The Detective Wore Silk Drawers (15 page)

Thackeray gladly went, tacitly agreeing that, whatever his discovery meant, there were dangers in trying to account for it. If corruption were involved, it was as contagious as cholera.

When three chief inspectors could be brought to trial, what were the chances of a sergeant and two constables?

Ten minutes later he sat glumly on the window seat at the head of the stairs with Cribb, having found none of the evidence they needed.

“It’s in this place somewhere,” Cribb said, “and all together. I’ve done every deuced room downstairs, including the servants’ quarters. Even felt the panelling in the hall.

These old buildings—” He broke off and galloped downstairs, watched in amazement by Thackeray. Then he commenced reclimbing the stairs on his hands and knees, tapping each one. “Should have thought of it,” he shouted up as he worked. “Tudor building. Priest’s hole. There was a Catholic priest who spent his life touring the country constructing the things. They’d use the roof as a chapel and have a hiding place for the priest close by. Usually in the stairs.” He tapped at the wood with increasing agitation as he neared the top of the stairs. They sounded consistently solid. He reached the last stair, thumped at it like a bailiff, and then straightened up, more surprised than disappointed. “Set of blasted Protestants,” he said as he sat with Thackeray again, surveying his reddened knuckles.

He withdrew his watch, studied it, and shook his head.

“Can you ride a horse?” he asked unexpectedly.

“A horse? I’ve sat in a saddle once or twice, Sarge, but I can’t claim to have much experience.”

“Must be a pair of hacks in the stables,” Cribb explained.

“You remember D’Estin and company riding out to the Meanix fight?”

Like a scene from his childhood. “Certainly, Sarge.”

“We can give ourselves another twenty minutes, then.”

Thackeray said nothing. Personally he doubted whether twenty minutes more at Radstock Hall were worth saddle soreness for a week. He put his hands on the edge of the window seat to raise himself for a further search, although he did not know where. As he did so, there was a sound from inside, a dull thud.

“Did you look in here?” demanded Cribb.

Thackeray nodded. Of course he had. Wasn’t it an obvious place? “Just bedding, Sergeant. Sheets and pillowcases.

I lifted them all out. There’s nothing else in there.”

“I believe you,” said Cribb. All the same, he pulled back the hasp that secured the lid of the window seat and lifted it.

There was nothing inside.

Thackeray blinked. “It’s impossible! There were sheets—”

“False bottom.” Cribb was already on his knees groping at the sides of the interior for a release catch. “It opened up and they slid underneath.”

But in spite of his methodical probing of the sides and bottom, the trick would not work for Cribb. The chest, which was about five feet in length, two feet wide and the same in depth, was built of solid oak. It would not be easy to smash one’s way through.

“Give me your hat.”

Mystified, Thackeray handed over his bowler. Cribb dropped it into the window seat and closed the lid. Then he opened it. The hat was still there.

“Blast!”

He slammed the lid down again and lifted it a second time. There was the hat.

“When you got up,” Cribb said, “you must have set the thing in motion. That was when we heard it. Sit down again.”

Thackeray obeyed.

“Now get up.”

Thackeray put his hands along the edge to pull his considerable weight forward and upward. But when he rose and the lid was lifted, the hat remained obstinately in position like a cat by the milk cart.

“I think I know what it was, Sarge,” said Thackeray on a sudden inspiration. “Close the lid.”

Cribb did so, and the Constable then began feeling and pressing the brass hasp. After a moment there was a distinct movement from inside.

“I felt it go, Sarge!” he said in excitement. “You turn the staple to the right.” He lifted the lid and confirmed that the hat had actually vanished. Then he tried manipulating the hasp again. “It won’t work unless the lid is closed.”

“Get inside, then,” Cribb ordered without hesitation.

“Wedge something against the bottom when I try to force the lid open again.”

Thackeray climbed in, feeling like the passive partner in a music-hall turn. It was not easy wedging a six-foot frame into a space designed for five. The lid came down. He waited in the darkness, uncertain what to expect, while Cribb fiddled with the hasp on the outside. The air was musty.

Cribb lifted the lid. “It won’t turn. Can you force your feet against the end and take your weight off the floor?”

In darkness again, Thackeray braced against the sides to suspend himself clear of the floor. To a muffled shout of triumph from outside, it swung downwards beneath him. He lowered one foot into the cavity. Three feet down it touched something dome-shaped. His hat.

“Are you all right?” called Cribb.

“Yes, Sarge. I’m standing in the lower part now, but I can’t see what size it is.”

“Take off your boots and wedge them against the base to stop it closing when I force open the lid.”

He did so, crouching clear of the hinging mechanism.

“All right, now!”

An inch-wide strip of daylight severed the blackness above him. He leaned on the hinged base as Cribb strained to widen the gap. After a moment the combined force of the two men overcame the work of the Tudor carpenter. To the sound of splintering wood, the lid swung back. Thackeray stood upright inside with his face at the level of the lid.

“What’s inside, then?” Cribb demanded.

Thackeray crouched and retrieved his crushed bowler hat and a set of pillowcases and handed them to the Sergeant.

He bent again. “There’s something else.”

It was an overcoat, an ulster, heavily stained with blood.

Some stains were old, some fresh enough to be still slightly damp. Cribb felt the coat pockets and took out a long straight-bladed dagger. “Anything else in there?”

Thackeray smiled as he bent in the darkness. Cribb’s question graphically reminded him of a badly brought up nephew at the bran tub. He groped and came up with one of his own boots and a leather valise. It was thick with documents.

There was one other object at the bottom of the cavity apart from his second boot—a cross-cut saw. Cribb was too engrossed in the papers to take it from him.

“Hadn’t we better get after Jago now, Sergeant?”

“Jago? Oh, yes.”

Cribb had seen all that he needed of the documents.

They were deposited with the other finds back in the broken seat cavity, ready to be picked up later as court exhibits.

A setback awaited them at the stables. No horses.

“There must be a paddock,” decided Cribb. “Find yourself a saddle, Constable.”

Thackeray selected the best-upholstered one he could from a selection hanging on the stable wall and stumbled inexpertly after the Sergeant, who already had a saddle slung across his shoulder. They followed hooftracks to a small, fenced clearing. Two grey stallions under a tree regarded their approach indifferently, their tails flicking at flies.

“Ever saddled a horse, Thackeray?” Cribb asked as they let themselves through the gate.

“If I’m honest, no, Sarge.”

“Nor have I. Always a first time, eh?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“I’ll take the brute on the right, then.”

“Very good, Sergeant.”

“They don’t look so friendly now we’re near, do they? I’d go so far as to say that mine looks positively vicious.”

“Shall we saddle one between us, Sarge? Take them one at a time?”

“Capital suggestion. Whoa, there! Nasty animal. Better try the other one. I think if you could hold its head . . .”

Ten minutes later the horses, still unsaddled, watched the law retreat, limping and defeated.

“These fights never start on time,” Cribb was saying.

“I’ve no doubt we’ll be there before it’s got very far.”

The noon sun bore down heavily as they made their way across the fields towards Rainham. The blister on Thack-eray’s right foot was now troubling him more than the hoof kick on his shin. It was going to take at least an hour to reach the station. Then they had to get to London Bridge, find out where exactly the fight was to be staged, and take the first available train there. Jago could be beyond help by then.

“What’s that?”

Ahead of them a flock of birds had taken flight simultaneously, plainly disturbed by something. Cribb took out his field glasses.

“Curious. Take a look. Moving along the line of the hedgerow. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a bobby’s helmet.”

Thackeray looked. “But it is, Sarge! It’ll be the Rainham man on his tricycle. He’s coming along the lanes. We can intercept him by the gate there!”

Both men forgot their soreness and sprinted for the lane.

The helmet, uncannily smooth in its progression, threatened to glide past altogether. They shouted as they ran, and the constable came to an emergency stop some fifteen yards past the gate.

“What, what, what?” he said, still seated aloft on his Harrington Desideratum with fifty-inch solid India-rubber-tired wheels.

“Criminal Investigation,” panted Cribb. “Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, investigating a series of murders.

We need your machine.”

“Murders? Machine?” repeated the bewildered tricyclist.

“Hurry, man! We’ve got to get to London.”

“Wait a minute,” said the constable. “Don’t I—”

“If you don’t dismount at once, sir, I shall be forced to knock you off your machine!”

The constable still looked extremely sceptical, but there was a note of determination in Cribb’s voice anyone would have heeded. He clambered down. “I feel sure that I’ve seen you—”

“Your bicycling stockings, if you please,” intervened Cribb.

“What? Good Lord! Not my stockings!”

“Help him, Thackeray! Get them on yourself.”

Before another minute had passed, the constable of Rainham was seated barefoot on the verge, and Thackeray had taken his place in the saddle.

“Sorry to leave you like this,” explained Cribb. “Events demand it. If you walk up to Radstock Hall, you’ll find Mrs.

Vibart’s body in her room. She’s been stabbed. We’re on our way to make the arrest. We’ll leave your velocipede at the station.” He stepped up onto the back axle of the Desideratum and gripped his assistant’s shoulders. “Pedal away, Thackeray!”

CHAPTER

15

THE FIRST INTIMATION OF ANYTHING EXCEPTIONAL THAT afternoon in Groombridge was a sound carried on the wind, too faint even to be noticeable when there was a flurry of dry leaves along the street. But it persisted and was heard increasingly clearly, allusive as the resonance in a seashell. Tricks of acoustics in the uneven landscape produced a confusion of sounds supplanting each other from moment to moment: the unmistakable grate of carriage wheels; snatches of music-hall choruses; clattering hooves; unexpectedly clear conversations.

Most of the inhabitants were in the High Street peering towards Tunbridge Wells before the first vehicle appeared. A cart, with men walking beside it. Disappointingly commonplace. But next to turn the distant bend and come fully into view was a gleaming park phaeton with several passengers, and riders in attendance. It was the leader of an extraordinary parade of London life several hundred yards in length that gradually emerged from among the trees lining the road. Broughams and hansoms trundled in formation towards the village as though it were the cabstand in Pall Mall. Members of the gigmanity drove among them, their silk hats flashing intermittently as they passed under the avenue of beeches. Alongside rode numerous horsemen, and a few bicyclists endeavouring to maintain balance and conversation. Most impressive of all, choking the road as far back as one could see, trooped up to a thousand men of the labouring class. A number of others, practised from street urchin days, adhered to the sides of the larger carriages. The huge majority relied on chorusing and good-natured swearing to relieve their footslog. More formidably, sections towards the front carried cudgels ripped from trees along the route. In the thick of them rode the gentry, serene and unperturbed as travellers on a mediaeval pilgrimage.

Only a handful of spectators retreated indoors. The rest were held by curiosity. More than a thousand marching Londoners from every social class, costers almost shoulder to shoulder with stockbrokers: what momentous cause could possibly have united them? The answer was supplied (to those observant enough to see it) by the wagon at the head of the parade. Besides some dozen unpaying passengers it contained coils of rope, six-foot stakes, mallets and several wooden buckets. Anyone old enough to have heard of a set-to with the raw ’uns knew the impedimenta and could recognize the cart that led the patrons to a “safe locality,” within reach of several county boundaries, where interfering magistrates could not hound them for long.

Three men rode in the grey phaeton. One was obviously to be the protagonist, from the attention he was receiving. A persistent struggling throng moved with the carriage, straining to touch him, his clothes, or just the coachwork, as though contact bestowed some association with his power. For he was a huge man, a Negro, and there was talk that he had never been beaten. For his part, he reclined awkwardly among the cushions, plainly hating the enforced inactivity and ignoring the rapture around him. His two companions in the phaeton compensated by shaking every hand within reach.

The Negro’s adversary rode several carriages behind in a closed brougham with two others, presumably his second and bottleholder. He, too, had his supporters clustering about the cab, but their behaviour was more inquisitive than enthusiastic, possibly because it was difficult to see him. If it really were he facing forward—and nobody seemed to know him for certain—he looked disturbingly jaundiced.

Thackeray spotted a helmet near the timetable board and inwardly implored its wearer to be competent. He could not remember Cribb in a more peppery state.

“You! How long’ve you been on duty?”

The young officer looked at Cribb, torn for a moment between an indignant “Who d’you think you’re talking to?”

and “Too bloody long for my liking, mate.” The warning flash in Thackeray’s eyes saved him.

“Since eight this morning. Can I ’elp you, guvnor?”

“Cribb. C.I.D.” The constable stiffened. “A strong party of the fancy came through this morning. You saw them?”

He recalled them well enough, a rowdy contingent, probably bound for a race meeting, he had decided. “Why, yes, about twelve-thirty, er—”

“Sergeant,” Cribb informed him. “Which platform?”

“Two, I think—”

“Think? Thinking ain’t good enough for me, Constable!

Which train?”

Providence had placed the timetable nearby. “Must ’ave been the twelve-forty-eight, Sergeant, Sydenham, Croydon and Reigate Junction.”

“Next one out’s two-eighteen,” added Thackeray.

In ten minutes they sat in a crowded third-class carriage watching the housetops of Bermondsey and New Cross pass by the window. Afternoon sunshine filtered through the grimy glass onto the nodding faces opposite—a fat, flushed woman in dolman jacket and a hat supporting a small stuffed bird and satin cherries that rocked with the train; and her two pale sons clutching and systematically emptying bags of jujubes. In the corner a wide-awake hat had tilted forward to muffle its owner’s snores. Thackeray screwed up his handkerchief in his pocket and thought about Henry Jago.

“If he’s innocent,” said Cribb, unprompted “—and that’s what you’ll have assumed, being the generous-hearted cove you are—then you must give me someone else to arrest.”

Thackeray nodded. Cribb’s favourite game: find me a murderer and I’ll show you how wrong you can be. At least it would provide distraction.

“I’ll try, Sarge.” Thackeray spoke at first with his hand guarding his mouth. When the other passengers displayed no interest at all, it slipped slowly down to his lap. “It seems to me that there are three possible suspects from what we know, and that’s mainly from Jago’s letters.”

“Which could be nothing but . . . Never mind,” said Cribb. “Continue.”

“Well, there’s Morgan—the black, D’Estin and Vibart.

They all had motives of a kind. The Ebony unquestionably hated being in her power—you remarked on that yourself that night when you watched her massaging him. I find myself wondering whether she had something over him and was blackmailing him. Not for money directly, but for the service he offered—as a fighter, I mean.”

“Quite so,” assented Cribb.

“Now, D’Estin, to my thinking, had an altogether different motive. From what Jago told us of his manner towards Mrs. Vibart—remembering that he was only a trainer—I don’t think it can be doubted that he was—how can I put it—on more than friendly terms with the lady.”

Cribb raised an eyebrow. “Plausible, Constable, plausible.”

“They had adjoining rooms when Jago moved in, Sarge.

Then there was that argument and D’Estin had to move his things to another part of the house. Now that suggests a lover spurned to me.”

“Crime of passion,” said Cribb.

“Exactly!”

“And Vibart?”

“Ah, yes. Vibart. Now he never seemed to hold his sister-in-law in much regard, and from his point of view I can understand why. When his brother died, she became the owner of Radstock Hall and all the estate. Edmund got nothing out of it, and wouldn’t until she died.”

“Motive: inheritance,” said Cribb. He glanced out at one of the Croydon halts. “Those are your three, then. Which one?”

“Well, I think we can discount the Ebony.”

“Why should that be?”

Thackeray looked at Cribb in disappointment. Wasn’t it obvious? “From Jago’s account of it he was quitting Radstock Hall. He’s been living in the East End for a week, hasn’t he? I don’t see how he could have broken training to go back to Essex and murder Mrs. Vibart, Sarge. Besides, there wasn’t any signs of a break-in. We checked the doors and windows.”

“Very well. Go on. Now you’re down to passion and inheritance.”

“And there I stop, I’m afraid,” admitted Thackeray.

“Oh, I could construct theories from here to Reigate Junction if you like, but I don’t see myself reaching any strong conclusion. One of ’em did it, and wants to implicate Jago by planting the money in his bed, but I couldn’t say who.”

“Capital deductions,” remarked Cribb. “I’d say you’ve got the answer there unless . . .” He stopped and regarded the unlit oil lamp swinging above them.

“Unless, Sarge?”

“Unless we accept the obvious.”

Thackeray looked away. Like Cribb, he preferred not to discuss the obvious.

Certainly the Ebony’s forearm development was less pronounced, but the fists themselves were arguably more formidable. There was little more on them than skin and bone from wrist to fingertips. Such was the prominence of the skeletal structure that even while the hands rested lightly over the knees, the knuckles were deeply crenellated, as vicious a natural characteristic as the pointing of a shark’s teeth. In more than a dozen meal times at Radstock Hall, when the Ebony had sat opposite him, Jago had not noticed the size or singular formation of those hands. All his anxieties until this moment had been centred on his adversary’s superior weight and height.

The preliminaries had been got over mercifully fast once the field had been located, stakes set up and the crowd settled— with some encouragement from the cudgel bearers.

D’Estin had looked after the ritual of throwing in the hat to make the challenge and tossing for choice of corner, and Vibart had nominated their umpire. Then Beckett, who was acting as the Ebony’s second, had selected the second umpire, and a neutral referee was agreed upon. The right of the second to inspect the opponent’s drawers for improper substances was a rule seldom enforced, but Beckett crossed the ring on that pretext to remind Jago of his obligation to stay conscious for twenty-six rounds. The referee made the announcement—almost anticlimax when Jago failed at first to respond to the name of Quinton—and then sent the two fighters back to their corners. The next call to the centre would be the summons to scratch.

Like a dying man, Jago found his thoughts in the last seconds racing over the incidents from his past. Just a few weeks before, these men, Beckett and Foster, who supported the Ebony against him, had existed only as names on the files he kept at Scotland Yard. Now, like the playing cards in “Alice,” they had sprung offensively alive, and by a strange reversal the people who mattered in his life were distorted in his memory or all but obliterated. Lydia’s face became Isabel’s whenever he tried to think of it; Thackeray, like the Cheshire cat, appeared occasionally, grinning, with parts of him liable to vanish; Cribb communicated only in riddles.

There was no need to pinch himself. Soon enough the attention of those monstrous knuckles would tell him whether he was dreaming.

Where was Cribb?

“Seconds leave the ring, please. Are you ready? Time!”

“Tonbridge, mate. You getting out? I can’t ’old the train for you, you know.”

In answer, Cribb closed the window.

“Tonbridge, Sarge?” echoed Thackeray. “That ain’t Tun-bridge Wells, is it? The stationmaster at Reigate definitely thought the roughs was making for Tunbridge Wells.”

“He’d better be right. That’s Kent. My information was Surrey.”

“In that case they ought to have got out at Reigate Junction, Sarge, and the stationmaster would have seen them. He positively said he hadn’t.”

“When it comes to prize fighting, Constable, there’s a devil of a lot of queer-sightedness among members of the public. I hope your stationmaster was right. Best we can do is stay aboard till Tunbridge Wells. Good thing Jago’s game and can look after himself.”

¦ First blood in the fourth, they had said. Well, they were wrong. The blood did not matter particularly. One expected it, even if it had come a little early and from the wrong source. What bothered Jago was the pressure on his neck, held firmly “in chancery” in the crook of the Ebony’s right arm. He did not, of course, pretend to himself that repeated uppercuts to his nose—which he was helpless at present to defend—were in any way encouraging. But they were at least delivered with some recognition that the fight was scheduled to last another twenty-four rounds. Their tendency was to flatten rather than fracture. No, it was the simultaneous flexing of the bicep against his neck that disconcerted Jago. Each time it happened, his vision was affected, so that instead of seeing one enormous set of knuckles approaching, he saw two. He could not be sure until contact was made which was the real one.