“You?” Isabel exclaimed in astonishment. “God, Sylvanus! You must be out of your mind!”
The Ebony threw down his knife and fork. “And why?
Why is it so extraordinary that he should fight me?”
“Stow your gammon, Morgan,” intervened D’Estin.
“How many fist fights have you had in your time-twenty or thirty? This lad doesn’t know a mill from a Morris dance yet. He wouldn’t last two rounds in the ring with you. What are you bothered about? Haven’t we paid you enough attention lately?”
Isabel glared at D’Estin.
“What am I bothered about?” repeated the Ebony. “I’m a fighter. That’s why I’m here. I want fights, not fancy parties!”
Isabel held herself in check. “If that is really your attitude, Sylvanus, you need not stay.”
He was nodding his head. “All right, then. I apologize.”
“A fight between you and Henry,” Isabel continued, “would scarcely help any of us very much, even if you were evenly matched. Professionals fight for prize money, not side bets. When we have an antagonist for you on the right terms, you’ll see some more action. Fighting every other week for silver won’t further your career.” She was talking as his manager, putting her arguments with a force and purpose that should have detracted from her sexuality, but actually intensified it.
The Ebony had no answer.
“It’s a pity you didn’t join the other two at the police station, you ungrateful bastard,” commented D’Estin, insensitive to the electricity in the atmosphere. “Then Jago and I might have enjoyed ourselves tonight, eh, Jago?”
Definitely time to vary the conversation.
“Who does the large statue represent?” he asked Isabel.
It had faced him all evening, glaring bolt-eyed from behind Isabel: a life-sized hag in bronze, bare-breasted and with four arms.
“This is Kali, the black earth mother, Shiva’s wife,”
explained Isabel, in the manner of a drawing room introduction. “The Hindu goddess. Isn’t she magnificent? She is said to dance among the slain on the battlefield and eat their flesh. This is her terrible aspect, but she can be very beautiful. I have a copper miniature of her over there somewhere, behind Sylvanus, in a most becoming form.”
Jago persevered. “Why does she have four arms?”
“I really couldn’t tell you. Some of the gods have more; Durga, another form of this same goddess, has ten. She uses them all, you see.”
Jago stood to examine the hideous figure more closely.
“These two are held forward,” he remarked. “That would be to bless her followers, I expect?”
“Exactly! Do you see what the others are holding?”
The light was not good. Jago leant forward. “This hand holds a weapon-a dagger, I think. And this one-” His voice trailed away.
“It is rather gruesome, isn’t it?” said Isabel blithely. “She is holding the severed head of a giant, dripping blood. Percy once told me the story, but I cannot be sure of all the details now. She developed a thirst for blood quite involuntarily, poor thing. She killed a demon-a perfectly proper thing for a goddess to do-but Brahma had granted a special boon that every drop of the demon’s blood that was shed would create thousands more like him. What could Kali do but drink every drop herself?”
“I suppose so.”
“If you look closely, you’ll see her ornaments. She has earrings made of little children, and three necklaces: one of skulls, another of the heads of her sons, and another”-she paused significantly-“of a snake.”
There was silence in the room. Jago turned to look at Isabel. She was smiling, the tiny ruby eyes at her throat glinting in the candlelight.
“My candid opinion, if you want it, is that it’s a deuced ugly piece of furniture,” said D’Estin, breaking the tension.
“I don’t know why you keep it, unless it’s to scare the likes of Jago and Sylvanus here. Even the fist fighters I train aren’t equipped to square up to a four-armed fighting woman. Don’t it give you nightmares, Sylvanus?”
The Ebony was grim-faced. “She is the death goddess. It is foolhardy to provoke her.”
D’Estin’s fist thumped on the table. “God! He really believes in it! Black magic, eh, Sylvanus Mumbo Jumbo!”
He rocked back in his chair laughing, but it was the laugh of a man trying to convince himself of his own immunity to the atmosphere.
“No, Robert,” said Isabel coldly. “Not Mumbo Jumbo.
Dark, evil deeds are committed in Kali’s name. Unspeakable obscenities and sacrificial killings. She is a very potent goddess of death.”
D’Estin grunted contemptuously and felt into his waistcoat pocket. “As I would appear to have offended the gods, I’ll have a last cigar, then-if you and Madam Kali will permit, that is.”
Jago returned to his chair. New topics of conversation!
The atmosphere was more highly charged than when he had intervened to relieve it.
The cigar fumes now blended with the heady aromas of sandalwood and wine. Smoke writhed and swirled amorphously before spreading into horizontal planes above their heads. Jago’s eyelids smarted. The fumes were tricking his vision. The scarcely discernible figure of the goddess appeared to reach through the haze, beckoning.
“What was that?”
The mesmeric atmosphere had been disturbed by the slamming of a door in another part of the house. Isabel’s question was swiftly answered. The door behind Jago was thrust open by Edmund Vibart.
“So! I might have realized nobody would think of coming out to Rainham for me.”
He was flushed with annoyance.
“To join you at the police station?” D’Estin said sarcastically. “I didn’t think the rest of us were invited. What did they serve-meat or poultry?”
Vibart openly struggled to control his fury. “The bloody trap. You drove off with the bloody trap. How was I going to get back?”
“You could have borrowed the constable’s tricycle.”
He stepped in anger towards D’Estin, his fists clenched.
The trainer rose and leered down at him, cigar in hand, inviting aggression.
“That will do, Robert.” Isabel spoke with quiet authority.
“Fetch another chair, will you, Sylvanus? Now, Edmund, sit down and tell us what happened.”
“What do you think happened? I told him I was drinking in the bar and knew nothing about the fight.”
“He questioned you?”
“Extensively. I told him nothing except my name and address, which he knew anyway. Finally, he agreed to let me go. I think he wanted to spend more time questioning the other cove.”
“Who was that?” Isabel asked.
“The tall ’un from London.”
“Not one of the Beckett mob?” asked D’Estin.
“God, no. This was one of the gentry. A nobby-looking cove in a deerstalker and Norfolk.”
Jago mentally noted the description. Cribb would savour it.
“What was he doing at the Fox tonight?” Isabel asked.
Vibart shrugged. “Why ask me? See Constable Dalton in the morning. That old leech’ll be catechizing him all bloody night. There won’t be much he can’t tell you by tomorrow.
Have you drunk all the champagne?”
Jago’s depression returned. How could Cribb give a convincing explanation when he was so obviously a stranger in the area? Constable Dalton didn’t sound like a man easily taken in. What if Cribb were charged?
His attention was brought back to the conversation.
Vibart was asking Isabel for money.
