- •I waited for four hours, getting to know intimately the pattern of the curtains and the cracks in the brown linoleum. Mostly, I thought about wire.
- •Chapter two
- •It was Sunday. I drove to the racecourse, but the gates were locked. Back in the town the Clerk of the Course's office was shut and empty. I telephoned his home, but there was no answer.
- •I told him about my search at the fence, and what I had found there.
- •I put my head quietly round Scilla's door. Her room was dark, but I could hear her even breathing. She was still sound asleep.
- •I sat up straight, surprised.
- •Chapter three
- •I told her as gradually, as gently as I could, that Bill's fall had not been an ordinary accident. I told her about the wire and about Lodge's investigations.
- •I had just decided to ask him to explain his attitude, and to tell him what had really happened, when he began to speak.
- •I was lost before she spoke a word. The first thing I said was, 'I'll be glad to ride your horse.'
- •Chapter four
- •I unsaddled, went back to the weighing-room, changed into Kate's brand new colours, and went out to see what had become of Miss Ellery-Penn.
- •Chapter five
- •I was just giving Joe up when he came out of the gate and hailed me with no apology for his lateness. But I was not the only person to notice his arrival.
- •I was puzzled. 'Is Sandy the only person who has harmed you?' 'It wasn't Sandy, surely, who was paying you not to win?'
- •Chapter six
- •I had driven the better part of three hundred miles besides riding in two races, and I was tired. We went to our beds early, Scilla promising to take her sleeping pills.
- •I drove up to London to spend some long overdue hours in the office, arranging the details of insurance and customs duty on a series of shipments of copper.
- •I already knew I wanted to marry Kate. The thought that she might not have me was a bitter one.
- •I parked the car in the lay-by behind the horse-box. The door at the back of the horse-box opened and a hand, the stable lad's, I supposed, reached out to help me up. He took me by the wrist.
- •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.
- •I said, 'Have you got any further with the Major Davidson business since the day before yesterday?'
- •I grinned.
- •I played poker with the children and lost to Henry because half my mind was occupied with his father's affairs.
- •Chapter seven
- •I felt a warm glow inside. The Cheltenham Festival meeting suddenly seemed not a bad place to be, after all.
- •I felt a great impulse to assure him it was none of mine either. But he turned back to me and said, 'What shall I do?' in a voice full of whining self-pity.
- •I pointed out the reasons for supposing that murder had not been intended. Sandy 's brown eyes stared at me unwinkingly until I had finished.
- •I drank a sip of champagne and said, 'Well done yourself, you old son-of-a-gun. And here's to the Gold Cup.'
- •I walked purposefully up to Pete, and he made me his excuse for breaking away. We went towards the gates.
- •Chapter eight
- •Inside, the house was charming, with just a saving touch of shabbiness about the furnishings, as if, though rich, the inhabitants saw no need to be either ostentatious or extravagant.
- •I laughed. 'Then why did you give a racehorse to your niece?'
- •I couldn't help a look of distaste, and she laughed and said, 'That's what I think too, but I'd never let him suspect it. He's so devoted to them all.'
- •It was ten miles to Washington. We went into the village and stopped, and I asked some children on their way home from Sunday school where farmer Lawson lived.
- •I thanked him all the same for his trouble, and he asked me to let him know, if I found out, who had taken his box.
- •I laughed. 'If I'd thought he could have possibly been the leader of the gang I wouldn't have taken you there.'
- •Chapter nine
- •I said, 'I suppose if they can't get money from their old victims, the gang try protecting people who don't know about your systems and your dogs -'
- •I looked at Uncle George to see how he liked being deprived of the end of the story, and saw him push his half-filled plate away with a gesture of revulsion, as if he were suddenly about to vomit.
- •Chapter ten
- •Chapter eleven
- •It was still raining an hour later when I went out to ride Palindrome. Pete was waiting for me in the parade ring, the water dripping off the brim of his hat in a steady stream.
- •I knew him.
- •Chapter twelve
- •Chapter thirteen
- •I scowled at him.
- •I leaned my head back against the window and waited for these details to mean something significant, but all that happened was that my inability to think increased.
- •Chapter fourteen
- •I went outside. I stood near the weighing-room door, waiting for Joe and catching up with the latest gossip.
- •Chapter fifteen
- •I pulled Admiral up. Looking carefully I could see the posts and the high wire fence which formed the boundary between the little trees and the road beyond.
- •I began to get the glimmerings of an idea of how to use the manhunt I had caused.
- •I came back to the present with a jerk. I picked up the microphone, clicked over the switch, and said 'No' in as bored and nasal a tone as I could muster.
- •Chapter sixteen
- •Chapter seventeen
- •I stared at the page until the words faded into a blur.
- •Chapter eighteen
- •I swallowed and said, 'Do you remember the children who had to be driven to school by a judo expert to keep them safe?'
- •It drove off. I stared after it, numbly.
- •Chapter nineteen
- •I was watching Sandy instead of concentrating wholly on Forlorn Hope, so that what happened was entirely my own fault.
- •I mentally reviewed the rest of the gang.
- •Illogically, this made me very angry.
- •Chapter nine
- •Chapter fourteen
- •Chapter fifteen
I couldn't help a look of distaste, and she laughed and said, 'That's what I think too, but I'd never let him suspect it. He's so devoted to them all.'
The garage was a converted barn. There was plenty of room for the four cars standing in it in a row. The Daimler, a new cream coloured convertible, my Lotus, and after a gap, the social outcast, an old black eight-horse-power saloon.
'We use that old car for shopping in the village and so on,' said Kate. 'This gorgeous cream job is mine. Uncle George gave it to me a year ago when I came home from Switzerland. Isn't it absolutely rapturous?' She stroked it with love.
'Can we go out in yours, instead of mine?' I asked. 'I would like that very much, if you wouldn't mind.'
She was pleased. She let down the roof and tied a blue silk scarf over her head, and drove us out of the garage into the sunlight, down the drive, and on to the road towards the village.
'Where shall we go?' she asked.
'I'd like to go to Steyning,' I said.
'That's an odd sort of place to choose,' she said. 'How about the sea?'
'I want to call on a farmer in Washington, near Steyning, to ask him about his horse-box,' I said. And I told her how some men in a horse-box had rather forcefully told me not to ask questions about Bill's death.
'It was a horse-box belonging to this farm at Washington,' I finished. 'I want to ask him who hired it from him last Saturday.'
'Good heavens,' said Kate. And she drove a little faster. I sat sideways and enjoyed the sight of her. The beautiful profile, the blue scarf whipped by the wind, with one escaping wisp of hair blowing on her forehead, the cherry-red curving mouth. She could twist your heart.
It was ten miles to Washington. We went into the village and stopped, and I asked some children on their way home from Sunday school where farmer Lawson lived.
'Up by there,' said the tallest girl, pointing.
'Up by there' turned out to be a prosperous workmanlike farm with a mellow old farmhouse and a large new Dutch barn rising behind it. Kate drove into the yard and stopped, and we walked round through a garden gate to the front of the house. Sunday afternoon was not a good time to call on a farmer, who was probably enjoying his one carefree nap of the week, but it couldn't be helped.
We rang the door bell, and after a long pause the door opened. A youngish good-looking man holding a newspaper looked at us enquiringly.
'Could I speak to Mr Lawson, please?' I said.
'I'm Lawson,' he said. He yawned again.
I said I understood he had a horse-box for hire. He rubbed his nose with his thumb while he looked us over. Then he said, 'It's very old, and it depends when you want it.'
'Could we see it, do you think?' I asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'Hang on a moment.'
'It's round here,' he said, leading the way. The horsebox stood out in the open, sheltered only by the hay piled in the Dutch barn. APX 708. My old friend.
I told Lawson then that I didn't really want to hire his box, but I wanted to know who had hired it eight days ago. And because he thought this question decidedly queer, I told him why I wanted to know.
'It can't have been my box,' he said at once.
'It was,' I said.
'I didn't hire it to anyone eight days ago. It was standing right here all day.'
'It was in Maidenhead,' I said, obstinately.
He looked at me for a full half a minute. Then he said, 'If you are right, it was taken without me knowing about it. I and my family were all away last week-end. We were in London.'
'How many people would know you were away?' I asked.
He laughed. 'About twelve million, I should think. We were on one of those family quiz shows on television on Friday night. My wife, my eldest son, my daughter, and I. The younger boy wasn't allowed on because he's only ten. He was furious about it. My wife said on the programme that we were all going to the Zoo on Saturday and to the Tower of London on Sunday, and we weren't going home until Monday. Of course, there are my cowmen about, but it's not the same.'
'Could you ask them if they saw anyone borrow your box?'
'I suppose I could. It's almost milking time, they'll be in soon. But I can't help thinking you've mistaken the number plate.'
'Have you a middleweight thoroughbred bay hunter, then,' I said, 'with a white star on his forehead, one lop ear, and a straggly tail?'
His scepticism vanished abruptly. 'Yes, I have,' he said. 'He's in the stable over there.'
'Surely your men would have missed him when they went to give him his evening feed?' I said.
'My brother – he lives a mile away – borrows him whenever he wants. The men would just assume he'd got him. I'll ask the cowmen.'
'Will you ask them at the same time if they found a necktie in the box?' I said. 'I lost one there, and I'm rather attached to it. I'd give ten bob to have it back.'
'I'll ask them,' said Lawson. 'Come into the house while you wait.
At length Lawson came back. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'the cowmen thought my brother had the horse and none of them noticed the box had gone. They said they didn't find your tie, either. They're as blind as bats unless it's something of theirs that's missing.'