CHAPTER 6
“You’ll be waiting for someone to pick you up, I dare say, sir.”
Henry Jago nodded. He had been sipping a half pint of beer for forty-five minutes already. Since he was the only customer in the Fox and Grapes that afternoon, and his portmanteau stood inside the door, he could hardly deny the landlord’s conclusion.
“Going up to the ’All, are you?” The landlord was drying freshly washed tankards and wanted to talk as he worked. It was a difficult situation.
“Radstock Hall,” Jago admitted.
“Ah, Mr. Vibart should be coming for you with the trap, then. You’ll ’ave a pleasant drive through the lanes this fine afternoon. Makes a change, don’t it? Been there before, ’ave you?”
“No, I can’t say I have.”
“Ah.” This was uttered with great emphasis.
Three tankards later the landlord began again.
“I thought when you came in off the train, I thought here’s a lissome lad. If he’s going anywhere, it’s up to Vibart’s place. Most of the parties that go up to the ’All stop off ’ere, you see. Big lads, all of ’em. You’ll ’ave a good show of muscle round the epaulettes yourself, I can see. Funny, you know. What gives you scrappers away ain’t so much your build, or what you say. It’s what you drink-or rather what you don’t. I always say that a classy scrapper knows what’s good for ’im. Beer and bare fists don’t mix, do they? If a pug can’t keep ’is elbow down, there ain’t much future for ’im.”
There was no point in playing dumb, Jago decided. He should have recognized the landlord before as the referee at the fight between Meanix and the Ebony.
“You sound a connoisseur, landlord.”
The innkeeper came beaming round the counter.
“I think that’s a fair description, sir. There ain’t many I’ve not seen in the last twenty or thirty years-swells, Jews, Yankees, gippos-some capital fighters, I can tell you. In the palmy days, when the beaks winked at a fist fight, I ’ad matches every week out the back ’ere, in my yard. And we drew the gentry like yourself down from London-lords, judges, parliamentarians. Get a man like Mace in the magic circle and there wasn’t no limit to the class of spectator, royalty included.”
Jago saw possibilities in this conversation.
“It’s quite another story now, though.”
The landlord needed little prompting. “True, very true. The rough element-the sharp boys-spoilt it for the rest. If it weren’t for them money-grabbing fellows cutting rough, we’d ’ave open fist fighting today. I might say that I do admire Mrs. Vibart for what she’s doing for the sport.”
“
“Yes. Ah, you won’t ’ave met the lady yet. Your dealings will ’ave been with Edmund, I dare say. She’s the guvnor up at Radstock ’All, though, believe me. Never seen a public fist fight in ’er life, but knows the London prize- ring rules better than our vicar knows ’is Ten Commandments. If you’re invited to join the Radstock ’All bunch, it’s at Mrs. Vibart’s invitation, I can tell you.”
Jago had his instructions from Cribb to discover more about the occupants of Radstock Hall. This, if it could be believed, was sensational information.
“It’s most irregular, a woman taking an active interest in a man’s sport.”
“Most irregular woman altogether,” commented the landlord. “She’s got an eye for a fighter, all right. You may ’ave ’eard of the Ebony. Mrs. Vibart’s pet ’e ’is. Now if you want to see a pair of dukes attending to a man’s complexion, watch that Negro fight. As pretty a mover as you’ll see, and weighty with it. I wouldn’t spar with ’im unless ’e’s wearing mittens, and that’s sound advice.”
Sound, but superfluous. Cribb and Thackeray had both made the same point earlier that day.
The landlord wiped a window with his cloth.
“Don’t see no sign of ’im. If ’e’s stopped off at the church, there’s no telling when the old bugger’ll show up.”
“Oh,” said Jago, with interest. “He’s a religious man, is he?”
“Religious?” The connection seemed to escape the landlord. “Who, Vibart? You don’t know much about your friends at Radstock ’All, do you? Vibart’s the organist at the church ’ere and if you think that makes ’im religious, you ought to ’ear the language ’e uses when he ’its a wrong note, which is three or four times a service. There’s mothers in Rainham that’s stopped their boys from singing in the choir because of it. Vibart enjoys ’imself, though, and the vicar can’t find nobody else.” He shook his head. “You might be better off making your own way there. I could send your luggage on later. You don’t ride a bicycle, do you? You could borrow mine. Beautiful machine. India-rubber tires. Take you ’alf the time.”
Jago appreciated the generosity. The gleaming penny-farthing in the passage had caught his eye earlier.
“Thanks, but I’m a duffer at balancing.”
The landlord clapped a hand to his forehead.
“Blimey, of course you are! You’re the lad that fell flat on ’is face in ’ere the other night. I thought there was something about you.” He began to shake with laughter. “Well, don’t make an ’abit of it, lad, or Mrs. Vibart’ll feed you to the Ebony for breakfast!”
To Jago’s relief the merriment was cut short by the entry of Edmund Vibart.
“Henry Jago? Sorry I’m late. We cast a shoe on the first attempt and I had to go back and change the bloody horse. That’s your luggage, is it? Would you put it aboard, landlord? Then you can draw me a large beer. Welcome to Rainham, Jago! Hades apart, you won’t find a more Godforsaken hole than this.”
Jago smiled and inwardly recoiled. Vibart exuded sweat and self-importance. His clothes, broad check suit, silk shirt, crimson cravat and matching kerchief, jarred even on a sportsman’s sensibility.
“You’re a sizable fellow, aren’t you? I shan’t pick a bloody fight with you-not until we’ve trimmed you down a bit, eh? What’s your weight?”
“Around twelve stone, I believe.”
Jago under scrutiny felt as he imagined a bullock feels in a beef-stock sale.
“Not a bad weight. Not bad at all. You can reckon to lose a stone in the first two weeks of serious training. That’s if we take you on, of course. Stand up. Let’s see your height.”
“Whatever happens, co-operate,” Cribb had ordered Jago. That was going to call for extraordinary self- discipline. He got to his feet, trying to think of it as a duty sergeant’s inspection. Vibart’s head came close, at the level of Jago’s necktie. Macassar, cheap and pungent, invaded his nostrils.
“Good height, too. Six foot, I’d say, give half an inch either way.”
Jago fully expected a sweaty hand to force his lips apart for a dental inspection. Instead, Vibart took a step back, gave one more approving look at his build, and turned to the beer waiting on the table. In seconds it was gone. Then without another glance at Jago, he planted a deerstalker on his head and marched to the door.
“No time for another, landlord. We must get back. I may be in again in a day or two. Mrs. Vibart has plans for another set-to, you understand.”
“Very good, sir.”
As Jago followed, the landlord came with him to the door.
“Don’t mind ’im, young ’un,” he murmured. “But watch out for the lady.”
Driving through the lanes was as pleasant as the innkeeper predicted. The surface was badly rutted in places, but it was a well-sprung dogcart. Jago looked out across vegetable crops intersected by low hedges, and thought of Cribb and Thack-eray tramping by night across the same fields. There were compensations in being a junior constable.
Having made his assessment of Jago’s physique, Vibart was not much interested in conversation.
“Is it far?” Jago ventured.
“Far enough.”
“Not really a walking proposition, then?”
“If it was,” Vibart snapped, “I wouldn’t be acting as bloody cabby, would I?”
They passed a field where a ploughman was at work patterning the scene with furrows, pursued by flocks of scavenging birds. His face turned to watch the passing trap, but there was no wave of recognition.
