Peter Lovesey - The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

“Whatever happens, co-operate,” Cribb had ordered Jago. That was going to call for extraordinary self-discipline. He got to his feet, trying to think of it as a duty sergeant’s inspection. Vibart’s head came close, at the level of Jago’s necktie. Macassar, cheap and pungent, invaded his nostrils.

“Good height, too. Six foot, I’d say, give half an inch either way.”

Jago fully expected a sweaty hand to force his lips apart for a dental inspection. Instead, Vibart took a step back, gave one more approving look at his build, and turned to the beer waiting on the table. In seconds it was gone. Then without another glance at Jago, he planted a deerstalker on his head and marched to the door.

“No time for another, landlord. We must get back. I may be in again in a day or two. Mrs. Vibart has plans for another set-to, you understand.”

“Very good, sir.”

As Jago followed, the landlord came with him to the door.

“Don’t mind ’im, young ’un,” he murmured. “But watch out for the lady.”

Driving through the lanes was as pleasant as the innkeeper predicted. The surface was badly rutted in places, but it was a well-sprung dogcart. Jago looked out across vegetable crops intersected by low hedges, and thought of Cribb and Thack-eray tramping by night across the same fields. There were compensations in being a junior constable.

Having made his assessment of Jago’s physique, Vibart was not much interested in conversation.

“Is it far?” Jago ventured.

“Far enough.”

“Not really a walking proposition, then?”

“If it was,” Vibart snapped, “I wouldn’t be acting as bloody cabby, would I?”

They passed a field where a ploughman was at work patterning the scene with furrows, pursued by flocks of scavenging birds. His face turned to watch the passing trap, but there was no wave of recognition.

“Do you have many servants at the Hall?” Jago asked.

“One cook, one maid, one gardener. Germans.”

“Ah, that’s enough, I expect. Does your wife-”

“My what? ” Vibart turned a scandalized face towards Jago.

“Mrs. Vibart. Isn’t she- I’m most terribly sorry if I’ve jumped to a wrong conclusion,” said Jago, rather pleased at his guile. “I just assumed-”

“She’s my sister-in-law. Percy, my older brother, married her a year ago. Died of heart failure last Christmas. He was close to twenty years older than her. She inherited the entire bloody estate. I have my rooms there and help with the sporting arrangements. A woman can’t do business with the fancy, you see, so I act as agent. Blasted messenger boy and cabman, that’s my function.”

Vibart was plainly too obsessed with the indignity of his personal position to volunteer more information. They drove on in silence.

The approach to Radstock Hall was through a copse, and the air was distinctly cooler in the shade. A pair of wrought-iron gates barred the entrance to the grounds.

“Hold the reins while I unlock,” ordered Vibart. “Don’t be alarmed if you hear barking. We keep two dogs in the lodge.”

The din from inside the small building adjacent to the entrance was intimidating when Vibart touched the gates.

“Ferocious blasted animals,” he commented when he rejoined Jago. “They eat more steak than you could in a week and they’d still go for your throat if you met them off the chain. I’d have them shot myself, but she’s attached to them.”

The front aspect of the Hall was grand in its way, Jago decided as they drove towards it, but certainly inferior to Chapeldurham, ancestral home of the Jagos. The amber glow of brickwork in the afternoon sun was pleasing, but ivy had taken a grip and obscured much of the builder’s handiwork. It was too symmetrical, anyway, with twin gables flanking the turreted entrance porch, and precisely positioned casements. And the height of the chimney stacks was unsightly, if not dangerous.

Vibart’s pull at the bell rope was answered by the maid, a humourless woman in her fifties.

“The mistress will take tea with you in the sun lounge when you have unpacked,” she told Jago in a heavy accent as she led him through a panelled entrance hall to the stairs. Vibart, his mission completed, had slipped away without a word.

“I hope you find it satisfactory, sir.”

It was a small, comfortably furnished bedroom at the rear of the house, with brass bedstead, commode, wardrobe and armchair. All it lacked was ornaments, the sentimental knick-knackery that gave a room personality. Jago lifted his portmanteau onto the bed, took out Blondin and placed him reverently in the centre of the mantelshelf. Then he removed his jacket, lifted the water jug from its basin on the commode and began to wash his hands, whistling. From the window he could see the flat roof of the new grey-brick wing Cribb had described. That would be the gym. He looked forward to using it.

Fifteen minutes later Jago edged open the door of the sun lounge.

“Please come in, Mr. Jago. You must be ready for tea.”

A low-pitched voice for a woman, authoritative but not unfeminine.

“Over here. One has to force one’s way through the greenery, I know, but I like to take tea here in the summer.”

She was seated in a bamboo chair, almost obscured by a large semi-tropical shrub. Jago saw at once that Cribb’s description of “a deuced fine-looking woman” was gross understatement. Mrs. Vibart was magnetic; simultaneously demure and alluring.

She put forward a slender hand.

“Do be seated. I shall pour the tea. As a man in training, you do without milk, I expect?”

“If you please.” Jago was not particularly concerned about the contents of his teacup. He settled opposite her in a cane chair, marvelling that so elegant a creature could interest herself in the brutalities of the ring.

“Edmund was late, I understand. He is usually reliable. I expect he explained that he is the brother of my late husband. He is less intelligent than Percy was, and has none of his charm. You will doubtless have formed your opinion, however. A scone?”

“Thank you.” Jago’s social training took over. “You have given me a most comfortable room, Mrs. Vibart.”

She smiled. The parting of her lips caused Jago’s knee to jerk involuntarily. He re-crossed his legs.

“It is very small, but I think you should be comfortable there. If you decide to remain with us, you will not need to spend much time in your room. I have a well-equipped gymnasium-better, I believe, than the one you are used to, a billiard room and several lounges. Now, Mr. Jago-” she pushed the bamboo table and tea tray aside “-you are interested in fighting professionally, I believe.”

“That is so.” Jago hastily regrouped his thoughts.

“And you have some experience of amateur boxing?” She used the term as though it were foreign to her conversation.

“Yes, in a limited way. For two years.”

“Have you won any championships?”

“I did not bother to enter,” lied Jago. “Until recently, my only interest was in an occasional bout with a skilful opponent. I have sometimes beaten quite reputable amateurs.”

A pause. It was going almost exactly as Cribb had rehearsed it the day before. Except that Cribb lacked the power to distract.

“Mr. Jago. You are patently a gentleman. Where were you educated?”

“Privately, by tutor.” Public school records would be easy to check.

“And your university?”

This at least would be true. “I had a difference with my father and decided to forgo university.”

“Really? That was rather perverse.” The smile again. “What did you do then?”

“I tried to make my way in the legal profession, not too successfully.”