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!”
CHAPTER 15
The first intimation of anything exceptional that afternoon in Groombridge was a sound carried on the wind, too faint even to be noticeable when there was a flurry of dry leaves along the street. But it persisted and was heard increasingly clearly, allusive as the resonance in a seashell. Tricks of acoustics in the uneven landscape produced a confusion of sounds supplanting each other from moment to moment: the unmistakable grate of carriage wheels; snatches of music-hall choruses; clattering hooves; unexpectedly clear conversations.
Most of the inhabitants were in the High Street peering towards Tunbridge Wells before the first vehicle appeared. A cart, with men walking beside it. Disappointingly commonplace. But next to turn the distant bend and come fully into view was a gleaming park phaeton with several passengers, and riders in attendance. It was the leader of an extraordinary parade of London life several hundred yards in length that gradually emerged from among the trees lining the road. Broughams and hansoms trundled in formation towards the village as though it were the cabstand in Pall Mall. Members of the gigmanity drove among them, their silk hats flashing intermittently as they passed under the avenue of beeches. Alongside rode numerous horsemen, and a few bicyclists endeavouring to maintain balance and conversation. Most impressive of all, choking the road as far back as one could see, trooped up to a thousand men of the labouring class. A number of others, practised from street urchin days, adhered to the sides of the larger carriages. The huge majority relied on chorusing and good-natured swearing to relieve their footslog. More formidably, sections towards the front carried cudgels ripped from trees along the route. In the thick of them rode the gentry, serene and unperturbed as travellers on a mediaeval pilgrimage.
Only a handful of spectators retreated indoors. The rest were held by curiosity. More than a thousand marching Londoners from every social class, costers almost shoulder to shoulder with stockbrokers: what momentous cause could possibly have united them? The answer was supplied (to those observant enough to see it) by the wagon at the head of the parade. Besides some dozen unpaying passengers it contained coils of rope, six- foot stakes, mallets and several wooden buckets. Anyone old enough to have heard of a set-to with the raw ’uns knew the impedimenta and could recognize the cart that led the patrons to a “safe locality,” within reach of several
