I sat on the ground and looked after the speeding horse-box. The number plate was mostly obscured by thick dust, but I had time to see the registration letters. They were apx.

The Lotus still stood in the lay-by. I picked myself up, dusted the worst off my suit, and walked over to it. I intended to follow the horse-box and see where it went. But the thorough driver had seen to it that I should not. The car would not start. Opening the bonnet to see how much damage had been done, I found that three of the four sparking plugs had been taken out. They lay in a neat row on the battery. It took me ten minutes to replace them, because my hands were trembling.

By then I had no hope of catching the horse-box or of finding anyone who had noticed its direction. I got back into the car and fastened the neck of my shirt. My tie was missing altogether.

I took out the AA book and looked up the registration letters PX. For what it was worth, the horse-box was originally registered in West Sussex. If the number plate were genuine, it might be possible to discover the present owner. For a quarter of an hour I sat and thought. Then I started the car, turned it, and drove back into Maidenhead.

The town was bright with lights, though nearly all the shops were shut. The door of the police station was open wide. I went in and asked for Inspector Lodge.

'He isn't in yet,' said the policeman at the enquiry desk, glancing up at the clock. It was ten past six. 'He'll be here any minute, if you care to wait, sir.'

'He isn't in yet? Do you mean he is just starting work for the day?'

'Yes, sir. He's on late turn. Busy evening here, Saturday,' he grinned. 'Dance halls, pubs, and car crashes.' I smiled back, sat down on the bench and waited. After five minutes Lodge came in quickly, peeling off his coat.

'Evening, Small, what's new?' he said to the policeman at the enquiry desk.

'Gentleman here to see you, sir,' said Small, gesturing to me. 'He's only been waiting a few minutes.'

Lodge turned round. I stood up. 'Good evening,' I said.

'Good evening, Mr York.' Lodge gave me a piercing look but showed no surprise at seeing me. His eyes fell to the neck of my shirt, and his eyebrows rose a fraction. But he said only, 'What can I do for you?'

'Are you very busy?' I asked. 'If you have time, I would like to tell you - how I lost my tie.' Small looked at me curiously, clearly thinking me mad to come into a police station to tell an inspector how I lost my tie.

But Lodge, whose perception was acute, said, 'Come into my office, Mr York.' He led the way. He hung up his hat and coat on pegs and lit the gas fire.

Lodge sat behind his tidy desk, and I, as before, faced him. He offered me a cigarette and gave me a light. As the smoke went comfortingly down into my lungs, I was wondering where to begin.

I said, 'Have you got any further with the Major Davidson business since the day before yesterday?'

'No, I'm afraid not. It no longer has any sort of priority with us. Yesterday we discussed it in conference and consulted your Senior Steward, Sir Creswell Stampe. In view of the verdict at the inquest, your story is considered, on the whole, to be the product of a youthful and overheated imagination. No one but you saw any wire. The grooves on the posts of the fence may or may not have been caused by wire, but there is no indication when they were made.

We looked at each other in glum silence.

'And what do you think, yourself?' I asked finally.

Lodge said, 'I believe you saw the wire and that Major Davidson was brought down by it. There is one fact which I personally consider significant enough to justify this belief. It is that the attendant who gave his name as Thomas Cook did not collect the pay due to him for two days' work. In my experience there has to be a very good reason for a workman to ignore his pay packet.' He smiled sardonically.

'I could give you another fact to prove that Major Davidson's fall was no accident,' I said, 'but you'll have to take my word for it again. No evidence.'

'Go on.'

'Someone has been to great pains to tell me not to ask awkward questions about it.' I told him about the events in and around the horse-box, and added, 'And how's that for the product of a youthful and overheated imagination?'

'When did all this happen?' asked Lodge.

'About an hour ago.'

'And what were you doing between then and the time you arrived here?'

'Thinking,' I said, stubbing out my cigarette.

'Oh,' said Lodge. 'Well, have you given any thought to the improbabilities in your story? My chief isn't going to like them when I make my report.'

'Don't make it then,' I said, smiling. 'But I suppose the most glaring improbability is that five men, a horse, and a horse-box should all be employed to give a warning which might much more easily have been sent by post.'

'That certainly indicates an organization of unusual size,' said Lodge, with a touch of irony.

'There are at least ten of them,' I said. 'One or two probably in hospital, though.'

Lodge sat up straighter.

'What do you mean? How do you know?'

'The five men who stopped me today are all taxi-drivers. Either from London or Brighton, but I don't know which. I saw them at Plumpton races three days ago, fighting a pitched battle against a rival gang.'

'What?' Lodge exclaimed. Then he said, 'Yes, I saw a paragraph about it in a newspaper. Do you recognize them positively?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Sonny had his knife out at Plumpton, too. I saw his face quite clearly. I was waiting to give someone a lift, and I had a long time to look at the taxi-drivers after the fight was over. But why were they all free? The last I saw of them, they were bound for the cells, I thought, for disturbing the peace.'

'They may be out on bail, or else they were let off with a fine. I don't know, without seeing a report,' said Lodge. 'Now why, in your opinion, were so many sent to warn you?'

'Rather flattering, sending five, when you come to think of it,' I grinned. 'Perhaps the taxi business is in the doldrums and they hadn't anything else to do. Or else it was, like the driver said, to ram the point home.'

'Now,' he said, picking up his pen and biting the end of it. 'What questions have you been asking about Major Davidson, and of whom have you asked them?'

'That is really what is most surprising about the whole affair,' I said. 'I've hardly asked anything of anybody. And I certainly haven't had any useful answers.'

'But you must have touched a nerve somewhere,' said Lodge. He took a sheet of paper out of the drawer. 'Tell me the names of everyone with whom you have discussed the wire.'

'With you,' I said promptly. 'And with Mrs Davidson. And everyone at the inquest heard me say I'd found it.'

'But I noticed that the inquest wasn't properly reported in the papers. There was no mention of wire in the press,' he said. 'And anyone seeing you at the inquest wouldn't have got the impression that you were hell-bent on unravelling the mystery. You took the verdict very calmly and not at all as if you disagreed with it.'

'Thanks to your warning me in advance what to expect,' I said.

Lodge's list looked short and unsatisfactory on the large sheet of paper.

'Anyone else?' he said.

'Oh- a friend- a Miss Ellery-Penn. I told her last night.'

'Girl friend?' he asked bluntly. He wrote her down.

'Yes,' I said.

'Anyone else?'

'No.'

'Why not?' he asked, pushing the paper away.

'I reckoned you and Sir Creswell needed a clear field. I thought I might mess things up for you if I asked too many questions. Put people on their guard, ready with their answers – that sort of thing. But it seems, from what you've said about dropping your enquiries, that I might as well have gone ahead.' I spoke a little bitterly.

Lodge looked at me carefully. 'You resent being considered youthful and hot-headed,' he said.

'Twenty-four isn't young,' I said. 'I seem to remember England once had a Prime Minister of that age. He didn't do so badly.'

'That's irrelevant, and you know it,' he said.