There was nothing inside.
Thackeray blinked. “It’s impossible! There were sheets-”
“False bottom.” Cribb was already on his knees groping at the sides of the interior for a release catch. “It opened up and they slid underneath.”
But in spite of his methodical probing of the sides and bottom, the trick would not work for Cribb. The chest, which was about five feet in length, two feet wide and the same in depth, was built of solid oak. It would not be easy to smash one’s way through.
“Give me your hat.”
Mystified, Thackeray handed over his bowler. Cribb dropped it into the window seat and closed the lid. Then he opened it. The hat was still there.
“Blast!”
He slammed the lid down again and lifted it a second time. There was the hat.
“When you got up,” Cribb said, “you must have set the thing in motion. That was when we heard it. Sit down again.”
Thackeray obeyed.
“Now get up.”
Thackeray put his hands along the edge to pull his considerable weight forward and upward. But when he rose and the lid was lifted, the hat remained obstinately in position like a cat by the milk cart.
“I think I know what it was, Sarge,” said Thackeray on a sudden inspiration. “Close the lid.”
Cribb did so, and the Constable then began feeling and pressing the brass hasp. After a moment there was a distinct movement from inside.
“I felt it go, Sarge!” he said in excitement. “You turn the staple to the right.” He lifted the lid and confirmed that the hat had actually vanished. Then he tried manipulating the hasp again. “It won’t work unless the lid is closed.”
“Get inside, then,” Cribb ordered without hesitation.
“Wedge something against the bottom when I try to force the lid open again.”
Thackeray climbed in, feeling like the passive partner in a music-hall turn. It was not easy wedging a six-foot frame into a space designed for five. The lid came down. He waited in the darkness, uncertain what to expect, while Cribb fiddled with the hasp on the outside. The air was musty.
Cribb lifted the lid. “It won’t turn. Can you force your feet against the end and take your weight off the floor?”
In darkness again, Thackeray braced against the sides to suspend himself clear of the floor. To a muffled shout of triumph from outside, it swung downwards beneath him. He lowered one foot into the cavity. Three feet down it touched something dome-shaped. His hat.
“Are you all right?” called Cribb.
“Yes, Sarge. I’m standing in the lower part now, but I can’t see what size it is.”
“Take off your boots and wedge them against the base to stop it closing when I force open the lid.”
He did so, crouching clear of the hinging mechanism.
“All right, now!”
An inch-wide strip of daylight severed the blackness above him. He leaned on the hinged base as Cribb strained to widen the gap. After a moment the combined force of the two men overcame the work of the Tudor carpenter. To the sound of splintering wood, the lid swung back. Thackeray stood upright inside with his face at the level of the lid.
“What’s inside, then?” Cribb demanded.
Thackeray crouched and retrieved his crushed bowler hat and a set of pillowcases and handed them to the Sergeant.
He bent again. “There’s something else.”
It was an overcoat, an ulster, heavily stained with blood.
Some stains were old, some fresh enough to be still slightly damp. Cribb felt the coat pockets and took out a long straight-bladed dagger. “Anything else in there?”
Thackeray smiled as he bent in the darkness. Cribb’s question graphically reminded him of a badly brought up nephew at the bran tub. He groped and came up with one of his own boots and a leather valise. It was thick with documents.
There was one other object at the bottom of the cavity apart from his second boot-a cross-cut saw. Cribb was too engrossed in the papers to take it from him.
“Hadn’t we better get after Jago now, Sergeant?”
“Jago? Oh, yes.”
Cribb had seen all that he needed of the documents.
They were deposited with the other finds back in the broken seat cavity, ready to be picked up later as court exhibits.
A setback awaited them at the stables. No horses.
“There must be a paddock,” decided Cribb. “Find yourself a saddle, Constable.”
Thackeray selected the best-upholstered one he could from a selection hanging on the stable wall and stumbled inexpertly after the Sergeant, who already had a saddle slung across his shoulder. They followed hooftracks to a small, fenced clearing. Two grey stallions under a tree regarded their approach indifferently, their tails flicking at flies.
“Ever saddled a horse, Thackeray?” Cribb asked as they let themselves through the gate.
“If I’m honest, no, Sarge.”
“Nor have I. Always a first time, eh?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“I’ll take the brute on the right, then.”
“Very good, Sergeant.”
“They don’t look so friendly now we’re near, do they? I’d go so far as to say that mine looks positively vicious.”
“Shall we saddle one between us, Sarge? Take them one at a time?”
“Capital suggestion. Whoa, there! Nasty animal. Better try the other one. I think if you could hold its head. .”
Ten minutes later the horses, still unsaddled, watched the law retreat, limping and defeated.
“These fights never start on time,” Cribb was saying.
“I’ve no doubt we’ll be there before it’s got very far.”
The noon sun bore down heavily as they made their way across the fields towards Rainham. The blister on Thack-eray’s right foot was now troubling him more than the hoof kick on his shin. It was going to take at least an hour to reach the station. Then they had to get to London Bridge, find out where exactly the fight was to be staged, and take the first available train there. Jago could be beyond help by then.
“What’s that?”
Ahead of them a flock of birds had taken flight simultaneously, plainly disturbed by something. Cribb took out his field glasses.
“Curious. Take a look. Moving along the line of the hedgerow. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a bobby’s helmet.”
Thackeray looked. “But it is, Sarge! It’ll be the Rainham man on his tricycle. He’s coming along the lanes. We can intercept him by the gate there!”
Both men forgot their soreness and sprinted for the lane.
The helmet, uncannily smooth in its progression, threatened to glide past altogether. They shouted as they ran, and the constable came to an emergency stop some fifteen yards past the gate.
“What, what, what?” he said, still seated aloft on his Harrington Desideratum with fifty-inch solid India-rubber-tired wheels.
“Criminal Investigation,” panted Cribb. “Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, investigating a series of murders.
We need your machine.”
“Murders? Machine?” repeated the bewildered tricyclist.
“Hurry, man! We’ve got to get to London.”
“Wait a minute,” said the constable. “Don’t I-”
“If you don’t dismount at once, sir, I shall be forced to knock you off your machine!”
The constable still looked extremely sceptical, but there was a note of determination in Cribb’s voice anyone would have heeded. He clambered down. “I feel sure that I’ve seen you-”
“Your bicycling stockings, if you please,” intervened Cribb.
“What? Good Lord! Not my stockings!”
“Help him, Thackeray! Get them on yourself.”
Before another minute had passed, the constable of Rainham was seated barefoot on the verge, and Thackeray had taken his place in the saddle.
“Sorry to leave you like this,” explained Cribb. “Events demand it. If you walk up to Radstock Hall, you’ll find Mrs.
Vibart’s body in her room. She’s been stabbed. We’re on our way to make the arrest. We’ll leave your velocipede at the station.” He stepped up onto the back axle of the Desideratum and gripped his assistant’s shoulders. “Pedal away, Thackeray!”