Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (15 page)

While their guards sprawled in a pair of cane chairs, Maggie and Jennifer lay on the two beds, staring into space. Morant-Barham came, as usual, before setting off with Dacre. He hoped to be remembered by the girls, when they came into his possession, as the friend who had protected them during the time of their greatest danger. To make escape doubly difficult, both young women had been left with no clothing but their white singlets. Maggie lay on her side, knees drawn up and her back to her warders, hands pressed together between her thighs. Jennifer was on her belly, her head resting on her folded arms. The manner in which her singlet was pulled up at the back betrayed Lucifer's vindictiveness after the attempt to betray Dacre to Willson Moore.

Morant-Barham's heart beat faster at the sight, and at the knowledge that in a few days more the girls would both be his. Even now, as he stood between the beds, both girls turned inward towards him. He spoke softly, promising them safety from any malice by their guards, and that when they were his he would be the lover of both, as they should continue to be lovers themselves. He took Maggie's pale hand, which she gave easily and limply, and led it to stroke Jennifer's face. The Asian girl, in a frenzy of hope and reliance upon him, took his own free hand and kissed it eagerly. Morant-Barham vowed softly to them that he would not only allow their mutual affection to blossom, he would encourage it by every means. Maggie, in return, promised herself as his woman, while Jennifer whispered pledges of love in its more exotic forms, which almost stopped Morant-Barham's breath at the thought of them.

'Dammit if you ain't the luckiest of all,' said Dacre at the head of the stairs, 'dammit if you ain't!'

Morant-Barham gave a modest laugh. Dacre, at the hotel entrance, clapped on his tall hat and glanced at the street bunting which proclaimed a royal visit.

'Right and tight, Joey! And now, seeing there ain't a jewel more precious in the world than loyalty, let's show these fellows that we ain't to be outdone in the matter!'

Like many thoroughfares in Philadelphia, Juniper Street had lately been disfigured by the drab wooden telegraph poles which marched in two ranks down either side. The telegraph, which had linked Boston to New Orleans, was a mixed benefit. On the occasion of a royal visit, however, the citizens had quickly used the poles to suspend ribbons and banners of welcome. These were mingled with other displays proclaiming the imminent triumph of Lincoln and the Republican party in the Pennsylvania poll, whose result was to be proclaimed on the very evening of the Prince of Wales's arrival.

As the autumn dusk began to gather on the day before, the workmen of the city were still occupied in the last preparations, with bunting and ribbons in red, white and blue. Two men, on either side of Juniper Street, were engaged in hoisting a bold canvas banner so that it might swing between two of the poles. Its trite good wishes
GOD BLESS THE PRINCE OF WALES
! were mirrored on a thousand other strips of canvas and in the thumping rhythms of the brass bands who prepared for His Highness's welcome with the now familiar song.

On the more westerly of the two poles, the workman in his dark clothes was high above the deserted roadway. which seemed an oasis of calm by contrast with the brightly-lit and fashionable pavements of Chestnut Street no more than twenty or thirty yards away. He made fast the end of the banner. Only at this height was it apparent that the banner was not a single strip of cloth, as might have been supposed, but a double-sided slogan which was in effect a long canvas cylinder. Nor was it held by mere cords, a stout strip of wire being stitched under its upper surface, running from post to post.

Verney Dacre finished his adjustments. Holding his position by the pressure of his knees on the post, he drew out a fine, spidery wire, which disappeared into the recesses of the canvas tunnel. The wire was weighted at its free end with a cloth-bound ball of wood, about the bulk of a large apple. The telegraph pole stood several feet away from the guttering of the building on that side of Juniper Street. The roof itself, enclosed by a low parapet was not quite flat, having a slight tiled slope running to either side. For aesthetic reasons, however, this departure from classical form was easily hidden by the little parapet from those who viewed the building at street level. Beyond the peak of the roof rose an even more unclassical chimney. But it was hardly four feet above roof level on the far side of the tiled expanse. This ensured that it too was concealed from street level, though its presence was betrayed by a steady column of smoke in a changing variety of colours.

Making allowances for the awkward twist of his body, Dacre aimed with care and with great gentleness. A fool would have been too vigorous, he told himself, and would have spoilt the game. He lobbed the padded ball and heard it land softly, just on the far slope of the roof, where it ran down and bumped gently in the hidden gutter. It was not as he had wished in every detail, but it would do. The thin wire between the ball and the canvas banner would hardly have been visible on the brightest day at ten feet, let alone at twenty feet in the middle of the night.

Gingerly, he descended the post and found Joey Morant-Barham waiting for him on the far side. Dacre gasped, as much with the relief of tension as from any exertion.

'The bird's in the coop, old chum! Dammit, Joey, I shall be in no end of a wax if it's all as easy as this! Where's the fun if a fellow ain't stretched over a furlong or two?'

'Should you like to stand here and come to smash?' said the younger subaltern sourly. 'Or shall we get the business done ?'

Dacre laughed at Morant-Barham's sudden fierceness, following him to the far side of the road. On this side, Juniper Street remained what it had been for more than fifty years, a row of ramshackle tenements still overlooked in the ostentatious rebuilding of the prosperous 1850s. As the main thoroughfares of the city had grown in importance, the old houses of the little streets had become motley apartments for clerks, artisans and decayed gentlefolk. The occupants of each floor, with their brawling families and whining children, lived on threadbare carpets or bare boards, indifferent to the welfare of their neighbours. Dacre might have bought out any household in the district, but he had contented himself with the upper and attic floors of the present house. In the two lower storeys and the basement, the crowded families shrilled and squabbled. As he and Morant-Barham climbed the bare communal staircase, a woman's voice shrieked wildly.

'Have a care! The boy's on the stairs with the dog again!'

They saw no dog and no boy before they reached their own floor and Dacre closed the door behind him.

'The window, Joey! See where we stand!'

From the lower of the two rooms which they occupied, the banner was slightly above them and several feet further down the street, as well as being a yard or more out from the wall of the building.

'That's as near muffing it as any cove might come!' said Morant-Barham nervously.

Dacre leant over the sill, stretched, and caught the wire where it wavered in mid-air.

'May I muff it as well next time, old fellow. The rest is held by nothing but a loop of cord on that post, which a flick with a pole might dislodge. And if it don't, Joey, tie a taper to the pole and burn it off! It ain't likely to catch the canvas alight but if it should, you shall have it at arm's length and may quench it at leisure.'

'Well, old boy,' said Morant-Barham softly, 'I do hope so!'

'It looks like enough a banner, don't it?' Dacre inquired. 'May I be shot if there was ever so fine a thing as loyalty for filling a man's purse. And now, open the basket over there, Joey, like a good fellow. I swear I may be famished if I don't get a glass of cham and a wing of chicken soon.'

10

The wagon which moved slowly down Chestnut Street in the early sun looked more like a pauper's hearse than any other form of conveyance. It was long and dark with hosted designs upon its windows, even the two black geldings which pulled it moving at a funeral pace among the brightly-painted carriages and the lumbering horse-buses on their central rails. Morant-Barham broke the silence with a nervous, braying laugh.

'To think that a fellow might crack such a crib with three old sacks for his jemmy! They ain't likely to believe it, Dacre, not even if it was to be told them in a yard of letterpress.'

Dacre remained tense and moody.

‘It ain't sacks, Joey, it's what rules a man's head and eats his heart. Don't I tell you that the picks to the finest locks are always made of flesh and blood? And a man that will be master of that must make slaves for himself, whether the law wishes it or not.'

He nodded cursorily at a muddle of posters, plastered one on top of the other on a derelict wall, the name LINCOLN standing out from the blur of words in bold black type.

'Ain't Maggie as much my slave as the handsome young Khan bitch?' he inquired. 'And must I have a law to make it so?'

Morant-Barham sat in silent disapproval of this reference to Jennifer. Presently, Cowhide reined in the horses. His two passengers, both dressed in black suits and silk hats, got down from the coach and walked in step up the approach to the portico of the Mint. The military guard at either side of the door stared impassively, but alert, at the black vehicle with its precious cargo.

Willson Moore, his auburn curls uncovered and his anxious face creasing into a sudden smile of relief, welcomed them. Dacre bowed in the same clipped parody of his normal manner as he had used the day before.

'Why, sir,' he said, 'may I be damned if I remembered to ask Mr Snowden about the gold key yesterday.'

'Key, sir?' Captain Moore's young face was a study in shifting impatience.

'Damme, sir, for the box with the royal ingot. Ain't it got a key?'

With almost unceremonious speed, Moore led them up the marble staircase to the offices and sent for the box.

'Deuce take it,' said Dacre with every show of vexation, 'no key. Never fear, sir, one shall be fetched for you tomorrow. It ain't in your curator's charge, by chance? A fellow can hardly open the casket without it.'

Moore swung round and questioned the man who had brought it.

'Very well, sir,' said Dacre conclusively. 'No key. Be sure, sir, I shall have it for you when I come tomorrow.'

They moved back downstairs, where two blue-uniformed guards had now taken up position at the rear of the wagon with a low trolley. Dacre gave a command to Cowhide and, like the hearse it resembled, the wagon was opened at the back.

'Six boxes, sir,' said Dacre to Moore. 'You are to make such stipulation as you wish about 'em. They are sealed, sir, but the Prince is positive the seals must be broke open if you choose.'

'Mr Snowden left no instruction as to that,' said Moore, nervous and hasty.

'To be sure, sir, nor he did to my knowledge.'

The first two boxes, the size of coffins and black-lacquered, were lifted down gently on to the trolley. They bore the familiar gold crown and white plume on their glossy sides. The new brass locks were sealed over with blood-red wax which bore the same impress. Dacre and Morant-Barham followed the Mint porters and the trolley up the planks which had been laid on the shallow steps. Willson Moore walked self-consciously at their side. At the semi-circular vestibule, Moore merely acknowledged the guardians of the open steel doors and his party passed between them. To enter the Mint was comparatively easy in this way, but even for Moore himself there was no way out except through search and scrutiny. The trolley was wheeled aside into the weighing-room, the first of the two royal boxes being lifted on to the flat surface of the weighing pontoon.

'We are,' said Moore, 'under obligation to the Treasury Department in this rule. All that leaves or enters must be checked and weighed.'

'And so it must, sir,' said Dacre good-naturedly, 'for your safety and ours are one, sir. Be rigorous, sir! Be rigorous as you can! You shall hear no complaint from us, by God!'

With the weights entered, the trolley resumed its way through the refining-shop, corroding-house, melting-shop, past the great rolling-mill, through the planchet, stamping, and weighing-rooms, to the door of the stronghold itself. Dacre was exultant at the discovery that every stage of manufacture seemed to be working with the routine of the previous day. The steel door of the stronghold loomed before them, massive and closed. Only the almost conical knob projecting from its surface and controlling the million-number combination offered a way beyond. Dacre paused.

'Aw - Major Morant, if you please! We will withdraw somewhat. It ain't for us to spy on Captain Moore at his lock.'

Moore gave a laugh of inattention as he put his hand over the knob.

'Have no fear, sir, I might change the number to any other in a million every time I close the door. Why, sir, if a man were to forget and turn it to the wrong place the whole building would know.'

'You don't say, sir?' said Dacre with polite indifference. 'And how might that be?'

'Why, sir, the moment he turns beyond the setting, he triggers a bell that you might hear the length of Chestnut Street.'

Joey Barham's face turned to Dacre's, his expression showing an ill-concealed consternation. Dacre's spoilt, petulant features seemed only to grow more weary of the entire conversation.

'Aw - damn fine, damn fine,' he murmured laconically, 'ain't it, Morant?'

Morant-Barham thought it anything but fine, knowing that the last chance for private consultation over such matters with Dacre was now gone. Willson Moore turned the knob back, clicking through its final selection of one figure from the last ten. Then he took the bar and swung the door open. The porters wheeled the trolley in, lifted the black-lacquered boxes and laid them reverently in one corner. Willson Moore remained at the stronghold with Morant-Barham while Dacre accompanied the porters and the trolley back to the wagon. He submitted to the patting appraisal of the guards on his way out and saw the third and fourth boxes loaded. He accompanied them to the weighing-room, saw them entered and signed his agreement to the weight which had been recorded. He let the porters proceed ahead of him while he did this, since the boxes were entirely secure in this area, behind the main steel doors. A man who had been admitted this far, and was obviously a gentleman of some importance, attracted little attention. He could not have got in without official sanction, and he would not get out unsearched in any case.