Chapter thirteen

While I was dressing myself at tortoise pace the following morning the front door bell rang downstairs, and presently Joan came up to say that an Inspector Lodge would like to see me, please.

'Tell him I'll be down as soon as possible,' I said, struggling to get my shirt on over the thick bracing bandage round my shoulders. I did up most of the buttons, but decided I didn't need a tie.

The strapping round my ribs felt tight and itched horribly, my head ached, large areas of flesh were black still and tender, I had slept badly, and I was altogether in a foul mood. The three aspirins I had swallowed in place of breakfast had not come up to scratch.

Lodge's face when he saw me was a picture.

'If you laugh at me I'll knock your block off. Next week,' I said.

'I'm not laughing,' said Lodge, his nostrils twitching madly as he tried to keep a straight face.

'It's not funny,' I said emphatically.

'No.'

I scowled at him.

My father said, glancing at me from behind his Sunday newspaper in the depths of an armchair by the fire, 'You sound to me as if you need a stiff brandy.'

'It's only half-past ten,' I said crossly.

'Emergencies can happen at any time of the day,' said my father, standing up, 'and this would appear to be a grave one.' He opened the corner cupboard where Scilla kept a few bottles and glasses, poured out a third of a tumbler full of brandy, and splashed some soda into it. I complained that it was too strong, too early, and unnecessary.

My father handed me the glass. 'Drink it and shut up,' he said.

Furious, I took a large mouthful. It was strong and fiery, and bit into my throat, and when I swallowed I could feel it slide warmly down to my empty stomach.

'Did you have any breakfast?' asked my father.

'No,' I said.

I took another, smaller gulp. The brandy worked fast. My bad temper began draining away, and in a minute or two I felt reasonably sane. Lodge and my father were looking at me intently as though I were a laboratory animal responding to an experiment.

'Oh very well then,' I admitted grudgingly, 'I feel better.' I took a cigarette from the silver box on the table and lit it, and noticed the sun was shining.

'Good.' My father sat down again.

It appeared that he and Lodge had introduced themselves while they waited for me, and Lodge had told him, among other things, about my adventures in the horse-box outside Maidenhead, a detail I had omitted from my letters. This I considered to be treachery of the basest sort, and said so; and I told them how Kate and I had tracked down the horse-box, and that that particular line of enquiry was a dead end.

I took my cigarette and glass across the room and sat on the window seat in the sun. Scilla was in the garden, cutting flowers. I waved to her.

Lodge, dressed today not in uniform but in grey flannels, fine wool shirt, and sports jacket, opened his briefcase, which lay on the table, and pulled out some papers. He sat down beside the table and spread them out.

He said, 'Mr Gregory rang me up at the station on the morning after your fall at Bristol to tell me about it.'

'Why on earth did he do that?' I asked.

'You asked him to,' said Lodge. He hesitated, and went on, 'I understand from your father that your memory is affected.'

'Yes. Most bits of that day at Bristol have come back now, but I still can't remember going out of the weighing room to ride Palindrome, or the race or the fall, or anything.' My last mental picture was of Sandy walking out into the rain. 'Why did I ask Pete to tell you I fell?'

'You asked him before the race. You apparently thought you were likely to fall. So, unofficially, I checked up on that crash of yours.' He smiled suddenly. 'You've accounted for all my free time lately, and today is really my day off. Why I bother with you I really don't know!' But I guessed that he was as addicted to detecting as an alcoholic to drink. He couldn't help doing it.

He went on, 'I went down to Gregory's stables and took a look at Palindrome. He had a distinct narrow wound across his front on those two pads of flesh -'

'Chest,' I murmured.

'- Chest, then; and I'll give you one guess at what cut him.'

'Oh, no,' I said, guessing, but not believing it.

'I checked up on the attendants at the fences,' he said. 'One of them was new and unknown to the others. He gave his name as Thomas Butler and an address which doesn't exist, and he volunteered to stand at the farthest fence from the stands, where you fell. His offer was readily accepted because of the rain and the distance of the fence from the bookmakers. The same story as at Maidenhead. Except that this time Butler collected his earnings in the normal way. Then I got the clerk of the course to let me inspect the fence, and I found a groove on each post, six feet six inches from the ground.'

There was a short silence.

'Well, well, well,' I said blankly. 'It looks as though I was luckier than Bill.'

'I wish you could remember something about it - anything. What made you suspect you would fall?' asked Lodge.

'I don't know.'

'It was something that happened while you were in the parade ring waiting to mount.' He leaned forward, his dark eyes fixed intently on my face, willing my sluggish memory to come to life. But I remembered nothing, and I still felt weary from head to foot. Concentration was altogether too much of an effort.

'I can't remember,' I said flatly. 'Perhaps it'll come back when my head stops aching.'

Lodge sighed and sat back in his hard chair.

'I suppose,' he said, a little bitterly, 'that you do at least remember sending me a message from Brighton, asking me to do your investigating for you?'

'Yes, I do,' I said. 'How did you get on?'

'Not very well. No one seems to know who actually owns the Marconi-car taxi line. It was taken over just after the war by a business man named Clifford Tudor -'

'What?' I said in astonishment.

'Clifford Tudor, respectable Brighton resident, British subject. Do you know him?'

'Yes,' I said. 'He owns several racehorses.'

Lodge sorted out a paper from his briefcase. 'Clifford Tudor, born Khroupista Thasos, in Trikkala, Greece. Naturalized nineteen thirty-nine, when he was twenty-five. He started life as a cook, but owing to natural business ability he acquired his own restaurant that same year. He sold it for a large profit after the war, went to Brighton, and bought for next to nothing an old taxi business that had wilted from wartime restrictions and lack of petrol. Four years ago he sold the taxis, again at a profit, and put his money into the Pavilion Plaza Hotel. He is unmarried.'