SV - 05 - Sergeant Verity and the Swell Mob. Read Free Page B

Joe O'Meara was
put up in the dock of the Central Criminal Court for trial and sentence. From
his vantage point he looked down into the well of the little court, the wigs of
counsel and clerks below him. Opposite him, the elderly judge, red-faced in
robes and wig looked, for all the world, like a little old lady. Somewhere
above his head was the public gallery, which he detected only by the smell of
orange peel, the rattle of nutshells, and an occasional buzz of conversation.
He doubted that there were any faces there which he knew, though he was in no
position to see.
    In any
case, his trial was of little public interest. There was no chance of an
acquittal, no thrill of suspense as to the outcome. Only once was the murmuring
in the gallery stilled, when the judge, with the royal arms of England on red
leather behind him, looked up to pass sentence. Stunning Joe heard the thin
judicial voice deploring the accused's hardened and unrepentant attitude. None
of this concerned O'Meara. He listened only for the final words, when they
came. 'Transportation to a penal colony for a term of fourteen years.'
    The
murmuring in the public gallery began again, and the two warders took him down
the steps of the dock. The trial had barely lasted ten minutes.
    So
far, Stunning Joe had resisted even the thought of winning favour by betraying
Old Mole and Sealskin Kite. Now it was too late for that. Mr Kite was an astute
old exchange broker with no criminal record. Any attempt to accuse him at this
stage must be dismissed as the last desperate falsehood of a condemned felon.
In a few days more, Joe O'Meara and the other transportees would be taken down
to the prison hulks in Portland harbour. From there a contractor's vessel with
armed guard would convey them to the prison depot at Port Jackson, Australia. A
man might live through fourteen years of privation and brutality, but he knew
it was not likely.
    Two
days after the trial, a pair of escort warders opened his cell again.
    'O'Meara! Visitors' corridor!'
    In his coarse
brown uniform he glanced at them suspiciously. ' 'oo'd want to visit me?'
    'Parish priest,' said one of
the officers sharply. 'One visit you're allowed. This is it.'
    He
walked between them, not understanding. He had no parish priest. The last Irish
O'Meara had been his grandfather, who had found his way to Southwark thirty
years before. Certainly he had not expected a prison visit from anyone.
    The
visitors' corridor was about four feet wide with grilles down either side of
it. Prisoner and visitor faced one another through meshed windows, separated by
the width of the corridor in which the warders stood, listening to each
conversation. Stunning Joe peered across at his visitor, making out First the
cassock and biretta, then the plump pale face. For the only time since his
arrest, he almost laughed. Now he guessed that Mr Kite had not forgotten him.
    The figure beyond
the other grille was 'Soapy Samuel', nicknamed after a man whom Joe understood
to be a famous bishop. Soapy Samuel's speciality was that of posing as a
clergyman — generally of the Church of England — and collecting at the doors of
middle-class homes for non-existent overseas missions. Samuel was a past-master
in deception, with solemn owlish face, unctuous voice, the dry-washing of the
hands, in an impressively realistic performance. With episcopal cross and
gaiters, he had effortlessly lightened an archdeacon of twenty-five guineas on
two occasions.
    As a
Roman priest, he was less convincing. Stunning Joe, taken aback by the vision
before him, spoke as though the warders could not hear him.
    'What
the hell might you be doing here?'
    'My
son!' said Samuel, gently reproving. 'While yet of mortal breath, seek to
repent your crime. Such is the message I bring.'
    The
tongue licked over the fat lips, the sole indicator of Samuel's nervousness in
the prison confines. Stunning Joe furrowed his brow, knowing that Soapy Samuel
must have come on Kite's errand,