me.'

  As they walked on
, Verity glanced back uneasily over his shoulder. He was relieved to see that the sharp was on his feet, moving away from the barn, though he paused to wipe his mouth on the back of his wrist and when he moved on it was in a hopping run with hands covering his groin in a parody of classical decorum.

  When they reached the course, the racing seemed the least important of the afternoon's activities. The brightly streamered tents and booths faced the long line of carriages on the turf. Men in silken vests and plumed hats appeared as mountebanks or jugglers. Girls in showy gypsy handkerchiefs for their hoods solicited as fortune-tellers. There were dancing dogs and men on stilts, ventriloquists and conjurers attended by pale women who held the sixpences and counted them repeatedly. An organ grinder and a brass band on either side were interrupted by the trumpeter of the Punch and Judy show, the booth carried on the back of the proprietor. Far off, a bell rang to clear the course, which had been roped off from the rest of the summer fair. Beyond the fluttering streamers and the white tops of the booths rose distant shouts, the patter of drums at the start, and then the faint thunder of hooves.

  "There!' shouted Verity suddenly in Samson's ear, pointing at a roll of canvas printed with large black letters.

  ROLEY'S TOURNAMENT

  KNIGHTS IN MORTAL COMBAT!!!

  THE GENUINE AND ONLY TOURNAMENT IN THE WORLD! ! !

  Now Exhibiting Within

  ROLEY'S is the Delight of the NOBILITY & GENTRY!

  The ROYAL FAMILY are the Patrons of ROLEY'S!!!

  At the beginning of the races the canvas booths had assumed an air of inactivity. There was no sign of Roley or his actors at that moment, only groups of thin and ragged children who ran or crawled, according to age, among the grime and dust of the donkey-carts and wagons. Verity pushed aside the flap of the canvas booth and found that even the stool where the money-taker collected the sixpences was deserted. Beyond that was another opening which led into a roped-off 'gallery' from which the spectators watched the antics of the riders in front of them. The grass area enclosed as the tournament-ground was no more than thirty feet across and it occurred to Verity that Mr Roley must be possessed of some very lethargic ponies if their energies could be confined in so small a space.

  To one side there was a wagon quite concealed by the surrounding canvas walls. Upon it were hung overalls in woollen mesh, designed to simulate chain-mail. Verity motioned Samson forward and then prepared to cut off the escape of any occupant of the wagon who might elude Samson's grasp. He watched his companion move silently forward on the soft turf, to the rear of the covered wagon, and then heard him clamber rapidly on to the tail of it. There was the sound of a scuffle, a noise of wrestling, the click of metal cuffs, and then Samson's laughter.

  'Why, Miss Elaine! After all that running, you had no more sense than to come back to your old trade, where you'd be sure to be looked for first. I half think you must have had a yearning to be caught and took back for Mrs Rouncewell's attention!'

  'You bastards!' she snarled, 'I done nothing wrongl' 'Depends, I s'pose, what you think is wrong,' said Samson, as though giving the matter academic consideration.

  'Blackmail notes and extorting money from gentlemen in cabs by menaces ain't exactly what they gives prizes for in dame schools, 'owever.'

  'Bring her out here, Mr Samson, if you please,'said Verity firmly.

  As he had expected, she was dressed for her part as a page in the tournament, every item of the costume identical to that in the glass-plate photograph of her which he had found in Lord Henry's bureau. Tossing her pale gold hair into place on her shoulders, she regarded him with thin-lipped and snub-nosed defiance. He recognized from the plate the white blouse which she wore as doublet and the skin-tight, greyish-blue trousers drawn into a narrow waist by the tight belt, still giving her rather large haunches the appearance of an almost complete circle from the rear.

  'Now, miss,' said Verity, 'I can play this game two ways, and you shall decide which. I ain't much interested in you, only what you know about others. Answer sensible and I'll speak for you, p'raps even let you go your own way with Mr Roley. But cross me, Miss Elaine, and I'll see you straight back to Mrs Rouncewell with my compliments. And I'll make sure as I stand here that when she's finished welcoming you, you won't be able to bear a breath on you for the next week. That's the size of it, miss.'

  She pulled at her lip with her teeth and then asked sullenly,

  'What's the questions about?'

  'That's better!' said Verity in his most encouraging manner. 'First off, about Charley Wag.' He saw the flicker in her dark, narrow eyes. At fifteen years old she might seem hard as brass to threats and even beatings, but the fear of the Wag was going to live with her for many years yet.

  'Now,' Verity resumed, 'you wrote that letter for Charley, to blackmail Lord Henry, some time before his lordship died. When might it have been?'

  'Dunno, exactly. Back just before the summer begun.’

  'And just why might he want you to write it?'

  'A-cos of the ring he heard I'd got. Another girl told 'im.'

  'What ring?'

  As though she had abandoned her animosity against them, Elaine's belligerent manner softened and she slipped into a rambling narrative.

  ‘I had it when I was younger. Mother was going fine with a soldier and we was to sail with him, hoping for India or 'Straliar in the end. I don't remember exactly what happened, only that the boat we was on was wrecked and I was carried and put in a little boat with a lot of others. It was dark and in the middle of the sea. And then there was a fight and one of them in the boat was put in the sea for being a man. Then I don't remember more 'n half of it. We was days and nights in the boat, and seemed to sleep longer and longer. And I'd wake a bit and see no one else stirring. It was mother give me the ring, last of all. She said it'd come from the finger of the man that was put in the water. She made me take it and said I was to see what I could make on it if ever I found a story that could be told against the wretch. Course, I never really saw him nor had any idea who he might be. And it could a-bin any ring. There was writing on the inside, but not such as I could read. Foreign. Then we slept and when I woke I was on another boat. They said mother and the rest was on different ships, only of course I knew later they was dead. They didn't tell me at first, for fear of making me lose heart to recover."

  'And Charley Wag?" asked Verity.

  Elaine pulled a face.

  ‘I never did use the ring, 'aving been stolen from a man while they killed him, it wasn't worth the candle to sell it and be took for helping the murder. And there was no way to tell who he might be, no way I could find, so I 'adn't even the means to tell the tale to his family and see what might be made by that either. Only I told another girl in the spring and showed her what was engraved on the inside, which she wrote down. A few weeks later, though I never saw Charley Wag before, he came and gave me money for the ring and made me write the note. Later I heard he been coopered by one of the jacks from "A" Division. But he never was! I seen 'im plain as I see you now, every hair of his head and every look of his eye the dead spit!'

  'Phantasm of a disordered imagination,' said Samson knowledgeably, 'Charley been snug in Kensal Green the past month. Why, the turf they laid over 'im ain't even been disturbed.'

  Elaine tossed her hair again and said with adolescent defiance,

  'Bugger you and your phantoms! Didn't I feel his hands round my throat? And ain't I got the bruise of his thumb there still? Look!'

  There was no mistaking the faded shadow of the injury on her white skin.

  ' 'ave the goodness to keep her 'ere a minute, Mr Samson,' said Verity. 'I shan't be gone long.' He trudged out of the booth and disappeared among the tents and flags.

  'Biggish, darkish cove, Charley was," said Samson conversationally.

  The girl nodded.

  'That's 'im.'

  'Only thing is,' said Samson, 'it was Mr Verity as coopered 'im and me that felt his heart stopped and saw his head broke in,
And saw him buried, what's more.'

  He stooped a little and peered at the bruise on her throat again. One of his hands went round her shoulders and sampled the soft weight of Elaine's young breasts.

  'Course,' he said, 'in the matter of being returned to Mrs Rouncewell, you could have it hard or easy. And Mrs Rouncewell takes notice of what I say in such matters."

  The hand dropped, full-length, and began to travel up the backs of the girl's tightly-clad and sturdy thighs. Simultaneously, he planted a resonant kiss on her lips.

  'Ain't no reason a good-natured girl shouldn't find things go easy for her,' he said.

  She tossed her hair back furiously. 'Bastard!'

  Samson's hand reached the fattened cheeks of Elaine's bottom, stroking and patting.

  'Quite a big girl already,' he said optimistically, the hand darting between her tightly closed legs. 'And you ain't averse to a touching there by the feel o' things! Now, you'll have all the way from 'ere to London Bridge in a closed carriage to show just 'ow grateful you can be to a friend that's. ..."

  'Mr Samsonl' said Verity from the opening of the booth. 'If you please!'

  Samson released the girl reluctantly with a final lingering pat and a sigh. Verity was standing at the canvas flap with a little man who was a total stranger to Samson.

  'This,' said Verity with an air of proud ownership, 'is Mr Adam Jump, Lightning Sketch Artist and Silhouette-Maker to the Crowned Heads of Europe. He been good enough to leave his tent for a bit to help us in the investigation.'

  'Why?' said Samson, irritated by the intrusion on his private negotiation with a fifteen-year-old mistress.

  'A-cos,' said Verity, 'Mr Adam Jump has a speciality, which is likenesses of Dear Departed Ones.’

  'You'd hardly credit,' said Jump with soft owlishness, 'how they sell. Ladies and gentlemen describe a dear one to me and I fashion the likeness to suit. Seeing it done brings back all manner of other details even while I'm working on the sketch. It's a shilling in pencil and twice that if shaded with coloured chalks.'