The Detective Wore Silk Drawers (11 page)

And now it was night again, and he lay listening. He had waked from two hours’ sleep, necessary and convenient, for it spared him the nervous strain of waiting. By now the house was reassuringly quiet; only the pleasant rustle of rain outside breaking absolute silence. Enough to smother a creaking floorboard.

Painful as it was, he had to rouse himself. A curious sentence in Lydia’s letter, after he read it for the fourth time, thinking more of Cribb than Lydia (exceedingly difficult) had stayed in his mind. His tired brain had made enough sense of it before he fell asleep to ensure that he would not sleep long. “Your suggestion that I might divert myself by corresponding with my cousin Roberta in the Midlands has had an encouraging result, for last week I received a reply from Birmingham full of support and news—just what I needed at the present time.” Once it dawned on him that Roberta was the Chief Constable of Birmingham—Cribb would be priding himself on that inspiration—he deciphered the rest. The headless pugilist had been identified.

All he now had to do at Radstock Hall was discover some clear evidence linking the murdered man with D’Estin, Vibart or Isabel, or perhaps all three. He felt certain it was there—documentary evidence, articles of battle, or even a diary of training—somewhere downstairs, and probably in Isabel’s writing desk.

So he opened the door of his room and crept cautiously along the landing. Past the now empty room where the

Ebony had slept. On as far as the door of the room adjoining Isabel’s. There he paused, deciding the points on the carpet where each foot could safely press. Then forward again, gliding lightly for a large man. The merest glance, as he passed, at Isabel’s door. Did her obsession with black extend to her night attire—the sheets of her bed, even?

Then he was beside the suit of armour at the head of the stairs. It gleamed dully, a quite misplaced piece of ostentation; at home they consigned better examples to the cellars.

He even doubted, now that he was near, whether the helmet matched the rest.

A grim thought crossed Jago’s mind.

It was his duty to look inside the helmet. He reached for the visor and lifted it. Empty! If he was honest with himself, it was a relief. He took his hand away.

The visor dropped back into place with a metallic snap, loud enough to waken anyone in that part of the house. Jago froze momentarily, as though if he moved, the whole suit of armour might topple over and clatter nightmarishly down the stairs.

Then he started rapidly back towards his room, floorboards protesting at every step. He reached the door and turned the handle. Too late.

“What in hell is going on?”

D’Estin stood ahead of him in the corridor, naked to the waist.

“I knocked against the armour coming upstairs,” Jago improvised. “I’m sorry you were disturbed.”

The trainer approached, his head crooked forward menacingly.

“What are you up to, man, moving about the bloody house in the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was going for a drink.” It sounded so feeble that he was already thinking of a second excuse.

D’Estin came unpleasantly close and pushed his arm aggressively past Jago’s right ear to lean on the doorjamb.

The smell of sleep hovered about him.

“You weren’t going anywhere else, then?”

“What do you mean?” Jago asked.

“It wouldn’t have occurred to your generous and cultivated mind that a certain lady might feel—how shall I put it—desolate and in need of company on a warm summer night?” Sarcasm oozed from D’Estin like the sweat glistening on his chest hair.

This was unexpected. Jago looked as affronted as a man could in his nightshirt. “That is a detestable implication, sir!

I thoroughly repudiate it! I suggest that you—”

“I suggest,” echoed D’Estin, “that you were groping in the darkness for the door of her bedroom and knocked against the armour. You wouldn’t be the first.”

Jago was genuinely embarrassed. For a moment he actually wished D’Estin had guessed he was searching the house for evidence. That at least would be an honourable charge.

Detective work was debasing. Confound it!

He controlled his fury. “You had better return to bed, D’Estin, before I have this out with you. I shall put these ridiculous insinuations down to your sudden awakening from deep sleep. I apologize for disturbing you.”

In answer, D’Estin jutted his face to within six inches of Jago’s and laughed lewdly. His breath was nauseous.

“What is happening?” Isabel’s voice, from along the corridor. She was looking out from her room, only her head visible, a long plait dangling beneath it.

D’Estin reacted quickly. “It’s quite all right. You can go back to sleep. I’ve caught the prowler. He won’t be blundering around your door again tonight—unless you invite him, of course.”

Isabel’s door slammed.

It was a significant moment in Jago’s career. Every instinct urged him to attack D’Estin. Sheer professionalism held him back. For he saw clearly that D’Estin’s suggestion, for all its base imputations, gave him a clear excuse for moving furtively about the house at night.

Like a guilty man, he shrugged, sighed and looked at his feet.

Smirking, D’Estin walked away.

CHAPTER

11

My dearest Lydia [read Sergeant Cribb],

I do thank you for your letter which reached me yesterday, tho’ I must ask that you do not write again.

My present choice of occupation is, you will understand, not entirely proper in the eyes of the law, and my advisers here suggest that we should keep my presence at Radstock Hall a closely guarded secret.

For the same reason this must be my last letter to you. I am sure I may rely upon you to dispose of it when you have read it.

I am well looked after here, and have never felt so fit in my life. I even have hopes of becoming a celebrity of the ring, as I am now, by default (of a kind which I cannot explain here), the star of this particular school of arms. With luck, and good fist work, I may soon have sufficient capital to advance my claims with your father.

I was pleased to learn that you have had a communication from Roberta. She, I feel sure, has more of interest to write to you than ever I could. Very little happens here except the daily routine of training.

Be assured that my thoughts are often with you. I shall return as soon as I am able.

“What’s happened to the Ebony then, Sarge?” Thackeray asked. “Has he gone the way of Quinton, do you think?”

Cribb was sceptical. “More likely to have walked out,” he said. “And if he’s done that, it must have been for a better offer. Pretty obvious where that came from.”

“Is it, Sarge?” It was obviously not, to everyone.

“The gang that handled Meanix,” Cribb explained with unaccustomed patience. “Who else could have known where the Ebony was, to say nothing of getting in touch with him? When Meanix kissed the turf, it was obvious they needed a new bruiser!”

Thackeray’s face lit up. “Of course!”

“So you can go off sharp to Shoreditch and listen to the chat in the fighting pubs. There’s five of ’em, so watch your liquor intake. Johnny Gill’s pub, Jane Shore; Mr. Parrott’s place—the Duke’s Head in Norton Folgate; the Sportsman in Boundary Street; the Blue Anchor in Church Street, and the Five Inkhorns in New Nicholl Street. If the Ebony’s back in the East End, someone there will have wind of it.

We can’t afford to lose him.”

Long after Thackeray had departed, Cribb sat alone in the office with Jago’s letter in front of him, troubling him more than he cared to say.

¦ There was champagne with dinner that evening. Edmund Vibart was unusually sociable; it appeared he had been to London that day and returned in a four-wheeler. He arrived for dinner in a new suit.

“Flash as Newgate Knocker, eh? Not often you see me in nobby-looking clothes, so feast your eyes for once.” He danced across the room to a chair with two wrapped objects on it. “This is for you, Isabel. The very latest from Maples.”

She unwrapped the parcel.

“Cretonne chintz,” explained Vibart, as she held out the material to examine it. “You can brighten your rooms with it. And this, D’Estin, is for you. I nearly bought some Eau Figaro—miraculous stuff that restores grey hair to its original colour, what?”

D’Estin, unappreciative, took the object from Vibart and gave it to Isabel to untie for him. It was a revolver.

“Six-shooter, old man. Got it at Holland and Holland’s in New Bond Street. You can keep the bloody roughs at bay with it.”

“Thank you.”

“Didn’t know what to bring you, Jago, not knowing you so well, but Isabel will tell you what your gift is in a few minutes.”

She, too, was radiant that evening. She wore black silk and diamenté brilliants, the cut of her bodice refuting any suggestion that she was still in mourning. She offered Jago the fruit bowl.

“Yes. In effect, Henry, you are the most favoured of us all.

Edmund has been able to negotiate a contract for you.”

“Really,” said Jago, interested. “A fight?”

Isabel hesitated a fraction. “Yes. It will be worth a great deal of money. You can see now why Edmund has taken a premature opportunity to spend some of it.”

“Who is to be my antagonist?”

Nobody answered.

Jago smiled nervously. “Well, tell me, please. Who am I to meet?”

Isabel stood up and came round the table to place a hand on his shoulder. “You are to meet Sylvanus Morgan.”

“Morgan! The—”

“The Ebony, old man,” confirmed Vibart with an air of total unconcern. “Don’t worry, though. We’re not expecting you to win.”

Jago was dazed.

“Allow me to explain, Edmund,” Isabel said. “But first pour the champagne, Robert, if you please.”

D’Estin, strangely submissive in the last day or two, obeyed.

“Now, Henry,” Isabel continued after resuming her seat.

“Please hear me out before you express any surprise at what I have to tell you. You will know that Sylvanus deserted us quite suddenly and discourteously on Tuesday. Well, it is now quite clear that he had been approached with an offer of higher rewards by a group of men in the East End of London. How they got into contact with him I have yet to discover, but that is another matter. And although I was very angry indeed at his going, I later realized that it resolved several difficulties for us.”

“I should bloody say so,” muttered Vibart.

“Our greatest difficulty,” said Isabel, “was that after the Meanix fight we had no match for Sylvanus. Fist fighters, as you must be aware, are rare individuals; few men have the courage or physique to earn a living with their knuckles.

Oh, there were one or two about—in Birmingham and Manchester—but they weren’t in our man’s class, you understand, and I do insist that my fighters are not matched below their form. In short, we had nothing to offer Sylvanus, so he left. And as it happens, he went to a man named Matt Beckett, who manages Meanix.”

“Oh,” said Jago, who was beginning to follow the thread.

“Beckett, being a good businessman, saw the possibility of staging a fight between Sylvanus and someone from my school of fighters—a grudge contest, you see, as far as the public are concerned, with Sylvanus determined to defeat the man I choose to replace him.”

“I see.” It was manifestly clear. “And there is no one but me.”

Isabel laughed. “Oh, Henry Jago, you do underrate yourself! You are a splendid fist fighter, with fine prospects. But don’t misunderstand me. I am not asking you to defeat Sylvanus.”

Jago was indignant. “You have made a match for me expecting me to be beaten?”

She clapped her hands. “That is exactly it, Henry! Now wait one moment! Hear me, please. You are to fight Sylvanus this coming Saturday, and you will lose in the twenty-sixth round.”

“A fixed fight?” protested Jago, on his feet, twenty-two years of decent upbringing rebelling at the prospect.

“If you care to call it that, yes. Now sit down, Henry, and allow me to continue. Sylvanus at this stage of his career cannot afford to lose. One more good mill may earn him a fight with Charlie Mitchell, the best in England. But I am not so insensitive as to suggest that you should suffer a defeat. You will fight under another name, and suffer no loss of reputation.”

“My idea,” claimed Vibart proudly. “And they’re paying us three hundred, which isn’t bad for a bloody defeat, is it?”

“But I am known here. They saw me fight Judd.”

“The fight will be in Surrey,” explained Isabel, “and you will take the name of an ex-pugilist—a man we once trained here, who left the country.”

“Who was that?”

D’Estin intervened. “No small beer, Jago. A game fighter.

I’d exchange my moniker for his if I had two good fists.”

“Who was he, then?”

“Quinton,” said Isabel. “Thomas Quinton. You won’t have heard of him.”

¦ On the following afternoon Jago was allowed a training run. Since the arrival of Lydia’s letter, he had been supervised as rigidly as a workhouse inmate. Today, for some unfathomable reason, D’Estin tossed him a guernsey and told him to put it on and take a run through the grounds for an hour. He went at once.

Once he was sure nobody was following, the sensation of freedom was exhilarating. It was a severely limited freedom, of course; if he tried to escape over the wall, he would not get far in conspicuous running drawers. But there was joy of a kind in simply exercising as one liked, sprinting through glades where sunlight flashed intermittently on one’s limbs; stopping to watch a squirrel’s acrobatic performance; striking deep into shaded copses where the air was cool as a cellar.

During the run he reviewed the previous night’s conversation for perhaps the twelfth time and concluded that there ought to be nothing to fear. If the fight with the Ebony was worth three hundred to the loser, it was a first-class match.

As such it would be the talking point in every fighting pub in the East End. Cribb could not fail to hear of it through his numerous contacts. Even if he failed to guess the true identity of the Ebony’s opponent, he would certainly be there to watch developments. And once he recognized who it was squaring up to the huge Negro, he would undoubtedly intervene. Undoubtedly. The sequence of events was all so logical that Jago wondered why he found himself repeatedly going over it in his mind.

He returned to the house soon after three in a pleasant sweat and was met on the front lawn by Isabel, carrying a black parasol. His hand felt for his hat in an automatic gesture.

“You look well, Henry. Did you enjoy your run?”

“Certainly, ma’am. It’s a fine afternoon.”

“Are you going to bathe now? You look hot.”

“That was my intention.”

“When you have finished, I must see you. The men representing Sylvanus are coming tonight to make arrangements about the fight. You must be weighed and measured.”

“Is that necessary?” Jago asked dubiously. “I thought fist fighters could be matched at any weight.”

She smiled. “Yes, Henry dear, but the information has to be available for the gambling fraternity and the newspapers. We can use my dressmaker’s measure upstairs. When you have bathed, dress as you will for the fight and weigh yourself on the scales in the gymnasium. Then put on a bathrobe and come up to my rooms for measuring. By the look of you, you have added some muscle on your arms and chest in your short stay here.”

Jago took half a step backwards, more confused than embarrassed. Women simply did not make personal remarks or look at men in the way Isabel did. He muttered some acknowledgment and hurried away like a swimmer who had picked the wrong bathing machine.

An hour later, refreshed but still uncomfortable, Jago stood at the door of Isabel’s suite in bathrobe, drawers and canvas pumps. It was ajar, but he knocked.

“That must be you, Henry.” A voice from an inner room.

“Yes. Shall I come back later?”

No chance of that.

“No, silly man! Go into the sitting room. I shall not keep you waiting long.”

He entered a small tastefully furnished room, less exotic than he had anticipated. A box of mignonette stood at the centre of a mahogany table. Silhouetted miniatures in two groups hung on the cedarwood panelling. Twin recesses on either side of the hearth were screened by deep blue velvet curtaining.

“Well, then.”

He turned at the sound of her voice and blinked in surprise.

She was wearing white. A white sari.

“Have I startled you, Henry?”

Jago fumbled for words, “You usually dress in—”

“Black? I wear the colour of mourning, from respect for my late husband. And white is the mourning colour in the East. In the circumstances, it isn’t sacrilegious to wear a white sari, is it? What do you think?”

Jago could only think that Isabel should never wear anything but white. Light was refracted on her neck and the underside of her cheeks, the skin as luminous as procelain.

“It becomes you.”

She accepted the compliment with the slightest tilt of her eyebrows.

“I bought the material in Regent Street, and had my dressmaker put it together. It probably isn’t anything like the authentic Indian dress, but who knows in England? I find it infinitely less constricting than the European fashions.”

A statement he had no difficulty in believing. Isabel crossed the room to draw the curtains from one alcove, and it was evident to Jago’s inexpert eye that foundation garments formed no part of Indian fashion.

“This is where I must measure you,” she told him. “I call it my dressmaking closet. Take off your robe and come over, Henry.”

He obeyed, and when he pushed aside the curtain and stepped into the narrow recess, he had an unpleasant shock.

Isabel was there with a headless woman. In a moment he realized what it was—a dressmaker’s dummy with a dress over it—but the momentary surprise had registered.

“I sometimes startle myself,” Isabel said, smiling. “She’s very lifelike in my new cashmere gown, isn’t she? She was fashioned from the measurements of my own figure.

Underneath she is just wire and sawdust, poor thing—a terrible disappointment to her admirers, I should think.”

“It’s a pretty dress,” ventured Jago, vaguely conscious he was on the brink of a risqué conversation.

“It is ready for the end of my year in mourning,” Isabel said. “Now will you stand against the vertical measure on that wall, please?”

This involved making a narrow passage between Isabel and her headless double. She made no attempt to stand back.

He faced the dummy and edged discreetly to the opposite wall. It was only a temporary reprieve from the agony of contact. Isabel was not a short woman, but Jago was over six feet in height. To adjust the sliding arm of the measure above his head, she had to stand almost toe to toe with him; from any farther away the attempt would have resulted in loss of balance and the meeting of unthinkable areas of anatomy.

There was no need to ask him to stand straight. He was braced like a guardsman.

“Six feet and half an inch,” she declared at length.

“Sylvanus will not have much advantage in height. What did you weigh?”

“Twelve stone six,” answered Jago.

“Two pounds less than you arrived with. Sylvanus is considerably heavier, but that is not all muscle. Now if you will extend your arms, I shall measure your reach.” She produced a tape measure and held one end against his armpit.