Peter Lovesey - The Detective Wore Silk Drawers

“This isn’t trouble,” Cribb reassured him. “I need your help. If you know any of the fist-fighting fraternity, you may help me find a killer. Where do you go to train?”

Jago replaced his hands in his pockets.

“There’s a public house near Covent Garden, Sergeant. The Anchor. It has a large room attached to it. The landlord had it fitted out as a gym. Most of the boxing men in London know it.”

“Fist fighters?”

Jago gulped. “Good heavens, no! It’s strictly a glove-fighting establishment-not exactly the Athenaeum, you understand, but there are certain limitations on the membership. Some of the attendants may be ex-pugilists, from what I’ve heard, but I don’t actually associate with them.”

“Really?” Breeding will out, thought Cribb wryly. “Ever heard talk of prize fighting going on these days?”

“Yes. There are those who hint at it. A whisper goes round that there’s sport to be had in some quiet corner of Kent or Essex, and a party’s got up to make an excursion. It’s not partridge or pheasant those characters go to find, Sergeant. But I think it prudent to close my ears to such talk.”

“You’ve heard nothing of the fights themselves. No names?”

“No, but if I showed interest-”

“Do they know you’re in the force?”

Jago gave thought to the question. His thinking processes were markedly less agile than Cribb’s.

“I don’t arrive in my uniform, and I most certainly avoid conversation about my duties. It’s possible that someone has heard of my matches in the police tournament, but I rather doubt that. They don’t treat me with the suspicion that one customarily encounters.”

“Good. When are you next going to the Anchor?”

“Tomorrow at lunchtime was the next training session I planned. There are usually several sparring partners available around noon. I limber for thirty minutes or so, and then have half a dozen rounds with whoever is there. A most interesting assortment of men find their way there. Military officers, undergraduates, members of the Stock Exchange-”

“You know their professions,” Cribb rapped out. “What’s to prevent them from knowing yours?”

“I keep it to myself, Sergeant. If they ask, I say I’m engaged in clerical work at Whitehall. Which I am, more’s the pity.”

Cribb was satisfied. He had harboured reservations about Jago’s ability to carry out detective work.

“Very well. If you want action, I can arrange it. From tomorrow onwards you’ll be working for me, and your duties will start at the Anchor. I need information about prize fighting and you’re the man to seek it out-names, places, times. Handle this carefully. Listen, rather than interrogate, but don’t be reluctant to show interest. Are you game?”

Henry Jago was game, and Sergeant Cribb left at once to arrange his transfer to M Division.

¦ To a field on the Moat Farm, a mile north of Rainham on the Southend Road, came three strangers. They carried a length of rope looped around the shoulders of the tallest, a bundle of stakes and a mallet. After agitated discussion and pointing of hands, they approached a patch of ground more even than the rest. Watched by a trio of interested sheep, they paced the shape of a square in earnest concentration. Four of the stakes were distributed at the corners and one was driven securely into the earth. The rope was attached to it, and payed out to a length of about eight yards, previously marked on the rope with white paint. The position for the second stake was measured and marked, but it was not fixed in the ground. Nor were the other two, although their points were used to make shallow holes in the turf. When this surveying exercise was complete, the men carried stakes, ropes and mallet to the hedge bordering the field and secreted them in the longer grass there. Their business completed, they returned towards Rainham.

¦ Two full days passed. Thackeray was sent to ask questions of the clientele in a list of public houses famous for their boxing promotions, from the Swan at Upper Clapton to the Marquis of Granby at Lambeth. All he learned was the Queensberry Rules and the potency of wines in wood. Jago sparred at the Anchor gymnasium until his ribs ached, and talked into the small hours with the trainers there. He learned the roll of champions from Figg to Mace. Sergeant Cribb attended an inquest on the headless pugilist and learned that he died from causes unknown. “The medical witnesses have not established indisputably that this unfortunate man died as the result of his beheading,” the coroner had said. “True, the post-mortem revealed no other cause of death, but until and unless the head of this corpse can be located, the post-mortem is not conclusive.”

The news of a prize fight arranged for Friday evening at a venue in Essex finally came not from one of Jago’s trainers, but from the stationmaster at Fenchurch Street.

“He frequents the gym at lunchtimes to practise lifting weights,” Jago explained to Cribb. “I believe he’s endeavouring to reduce his waistline. I scarcely know the fellow, but he overheard me asking somebody whether pugilism could ever be revived-an indirect method of inquiry, you see, Sergeant-and he quite openly told me that he knew of a fight this coming Friday night. He says that he can tell by the advance purchase of railway tickets. I inquired how he knew that it was not a gloved contest, and he told me that the day one of the fancy endures a train journey to, pardon the expression, see a bloody waltz with muffs on hasn’t come yet, and in his opinion never would.”

So Cribb and his two assistants waited stolidly in rich Essex mud surrounding the freshly erected ring at the Moat Farm. The conditions were not ideal for outdoor sport.

Rain had spotted the windows when the train reached Barking. At Rainham when they disembarked there was a deluge. It lessened in intensity as the three hundred pilgrims paddled along a lane running with water. Twenty minutes later when they reached the ring, there was a soft but insistent drizzle.

“Regulation boots! They let the water in like ruddy sluice gates,” Thackeray complained to Jago.

“Should have come prepared, like me,” Cribb intervened. “Never visit the country without galoshes and a waterproof. Antipluvium, this one. Excellent value. Hello! There’s action at last.”

Thackeray was distracted from his sodden feet by a commotion at one of the corners. A cap was tossed into the ring. A large figure ducked between the ropes. A hulk, far larger than Cribb’s headless corpse, retrieved the cap. Cheers from a few supporters. The response: a generous deposit of spittle where the cap had lain.

“Meanix!” announced several who knew. “The Stepney Ox!”

To murmurs of awe Mr. Meanix toured the ring, scowling at the patrons, and finally returned to his corner and produced a scarlet square of silk from his pocket. This he looped around one of the stakes. A supporter wrapped an overcoat around his shoulders. He shrugged it off and it dropped to the mud at his feet. It was humbly retrieved from under the lower rope. Meanix waited, statuesque, skin gleaming with moisture, trying to seem oblivious to the din around him.

“Ever seen him at the Anchor?” Cribb asked Jago.

“Good gracious, no, Sergeant. He’s not the class of man we encourage.”

There was no indication anywhere of an opponent for the Ox. Bookies snaking among the crowd were already taking bets freely, regardless that no one seemed sure who would be the second pugilist. There were copious suggestions, ranging from names well known in the amateur ring to former champions whose age would give them scant chance against Meanix.

“How does a man like that keep in trim?” Thackeray inquired. “If the Anchor wouldn’t admit him, where could he take his breathings?”