I grinned.

Lodge said, 'What do you propose to do now?'

'Go home,' I said, looking at my watch.

'No, I meant about Major Davidson.'

'I'll ask as many questions as I can think of,' I said promptly.

'In spite of the warning?'

'Because of it,' I said. 'The very fact that five men were sent to warn me off means that there is a good deal to find out. Bill Davidson was a good friend, you know. I can't tamely let whoever caused his death get away with it.' I thought a moment. 'First, I'll find out who owns the taxis which Peaky and Co. drive.'

'Well, unofficially, I wish you luck,' said Lodge. 'But be careful.'

'Sure,' I said standing up.

Lodge came to the street door of the police station and shook hands. 'Let me know how you get on,' he said.

'Yes, I will.'

He raised his hand in a friendly gesture, and went in. I resumed my interrupted journey to the Cotswolds.

It struck me that both the accident and the affair of the horse-box should give some clue to the mind which had hatched them. It was reasonable to assume it was the same mind. Both events were elaborate, where some simpler plan would have been effective, and the word 'devious' drifted into my thoughts and I dredged around in my memory chasing its echo. Finally I traced it to Joe Nantwich and the threatening letter which had reached him ten days late, but decided that Joe's troubles had nothing to do with Bill's.

Both the attack on Bill and the warning to me had been, I was certain, more violent in the event than in the plan. Bill had died partly by bad luck, and I would have been less roughly handled had I not tried to escape. I came to the conclusion that I was looking for someone with a fanciful imagination, someone prepared to be brutal up to a point.

And it was comforting to realize that my adversary was not a man of superhuman intelligence. He could make mistakes. His biggest so far, I thought, was to go to great lengths to deliver an unnecessary warning whose sole effect was to stir me to greater action.

For two days I did nothing. There was no harm in giving the impression that the warning was being taken to heart.

I played poker with the children and lost to Henry because half my mind was occupied with his father's affairs.

Not for the first time I wondered at the quirks of heredity. Bill had been a friendly, genuine man of many solid virtues. Scilla, matching him, was compassionate and loving. Neither was at all intellectually gifted; yet they had endowed their elder son with a piercing, exceptional intelligence.

And how could I guess that Henry already held in his sharp eight-year-old brain the key to the puzzle of his father's death.

He didn't know it himself.

Chapter seven

The Cheltenham National Hunt Festival meeting started on Tuesday, 2 March.

Three days of superlative racing lay ahead, and the finest 'chasers in the world crowded into the racecourse stables. A ride at Cheltenham was an honour: a win at Cheltenham an experience never to be forgotten. The amateur jockeys embraced the Festival with passionate fervour.

But one amateur jockey, Alan York, felt none of this passionate fervour as he drove into the car park. I could not explain it to myself, but for once the hum of the gathering crowd, the expectant faces, the sunshine of the cold invigorating March morning, even the prospect of riding three good horses at the meeting, stirred me not at all.

Outside the main gate I sought out the newspaper seller I had spoken to at Plumpton. He was a short, tubby little Cockney with a large moustache and a cheerful temperament. He saw me coming, and held out a paper.

'Morning, Mr York,' he said.

I waited while he sold a newspaper to an elderly man with enormous race glasses. Then I said, 'Do you remember the taxi-drivers fighting at Plumpton?'

'Couldn't hardly forget it, could I?' He beamed.

'You told me one lot came from London and one from Brighton.'

'Yes, that's right.'

I said, 'Which lot came from London and which came from Brighton?'

'Oh, I see.' He sold a paper to two middle-aged ladies wearing thick tweeds and ribbed woollen stockings, and gave them change. Then he turned back to me.

'Which lot was which, like? Hm- I see 'em often enough, you know, but they ain't a friendly lot. They don't talk to you. Not like the private chauffeurs, see? I'd know the Brighton lot if I could see 'em, though. Know 'em by sight, see?' He broke off to yell 'Midday Special' at the top of his lungs, and as a result sold three more papers. I waited patiently.

'Can't you describe just one of them?' I asked.

He narrowed his eyes, thinking, and tugged his moustache. 'One of 'em. Well, there's one nasty-looking chap with sort of slitty eyes. I wouldn't like a ride in his taxi.

' Brighton, that's it.' He beamed at me. 'There's another one I see sometimes, too. A young ted with sideboards, always cleaning his nails with a knife.'

'Thanks a lot,' I said. I gave him a pound note and his beam grew wider. He tucked it into an inside pocket.

'Best of luck, sir,' he said. I left him, with 'Midday Special' ringing in my ears, and went in to the weighing room, pondering on the information that my captors with the horse-box came from Brighton. Whoever had sent them could not have imagined that I had seen them before, and could find them again.

Preoccupied, I suddenly realized that Pete Gregory was talking to me. '- Had a puncture on the way, but they've got here safely, that's the main thing. Are you listening, Alan?'

'Yes, Pete. Sorry. I was thinking.'

'Glad to hear you can,' said Pete with a fat laugh. Tough and shrewd though he was, his sense of humour had never grown up. Schoolboy insults passed as the highest form of wit for him; but one got used to it.

'How is Palindrome?' I asked. My best horse.

'He's fine. I was just telling you, they had a puncture-' He broke off, exasperated. He hated having to repeat things. 'Oh well- do you want to go over to the stables and have a look at him?'

'Yes, please,' I said.

We walked down to the stables. Pete had to come with me because of the tight security rules. Even owners could not visit their horses without the trainer.

In his box I patted my beautiful 'chaser, an eight-year-old bay with black points, and gave him a lump of sugar. 'Sugar will give him more energy,' I said, giving Palindrome another lump and making a fuss of him. 'He looks well.'

'He ought to win if you judge it right,' said Pete.

I gave Palindrome a final pat, and we went out into the yard. Owing to the security system, it was the quietest place on the racecourse.

'Pete, was Bill in any trouble, do you know?' I said, plunging in abruptly.

He finished shutting the door of Palindrome's box, and turned round slowly, and stood looking at me vaguely for so long that I began to wonder if he had heard my question.

But at last he said, 'That's a big word, trouble. Something happened-'

'What?' I said, as he lapsed into silence again.

But instead of answering, he said, 'Why should you think there was any - trouble?'

I told him about the wire. He listened with a calm, unsurprised expression, but his grey eyes were bleak.

He said, 'Why haven't we all heard about it before?'

'I told Sir Creswell Stampe and the police a week ago,' I said, 'but with the wire gone they've nothing tangible to go on, and they're dropping it.'

'But you're not?' said Pete. 'Can't say I blame you. I can't help you much, though. There's only one thing - Bill told me he'd had a telephone call which made him laugh. But I didn't listen properly to what he said – I was thinking about my horses, you know how it is. It was something about Admiral falling. He thought it was a huge joke and I didn't go into it with him to find out what I'd missed. I didn't think it was important. When Bill was killed I did wonder if there could possibly be anything odd about it, but I asked you, and you said you hadn't noticed anything -' His voice trailed off.

'Yes, I'm sorry,' I said. Then I asked, 'How long before his accident did Bill tell you about the telephone call?'

'The last time I spoke to him,' Pete said. 'It was on the Friday morning just before I flew to Ireland. I rang him to say that all was ready for Admiral's race at Maidenhead the next day.'

We began to walk back to the weighing room. On an impulse I said, 'Pete, do you ever use the Brighton taxis?' He lived and trained on the Sussex Downs.

'Not often,' he said. 'Why?'

'There are one or two taxi-drivers there I'd like to have a few words with,' I said, not adding that I'd prefer to have the words with them one at a time in a deserted back alley.

'There are several taxi lines in Brighton, as far as I know,' he said. 'If you want to find one particular driver, why don't you try the railway station? That's where I've usually taken a taxi from. They line up there in droves for the London trains.' His attention drifted off as an Irish horse passed us on its way into the paddock for the first race.

Kate had told me she was not coming to Cheltenham, so I went in search of the next best thing: news of her.

Dane was sitting only one place away from the roaring stove, a sure sign of his rise in the jockeys' world. Champions get the warmest places by unwritten right. Beginners shiver beside the draughty doors.

'Have you a busy day?' I asked.

'Three, including the Champion Hurdle,' said Dane.

He grinned at me. 'I might just find time to tell you about the Penn household, though, if that's what you're after. Shall I start with Uncle George, or Aunt Deb, or - do you want to hear about Kate?' finished Dane.

'Uncle George,' he said, 'is a gem. And I'm not going to spoil him for you by telling you about him. Aunt Deb is the Honourable Mrs Penn to you and me, mate, and Aunt Deb to Kate alone. She has a chilly sort of charm that lets you know she would be downright rude if she were not so well bred. She disapproved of me, for a start. I think she disapproves on principle of everything to do with racing, including Heavens Above and Uncle George's idea of a birthday present.'

'Go on,' I urged, anxious for him to come to the most interesting part of the chronicle before someone else buttonholed him.

'Ah yes. Kate. Gorgeous, heavenly Kate. Strictly, you know, her name is Kate Ellery, not Penn at all. Uncle George added the hyphen and the Penn to her name when he took her in. He said it would be easier for her to have the same surname as him – save a lot of explanations. I suppose it does,' said Dane, musingly, knowing full well how he was tantalizing me. He relented, and grinned. 'She sent you her love.'