SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (19 page)

3

SATAN'S
MISTRESSES

'Mr Verity,' said Bella softly, 'why was you so long from home?' The vivacious blue eyes in the round little face were wide with puzzlement as she stroked his cheek.

'Blessed if I know,' said Verity thoughtfully, 'for all the good it did!'

They lay side by side in the large ancient bed, bought by Stringfellow at the time of his own marriage. A scattering of embers in the grate diffused a reassuring, shadowy glow across the darkened bedroom, silhouetting the cradle at Bella's side.

'But now you're to live 'ome,' said Bella happily.

'I don't see
'ow
there could a-bin murder done,' Verity said for the twentieth time that day. 'But I do know that Mr Richard was locked prisoner in his room, vowing that his brother Lord William was the 'omicide. And they'd done something to Mr Richard, I swear. Drugged him to sleep or restrained him.'

'This Lord William,' said Bella, 'was he a cruel man?'

'A tartar on his ship,' Verity murmured knowledgeably. 'Flogged the whole starboard watch when they only made nine knots speed with a bowline.'

'And he isn't to be took and questioned?'

'Rum thing is,' said Verity, 'so soon as ever I got back to Whitehall Place, who sends for me but Mr Croaker. I'm to forget everything that ever happened. I'm to forget I ever heard poor Mr Richard prisoner in his room and what he said of Lord William. I'm never to have dealings with Mr Richard again nor to go near the Jervis 'ouse. Which Mr Croaker keeps saying is Lord William's house an
yhow. That's to be the end of it!’

Bella edged her plump little knee between his knees.

'Here,' she said, 'if a man says another man committed murder, ain't it got to be investigated?'

'Not necessarily,' said Verity. 'Not if someone in a high place says there ain't primer fishy evidence. Then the likes o' me don't get asked, do they?'

'Someone in a high place says you're not to pay attention to that poor crippled Mr Richard?'

Verity laughed significantly.

'It was never Mr Croaker. Higher up, much higher up. Mr Croaker spoke very straight and calm about it all, which he never does when he's speaking on his own account. Sort o' worried and a bit frightened, I thought. Not a bit hisself. Sour as vinegar and mean as a stoat, that's more his usual way.'

Bella turned her head a little, gazed at the ceiling and shook her blonde curls.

'Ain't it a caution?' she said. 'And what's to become of you now?'

'Blackmail,' said Verity with relish. 'Charley Wag may have closed his accounts but there's a score o' young persons of a bad reputation what have took the business for themselves.'

Bella thought about this. Presently she said,

'Mr Verity, when these unfortunates is arrested, might you have to lay hands upon them? Might you have to touch . . . might you have to touch their persons?'

Verity puffed up his moustaches.

"ere now!' he said tolerantly.

'I 'eard,' said Bella, "ow constables in the parks was turning a blind eye to unfortunates there in return for making free with their fallen virtue.'

Verity sat up in bed.

'You no business to 'ear such things, Mrs Verity! Why, I can't think who'd say as much! And it ain't your place to 'ear. You'd a sight better give your mind to setting an example o' thrift and respectability to the labouring classes round here. That way, there might be a few less unfortunates. You gotta position to keep up, being the wife of an officer of the law!'

At this point, the child in the cradle was woken by the outburst and began to bawl with powerful lungs. Husband and wife abandoned their discussion and turned to one another. A church clock beyond the rattle of cabs and carts on the Edgware Road struck midnight on the warm summer air. Bella gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. 'Oh, Mr Verity!' she gasped. 'Oh, Mr Verity!'

As a concession to the heat of the day and the shortage of accommodation for officers of the Whitehall Division, the Private-Clothes detail was paraded in the police office yard.

'So they never let you dig up Lord 'enry?' said Samson cheerily.

'No, said Verity shortly, 'never did.'

'Ah well,' said Samson, 'daresay he wouldn't have turned out much of a cove after all. Speaking o' which, you never missed anything o' the blackmail case while you was boarding at Portman Square. Charley's girls have all took it for themselves now. Leastways, if there is a man behind 'em, we can't flush him out. I'd say it was all down to Charley Wag. With 'im dead, I reckon the blackmail must die too. Girls like Simona and that, they ain't got the style. All of 'em gone back to spreading their legs for a living, I'd say.'

'You ain't off the case, Mr Samson?'

'Oh, ain't I? I'm on to something very special now. Seeing after the nobility and making sure they ain't bothered. Be there ready if there's any go at blackmail, that's how Mr Croaker sees it.'

'Nobility?' said Verity uneasily.

'Yus,' said Samson, 'nobility. Not anyone you'd know.'

Inspector Swift called the parade to attention and detailed the men to their duties. Verity's heart sank as he realized that once again he was being kept back, as he had been on the day that Swift sent him to the hiring-room. But Swift's words to Samson and Verity were more encouraging.

'Right, Samson, got your orders, then? Lord Renfrew to be seen safe through London but not to be approached by you nor spoke to.'

'Yessir.'

'And great care to be taken over the Bond Street business with his lordship.' 'Yessir.'

Swift turned to Verity.

'Now, my lad,' he said, 'I've put up surety for you, in a manner of speaking, and I shan't look to be let down. So walk smart, talk sensible, and keep your face clean. Right?'

'Sir!
'

'You may find yourself assisting Sergeant Samson, or you may not. It will depend on events. Your duties are to keep surveillance from now until tomorrow morning upon the Temple of Beauty in Bond Street.'

'Temple, sir?'

'It sells preparations for ladies' faces and persons,' said Swift self-consciously. 'Oils, perfumes, soaps and so on. It says "Beautiful for Ever" over the door. But we hear it sells other commodities too. You are to maintain surveillance and prevent at all costs any untoward proceedings.'

'It ain't to be raided nor closed down, sir?'

'No,' said Swift, 'positively not. No action to be taken against it. The Temple of Beauty is to be protected from interference.'

'Don't understand, sir, with respect, sir.'

'Nor do I,' said Swift. 'Nor does your Mr
Croaker, nor Superintendent Go
wry, nor the Commissioner. You are indeed privileged, sergeant, for the orders which you do not understand come from on high and are to be obeyed as such. Dismissed!'

As the two sergeants marched away, Verity said,

'I never knew such a thing! Me to stand guard on a 'ouse of ill-fame! It ain't to be warned or closed down but protected. And me to see that nothing undignified 'appens there! Why, I might be one of Ned Roper's bullies.'

'Better than the hiring-room, ain't it?' said Samson.

'What ain't better is not being told why. I'm to do such duties without knowing why. Same as I'm never to see Mr Jervis or have anything to do with the family, and not be told a word of why I mustn't. I keep thinking of that poor young man locked away a prisoner and vowing that one of his brothers murdered the other. And then, all on a sudden, I'm told to forget it. Who by? It ain't Mr Croaker's doing. Higher up, that's what.'

Samson eyed the ankles of a flower-girl appreciatively as the two sergeants turned the corner of Cockspur Street. 'Ain't your worry, my son,' he said philosophically. Verity stopped.

'Yes it bloody is, Mr Samson! It worries me that there's a smell about all this! There's a smell about Portman Square and what happened at Bole Warren as sure as there is over this Temple of Beauty nonsense. I got wind o' it all right, and I'll see you and Mr Croaker and the rest of 'em in hell before I give up!'

Ramming the tall, dusty hat more firmly on his head, his round face purpling with indignation and exertion, Verity took his leave of Samson and strode angrily away past the tall windows of the United Service Club and the leafy opening of Waterloo Place.

The dust of the summer afternoon, raised by the constant passage of rumbling wooden wheels with their iron rims, brought a smart to the eyes and a dryness to the throat. Standing at ease, conspicuous as a mounted guard outside St James' Palace, Verity occupied the archway of a mews entrance and kept his eyes determinedly on the object of his surveillance on the far side of Bond Street. It was the time of day sacred to the Bond Street loungers, whiling away the afternoon in quizzing the young and titled ladies who promenaded there. The tall, elegant houses were interspersed with bow-fronted shops, the pastel wash of their walls highlighted by the sparkling white paintwork of the square-paned windows. Fine gloves, bonnets a la mode, glittering and glowing jewels, cut-glass, lace, and handsomely-bound leather volumes shone with rich desirability in the window displays.

The largest of these establishments, its double front and fine arched portico suggesting a theatre or assembly room as much as a shop, was the Temple of Beauty. From the display of gilt lettering it might have been the premises of a fashionable chemist or an expensive herbalist, serving the affluent area that lay between Pall Mall and Regent Circus. Under the golden-lettered promise of 'Beautiful for Ever', the windows offered 'Royal Arabian Soap', 'Powders for the Complexion', and 'Jordan Water, 10 guineas a bottle'. Fine ornamental boxes, tortoiseshell or lacquered, boasted 'Favourite of the Harem's Bouquet', 'Souvenir de Mariage', and 'Maiden's Keepsake'.

Under Verity's sternly disapproving gaze, broughams and pilentums drew up before the freshly-painted facade. Liveried servants handed down their well-dressed mistresses who duly made their way into the Temple. The premises suggested the warm perfumed aromas of naked female flesh. It was also noticeable, Verity thought, that for every well-dressed woman who arrived there was also an equally distinguished gentleman. After an hour or two the couple would emerge, as they had arrived, separately. But to a careful observer it was possible to deduce from the time spent which man and which woman had had a particular assignation in one of the salons.

Very clever, thought Verity, a place for the indiscretions of the titled and the wealthy, the jewel of a blackmail dodge that would make Ramiro's Baths seem like a child's game. Small wonder that the authorities wished to prevent unpleasantness, while at the same time insisting that the place must not be interfered with. In one form or another, the men and women who came and went were the authorities themselves.

As an exercise in surveillance, Verity's watch on the Temple of Beauty seemed to him less than satisfactory. He was in full view of the Bond Street strollers, the women in their pink or green crinolines and bonnets, the men in their silk hats and summer suiting of cream or pale brown. There was no doubt what he was, standing at ease in his archway in the tall fraying hat and broad barge-shaped boots. But the men and women who chose to deceive husbands or wives with one another disregarded him. They cared no more for what he saw or thought than if he had been a crossing-sweeper.

As afternoon turned to evening and the dinner-hour approached, the procession of visitors to the Temple of Beauty dwindled. It was in the early dusk that Verity saw a man, on foot and alone, approach the portico and enter. There was no mistaking Lord William Jervis, the tall dark captain with his jaunty stride. Verity drew back into the shadows and waited. But Lord William was not followed by any young woman. Instead, he reappeared after several minutes and strode away down Bond Street towards Piccadilly and Pall Mall as energetically as ever.

Verity puzzled over this. The windows of the Temple of Beauty were now bright with gas in the thickening twilight, so that it looked more than ever like a discreet private theatre. Groups of well-dressed men and women, noisy after-dinner parties, arrived by brougham or cab and went inside. In his mind, Verity began to compose the complaint he would make to Inspector Swift next morning on the waste of a whole day's duty.

He was engaged in this mental composition when a cab drew up on his own side of Bond Street and Sergeant Samson got down from it, looking about him anxiously.

'Over 'ere, Mr Samson,' said Verity softly.

Samson, breathless but businesslike, took his colleague by the arm.

'Right, my son,' he said, 'this is where I want your 'elp, as Mr Swift was saying, you're to get in that place and stop in there. It ain't difficult, no more difficult than getting into a penny gaff nor a chanting crib. They don't charge till you're in. Then you pays your way. Once in there, you're to act like a servant or one of the house bullies. Right?'