The Detective Wore Silk Drawers (9 page)

The Ebony had no answer.

“It’s a pity you didn’t join the other two at the police station, you ungrateful bastard,” commented D’Estin, insensitive to the electricity in the atmosphere. “Then Jago and I might have enjoyed ourselves tonight, eh, Jago?”

Definitely time to vary the conversation.

“Who does the large statue represent?” he asked Isabel.

It had faced him all evening, glaring bolt-eyed from behind Isabel: a life-sized hag in bronze, bare-breasted and with four arms.

“This is Kali, the black earth mother, Shiva’s wife,”

explained Isabel, in the manner of a drawing room introduction. “The Hindu goddess. Isn’t she magnificent? She is said to dance among the slain on the battlefield and eat their flesh. This is her terrible aspect, but she can be very beautiful. I have a copper miniature of her over there somewhere, behind Sylvanus, in a most becoming form.”

Jago persevered. “Why does she have four arms?”

“I really couldn’t tell you. Some of the gods have more; Durga, another form of this same goddess, has ten. She uses them all, you see.”

Jago stood to examine the hideous figure more closely.

“These two are held forward,” he remarked. “That would be to bless her followers, I expect?”

“Exactly! Do you see what the others are holding?”

The light was not good. Jago leant forward. “This hand holds a weapon—a dagger, I think. And this one—” His voice trailed away.

“It is rather gruesome, isn’t it?” said Isabel blithely. “She is holding the severed head of a giant, dripping blood. Percy once told me the story, but I cannot be sure of all the details now. She developed a thirst for blood quite involuntarily, poor thing. She killed a demon—a perfectly proper thing for a goddess to do—but Brahma had granted a special boon that every drop of the demon’s blood that was shed would create thousands more like him. What could Kali do but drink every drop herself?”

“I suppose so.”

“If you look closely, you’ll see her ornaments. She has earrings made of little children, and three necklaces: one of skulls, another of the heads of her sons, and another”—she paused significantly—“of a snake.”

There was silence in the room. Jago turned to look at Isabel. She was smiling, the tiny ruby eyes at her throat glinting in the candlelight.

“My candid opinion, if you want it, is that it’s a deuced ugly piece of furniture,” said D’Estin, breaking the tension.

“I don’t know why you keep it, unless it’s to scare the likes of Jago and Sylvanus here. Even the fist fighters I train aren’t equipped to square up to a four-armed fighting woman. Don’t it give you nightmares, Sylvanus?”

The Ebony was grim-faced. “She is the death goddess. It is foolhardy to provoke her.”

D’Estin’s fist thumped on the table. “God! He really believes in it! Black magic, eh, Sylvanus Mumbo Jumbo!”

He rocked back in his chair laughing, but it was the laugh of a man trying to convince himself of his own immunity to the atmosphere.

“No, Robert,” said Isabel coldly. “Not Mumbo Jumbo.

Dark, evil deeds are committed in Kali’s name. Unspeakable obscenities and sacrificial killings. She is a very potent goddess of death.”

D’Estin grunted contemptuously and felt into his waistcoat pocket. “As I would appear to have offended the gods, I’ll have a last cigar, then—if you and Madam Kali will permit, that is.”

Jago returned to his chair. New topics of conversation!

The atmosphere was more highly charged than when he had intervened to relieve it.

The cigar fumes now blended with the heady aromas of sandalwood and wine. Smoke writhed and swirled amorphously before spreading into horizontal planes above their heads. Jago’s eyelids smarted. The fumes were tricking his vision. The scarcely discernible figure of the goddess appeared to reach through the haze, beckoning.

“What was that?”

The mesmeric atmosphere had been disturbed by the slamming of a door in another part of the house. Isabel’s question was swiftly answered. The door behind Jago was thrust open by Edmund Vibart.

“So! I might have realized nobody would think of coming out to Rainham for me.”

He was flushed with annoyance.

“To join you at the police station?” D’Estin said sarcastically. “I didn’t think the rest of us were invited. What did they serve—meat or poultry?”

Vibart openly struggled to control his fury. “The bloody trap. You drove off with the bloody trap. How was I going to get back?”

“You could have borrowed the constable’s tricycle.”

He stepped in anger towards D’Estin, his fists clenched.

The trainer rose and leered down at him, cigar in hand, inviting aggression.

“That will do, Robert.” Isabel spoke with quiet authority.

“Fetch another chair, will you, Sylvanus? Now, Edmund, sit down and tell us what happened.”

“What do you think happened? I told him I was drinking in the bar and knew nothing about the fight.”

“He questioned you?”

“Extensively. I told him nothing except my name and address, which he knew anyway. Finally, he agreed to let me go. I think he wanted to spend more time questioning the other cove.”

“Who was that?” Isabel asked.

“The tall ’un from London.”

“Not one of the Beckett mob?” asked D’Estin.

“God, no. This was one of the gentry. A nobby-looking cove in a deerstalker and Norfolk.”

Jago mentally noted the description. Cribb would savour it.

“What was he doing at the Fox tonight?” Isabel asked.

Vibart shrugged. “Why ask me? See Constable Dalton in the morning. That old leech’ll be catechizing him all bloody night. There won’t be much he can’t tell you by tomorrow.

Have you drunk all the champagne?”

Jago’s depression returned. How could Cribb give a convincing explanation when he was so obviously a stranger in the area? Constable Dalton didn’t sound like a man easily taken in. What if Cribb were charged?

His attention was brought back to the conversation.

Vibart was asking Isabel for money.

“Look, it’s only thirty I want. I lost a level pony on that deuced fight, and it cost me a sov to get brought back here.

You said you’d pay each time I was bloody bottleholder.”

“You shall get your fee at the proper time,” she said with contempt. “What you lose on wagers is not my concern.”

Enmity flashed between them. Vibart snatched up a silver statuette. “I’ll take this, then, if you haven’t the ready money. All these bloody trinkets should be mine by rights, anyway.”

Speaking deliberately, Isabel said: “You will replace that figurine on the mantelshelf or I shall tell Robert to break your arm.”

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind about Isabel’s determination. Nor did anyone doubt D’Estin’s willingness to cooperate.

Vibart flung down the ornament and left the room.

In the silence after, Jago detected a quickening in Isabel’s breath. Her lips parted fractionally. Her shoulders jerked.

She was giggling like a schoolgirl. Finally she tossed her head and laughed convulsively.

D’Estin, too, was smiling.

“It was most uncivil of you to take the trap,” she scolded him, still vibrating with amusement. “After he’d given Henry his knee for nine rounds, too. He was exhausted!

How you could sit here, Robert, enjoying your roast duck and thinking of Edmund possibly legging it back across the fields, I cannot understand!” Laughter rippled from her again.

“If he hadn’t tried to abandon us in the first place, he wouldn’t have been caught,” said D’Estin. “That’s so, ain’t it, Jago? Look alive, man!”

Jago tried to appear animated.

“Of course, you must be used up!” Isabel said. “While we prattle on with our ridiculous family jokes the hero of the evening wilts away! Your poor flesh, Henry! Are you terribly stiff from your exertions?”

Here was the cue for an exit. “Somewhat,” Jago agreed.

“Then you will want massaging. It will relax you before sleep. Take him to the morning room, Robert. The chaise-longue will do.”

“No, thank you, D’Estin,” Jago hastily intervened. “I think I’ll just retire. You won’t want to massage me as late as this.”

“Me?” said D’Estin. “You think I’m the masseur? With this?” He held out his mutilated hand. “No, my friend.

Isabel will tone you up. Don’t think she isn’t strong enough, eh, Sylvanus?”

The Ebony said nothing, whether from fatigue or for his own reasons.

“It really isn’t necessary,” Jago protested.

“I shall enjoy it,” Isabel said.

“There’s no escape, you see,” D’Estin pointed out.

“I think I should like to sleep, if you don’t mind.”

“You will sleep more comfortably if your muscles are loosened.”

Jago struggled for a stronger excuse.

D’Estin came to the rescue. “The lad’s totally spent, Isabel. I think we should let him get to bed, as he says.”

She smiled at the wilting pugilist. “Very well. Good night to you, Henry, and thank you for acquitting yourself so capably today.”

Jago at once stood to go. The Ebony, too, nodded and removed himself, leaving Isabel and D’Estin alone. It was well past midnight. The candles had burned to a molten liquid at the bottom of each glass. D’Estin’s cigar glowed against the weird background like a demon’s eye.

“You didn’t get your way, did you?” he said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know what I mean. You wanted to get your hands on his body. You can’t resist the feel of a man’s flesh, can you?

Tired, bruised flesh that you can knead back to vitality.”

She was angry. “Don’t speak in that way.”

“Is that why you watch them through your peephole as they work in the gym? Do you like to see them suffer, Isabel?”

“You’re mad!” she cried in agitation. “I want the best performance out of the fighters we keep here. They have to be watched, or they won’t work. It’s for their own good. I want no more failures among my pugilists. The last episode was all too sordid.”

D’Estin breathed cigar smoke across the table. “It doesn’t sound very convincing, Isabel. We both know the truth. Why try to conceal it? That isn’t a training regimen you devise for them each morning. It’s a sentence of punishment meticulously planned so that they suffer progressively more from day to day. It has nothing to do with fist fighting. Power—that’s the point of it, isn’t it? No need for you to bother yourself with women’s rights and such nonsense. You get all the self-esteem you want watching strong men shake with fatigue at your whim.”

“I won’t have you talk in this way—”

“There’s no need to agitate yourself,” said D’Estin coolly.

“I’m not the only one in this house to see why you do it.

You’ve noticed the way the black looks at you, haven’t you?

He knows as well as either of us. That’s why you turn to new prey. But Jago has eluded you for tonight at least, so—” he stubbed out the cigar with deliberation—“you can take notice of me. I’ve waited too long.”

“For heaven’s sake, Robert!” she said, uncertain how to treat him.

He stood and pulled her from the chair and into an embrace. His mouth clamped on hers. She jerked herself free.

“Don’t tell me you’re too weary,” D’Estin snarled. “You never used to be. You’d have been willing if Jago had found the strength.”

Her hand swung through the semi-darkness and slapped his face, catching him more on the temple than the cheek. It gave the final impetus to his aggression. He caught her arm with his maimed hand and with the other successively wrenched the dress and undergarments from her shoulders.

Then he forced her to the carpet. Above them the dying candlelight played on the grinning features of Kali.

When it was over, D’Estin held her for some seconds.

There was tenderness in his whisper. “It need not have been so, my love. We should never have allowed misunderstandings to destroy what was so precious.”

But she was looking past him, at the statue, and her voice was expressionless. “You chose an appropriate setting, Robert.

Our relationship is dead—dead for ever.” She pushed him from her as though he were some unwanted counterpane and began fastening her clothes. “Forget that I ever showed you affection.” As she got to her feet, clasping the torn dress to her, he crouched, watching, cowed by her self-possession. “And remember that only a fool forces himself on women when he can give them no pleasure whatsoever.”

CHAPTER

9

CONSTABLE THACKERAY REPORTED EARLY AT THE WATERLOO Road Police Station on Monday morning. Whatever happened that day, he was resolved not to offend Cribb. The Constable’s impish pleasure in his sergeant’s predicament after the fight had drained away rapidly. Prometheus unchained was no more alarming than Cribb humiliated.

Mercifully, Sunday had provided time for the fury to subside. So far as police duties were concerned, Cribb was a strict Sabbatarian. He arrived as jaunty as ever, tossing his bowler and umbrella deftly onto the stand.

“Well, Thackeray. What has Monday brought?”

The breezy manner was encouraging.

“One letter from Rainham, Sarge—Jago’s handwriting.

And a young lady to see you. Miss Boltover, daughter of Colonel Boltover.”

“Don’t know her,” said Cribb, raising his eyebrows.

“What does she want?”

“She won’t say, Sarge. She is rather agitated. She’s a handsome-looking lass, too.”

“Red-headed?”

“Why, yes,” confirmed Thackeray in surprise.

“Ask the constable on duty to make some cocoa. Women with hair that colour have temperaments to match, Thackeray.

She’ll need calming down before we ask her in here.”

Calming down with cocoa? Was this the intrepid Cribb?

Possibly his recent experience had taken its toll. Thackeray went on his errand.

When he returned, Cribb was deep in Jago’s letter, which seemed a long one.

“Self-pity,” he said at last, putting it down. “Very regrettable in a police officer. I thought young Jago was stouter-hearted. This could present problems.” He tapped his nose with a penholder. “You saw him after the fight. What sort of shape was he in?”

“He looked tired, Sarge, and no wonder. He didn’t appear to be injured much, except for a slight limp. The second— the big one with the fingers missing—”

“D’Estin.”

“—got him into a trap and drove him away as soon as we came up from the cellar. He looked somewhat startled when the landlord told us you and Vibart were arrested.”

“Startled me, too,” admitted Cribb, ready apparently to relate the painful incident. “Took me till almost midnight to get myself released.”

“How did you possibly manage it?” asked Thackeray, primed to flatter. “It was an appalling situation, Sarge.”

“Most certainly was. I couldn’t say anything while Vibart was there. Had to wait while he talked himself out of it. A deuced long time he took, too.”

“What did you say when you were alone with the village bobby, Sarge? Did you admit you were in the force?”

“Good Lord, no! He’d have checked with the Yard. If Jowett heard I’d been arrested, that would be the end of our investigations. Possibly a public inquiry. We’re in a very delicate position, Constable. Don’t you forget it.”

“How did you get away, then?” asked Thackeray, honestly rather baffled.

“I took the measure of the man as he questioned Vibart.

Fine officer, in his way. Pertinent questions. Two things were clear, though. First, he hadn’t meant to break up the prize fight; he didn’t know it was on. Second, he didn’t want to lose the respect the locals held him in. So I planned my strategy, and waited for him to release Vibart.”

“Vibart thought of an alibi, did he, Sarge?”

“Nothing so grand as that. He got sent home eventually, though.”

“I expect he would, being a local man,” remarked Thackeray, following Cribb’s theme most attentively.

“Exactly. I was different, though. A stranger, you see. No one in Rainham was going to shed tears over me if I landed in the courts. So I couldn’t simply rely on an alibi. I had to go on the offensive.”

“Attack his weak points?”

“Yes. I said I was from the
Illustrated Sporting
—down from London to report the fight. I asked him what his name was— took the questioning over before he’d begun, you see?”

Thackeray could well believe it.

“I told him he’d figure in the headlines in my newspaper. ‘Prize Fight at Rainham Stopped by Police.’ That delighted him. I could see him picturing his inspector at the County Office reading it. Then I told him what the report would say—that one spectator was arrested, and about a hundred, including the main participants, walked away.”

“That must have made him reconsider,” said Thackeray, feeling for the man.

“Not sufficiently, though,” continued Cribb. “He was a stubborn cove. I told him my newspaper could stop all prize fighting in the district. We had only to announce that the blues were keen to make arrests there. That finally defeated him. The fury of his drinking friends was a bigger threat than an angry inspector. He made me promise not to print a word and let me go.”

“Incomparable!” said Thackeray, and meant it.

Cribb turned to other matters.

“Miss Boltover. Let’s see what she wants. I hope she’s calmer after her Cadbury’s.”

Thackeray ushered her in. She was pale and her eyes darted nervously about the room, but she composed herself sufficiently to arrange her dress as she sat in the chair Cribb provided. Thackeray took her parasol.

“My father contacted Scotland Yard,” she began when the introductions were made, “and Inspector Jowett said that you could be found here.”

Thackeray gulped.

“You wished to find me in particular?” inquired Cribb.

She was on the verge of tears. “Henry Jago—Constable Henry Jago—is a close acquaintance of ours. Can you tell me where he is?”

“I fear not at present,” said Cribb at once. “Are you concerned on his behalf? I think he is quite well.”

She took a folded newspaper from the bag on her lap.

“Read that, please—the part I have marked.”

Cribb glanced at the headline “INCONCLUSIVE MILL IN THE SOUTH ESSEX DISTRICT BETWEEN LUKE JUDD AND HENRY JAGO, A NOVICE.” He read it twice more before pushing the newspaper to Thackeray. It was nightmarish.

“How did you find this?” he asked, his mind racing through the implications.

“It is my father’s newspaper—”

“He knows? The Colonel!”

“I don’t think so. He only reads the cricket scores. I saw the newspaper lying on a table, and Henry’s name seemed to leap at me from the page. It
is
my Henry, isn’t it?”

Cribb confirmed that it was. “He hasn’t deserted, miss.

We know all about this. He’s doing important work.”

Lydia’s eyes dilated. “You know! But it’s barbarous, this fighting with bare fists! It’s illegal!”

“I’ll thank you to modulate your voice, miss. Not many in this office are privy to this investigation. We wouldn’t want to place Jago—Henry, that is—in a difficult spot.”

“It is in the newspaper. I should think everyone has seen it by now.”

Cribb coughed awkwardly. “No disrespect to your father, miss—not everyone reads
Bell’s Life.
Besides, there’s few that will associate this with our Jago.”

She snatched the paper from Thackeray. “There’s no doubt who it is if you read this. ‘Jago, alias D’Estin’s novice, is certainly the largest twelve-stone man we ever saw, especially his arms, which are literally full of muscle; his attitude is very good, and particularly easy; perhaps, however, too slender loins, and is very slim on his understandings.’ That is Henry, Sergeant!”

“I don’t deny it, miss,” said Cribb. “You recognize him from the description and so do we. So does his doctor, I expect, if he reads
Bell’s.
But there ain’t many others who can tell a man from the shape of his arms and legs.”

She coloured.

“You’ll have watched him swimming in the Serpentine, I dare say,” said Cribb, with prompt tact. “The truth of the matter is, miss, that he’s sending us reports on certain suspicious persons. He does the knuckle fighting to give himself a reason for being there, so to speak. Pugilism’s as harmless as tin soldiers to a man of his experience.”

“Harmless!” Lydia went back to the newspaper and began to read aloud, “ ‘Round one—The attitude of the men being struck, they sparred long for an opening until Judd dashed in his left on the body. Jago retaliated with a flush hit to the ribs, which caused Judd to commence business in earnest, and within seconds the novice’s neck and shoulders were as red as pickled cabbage. A spanking hit with the dexter mauley on Jago’s left listener had him staggering. Then a stinger with the left on the knowledge box completely knocked him off his pins to mother earth.’

Harmless!”

“Capital writing, though!” cried Cribb. “What do they say about the other rounds?”

Lydia tossed the paper aside. “It was too revolting to read. I simply cast my eyes to the foot of the column to ensure that Henry was not killed.”

Thackeray had now got the paper. “This is a more refreshing bit, miss. ‘Round six—Jago at once planted a right with terrific force on the masticator. It was a staggerer and so bothered Judd that he was unable to escape a clinker on the ivories, bringing “first blood,” the crimson tide soon flowing copiously. A nasty one on the bridge of Judd’s smelling bottle caused the cork to be drawn there. Good counterhitting to a close, when Judd got to grass.’ ” He beamed at Lydia.

She grimaced.

“He’s well able to protect himself, Miss Boltover,” Cribb assured her. “Nor was he hurt in the least. When he comes back, there won’t be a mark on him, and with any luck he’ll have tracked down a”—he checked himself—“suspected person.”

“But how long does he have to persist with this dreadful pose as a prize fighter?”

“Not long now.” Cribb suddenly had an inspiration. “You want to get in touch with him, I expect?”

“Please, oh, yes!”

The Sergeant leaned forward confidentially. “If I let you write to him, he might be able to reply. I couldn’t give you his address, of course. But you could write a letter, and we would see to its delivery.”

Her face fell a little. “Just a letter?”

“Nothing else would be safe at this stage, miss. And I shall have to read the letter, you understand.”

“Oh.”

“And you won’t mind me including a few lines of my own? You could write ’em for me, you see. It’s a way of getting a message to him.”

Minutes later, Lydia sat with pen and paper in another room. At the desk opposite was a young constable with walrus moustache and eyes more sinister than any on the “Wanted” notices behind him. “As tender a letter as you can write,” Cribb had ordered. “And don’t mind us, miss.”

Thackeray read Jago’s report.

“He sounds uncommon depressed, Sarge. Seems to think he’s done all he can at Rainham. It’s my belief that he’s missing the company of a certain young woman.”

Ascribing motives was a favourite occupation with Thackeray. Cribb might have been more impressed if he had not earlier noticed his assistant’s eyes straying to a partially uncovered ankle.

“Miss Boltover doesn’t really come into it,” he declared with a tinge of reproof. “Jago’s too smart a bobby to let sentiment spoil his work. What worries him is what the Ebony told him on Saturday night after the meal in the Indian room. If the black really plans to quit Radstock Hall, Jago becomes the principal fighter. Everything is centred on him, you see—training, matches. Possibly the widow’s attention in other respects.”

“Do you believe that, Sarge? Why should the Ebony want to leave? He’s well-looked-after where he is. The training couldn’t be more lavish.”

“Financial considerations,” said Cribb. He picked up the letter and read: “ ‘Morgan (The Ebony) told me he was not going to stay much longer at Radstock Hall and if I was wise, I would not remain either. He said that evil things were liable to happen here. He had made his plans to leave, and Edmund Vibart was helping him. Mrs. Vibart wasn’t the only backer of knuckle fighters, and others were willing to pay handsomely for a star performer.’ From which I deduce that Vibart has acted as agent for the Ebony with another group of backers.”

“The roughs that managed Meanix?”

“Quite possibly. There aren’t that many parties interested in managing knuckle fighters.”

“Why should Vibart cheat his sister-in-law?” asked Thackeray.

“You did read the letter?” snapped Cribb. “The man is short of money. Someone will pay him well for seducing the black away from Mrs. Vibart. He promised the Ebony larger rewards and more regular fights. It doesn’t require any more persuading than that to get him away from Radstock Hall.”

Put that way, it made sense to Thackeray.

“As for Jago’s low spirits,” continued Cribb, “Miss Boltover’s letter will raise them if it’s spiced with a few sharp instructions from me. He stays at Rainham for at least another week. I need evidence, and a shakeup at Radstock Hall may provide it.”