“Well, then.”
He turned at the sound of her voice and blinked in surprise.
She was wearing white. A white sari.
“Have I startled you, Henry?”
Jago fumbled for words, “You usually dress in-”
“Black? I wear the colour of mourning, from respect for my late husband. And white is the mourning colour in the East. In the circumstances, it isn’t sacrilegious to wear a white sari, is it? What do you think?”
Jago could only think that Isabel should never wear anything but white. Light was refracted on her neck and the underside of her cheeks, the skin as luminous as procelain.
“It becomes you.”
She accepted the compliment with the slightest tilt of her eyebrows.
“I bought the material in Regent Street, and had my dressmaker put it together. It probably isn’t anything like the authentic Indian dress, but who knows in England? I find it infinitely less constricting than the European fashions.”
A statement he had no difficulty in believing. Isabel crossed the room to draw the curtains from one alcove, and it was evident to Jago’s inexpert eye that foundation garments formed no part of Indian fashion.
“This is where I must measure you,” she told him. “I call it my dressmaking closet. Take off your robe and come over, Henry.”
He obeyed, and when he pushed aside the curtain and stepped into the narrow recess, he had an unpleasant shock.
Isabel was there with a headless woman. In a moment he realized what it was-a dressmaker’s dummy with a dress over it-but the momentary surprise had registered.
“I sometimes startle myself,” Isabel said, smiling. “She’s very lifelike in my new cashmere gown, isn’t she? She was fashioned from the measurements of my own figure.
Underneath she is just wire and sawdust, poor thing-a terrible disappointment to her admirers, I should think.”
“It’s a pretty dress,” ventured Jago, vaguely conscious he was on the brink of a risque conversation.
“It is ready for the end of my year in mourning,” Isabel said. “Now will you stand against the vertical measure on that wall, please?”
This involved making a narrow passage between Isabel and her headless double. She made no attempt to stand back.
He faced the dummy and edged discreetly to the opposite wall. It was only a temporary reprieve from the agony of contact. Isabel was not a short woman, but Jago was over six feet in height. To adjust the sliding arm of the measure above his head, she had to stand almost toe to toe with him; from any farther away the attempt would have resulted in loss of balance and the meeting of unthinkable areas of anatomy.
There was no need to ask him to stand straight. He was braced like a guardsman.
“Six feet and half an inch,” she declared at length.
“Sylvanus will not have much advantage in height. What did you weigh?”
“Twelve stone six,” answered Jago.
“Two pounds less than you arrived with. Sylvanus is considerably heavier, but that is not all muscle. Now if you will extend your arms, I shall measure your reach.” She produced a tape measure and held one end against his armpit.
“Good. If you will keep your arms outstretched, I can take your chest measurement.”
Jago had not heard before of fist fighters being subjected to so comprehensive a physical survey. He tried to relax and submit to science. Somehow two beads of nervous sweat escaped from his right armpit and trailed coldly across his ribs.
“Expand your chest, Henry.”
She was distractingly close. The air was heavy with her perfume; no English flower he had smelt was anything like it.
“Good. You may have lost a little weight, but you have certainly gained in muscularity. Flex this arm and I will measure the bicep.”
“Will you remember the measurements,” asked Jago with a note of desperation in his voice, “or should I fetch pencil and paper for you?”
“Thank you, but I have a faultless memory for such things. Your waist, please.”
He felt her bare forearms take the tape behind his back.
Monstrous thoughts assailed him. Whatever happened, he must keep control. He tried to banish Isabel, sari and scent from his mind. Instead he would concentrate on Sergeant Cribb, that nose and those Piccadilly weepers.
The potency of Cribb’s image lasted for perhaps ten seconds, until Isabel coaxed her tape measure around Jago’s right thigh.
“Is this necessary?” he demanded in an outraged voice.
“Essential,” she murmured, crouching to her task like a bootboy. “Just relax, Henry.”
He looked down. The silk drape had slipped from her shoulder, but she had not attempted to replace it. The bodice gaped. With admirable self-control he averted his eyes at once.
But as he did so, his thigh twitched involuntarily.
She stood up. “You really are far too tense, Henry Jago. You are in no state to fight anyone tomorrow night, least of all Syl-vanus Morgan. You need massage at once. Come with me.”
There was nothing for it but to follow her as she swept aside the curtain and marched purposefully across the sitting room and through a door. It was a relief to escape from the unnatural-or too natural-intimacy of the dressmaking closet. On the way he picked up his bathrobe but immediately decided to replace it on the chair; any display of modesty now seemed like weakness.
Jago was in Isabel’s bedroom and the door was shut behind him before he had time to collect himself.
“Lie face downwards on the ottoman.”
Not the bed, thank heaven! He flattened himself to the velvet upholstery like an infantryman on the order of fire.
The ottoman was upholstered in crimson and positioned at the foot of a brass double bed covered with a satin quilt.
From his restricted viewpoint he could see a half-open wardrobe with a row of Isabel’s boots on the lowest shelf. A mirror on the inside of the door allowed him a glimpse of the dressing table where she was standing behind him. Its top was crowded with jars, cut-glass bottles and silver-backed brushes. She was pouring some liquid into her cupped hand.
Without another word she came to where he was and sat along the edge with her thigh lightly touching his hip. He felt the mild shock of the cool liquid as she pressed it between his shoulders, and then the warmth of the palms and fingers spreading it across his skin. Her hands worked with a sense of symmetry distributing the balm evenly, her fingers probing each band of muscle individually, kneading quite forcefully at first, gradually relenting to a stroking movement, until finally the touch was no more than a caress.
Whatever she was using on his body was distinctly aromatic, with a heady muskiness about it, unlike any branded liniment he knew. And it tingled on the skin like champagne on the palate.
“Good. I can feel you relax now. The muscles are becoming more supple.”
Once or twice her fingertips were raised clear of the skin while she continued to massage with the mounts of her palms. Jago found himself waiting for the sensation of her
fingers coming consecutively back into contact. It was devilishly hard not to luxuriate. For distraction, he turned his head to look through the vertical bars of the bedstead at the picture over the bed. It was an animal study, but no Landseer. A white stallion, eyes rolling in terror, reared in a desperate attempt to throw a tiger from its back. He would never understand Isabel’s taste in art.
He turned elsewhere for inspiration. Every decent influence in his life-parents, two devoted sisters in Gloucester-shire, Lydia-dear Lydia, the vicar, his housemaster, Sergeant Cribb-paraded before his troubled conscience to be ignominiously dismissed. Isabel Vibart dispatched them all with one breath on the nape of his neck.
Her voice was close to his ear. “Are you comfortable?”
What a question! “Extremely so.”
“You feel more relaxed here?”
“Quite so.”
“You find it hard to sleep in that room along the corridor
?”
Good God! Did she believe D’Estin’s ravings the previous night?
“On the contrary. It is an excellent room.”
“That is good. Now I must rest a moment. Massage is tiring work.”
“You do it well.”
“I enjoy it.”
She continued to lean over him. Her hair, which had been swathed in a severe Indian style, must have worked loose with her movements, for he now felt its brushing motion across his shoulders. He arched his back a fraction at the sensation and felt his skin touch warm silk at two points.
And as he drew his chest to the velvet again, the yielding breasts nestled against his back. His pulse was racing.
“Shall I start again?”
“If you wish to.” He tried to convey the fact that he was not particular about massage any more.
“Then you must allow me to loosen your drawers and slip them over your hips. Otherwise I cannot massage your thighs.”
Fifteen minutes earlier it would have been unthinkable.
He felt for the lacing across his stomach.
“That is better. I am used to massaging men, you know.”
He wished she had not said so.
“I must get some more of the embrocation. Anointing oil I like to call it.” She went over to the dressing table.
He lay with the drawers around his knees and tried not to feel ridiculous. When she returned, she paused, standing at his side to survey him.
“You have a fine back, Henry. Not a mark on you. But I didn’t expect to see any.”
“What do you mean?”
“Spike marks, Henry. You refused the wrestler’s bridge.”
Her words acted on Jago like a jellyfish sting in a warm sea. The wrestler’s bridge! The gym. His humiliation. Now this confirmation that she had indeed been watching D’Estin punish him. Watching from her spy hole!
His body convulsed with shame. His head twisted to look at her and she knew exactly what was in his mind. There was total contempt in her expression.
Before he could tug his disabling garment about him, she fell on his back and with her fingernails clawed it from shoulder to loin.
“There’s a mark for you, Casanova!”
Then she fell across the ottoman laughing hideously.
Reeling with shame and confusion, Jago quit the room.
CHAPTER 12
“That-er-corpse,” said Inspector Jowett with calculated disinterest. “The one you hooked out of the Thames a week or two ago. Head missing. Didn’t you have some theory at the time that he was a prize fighter?”
“Prize fighter? Oh, yes, prize fighter. I believe so, sir,”answered Sergeant Cribb, equally restrained. Deprived of the inspectorial pomp of desk, telephone and bookshelves, Jowett was a mere policeman in plain clothes. Looking down at him as they strolled in Hyde Park, Cribb even doubted whether he came up to the statutory five feet seven. Fancy! Quacks and professors had sought for years for a substance that would add an inch to a man’s height. They could have found the secret all the time at Great Scotland Yard-an old school tie.
“You didn’t take your investigations any further, then?”Jowett persisted. He had not gone to the trouble of arranging a rendezvous with Cribb to be snubbed like a street salesman.
“I’ve been very busy, you see, sir,” said Cribb. “Inquiries don’t come singly, as you know. Shall we head over that way, where the crowds are making for?”
Jowett looked in the direction Cribb was indicating. Some two hundred yards away across the grass a gathering of several hundred had formed. He was nervous of crowds.“What is it- speechmaking? Irishmen? Anarchists?”
“Unlikely, sir,” said Cribb. “The orators don’t stray far from Hyde Park Corner. Might be a prize fight.”
Jowett rose to the bait. “Good God! — do you think so?Let’s go the other way. We mustn’t get involved.”
“Observing them more closely, sir, I’d say it wasn’t a prize fight,” Cribb said. “Too many of the fair sex for that.” As though that settled the matter, he began walking more briskly towards the centre of interest, with Jowett reluctantly keeping up.
“Last week, Sergeant,” he said, a little breathless, more from anxiety than exercise, “there was a fist fight. In Essex.”
“Really, sir?” Inwardly, Cribb flinched. How much did Jowett know?
“Fortunately, it was stopped by the local constable-‘an unwelcome blue cloud on the horizon,’ as the reporter termed him.”
Cribb chuckled. “Very good, sir.”
“Quite so. Good Lord! What on earth is that?”
Above the level of top hats and ostrich feathers ahead of them, something of great size arched like an elephant struggling to its feet. But this was bright orange in colour, and its shape altered from second to second. It seemed to be straining for freedom.
“A balloon, sir!” said Cribb. “Must be the French aeronaut they interviewed in the Morning Post. He claims it’s dirigible. Ovoid in shape, you see, and he carries a propeller on the car. They’re inflating it with gas. Capital sight!”
Jowett was not so easily distracted. He stopped, holding Cribb’s arm to prevent him going on. “I didn’t arrange for us to meet in secret to watch a blasted balloon launching. I want to talk to you in private, Cribb. I picked Hyde Park, thinking it was inconspicuous.”
“We’d be less conspicuous in a crowd, sir.”
“Possibly, but I need to speak in confidence,” said Jowett.“Two weeks ago you asked permission to attend prize fighting. I gave my assent-reluctantly I may say-in the belief that you found attendance there absolutely vital to your investigation.”
“Fundamental, sir.”
“And as I remember, I warned you of the possible embarrassment to the Criminal Investigation Department if a county force learned you had been present at a prize fight in its area.”
Heavens! What had Jowett found out?
“I don’t know whether you were aware when you asked me that attendance-yes, even attendance-at a prize fight is illegal.”
Already preparing his excuses, Cribb recited the legal precedent. “ ‘An assembly of persons to witness a prize fight is an unlawful assembly and everyone present and countenancing the fight is guilty of an offence.’ Rex versus Billingham, 1826, sir.”
“Thank you. Now, Sergeant, I shall not ask you whether you were present at this squalid affair in Essex, but I think it right to tell you that if you attend a prize fight, it is your duty to intervene.”
“Yes, sir. I shall.”
Jowett looked up sharply. “You almost sound as though you know of one that has been arranged.”
“I-”
“Don’t tell me, Sergeant! Simply remember what I have said. Thugs like those two I read of-Judd and Jago-must be brought to justice.”
Cribb offered silent thanks for the obtuseness of his superior. The prospect of one of his staff attending a prize fight was as awful as anything Jowett was ready to contemplate.
Having now allowed for that possibility, he felt able to relax.
“It’s the French balloon, all right,” he announced confidently. “Look at the shape. You know, Sergeant, we’ve got a lot to learn from across the Channel. Looking ahead-and a policeman should always have a clear view of the future- I can see exciting possibilities in this ballooning. Imagine a police balloon patrolling the air over London. No criminal will feel secure on the streets.”
Sergeant Cribb was looking ahead, but less far. On the following evening Thomas Quinton, alias Henry Jago, was due to fight the Ebony. If Thackeray’s latest information from Shoreditch were correct, the fight would last twenty-six rounds before the Negro poleaxed Jago. The fight was arranged for somewhere in Surrey, so everyone but Isabel Vibart would leave Radstock Hall early, probably by eleven.
That woman held the information he wanted. There should just be time, if he were ready, to interview her at the Hall, and then set off in pursuit of the others. He was not notably perturbed by Jowett’s instructions
, but he did feel under a sentimental obligation to Jago to stop the fight before the twenty-sixth round if possible.
¦ A cold supper was ordered for that evening, with the intention of getting the servants to their quarters as early as possible. Consultations about the fixing of fights were best held in total privacy. For Jago, the informality-one arrived in one’s own time on cold supper evenings-saved an embarrassing confrontation with Isabel. Furthermore, eating alone allowed him time to collect himself before the negotiations. After an early meal he went to his room and did not appear again until the visitors arrived at nine.
They came in a four-wheeler and Jago heard them welcomed by Vibart. Any resentment at the Ebony’s desertion had been quite dissolved by the prospect of profit. The bonhomie downstairs was worthy of a Crimea reunion. He went down to join them in the main drawing room.
“Ah, Jago. You haven’t met Matt Beckett.”
It was the strangest sensation shaking hands with a man he had known as a set of notes on a card for nearly two years. “Beckett, Matthew.” Hardly a day passed without that name fleetingly impressing itself on his brain. “Crown tattooed . .” He found himself checking the details.
Beckett showed no sign of recognizing Jago, although it was not long since they had shared a railway compartment after the Meanix fight. “You’re fit, I hope?” he said with a laugh. “All we ask of you, mate, is that you can get up when you’ve been grassed and that you can count to twenty-six, eh, Vibart?”
“No fears on that score,” Vibart assured him. “Jago’s been privately educated.”
“Has he indeed?” Beckett openly sneered. “Tomorrow night he’ll have a new tutor, then. Morgan here ain’t exactly a university man, but he’ll learn you a few points, Jago.”
“You haven’t met Mr. Foster, Jago,” Vibart intervened.
“He will act as second to Sylvanus tomorrow.”
“Foster, David. Born 1860. Five foot six. Ten stone.” A strong grip for a slight man.
“Pleased to meet you, mate.” That was something for the card. “Two lower front teeth missing.”
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