“Do you have many servants at the Hall?” Jago asked.
“One cook, one maid, one gardener. Germans.”
“Ah, that’s enough, I expect. Does your wife-”
“My
“Mrs. Vibart. Isn’t she- I’m most terribly sorry if I’ve jumped to a wrong conclusion,” said Jago, rather pleased at his guile. “I just assumed-”
“She’s my sister-in-law. Percy, my older brother, married her a year ago. Died of heart failure last Christmas. He was close to twenty years older than her. She inherited the entire bloody estate. I have my rooms there and help with the sporting arrangements. A woman can’t do business with the fancy, you see, so I act as agent. Blasted messenger boy and cabman, that’s my function.”
Vibart was plainly too obsessed with the indignity of his personal position to volunteer more information. They drove on in silence.
The approach to Radstock Hall was through a copse, and the air was distinctly cooler in the shade. A pair of wrought-iron gates barred the entrance to the grounds.
“Hold the reins while I unlock,” ordered Vibart. “Don’t be alarmed if you hear barking. We keep two dogs in the lodge.”
The din from inside the small building adjacent to the entrance was intimidating when Vibart touched the gates.
“Ferocious blasted animals,” he commented when he rejoined Jago. “They eat more steak than you could in a week and they’d still go for your throat if you met them off the chain. I’d have them shot myself, but she’s attached to them.”
The front aspect of the Hall was grand in its way, Jago decided as they drove towards it, but certainly inferior to Chapeldurham, ancestral home of the Jagos. The amber glow of brickwork in the afternoon sun was pleasing, but ivy had taken a grip and obscured much of the builder’s handiwork. It was too symmetrical, anyway, with twin gables flanking the turreted entrance porch, and precisely positioned casements. And the height of the chimney stacks was unsightly, if not dangerous.
Vibart’s pull at the bell rope was answered by the maid, a humourless woman in her fifties.
“The mistress will take tea with you in the sun lounge when you have unpacked,” she told Jago in a heavy accent as she led him through a panelled entrance hall to the stairs. Vibart, his mission completed, had slipped away without a word.
“I hope you find it satisfactory, sir.”
It was a small, comfortably furnished bedroom at the rear of the house, with brass bedstead, commode, wardrobe and armchair. All it lacked was ornaments, the sentimental knick-knackery that gave a room personality. Jago lifted his portmanteau onto the bed, took out Blondin and placed him reverently in the centre of the mantelshelf. Then he removed his jacket, lifted the water jug from its basin on the commode and began to wash his hands, whistling. From the window he could see the flat roof of the new grey-brick wing Cribb had described. That would be the gym. He looked forward to using it.
Fifteen minutes later Jago edged open the door of the sun lounge.
“Please come in, Mr. Jago. You must be ready for tea.”
A low-pitched voice for a woman, authoritative but not unfeminine.
“Over here. One has to force one’s way through the greenery, I know, but I like to take tea here in the summer.”
She was seated in a bamboo chair, almost obscured by a large semi-tropical shrub. Jago saw at once that Cribb’s description of “a deuced fine-looking woman” was gross understatement. Mrs. Vibart was magnetic; simultaneously demure and alluring.
She put forward a slender hand.
“Do be seated. I shall pour the tea. As a man in training, you do without milk, I expect?”
“If you please.” Jago was not particularly concerned about the contents of his teacup. He settled opposite her in a cane chair, marvelling that so elegant a creature could interest herself in the brutalities of the ring.
“Edmund was late, I understand. He is usually reliable. I expect he explained that he is the brother of my late husband. He is less intelligent than Percy was, and has none of his charm. You will doubtless have formed your opinion, however. A scone?”
“Thank you.” Jago’s social training took over. “You have given me a most comfortable room, Mrs. Vibart.”
She smiled. The parting of her lips caused Jago’s knee to jerk involuntarily. He re-crossed his legs.
“It is very small, but I think you should be comfortable there. If you decide to remain with us, you will not need to spend much time in your room. I have a well-equipped gymnasium-better, I believe, than the one you are used to, a billiard room and several lounges. Now, Mr. Jago-” she pushed the bamboo table and tea tray aside “-you are interested in fighting professionally, I believe.”
“That is so.” Jago hastily regrouped his thoughts.
“And you have some experience of amateur boxing?” She used the term as though it were foreign to her conversation.
“Yes, in a limited way. For two years.”
“Have you won any championships?”
“I did not bother to enter,” lied Jago. “Until recently, my only interest was in an occasional bout with a skilful opponent. I have sometimes beaten quite reputable amateurs.”
A pause. It was going almost exactly as Cribb had rehearsed it the day before. Except that Cribb lacked the power to distract.
“Mr. Jago. You are patently a gentleman. Where were you educated?”
“Privately, by tutor.” Public school records would be easy to check.
“And your university?”
This at least would be true. “I had a difference with my father and decided to forgo university.”
“Really? That was rather perverse.” The smile again. “What did you do then?”
“I tried to make my way in the legal profession, not too successfully.”
“I think I know the rest,” said Mrs. Vibart. “You met a young woman who lives in Richmond and you hope to marry her, but your present financial position is such that you could not presume to discuss it with her father.”
This much Cribb had agreed could be let slip to Jago’s contact at the Anchor. Yet hearing the details repeated so faithfully by Mrs. Vibart alerted Jago to the seriousness of his position. Every part of his story would be checked.
“And so you want to make money, large amounts of money, from your skill as a fighter.”
“If I can.”
“We shall see. If you have the ability, the prizes are considerable. What will you say if your prospective father-in-law asks where your fortune came from?”
It was a question Cribb had not anticipated. Jago thought of Colonel Boltover.
“My feeling is that he would be sufficiently impressed by the money not to inquire where it came from, but if he discovered the truth, I doubt whether it would make much difference. He is a sportsman.” Correct in its way, although Boltover’s enthusiasm for Lord’s was unlikely ever to extend to secret prize rings in Essex fields.
“I hope you are right. I should not want your. . new interests here to lead to an estrangement between you and the young lady.” Mrs. Vibart spoke with a strange emphasis. Jago felt the colour begin to rise to his cheeks. Blushing had always been his problem, a grave handicap to a plainclothes man. “Well, Mr. Jago,” she said. “I must show you my gymnasium.”
It was of small significance, but Jago was fascinated by Mrs. Vibart’s poise. Throughout their conversation she had sat forward on her chair, as upright as a governess, emphasizing the cut of her velvet bodice. And now she rose with scarcely any tilt of her body. As an athlete, Jago marvelled at such control. She had, in effect, performed a standard gymnastic exercise which he often practised. Even allowing for her slight build and the probable support of a corset, she could not have risen so elegantly without considerable power in her thighs. Jago blushed again.
She led him through a billiard room, superbly equipped, where her brother-in-law was practising shots. He did not look up as they passed.
“Here it is,” she said, opening a baize-covered door. “Mind that you say it impresses you, Mr. Jago, because I
