SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments (20 page)

'And what should I want to be in there for, Mr Samson?'

'You're to be in there to make sure that Lord Renfrew ain't, and that he don't get in there. That's all.'

'But I don't know 'im!
' said Verity plaintively.

'I shall be with 'im,' said Samson. 'You'll know when you see me. And you'll know better than that a-cos Lord Renfrew is with two cronies. One's a fair-haired young gentleman, Lord Renfrew being dark
ish, and the other is Lord Willi
am Jervis.'

'You wouldn't know, Mr Samson, that Lord William been here and gone not half an hour since?' inquired Verity sceptically.

Samson pressed his finger to the side of his nose.

'Arrangements,' he said with a wink, 'arrangements for Lord Renfrew to be shown the spicy side o' town life. Only we know, don't we, Mr Verity, that the dear young fellow ain't never going to set foot over the threshold? 'im a mere boy o' eighteen!'

'I don't see 'ow he's to be stopped, Mr Samson, not if 'e's set his heart on such wickedness.'

Samson laughed uproariously.

'Don't you tell me, Mr Verity, that you can't change a boy's mind for 'im. You with your experience!'

And with this genial encouragement, Samson swung himself back into the cab and was driven briskly away in the general direction of Pall Mall. At least the plan of the operation was clear enough. Lord William had arranged to take the young, and no doubt rich and well-connected, Lord Renfrew to the display offered by the Temple of Beauty. The Renfrew title meant nothing to Verity, probably a form of courtesy bestowed on some elder son who had become a midshipman on Lord William's ship. Why Lord Renfrew's moral welfare had become the primary concern of the Private-Clothes detail was beyond Verity's comprehension. But such were his orders. Crossing the street, he entered the portico of the Temple of Beauty.

Once inside, it seemed that the shop itself was a mere foyer leading to a grander salon within. A man with the biceps of a coal-heaver and the shoulders of a drayman, barred his way.

'And 'oo might you be, fellow?' he inquired, the muscles of his face contorting in a grimace of doubt.

'You "fellow" me and you'll have something to answer for,' said Verity calmly, playing out the role he had chosen for himself. 'I'm the valet of Lord William Jervis, I am. And where he goes, I go. His Lordship just gone to fetch Lord Renfrew and the other gentleman, and if he comes back and I ain't here, he won't half set the cocks a-going.'

At the mention of the names, Verity's challenger stepped back a pace and let him pass, though taking care to follow close behind. As they entered the inner shell of the building,

Verity was surprised how accurately his impression of its being a private theatre matched the truth. There was a carpeted semi-circular space, free of all fittings but capable of seating two hundred people if seats had been provided. Where the proscenium arch might have been, there was a platform curtained off from the makeshift auditorium, and round the auditorium itself rose a series of boxes in two tiers, offering the only accommodation other than the open pit itself. The carpeted semi-circle was filled with the chatter of elegantly-attired men and women, drawn by gossip and curiosity to see the display. What that display might be was not indicated in any way.

'And where may Lord William's place be appointed?' asked Verity sharply.

The bully in his tight-fitting jacket stepped round him and led the way to the right-hand box, level with the stage and nearest to it. The vantage-point, Verity thought, was perfect, while the semi-darkness of the box itself effectively concealed him in its shadows.

The place was the size of a private ballroom, such as lay behind many of the grand facades of Piccadilly and the streets which ran off it. The theatrical structure was no more than wood and plaster painted over, but the effect was significant. The entire auditorium was draped in black with phallic torches upon the pillars, and ornamentation which seemed unremarkable until more closely scrutinized, but which then appeared to be of ingenious obscenity. A hot, musky smell of incense drifted over the velvet and the dark silk.

Somewhere beyond the screened platform a gong beat three times. Slowly the conversation in the boxes and among the close-packed groups in the carpeted pit dwindled and died. Behind the gauze curtaining of the platform there was a sudden flaring of light as the gas was turned up, illuminating a horned figure upon a throne with attendants surrounding him. Verity snorted with indignation. A cheap 'occult' trick to attract the rich young gulls of the West End. He saw that apart from the horned 'beast' on his high throne, there were several men and half a dozen girls, all naked except for the goat-masks worn by the men. These actors gave a sudden cry. 'Lord Lucifer!'

The horned figure on the throne raised its head, the face covered by a mask of inexpressible evil, done in bronze which Verity suspected on closer examination would appear to be cheap tinsel. Two of the naked girls turned, took the halves of the gauze curtain and ran them back to the wings.

'Why!' said Verity softly, 'if it ain't Miss Simona and 'er little baggage!'

He felt a great exultation in the discovery. And whatever else he had failed in, he had now identified the last of the four glass-plate photographs in the late Lord Henry's bureau. The devil-masks, the auditorium, the faces of the men and women in their evening clothes. This was where it had happened. The camera must have been in the wing on the far side, facing diagonally across the stage, directly towards the box in which Verity was sitting. Very neat. Whoever sat in that box was number one for being a participant in some kind of satanic celebration.

'O' course,' said Verity softly to himself, 'just to be
sitting
here watching wouldn't be enough for a real blackmail squeeze, so they had 'im up there, stark naked. To be caught just watching ain't enough, except for a very great man indeed. And for 'im it's more 'n enough.'

'O Mighty Satan, Lord of the Dead, Master of Night, Prince of Darkness. . . .'

Verity snorted again, both with distaste and at the tawdriness of it.

'If they wanted the real fear o' hell,' he muttered, 'they should a-heard some of the old preachers in the great ring on Bodmin Moor!'

'Master, hear us!'

The words were coming from a speaking-trumpet held somewhere off-stage. On the platform itself a black-draped altar with black candles and sticks was set before the throned figure of Lord Lucifer. Also off-stage, several voices began to drone an indecipherable liturgy to the light rapid drumming of feet.

The sounds produced behind the scenes transformed the setting into a great pagan shrine filled with the murmuring of a host of worshippers at the feet of their dark idol. Still intent on the details of the photographic glass-plate which he had seen in Lord Henry's bureau, Verity peered about him in the gloom. Even by the light reflected from the stage he could make out the most obvious inconsistency. In the glass-plate there had been the outline of the box, behind the faces of the spectators. But the two boxes on either side of the stage and level with it were not identical. The one in which Verity sat was a plain opening draped with velvet. The opposite box was the one in the photograph, with an elaborate beading. It was further identified by a crack in the paintwork on one side.

'Only thing is,' said Verity to himself, 'that box is to the right of the stage and they took the picture looking to the left. So 'ow the mischief can a box walk from one side of the theatre to the other?'

Then he snorted with derision again.

'Reversed!' he said contemptuously. 'They couldn't even print it right but got a mirror-image instead. What I don't see, 'owever, is how a man might take a picture in so little light. Why, he'd need to leave a plate exposed for ten minutes at least. They never 'eld still that long!'

There was a clash of cymbals, and as the reverberations died away into a great silence the lights about the dark throne grew dimmer. As though from a great distance, there was a chanting of many voices and the continued drumming of feet in a communal dance. The well-dressed men and women in the pit looked at one another and smiled reassuringly. It was, after all, no more than a lark.

The four men with their goat-masks stood about the black altar on which the 'sacrifice' of one of the girls was to be consummated. Then, as though like a snake uncoiling and rising, the girl who squatted, curled and with head lowered, began to rise from the floor with the grace of a dancer. She was petite and dark, her nude body shining like pale gold in the soft light. The almond
ellipse
of her dark eyes, her neat features and small breasts were unmistakable to Verity.

'Jolly, right enough,' he said softly.

She rose upright between the four masked men, her slender dark body twisting and squirming, her trim legs and slim thighs contorting with energy. Her black, sleek hair was piled on her head with the aid of a comb, leaving clear her delicate ears and nape. The gas-light shone on her moving shoulders as on gold satin, while her slim brown back narrowed downwards and then rounded seductively in the paler and softer fullness of hips and bottom. This, Verity thought, was what the gulls had come for, not for the furtive thrill of black arts.

The four men were closing on her now, dragging her back against the black velvet altar, forcing her back upon it so that although her feet still touched the floor the front of her body was a tight bow with her head lying back on the altar itself. Her arms were spread out, clutching the velvet on either side of her and she made no attempt to shield the triangle of dark hair between her splayed thighs. One of the men took what looked like a large egg and broke it so that thick albumen spread slowly over her belly and ran downwards. The man's fingers aided the diffusion of the substance while another goat-masked figure broke his shell over her breasts and on her mouth.

Impassively the throned figure of Evil looked down upon the obscene preliminaries to the ritual, while Verity watched with incredulous anger the waste of enough food to give dinner to the starving family of a Spitalfields weaver. The girl was bending forward over the altar, her hands clasped between her legs, furtively examining what had been done to her. She watched the men over her shoulder, the dark eyes in the cat-like beauty of her face urging them on. The last man stepped forward and she held still. The shell cracked and Miss Jolly's behind streamed with the same protoplasmic fluid. The men were dragging her on to the altar as Verity, probing the darkness, saw where the camera lens must be concealed, diagonally opposite him in the curtains on the far side of the platform. There was a slight movement among the hangings. That was it, Verity thought, but how was it done in such semi-darkness?

The girl was face down on the altar, a silver cup jammed up high between her parted legs to catch the blood of the sacrifice as it ran down her back and between her thighs. Her agile hands were pressed under her loins and she seemed to be tensing and slackening her body rhythmically with impatience. On his black throne, the figure of Lord Lucifer stretched out an arm imperiously and there was a blinding spasm of white 'stage-fire', which made the audience gasp with surprise.

'So that's it!' said Verity grimly. 'That's the illumination for photographic plates!'

Satan's 'fire' flashed again, as Simona and Stefania brought on a market-basket with a small squealing pig inside it. On her altar, the perverse and erotically maddened girl watched eagerly as the knives and ritual implements were laid upon her and the place for the animal's sacrifice chosen. The stage-fire flashed again, more brilliantly than before.

'Mr Verity!'

Momentarily blinded by the glare, Verity looked about him.

"ere, Mr Samson! Over 'ere!' Then Samson was at his side.

'Quick as you can, my son! Lord Renfrew and party has given the slip and come through another way. You gotta 'elp now, Mr Verity! If they get in 'ere, I'm done for!'

'They ain't in yet?'

'No, but give 'em two more minutes and they will be. They won't take notice of me, Mr Verity.'

"ow important is it this young Lord Renfrew shouldn't show 'is face in 'ere?'

'You got no idea, Mr Verity!'

'Right,' said Verity. 'One sure way he can't get in is if all the rest of 'em is going out fast!'

To Samson's amazement, Verity clambered on to the ledge of the box and took a crashing jump several feet down on to the stage. He picked himself up at once, strode to the centre and faced the spectators. A complete silence fell upon the actors and audience alike, even the squealing of the pig subsiding to a shrill grizzle. Off-stage, the temple noises died away.

'Right,' said Verity again, his round face growing redder with the effort of shouting loudly enough to make himself heard throughout the auditorium, 'I'm a police officer from Whitehall office and in a moment more it's going to be my painful duty to take your name
s and addresses, the lot o' you!
'