Peter Lovesey - The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

“Murder? What do you mean?”

Thackeray, seated between D’Estin and Vibart, remembered the strategy and tried to look as shocked as Cribb.

“It happened in Essex-at Radstock Hall, Rainham-late last night. Mrs. Vibart, this man’s sister-in-law, was stabbed in her bed. Morgan, the black, is responsible. I was his trainer at Radstock Hall.”

“Really? My information was that he spent the last week in London, taking his breathings with a man named Beckett.”

“Quite true,” confirmed D’Estin. “He deserted us a week ago.”

“How could he have killed Mrs. Vibart last night, then?”

“Ah, he came to Rainham with Beckett and another man to settle the arrangements for the fight. Mrs. Vibart left the party early to conclude the business with Beckett-he had brought the battle money, you see. The course of the fight was prearranged and had to be paid for. Beckett soon returned, but Morgan had also quit the room and he was absent for half an hour or more. He said he was intending to collect some personal articles, and when he returned, he was carrying a bundle, it was true, but it now occurs to me- and to others, I think-that the bundle could have contained the dagger that killed Mrs. Vibart, and some bloodstained clothing as well.”

Thackeray listened with increasing interest. This was new information; he had dismissed the Ebony from all his speculations because he believed he was in London the previous evening.

“Why should he have wanted to kill her?” asked Cribb.

“Theft. Beckett had just paid her five hundred pounds.

Morgan openly despised her anyway. He simply went to her room, stabbed her, and took the money. We found her this morning. The safe in the room was open, and empty. It was obvious who had done it.”

“If it was obvious,” said Cribb, “how did Morgan expect to get away with it?”

D’Estin slowly shook his head. “He’s not as simpleminded as you might think, Sergeant. He reasoned that we were all too implicated in this illegal fist fighting to inform the police. But he reckoned without the Englishman’s inborn sense of integrity. I’m sure that I speak for Vibart here when I say that whatever inconveniences we face over this fist-fighting nonsense, we know where our duty lies.”

“If that were true, sir,” commented Cribb, “you’d have reported all this to the Rainham police first thing this morning. Now, Mr. Vibart. You’ve heard what’s been said. Are you prepared to confirm that to the best of your knowledge it is true?”

Vibart, still spotted with Jago’s blood, nodded his head.

“It appears to be the only reasonable explanation.”

“Very well,” said Cribb. “Then, seeing that we’re all upright Englishmen, we’d better call Morgan in and put this to him. Will you fetch him, Thackeray?”

The Ebony was brought in, nursing his left wrist in his cupped right hand. His eyes, usually eloquent, were hardly visible for swollen flesh. Cribb explained in detail the turn that the inquiry had taken.

“In short, Mr. Morgan, you come under pretty strong suspicion.”

“I? Suspicion? You think I killed her? I didn’t know she was dead until this moment! Why should I kill her?”

“For the five hundred pounds Beckett handed her,” said Cribb, unaffected.

“You think I would kill for that? Listen to me, mister. I didn’t need money like that. I was getting paid nearly as much by Beckett, and I stood to pick up another three hundred in side bets. What did I need to kill her for? I was free of her, and all this lot. This man”-he pointed at Vibart-“helped me to make an arrangement with the London mob. I was finished with Mrs. Vibart.”

“Good God!” said D’Estin, open-mouthed.

“What was in the bundle you carried away from Radstock Hall last night?”

“Why, this dressing gown I’m wearing right now. If you think this is her blood on it, you’re wrong. It’s mine and Jago’s.” His protesting voice was at crescendo pitch.

“So you left the room to collect your dressing gown,” said Cribb calmly. “Why were you out so long if that was all you were doing?”

“You weren’t there,” blazed the Ebony. “You couldn’t possibly know how they were treating me. I stayed out because I wasn’t going back to be insulted by men like these two. They weren’t my masters, and I could do what I liked.

So I stayed in the changing room until it was time to leave.

You couldn’t know the atmosphere at Radstock Hall. It was evil. I was glad to get away, I can tell you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Things I heard from time to time. It made me feel my own life was in danger there. I wasn’t the first pug at Radstock Hall, you know. There were others before me. But they died or vanished. No one would say where they’d gone, but they hadn’t succeeded as fist fighters. I don’t know who they were, novices like Jago or experienced fighters like me.

Mrs. Vibart didn’t like to be reminded of them, I can tell you. You know what I think? I think they were put in the ring with hard fighting men and beaten senseless. Mrs.

Vibart made her money out of failures. She backed other fighters to destroy her own men. That’s what she was doing with this man Jago. I tried to warn him to get away-you can ask him if I didn’t. I was gentle with him today, though.

He’ll be quite well in a fortnight. You see if he isn’t.”

“Thank you,” said Cribb. “I shall have some more business with you later, Mr. Morgan, but that’s enough about this matter. I’ll be obliged if you’ll leave us now.”

The Ebony was quick to co-operate. When he was gone, Cribb regarded the others with eyebrows quizzically raised.

“Convinced me,” he said. “How about you, Thackeray?”

“I’m inclined to believe him myself, Sergeant.”

“The timing makes nonsense of it, anyway,” said Cribb.

“Morgan had half an hour-let’s give him three-quarters- in which to kill her. But in that time Mrs. Vibart is supposed to have concluded her business with Beckett-fifteen minutes would you say? — gone to her room, undressed, washed, folded all her clothes, brushed out her hair, got into bed and been murdered. Anyone who believes that knows nothing about women.”

D’Estin was about to speak, but Cribb checked him with a raised hand.

“Before you say another word, sir, I think I’d better give you all some information. Wouldn’t want you to commit yourself to anything before you know why we’re here, so to speak. These other men Morgan spoke of-pugilists who trained at Radstock Hall and later disappeared. I’m in charge of an inquiry into the manner of their disappearance.

We fished one of ’em out of the Thames, you see. Man named Quinton. No head. You remember him, don’t you?”

Vibart spoke: “Yes, he was with us. I didn’t know he had an accident, though, poor bastard.”

“Didn’t you now? He left you voluntarily?”

“Oh, he may have had a few wry words with my sister-in- law. He wasn’t much bloody use as a fighter, you see. My recollection is that he left after some kind of misunderstanding.”

“He didn’t get along with Mrs. Vibart?”

“Few of ’em did. It doesn’t come easily to a man to be ordered about by a woman who knows a devil of a lot more about the prize ring than he does.”

“You weren’t the expert on knuckle fighting at Radstock Hall, then?” queried Cribb.

“Me? I’m a blasted church organist. I did what I could for her after my brother died. She couldn’t negotiate direct with flash characters like Beckett. But she was the authority, not me. You can ask D’Estin here, or Jago.”

“Jago!” repeated D’Estin, suddenly inspired. “Henry Jago! He’s the man you want, Sergeant! He’s the only person who could have killed Isabel.”