The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

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.

Until then I remain

Yr. most affectionate

Henry

“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 diamente 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 risque 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.

“Good. If you will keep your arms outstretched, I can take your chest measurement.”

Jago had not heard before of fist fighters being subjected to so comprehensive a physical survey. He tried to relax and submit to science. Somehow two beads of nervous sweat escaped from his right armpit and trailed coldly across his ribs.

“Expand your chest, Henry.”

She was distractingly close. The air was heavy with her perfume; no English flower he had smelt was anything like it.

“Good. You may have lost a little weight, but you have certainly gained in muscularity. Flex this arm and I will measure the bicep.”

“Will you remember the measurements,” asked Jago with a note of desperation in his voice, “or should I fetch pencil and paper for you?”

“Thank you, but I have a faultless memory for such things. Your waist, please.”

He felt her bare forearms take the tape behind his back.

Monstrous thoughts assailed him. Whatever happened, he must keep control. He tried to banish Isabel, sari and scent from his mind. Instead he would concentrate on Sergeant Cribb, that nose and those Piccadilly weepers.

The potency of Cribb’s image lasted for perhaps ten seconds, until Isabel coaxed her tape measure around Jago’s right thigh.

“Is this necessary?” he demanded in an outraged voice.

“Essential,” she murmured, crouching to her task like a bootboy. “Just relax, Henry.”

He looked down. The silk drape had slipped from her shoulder, but she had not attempted to replace it. The bodice gaped. With admirable self-control he averted his eyes at once.

But as he did so, his thigh twitched involuntarily.

She stood up. “You really are far too tense, Henry Jago. You are in no state to fight anyone tomorrow night, least of all Syl-vanus Morgan. You need massage at once. Come with me.”

There was nothing for it but to follow her as she swept aside the curtain and marched purposefully across the sitting room and through a door. It was a relief to escape from the unnatural-or too natural-intimacy of the dressmaking closet. On the way he picked up his bathrobe but immediately decided to replace it on the chair; any display of modesty now seemed like weakness.

Jago was in Isabel’s bedroom and the door was shut behind him before he had time to collect himself.

“Lie face downwards on the ottoman.”

Not the bed, thank heaven! He flattened himself to the velvet upholstery like an infantryman on the order of fire.

The ottoman was upholstered in crimson and positioned at the foot of a brass double bed covered with a satin quilt.

From his restricted viewpoint he could see a half-open wardrobe with a row of Isabel’s boots on the lowest shelf. A mirror on the inside of the door allowed him a glimpse of the dressing table where she was standing behind him. Its top was crowded with jars, cut-glass bottles and silver-backed brushes. She was pouring some liquid into her cupped hand.

Without another word she came to where he was and sat along the edge with her thigh lightly touching his hip. He felt the mild shock of the cool liquid as she pressed it between his shoulders, and then the warmth of the palms and fingers spreading it across his skin. Her hands worked with a sense of symmetry distributing the balm evenly, her fingers probing each band of muscle individually, kneading quite forcefully at first, gradually relenting to a stroking movement, until finally the touch was no more than a caress.

Whatever she was using on his body was distinctly aromatic, with a heady muskiness about it, unlike any branded liniment he knew. And it tingled on the skin like champagne on the palate.

“Good. I can feel you relax now. The muscles are becoming more supple.”

Once or twice her fingertips were raised clear of the skin while she continued to massage with the mounts of her palms. Jago found himself waiting for the sensation of her

fingers coming consecutively back into contact. It was devilishly hard not to luxuriate. For distraction, he turned his head to look through the vertical bars of the bedstead at the picture over the bed. It was an animal study, but no Landseer. A white stallion, eyes rolling in terror, reared in a desperate attempt to throw a tiger from its back. He would never understand Isabel’s taste in art.

He turned elsewhere for inspiration. Every decent influence in his life-parents, two devoted sisters in Gloucester-shire, Lydia-dear Lydia, the vicar, his housemaster, Sergeant Cribb-paraded before his troubled conscience to be ignominiously dismissed. Isabel Vibart dispatched them all with one breath on the nape of his neck.

Her voice was close to his ear. “Are you comfortable?”

What a question! “Extremely so.”

“You feel more relaxed here?”

“Quite so.”

“You find it hard to sleep in that room along the corridor?”

Good God! Did she believe D’Estin’s ravings the previous night?

“On the contrary. It is an excellent room.”

“That is good. Now I must rest a moment. Massage is tiring work.”

“You do it well.”

“I enjoy it.”

She continued to lean over him. Her hair, which had been swathed in a severe Indian style, must have worked loose with her movements, for he now felt its brushing motion across his shoulders. He arched his back a fraction at the sensation and felt his skin touch warm silk at two points.

And as he drew his chest to the velvet again, the yielding breasts nestled against his back. His pulse was racing.

“Shall I start again?”

“If you wish to.” He tried to convey the fact that he was not particular about massage any more.

“Then you must allow me to loosen your drawers and slip them over your hips. Otherwise I cannot massage your thighs.”

Fifteen minutes earlier it would have been unthinkable.

He felt for the lacing across his stomach.

“That is better. I am used to massaging men, you know.”

He wished she had not said so.

“I must get some more of the embrocation. Anointing oil I like to call it.” She went over to the dressing table.

He lay with the drawers around his knees and tried not to feel ridiculous. When she returned, she paused, standing at his side to survey him.

“You have a fine back, Henry. Not a mark on you. But I didn’t expect to see any.”

“What do you mean?”

“Spike marks, Henry. You refused the wrestler’s bridge.”

Her words acted on Jago like a jellyfish sting in a warm sea. The wrestler’s bridge! The gym. His humiliation. Now this confirmation that she had indeed been watching D’Estin punish him. Watching from her spy hole!

His body convulsed with shame. His head twisted to look at her and she knew exactly what was in his mind. There was total contempt in her expression.

Before he could tug his disabling garment about him, she fell on his back and with her fingernails clawed it from shoulder to loin.

“There’s a mark for you, Casanova!”

Then she fell across the ottoman laughing hideously.

Reeling with shame and confusion, Jago quit the room.