- •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 stared at the page until the words faded into a blur.
What happened next was partly, I supposed, delayed reaction from the abysmal fear I felt when I looked into the barrel of Uncle George's gun; and partly it was hunger and a wave of deathly tiredness, and the sudden letting up of the stresses of the past weeks. My hands, my whole body, began to shake. I braced my foot against the leg of the table I was sitting at and gripped the big book hard to stop it. It went on for minutes, until I could have cried with weakness, but gradually the spasm lessened, and the tension went out of my muscles, and I was just plain cold.
Chichen Itza. I stood up stiffly and closed the book and put it back on the shelf, and went soberly out to the car. I had set a better trap than I knew, pretending to be on the point of understanding what Joe might have said before he died.
I remembered clearly the study lined with glass cases. I could see the heavy carved oak desk, the folders devoted to Indian tribes, and the one separate folder clearly marked 'Mayas'. Uncle George had told me too much about the Mayas: and he'd known that Chichen Itza would lead me conclusively to him.
Chapter eighteen
What I had not managed to do for Kate by loving her, I had done by tearing her world apart.
She stood in front of me, rigidly controlling herself, with a look of such acrid unrelenting hatred that I tasted my misery literally as a bitterness in the mouth. The banked fires were burning fiercely at last. There was a new depth and maturity in her face, as if in two weeks she had become wholly a woman. It made her more desirable than ever.
The inquest and inquiry into the life and death of George Penn had been adjourned twice, and had just ended; and police, witnesses, and Kate and I were standing in the hall of the Brighton court buildings, preparing to leave.
The verdict of temporary insanity was merciful, but there had been no hiding from news-scenting journalists the extent of Uncle George's criminal activities, and L. C. Perth and Marconi-cars had been front page news, on and off, for a fortnight.
My getting Uncle George to kill himself had been no help after all to Aunt Deb. It had been impossible to keep the truth from her, and shock and distress had brought on a series of heart attacks, of which the fourth was fatal. But for Kate, though she knew nothing about it, it was still the best thing. She had had to face the knowledge of his guilt, but not his trial and punishment.
But my letters of condolence had been unanswered. My telephone calls had regularly found her 'out'. And now I saw why. She blamed me alone for the sorrows which had come to her.
'I loathe you,' she said implacably. 'You nauseate me. You wormed your way into our house and accepted everything we gave you -' I thought of those gentle kisses, and so, from the extra flash in her eyes, did Kate - 'and all you have done in return is to hound a poor old man to his death, and kill a defenceless old woman as a result. I have no uncle and no aunt. I have no one anywhere at all. I have no one.' She spoke in anguish. 'Why did you do it? Why couldn't you leave them alone? Why did you have to destroy my home? You knew how much I loved them. I can't bear to look at you, I loathe you so much-'