Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (27 page)

The sky had just begun to lighten when he saw the first figure emerge from the trees and move toward the
Anna.
He made a gesture with his hand to still Maggie's whimpering from cold. Verily had stripped himself to the waist to provide a shirt and a jersey for the girls but there was little more he could do. Peering at the newcomer again, he gave a sigh of relief as he recognized Sergeant Crowe. He was about to move forward and attract his friend's attention, when he heard a low reverberating growl. From the undergrowth behind Crowe rose the massive outline of Bull-Peg, his posture indicating the forward strain of the bloodhound on the leash.

The drama was being acted out fifty yards or so away, across the muddy foreshore. Crowe looked about him uncertainly and Verity rose to his feet with hands cupped and mouth wide.

'Behind you, Mr Crowe! Coming from them bushes!'

There was no way in which he could reach Crowe or Bull-Peg in time to prevent what followed. Only the bullet in the Hudson pistol would intercept the dun-coloured beast before it tore at Crowe's throat. He saw Bull-Peg slip the leash and, hardly thinking of what he proposed to do, Verity ran forward. The dog was bounding toward Crowe who half turned to meet it, though his attention was partly caught by Verity's movement. At twenty yards' range, with the Hudson pistol in a double-handed grip, Verity stopped abruptly, knowing he must shoot before the animal was too close to Crowe to make it possible. He followed the dog, his eye sighting down the barrel and, at the last opportunity, fired the pistol for the second time that night. The gun bucked in his grip and the bullet sang harmlessly over the bloodhound's back.

In an agony of failure, Verity ran on, stumbling in the soft mud and picking himself up again. Even if he had been able to reach Crowe in time, he was aware that Bull-Peg was loping forward, bellowing encouragement to the dog, on a course which was set to collide with his own. Crowe was staring at the bounding creature, as though paralysed by the menace of the fangs. The long canine body rose in a powerful dive. Crowe seemed to sag at the knees, raising his hands before him as if in a feeble attempt to shield his eyes from the savage fangs. He fell back with apparent gentleness, as if he had resigned himself to the rending torment of death and wished only to lie quietly and let the heavy beast do its work.

In his desperation, Verity took the hot barrel of the Hudson pistol and threw the gun at the dog with all his strength. Crowe was holding the animal high up on its forelegs, as its muzzle touched his throat. And then with his powerful wrists, Crowe wrenched the forelegs out and up as far as they could be forced. The hound emitted a high-pitched snarl and rolled away from its antagonist, thrashing to and fro on the ground as if in great distress. Verity supposed that Crowe must have learnt some technique for breaking the legs of a killer dog, but he had no leisure to consider the possibility. With the force of a recoiling cannon, Bull-Peg charged him in the side and knocked him sprawling.

He slithered across several yards of mud and spun on to his knees to raise himself just as Bull-Peg's heavy boot, aimed at his head, caught him on the shoulder and knocked him on his back again. It could only be a matter of a minute or less before Crowe arrived, and Bull-Peg had to finish his business fast. A second paralysing kick to the shoulder sent Verity slithering across the mud. But he had seen enough wrestling in his Cornish childhood to know when the time had come to ride with a blow and let it carry him beyond harm's reach. He spun himself as far and as fast as he could across the dark slime of the foreshore, gaining the few vital seconds necessary to get to his feet before Bull-Peg could kick again.

Bull-Peg, head lowered and fists fencing ahead of him, came at a charge. Verity caught a blow to the side of the face, which brought a flow of blood from a split gum, but he stepped back and spun, launching himself after and getting his adversary's neck in the crook of his arm. Now it was a simple matter of bowing Bull-Peg and holding him, 'in Chancery', until Crowe came to his assistance. Ten seconds more and the crop-headed giant would be done for.

Yet in that brief space several things occurred. The first was that Verity, with all his weight and strength, was unable to bow Bull-Peg's powerful shoulders. The huge man seemed, if anything, to straighten up further and threw Verity from him with a tremendous backward thrust of his doubled arms. The impact of the knuckled elbow drove like a hammer into Verity's navel, so that he fell retching on his knees. Bull-Peg was on him in an instant, holding his victim flat on his back, ham-like knees pinning Verity's arms to his sides as he sat astride the sergeant's limp body. Grunting with irritation at the delay in despatching him, Bull-Peg set his fingers round Verity's throat and clamped the wind-pipe tight. The blood began to roar like a torrent in Verity's ears. His arms were immobilized and he could not throw Bull-Peg's weight from him. Only his legs were free to kick vainly in the air. How many seconds before Crowe could reach him? Too many, he thought.

And then, with the greatest gentleness and consideration, Bull-Peg relaxed the grip and allowed him to breathe again. Verity saw the big man's head nod, as though he might be falling gradually into a light doze. The head nodded a second time and the heavy body turned in a casual motion and lay beside Verity. Crowe was still twenty yards away, running towards the scene. Verity looked up and saw fury in a pair of beautiful Asian eyes as Jennifer raised the cone of rock to strike a third blow at the head of her tormentor.

'No!' shouted Crowe urgently. 'Let him be! Without him there may be no witness to send Lucifer and Dacre to the gallows!'

The girl paused, unconvinced but uncertain. She held the stone tightly, eighteen inches or so above Bull-Peg's wounded crown. She was wearing only the blue jersey which Verity had stripped off for her. The naked gold of Jennifer's full hips and agile legs bore witness to the man's ill-treatment of her. Crowe approached her warily.

'There's murder done, miss,' he said coaxingly. 'But one of them must be broken before the talc can be told. Kill this man, and the others who laughed at you during your misery may go free to mock you still. Spare him now, and he may live to suffer worse than death, or come to the gallows himself.'

As she continued to hesitate, he closed his hand over hers and took the stone from her. She looked at neither of the two sergeants, walking back with eyes lowered to the place where Maggie still crouched. Verity struggled to his feet. The bloodhound lay as still as Bull-Peg himself.

' 'ere, Mr Crowe! What you done to that savage brute then? I thought you was lying down to let it eat you up!' Crowe looked very modest.

'I heard it worked with wild prairie dogs, Mr Verity, and I hadn't much option but to try it on this one. Never mind the fangs nor the mouth, I guess that's the mistake a man makes when he loses his sense. The legs, sir, you make 'em do the splits out and up. Breaks 'em from their sockets, I hear, and pierces the lung with the end as you turn it.'

'Well, I never, Mr Crowe!'

'Can't swear to it mind you,' said Crowe, maintaining his modesty, 'but something sure came over that vicious beast.'

Verity, naked to the waist, looked about him. 'What now, Mr Crowe?' 'Listen,' said Crowe patiently.

Verity listened. From somewhere on the far side of the islet he could hear brisk shouts and the sounds of brushwood being hacked clear. It was no more than five minutes later when, with a waving of branches to indicate their progress, Captain Oliphant and three uniformed Marine privates stepped out of the marshy thickets. Oliphant surveyed the foreshore and its occupants in the early morning light, as though he found nothing at all remarkable about the scene. Verity stepped forward.

'Sir!' he said gratefully. 'How d'yer find us?'

Oliphant looked at him with mild pity.

'A report of your direction and approximate range of patrol was left for me by Sergeant Crowe,' he said quietly. 'Your two horses were left tethered with some conspicuousness on the river bank. Pistol shots and commotion were clearly audible from the island, and that river-boat over there has created a cloud of steam that might be seen five miles away. I daresay that even your own Mr Croaker would have been here in a day or two more.'

'But you never swum the river, sir?'

'Sergeant,' said Crowe patiently, 'I cannot speak for the Metropolitan Police, of course, but when my own men face the likelihood of having to cross a river, they generally provide themselves with the means of doing so.'

Puzzled and hurt, Verity withdrew, listening to Crowe and Oliphant as they continued their survey of the night's events.

'We have found,' said Oliphant in a tone of disapproval, 'one dead negro, and two prisoners still alive, a white man and a Mexican.'

'Lucifer and Raoul,' said Crowe helpfully. 'This here is a professional pugilist called Bull-Peg, hurl but living.'

Verity interrupted.

'And Lieutenant Dacre, sir? And Miss Jolly?'

There was an icy smoothness in Oliphant's reply.

'It is reported to me that the dinghy of the
Anna
has been found on the Illinois bank of the river. While you two men were amusing yourselves here with a game of hide-and-go-seek, several hours ago, the robber of the Federal Mint was slipping across the water away from you. With four hours start, by road, or rail, or even water, he could be anywhere by now within an area of a thousand square miles. Of Lieutenant Dacre, of Miss Jolly, and most important of all of the gold, there is no sign.’

17

Verity and Crowe stood conspicuously at case, their backs to the fringe of the great crowd which had been cordoned from the parade ground by a line of New York constabulary.

'It gotta be New York, Mr Crowe,' said Verity confidently. 'You, and me, and Captain Oliphant is agreed on that. The luggage that was sent by Lieutenant Dacre's man, all them boxes, never belonged to anyone at the Continental Hotel in Philadelphia. But they was all put on the train for New York. And according to Mr Oliphant, that Bull-Peg person sung sweet as Jenny Lind to save himself from wearing a rope collar. It was New York where the 'ouse of infamy was.'

'Mr Verity,' said Crowe patiently, 'that was days ago. The gold and Miss Jolly might be over the moon by now.'

Verity stared piously ahead of him at the separate phalanxes of the American infantry regiments in their blue and gold, drawn up on the open space of the Battery. Behind them, seagulls wheeled raucously in the October sky and a moving panorama of liners, tugboats, ferries and pleasure-craft bustled in the estuary of the East River. His round pink face, under its tall hat and waxed moustaches, moved in thoughtful pursing of the lips.

'Where would you hide a leaf. Mr Crowe?'

'Leaf of what ?'

'No, no, Mr Crowe! Policeman's litany!'

Crowe turned a long, suspicious face towards him.

'What
are
you on about, Verity?'

'Ain't you got the policeman's litany here, Mr Crowe?' 'I guess I never heard it.'

'Where would you hide a leaf?' recited Verity. 'In a tree. Where would you hide a corpse? In a graveyard. And now, where would you hide a ton of gold coins?'

'In a bank?'

'Very good, Mr Crowe! And where would you hide a bank?'

'In a city?'

'Go it, Mr Crowe! Ain't you the boy, though! Now, seeing as he couldn't put it all in one bank without attracting notice, where would you hide twenty banks?'

'All right,' said Crowe, 'in New York. And it still proves nothing. Where would you hide Miss Jolly?'

'Ah, well, Mr Crowe! The litany ain't really adapted to such young persons.'

'Where would you hide Lieutenant Dacre?'

'Likewise, Mr Crowe, the litany ain't really. . .'

'Then you take your goddam stupid litany, Mr Verity, and you stick it. . .'

'Mr Crowe, if you please! 'is Royal 'ighness!'

From all around them there rose a hoarse undulating roar of approval. The glittering mass of regiments stood fast, but there was a ripple of movement from the great crowd, from the spectators on the battery walls and the yards of ships at anchor, heads turning in the direction of Castle Garden. General Sandford, commanding the New York militia, and the Prince himself rode side by side on bay geldings. Behind them rode the Duke of Newcastle in the uniform of Lord Lieutenant, followed by General Bruce, Colonel Grey and Major Teesdale of the Prince's staff in their scarlet splendour with plumed hats. The young Prince himself seemed almost absurdly over-dressed, the slight and boyish figure adorned with the uniform of a full colonel, braided in gold and enriched by its wine-coloured sash. He bowed his cocked hat slightly, as if in acknowledgement of the cheering, and then cantered down toward the waiting regiments. When the high-stepping horse reared and pranced at the applause from the onlookers, the young Prince kept his seat with effortless horsemanship, which caused the cheers to be redoubled. Verity stamped quiveringly to attention in the presence of royalty, and the militia band struck up a complimentary tune.

Some talk of Alexander

and some of Hercules ;

Of Hector and Lysander,

and such great names as these . . .

Where would you hide Miss Jolly, he thought, and where Lieutenant Dacre? Crowe was right, the litany ought to have an answer to such questions. Yet he knew of none.

But of all the world's brave heroes,

there's none that can compare . . .

Where would you hide Miss Jolly? In a graveyard, the state she might be in by now.