- •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 felt a warm glow inside. The Cheltenham Festival meeting suddenly seemed not a bad place to be, after all.
'Thanks,' I said, trying not to smile fatuously and scarcely succeeding. Dane looked at me speculatively; but I changed the subject back to racing, and presently I asked him if he had ever heard Bill Davidson spoken of in connection with any sort of odd happenings.
'No, I never did,' he said positively. I told him about the wire. His reaction was typical.
'Poor Bill,' he said with anger. 'Poor old Bill. What a bloody shame.'
'So if you hear anything which might have even the faintest significance-'
'I'll pass it on to you,' he promised.
At that moment Joe Nantwich walked straight into Dane as if he hadn't seen him. He stopped without apology, took a step back, and then went on his way to the changing room. His eyes were wide, unfocused, staring.
'He's drunk,' said Dane, incredulously. 'His breath smells like a distillery.'
Joe reappeared at our side. It was true that one could smell his approach a good yard away. Without preamble he spoke directly to me.
'I've had another one.' He took a paper out of his pocket. It had been screwed up and straightened out again, so that it was wrinkled in a hundred fine lines, but its ball-pointed message was still abundantly clear.
BOLINGBROKE. THIS WEEK, it said.
'When did you get it?' I asked.
'It was here when I arrived, waiting for me in the letter rack.'
'You've tanked up pretty quickly, then,' I said.
'I'm not drunk,' said Joe indignantly. 'I only had a couple of quick ones in the bar opposite the weighing room.'
Dane and I raised our eyebrows in unison. The bar opposite the weighing room had no front wall, and anyone drinking there was in full view of every trainer, owner, and Steward who walked out of the weighing room. There might be a surer way for a jockey to commit professional suicide than to have 'a couple of quick ones' at that bar before the first race, but I couldn't think of it off-hand.
'Double quick ones, I imagine,' said Dane with a smile, taking the paper out of my hand and reading it. 'What does it mean, Bolingbroke this week? Why are you so steamed up about it?'
Joe snatched the paper away and stuffed it back into his pocket. He seemed for the first time to be aware that Dane was listening.
'It's none of your business,' he said rudely.
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.
'Are you riding today?' I asked.
'I'm in the fourth and the last. Those bloody amateurs have got two races all to themselves today. A bit thick, isn't it, leaving us only four races to earn our living in?
There was a small silence. Dane laughed. Joe was after all not too drunk to realize he was riding his hobby horse in front of the wrong man. He said weakly, in his smarmiest voice, 'Well, Alan, of course I didn't mean you personally -'
'If you still want my advice, in view of your opinion of amateur jockeys,' I said, keeping a straight face, 'you should drink three cups of strong black coffee and stay out of sight as long as you can.'
'I mean, what shall I do about this note?' Joe had a thicker skin than a coach-hide cabin trunk.
'Pay it no attention at all,' I said. 'I should think that whoever wrote it is playing with you. Perhaps he knows you like to drown your sorrows in whisky and is relying on you to destroy yourself without his having to do anything but send you frightening letters. A neat, bloodless, and effective revenge.'
'No one's going to do that to me,' he said, with an aggressiveness which I guessed would diminish with the alcohol level in his blood. He weaved off out of the weighing room door, presumably in search of black coffee. Before Dane could ask me what was going on, he received a hearty slap on the back from Sandy Mason, who was staring after Joe with dislike.
They launched into a technical discussion and I turned away from them. But Dane touched my arm.
He said, 'Is it all right for me to tell people, say Sandy for instance, about the wire and Bill?'
'Yes, do. You might strike oil with someone I wouldn't have thought of asking about it. But be careful.' I thought of telling him about the warning in the horse-box, but it was a long story and it seemed enough to say, 'Remember that you're stirring up people who can kill, even if by mistake.'
He looked startled. 'Yes, you're right. I'll be careful.'
We turned back to Sandy together.
'What are you two so solemn about? Has someone swiped that luscious brunette you're both so keen on?' he said.
'It's about Bill Davidson,' said Dane, disregarding this.
'What about him?'
'The fall that killed him was caused by some wire being strung across the top of the fence, Alan saw it.'
Sandy looked aghast. 'Alan saw it,' he repeated, and then, as the full meaning of what Dane had said sank in, 'But that's murder.'