The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

CHAPTER 4

The four-square semblance of order ended. One side stake leaned inwards under pressure and a corner post collapsed simultaneously. The ropes slackened and fell and the ring was a thoroughfare. In seconds the only indication of a fight being staged there was the glistening head and shoulders of the Ebony, clear among the umbrellas surrounding him. Altogether larger groups converged on the bookies. Many customers, it seemed, had succeeded in hedging their bets before the result was completely obvious. Professional gamblers, they needed to be as sensitive to the state of a fight as a broker to the stock market.

“Short fight,” commented Cribb, “and small entertainment to it.”

“Fourteen rounds. Fifty-three minutes by my half-hunter,” said Thackeray in confirmation. “Have you ever boxed that long, Henry?”

Jago had not. The brutality of what they had seen appeared to have affected him, for he was deathly pale. “That wasn’t boxing. That wasn’t sport at all.”

“You mean that there’s more footwork in glove fighting?”suggested Thackeray. “I suppose if they put spiked shoes on you and stood you ankle-deep in mud you might go as sluggishly as those two did in the early rounds. You could last an hour of that, couldn’t you?”

Jago shuddered. It could have been from the cool of the evening.

Cribb pulled the collar of the waterproof against his side whiskers and did not even look at Jago. “Three hours,” he said tersely.

“Three hours, Sergeant?” asked Jago.

“The time you should allow for a fist fight, lad. Plenty go to two hours and some have gone to four.”

Jago did not pretend to be an expert on pugilism. He left that to Cribb. No right-minded bobby questioned his sergeant’s authority on any subject.

“What happened to the beaten man?” asked Thackeray. He had been engrossed in pressing rainwater from his beard onto a large linen handkerchief.

“A sharp-eyed detective would have seen,” replied Cribb, equally uncomfortable in the conditions. “If you can manage to bend your waist a fraction, you’ll see him lying where the other man put him.”

“Still there? What’s happened to his attendants?”

“Looking for browns. Some were tossed in after he went down. It’s the only purse Meanix gets tonight. The crowd’s thinning now. Let’s go closer.”

They moved through churned mud where the ringsiders had been and across the fallen ropes to the protected greener square. Only the center patch was black and glutinous. On it lay the Stepney Ox, oblivious to the legs stepping across him. There, too, was one of his seconds, crouching, not to raise him, but to salvage a halfpenny from under his forearm.

“He’s breathing,” observed Jago, with some relief.

“One less for Waterloo Bridge, then,” murmured Thackeray.

Cribb addressed the scavenging second. “When are you returning to London?”

The face turned. It was scarred by years of fist fighting. One eye was sightless, stilled, perhaps, by an opponent’s thumb.

“What’s it to you?”

Cribb produced a coin and held it between finger and thumb above the expanse of Meanix’s back. It was a satisfactory answer.

“Last train. We’ll bring ’im round at the Fox in Rainham. Time enough to spend what we’ve picked up ’ere. Too bloody tight-fisted, this lot are. Don’t give credit for a rousing scrap. Ah! I’m obliged to you, guv.”

The spectators were by now steadily dispersing. Most headed in the direction of Rainham and the railway station. The referee, clearly determined for his own reasons to be first away, was already visible above a distant hedgerow, pedalling his fifty-inch Coventry Perfection dextrously through the rutted lanes towards the Fox and Grapes.

“We’ll go the same way,” Cribb announced. “I’m ready for refreshment.”

They joined the general trek, leaving Meanix and a small entourage. The beaten pugilist had managed to struggle to his feet, and was now wrapped in a horse blanket. The victor and his companion were evidently not joining the group at Rainham. They had already left, walking their horses slowly in the direction from which they had come.

The Fox (no one found it necessary to mention the Grapes as well) was a small inn, conveniently close to Rainham station. Well before the detectives reached there, the influx from London had arrived and begun the process of obliterating their memory of the fight. Cribb edged a passage to the counter with difficulty and ordered three glasses of porter. Thackeray had found a single seat under a window, towards which Cribb moved with the tankards, ducking to avoid an oil lamp slung from a beam.

“Doesn’t look as strong as it might,” he said, accepting the chair, “but any thing's welcome when you’ve got a thirst.”

“Been to th’ fight, ’ave you?”

The speaker was one of a group of eight firmly established around the three sides of the window seat. From the style and dry state of their dress they were the local clientele, alone among those present in not having been at Moat Farm.

Cribb nodded. “You didn’t go, then?”

There were superior smiles all round.

“Standin’ in ’Arrison’s field for an hour or more, watchin’ the Ebony alter a London bruiser’s profile? We got better ways o’ passin’ time, friend.”

“You’re not betting men, then?” inquired Thackeray, to encourage the conversation.

“Bettin’?” The speaker, shrewd behind his grey whiskers, with squirrel-sharp eyes that darted meaningfully around the table before each remark, added, “Bettin’ ain’t part o’ God’s law. And God in ’Is mercy preserves us from temptation by keep in’ down our wages to what we can spend in ’ere. ’Ow long did y’ London man last, then?”

“Fourteen rounds.”

“Hm. Fair showing.” The nodding of heads around the table showed a striking consensus of agreement. “What was the odds before they started?”

“Strongly favouring Meanix,” said Cribb. “If we’d known the black was so handy with his dukes, we’d have made a few pounds tonight.”

“Ebony’s form ain’t broadly known,” agreed the spokesman. “We know ’im round these parts, o’ course. I’m told that if fist fights was still written up in th’ papers, you London folk would’ve ’eard of ’im afore now. Don’t really trouble us, as only Ben there can read, and ’e prefers ’is prayer book to sportin’ news, don’t you, mate?”

Smiles were liberally exchanged.

“Has the Ebony fought many in Rainham, then?” Cribb inquired.

“Only two that I know of. Both was said to ’ave their record in Fistiana-though we wouldn’t know that, would we, mates, bein’ illiterate men? Ebony sledge-’ammered ’em both.”

“When was this?”

“Lor’, now you’ve asked me somethin’. The memory ain’t tickin’ over so well. Strikes me it needs a spot o’ lubrication. What d’you say, mates?”

They said nothing, but drained their glasses simultaneously.

Cribb saw what had to be done. Jago and Thackeray followed him to the bar with handfuls of empty glasses. There Thackeray felt it his duty to caution the Sergeant.

“They’re not truthful men, Sarge. It’s not worth standing them drinks when their word ain’t reliable.”

“I’ll judge that,” said Cribb. “Let ’em have their sport with us. I can pick wheat from chaff.”

When the first sips had been taken, Cribb again put his question about the Ebony’s previous fights.

“I’ll give it some thought, mate. Last November, I reckon, was when ’e fought that Bermondsey boy.”

There was general concurrence.

“And the Webster fight was two months back, easy.

Around Easter, that was.”

If this could be believed, Thackeray inwardly noted, the headless corpse could not be Mr. Webster’s.

“This Ebony,” Cribb persisted, “seems a stout fighter.

Who trains him?”

The spokesman shook his head.

“Can’t say we know much about ’im, mate, save that ’e’s a capital bruiser.”

“Where does he live, then? I’d like to meet the fellow.”

This was hilariously received. The spokesman explained why.

“Ebony comes from Vibart’s place, Radstock ’All, a mile or more north of the village. And they don’t much like strangers up there, ’cept the ones they invite.”

“You mean that they don’t enter into village life?”

“In a manner of speaking. We see ’em once in a while. The Ebony, just as you saw ’im today. Sometimes Mrs. Vibart in ’er four-wheeler, or the menfolk ’eadin’ for London, or comin’ back. But they’re none of ’em conversationalists, if you follow me.”

“This Vibart,” said Cribb. “What does he do?”

“Do?”

“What’s his work?”

There was more amusement at this.

“Mr. Vibart ain’t really fit for work any more, mate. You see, ’e’s been dead this twelvemonth.”

“Really? Was he old, then?”

“Far from it. I could give ’im twenty year, and I’m still capable in all particulars. Jacob there could give ’im fifty, and all ’e’s lost in a few ivories, ain’t it, Jacob?”

Jacob revealed a pink mouth in confirmation.

“You mentioned menfolk at the Hall,” persisted Cribb.“Are they servants?”

“Training folk. They’re none of ’em local men, I can tell you.Oh, and there’s Vibart’s brother, Edmund. We see Edmund at least once a week bein’ devout men, don’t we, Ben?”

Ben swore passionately and everyone chuckled.

“Edmund Vibart’s our church organist, you see. And a very fine lead ’e gives to our singin’ of the psalms. Yes, a rare musician is Mr. Vibart, a very upright member of the church.”

“Really? But you said they didn’t enter into village life.”

“Ah, did I now? Well, I wouldn’t really call Edmund a village man, you know. As I say, we see ’im in church on Sundays, those of us that go to Sung Eucharist and Matins, but you ain’t liable to see ’im any other time, unless it’s passin’ in a carriage. ’E don’t call on us for a yarn and a smoke any more than we’d look ’im up at Radstock ’All.”

“You’ve never been inside, then?”

“Not since the Vibarts moved in. None of us go up there now. Mrs. Vibart wanted maids, but she couldn’t get no Rainham wenches to stop there.”

“Why should that be?”

“Oh, no good reason you could name. Wenches’ talk, mostly. Strange things ’appenin’ there, that grow in the tellin’, no doubt. Though there ain’t much you could tell some of our lasses, eh, mates?”

Even Thackeray and Jago were now attuned to the ponderous local wit, and joined in the broad winks.

There was one more question Cribb wanted to put.

“Is the Ebony the only fist fighter at Radstock Hall?”

It seemed to unsettle the spokesman. His companions, too, stopped smiling.

“We’ve talked enough about Rainham folk,” he said, after a pause. “Now you can tell us about London. ’Ave you seen the Crystal Palace?”

The mood relaxed, and Radstock Hall was dropped from the conversation. It was not mentioned again in the Fox that night. And after the marvels of the Crystal Palace were summed up in three short sentences by Cribb, he offered a more familiar glimpse of London life. With artistry nurtured in M Division smoking concerts, he impersonated a street tragedian in the Strand contesting his pitch with a German band. Thackeray then took the stage with a hilarious impression of Irving having an off night in The Bells. Jago’s contribution began with a colourful account of street entertainers, from performing dogs to fire-eating Indians. From there it was an easy progression to rope tricks, and so to his favourite topic, “the Automaton of the Age, Blondin.” At this point he placed his glass on the table and rose to demonstrate. A line between the floorboards became the tightwire suspended above the stage of the Royal Polytechnic. Jago edged agonizingly across, seesawing his outstretched arms in a beautifully convincing performance.

A sudden shout from the end of the room of “Blimey, the train!” returned everyone to reality except Jago. Totally absorbed in his balancing, he heard the shout, swayed alarmingly, flailed the air with his arms and crashed to the floor. This in no way interrupted the general scramble for the door. The London train was due, and nobody wanted to spend the night in Rainham. The more sober stepped over the fallen artiste. Others were less fastidious.

“They’re right,” Thackeray confirmed. “Ten-fifty. We must get to the station.”

Cribb had been silent for some time; not from rapture at Jago’s performance.

“Not us,” he muttered tersely. “Jago goes. We stay.”

Constable Jago, now sheepishly brushing mud from his Norfolk, looked up in surprise.

“We’ll see you out, lad,” Cribb continued; and then, for the benefit of the others, “Do excuse us, gentlemen. Must get our young friend onto the train.”

He pushed the puzzled Constable ahead of him to the door. Outside they could talk more freely.

“You must travel with Meanix and the London mob. Get close enough to listen to ’em. I’ve got business here with Thackeray. We’ll take the first train back in the morning. Report to the station at nine tomorrow. I expect to be there. If I’m not, tell the Inspector everything that happened. And ask him, at my request, to get a squad of picked men out to Radstock Hall.”

A minute later, still in some bewilderment, Jago was seated in the same carriage as the now intoxicated Stepney Ox, bound for London.

¦ Perhaps it appealed to Cribb’s sense of humour, forcing a man in his fifties across drenched fields in Essex, half an hour before midnight. It was possible, Thackeray speculated, that if he had gallivanted about the bar of the Fox like a penguin attempting flight, Cribb might have sent him back to a warm bed in London. He suffered because he was utterly dependable.

As though he read the Constable’s thoughts, Cribb explained, “Far better for young Jago to keep a watch on Meanix and his friends. He’s more the Corinthian than you or I. Should be up to bandying talk of milling with that contingent, and might hear a useful word or two besides. You don’t mind a spot of night duty?”

“No, Sarge,” lied Thackeray. He felt his left boot sink into a hollow. Water seeped through his sock. “But I begin to wonder whether we’re still on course. We haven’t passed so much as a shack this last half-hour, and there’s no sign of buildings ahead. I can’t say that I trusted that group in the pub. To be frank, Sarge, I can picture them back there somewhere laughing over our short cut.”

“That may be so,” conceded Cribb. “But our direction isn’t far wrong, even if the going ain’t exactly Pall Mall. We’re following the same course the Ebony and his friend took. I don’t take the word of a bunch of swivel-eyed rustics without checking for myself.”

One consolation was that the rain clouds were fast dispersing, and there were frequent short periods of moonlight. Between them huge shadows traversed the fields like black tides. The landscape was depressingly flat, relieved only by a few small silhouetted copses. Thackeray tried to put the grinning rustics out of his mind. He concentrated on planting each step on the most solid ground available.

“There’s a chimney!” announced Cribb in some triumph fifteen minutes later. “Above the cedars there. Unmistakable.”

They cut across a turnip crop, quickening their pace. As they approached the group of trees that increasingly dominated the landscape, a lane was revealed, snaking in from the right.

“There’s the approach road,” Cribb announced. “Look where it comes from. Would have added miles to our walk.”

Thackeray never openly questioned his sergeant’s infallibility. But he noted with satisfaction that Cribb’s right galosh was missing, claimed by some quagmire they had passed through.

The estate of Radstock Hall was enclosed by a six-foot wall. This the detectives surmounted with the help of an overhanging branch. Their progress was deliberate and by no means stealthy. Instinctively they felt secure from guards, dogs or other hazards the grounds might contain. The trees and scrub were dense enough, anyway, to give them cover if necessary. The house was moonlit when they reached it-an elegant Elizabethan country house in glimmering red brick. The roof, still damp from the earlier downpour, gleamed theatrically. Gaunt, well-weathered chimneys jutted against the restless sky.

They skirted the building, moving with more caution now, and keeping in the shadow of the foliage, although no lights were burning at the front. As they rounded the side of the house, Cribb stopped abruptly and said, almost aloud, “God Almighty!”

Thackeray froze. His sergeant was not given to casual blasphemy. Around the corner was something exceedingly unpleasant. A procession of headless corpses would not have provoked a more extreme outburst. But the horror confronting Thackeray when he looked was altogether different. Not a physical violation at all, but an aesthetic one. With blatant disregard to the style of the house a squat, grey, modern wing had been added to the back, as vulgar as a blowfly on a rose. What sort of people were these?

“Take it slow now,” cautioned Cribb. “We’ll get a closer look if we can.”

They were standing in a convenient plantation of rhododendrons extending around two sides of the building. To approach the new wing, they would have to break cover for forty yards and cross a kitchen garden.

“Keep to the paths,” Cribb whispered. “And watch that open window. I think there may be a lamp inside. This light’s deceptive.”

They scudded as noiselessly as two large men could across the open area and halted at the grey wall itself, to the left of the open window. Cribb was correct; both of them glimpsed a flickering paraffin lamp as they passed within view of the room. And when Thackeray’s agitated breathing subsided, they could hear a low voice, too muffled for the words to be intelligible.

“I’ll try to get closer,” Cribb breathed. “May hear something useful. You move along the wall and look in the other windows. Careful, mind.”

Thackeray tiptoed away on his mission. He could never be sure at such times whether Cribb was giving him responsibility or making certain he was out of the way. His boot caught a flowerpot, and it toppled over and rolled through an arc on the gravel path. He stiffened against the wall, cursing his clumsiness.

For two minutes Thackeray waited, thoughts racing through his brain of action to take when he was discovered. The proper course was to hold them off as conspicuously as possible, giving Cribb a chance of flight. He looked around for a weapon. There was only the flowerpot. If the Ebony came in pursuit, no flowerpot would fell him. Thackeray decided to rely on a dash for the rhododendrons.

Nothing happened, so he edged forward again, calculating each footfall like a mountaineer. There was a window a few feet ahead. He stopped, straining to hear sounds within. Nothing. He leaned forward and moved his eye to the glass. The brim of his bowler made contact, and he jerked back with a small start.

The interior was sufficiently well-lit by the moon. Thackeray was looking into a spacious room, dominated by a platform structure at the centre, a yard in height and at least twenty-four feet square, a full-scale boxing ring with posts and ropes. To the left was an area equipped for gymnastics, with ropes suspended from the ceiling, two with rings. There were parallel and horizontal bars, a high bar and a trapeze. Scattered about the floor were Indian clubs and dumbbells. He stayed at the window, making a mental inventory of every object within view. Somebody had provided handsomely for the Ebony’s training.

Sergeant Cribb, after wincing at Thackeray’s blunder with the flowerpot, waited fully three minutes before attempting to improve his position at the window. The speaking within continued. It was more monologue than conversation, the same teasingly subdued voice speaking at intervals and answered occasionally in monosyllables. Cribb crouched at sill height and looked in.

The conversation became audible.

“. . said he was probably a heavier man than you, and weight is important in fighting. Your physical construction is incomparable, of course, but crude weight is said to out-top muscle when there is enough of it. Are you feeling cooler now? This will surely keep you from getting muscle stiffness this time.”

To Cribb’s surprise, the speaker was a woman. Her face was in shadow, but the voice and figure were young. She was standing beside a backless chaise-longue, talking as she applied liniment to the Ebony’s dorsal muscles. He was lying quite naked, face downwards, his thighs and buttocks glistening darkly after massage.

“He was the best available,” she continued, pouring more of the liquid into her palm. The air at the window was heavy with its aroma. “His record was in the champion class. Mostly straight knockdowns, too. It won’t be easy to find another of his reputation. Your ribs must be sore. I’ll dab them lightly.”

The Ebony’s face was clearly visible from Cribb’s position. The left eye was swollen, but he was otherwise unmarked. He was drowsy, and apparently indifferent to what his masseuse was saying as she stroked his skin. Once, though, when her flattery became obvious, his mouth twisted into a secret sneer.

“Next time I would like to watch you. I wouldn’t be the first of my sex to attend a prize fight. Plenty did in the past, when it was considered respectable. If I disguised myself, I could pass as a youth, couldn’t I?”

A meaningless grunt from the Ebony. His indifference was no discouragement to her. Using the jargon of sport with incredible naturalness, she talked on, her small hands probing the black surface of his back to isolate and caress the individual bands of muscle.

“The difficulty, Sylvanus, is to find another antagonist for you. You aren’t ready yet for the French or the Yankees, though you’ll poleaxe them when the time comes. We took the others into the top class too soon. I shall not make that mistake with you. Besides-” she leaned forward to whisper something into his ear and a strand of hair that had become loose fell on his shoulder.

Outside, Cribb froze, feeling himself within her line of vision. But she straightened and continued her work.

In those few seconds the Sergeant was able to study her face. They were certainly a young woman’s features, delicately fashioned, yet sharply defined. Dark, expressive eyes, elegant nose, cheeks flushed slightly, perhaps by the close heat of the Ebony’s body. All the character, though, was in her mouth. It was a fraction wider than perfect proportion asked. The upper line almost arrogant in its precision. Below it a fuller, rounded lip. Sensuousness underlying vestal coldness.

“I may arrange for Edmund to bring a fighter down from the north,” she continued. “He once told me of a group of fist fighters in Manchester. You’re not fighting any more farm boys, I promise you. Would you lift your arms? If you fold them above your head, I can soon be on your biceps.” She giggled slightly. “You’ll soon be my anointed one, Sylvanus. Handmaidens did this for kings in ancient times.”

Cribb was studying the Ebony’s face. Unmistakably it creased into an expression of contempt.

“These moths!” she said petulantly. “The lamp draws them. Now that the rain has stopped, it isn’t possible to have a light near an open window. I’ll draw the curtain. It’s time Edmund unleashed the dogs.”

Cribb ducked, flattening himself to the wall. Thackeray, rejoining him from behind, stiffened to a halt.

There was the sound of heavy curtains being drawn.

Cribb gestured to Thackeray to move away.

The glint in the Sergeant’s eye was more than moonshine. “I don’t know what you saw, Thackeray,” he whispered when they were sufficiently far away, “but I’ve learned enough in the last ten minutes to get us both a quick promotion.”