SV - 01 - Sergeant Verity and the Cracksman Read Online Free PDF Page B

the black satin which covered her strong hips and the softness of her thighs. How warm, he thought wistfully, and how smooth. Then the glass door closed behind him and he disappeared once more into the darkness of Seven Dials, heading towards Monmouth Street.
     
     
    4
     
    Drab and ill-shaped coats or dresses hung in rows before the second-hand shops which lined the narrow street. In front of the cracked and boarded windows, the costumes of dead men and women, the only legacies of the poor, drooped from long rails. The shopkeepers, whose own dress seemed even more worn than their stock, leant against door-posts and smoked their short clay pipes. Ragged children sat cheerfully on the pavement edge and watched paper boats race down the gutter. Beyond the darkness of the street, Verity saw the penny gaff, its glare of gas light streaming out into the thick night air and glittering on the grimy windows of the houses opposite. There was a babble of voices and the cracked sound of an old piano playing "Oranges and Lemons."
     
    The shop front had been taken out to make an entrance to the improvised theatre, where a crowd of a hundred or more young men and women pressed forward with their pennies towards the money-taker in his box. Girls in cotton-velvet dresses with feathers in their pork-pie hats danced noisily with one another in the middle of the street. Among the crowd were several young dragoon officers and a number of elderly gentlemen who would have looked more at home in the United Service Club. The gaff was close enough to Pall Mall to attract the occasional swell.
    Verity pushed his way past the groups of costers, lounging against the walls, smoking and shaking handfuls of coppers in time to the music. As he handed his coin to the money-taker, those already in the gaff began to stream out through a doorway in the canvas partition, as the first performance ended. In the warm evening the smell from the unventilated auditorium was nauseous. The crowd surged out, laughing and twisting, girls screaming convulsively as boys behind them fumbled, tickled, or jumped on their backs. A young woman, stupefied by drink, carried a sickly child with a bulging forehead, while two boys behind drove her forward.
    Verity drew a red handkerchief from his sleeve, dabbed the sweat from his cheeks and neck, and shuffled forward with a heavy groan. The auditorium was a small warehouse with plain brick walls and a platform at the far end. Black curtains were painted on either side of this makeshift stage, where double gas-jets flared with a harsh brilliance to provide a form of limelight. Costers in cut-away jackets and small cloth caps monopolised the front benches, bawling, "Port—a—a— r ! Port—a—a— r! " as they passed dark flagons of Allsops India Pale Ale among themselves. Others munched chestnuts or oranges, spitting husk or pip nonchalantly into the dark corners.
    Already the heavily ringed fingers of "Professor Robin-sini" at the broken-down Broadwood had struck up a rattling drum-roll. From the costers there was a roar of derision to greet the "com ic singer," a drayman in concer tina'd hat, false nose, and a monstrous red cravat which drooped to his waist. The gas dwindled to tall undulating flames, leaving all but the stage in semi-darkness. The singer glanced left and right, cocking a foot up behind him and shielding his eyes, like a sailor sighting land. The audience roared for "Flash Chants! " "Pineapple Rock! " and "Port— a__a — r! "
     
    He glanced down at them, grinning self-consciously. " 'old yer jaws! "
     
    The "Professor" struck a single accompanying chord and the singer followed, loudly but off-key:
     
    "I've just dropped in, dear ladies fair,
    I 'opes it won't yer shock.
    I'll sing you a song, and it ain't too long,
    It's about my long-tail jock!"
     
    He flipped up the dangling red cravat with a knowing grimace, and even Verity was shocked to hear that the girls screamed loudest with laughter.
    "Whatcher