SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (5 page)

'But Jolly ain't
in an institution.'

'She was till a
few weeks since.'

'Where?'

'Mrs Rouncewell’s Hygienic
Steam Laundry, down Elephant and Casde. Old police-matron Rouncewell. Cor, the
rules she got there!' Verity chortled at the enormity of it. 'Brimstone and birch-rod
for sneezing out of tune! Sergeant Samson goes down one day and Jolly keeps on
desperate to him. Swears she can't stand another seeing to from Ma Rouncewell.
On her knees she begs to be took for a copper's nark if the justices 11
approve. And so she was. Mind you, Mrs R. took on something awful about it.
Said she was just getting a taste for the little piece.'

'And
you trust Jolly on account of all that?' Meiklejohn's freckled face was
contorted with anxiety.

Verity chuckled again as they
turned into Market Street, the summer tide sparkling beyond the fish-stalls.

'Not
just that, Mr Meiklejohn. Mind you, one little naughtiness and it's back to the
female penitentiary at Millbank to start her time again from the first day. But
there's more, o' course. When robbery is prevented or goods recovered, like
today, shops and insurance companies can be unaccountable generous. You and me
can't take such rewards, being officers of the law. But Jolly can. I saw Mr
Suitor slip her a guinea or two this morning.'

'I saw him slip a hand in them
riding trousers of hers,' said Meiklejohn sceptically. Verity ignored the
innuendo.

'Reward hunter,' he said
smugly. 'Copper's nark and reward hunter. That's Miss Jolly from now on. She
ain't no cause to kick against the pricks.'

'Do
what?

Verity stopped in mid-stride
and glowered at his companion.

'Mr Meiklejohn, you ain't a
Scripture-read man, o' course. Nor you ain't a man that studies much at all.
All things considered, there's a lot you might do to improve yer mind!'

And
then, seeing that they were almost at the Town Hall, where the detail was
based, he strode forward with military precision, eyes glaring and fists
swinging shoulder-high, like the soldier he had once been.

The
day ended quite as well as it had begun. Verity and Jolly were walking
separately along Kings Road, as though unknown to one another. In her pink silk
dress the straight-backed beauty moved with her habitual tight little swagger.
To one side of them, beyond the promenade rail, the bottle-green afternoon sea
rolled towards the graceful ironwork of the Chain Pier and the pale cliffs
beyond. Ahead of them walked a tall, pale man, dressed in an expensive black
suit with a mourning-band round his silk hat. Under the hat brim there was a
glimpse of crisp blond curls. He turned the corner into Ship Street, and Jolly
followed him.

By the
time that Verity reached the corner, the young man had disappeared. But Jolly
was standing helpfully outside number 34, the shop of Mr Ellis, whose board
advertised Romford Ales and Golden Sherry. Verity hurried down the street and
peered through the window. The young man had made his purchase, a bottle had
been wrapped for him, and he was about to pay. It was time to enter the premises.
Verity, with the girl behind him, pushed open the door and stood back from the
wooden counter as if waiting his turn.

The young gentleman handed a
gold sovereign to the shopman who, as a matter of habit, spun it on the wooden
counter to see that it rang true. Satisfied, he dropped it in the till, then
counted out the change: a half sovereign, which he also spun for the customer's
satisfaction, and eight shillings in silver. The young gentleman was about to
pocket the money when he seemed to have second thoughts. He handed back the
half sovereign to the shopman.

'Let me have silver,' he said airily. There's a good
fellow.'

The shopman took the half
sovereign and counted out ten shillings in change. Verity stepped forward.

'Oh dear, oh dear, Mary Ann!
You done it this time, ain't yer?'

The young gentleman spun round
and the shopman looked up uncomprehendingly.

''s all right,' said Verity to
the man behind the counter. 'He's called Mary Ann up and down Haymarket. 'Cos
of his way of walking and all that. He just caught you with the old twining dodge,
sir.'

He
showed his warrant-card to the shopman, who shook his head dumbly, the plump
comfortable jowls shaking like dewlaps. Mary Ann began to move his hand to his
pocket but Miss Jolly was too quick with him. With a dark avaricious gleam in
her eyes she sprang forward and sank her neat little teeth into the fleshy
junction of forefinger and thumb. A half sovereign fell to the floor as Mary
Ann gave a shrill cry and his silk hat tumbled off.

'Cross-eyed little trollop!'

'Oh dear, oh dear,' said Verity
humorously. He stooped to pick up the fallen coin, still barring Mary Ann's
path to the shop door. 'P'raps, sir, you'd have the goodness to spin your
half-sov on that counter again.'

The shopman dropped the little
coin which now made a dull wooden sound.

'It's different!'
he said with plump astonishment.

Verity chuckled
again.

'Course it is, sir. That's the
twining dodge! Mary Ann comes in with a real sov and a dud half-sov in his
palm. You give him change for the sov including a real half-sov. He thinks better
of it, asks you for silver, hands you back your own half-sov. You don't try it
to see if it rings true. Why should you? You only just give it him yourself.
Only, o' course, it ain't your coin but the dud that he's had in his palm.
Right then, Mary Ann, p'raps well just try your size in bracelets, shall we?'

The shopman took in Verity's
explanation slowly as the handcuffs went on the young man's wrists.

'I never heard of
such a thing!' he said indignantly.

'You have now, sir,' said
Verity reassuringly. There's a dozen other shops in Brighton reported slum
coins being passed in the last couple of days. Being from London, I twigged it
as Mary Ann's little caper. He's down here for the races really — or was —
that's when he passes them by the hundred. He was just keeping in practice with
you. Wasn't you, Mary Ann?'

He
clapped the silk hat back on the young man's shaken curls. The shopman came
round the counter, the full extent of his obligation clear to him at last. He
grasped Verity's hand.

'My dear sir!' he said
clutching the hand tighter. 'I am most inexpressibly indebted to you and to
this dear brave young lady!'

From
the shadows of the counter, Miss Jolly's odalisque eyes watched him with feline
expectancy.

'Whatever I may do in return,'
the shopman continued earnestly, 'only name it!'

'Nothing for me,
sir,' said Verity firmly. 'A man ain't to be rewarded for doing his duty.
However, I shall leave that young woman to your own generous instincts.'

‘Who has destituted herself in
the cause of justice,' said Jolly's lilting soprano from the counter.

The shopman returned to his
till. His plump hand descended on Miss Jolly's nimble fingers with a chink of
coin. He coloured self-consciously as he whispered quickly into her ear. Verity
marched the tall pale figure of Mary Ann out into the street.

As the culprit and escort
disappeared toward the Market Street lock-up, Old Mole turned from his furtive
contemplation of the Ship Street vintners. In the sallow face the yellowed
mouth now hung open in an almost dog-like expression of good humour. At the
turning into Kings Road he so far forgot himself as to drop sixpence into the
hands of a little beggar-girl who had come up from her knot of companions on
the warm shingle.

The
six men of the Private-Clothes Detail on summer detachment were paraded in the
little yard to one side of the Town Hall with its pillared Grecian facade.
Inspector Swift, their senior officer, addressed them as they stood at
attention in tall hats and long belted tunics. Swift was a large Irishman, the
favourite senior man.

It is my pleasant task,' he
said, 'to pass on to you a message forwarded to me by His Worship the Mayor,
on behalf of the shopkeepers of Brighton. These gentlemen wish to express their
admiration and gratitude for the manner in which you men of the detail have
dealt with the enemies of law. The arrest of the youthful conspirators in
Trafalgar Street and the apprehension of a notorious coiner are dramatic
examples of your success. In consequence of the posting of your detachment in
Brighton for the summer season, the incidence of crime committed is now lower
than at any time in the past five years.'

Verity felt his
face glow with the pleasure of hearing his achievements recognised at last. But
he was soon aware that the Inspector had passed on to another topic.

'Following certain
arrangements to be made for the Volunteer Review in Hyde Park,' said Swift
carefully, 'I shall be returning to London in a day or two. I shall be replaced
as your commanding officer by Inspector Croaker, with whom you are all
familiar.'

Even
in the silence it was possible to sense the gloom which settled upon the six
men.

'Rot his bloody liver!' gasped
Meiklejohn from the corner of his mouth.

'Silence on parade!' said
Swift sharply. 'You will, I know, extend to Mr Croaker that same sense of duty
and obedience which you have shown to me. I am confident that by your diligence
and application, under the command of so experienced an officer, you will
continue to bring credit to the detail. Parade dismissed!'

4

'Come
down, O Love Divine!' sang Verity lustily. 'Seek Thou this so-o-ul of mine! And
visit it with Thine own ardour glo-o-wing!'

He
stood in the gallery of the Countess of Huntingdon's chapel in North Street,
among the superior servants. Below, in the main body of the building, was
gathered Brighton nonconformity in its Sunday morning silks and suitings.

'O let it freely burn! Till
earthly passions turn, to dust and ashes in its heat consu-u-ming!'

Around him several
of the other occupants of the wooden gallery glanced at the bull-necked,
red-faced figure, a scowl of determination on his brow as he thundered out the
old Methodist tune. The power of his lungs was sufficient to cause one or two
of the well-dressed figures below to look up apprehensively at the din
overhead.

In a
row, along the wooden bench, were the other members of his little family. By
common agreement they had exchanged the shabby house in Paddington Green for
lodgings in Tidy Street during his Brighton detachment. At the far end was old
Cabman Stringfellow, his toothless mouth opening and closing in imitation of
the tune as he supported himself on the wooden leg which had served him since
the loss of his own at the siege of Bhurtpore in 1823. As he protested, he was
not really a church-going man. But his son-in-law's righteous insistence had
driven the old man into compliance.

Next
to Verity was the plump blonde figure of his beloved wife Bella, the only child
of widower Stringfellow. Between them stood little Ruth, a sixteen-year-old
maid-of-all-work. The softness of her figure and her crop of fair curls made
her seem almost like Bella's younger sister. Her attractively solemn little
face with its wide brown eyes was cast bashfully down to the hymn book. Neither
of the women sang. Bella held four-year-old William Verity against her knees
while Ruth nursed his two-year-old sister Vicky.

Verity himself needed no hymn
book. The great Wesleyan hymns of his Cornish childhood were secure in his
memory. Even the Calvinism of the Huntingdon connection was falling before
them. This one was what his father used to call a strong man's tune, and Verity
loved every note of it. 'Let holy charity, mine outward vesture be!' he bawled.
'And lowliness become mine inner clothing!'

Presently it was over and the
preaching of the Reverend Mr Figgis took its place. Verity listened with a
frown of honest perplexity. Cabman Stringfellow fidgeted briefly until nudged
by his daughter. Then he leant forward with an expression of open-mouthed
anticipation, as though he had been in the balcony of Mr Asdey's circus
awaiting the entrance of the tumblers and acrobats.

Then they were standing again,
and Verity launched himself into the final hymn.

'Away with our
sorrow and fear! We soon shall recover our home!'

The
necks of those in front seemed to incline forward, as if in anticipation of the
coming blast.