SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman (12 page)

"Catching rats being a partiality of ours," added Roper, with no attempt to veil the insult in ambiguity. He turned his back disdainfully and made for the door.

"Roper!" bellowed Verity, lunging after him with all the sounds of a goaded drayhorse. "Roper! "

" 'Ere!" squealed Ellen, "don't go, Mr Verity! Ain't you partial to a serving of greens then, when you sniffed a girl's tail all the way down from town?" Then she laughed until a coughing fit seized her.

Verney Dacre had grudgingly to acknowledge to himself that Roper and his doxy had driven Verity almost hysterical with pent-up rage. As the black-suited sergeant lumbered towards the stairs, like an ill-tempered Pickwick in pursuit of his quarry, Dacre lodged his elbows on the rim of the pit, next to Ellen. A few feet away, an obese and snorting bull-terrier was lowered struggling into the arena. The rats huddled together against the wooden wall, while derisive shouts from the spectators greeted the overweight dog.

"Why don't you feed you dog, then? Bleeding shame to let the poor, suffering beast fade away I"

Ellen turned aside to Dacre, her forearm laid along the pit's rim.

"You seen Verity? Bugger followed us every inch from London Bridge. Ned Roper's getting windy." "No one but Verity?" "Not that we saw."

Dacre brushed his moustaches softly with the back of his hand.

"Then it's personal," he murmured, "not police duty. "He's going to see you broken for pure love of the thing."

"We flushed him out, though," she said, letting her tongue peep confidentially between her lips, "didn't we?"

"Where's Ned Roper gone?"

"He's taking our friend round the town. We bet he'd follow Roper and not me."

Dacre looked carefully round the room.

"Then here's the news for Roper," he said: "the railway office at Folkestone Harbour pier. The night after tomorrow at eight. There's another message for Cazamian. When he sees the boy from the luggage office walking down to the steamer with a policeman he's to go to the clerk in the office and query a bill of lading. It don't signify what, but he must make the clerk walk as far down as the train while the boy's away at the steamer."

"What if the boy ain't got occasion to go to the steamer?"

"He will," said Dacre, looking down at his hat brim as he polished it on his sleeve. "And tell Ned Roper to come tooled up."

There was a rising murmur of excitement as the terrier worried its twentieth rat. The chairman kept the time, holding out his watch at arm's length and looking at it as though it might explode. Still jerking spasmodically, the rat lay with its neck broken. Dacre ignored the girl, turning from her and giving his full attention to the sport as he joined in the cries of the terrier's backers.

"Dead 'un! Drop it! Good dog! "

A boy in high boots stood in the pit, sweeping the dead and dying rats into a central pile with a long broom. Then the dog seized another furry neck and smashed the creature against the wooden wall, leaving a strawberry blotch on the white paint. A spot of blood flicked upwards and landed in a crimson star on Ellen's white cuff. She gave a squeal of disgust and anger, while Dacre drew back, carefully disengaging himself from the incident. It was a portly tradesman, several inches shorter than Ellen herself, who edged forward with a quick tip of his hat as he offered her his cambric handkerchief.

"Can't have a little lady being upset," he said hopefully, as his arm went round her in a proprietorial manner. When this was not resisted, his hand sloped downwards a little across her hip, as though to satisfy him that such shape required no artificial moulding.

Verney Dacre walked casually to the door. Just before he reached it, Ned Roper, still immaculate in his fawn-coloured suit and blue stock, strolled in from the stairway. He looked the very pattern of a successful master of the
rouge-et-noir
tent on a large racecourse. He passed Dacre without a glance. At the top of the stairs, Dacre paused for a moment to view the bulky figure of Sergeant Verity, who gasped as if his heart must burst as he almost threw himself up the last few steps in order to keep Ned Roper in his sight.

Then Verney Dacre pulled on his gloves. He recognised in Verity the stubborn qualities of the men who had endured the savage winter of the Crimea and beaten die Russians into the bargain. He also sensed the stupidity that went with uncomplaining obedience. Verity was not astute, and that was no doubt a failing. But he was brave, loyal, and determined in a predictably plodding manner. Dacre smiled to himself as he thought how the very quali
ties on which the sergeant doubtl
ess prided himself should be made the means of his destruction. Indeed, as he went down the stairs it occurred to him that for all their antagonism, Verity and Roper matched one another's mediocre abilities.

Outside in the cab, Jolie sat silent and a litde frightened beside him, while Dacre thought of what was going to happen to Sergeant Verity. It was no longer the luxury of revenge; Verity had unwittingly made himself part of Verney Dacre's scheme.

In the day-room of their hotel suite, Dacre rang for brandy and hot water. He sat well back in a Coburg chair, his long legs crossed and his feet resting on the sofa-table. Even in June, the fire was lit, glowing and fading alternately in the draught from the chimney. He lit a spill at the grate and set it to his cigar. The light glinted in Jolie's dark, vigilant eyes as she sat in a nursing chair and stitched at a button. In the Pavilion gardens, the band of the gth Lancers was playing "The Bird in Yonder Cage Confined" for the entertainment of the summer evening crowds. Dacre smoked with his eyelids half lowered, as though thinking.

"Why shouldn't we go out to the band?" said the girl, apparently resuming an earlier argument. "Where's the harm?"

Dacre half-turned his head to her, across his shoulder.

"I don't see the necessity." Then he turned full round. "Oblige me by goin' into your room and taking off your things for me. It's absurd to sit indoors in your cloak, when you ain't goin' out."

"Why take them off?" she asked, with the faintest tremor in her voice.

"Because I should like to see you without them."

In the eastern stillness of her beauty only her eyes betrayed hostility.

"Oh, should you?" she said, looking down at her needle, but not working it. "And what if I shouldn't like to show myself to you?"

"Pardon me, miss," said Dacre, swinging round from his chair, "but when a girl's paid for, her liking don't come into it. It ain't inconvenient to me to pay for what I take."

She raised her forehead a little, but not enough to meet his gaze.

"I'm not bought! " she said fiercely.

"That may be," he said with a yawn, "but y' may be driven, for all that. I take no pleasure in knockin' a young woman about, but if it should come to that, you'll have cause to remember it."

She stood up and went into the other room, her face a diminutive reflection of the classic pride of the sphinx. Verney Dacre gave her a moment, yawned again, and set the bedroom door wide open. Jolie stood with her back to him, staring into the reflection of her own eyes in the mahogany-framed mirror of the dressing-table. Neither of them spoke. Then Dacre began to draw off his belt and the girl bowed her head a little, as though acknowledging defeat.

"You couldn't name the favour that can't be had for money!" she said bitterly, and untied the blue cloak at her neck to lay it on the dark mirror-gloss of the polished wood beside her gloves. Dacre felt an exultation greater than any lechery as she dropped her head forward, loosened the fastenings at her waist, and rapidly shed the turquoise skirt and underskirts like successive layers of skin. Without a word or a glance at him, she unbuttoned the tight-waisted jacket and dropped it carelessly on the other clothes.

Despite his first reluctance to use her as a mistress, Dacre felt a natural eagerness at the sight of her slim strong back, the pale gold of her skin, and the black gloss of her hair as it brushed loose against her bare shoulders. The whiteness of her tight bodice and pants seemed to make her thighs and arms glow a warmer tan by contrast. With her hands inverted behind her, she unlaced the bodice, and then stooped to unhook the buttons of her boots. Dacre ran his fingers across her brown, lightly muscular shoulders, as if testing the smoothness of the cool skin. His other hand moulded her hips, feeling the warmth of her body through her white cotton drawers. She pulled herself away at once and shed the knickers quickly, as if determined to give him no extra pretext for handling her.

At last she stood with her back to him, entirely naked as she faced the mirror with her slender arms crossed over her small tight breasts. Dacre surveyed the girl's trim calves and firm thighs, the curve of her narrow back, the slight heaviness of her whitey-brown buttocks. He lifted up the glossy black hair from her neck, touching the dainty nape with his lips and kissing the neat whorls of her ears. In the glass he saw the cat-like beauty of her eyes suffused with silent hostility. That was nothing to him, since his actions were dictated by his own pleasure, not hers. However, he held her gaze in the mirror and moved his hand down slowly, brushing the velveteen lustre of pale copper skin in the small of her back. Then the smooth ovals of her bottom came under his hand, his fingers slipping between the cheeks, probing the intense and intimate heat of her body. Finally, between her warm thighs, he touched the most sensitive spot of all. She checked the involuntary shudder that ran through her by tensing the muscles of her legs and thighs.

Dacre fingered her skilfully until, despite herself, the girl began instinctively to hold her breath as the tension of pleasure increased, which obliged her to release it in a long sigh. Her muscles started to relax, her thighs softened and yielded more easily. She turned her face from Dacre's gaze and dropped her head a little, so that he should not see her expression in the mirror. With his free hand he took her dark, soft mane, and firmly pulled her head back again, watching with calm satisfaction as her eyes turned this way and that, while her teeth tightened on her lower lip. In a few minutes more she ceased to resist him. Supporting herself with her hands on the dressing-table, she bent more fully to his caresses, her eyes closed, her teeth set, and the warm smoothness of her legs squirming restlessly against his hand. Then Dacre drew back from her.

"Arrange yourself on the bed," he said quietly.

She obeyed, wi
thout looking at him, walking neatl
y with her hips held in check like some demure temple-maiden of the Nile. Dacre shrugged off his clothes and approached her, erect. She watched with the frank curiosity of a girl examining her lover for the first time. As soon as he was crouched over her, she adjusted her body to him, so that he entered her with ease. Her raised legs crossed lightly over his back, her hands clenched into fists and bent upwards against the pillow. Quickly but erratically, her heavy-lidded eyes scanned his face, though she still struggled to preserve her silence. Dacre moved rapidly, intent on taking his pleasure with the least delay. Had it only been Ellen Jacoby, he might have prolonged it more fastidiously. Throughout his labours, Jolie kept her hands clenched and her face turned aside on the pillow. As she felt his movements quicken, she turned to watch him with the contemptuous curiosity of a street-girl. He tried to kiss her, and she stuck her tongue out defensively, as though it were a childhood trick to ward off the coster boys' kisses. But then she lifted her head, wound her arms round his neck, and touched him with the flickering of her tongue. It was not done passionately, nor out of love for Verney Dacre, but in a manner which suggested that she might have been taught it by another girl as a well-rewarded trick of the trade. Then her body quivered, her heels beat impatiently on the small of his back, and in that moment the tension of Dacre's own pleasure burst at last.

Lying beside her in the warm room, he was disagreeably aware that the girl's thoughts had been elsewhere, and that such excitement as she enjoyed was by memorising the love-making of some absent partner. Though he knew it to be the common practice of her kind, it was not to be borne without a reprimand. As if to confirm his misgivings, she said sharply,

"You ain't going to forget, I hope, that such favours have a price?"

Dacre laughed.

"Fetch me the purse that's on the dressin' table."

She was on her feet in an instant, half running to bring him the little wash-leather pouch with its heavy metallic weight. He took out a sovereign, and the girl's eyes followed it, unblinking and expressionless. He crooked his forefinger round the little coin and threw it hard against the furthest wall. It spun and rang against the plaster and on the floor, running away under the washstand of grey marble and inset basin. She flew naked after the tiny gold disc, as it glinted in gaslight and shadow, her movements suggesting the alertness of a puppy fetching sticks. But before she could find the first coin, Dacre threw a second one in the opposite direction, so that she twisted round and temporarily abandoned her search for the first. In her eagerness to lay hold of this second golden prize, she threw herself into every variety of outlandish posture, her head twisted against the carpet as she squinted under tallboy or chiffonier, her haunches absurdly elevated and spread to show a dark straggle of hair between her thighs.