The Detective Wore Silk Drawers (4 page)

“There’s places that would,” said Cribb. “Lambeth School of Arms is one. Filthy, evil-smelling hole. I was there last Wednesday. Great barn of a place with a ring set up inside. Crowds packed in like herrings. And smelling like ’em. Every inch of room taken. Even up in the rafters I could see young street Arabs. Must have got in through the roof somehow. That’s Meanix’s setting.”

“What was the fighting like?”

“Barely within the law. Gloves plainly had the horsehair taken out. Timekeeping was variable according to the state of the fighting. Queensberry’s Rules, they announced at the outset, and then had a four-minute round followed by two under two minutes when there were knockdowns.”

“Couldn’t that kind of place be where our man was beaten to death?”

“Unlikely,” said Cribb. “State of his hands wasn’t consistent with glove fighting of any sort. Besides, the fighters there have too strong a following. Regular clientele. You couldn’t drop one of them off Waterloo Bridge without someone raising a barney. Now this little set-to here is a far likelier invitation to violence. Crowd out from London, more set on placing a pretty bet than following a pug’s fortunes. Meanix may be known to a few, but who’d miss him if he dropped dead here in front of us? None of this mob is going to report the fact. You don’t risk prosecution to report the passing of a knuckle fighter who means no more to you than a guinea at five to one.”

The pleasure of anticipation was perceptibly waning among the spectators. With the initial stakes placed, the betting could not hold much interest until Meanix’s opponent appeared. They took to looking about them, examining their neighbours, half expecting anyone of better-than-average build to disrobe and duck under the ropes. Cribb nudged young Jago, winked and tilted his head fractionally towards the vacant corner. Thackeray noticed this, and saw the flash of momentary uncertainty in the Constable’s eyes. The Sergeant had found a new subject for his dubious wit.

In the ring even Meanix was betraying unease. He crossed his arms to massage his biceps, searching the faces of the crowd who stood near.

“Here they come!” The general mutterings stopped. Three riders approached at a canter across the field, raising a small mist of water vapour from the saturated turf. The interest shifted from Meanix to the newcomers. Volunteers ran forward to hold the horses as they were reined, steaming, some distance from the ring. The riders dismounted, a dandified figure in ulster, black boots and top hat, and two younger men, massively built, one a Negro. He began to strip.

“Seven to four against the Ebony!” shouted a bookie, and the betting resumed in earnest.

“He’ll be the local champion,” Cribb explained. “The challenger is Meanix. He had to toss his cap into the ring first.”

“The betting goes with Meanix, even so,” remarked Thackeray. “He carries too much top hamper for the Ebony to fell him.”

“We’ll see.”

A minute or so later the Ebony joined the Ox in the ring, bare-chested, and in striking white boxing drawers fastened at mid-calf level. His swarthy muscularity drew whistles of genuine admiration from the ringside. If Meanix was an ox, here was a panther.

Now to a riot of abuse and booing, Meanix’s two attendants ducked under the rope and reported to the referee, a pale man in muffler and cap who had appeared from nowhere. He seemed well enough known, and proved to be a Rainham innkeeper. The weighings, he announced, to those who could hear, had shown a stone and a quarter in favour of Meanix at fourteen stone seven. Were the colours in position?

The larger of the Ebony’s attendants hustled forward with a square of black silk, which he tied above Meanix’s scarlet kerchief on one of the centre stakes. A toss was made for corners. Meanix selected the one his attendants had already claimed.

“Will seconds and bottleholders now withdraw?”

Even the referee left the ring.

“Time.”

They walked to the centre and crossed hands, glowering menace at each other.

“Go to it, Ox,” bawled a bystander.

The fight began.

The shifting mass of umbrellas and hats surrounding the small square of green jerked to stillness. It crystallized into hundreds of faces, regularly spaced, each distinct in character.

Every moustache, beard, cigar came into focus. Every eye was fastened on the pugilists. They, firm in the classical stance, faced each other, probing the space between them with hard-clenched fists. For a time the impact of rain on umbrella silk was almost the only sound. Then, with the preliminary measuring up complete, the patrons began to demand action.

Meanix ventured a left arm, the Ebony swayed out of range, and shouts of encouragement descended on them from all sides. Two or three flicking movements from Meanix’s leading arm failed to connect with the bobbing Negro, who showed no aggression. Responding to the impatient cries of his following, Meanix advanced several inches with a simultaneous heel-toe movement of both feet, rather as a fencer progresses. Then he brought his right fist above his shoulder and swung it violently towards his opponent’s face. It was an obvious punch, and easily parried, but he followed it with a stabbing left thrust that found its mark on the Ebony’s belly. Then Meanix closed, butting his head hard into his man’s chest and wrapping his arms around the torso. With a swift lunge forward of his right leg and a simultaneous jerk, he swung the Negro against the bridge made by his thigh and toppled him. To a warm ovation the first round was over.

“First knockdown to the Ox,” said Thackeray with significance. The fight would not last long in his opinion.

“He’s a redoubtable fellow,” agreed Jago.

Cribb was watching the Ebony, who stood in his corner while his attendant wiped mud from his arms.

Half a minute was allowed between rounds. At a signal from the referee the pair squared up again, and soon began to exchange strenuous punches, the Negro giving as good as he received. Red patches began to colour Meanix’s chest, where it had received the Ebony’s attention. A sudden crash of heads jolted both men and for a few seconds, as if by mutual consent, they wrestled against the ropes and then crashed together to the grass.

The following two rounds were brief and uneventful, both ending with Meanix back-heeling his rival. The bookies in the crowd tried to revive interest in the odds at each break between rounds, but they were doing poor business.

“Everyone waits for first blood,” Cribb explained. “Watch the rush to bet when the claret flows.”

It happened in the fifth round. Meanix caught the Ebony squarely on the nose.

“Scarlet as a geranium. What d’you think of that?” declared one of their neighbours. “As sweet a punch as I’ve seen!

Plant one on ’is peepers, Meanix.”

Without quite managing that, the Ox succeeded in felling his wounded rival with a swinging blow to the ear. The Ebony’s seconds hauled him to the corner. There he sat on one attendant’s arched thigh, while the other stanched the flow from his nose.

“That’s the kind of blow that tells,” said Cribb. “A good fist fighter will touch up the listeners as often as he’s able. It’s an art that died when glove fighting came in. If you’ve ever felt a man’s raw ’uns about your ears, you’ll know what I mean.”

For the next six rounds the Ox repeatedly battered his rival to his knees, several times falling heavily across him to add to the effect. The betting, which had never favoured the Ebony, was now heavily against him. Meanix had not once resorted to his second’s knee between rounds.

“No sort of mill at all, this,” declared Thackeray with a superior air. “They shouldn’t have brought a novice out to face the Londoner. He hasn’t fairly grassed Meanix once.”

“There’s time enough,” Cribb pointed out. “The black’s scarce marked as yet. Meanix has the edge on the pully-hauly work, but it won’t count for much in a fight to the finish. There’s steam in the Ebony.”

Almost in response to this tribute the Negro rose to the referee’s next call and began to counterassault, plainly surprising Meanix. A well-directed left caught the Ox in the throat as he lumbered forward incautiously. A second jab with the same fist split his lip.

“On the ivories!” shouted one of the crowd.

Meanix put the back of his right hand to the bleeding mouth. It was an instinctive movement to check for blood. Unfortunately for him, it left his body unguarded. A lightning blow caught him in the stomach, and he dropped like a stone.

“Beautiful! On the mark!” called the admirer. Now it was the turn of Meanix’s seconds to drag him clear and revive him with sal volatile.

“The mark?” queried Thackeray.

“Point of the stomach. Known as Broughton’s mark,” Cribb explained. “One of the classic punches.”

Meanix had scarcely recovered when the end of the thirty seconds was called. The seconds heaved him upright and pushed him heftily towards his punisher.

“Now we’ll see if there’s any science to the Ebony,” Cribb said, in some excitement. “Any hawbuck fighter can fell a man. It takes class to keep him upright while you dose him.”

Class it was that the Ebony displayed, for the round lasted six minutes, and Meanix was hit with every variety of punch. Some in the crowd delightedly classified each blow in the patois of pugilism: “On the ivories!” “Whisker!” “Liver hit!” “On the mark!” “Peepers!” Others, more materialistic, sought out the bookmakers to cover their losses. The Ebony continued efficiently with his work, concentrating punches on the swollen areas of flesh around Meanix’s eyes and mouth. There was no need now for crude hammer blows; he hit with the cutting edge of the fist, the sharply angled central joints of the clenched fingers, lancing the swellings with a surgeon’s precision in short, swift stabs. When specks of blood showed at five or six points, he stood back to survey the work. Then, as Meanix blundered against the ropes, the Ebony attacked again with harder blows, broadening the incisions to free-flowing gashes, until lines of crimson patterned Meanix’s face and chest. Once Meanix threatened to overbalance, and the Negro hugged him maternally until he was sufficiently stable to take the next volley of blows. They were aimed at the mouth and jowls, which must have been particularly sore, for Meanix actually made a pathetic parrying movement before backing to the nearest corner. There he waited, leaning hard on the corner stake, his open hands raised to protect the wounds on his face. Instead the attack came in a series of cruel blows to the ribs. He bowed in agony, quite open now to an uppercut that would have settled the match. But the Ebony had other plans. He gripped his opponent under the chin and led him like the ox he was claimed to resemble to the centre of the ring. Then with astonishing agility he turned his back on Meanix and upended him over his thigh in a perfect cross-buttock.

Meanix lasted one round more. His attendants miraculously got him to the vertical position in the half-minute, but he was semiconscious when he lurched out. One eye was closed and the other half blinded with mud and gore. His bloated lips slobbered blood and saliva. In the corner he had spat out two teeth into the slop bucket. One blow finished the fight. A long, low jab in the diaphragm. He doubled forward and plummeted to the mud.

The sponge was tossed in beside him.

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.”