The Detective Wore Silk Drawers (6 page)

Thankful for a pause, Thackeray made it clear from his stance that he planned a few moments’ study of the river traffic. A Thames Company paddle steamer sounded a scape-pipe warning to a coal barge on the South Bank side.

“Devil’s own vessels, paddle boats,” commented Cribb, warming to his theme. “As cock-eyed a system of navigation as you’ll find. Captain passes on his orders from the bridge through deaf-and-dumb finger talk to a rating, and he tries to make the engineer understand. More often than not results in chaos. Next time you visit the boat race, take a close look at the flotilla that follows it up. For my money those steamboat skippers provide better sport than the oarsmen out front. I’ve seen a solid wall of eight steamers jammed sponson to sponson and crammed with old Blues go full bat at a buttress of Hammersmith Bridge. You couldn’t drag me aboard. I’d sooner sweat it out in one of the eights.”

Thackeray cast an analytical eye down Cribb’s gaunt frame.

“You ain’t the rowing build, Sarge. Nor am I, come to that, though I might have been twenty or thirty years back. Now Constable Jago would look well in a boat. He must have done some rowing at school, I dare say, being a public school man. I still can’t understand what made him join the force, he being such a one for manly exercises. Oxford or Cambridge was the proper place for a young fellow of his breeding.”

Cribb made a snorting sound deep in his nostrils.

“He’ll get his share of exercise soon enough.”

Thackeray enjoyed the joke.

“You think the professor will make him sweat a bit, Sarge?”

“I hope so. He needs to be fit to take up knuckle fighting.”

Silence, while Thackeray wrestled with the significance of what Cribb had said. The Sergeant’s callous streak was not new to him; indeed, he had suffered personally from it many times. But victimization of a hardened veteran was one thing; sentencing young Jago to certain butchery was brutal beyond belief. He rounded on Cribb.

“You can’t make him do that! He’s got no experience.

He’ll be torn to ribbons.”

Cribb said nothing, seeming more interested in a passing skiff than Thackeray’s indignation.

“We can’t use Jago, Sarge. You saw what happened to Meanix, and he was a seasoned knuckle fighter. Young Jago doesn’t fight their way. Queensberry Rules don’t permit wrestling and spiking and kidney punching. It’s like matching a farm bird with a fighting cock.”

“He’s game,” said Cribb airily. “And I’ve fixed lessons for him to learn some of the tricks.”

“He’ll need more than a few tricks,” Thackeray commented bitterly. “I don’t think you should ask a man to do such a thing. He’d feel obliged to say yes, having been moved to your division to help you. But he’s no knuckle fighter—”

“Police champion,” interjected Cribb.

“Yes, but at glove fighting, and that’s as different as milk is from brandy. What good can it do to have a promising young bobby beaten to pulp in a prize ring?”

“I guessed you might take it amiss, Thackeray. The plain fact is that I need to get an informant inside Radstock Hall. Listening at windows has its uses, but it ain’t the most thoroughgoing method of inquiry, now is it? I’ve seen and heard enough this twenty-four hours to make me think we could be uncovering a very ugly set of crimes—as vicious as anything I’ve come across. Now there’s things to be learned at Radstock Hall, I’m sure, but they’ll take time and smart detective work. I need someone there who’s in their confidence. I want to know all about those fighters who failed, and I want the place examined—not obviously, but methodically over several days. I’m not asking Jago to dig for severed heads. I just want to know what’s happening there, and what’s been happening since the Vibarts moved in. Jago’s no mean performer with his fists. He ought to give a fair impersonation of a promising pug. He may not need to fight in earnest at all. But if the situation arises, I know when to intervene.”

Thackeray was far from convinced.

“I don’t like this at all, Sarge. He’s strong and able, is young Jago, but he’s not one quarter as sharp as you are. It’s not easy passing yourself off as something you ain’t, even if you take on a false name—”

“He won’t,” said Cribb.

“No false name, Sarge? But they could identify him as one of the force, and then there’s nothing to prevent them killing him, if they’re the bunch we think they are.”

The Sergeant shook his head emphatically. “I want this simple. We’ll leave play-acting out of it. If a false name confused anyone, it’d be Jago himself. They’ve no way of checking if he’s a Scotland Yard man—he’s strictly on clerical duties, as you know, so his name’s not quite a household word. Don’t worry. We’ll let slip enough genuine information about Jago to satisfy ’em. They won’t be expecting members of the force to masquerade as fist fighters, anyway. That’s not the way we’re supposed to work.”

“He’ll need to keep his wits about him,” said Thackeray dubiously.

“He’s no use in Criminal Investigation if he can’t,” commented Cribb.

Thackeray cast about for another means of penetrating the Sergeant’s indifference.

“How will he get into Radstock Hall, then?”

“Shouldn’t be any trouble,” said Cribb. “He’s known in his gym at the Anchor. Once the word gets round that he’s game to fight with the raw ’uns, there should be offers enough. Anyone can see he’s primely built for pugilism and there aren’t that many fist fighters about. The Essex bunch are professionals; they wouldn’t build a gym like the one you saw if they weren’t investing heavily in the game. When Jago’s on the market, they’ll be interested, believe me.”

When Cribb put it that way, Thackeray found it all too plausible.

“But they’ll want him to live in Radstock Hall, like the Ebony.”

“Without a doubt.”

Thackeray played his final card.

“What about his young lady, then?”

“His what?” So Cribb had actually overlooked something.

“The young lady at Richmond. A high-spirited young woman from Jago’s account of her. But he’s very sweet on her. A redhead, I think he said, and deuced attractive. How do you muzzle one of the fair sex?”

Cribb walked in silence, plainly ruffled.

“I’m damned if I know,” he admitted at last.

CHAPTER

6

Henry Jago nodded. He had been sipping a half pint of beer for forty-five minutes already. Since he was the only customer in the Fox and Grapes that afternoon, and his portmanteau stood inside the door, he could hardly deny the landlord’s conclusion.

“Going up to the ’All, are you?” The landlord was drying freshly washed tankards and wanted to talk as he worked. It was a difficult situation.

“Radstock Hall,” Jago admitted.

“Ah, Mr. Vibart should be coming for you with the trap, then. You’ll ’ave a pleasant drive through the lanes this fine afternoon. Makes a change, don’t it? Been there before, ’ave you?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“Ah.” This was uttered with great emphasis.

Three tankards later the landlord began again.

“I thought when you came in off the train, I thought here’s a lissome lad. If he’s going anywhere, it’s up to Vibart’s place. Most of the parties that go up to the ’All stop off ’ere, you see. Big lads, all of ’em. You’ll ’ave a good show of muscle round the epaulettes yourself, I can see. Funny, you know. What gives you scrappers away ain’t so much your build, or what you say. It’s what you drink—or rather what you don’t. I always say that a classy scrapper knows what’s good for ’im. Beer and bare fists don’t mix, do they? If a pug can’t keep ’is elbow down, there ain’t much future for ’im.”

There was no point in playing dumb, Jago decided. He should have recognized the landlord before as the referee at the fight between Meanix and the Ebony.

“You sound a connoisseur, landlord.”

The innkeeper came beaming round the counter.

“I think that’s a fair description, sir. There ain’t many I’ve not seen in the last twenty or thirty years—swells, Jews, Yankees, gippos—some capital fighters, I can tell you. In the palmy days, when the beaks winked at a fist fight, I ’ad matches every week out the back ’ere, in my yard. And we drew the gentry like yourself down from London—lords, judges, parliamentarians. Get a man like Mace in the magic circle and there wasn’t no limit to the class of spectator, royalty included.”

Jago saw possibilities in this conversation.

“It’s quite another story now, though.”

The landlord needed little prompting. “True, very true. The rough element—the sharp boys—spoilt it for the rest. If it weren’t for them money-grabbing fellows cutting rough, we’d ’ave open fist fighting today. I might say that I do admire Mrs. Vibart for what she’s doing for the sport.”

“
Mrs.
Vibart?”

“Yes. Ah, you won’t ’ave met the lady yet. Your dealings will ’ave been with Edmund, I dare say. She’s the guvnor up at Radstock ’All, though, believe me. Never seen a public fist fight in ’er life, but knows the London prize-ring rules better than our vicar knows ’is Ten Commandments. If you’re invited to join the Radstock ’All bunch, it’s at Mrs. Vibart’s invitation, I can tell you.”

Jago had his instructions from Cribb to discover more about the occupants of Radstock Hall. This, if it could be believed, was sensational information.

“It’s most irregular, a woman taking an active interest in a man’s sport.”

“Most irregular woman altogether,” commented the landlord. “She’s got an eye for a fighter, all right. You may ’ave ’eard of the Ebony. Mrs. Vibart’s pet ’e ’is. Now if you want to see a pair of dukes attending to a man’s complexion, watch that Negro fight. As pretty a mover as you’ll see, and weighty with it. I wouldn’t spar with ’im unless ’e’s wearing mittens, and that’s sound advice.”

Sound, but superfluous. Cribb and Thackeray had both made the same point earlier that day.

The landlord wiped a window with his cloth.

“Don’t see no sign of ’im. If ’e’s stopped off at the church, there’s no telling when the old bugger’ll show up.”

“Oh,” said Jago, with interest. “He’s a religious man, is he?”

“Religious?” The connection seemed to escape the landlord. “Who, Vibart? You don’t know much about your friends at Radstock ’All, do you? Vibart’s the organist at the church ’ere and if you think that makes ’im religious, you ought to ’ear the language ’e uses when he ’its a wrong note, which is three or four times a service. There’s mothers in Rainham that’s stopped their boys from singing in the choir because of it. Vibart enjoys ’imself, though, and the vicar can’t find nobody else.” He shook his head. “You might be better off making your own way there. I could send your luggage on later. You don’t ride a bicycle, do you? You could borrow mine. Beautiful machine. India-rubber tires. Take you ’alf the time.”

Jago appreciated the generosity. The gleaming penny-farthing in the passage had caught his eye earlier.

“Thanks, but I’m a duffer at balancing.”

The landlord clapped a hand to his forehead.

“Blimey, of course you are! You’re the lad that fell flat on ’is face in ’ere the other night. I thought there was something about you.” He began to shake with laughter. “Well, don’t make an ’abit of it, lad, or Mrs. Vibart’ll feed you to the Ebony for breakfast!”

To Jago’s relief the merriment was cut short by the entry of Edmund Vibart.

“Henry Jago? Sorry I’m late. We cast a shoe on the first attempt and I had to go back and change the bloody horse. That’s your luggage, is it? Would you put it aboard, landlord? Then you can draw me a large beer. Welcome to Rainham, Jago! Hades apart, you won’t find a more Godforsaken hole than this.”

Jago smiled and inwardly recoiled. Vibart exuded sweat and self-importance. His clothes, broad check suit, silk shirt, crimson cravat and matching kerchief, jarred even on a sportsman’s sensibility.

“You’re a sizable fellow, aren’t you? I shan’t pick a bloody fight with you—not until we’ve trimmed you down a bit, eh? What’s your weight?”

“Around twelve stone, I believe.”

Jago under scrutiny felt as he imagined a bullock feels in a beef-stock sale.

“Not a bad weight. Not bad at all. You can reckon to lose a stone in the first two weeks of serious training. That’s if we take you on, of course. Stand up. Let’s see your height.”

“Whatever happens, co-operate,” Cribb had ordered Jago. That was going to call for extraordinary self-discipline. He got to his feet, trying to think of it as a duty sergeant’s inspection. Vibart’s head came close, at the level of Jago’s necktie. Macassar, cheap and pungent, invaded his nostrils.

“Good height, too. Six foot, I’d say, give half an inch either way.”

Jago fully expected a sweaty hand to force his lips apart for a dental inspection. Instead, Vibart took a step back, gave one more approving look at his build, and turned to the beer waiting on the table. In seconds it was gone. Then without another glance at Jago, he planted a deerstalker on his head and marched to the door.

“No time for another, landlord. We must get back. I may be in again in a day or two. Mrs. Vibart has plans for another set-to, you understand.”

“Very good, sir.”

As Jago followed, the landlord came with him to the door.

“Don’t mind ’im, young ’un,” he murmured. “But watch out for the lady.”

Driving through the lanes was as pleasant as the innkeeper predicted. The surface was badly rutted in places, but it was a well-sprung dogcart. Jago looked out across vegetable crops intersected by low hedges, and thought of Cribb and Thack-eray tramping by night across the same fields. There were compensations in being a junior constable.

Having made his assessment of Jago’s physique, Vibart was not much interested in conversation.

“Is it far?” Jago ventured.

“Far enough.”

“Not really a walking proposition, then?”

“If it was,” Vibart snapped, “I wouldn’t be acting as bloody cabby, would I?”

They passed a field where a ploughman was at work patterning the scene with furrows, pursued by flocks of scavenging birds. His face turned to watch the passing trap, but there was no wave of recognition.

“Do you have many servants at the Hall?” Jago asked.

“One cook, one maid, one gardener. Germans.”

“Ah, that’s enough, I expect. Does your wife—”

“My
what?
” Vibart turned a scandalized face towards Jago.

“Mrs. Vibart. Isn’t she— I’m most terribly sorry if I’ve jumped to a wrong conclusion,” said Jago, rather pleased at his guile. “I just assumed—”

“She’s my sister-in-law. Percy, my older brother, married her a year ago. Died of heart failure last Christmas. He was close to twenty years older than her. She inherited the entire bloody estate. I have my rooms there and help with the sporting arrangements. A woman can’t do business with the fancy, you see, so I act as agent. Blasted messenger boy and cabman, that’s my function.”

Vibart was plainly too obsessed with the indignity of his personal position to volunteer more information. They drove on in silence.

The approach to Radstock Hall was through a copse, and the air was distinctly cooler in the shade. A pair of wrought-iron gates barred the entrance to the grounds.

“Hold the reins while I unlock,” ordered Vibart. “Don’t be alarmed if you hear barking. We keep two dogs in the lodge.”

The din from inside the small building adjacent to the entrance was intimidating when Vibart touched the gates.

“Ferocious blasted animals,” he commented when he rejoined Jago. “They eat more steak than you could in a week and they’d still go for your throat if you met them off the chain. I’d have them shot myself, but she’s attached to them.”

The front aspect of the Hall was grand in its way, Jago decided as they drove towards it, but certainly inferior to Chapeldurham, ancestral home of the Jagos. The amber glow of brickwork in the afternoon sun was pleasing, but ivy had taken a grip and obscured much of the builder’s handiwork. It was too symmetrical, anyway, with twin gables flanking the turreted entrance porch, and precisely positioned casements. And the height of the chimney stacks was unsightly, if not dangerous.

Vibart’s pull at the bell rope was answered by the maid, a humourless woman in her fifties.

“The mistress will take tea with you in the sun lounge when you have unpacked,” she told Jago in a heavy accent as she led him through a panelled entrance hall to the stairs. Vibart, his mission completed, had slipped away without a word.

“I hope you find it satisfactory, sir.”

It was a small, comfortably furnished bedroom at the rear of the house, with brass bedstead, commode, wardrobe and armchair. All it lacked was ornaments, the sentimental knick-knackery that gave a room personality. Jago lifted his portmanteau onto the bed, took out Blondin and placed him reverently in the centre of the mantelshelf. Then he removed his jacket, lifted the water jug from its basin on the commode and began to wash his hands, whistling. From the window he could see the flat roof of the new grey-brick wing Cribb had described. That would be the gym. He looked forward to using it.

Fifteen minutes later Jago edged open the door of the sun lounge.

“Please come in, Mr. Jago. You must be ready for tea.”

A low-pitched voice for a woman, authoritative but not unfeminine.

“Over here. One has to force one’s way through the greenery, I know, but I like to take tea here in the summer.”

She was seated in a bamboo chair, almost obscured by a large semi-tropical shrub. Jago saw at once that Cribb’s description of “a deuced fine-looking woman” was gross understatement. Mrs. Vibart was magnetic; simultaneously demure and alluring.

She put forward a slender hand.

“Do be seated. I shall pour the tea. As a man in training, you do without milk, I expect?”

“If you please.” Jago was not particularly concerned about the contents of his teacup. He settled opposite her in a cane chair, marvelling that so elegant a creature could interest herself in the brutalities of the ring.

“Edmund was late, I understand. He is usually reliable. I expect he explained that he is the brother of my late husband. He is less intelligent than Percy was, and has none of his charm. You will doubtless have formed your opinion, however. A scone?”

“Thank you.” Jago’s social training took over. “You have given me a most comfortable room, Mrs. Vibart.”

She smiled. The parting of her lips caused Jago’s knee to jerk involuntarily. He re-crossed his legs.

“It is very small, but I think you should be comfortable there. If you decide to remain with us, you will not need to spend much time in your room. I have a well-equipped gymnasium—better, I believe, than the one you are used to, a billiard room and several lounges. Now, Mr. Jago—” she pushed the bamboo table and tea tray aside “—you are interested in fighting professionally, I believe.”

“That is so.” Jago hastily regrouped his thoughts.

“And you have some experience of amateur boxing?” She used the term as though it were foreign to her conversation.

“Yes, in a limited way. For two years.”

“Have you won any championships?”

“I did not bother to enter,” lied Jago. “Until recently, my only interest was in an occasional bout with a skilful opponent. I have sometimes beaten quite reputable amateurs.”

A pause. It was going almost exactly as Cribb had rehearsed it the day before. Except that Cribb lacked the power to distract.

“Mr. Jago. You are patently a gentleman. Where were you educated?”

“Privately, by tutor.” Public school records would be easy to check.

“And your university?”

This at least would be true. “I had a difference with my father and decided to forgo university.”

“Really? That was rather perverse.” The smile again. “What did you do then?”

“I tried to make my way in the legal profession, not too successfully.”

“I think I know the rest,” said Mrs. Vibart. “You met a young woman who lives in Richmond and you hope to marry her, but your present financial position is such that you could not presume to discuss it with her father.”

This much Cribb had agreed could be let slip to Jago’s contact at the Anchor. Yet hearing the details repeated so faithfully by Mrs. Vibart alerted Jago to the seriousness of his position. Every part of his story would be checked.