SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman (30 page)

"Little Harry Roper," said Verity softly, "in the livery of Marylebone Workhouse. Where he is, the children don't usually last out a year. That picture was took this morning. If you don't credit it, I can have the child brought here by the Wesleyan missioners."

"It ain't true! " sobbed Roper.

Verity gripped the near set of bars.

"Listen to me, you poor gull! Did you think that the sort of men that plan bullion robberies were going to let you carry off a fortune in gold, all for yourself? Can't you see what's been done? Is it likely that if your woman was living off the fat o' the land, the child would be in the parish union? Can't you get it into your 'ead? They ain't only robbed her of your share of the gold, they've robbed her of everything else you ever had as well! Now, if you was to peach on them, at least Nell would have back what was rightfully yours before the robbery. At least your son wouldn't die in the workhouse infirmary!"

Roper held out his hand for the plates, wiped his eyes on the back of his fingers, looked at the pictures, and handed them back.

"Take 'er," he said softly.

"Take who?" asked Samson. Verity shook his head.

"It's what McCaffery cried when they shot him. Not 'take her,' but 'Dacre.' Now, his coffin story at the railway inquiry was a rum one. But it wasn't suspicious. Then 'e got too clever and said he wasn't in London until the Victoria Cross parade. It was unfortunate I took his portrait just
a
few days before, in Langham Place. It wasn't a necessary lie, more of a force of habit. But it started me thinking. I looked 'im up in the Army List. He went on half-pay in 'forty-eight while the Nineteenth Dragoons was in Ireland, in summ
er camp at Newbridge. Just the ti
me when there was
a
certain difficulty over the mess funds and two young gendemen was given the choice of selling out or facing an unofficial subalterns' court-martial. Conviction being followed by marking with a horse iron. And there's something else that makes me even surer, but I ain't going to say it here. For the moment, however, Verney Maughan Dacre, late Nineteenth Dragoon Guards, is our man."

Roper raised his head and looked at Verity in amazement.

"Should I be admitted as Queen's evidence?" he asked fearfully.

"You'd 'ave to be," said Verity: "you an' Nell and this young person 'ere."

"I ain't sure," said Roper, "I still ain't sure." Verity took off his hat solemnly.

"Then you'd better be sure before we leave this place," he said firmly. "Those that ain't evidences will be accomplices in the murder of Charles Baptist Cazamian, whose body was recovered from the river two days since."

Roper nodded.

"Bring him to a proper room," said Verity to the turnkey, "and bring a stool, so's he can sit. It may be a long story. The girl shall be escorted elsewhere."

In its first version, the story was not too long, about half an hour in all. Moreover, Roper refused to say anything about McCaffery or Cazamian. As he talked, he looked at Verity's pink moon-face, crowned by its flattened black hair, and wondered where it was that Verney Dacre had made his unwitting error of judgment.

The hansom drew up in Albemarle Street in the early summer evening. During the warm hour before dinner, the pavements were deserted and the carriageway empty, but for the occasional cab.

"It ain't right," said Samson for the twentieth time, "it ain't right. You oughtn't to be let in, having been suspended from duty."

Verity was first out of the cab and led the way towards the door.

"The sooner we get it done," he said firmly, "the sooner Miss Bella Stringfellow shall be set free. Anyhow, I shan't interfere with your duty."

Oughtram answered their knock.

"Lieutenant Verney Maughan Dacre," said Samson, demanding rather than inquiring.

"Lieutenant Dacre is not receiving visitors."

"Sergeant Samson, Metropolitan Police 'A' Division," said Samson. "I'm sure Mr Dacre wouldn't want an unseemly incident, but see him I must and will."

Oughtram admitted them to the vestibule of the tall house, with its pilasters and finely-decorated ceilings. He went upstairs to the sitting-room and presently returned.

"Mr Dacre will see you, Mr Samson, and he'd be obliged if you could make your business brief. The Lieutenant dines at seven sharp."

On the landing, with its ornate vases and turkey carpets, the two sergeants waited again, while Oughtram entered his master's sitting-room and closed the door. The two men listened hard. It was impossible to hear all that was said in the room, but Verity caught scraps of Dacre's conversation.

"...
see the fellah ain't late with the cab . . . lay out the russet suitin' and the west-cut in canary yaller."

"Mr Samson," said Verity softly, "a little while ago in Newgate, I said there was one other thing about Lieutenant Dacre which I wasn't a-going to explain then. But I am now. At the railway inquiry, I couldn't think why it was he seemed to be familiar, for I never saw him before except once through a camera lens, when I wasn't really looking. It wasn't what I'd seen of him, but what I'd heard. That voice! The old-fashioned talk! The way he says 'yaller' for 'yellow' and 'goold' for 'gold', as though it was still the reign of George IV. I'd swear in any court in the land that he was with Roper in the same railway carriage on the night of the bullion robbery, just before we reached the Harbour Pier at Folkestone. It ain't just Roper's word against him now, it's mine as well."

Oughtram reappeared and Samson entered the sitting-room. Verity stood outside the door and listened. He heard the creak of the sofa as the tall, blond dragoon got languidly to his feet and inquired,

"To what may I attribute this visit?"

"To Edward Roper, sir," said Samson bluntly, "a convicted felon, now in Newgate and awaiting transportation. The man has been questioned as to the bullion robbery on the South Eastern Railway on the sixteenth of July. He has confessed his own part in it and has named you as his confederate."

Dacre gave an abrupt laugh.

"I wonder he don't name Prince Albert as well, for he has more need of bullion than I have." "It was you he named."

"See here," said Dacre sharply, "what a convicted felon may or may not say is no concern of mine and ain't likely to be believed."

"Are you acquainted with the man?"

"I have paid for his whores. A man who uses whores, as I do, must expect to suffer ill-usage of this sort, I suppose."

"Then, sir," said Samson stolidly, "you admit to knowing the man."

"Damn it!" said Dacre, "have I not said so? I have spent a good many sovereigns at his house, buying girls for the night. I have paid a small fortune for them to him and his bullies."

"A young person, Ellen Jacoby, was held prisoner and beaten at Langham Place, on your orders." > "Fudge!" said Dacre with another laugh. "You talk as if I ran the house, instead of being an occasional paying guest!"

"Another young woman, Jolie, was whipped."

"Have the goodness," said Dacre severely, "not to tamper with the truth. Miss Jolie was thrashed a few times for the diversion of the customers, and at their expense. I saw it done once. Y' may search that whorehouse through and through. You'll find only one connection with me. I paid in goold sovereigns for whatever was to be had."

It seemed to Verity that Samson was making little progress with this line of inquiry.

"Do you maintain, sir," asked Samson, "that you were not
travelling on the tidal ferry train from London Bridge to Folkestone on the evening of sixteenth of July?"

"Lookee," said Dacre, "I don't have to maintain any such thing. It ain't possible that I could have travelled on that train, not even if I had wanted to. I was on the steam-packet from Ostend to Dover at the time, and you may see the ticket if you choose."

There was a pause.

"Well, sir," said Samson doggedly, "Roper has sworn you were there. You have also been identified as a traveller on that train by an officer of the detective police, who heard your voice."

Dacre burst out laughing.

"Then let the jury be told that, and see what they have to say! My dear fellah, you come to me with a story beyond all reason. Now, I ain't got the goold, I ain't got a cracksman's tools, nor lead shot. You may search to your heart's content. I liked the doxies at Langham Place—so did plenty of the fellows in the regiment—and I ploughed 'em good and often. And that's the sum of it. I don't know what your man Roper may have to do with any bullion robbery or what he may have told his bullies and whores to say about it. But so far as I am concerned, the matter ends there. If you ain't got more to say, you'll do me the goodness to leave. If there should be more to be said, then it may be said between your Mr Superintendent and my attorneys, Messrs Marshall and Purvis, of Greys Inn."

Verity's heart sank. Samson might be the terror of the magsman and his poll, but he was no match for Verney Dacre.

"Inspector Croaker must be told, sir," said Samson feebly, "and he must decide whether a warrant will be sought for your arrest this evening. In the meantime, an officer will be put at your door and will be instructed that you are to be detained if you should make any attempt to leave the premises."

"Just be sure," said Dacre coolly, "that you leave an officer who has not had his authority taken away from him."

Sarnson withdrew, closing the door behind him, and kept step with Verity down the stairs and out into Albemarle Street. As they stood outside, Samson said, "There'll be a warrant all right, and he knows it. But then it's Roper's word against his, ain't it? Roper himself admits to being the only one who knew what Dacre was doing. Take away Roper's evidence, and what is there to connect our man with the robbery? All you can prove for certain is that Dacre is a whore-master. And as for the murder of Cazamian, that ain't anywhere in the running at all."

"Mr Samson," said Verity sternly, "ain't you learned yet what detective investigation is all about? Of course you can't prove it all, not this very minute. But once this man is detained, the circumstantial evidence must be collected. Hotel waiters at Dover; luggage clerks at Folkestone; porters at London Bridge; whores from Langham Place. Weave a snare, Mr Samson, weave a snare! You must have patience to do it. It's what I've done these last few weeks. It ain't been easy, but our bullion thief is done for now, and he knows it. A sure and inescapable snare, Mr Samson, and I have my man in it at last! What he's done will be proved, and proved to the satisfaction of a jury."

"And he won't get more than four or five years," said Samson bitterly.

"But, Mr Samson," said Verity, "imagine the 'orror of it for one who lives as he has done! "

Samson was just hailing a uniformed constable of "C" Division when he and Verity heard a sharp sound above them, like the snapping of a dry branch. Without waiting for formalities, they set off at a run for the rear of the building, burst through the kitchen and up the stairs. Verity, for all his bulk, gained the landing first and threw himself at the sitting-room door. It was locked but it gave easily under his weight. He stood briefly on the threshold and then withdrew. There was no more to be done. Verney
Dacre sat in a green velvet arm
chair, his hand in hi
s lap and his head thrown a littl
e back. No doubt the two pistols on the table beside him were still loaded. The Hudson pistol in his lap, with its long "duelling" barrel, was quite certainly empty. He had apparently put on his nightcap to contain the horror of the wound. But he had placed the barrel of the pistol in his mouth, and that alone had blown the lower part of his face into a grisly pulp. The bullet, bursting from the top of his skull, had carried the nightcap off and thrown it across the room. It lay at a little distance from the chair, weighted by the distorted butt of the bullet, and by two fragments of Verney Dacre's skull.

Verity went down to the street again, feeling no sense of triumph at his vindication, and no pity for the fate of his adversary. On reflection, it was what he would have expected such a man to do. However, there were more important people in the world than Verney Dacre.

He passed by Samson, hardly noticing him, and began to run. He ran into Bond Street, past the hotels and tall houses with flowers at their windows, across the stream of cabs and carriages which ferried the fashionable world of peers and their dependents to an early dinner. He ran north and east towards the fine classical facade of Nash's Regent Street Quadrant. He crossed Regent Circus with several waggish urchins crying "Stop thief!" after him, and came within sight of Langham Place. The last notes of seven o'clock had just died away from the steeple of All Souls' church.