Free SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman by Francis Selwyn Page B

Ebony several half-hearted strokes with it across her bottom, he sat down heavily and complained of his stomach. But best of all, thought Roper, the poor gull was so overcome with remorse at having hurt the girl, for Ebony had suppressed her giggles and obliged him with some truly operatic shrieks, that he had pressed five more sovereigns into Ellen Jacoby's hands, to be passed on to Ebony as a consolation for her injuries. Much hope of that, as Ellen remarked later.
     
    Before two o'clock in the morning, the festivities were over and Roper was able to sit in Ellen's little parlour and count the results of the evening's work. More than fifty sovereigns, and a cheque on Drummond's Bank for ten guineas. Even allowing for the "rent" to Verney Dacre, it was a fortune for one night's work. But just to be on the safe side, Roper took charge of the cheque. That should be his and his alone. Less than two years before, Ned Roper had been so poor that he had pledged his boots for one good meal. That should never happen again.
    He was still sitting and contemplating his good prospects in the high-class "doxy" trade, and the glass of hock was growing -warm in his hand, when he heard a cabman's cry outside; jingling harness and iron-rimmed wheels fell silent as the cab stopped. A murmur of voices, footsteps on the pavement in Portland Place, and then two sharp knocks on the heavy door, blows which echoed through die silent house as if it had been a tomb.
    Roper had a mirror fixed in the parlour, rather on the slant, so that by pulling back the edge of the heavy curtain he could see the reflection of whoever might be outside the door. It was a simple precaution. He recognised the tall, slender figure of Verney Dacre in top hat, evening cloak, and holding a silver-topped cane. Roper took a key from the drawer of the desk, since the door would not open from the inside without one, and went out into the hallway as Dacre knocked again.
    "Well, Mr Dacre ! " said Roper with breezy insincerity, "rare pleasure and no mistake! "
    "I ain't got time for that, Ned Roper," said Dacre briskly, handing his hat and cane to Roper as he would have done to a servant. "The job's put up and it's got to be slippy."
    Roper nodded at the stairs.
    "Come up. The drawing-room's free."
    When they were alone in the sound-proof room, Roper turned to his acquaintance.
    "So it's a runner, then?"
    Dacre nodded.
    "You saw Cazamian?" Roper inquired.
    "I did. He's a safe one. I have a key, which Cazamian says will open the door of the Folkestone railway office. More to the purpose I have a note which says that he stole the key. Your Mr Cazamian is an employee of the South Eastern Railway Company and as such there is a very special and a very harsh law applying to him. If that note of his were to reach the wrong hands, Mr Cazamian would be working off a stretch in Botany Bay for the next fourteen years. See that you tell him, Ned Roper, and then see he don't forget it."
    "He's our man, then," said Roper. "He don't know your name, however?"
    "No," said Dacre contemptuously, "he swallowed the tale about the diamond, but it's part of the game that he doesn't know me."
    Roper's thin lips parted in a smile, showing neat and carefully tended teeth.
    "He believes the diamond story?"
    "Oh yes," said Dacre, "why shouldn't he believe it? It's paid his debts already and it's going to bring him four or five hundred pounds. Who wouldn't believe it at that price?"
    "But you ain't got a diamond, as such," said Roper confidently, standing with his back to the fender and his thumbs in his lapels. "Not as such, 'ave you?"
    "I'm a careful man, Ned Roper," said Dacre in a long, impatient drawl, "and I've taken the pains to equip myself with somethin' worth more than diamonds or yaller goold itself."
    Roper threw back his head and laughed dutifully, but without conviction.
    "Oblige me," said Verney Dacre languidly, "by not acting the fool all the time. Fix this in your mind instead."
    He sat down