Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal by Francis Selwyn Page B

white underwear lying scattered on the uncarpeted floor. Her dark hair was pinned high on her head in the shape of a tall helmet or miniature bee-hive. Her trim gold thighs showed a sheen of moisture, where she had begun to wash herself.
    Oddest of all, she was still wearing her plum-red silk corset, with its array of straps which might have done credit to a rifleman's webbing. Verity looked at it in astonishment. The wasp-waisted creation was far more suggestive than total nakedness. It covered her neat breasts but only to mould them more sharply and prominently. At the front, it ended in a narrowing v-shape between her thighs, as though deliberately leading the eye to the dark thatch of hair. At the rear, it was cut shorter, arching up over her slim brown waist as if in a calculated display of Jolly's coppery hind cheeks.
    She saw that it was Verity, her alarm changing to indignation in the dark Mine eyes. With a gesture of outrage, however, she covered herself with one hand in front, the other shielding her behind.
    'Now, miss,' he said with quiet insistence, 'don't scream, and don't do nothing that's going to make this worse for you!'
    Her eyes brightened, as though he had suggested the answer to her problem. With no more urgency than in her song, she raised her voice and emitted a soprano monotone.
'Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h!'
    'You'll get such a seeing-to if you don't stop that!' said Verity furiously. 'All I want is answers to some questions!'
    she stopped, her sharp little nose and lynx eyes a study in scepticism. Then she pitched her voice an octave higher.
'AH-H-H-H-H-H-H- !'
    There was nothing for it now but to get out while he could. At least he had evidence enough to unmask the New York Magdalen Asylum. That should be a start. There were heavy steps on the staircase. Verity wrenched back the curtains and discovered, to his surprise, that the window had been screwed immovably into its frame. With burly determination he turned to face the adversaries who stood between him and the stairs.
    There were two of them, one he was sure was the man who had sat in the room below with his back to the window. The other he saw, with a rush of gratitude, wore the tunic of a New York policeman.
    'All right, all right,' said Verity, inviting amiability, 'there ain't no cause for aggravation here. I'm a police officer too!'
    He felt for his warrant-card and held it out to the man in the dark blue tunic.
    'Metropolitan Police, London, Private-Clothes Detail,' he said proudly.
    The man in the tunic had a very large freckled face. It creased in an ecstasy of longing, as though he could have loved Verity for this latest revelation.
    'See?' said Verity hopefully. 'An officer of the law.'
The big man kneaded one fist in his other palm.
    You'se a peeler!' he said gratefully. And he hit Verity with all his strength, the bare knuckles striking into the right hand side of the jaw and month, sending the plump sergeant sprawling. Miss Jolly gave a little squeal of apprehension and delight. No one even looked at her as she stood, clutching herself, in her tin bowl. Verity sat up, tasting blood and feeling a numbness which paralysed half his mouth, as though some terrible injury had been inflicted.
    'N'lissn-me, lissn . . .' he mumbled foolishly, ''m plice-offser
    'A peeler!' The eyes of the man in the tunic were almost moist with gratitude. 'Murderer of Ireland's patriots! Robber of the poor! Defiler of Irish maidenhood . . .'
Verity scrambled to his feet.
    'You got the wrong man!' he said helplessly. ‘I never been there!'
'Assassin of Robert Emmet! Butcher of Wolfe Tone!'
The man in the tunic turned to his companion.
'Let's finish the bastard before the others come up.'
    The two of them moved forward. From her bath, the girl watched, her almond eyes shining with excitement.
    'Right!' said Verity with a confidence he did not feel. 'You bloody asked for it!'
    He stepped to one side, where the girl's clothes had been discarded and he stooped down in a