SV - 03 - Sergeant Verity Presents His Compliments Read Free Page A

let fellows pay you with that gash.'
    Ransome fanned out Charley Keston's promissory notes, as though they were a hand of cards, and shook his head ruefully.
    'Dammit, Jack!' said Morant-Barham pettishly, 'we mayn't be anything, the way you call it, if you pull that dodge with your tunic-sleeve too often. They must be blind not to see!
    Ransome's sun-reddened face broadened in a tolerant smile for the boy who was hardly more than half his age. He spoke softly.
    'You'd be blind not to see, Joey, sitting where you are, but then we're two of the closest pals a man ever saw, ain't we?'
    The young man slapped his hand down like an angry child.
    'They could have seen, Jack! It don't excuse the risk!' Ransome grinned and slowly shook his head again. 'Joey, Joey! The art of it is that even when a fellow sees, he looks away rather than have a beastly row. A gentleman don't care to quarrel over cards, not even when he knows there's huggery-muggery. And the beauty of it is, they each lost a piece to you, and then you were so obliging as to lose it all to me. It takes suspicion off you, and if you don't complain over losing it to me, then why should they?'
    'Fairground faking ain't worth the risk,' said the boy sullenly.
    Ransome's face coloured up, as if at some implied insult.
    'Risk?' he said sardonically. 'With Chamberlain blind drunk? With Keston's breeches busting each time your Janet showed her fat backside? When three gentlemen in turn have ploughed another gentleman's doxy, they don't generally start a rumpus over what may have happened at his card table!'
    Morant-Barham's face dimpled in derision and he tossed his black curls contemptuously.
    'Ploughed her! They took her in the other room for the look of it, to boast what whoremasters they were tonight! '
    Joey,' said Ransome, grinning gently, 'I wasn't so green as to miss having from her own mouth every word of what went on in there. Two of them rode her so hard she couldn't lie still after it. Keston was the rummy cove, Put her on her back and held her legs like a wheelbarrow. Then has your Miss Janet over a bolster with her bum in the air. Last of all, has her kneeling at his chair, her face going down on him and her parts displayed in a mirror behind her. I don't risk Keston busti ng up and not paying his ticks.’
    Ransome tossed the IOUs on the table, and Morant-Barham brightened,
    'Take his paper in your share, Jack, if you can squeeze him.'
    'No, Joey. Share and share, gold and paper.'
    'I told you I must have gold,' said the boy, almost whining. 'Dammit, Jack, you kn ow there's a broker to be paid.’
    'You all the halfpence and me all the kicks, eh?' said Ransome. 'A broker won't brave the Kaffirs to follow you. There's a hundred and forty each in gold, and half Keston's paper.’
    'Jack,' said Morant-Barham coaxingly, 'I signed a bill for £200 two months ago, from a damned little moneychanger in Fetter Lane. I never had £200 nor anything like, but the bill was at three month s and the cash must be sent.’
    'You'll be on the other side of the world, Joey. Sleep easy.' Morant-Barham clasped his hands and closed his eyes. 'It must be paid, Jack. Really it must. . . .' 'Because?'
    'Because, damm it, it ain't my name on the bill’ Ransome sighed with undisguised satisfaction and the boy looked up sharply, tasting for the first time the sick fear of having begged a respite from the hands of a professional blackguard.
    'Jack, it must be bought back. I only did it for a safe spec. If that bill goes to the fellow whose name's on it, there's all hell to answer! God, Jack, you can see that, can't you? You can see how a fellow might be so driven that he'd do it for a sure spec?'
    Ransome sat very quietly, as though hardly able to credit his good fortune in having stumbled on the young man's criminal foolishness.
    'Borrowed £200 and put another man's name to the debt?'
    Morant-Barham nodded.
    'Take the paper,' he urged. 'Squeeze Keston for it. Take the £80 gilt, and whatever