- •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
Chapter four
In the changing room Sandy Mason stood with his hands on his hips and laid about him with his tongue. His red hair curled strongly, his legs, firmly planted with the feet apart, were as rigid as posts. From top to toe he vibrated life. He was a stocky man in his thirties, on the short side, very strong, with dark brown eyes fringed disconcertingly by pale, reddish lashes.
As a jockey, a professional, he was not among the top dozen, but he had had a good deal of success, mainly owing to his fighting spirit. Nothing ever frightened him. His aggressiveness in races had got him into hot water more than once with the Stewards, but he was not particularly unpopular with the other jockeys, owing to his irrepressible, infectious cheerfulness.
His sense of humour was as vigorous as the rest of him, and if I thought privately that some of his jokes were too unkindly practical or too revoltingly obscene, I appeared to be in a minority.
There had been rumours, a while back, that Sandy had 'stopped' a few horses and had been rewarded handsomely by bookmakers for the service. But nothing had been proved, and the official enquiry had lasted barely an hour. Those who had felt the rough edge of Sandy's practical jokes believed him capable of anything. Everyone else pointed out that stopping a horse was entirely out of character for one who had been in trouble for trying too ruthlessly to win.
'Stopping' a horse can be done by missing the start, setting off some lengths behind, and staying at the back. Then the crooked jockey can ride a fairly honest finish from the second last fence, when he is closely under the eyes of the crowd, secure in the knowledge that he had left the horse far too much to do and cannot possibly win. It is rare enough, because a jockey seen to do it regularly soon finds himself unemployed.
During my one and a half seasons' racing I had seen it happen only twice. It was the same man both times, a fair, round-faced youth called Joe Nantwich. On the second occasion, about two months ago, he had been lucky to escape with his licence, for he had been foolish enough to try it in a race where one of the jockeys was David Stampe, the tale-bearing younger son of the Senior Steward.
Joe, and, I was sure, Sandy too, had both gone to the lengths of deliberately holding back horses which, without their interference, would have been certain to win. They had, in fact, been guilty of criminal fraud. But was I so very much better, I wondered, as I tied on my helmet and took my saddle over to the scales. For I proposed to take Forlorn Hope sensibly over the hurdles, concentrating on getting round the course; and I had no intention of riding him all out in the faint possibility that he might finish in the first three. He was not properly fit, and too hard a race would do him great harm. Of course if by some unforeseen circumstances, such as a lot of falls among the other horses, I found myself placed with a winning chance, I intended to seize it. There is a world of difference between 'stopping' and 'not trying hard, but willing to win’: but the result for disgruntled backers is the same. They lose their money.
When the time came I mounted and rode out on to the course. The familiar excitement was in my blood again. Not Bill's death, nor Scilla's mourning, nor the thought of Kate making progress with someone else, could affect the gripping happiness I always felt when cantering down to the starting gate. The speed of racing, the quick decisions, the risks, these were what I badly needed to counteract the safeties of civilization. One can be too secure. Adventure is good for the soul, especially for someone like me, whose father stopped counting after the fourth million.
And my father, with an understanding based on his own much wilder youth, had given me unconditionally a fast car and three good horses and turned me loose in a country five thousand miles from home. He said, however, as he dispatched me with his blessing, that he thought steeplechasing was rather mild for one who had been taken crocodile hunting on the Zambezi every year since he was ten. My father's annual month away from his trading empire usually meant for us a dash across the veldt and a plunge into the primeval forest, sometimes equipped with the absolute minimum of kit and no one but ourselves to carry it. And I, for whom the deep jungle was a familiar playground, found the challenge I needed in a tamed land, on friendly animals, in a sport hemmed all about with rules and regulations. It was very odd, when one came to consider it.
The starter called the roll to make sure everyone had arrived. I found Joe Nantwich guiding his horse along beside me. He was wearing his usual unpleasant expression, half petulance, half swank.
'Are you going back to the Davidsons' after the races, Alan?' he asked. He always spoke to me with a familiarity I slightly resented, though I tried not to.
'Yes,' I said. Then I thought of Kate. 'I may not go at once, though.'
'Will you give me a lift as far as Epsom?'
'I don't go that way,' I said, very politely.
'But you go through Dorking. I could get a bus on from there if you don't want to go to Epsom. I came with someone who is going on to Kent, so I've got to find some transport home.' He was persistent, and although I thought he could find someone going directly to Epsom if he tried hard enough, I agreed in the end to take him.
We lined up for the start. Joe was on one side of me and Sandy on the other, and from the looks they gave each other across me, there was no love lost between them. Sandy 's smile was a nasty one: Joe's round baby face puckered up like a child trying not to cry. I imagined that Sandy had been puncturing Joe's inflated ego with one of those famous practical jokes, such as filling the feet of his racing boots with jam.
Then we were off, and I gave all my attention to getting Forlorn Hope round as neatly, quickly, and safely as I could. He was going so well that for over half of the race I lay in third place, staying slightly towards the outside, to give him a clear view of the obstacles. The last quarter mile coming up the hill was too much for him, though, and we finished sixth. I was satisfied; and Scilla would be reassured.
Sandy Mason finished ahead of me. Then Joe Nantwich's horse galloped past loose, reins dangling, and looking back to the far end of the course I saw the tiny figure of Joe himself trudging back to the stands.