“Have a nip of brandy and water,” suggested Vibart as he handed D’Estin the instrument. “There’s twenty-four bloody rounds to go, you know.”
“Are you seriously proposing that I should raise a party of men at half-past two on a Saturday afternoon? This is Tun-bridge Wells, Sergeant, not Scotland Yard. Three-quarters of my men are off duty, and that leaves four of us. I refuse to close the office to hare off after a bunch of London riffraff that might be over the county boundary by now. I’ve got the town to look after.”
He had to be an inspector. Anyone of lesser rank would have jumped to accommodate Sergeant Cribb.
“You could call them back on emergency duty, sir, if you’ll pardon me suggesting it.”
“Emergency?” From the inspector’s tone it was clear that the term was inappropriate to anything that happened in Tunbridge Wells. He was a huge man wedged behind a ridiculously small desk. Getting in there must have been a considerable feat of human engineering, certainly not to be performed more than once a day. “Listen to me, Sergeant- if you can stand still a moment. I happen to know where three of my best constables are this afternoon, and that is on the cricket field. The annual match against the men of Maidstone is taking place not ten minutes away from here, and it happens that two of my constables open the bowling for the town and the third keeps wicket. It would have to be a very grave emergency indeed for me to interrupt that.
Damn it, man, you’re asking me to destroy an entire career devoted to cultivating local good will.”
This was enough for Cribb. “I suggest to you, sir that you reconsider that point. I’m from Scotland Yard, as I told you, and I wouldn’t come asking you for support if it wasn’t more important than a Saturday cricket match. There are men among this bunch of riffraff, as you call ’em, who are under suspicion of several murders. If we don’t get out there with a group of able constables in the next half-hour, there’s going to be ugly questions asked when I get back to London.”
“I hope you’re not trying to intimidate me, Sergeant.”
“Not at all, sir. Simply stating facts. And this gentleman here,” Cribb jerked his thumb at Thackeray, “will no doubt have a clear record of our conversation, seeing that he’s been specially assigned to accompany me and make a full report to the Director of Criminal Investigation on the conduct of this inquiry.”
Thackeray felt for his pencil.
The inspector moved.
“A better round, that,” said Vibart. “Some of this blood on your arms belongs to him, I think.”
“You leave the talking to me,” snapped D’Estin. “And watch what they’re doing in the other corner. If they’re using resin, we’ll appeal to the referee. Now listen to me, Jago.
You’re just a chopping block at the moment, and the crowd’s getting restless. You’ve got to come back at him. Use your legs.
You should be nippier on your feet than he is. Go for the throat. Good, straight punches with the knuckles pointed forward. Remember what the bastard did to Isabel.”
“Time!” called the referee.
Jago toppled to scratch where the Ebony waited to commence round seven.
¦Sergeant Cribb sat in the semi-darkness of the Tunbridge Wells police van with Thackeray and the three young men in cricket flannels. It was being driven at high speed along the road to Groombridge. Conversation at that level of vibration was difficult, but instructions had to be given.
“The driver should take us as close as possible-up to the ropes if he can. Then it’s the men in the ring I want, and the attendants. Never mind the rest. Bundle them in here as soon as you’ve got the bracelets on ’em. Then we’re driving back to Tunbridge Wells. And, Thackeray-”
“Yes, Sarge?”
“I want nothing said about us being at Radstock Hall this morning, or what we found there.”
Thackeray nodded sullenly. Cribb might have spared him that small humiliation in front of the local constables. The Sergeant was singularly uneasy, and he could understand why, but there ought to be some measure of confidence between them by now. Cribb hadn’t intimated even vaguely who it was he expected to charge with Mrs. Vibart’s murder.
“What about Jago, Sarge?”
“Jago? What about him?”
“He’ll be there in the ring, Sarge. Do we arrest him?”
“Of course we do! He’s prize fighting, ain’t he?”
Barely two-thirds of the way through, and he was so sore about the knuckles that every punch connecting with the Ebony brought more agony than it inflicted. Both fists were grotesquely swollen; they had an independent weight, like iron gloves. But they were flabby as joints of beef, and almost as raw. Their cutting edge had been blunted in the first quarter of an hour, turned to pulp in the next. And champions endured four hours of this!
The Ebony, for his part, had kept the fight alive by attacking the body, once the face was too lavishly ornamented with cuts and swellings. Two or three times he had allowed Jago to bring him to grass with a wrestler’s hold; once, for self-esteem, he tossed Jago heels over head against a side stake, and the crowd surged forward from the outer ring to see the damage. By good fortune it was minimal, and in the next round Jago had upset the backers by rocking the Ebony against his own corner post and bringing a trickle of blood from his ear.
Now, though, there was a change in Morgan’s tactics.
The lethal knuckles, rested by several rounds of obscure grappling, resumed the orthodox pose, taunting the victim in cobralike darting movements. The urgency directing them was inescapable. Jago waited, Argus-eyed. With eighteen rounds gone, the real fight was just beginning.
¦ “What have you stopped for now, Constable?” barked Cribb from inside the police van. The vehicle was quite stationary; the occupants, dressed as they were, might have been sitting in any pavilion waiting for a shower to pass.
“Crossroads, Sergeant. I don’t know whether to go on to Withyham or take the left turn into Ashdown Forest.”
“Look at the tracks, man, the tracks! We’re following a thousand or more blasted men and wagons. If you can’t see which route they took, you’d better come down and give the reins to me.”
The reassuring clatter of hooves began again.
“A thousand!” exclaimed the wicketkeeper, sweeping around for support. “How can we possibly take on a thousand roughs dressed like this?”
Cribb gave him a withering look. “You should know. Stand right up to ’em-and if you miss a catch, you’re for it.”
“How’s that, sir?” murmured Thackeray.
“Finish him!” screamed the crowd.
“He’s going! He’s going!”
“Look out! The blues!”
Jago sagged on the ropes, unable to visualize anything but general areas of light and shade. Mechanically his head continued to dodge and sway. Hands stilled his pawing fists.
“Told you I knew when to intervene,” said the voice of Sergeant Cribb.
CHAPTER 16
Cribb’s first order on arrival at Tunbridge Wells police station was for the Ebony and Jago, still linked by handcuffs, to be separated and helped away to be cleaned up and examined by a doctor. The others who had been detained, D’Estin and Vibart (the Ebony’s attendants having vanished into the crowd), were taken to the inspector’s office for questioning. Cribb took the chair. Its owner had dismissed himself for a rest after the earlier excitement.
“Now, Mr. D’Estin. You say you want to tell me something important. Damned if I could hear anything in that confounded van with the two fist fighters groaning every time we went over a bump.”
“It’s of the greatest importance, Sergeant. I want to report a murder.”
“Murder? What do you mean?”
Thackeray, seated between D’Estin and Vibart, remembered the strategy and tried to look as shocked as Cribb.