SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. (31 page)

He
walked on, swinging his stick, thinking that even those two doxies, had they but
known it, were probably working hard for the old Sealskin. He sauntered down
Piccadilly a few yards to the stand between White Horse Street and Hyde Park
Corner. Then with a final flourish of the silvertopped stick, he whistled for
a cab.

'It
ain't to be complained of, Mr Mole,' said Sealskin Kite wistfully. 'It ain't to
be complained of at all. I'm an old man now and, in course, I ain't much more
to expect. But I think what I've seen. Men go to death and perdition for a
trainload of gold as could never fetch more than £15,000. Men destroy
themselves for half that or less. And they risks their lives to get it. No, Mr
Mole, it ain't quite so much as £100,000 but it's the
tightest
little tickle that's been seen
in my lifetime.'

He
sat, as though he had never moved since the running of the Bristol Plate, in
his Bath chair looking out from Brunswick Lawns across the glitter of the
afternoon tide. The two men were alone together.

'There's
them two women, Mr Kite,' said Mole gently. 'They can't be let go free now.
Jane Midge seen you and me when Strap had to get the truth of the Shah Jehan
out of her.'

'Shah Jehaney trumpery!' said Kite tetchily.

'They can't be let go free, Mr Kite!'

'No,'
said Kite more quietly. 'I don't suppose they can. Not exactly free. No.'

'They both gotta be snuffed,
Mr Kite. You know that, with all that's at stake. The money. You and me staying
out of trouble.'

'Yes,'
said Kite, as if agreeing with some observation on the warmth of the afternoon
or the clouds in the sky. 'Yes, Mr Mole, I suppose they must. Looking at it all
sides up, I think they must.'

A
squat barge with rust-coloured sails was making the best of the light breeze as
it cleared Shoreham harbour with the tide. Old Mole looked at it
absent-mindedly.

'Jack Strap,' he said at last.
'No reason he shouldn't make a job of 'em, same as that Cosima. Once they been
smothered, he can make it look like what he likes. Pretty Jane, a famished
orphan washed up by the sea. And that jack's woman found at the foot of the
cliff, every bone broken by the fall and the smell of the gin-shop on her.
Nasty places, cliffs.'

Sealskin Kite emitted the
senile buzzing noise between his teeth which was an invariable prelude to
speech.

'
t
’
other one first,' he said
quietly. 'That little squeak Stunning Joseph. I shan't sleep quite easy until
the day they plays the Dead March in Saul over little Joe. Time enough to snuff
a pair o' doxies after that.' He watched the halfhearted ripple of a wave
along the shingle. 'And another thing, Mr Mole. None of this is to do with
Sealskin Kite. See? The old Sealskin been a bit too close to some of the
naughtiness over that Cosima person. Eh?'

'Course, Mr Kite,'
said Mole deferentially. 'As you say.'

'When pretty Jane and Missy
Bella get quietened by Strap,' said Kite, 'the old Sealskin and Mr Mole ain't
to be within fifty miles. Savvy?'

'Leaving Strap to
his business.'

'Precisely, Mr Mole! Strap
knows that until the sad news of their demise is announced to the world, his
payment shan't be quite ready for him. 'sides, Jack's a simple boy and he do
take his pleasures in such things. No inconvenience to him, Mr Mole. None
whatsoever.'

Old Mole was nervous as he
pushed forward on the handle of the invalid carriage and eased Sealskin Kite
eastward along the promenade. To snuff a spiderman or a solitary doxy was one
thing. To snuff Cosima already, then Stunning Joe and the two girls held
captive was more than Mole cared for. But as he had said to Kite, not one of
them could be safely set free. And then, thought Mole, the crafty old Sealskin
himself would never have got so close to the caper if it were not entirely
safe. As the solid rubber wheels of the carriage mumbled on the paving, Mole
turned tactfully to the other subject which preoccupied him and which Kite had
so far avoided.

'Now the money's known, Mr
Kite, how much it is and so forth, what's Strap's share of it to be?'

Kite knew perfectly well that Old Mole wished to know
of his own share, not Jack Strap's. But he played the game for a moment.

'There's
£12,000 to be paid here and there,' he said casually. 'Paid to men for services
performed. There's £50,000 I must have for my own trouble, I really must. And
there's £30,000 which shall go half and half to you and Strap.'

Mole
was shocked and then angered on hearing that he, as Kite's second-in-command,
was to get only £15,000 out of almost £100,000. But he knew better than to show
his displeasure. Indeed it was Kite who took the initiative, turning his head
a little as if just able to see Mole from the corner of his eye.

'That's
fair, ain't it?' he asked shrilly. 'That's fair, my dear young sir, to be sure!
If you don't think so, Mr Mole, put it to Sealskin Kite like the man o'
business he is.'

' 's fair, Mr Kite.' Mole
could hardly get the words past the tightening of his throat.

'It's
more than any dozen men put together should earn in all their lives!' squealed
Kite. 'There ain't an earl nor a baronite in the land as wouldn't stoop to pick
up such a sum!'

' 's fair, Mr Kite!' snapped Mole. 'Ain't I said so?'

'Course,'
said Kite. 'I only say that £30,000 is half each for you and Strap. Suppose
when Strap's work is done he never had the heart to claim his share. Why then,
Old Mole, you must be his heir. It's you that holds all £30,000 in trust, you
see. And a man could just imagine how Strap, the dear fellow, should never
come to ask his portion. You can imaginey, that, Mr Mole? You can imaginey
that? Hey?'

Old
Mole's heart leapt. The apprehension at so many deaths faded in the excitement
of the one which meant most to him.

'Yes, Mr Kite,' he said
softly. 'I imagine it all right.' 'I thought you might, Mr Moley! I thought you
might, Old Mole!'

And the old man's
amusement carried across the sunlit promenade like the high keening excitement
of a rodent to its mate.

Sixty
miles away from Kite and Mole in their sunlit afternoon, two other men faced
one another in a room from which all hint of summer was excluded. The
director's office of the Union Bank was overshadowed by the counting-houses
across the street and the huge shape of St Pauls beyond them. Its interior was
dark, heavy with mahogany and buttoned leather. A few dim portraits in oils
hung upon the oak panelling. Only the reds and blues of the Turkey carpet
brightened the place, or the ivory stands, cut-glass ink-wells and polished
brass bell upon the director's desk.

The
two men were like figures at a death-bed, sombre in knowing that there was
nothing to be done which might alter the course of events. From his chair, the
director looked steadily at the white-haired figure of Superintendent Gowry,
Scodand Yard's most diplomatic senior officer.

'Nothing,'
said the director. 'Nothing to be done whatsoever, sir.'

'A crime has been committed,'
said Gowry, gently insistent. 'A fraud of the greatest magnitude.'

The director winced. He was a
thin abstemious man who knew no stimulant beyond the manipulation of money.

'A fraud was committed by the
late Baron Lansing,' he agreed cautiously. 'A very great fraud. He put the
bills out a second time, they were endorsed by men who may have done so in all
innocence. The names on the notes mean nothing. They may be men of reputation
or thieves who assumed such names for the purpose. No, Mr Gowry, there is only
one man to whom you can bring home the crime. The Baron Lansing. But Baron Lansing
is dead and what remains of his estate would never pay the tenth part of the
money stolen.'

'The banks who took on
Lansing's clients after his death might prosecute the matter,' said Gowry. Yet
his voice implied a statement rather than a hope.

The director's lips moved, a tremor just short of a
smile.

'To
what purpose, sir? Imagine yourself a banker, Mr Gowry. Accept responsibility
for the debt and it will cost you £10,000. No, £5,000 let us say. To be sure
there is a cost. But you would pay it gladly, sir, to prevent the world hearing
that men have been cheated by their banks. Why, Mr Gowry, there would be such a
run upon the funds as would ruin a dozen commercial enterprises by tomorrow
morning.'

Gowry
nodded and played his last card with the air of a man who accepted defeat even
before the hand was dealt.

'The clients, sir, the men
whose notes of promise were put out a second time to defraud them? Will they be
content to see the matter settled without a public noise?'

This time the director smiled openly.

'To be sure they will, Mr
Gowry. To be sure they will. When such bills as these are drawn, even the
noblest in the land become shy of investigations. Some of the money is put to
innocent purposes and some is not. But you know as well as I, sir, that behind
the story-book names endorsed on the cheques there are whores and their
keepers, other men's trainers and stable managers, money-lenders and even
blackmailers. No, Mr Gowry, when the notes are safely cancelled the men who
wrote them in the first place will want only to see the scandal decently laid
to rest.'

'Then the banks will pay,' said Gowry gloomily.

'They will,' said the
director, 'rather than have it said that one house put a man under the hammer
because he was swindled by another from whom the account was inherited.'

Behind
the white splendour of his military moustaches, Gowry's old face grew a deeper
red.

'Story-book
names!' he said loudly. 'Somewhere beyond the story-book names endorsing those
notes, sir, there are real men. Real men who have stolen £100,000 as surely as
if they'd blown open your vaults to do it! What d'ye say to that, sir?'

The director sighed patiently.

'Our banks will
stand the racket, Superintendent Gowry. Have no fear of that.' 'And nothing
more?'

'Lord Culham, heir to the
Earldom of Stephen, Member for West Berkshire, proposes to bring in a bill next
session asking the Commons to regulate the transfer of promissory notes.'

'Bills and balderdash!' Gowry
was on his feet now. 'And men must go free because they robbed by the pen
rather than with a jemmy and cudgel!
Fiat justitia
,
sir! Let justice be done
though the heavens fall!'

The director tapped his fingers on his polished boot.

'No, Mr Gowry. No man allows
the heavens to fall, however just his cause. Justice is dearly bought, sir, if
it destroys England's trust in her banks and ruins the good name of a dozen
noble families. Ask your own Mr Commissioner of Police. Ask Mr Home Secretary,
if you choose. Only let our government grow strong and our finance prosper,
sir. Then it can bear such robberies from time to time.'

'And justice, sir?' asked Gowry bitterly. 'What of
justice?'

The director rose from his
chair and held out a hand to his angry guest.

'Where the heavens fall, Mr
Gowry, there is no justice. Pray do not hesitate to tell me if I may serve you
again at any time.'

19

A thin mist coming
in with the evening tide chilled Stunning Joe through the black worsted cloth
of the only suiting which now remained to him. During the past week the little
spider-man had begun to show the signs of hunger more visibly, his face having
the shrunk and wizened look of a starved child. He had searched the unfamiliar
streets morning and afternoon for any sign of Jane Midge. Joe had heard the
policeman's words at the door of the room in the Swell Mob ordinary, the
promise of safety and protection. He guessed that it was not the law who had
her now. Pretty Jane was safe in the keeping of Mr Kite's bullies, along with
Joe's affydavy, as he called it.

Hard against his breast, under
the thin shirt, Joe had grown accustomed to the shape of the Shah Jehan clasp
in its case. As he had protested when they forced it on him for his share of
the plan, he could neither sell it nor eat it. Despite that, he thought, it
might be the hangman's noose for Kite and the bullies who had taken Jane.
Joseph O'Meara lived in a cold twilight world of his own, where the pangs of
loss were numb and he saw the future as a time for calculating vengeance. The
law might never touch Sealskin Kite, but Stunning Joe could do things which
were beyond the law's devising.