The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

CHAPTER 8

Henry Jago sat in a state of bliss in a hip bath at Radstock Hall. On Isabel Vibart’s instructions the brine had been warmed to slightly below body heat and was ready in the changing room when he returned. Two steaming jugfuls of water stood in reserve.

He winced at the colour of his knees jutting above water level. Pugilism was dirty, as well as painful. He reached for a tablet of Pear’s and began to lather the grazed and muddy skin. Beside the bath on a marble-topped table the entire resources of the bathroom were paraded-soaps, brushes, pumices, sponges and loofahs. On a lower tier stood a selection of oils, aromatic rubs and pomades in cut-glass containers. And, most welcome, a large glass of claret.

Jago took a sip of the drink and reclined, enjoying the luxury. Saws and severed heads could wait; tonight he had earned respite. To add piquancy to his enjoyment, there was the thought of Sergeant Cribb in custody at Rainham police station. Cribb could not reveal his identity-particularly with Vibart there-so he would have to submit to interrogation by the local constable. Possibly even a night in the cells. .

On further reflection the Sergeant’s predicament was worrying. Jago knew Inspector Jowett, “Pilate,” as he was unofficially known at the Yard. If it came to a point where a county force complained to the Director, Jowett could be depended upon in only one respect. He would drop Cribb and his investigation like hot bricks. And if Cribb were in trouble for attending a prize fight, what was the position of a constable who had fought one?

He felt surges of panic. Grotesque possibilities took shape in his brain. His hands gripped one side of the bath.

“The wretched man who stands before you in the dock, gentlemen of the jury, was once Scotland Yard’s most brilliant young constable, a guardian of the law, entrusted with the confidential records of the Criminal Investigation Department. Expend no pity upon him. There is no one so contemptible as a corrupt police officer.” He pulled his hands away and put them to his forehead. When he opened his eyes, the fingers formed prison bars. He jerked the hands down, splashing water in all directions.

It had really happened. He had appeared in a prize ring.

All the time in his mind there had been the certainty of Cribb’s intervening at the last moment. He sponged his arms, trying to calm himself. What regulations had he broken? He had not, in effect, fought for money. “It was strictly in the course of an investigation, your lordship. I was obeying orders.” “Orders? Whose orders?” “Sergeant Cribb’s.”

“Oh, yes. I sentenced him earlier this afternoon.”

He reached for the claret. Cribb! He had to believe that Cribb would outwit the local police. Thinking otherwise was inviting depression. How could he help the Sergeant?

Only by controlling himself and quietly persevering with the inquiry. How, though? Cribb wanted proof of the dismemberment. But what was the use of searching for articles which would surely be well hidden, if not destroyed, by now? He had done his best, in the little time available to him, to quarter the grounds on his training runs, looking for likely burial spots for the severed head. Then D’Estin had told him to follow the same daily route. He was not sorry; he rather preferred searching for the saw.

Would there be more opportunities for searching now that the fight was over? He doubted it. They would have him in training for a second fight, encouraged by tonight’s showing. He would have to search the house by night, no matter how tired he was. If he could find some kind of evidence- even papers, the articles of battle, mentioning names-then he could send news to Cribb and get out of this suffocating situation.

He was momentarily overwhelmed by a desire to be with Lydia, sweet and untainted by all this. With a sense of shame he realized she had been far from his thoughts for days. His overtaxed mind struggled to create an image of her; all that came was Isabel Vibart’s gently mocking face.

He was jerked to awareness by D’Estin entering, bringing a bathrobe.

“Don’t sit there too long, Jago,” he said. “Water softens the skin. How are your knuckles now?”

“A little numb.”

One of Jago’s wrists was gripped and lifted, tonglike by the two digits on D’Estin’s right hand.

“Bruised, merely. How about the rest of you? There was plenty of blood on you at the end. Mainly his, I hope.”

D’Estin’s tone was clinicial. The close relationship between trainer and fighter had lasted no longer than the fight.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t down him before the fight was stopped,” said Jago with conviction. Inwardly, he had baulked at the bludgeoning of a helpless opponent.

“It cost me fifty guineas,” D’Estin said. “No fault of yours, though. We agreed on the tenth round. Had it been a first-class match, we’d have had a clause in the articles to ensure the fight’s continuance elsewhere. There’s usually no question of a mill ending when the blues arrive. We simply move outside their boundary, set up the ropes again and resume. Isn’t that right, Sylvanus?”

Jago had not noticed the Ebony’s arrival. He was out of vision, somewhere behind the bath.

“Correct, Mr. D’Estin.” A deep, educated voice.

“I’m sure that Henry knows all that, Robert.”

Good God! Isabel’s voice!

Jago reached for a large sponge.

The embarrassment was all on his side. Isabel walked serenely across the room and seated herself on a bench.

“I am told you controlled the fight like a veteran, Henry,”

she said. “We are delighted with the promise that you showed tonight. When you are bathed and massaged, I want you to dress for dinner. We always enjoy celebrating our successes, and you were close enough to victory to make no difference.”

“Fifty guineas. No difference,” muttered D’Estin.

She tossed her head in laughter.

“Really? Do you mean that I have two losers in my employment? Isn’t it enough that Edmund should be so imbecile as to make a run for it when the police arrived?

One middle-aged constable on a tricycle! What a fine testimony to the manly Vibarts!”

“He won’t find it easy producing an explanation,” said D’Estin, as though Vibart deserved some sympathy. “I know that bobby. He clings like a blasted leech until he’s drawn the truth out of you.”

Her voice hardened. “Edmund had better not say one word to the police, or I shall have him dealt with, brother-in-law or not. Now, Henry”-sweet reasonableness returned to the voice-“you shouldn’t stay too long in the water.”

Jago was determined to remain calm. He was, after all, a professional detective, and if nothing in his training had prepared him for this situation, that did not make it unsurmountable.

“I shall come out in a moment.”

A sceptical silence.

Jago soaped his knees for the second time. One simply had to prepare oneself mentally, to become detached. Of course one didn’t climb out of a bath under a lady’s scrutiny as a regular practice. .

The knees were spotless.

It would not do to spring out and make a bolt for the bathrobe. Something more dignified was called for.

He gripped the sides of the bath manfully and took a deep breath.

“For God’s sake, Isabel,” said D’Estin. “You can see the lad’s not used to bathing in front of an audience.”

She laughed. “He’s trying to embarrass me, Henry.” She stood up, arranging her dress. “He hasn’t succeeded, because I know you aren’t ashamed of yourself. However, I must see to the preparation of the table. We shall meet in the rear dining room tonight, gentlemen. Shall we say in one hour’s time?”

Immediately after she had gone, Jago clambered out of the bath. D’Estin and the Ebony remained while he towelled himself energetically. He was used to communal changing rooms, and their presence was not inhibiting. Not, that is, until he became conscious that the Ebony was studying his body. It was a steady, calculating gaze, as though each point of his physique were being assessed. For the first time since coming to Radstock Hall, Jago felt a strong impression that the Ebony was considering him as a rival.

Isabel’s dinner party was a revelation.

Meals were usually taken in a large dining room at the front of the house, in sunlight for much of the day. The second dining room, at the rear, was reserved for more special occasions.

D’Estin, more burly than ever in his dinner jacket, greeted Jago with a glass of sherry.

“Amontillado, and an expensive one. Make the most of it, Jago. You’ll be training again tomorrow. Sylvanus reckons to sink a dozen glasses on these occasions, don’t you?”

The Ebony was standing in shadow, away from the candlelit table. He made no response. Perhaps like Jago he resented the inference that pugilists came to sherry as horses to troughs of water.

Isabel had not appeared, and the other two were content to remain silent, so Jago stepped farther into the dining room. He now saw in the play of candlelight that the small room was filled with objects from the East. Carvings, pottery, statuettes, bronzes: they seemed to have been deposited at the sides of the room with utter disregard for positioning or design. A large embroidered picture filled with semi-clothed Indian dancers surrounding a godlike figure was almost obscured by a grotesque figurine mounted on a plinth. On another wall two tigers’ heads vied for space with a jewelled two-handed sword and a set of woodcarvings. Small tables and carved chests pushed to the walls were littered with silver, copper and ivory objects. Any one of them might have been a priceless artefact which a collector would have mounted in a showcase. Their very profusion in this small room led to an effect of depressing prodigality.

The air was oppressive with the scent of sandalwood.

Hearing the rustle of silk, Jago turned.

“Do you like my Indian collection? It all belonged to my late husband.” She was dazzling, in a velvet dress of deep violet with a pale pink panel from bodice to hem. A row of tiny artificial flowers entwined her body, emphasizing, quite unnecessarily, the lines of her figure. “He was there for some years, you know, exporting metalware. Some of these pieces are worth more than the house, he used to tell me.

Do you like the necklace? He gave it to me as a birthday present.”

She approached Jago, for him to examine the golden pendant studded with rubies that rested in the cleft of her breasts. She subdued her voice to a murmur as she said, “It is priceless.”

Jago looked at the jewel and was repelled. It was in the shape of a cobra poised to strike.

“You don’t like serpents?” she said, sensitive at once to his reaction. “What a good thing you weren’t born an Indian, Henry Jago! In ancient India only the sacred cow was more revered among creatures. Perhaps you will allow me to wear it tonight, though.”

“It is a very fine piece,” said Jago, in some confusion.

They took their positions at table, a circular one draped in white linen fringed with minute beads. Among the silver table ornaments four black candles in glass funnels provided the only illumination. “My colour, you know,” Isabel explained.

D’Estin was ordered to see to the champagne, which had been overlooked.

“We shall have the Roper Freres, 1874. Robert, if you please.” When he had left the room, she added, “He would bring an inferior vintage otherwise. Robert has a low opinion of everyone’s palate but his own.” Each of her remarks was addressed to Jago; the Ebony might have been another statue, for all the attention she gave him.

D’Estin returned, and a clear soup was served.

“Come here, Gruber,” Isabel commanded the maid, the same solemn woman who had first admitted Jago to the Hall. “I want you to reassure Mr. Jago. I think he secretly fears that the next course is curry.”

“Duck,” pronounced Gruber lugubriously. “And chicken.

And beef.”

After the main dish had been brought in under silver covers, Gruber was dismissed. “We serve ourselves on our celebration evenings,” Isabel explained. “One feels less reserved with the servants out of the way.”

Jago wondered what she could possibly have in mind. He took a deep draught of champagne.

The joints were cooked in wine and smelt appetizing.

D’Estin and the Ebony took carvers and began to cut.

“You divide the duck, Henry,” Isabel said. “Don’t trouble with slices. Quarter it. We can forget Edmund.”

During the meal, the Ebony began to talk. In the previous week his speech had been limited to minimal responses.

Now, made loquacious perhaps by the wine, he questioned D’Estin closely on the fight, demanding to know how each round had progressed. Jago did not intervene. His own memory was probably not reliable, anyway. He continued with his meal, enjoying at intervals an approving smile from Isabel as D’Estin described some high point of the action.

“Is he ready to fight me, then?” the Ebony demanded, when the account was finished.

“You?” Isabel exclaimed in astonishment. “God, Sylvanus! You must be out of your mind!”

The Ebony threw down his knife and fork. “And why?

Why is it so extraordinary that he should fight me?”

“Stow your gammon, Morgan,” intervened D’Estin.

“How many fist fights have you had in your time-twenty or thirty? This lad doesn’t know a mill from a Morris dance yet. He wouldn’t last two rounds in the ring with you. What are you bothered about? Haven’t we paid you enough attention lately?”

Isabel glared at D’Estin.

“What am I bothered about?” repeated the Ebony. “I’m a fighter. That’s why I’m here. I want fights, not fancy parties!”

Isabel held herself in check. “If that is really your attitude, Sylvanus, you need not stay.”

He was nodding his head. “All right, then. I apologize.”

“A fight between you and Henry,” Isabel continued, “would scarcely help any of us very much, even if you were evenly matched. Professionals fight for prize money, not side bets. When we have an antagonist for you on the right terms, you’ll see some more action. Fighting every other week for silver won’t further your career.” She was talking as his manager, putting her arguments with a force and purpose that should have detracted from her sexuality, but actually intensified it.

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.”