SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (30 page)

Verity patted her hand.

'Why, miss, if you've been a truthful girl, I'll do more than stand between you and transportation. I'll see yo
u rewarded from the police funds
'

She watched him, silent and suspicious, as he rose, opened the door, looked back at her and then slipped away.

The table where he had sat with Samson, and the alcove behind its velvet curtain, were deserted. Verity made his way quickly through the muddy, high-walled lanes which ran beside the wall of the Great Western Dock. The shoreline of Mill Bay was starlit and he could make out the path without much difficulty, the half-derelict jetty showing black against the opalescence of the rippling anchorage. Close to the spot, he paused and said softly, 'Mr Samson!'

There was a movement under the shadowy piles of the jetty, Verity preparing to ward off an attacker if necessary. But it was Samson's voice which answered him.

'Over here, Mr Verity! Them three doxies came down to the water, showed a lamp and was took out there in a little boat. Out where that steamer is.'

The outline of the
Lady Flora
was clear enough. The trim pleasure-craft seemed no more than a hundred tons, a tall buff funnel with black top rising amidships. The stern and the paddle boxes were gaily painted and embellished with gilt scrolling.

'Let's hear it then,' whispered Samson. 'Let's have the tale that's to be told.'

'Simple, Mr Samson. All the way from the London terminus, I been thinking more and more that if Captain Jack was to pull this caper, he must do it fast. Once Lord William and the
Hero
is docked, it may be too late. Ten to one, Lord William ain't going to America without stepping round to Friern House and seeing his brother first. You or I might have doubts as to Mr Richard's looks, but Honest Jack Ransome can't take a chance that. Lord William wouldn't know if it was his own brother or not. I been thinking all the way from Paddington that he'd have to work the dodge now. So he'd have to be in Plymouth, perhaps, but not let himself be seen. Likewise, the girls in them blackmail pictures couldn't be left to sing a song about it. When we was at the railway station, I asked the railway constables if they'd seen a sign of our friends. They hadn't noticed any such passengers as Captain Jack or a poor cripple, who must have come another way. But one of 'em saw a cab hired by two girls that was Eye-talian and another what was a ringer for Jolly.'

'You was quick, Mr Verity.'

'I was, Mr Samson. A-cos then I reckoned that Captain Jack and Mr Richard would lie low. But them three bunters, with a taste for a spree and an itch between their legs, they'd never lie low for five minutes but must be out and about, by fraud or force.'

'If you was to flash a lamp, Mr Verity, a boat would come from that steamer. We might knock the man on the head and get out there after 'em.'

'Not till I know who's there! Can you swim, Mr Samson?'

'No,' said Samson defensively, 'not actually
swim.'

'Well I can. Sit 'ere in the shadow and look after these things until I get back. Whatever you do, don't show a light. If I ain't back in twenty minutes, or if you 'ear trouble, make for the police office. Otherwise stay put. I shall need your 'elp.'

As he spoke, Verity discarded his frock-coat, shirt and trousers. Either through modesty, or else as a protection from the cold, he retained his long drawers. Where the piles of the rotting jetty rose from the oily surface of the dark water, the bottom sloped away gradually, deep in mud. He waded through the clinging sludge until the black tide lapped at the crease between his belly and his plump chest. With a brief flurry of water, he kicked up his feet behind him and paddled with his hands. After a while he regained the art he had once known of keeping his hands and feet below water, where they moved almost as silently as fins. This, at least, was something which he could be sure those on the
Lady Flora
were not expecting.

Five minutes of cautious paddling brought him within ten yards of the dark shape of the
Lady Flora's
hull. There were lights at some of the portholes, which ran in a single line round the ship, but the curtains were drawn at each. Two men, whose physique suggested brothel bullies rather than sailors, were in conversation on the deck. Parting the water as gently as he could, Verity came close to the stern, where the little gig was moored. In the slack tide, the
Lady Flora
turned forward and back in a slow semi-circle, whose centre was marked by the anchor-chain which ran down into the black dock-water at her bows.

He could hear the voices of the two men on deck, muted in a discussion of the female passengers.

'Three of 'em!' said the first man with soft incredulity. 'Cost you a duke's inheritance to hire three at once for the night! And that yokel-captain to have them all night and tomorrow! Just to look the other way when the dibs is paid out and the goods brought aboard!'

'What I saw,' said the second man, 'just before the door was closed, was them two Italian pieces. Naked as they were born, kneeling in front, fighting each other to get a kiss at the prize. Jolly, too. I seen that piece stooped naked, patting herself behind to get him to take her at a charge.'

There were muffled snorts of laughter.

'Bloody liar!’

Verity was holding fast to the wooden fender which ran back along the ship's side from the paddle-box, not twelve inches above the water. By shifting his grip he could pull himself along silently and also raise himself enough to bring his eyes level with the portholes. The after part of the ship seemed to be in darkness, until he came just to the rear of the paddle-box, where the lit circle of glass showed the little engine room with its single polished piston. A roughly-dressed man, no doubt Captain Joshua's mate, was attending to the piston-head with an oil-can. Verity slid back into the water and swam forward round the dark, dripping fins of the iron paddle, and he thought how neat the arrangement was. Apart from Captain Joshua and his mate, every man and woman in the caper was Jack Ransome's servant. And some means had been found of selling them the smuggling story so that they never questioned it.

Two forward portholes, belonging either to two adjoining cabins or else to one large saloon, showed light behind their curtains. He heard a man's voice, slower and gruffer than either Ransome or Richard Jervis. Muffled sounds of a girl were followed by the voice of a young woman, shrill with excitement.

'Th
at way, signorel Now, like that!
She like that a lot!'

And there was a chorus of feminine laughter.

Verity paddled round the bows of the
Lady Flora,
guessing what he would find on the other side. He had accounted for Captain Joshua, the mate, three girls and two bullies. There were probably two or three more bawdy-house toughs who had once worked for Charley Wag. But that was not enough. He swam soundlessly to the patch of shimmering light on the water where two other portholes shone red through their curtains. It was the stateroom opposite to that in which Captain Joshua was beginning to taste his reward.

Verity pulled himself up by the wooden fender and listened.

'It is justice, my lord,' said Ransome firmly. 'It is the justice you have long been owed.'

Verity frowned at the style of address. There was no room for a lord on the
Lady Flora
in his picture of events. But his brow relaxed as Richard Jervis answered, quickly and in great excitement.

'Call me your lord in jest, if you like. But tomorrow I shall be your lord in earnest!'

The voice and the personality were recognizably those which Verity had known. Yet now there was a shrill zest, as though Richard Jervis understood only what he said and was unable to comprehend much that was spoken by others.

'Punish the guilty and let the innocent go free,' he said mournfully.

Ransome's voice became humorously confidential, as though he might be speaking close to Jervis' ear.

'My lord, only the captain is required to go down with his ship. And so he must, unless you would have him commit you to the madhouse again.'

Something in this stirred Richard Jervis' humour. The laughter which followed was prolonged, as though with childish delight. Verity shivered and glanced towards the dark shore, where his colleague waited.

'Our own men will be secure,' said Ransome casually. 'Once the ports are closed over, no one shall see in or out. The hatches will be fastened. The worst tale they can tell is that they served us, hoping for a share of contraband, but found we were innocent yachtsmen. It convicts them, my lord, not us.'

Richard Jervis spluttered with laughter again.

'Brave Jack Rans
ome!
' he said, as though even the admiration exhauste
d him. 'Oh, Jack, I am so tired!
Oh, Honest Jack!'

Verity let go of the wooden fender, slid into the cold water of the anchorage and moved like a large pale fish in the murky tide. Ten minutes later, his teeth chattering with the chill of the air on his wet body, he stumbled ashore by the dilapidated jetty, where Samson waited. Samson had taken off his own coat and was holding it out.

'Wrap this round
you, my son, and get dry on it!
'

While Verity gratefully rubbed the worsted material against his back until the flesh glowed, Samson also produced a small flask. Verity took it without a word, tipped it back and emitted a choking gasp.

'Mr Samson,' he said breathlessly, 'it's the
Hero
they're after! There's Captain Jack and Mr Richard out there on that boat. They got them three young persons and a crew of Charley Wag's cut-throats, and Captain Joshua and his mate. Mr Richard still sounds half-asleep from laudanum or something. But I bloody heard Honest Jack promise to cooper Lord William by sending the
Hero
to the bottom.'

'Sounds to me like someone give you a dose of laudanum if you believe half of that,' said Samson, handing Verity his clothes. 'Sink a shipful of men in front of all them witnesses on the
Lady
Flora
'

Verity looked at him severely.

"They'll be battened under hatches, Mr Samson. But it wouldn't matter if they weren't. There's only two of 'em that's coming back from this little spree, and that's Captain Jack and Mr Richard. Can't yer see, Mr Samson? The
Hero
goes down with all hands, so no one thinks it's just Lord William that's aimed at. Captain Joshua sails away in the
Lady Flora
and never comes back. Mr Richard goes into Bedlam for good, leaving Honest Jack Ransome with the estates in his charge. And not a scrap of evidence closer than fifty fathom down. It puts 'is 'ighness fifty fathom down too, Mr Samson!"

Samson watched Verity dress. As though speaking to a slow-witted child, he said,

'If you think that even Honest Jack could sink the
Hero
with the
Lady Flora,
you ain't half got something to learn about boats, my son! A shell that wouldn't even dent a great ship like the
Hero
would blow a little pleasur
e-steamer to bits in firing it!’

Verity looked up.

'You never thought, Mr Samson, that whatever the device is might already be hid in some secret place on the
Hero
ready to blow her to smithereens?'

'No,'
said Samson uncertainly.

'No,' said Verity. 'It ain't likely, of course, or they wouldn't need the
Lady Flora
now. Likewise, I suppose you never heard of a torpedo?'

'Torpedo?'

'I'm surprised a constabulary
officer
of your length of service ain't never took the trouble to familiarize himself with infernal machines. You don't have to fire a torpedo like a shell. You just tows it across the path of the target, so the bows of the other ship catches the trawl. It swings back smartly, banging the torpedo against the ship's side and up she goes. A pull on the tow might do it. Blows a hole as wide as a house. One of them great battleships like the
Hero,
she'd turn turtle with all hands in less than half a minute.'

'Dear God!' said Samson softly.

'Yes, Mr Samson.'

'Sooner we go for 'elp the better.'

"We
are
help, Mr Samson. We ain't paid to run for someone else, You walk out of here, and by the time we get back, that boat out there might have gone.'

'What then?'

'We'll just get aboard her and stay aboard.'

'1 can't swim,' said Samson doggedly.