county boundaries, where interfering magistrates could not hound them for long.
Three men rode in the grey phaeton. One was obviously to be the protagonist, from the attention he was receiving. A persistent struggling throng moved with the carriage, straining to touch him, his clothes, or just the coachwork, as though contact bestowed some association with his power. For he was a huge man, a Negro, and there was talk that he had never been beaten. For his part, he reclined awkwardly among the cushions, plainly hating the enforced inactivity and ignoring the rapture around him. His two companions in the phaeton compensated by shaking every hand within reach.
The racket of shouting and chanting should have struck panic into Groombridge, without the appalling appearance of the roughs in such numbers. In parts of the home counties prize-fighting mobs were ingrained in popular folklore with plagues and witches. Old men told tales of huge groups of roughs and bloods looting and ravaging whole villages unfortunate enough to lie in their route. Strangely, though, the damage resulting from the present invasion was negligible. Two or three windows were idly shattered and one hysterical terrier retired limping. There were plenty of threats with an unbroken flow of East End invective, but even the brandishing of the roughs’ “twigs” had little conviction. For if they looked like a regiment in disarray, in reality an inner discipline governed their conduct. Every one of them saw the need to keep on the move towards the secret venue. Even the necessary taking of drinks at the Lion was a snatch-and-gulp performance. The return would be different. Shutters would be closed and doors bolted then.
The Negro’s adversary rode several carriages behind in a closed brougham with two others, presumably his second and bottleholder. He, too, had his supporters clustering about the cab, but their behaviour was more inquisitive than enthusiastic, possibly because it was difficult to see him. If it really were he facing forward-and nobody seemed to know him for certain-he looked disturbingly jaundiced.
¦ “No right to be on the box at all, that man,” ejaculated Cribb. “If a cabby can’t cross from Fenchurch Street to London Bridge inside ten minutes, he shouldn’t have a license. Now, where’s the constable on duty?”
Thackeray spotted a helmet near the timetable board and inwardly implored its wearer to be competent. He could not remember Cribb in a more peppery state.
“You! How long’ve you been on duty?”
The young officer looked at Cribb, torn for a moment between an indignant “Who d’you think you’re talking to?”
and “Too bloody long for my liking, mate.” The warning flash in Thackeray’s eyes saved him.
“Since eight this morning. Can I ’elp you, guvnor?”
“Cribb. C.I.D.” The constable stiffened. “A strong party of the fancy came through this morning. You saw them?”
He recalled them well enough, a rowdy contingent, probably bound for a race meeting, he had decided. “Why, yes, about twelve-thirty, er-”
“Sergeant,” Cribb informed him. “Which platform?”
“Two, I think-”
“Think? Thinking ain’t good enough for me, Constable!
Which train?”
Providence had placed the timetable nearby. “Must ’ave been the twelve-forty-eight, Sergeant, Sydenham, Croydon and Reigate Junction.”
“Next one out’s two-eighteen,” added Thackeray.
In ten minutes they sat in a crowded third-class carriage watching the housetops of Bermondsey and New Cross pass by the window. Afternoon sunshine filtered through the grimy glass onto the nodding faces opposite-a fat, flushed woman in dolman jacket and a hat supporting a small stuffed bird and satin cherries that rocked with the train; and her two pale sons clutching and systematically emptying bags of jujubes. In the corner a wide-awake hat had tilted forward to muffle its owner’s snores. Thackeray screwed up his handkerchief in his pocket and thought about Henry Jago.
“If he’s innocent,” said Cribb, unprompted “-and that’s what you’ll have assumed, being the generous-hearted cove you are-then you must give me someone else to arrest.”
Thackeray nodded. Cribb’s favourite game: find me a murderer and I’ll show you how wrong you can be. At least it would provide distraction.
“I’ll try, Sarge.” Thackeray spoke at first with his hand guarding his mouth. When the other passengers displayed no interest at all, it slipped slowly down to his lap. “It seems to me that there are three possible suspects from what we know, and that’s mainly from Jago’s letters.”
“Which could be nothing but. . Never mind,” said Cribb. “Continue.”
“Well, there’s Morgan-the black, D’Estin and Vibart.
They all had motives of a kind. The Ebony unquestionably hated being in her power-you remarked on that yourself that night when you watched her massaging him. I find myself wondering whether she had something over him and was blackmailing him. Not for money directly, but for the service he offered-as a fighter, I mean.”
“Quite so,” assented Cribb.
“Now, D’Estin, to my thinking, had an altogether different motive. From what Jago told us of his manner towards Mrs. Vibart-remembering that he was only a trainer-I don’t think it can be doubted that he was-how can I put it-on more than friendly terms with the lady.”
Cribb raised an eyebrow. “Plausible, Constable, plausible.”
“They had adjoining rooms when Jago moved in, Sarge.
Then there was that argument and D’Estin had to move his things to another part of the house. Now that suggests a lover spurned to me.”
“Crime of passion,” said Cribb.
“Exactly!”
“And Vibart?”
“Ah, yes. Vibart. Now he never seemed to hold his sister-in-law in much regard, and from his point of view I can understand why. When his brother died, she became the owner of Radstock Hall and all the estate. Edmund got nothing out of it, and wouldn’t until she died.”
“Motive: inheritance,” said Cribb. He glanced out at one of the Croydon halts. “Those are your three, then. Which one?”
“Well, I think we can discount the Ebony.”
“Why should that be?”
Thackeray looked at Cribb in disappointment. Wasn’t it obvious? “From Jago’s account of it he was quitting Radstock Hall. He’s been living in the East End for a week, hasn’t he? I don’t see how he could have broken training to go back to Essex and murder Mrs. Vibart, Sarge. Besides, there wasn’t any signs of a break-in. We checked the doors and windows.”
“Very well. Go on. Now you’re down to passion and inheritance.”
“And there I stop, I’m afraid,” admitted Thackeray.
“Oh, I could construct theories from here to Reigate Junction if you like, but I don’t see myself reaching any strong conclusion. One of ’em did it, and wants to implicate Jago by planting the money in his bed, but I couldn’t say who.”
“Capital deductions,” remarked Cribb. “I’d say you’ve got the answer there unless. .” He stopped and regarded the unlit oil lamp swinging above them.
“Unless, Sarge?”
“Unless we accept the obvious.”
Thackeray looked away. Like Cribb, he preferred not to discuss the obvious.
¦ However freely Jago’s eyes moved about the sights around him-the crowd wedged ten or twelve deep, carriages drawn up behind as makeshift grandstands, a spinney of chestnuts screening the sun and forming two sides of a natural arena- they were drawn back to the Ebony’s hands. For the first time he appreciated their size, the breadth of their span, the beam-like thickness of the wrists supporting them and, most pertinent, the shape of the bone structure. As a youth he had been taken round the College of Surgeons by a doctor-uncle, and a plaster cast of one of Tom King’s arms had been pointed out. The memory of its extraordinary size remained clearly with him.
Certainly the Ebony’s forearm development was less pronounced, but the fists themselves were arguably
