SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (36 page)

'I never thought they'd cooper me,' said Samson with great confidence. 'Not after you'd got clean away. You'd have had a tale to tell. They'd never risk it. They had me and Captain Joshua and his mate, and them two doxies, Simona and Stefania, all tied up in one cabin with a cove as threatened to slit our gizzards if we gave trouble. However, the moment the
'ero
went down, they was going to slit 'em anyway. They saw the
'ero
stop dead, and couldn't tell if she was on the rocks and sinking or not. Course, the searchlight flashed about, as it might if she was going down. And then, just as they decided she wasn't on the rocks, there's footsteps all over the deck. I swear I never even 'eard them blue-jackets come alongside, let alone climb on to the deck. Well, being as there was only Ransome and three of his coves, it was over in a minute. Soon as the coves saw the marines, why they couldn't a-bin more 'elpful. Bless you, they even wanted to change sides without being asked.'

'You 'ad quite a little adventure, Mr Samson,' said Verity, pulling at the rum which had been brought to the cabin on Lord William's
orders. 'Cor, I 'ate this stuff!
'ow you can drink it for pleasure, I shall never knowl'

' ‘
had an adventure!' snorted Samson. 'What you had was twice that, and a doxy that's now got to be admitted Queen's evidence. Not the first time she's saved her lovely skin that way!'

'Don't seem right, after all she's done, Mr Samson. Why, she'll get clear away!'

'Not
clear
away,' said Samson with a thoughtful smile. 'She won't hang, she won't be transported to 'Straliar, nor anything like that. But while there's Mrs Rouncewell and the steam laundry, and while I'm in Mrs Rouncewell's good books, I think I can promise as Miss Jolly won't get
clear
away with what she done.'

16

The windows of the drab houses were aflame with the reflection of dawn, the trees in the squares bright and green against a sky of pale, brilliant blue, as Verity and Samson turned into Snow Hill. Even the smoke of Samson's penny cigar rose in a white unruffled plume in the stillness of the new day. The 'Magpie and Stump', which had blazed with light since the previous evening stood with doors open wide and tables strewn with a litter of ale-glasses and jugs, carcases of cold fowl and rabbit, remains of kidneys and lobster, and pickled onions in jars. A scattering of scraps and the butts of cheroots lay among the sand of the uncarpeted floor.

On the roofs of the houses, makeshift galleries had been formed overlooking the street, where men with matted hair and grimy hats cocked on one side, lolled and drank with laughing girls whose white scarves had been pulled down to reveal the pallor of bare shoulders. At the windows of the rooms below sat parties of young subalterns, among sleeping dandies and the brokers of the 'Swell Mob'.

As the two sergeants turned the corner there was the humming of thousands of voices, a packed and impenetrable crowd of men and women filling the length and width of Newgate Street and Snow Hill. Several uniformed constables at the rear of the crowd were enduring volleys of ribaldry from stunted and sallow youths of sixteen or seventeen, while the dandies at the upper windows stroked their moustaches, twirled their cigars and shouted their encouragement of this sport.

Well back from the rear of the crowd, family parties of respectable-looking tradesmen and their wives sipped tea as calmly as if they had been in their own parlour, never taking their eyes from the sight on which the gaze of the entire throng was soon directed.

High up in the blank grim wall of Newgate Gaol was a tiny door, never used except on a Monday morning, and only on such Monday mornings as this. A black-draped platform had been built out from it, carts with posts and planks still rattling up Snow Hill as late as four in the morning to conclude the work. The final clatter and hammering died away as the carpenters completed the erection of two black-painted posts on the platform with a stout cross-beam between them and a dark iron chain dangling from its centre. Long before the arrival of Samson and Verity, the coach carrying the sheriffs had made its way through the crowd and the doors of the great prison had closed behind it. Now the hands on St Sepulchre's clock stood at ten to eight. Verity shivered in the chill of the summer morning.

It seemed an age until the minute hand rose to a perfect vertical and the bell of the tower tolled out eight times. A silence fell upon the crowd.

'They'd have knocked the irons off his legs in the press-yard by now,' said Samson doubtfully. 'Surely he never been respited nor done away with himself in his cell?'

But the little door opened and a man's head appeared briefly and vanished. He reappeared, a single figure dressed all in black. A group of young men in the crowd set up a hissing, but it soon faded into silence. Four more men followed in a close group, the first on to the platform was black-suited but with his shirt open. His hands were strapped together in front of him and, as he stood there, he opened his palms once or twice in a helpless little gesture. The voice of the man behind him carried faintly across the multitude of onlookers.

'I am the resurrection and the life. . . .'

'Hurrah for Honest Jack Ransome!'

The voice of a gaudily-dressed young swell at one of the upper windows of the 'Magpie and Stump' echoed across the street, provoking a mutter among those below, which swiftly fell to silence again. The condemned man placed himself quietly beneath the beam. Then the other man, who had come alone on to the platform, pulled him round to face the crowd, took from his pocket a white night-cap and drew it down firmly to cover the victim's head. There was not a sound from the crowd as the hangman stepped back and gave a signal to his assistant below the platform. The bolts of the trap were drawn away and the hooded figure seemed to stumble, rather than fall, into the dark well which opened under him. As he dropped to waist-level in the opening, the rope which connected the noose and the black chain shuddered taut. It seemed that the pinioned body twitched but those watching from the upper windows and balconies were able to see the last refinement of humane execution, the hands of Jack Ketch's apprentice reaching upwards to pull with vigorous jerks on the legs of the hanged man until the choking and the twitching ceased.

Samson let out the breath which he had been holding in the tension of the moment. He turned to his companion.

'Yer eyes is closed!’
he said incredulously.

Verity nodded.

'Never thought I'd feel for Jack Ransome,' he said throatily. 'He never did much actual harm to me, though. Funny enough, he once spoke up for me, to Mr Richard, and I could a-thanked him.'

'The villain would have coopered us both, if he'd had his way!'

Verity nodded again. There was a resurgence of noise and movement in the crowd. Captain Jack's body was required by law to hang for a full hour. But the excitement and the spectacle which had drawn men and women in their thousands was now over.

Samson nudged Verity, as though to cheer him up.

'Breakfast! I know where there's hot breakfast kept for us!'

He led the way to Ludgate and London Bridge, Verity walking in silence beside him. Samson said conversationally,

'Your Mr Richard was lucky, though. If he hadn't been mad as a hatter, he'd a-swung with Honest Jack. Now he'll end his days in Broadmoor Asylum. A cove told me that it's all new built, a real palace. It's on a hill, so you look clean over the walls and see the countryside around you, just as you might be at home on your own estate.'

'What good's it to a man, if it ain't his own estate?' asked Verity with uncharacteristic bitterness. 'Poor young Mr Richard might a-bin better off going down with the
Lady Flora
or keeping Jack Ransome company on that trap just now. No, Mr Samson, I only got one thing to shout about, and that's what I got Dr Jamieson to do for that mistreated young fellow Wilson Rust, who swore to us he was sane in the asylum near Acton. There's a man that was wrongly held prisoner and is set free at last. And there ain't another thing I should wish to remember from this whole sorry business.'

'You'll come r
ound, however. See if you don't!
'

And Samson was right, at least to the extent that the gloom of witnessing the execution seemed to be passing from Verity's mind by the time they marched through the gates of Mrs Rouncewell's converted workhouse. The ruddy-faced and muscular proprietress greeted them with enthusiasm.

'There's breakfast awaiting for two brave officers!' she said jubilantly. 'Sich devilled kidneys as you never dreamed of.'

'Much obliged, Mrs Rouncewell,' said Verity softly, 'and I ain't particular about much breakfast just now.'

'Gammon!
' said Mrs Rouncewell sharply, and she sat the two sergeants at the parlour table with her. 'Take a mug o' porter with it. That's all you need.'

Samson ate with gusto, and Verity took a mouthful or two in order to oblige the former police-matron who had been of assistance to him several times in the past.

Samson munched at a kidney impaled on a fork. He said,

'Pity about that Miss Elaine of yours. It didn't quite suit Mr Croaker and the Division to have her brought back here, else you might have apprenticed her hot and strong.'

'Apprentices!' Mrs Rouncewell's solid bosom heaved with mirth. 'I ain't complaining of apprentices, not after what some of the offic
ers in the Division done for me!
'

She stood up, pulled back the curtain on the glass door of the little parlour, and beckoned Verity with an impatient wave of her arm.

Beyond the glass was an open lobby, which broadened into the steamy vista of the washing room. Two scrubbed wooden benches with a dozen tubs let into each ran the length of the room. A score of women, their ages between
fourteen and forty, stooped in varying states of undress over the tubs. Simona and Stefania, blouses discarded and smocks peeled down to hang loose from their waists, pummelled and snatched in frantic rivalry at the contents of the same steaming tub. Not a yard away, one of Mrs Rouncewell's brawny lieutenants watched them in stem disapproval. And then Verity saw the other girl. She was working at a tub on the second bench, her dark hair pushed up in a tall coiffure, the pale gold of her bare back and shoulders glistening with the heat of the room. Once she paused, straightening up, her sharp features turning and her almond eyes flashing a look of spite and loathing over her shoulders, just as Verity had seen when the sailors hauled her into the
Hero's
cutter. As on that occasion, she was naked but for bodice and pants. Now she stood furtively, wiping her hands against herself, hands whose caresses, Verity knew, had given infinite pleasure to a great number of men, and even a few chosen girls. There was a sudden shout from the powerfully-built woman who watched over the scene from a desk on a horseshoe dais. Spite and loathing vanished from the girl's face, her lip quivered and she plunged her hands back again into the frothing water.

Mrs Rouncewell let the curtain fall and drew back into the parlour.

'Apprenticed to righteousness,' she said piously. 'That's how I see them frail fallen creatures when they're in my 'ouse. The wholesome gospel of honest work is what they're sent to learn. And you can rest easy, Mr Verity, that when I'm finished with 'em, they can recite it backwards in their sleep! Six months more and them three little sluts might be fit for class-leaders at Paddington Chapel. More a work of mercy than anything else, that's what I'm doing here.'

And Mrs Rouncewell opened her cavernous mouth, leering in appreciation of her own wit.

As he marched smartly across the room to Superintendent Gowry's desk, and came to attention before it, Verity was disconcerted to see Inspector Croaker standing at ease on one side. Now that the affair of Captain Ransome and the Jervis family was over, he
had no idea what his fate might
be. Clearly, he had been summoned before Superintendent Gowry in order that he should find out, but the sight of Croaker standing there did nothing to reassure him.

Gowry looked up from his chair at Verity, the bleak eyes and the careful set of his moustache betraying nothing of his intention.

'Before I say anything by way of comment on the events in which the men of the Private-Clothes detail have involved themselves,' he said smoothly, 'I am instructed to read the following passage from a letter received this morning by the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis. The letter is signed by the Honourable Sir Charles Phipps, Secretary to His Royal Highness Prince Albert.'

At the mention of the Prince Consort's name, Inspector Croaker, who was still standing at ease, sprang quiveringly to attention. Gowry unfolded a sheet of stiff blue notepaper, heavily embossed, and read the passage in question.

His Royal Highness is obliged to the Commissioner for his long letter in which certain matters relating to the recent visit of the Prince of Wales to
HMS
Hero
are set forth. His Highness has heard some account of these from the Prince himself, but is indebted to the Commissioner for other details, including the part played in guarding the Prince of Wales by officers of the Private-Clothes detail, Metropolitan Police.