Peter Lovesey - The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

“It should be. If not, I’ll open it,” Vibart said appeasingly.

“Will you have another drink first?”

“I’ve had enough already, thank you.”

The Ebony left the room. No one imagined he had anything to collect from the gymnasium. He was driven out by the unendurable atmosphere.

Cigars were exchanged and glasses refilled to revive cordiality. Vibart took the initiative in this. Whenever Isabel was absent, he cast his cynicism like a chrysalis and expanded as a personality. “Sylvanus is bloody worried,” he told Jago, half confidentially. “You’re looking fitter than he expected. Mark my words, he’s gone to exercise in the gym!”

And then for everyone’s ears, brandishing a claret bottle, “Whatever the fancy think of tomorrow’s set-to, gentlemen, they’ll be in no doubt about the quality of the assistance Jago receives. There ain’t a more practised bottleholder than Edmund Vibart in the south of England!”

Beckett, too, was in high spirits when he rejoined them fifteen minutes later, rubbing his hands. “I’ll have a neat whisky now, if you please, Mr. Vibart, and drink to the success of our arrangement. Your sister-in-law drives a hard bargain, but I’ve paid in full and everything’s settled. We call you Quinton from now on, Jago-” He stopped suddenly.

“Where’s Morgan? Where the hell is Morgan?”

“Collecting some of ’is toggery from the gym,” Foster told him, as if he actually believed it.

“Ah, is that so? Well, he’s not necessary to our last item of business. The time and place, gentlemen, the time and place. Now let’s say this at the outset. We want no trouble from the police. They’ve queered too many pitches in the last year or two by getting wind of a fight before it takes place. So I’ve made it known that we’ve settled on Surrey and I hope it’s reached the law’s ears, for now I’d like to propose that we set up stakes in Kent-out Tunbridge Wells way. There’s a fast train out from London Bridge at noon.

We can put up there for a handsome lunch and then hire ourselves some swell carriages and pairs to take us into the country in style. Then Jago here-sorry, Quinton-and Morgan can have their good old-fashioned mill with the raw ’uns, while half the blues in Surrey are wearing out shoe leather looking for ’em.”

“It sounds a capital arrangement to me,” said Vibart enthusiastically.

Jago was thinking of Sergeant Cribb. “What about the onlookers-the fancy and the bookies? How will they know we’re not contesting the fight in Surrey?”

“They won’t-until about eleven tomorrow morning, when I let slip the word,” Beckett explained. “That’s early enough for the needle-pointed division. Every fighting pub in the East End will know within the hour. Are we agreed, then?”

“Entirely,” said Vibart after a nod from D’Estin.

Beckett stood, holding his glass high. “A toast to twenty-six sledge-hammering rounds at Tunbridge Wells, then.”

Jago sipped at his ginger beer, somewhat relieved that the Ebony had not been there to hear the toast. In fact it was some ten minutes before Sylvanus did return, and then he confounded everyone by having with him a bundle wrapped in a bathrobe that Jago remembered seeing in the gym.

“What have you got there, Morgan-Mrs. Vibart’s silver collection?” quipped Beckett. “We’d better get you away, man, before they loose the dogs on you. He’s scared of your dogs, you know, Vibart. He wouldn’t think of leaving Radstock Hall by night.”

“He’s wise,” said Vibart. “But don’t concern yourselves, gentlemen. While the gates are open, as they are tonight, we keep the dogs locked up. When your carriage has left, I shall unleash them. In fact, I should be grateful to join you as far as the gate.”

Outside, the warmth of the day lingered, although it was approaching eleven. The four men settled themselves in the carriage, Foster taking the reins.

“Remember, Jago,” Beckett called through the darkness.

“Twenty-five times you come to scratch. Leave the rest to Morgan.”

Foster laughed uproariously and cracked the whip. Long after the shape of the carriage was lost against the trees, his cackles could be heard above the grating wheels.

D’Estin nudged Jago’s arm. “Nervous? Let’s have a game of billiards. You’ll sleep all the better for it.”

D’Estin was right. retiring shortly before midnight, Jago settled quickly into untroubled sleep and woke much refreshed to sunshine and the colloquy of the rook community on his side of the house: no melodious awakening, but preferable to the squeak and trundle of handcarts and carriage wheels outside his lodgings at Palace Place. There had always been a rookery at home, at Chapeldurham; with his eyes trained on the ceiling, it was amusing how graphically the carving revived early memories. Each one in a line of three nannies was available for recall with her distinctive morning ritual: cold bath with coal-tar soap; wrestling match under the quilt; and rhubarb pills and stretching exercises.

He had been fully awake for perhaps three minutes when the second sound invaded his consciousness. It had not been there on other mornings-a persistent ululation, drowned at times by the clamour from the rooks, but continuing at its own level. A sound uncharacteristic of any bird or animal he knew, but certainly not of human origin. If only their racket would stop for a minute, he might distinguish some recognizable cadence. In exasperation he threw back the bedding, walked to the window and pulled up the lower casement.

Then he leaned out to catch the sound more acutely.

The source was clear at once. Some forty yards to his left, on the lawn adjacent to the billiard room and the gymnasium wing, were two huge dogs, Irish wolfhounds, the nocturnal guards of Radstock Hall. They stood facing the main block, rooted apparently to one small area of lawn, sometimes backing a few steps and then recovering the ground, straining to lift their muzzles to the maximum elevation, and all the time maintaining a series of melancholy howls that combined to make the weird monotone Jago had heard.

He watched them in mystification; this was no part of their routine. Once or twice each night he would hear them baying as they patrolled the woods, but by dawn they always returned to the lodge, waiting to be readmitted and fed.

One of the dogs appeared to have seen Jago, for it turned to direct its howling at him. But it made no attempt to approach. The small area of grass which they chose to regard as their pound was clearly defined by their prints in the dew; they must have been there for an hour at least. Yet there was nothing within the patch that he could see-no dead rabbit or resisting hedgehog-to detain them. In its agitation one of the dogs began rearing on its hind legs, and it was then Jago realized their howls were directed at an upper window of the house, the fourth away from his: Isabel’s.

He came away from the window, drawing it down to deaden the sound and allow him to consider what to do.

Dogs were not rational creatures and it was possible that their alarming behaviour was due to some trick of light or scent, or that some canine disorder had affected them. They were trained guard dogs, however, and it could be that they had trailed a genuine scent to the point where they could no longer follow. Some intruder might have scaled the drainpipes under Isabel’s window.

Jago felt bound to check that she was safe. He decided to rouse Vibart; it would certainly not do to intrude on Isabel alone. Both Vibart and D’Estin slept in rooms on the south side of the house and could not possibly have seen the dogs, even if they had dimly heard them. He drew on his bathrobe and went quickly along the corridor past D’Estin’s door to Vibart’s room.