Dead Cert

CHAPTER SIX

Scilla was lying asleep on the sofa with a rug over her legs and a half-full glass on a low table beside her. I picked up the glass and sniffed. Brandy. She usually drank gin and Campari. Brandy was for bad days only.

She opened her eyes. 'Alan! I'm so glad you're back. What time is it?'

'Half past nine,' I said.

'You must be starving,' she said, pushing off the rug. 'Why ever didn't you wake me? Dinner was ready hours ago.'

'I've only just got here, and Joan is cooking now, so relax,' I said.

We went in to eat. I sat in my usual place. Bill's chair, opposite Scilla, was empty. I made a mental note to move it back against the wall.

Half way through the steaks, Scilla said, breaking a long silence, 'Two policemen came to see me today.'

'Did they? About the inquest tomorrow?'

'No, it was about Bill.' She pushed her plate away.

'They asked me if he was in any trouble, like you did. They asked me the same questions in different ways for over half an hour. One of them suggested that if I was as fond of my husband as I said I was and on excellent terms with him, I ought to know if something was wrong in his life. They were rather nasty, really.'

She was not looking at me. She kept her eyes down, regarding her half-eaten, congealing steak, and there was a slight embarrassment in her manner, which was unusual.

'I can imagine,' I said, realizing what was the matter. 'They asked you, I suppose, to explain your relationship with me, and why I was still living in your house?'

She glanced up in surprise and evident relief. 'Yes, they did. I didn't know how to tell you. It seems so ordinary to me that you should be here, yet I couldn't seem to make them understand that.'

'I'll go tomorrow, Scilla,' I said. 'I'm not letting you in for any more gossip. If the police can think that you were cheating Bill with me, so can the village and the county. I've been exceedingly thoughtless, and I'm very very sorry.' For I, too, had found it quite natural to stay on in Bill's house after his death.

'You will certainly not leave tomorrow on my account, Alan,' said Scilla with more resolution that I would have given her credit for. 'I need you here. I shall do nothing but cry all the time if I don't have you to talk to, especially in the evenings. I can get through the days, with the children and the house to think about. But the nights-' And in her suddenly ravaged face I could read all the tearing, savage pain of a loss four days old.

'I don't care what anyone says,' she said through starting tears, 'I need you here. Please, please, don't go away.'

'I'll stay,' I said. 'Don't worry. I'll stay as long as you want me to. But you must promise to tell me when you are ready for me to go.'

She dried her eyes and raised a smile. 'When I begin to worry about my reputation, you mean? I promise.'

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.

But at two o'clock in the morning she opened my bedroom door. I woke at once. She came over and switched on my bedside light, and sat down on my bed.

She looked ridiculously young and defenceless. She was wearing a pale blue knee-length chiffon nightdress which flowed transparently about her slender body and fell like mist over the small round breasts.

I propped myself up on my elbow and ran my fingers through my hair.

'I can't sleep,' she said.

'Did you take the pills?' I asked.

But I could answer my own question. Her eyes looked drugged, and in her right mind she would not have come into my room so unrevealingly undressed.

'Yes, I took them. They've made me a bit groggy, but I'm still awake. I took an extra one.' Her voice was slurred and dopey. 'Will you talk for a bit?' she said. 'Then perhaps I'll feel more sleepy. When I'm on my own I just lie and think about Bill- Tell me more about Plumpton- You said you rode another horse- Tell me about it. Please-'

So I sat up in bed and wrapped my eiderdown round her shoulders, and told her about Kate's birthday present and Uncle George, thinking how often I had told Polly and Henry and William bedside stories to send them to sleep. But after a while I saw she was not listening, and presently the slow heavy tears were falling from her bent head on to her hands.

'You must think me a terrible fool to cry so much,' she said, 'but I just can't help it.' She lay down weakly beside me, her head on my pillow. She took hold of my hand and closed her eyes. I looked down at her sweet, pretty face with the tears trickling past her ears into her cloudy dark hair, and gently kissed her forehead. Her body shook with two heavy sobs. I lay down and slid my arm under her neck. She turned towards me and clung to me, holding me fiercely, sobbing slowly with her deep terrible grief.

And at last, gradually, the sleeping pills did their job. She relaxed, breathing audibly, her hand twisted into the jacket of my pyjamas. She was lying half on top of the bedclothes, and the February night was cold. I tugged the sheet and blankets gently from underneath her with my free hand and spread them over her, and pulled the eiderdown up over our shoulders. I switched off the light and lay in the dark, gently cradling her until her breath grew soft and she was soundly asleep.

I smiled to think of Inspector Lodge's face if he could have seen us. And I reflected that I should not have been content to be so passive a bedfellow had I held Kate in my arms instead.

During the night Scilla twisted uneasily several times, murmuring jumbled words that made no sense, seeming to be calmed each time by my hand stroking her hair. Towards morning she was quiet. I got up, wrapped her in the eiderdown and carried her to her own bed. I knew that if she woke in my room, with the drugs worn off, she would be unnecessarily ashamed and upset.

She was still sleeping peacefully when I left her.

A few hours later, after a hurried breakfast, I drove her to Maidenhead to attend the inquest. She slept most of the way and did not refer to what had happened in the night. I was not sure she even remembered.

Lodge must have been waiting for us, for he met us as soon as we went in. He was carrying a sheaf of papers, and looked businesslike and solid. I introduced him to Scilla, and his eyes sharpened appreciatively at the sight of her pale prettiness. But what he said was a surprise.

'I'd like to apologize,' he began, 'for the rather unpleasant suggestions which have been put to you and Mr York about each other.' He turned to me. 'We are now satisfied that you were in no way responsible for Major Davidson's death.'

'That's big of you,' I said lightly, but I was glad to hear it.

Lodge went on, 'You can say what you like to the Coroner about the wire, of course, but I'd better warn you that he won't be too enthusiastic. He hates anything fancy, and you've no evidence. Don't worry if you don't agree with his verdict – I think it's sure to be accidental death – because inquests can always be reopened, if need be.'

In view of this I was not disturbed when the coroner, a heavily moustached man of fifty, listened keenly enough to my account of Bill's fall, but dealt a little brusquely with my wire theory. Lodge testified that he had accompanied me to the racecourse to look for the wire I had reported, but that there had been none there.

The man who had been riding directly behind me when Bill fell was also called. He was an amateur rider who lived in Yorkshire, and he'd had to come a long way. He said, with an apologetic glance for me, that he had seen nothing suspicious at the fence, and that in his opinion it was a normal fall. Unexpected maybe, but not mysterious. He radiated common sense.

Had Mr York, the Coroner enquired in a doubtful voice, mentioned the possible existence of wire to anyone at all on the day of the race? Mr York had not.

The Coroner, summing up medical, police, and all other evidence, found that Major Davidson had died of injuries resulting from his horse having fallen in a steeplechase. He was not convinced, he said, that the fall was anything but an accident.

Owing to a mistake about the time, the local paper had failed to send a representative to the inquest, and from lack of detailed reporting the proceedings rated only small paragraphs in the evening and morning papers. The word 'wire' was not mentioned. This omission did not worry me one way or the other, but Scilla was relieved. She said she could not yet stand questions from inquisitive friends, let alone reporters.

Bill's funeral was held quietly in the village on Friday morning, attended only by his family and close friends. Bearing one corner of his coffin on my shoulder and bidding my private good-byes, I knew for sure that I would not be satisfied until his death was avenged. I didn't know how it was to be done, and, strangely enough, I didn't feel any urgency about it. But in time, I promised him, in time, I'll do it.

Scilla's sister had come to the funeral and was to stay with her for two or three days, so, missing lunch out of deference to the light weight I was committed to ride at on the following day, 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.

The office staff were experts. My job was to discuss with Hughes, my second in command, the day-to-day affairs of the company, to make decisions and agree to plans made by Hughes, and to sign my name to endless documents and letters. It seldom took me more than three days a week. On Sunday it was my weekly task to write to my father. I had a feeling he skipped the filial introduction and the accounts of my racing, and fastened his sharp brain only on my report of the week's trade and my assessment of the future.

Those Sunday reports had been part of my life for ten years. School homework could wait, my father used to say. It was more important for me to know every detail about the kingdom I was to inherit; and to this end he made me study continually the papers he brought home from his office. By the time I left school I could appraise at a glance the significance of fluctuations in the world prices of raw materials, even if I had no idea when Charles I was beheaded.

On Friday evening I waited impatiently for Kate to join me for dinner. Unwrapped from the heavy overcoat and woolly boots she had worn at Plumpton, she was more ravishing than ever. She wore a glowing red dress, simple and devastating, and her dark hair fell smoothly to her shoulders. She seemed to be alight from within with her own brand of effervescence. The evening was fun and, to me at least, entirely satisfactory. We ate, we danced, we talked.

While we swayed lazily round the floor to some dreamy slow-tempo music Kate introduced the only solemn note of the evening.

'I saw a bit about your friend's inquest in this morning's paper,' she said.

I brushed my lips against her hair. It smelled sweet. 'Accidental death,' I murmured vaguely. 'I don't think.'

'Hm?' Kate looked up.

'I'll tell you about it one day, when I know the whole story,' I said, enjoying the taut line of her neck as she tilted her face up to mine. It was strange, I thought, that it was possible to feel two strong emotions at once. Pleasure in surrendering to the seduction of the music with a dancing Kate balanced in my arms, and a tugging sympathy for Scilla trying to come to terms with her loneliness eighty miles away in the windy Cotswold hills.

'Tell me now,' said Kate with interest. 'If it wasn't accidental death, what was it?'

I hesitated. I didn't want too much reality pushing the evening's magic sideways.

'Come on, come on,' she urged, smiling. 'You can't stop here. I'll die of suspense.'

So I told her about the wire. It shocked her enough to stop her dancing, and we stood flat-footed in the middle of the floor with the other couples flowing round and bumping into us.

'Dear heavens,' she said, 'how- how wicked.'

She wanted me to explain why the inquest verdict had been what it was, and after I had told her that with the wire gone there was no evidence of anything else, she said, 'I can't bear to think of anyone getting away with so disgusting a trick.'

'Nor can I,' I said, 'and they won't, I promise you, if I can help it.'

'That's good,' she said seriously. She began to sway again to the music, and I took her in my arms and we drifted back into the dance. We didn't mention Bill again.

It seemed to me for long periods that evening as if my feet were not in proper contact with the floor, and the most extraordinary tremors constantly shook my knees. Kate seemed to notice nothing: she was friendly, funny, brimming over with gaiety, and utterly unsentimental.

When at length I helped her into the chauffeur-driven car which Uncle George had sent up from Sussex to take her home, I had discovered how painful it is to love. I was excited, keyed up. And also anxious; for I was sure that she did not feel as intensely about me as I about her.

I already knew I wanted to marry Kate. The thought that she might not have me was a bitter one.

The next day I went to Kempton Park races. Outside the weighing room I ran into Dane. We talked about the going, the weather, Pete's latest plans for us, and the horses. Usual jockey stuff. Then Dane said, 'You took Kate out last night?'

'Yes.'

'Where did you go?'

'The River Club,' I said. 'Where did you take her?'

'Didn't she tell you?' asked Dane.

'She said to ask you.'

'River Club,' said Dane.

'Damn it,' I said. But I had to laugh.

'Honours even,' said Dane.

'Did she ask you down to stay with Uncle George?' I asked suspiciously.

'I'm going today, after the races,' said Dane, smiling. 'And you?'

'Next Saturday,' I said gloomily. 'You know, Dane, she's teasing us abominably.'

'I can stand it,' said Dane. He tapped me on the shoulder. 'Don't look so miserable, it may never happen.'

'That's what I'm afraid of,' I sighed. He laughed and went into the weighing room.

It was an uneventful afternoon. I rode my big black mare in a novice 'chase and Dane beat me by two lengths. At the end of the day we walked out to the car park together.

'How is Mrs Davidson bearing up?' Dane asked.

'Fairly well, considering the bottom has dropped out of her world.'

'Jockeys' wives' nightmare come true.'

'Yes,' I said.

'It makes you pause a bit, before you ask a girl to put up with that sort of constant worry,' said Dane, thoughtfully.

'Kate?' I asked. He looked round sharply and grinned.

'I suppose so. Do you mind?'

'Yes,' I said, keeping my voice light. 'I mind very much.'

We came to his car first, and he put his race glasses and hat on the seat. His suitcase was in the back.

'So long, mate,' he said. 'I'll keep you posted.'

I watched him drive off, answered his wave. I seldom felt envious of anybody, but at that moment I envied Dane sorely.

I climbed into the Lotus and pointed its low blue nose towards home.

It was on the road through Maidenhead Thicket that I saw the horse-box. It was parked in a lay-by on the near side, with tools scattered on the ground round it and the bonnet up. It was facing me as I approached, as if it had broken down on its way into Maidenhead. A man was walking a horse up and down in front of it.

The driver, standing by the bonnet scratching his head, saw me coming and gestured me to stop. I pulled up beside him. He walked round to talk to me through the window, a middle-aged man, unremarkable, wearing a leather jacket.

'Do you know anything about engines, sir?' he asked.

'Not as much as you, I should think,' I said, smiling. He had grease on his hands. If a horse-box driver couldn't find the fault in his own motor, it would be a long job for whoever did. 'I'll take you back into Maidenhead, though, if you like. There's bound to be someone there who can help you.'

'That's extremely kind of you, sir,' he said, civilly. 'Thank you very much. But – er – I'm in a bit of a difficulty.' He looked into the car and saw my binoculars on the seat beside me. His face lightened up. 'You don't possibly know anything about horses, sir?'

'A bit, yes,' I said.

'Well, it's like this, sir. I've got these two horses going to the London docks. They're being exported. Well, that one's all right.' He pointed to the horse walking up and down. 'But the other one, he don't seem so good. Sweating hard, he's been, the last hour or so, and biting at his stomach. He keeps trying to lie down. Looks ill.

The lad's in there with him now, and he's proper worried, I can tell you.'

'It sounds as though it might be colic,' I said. 'If it is, he ought to be walking round, too. It's the only way to get him better. It's essential to keep them on the move when they've got colic.'

The driver looked troubled. 'It's a lot to ask, sir,' he said, tentatively, 'but would you have a look at him? Motors are my fancy, not horses, except to back 'em. And these lads are not too bright. I don't want a rocket from the boss for not looking after things properly.'

'All right,' I said, 'I'll have a look. But I'm not a vet, you know, by a long way.'

He smiled in a relieved fashion. 'Thank you, sir. Anyway, you'll know if I've got to get a vet at once or not, I should think.'

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.

He didn't leave go.

There were three men waiting for me inside the horse-box. And no horse, sick or otherwise. After a flurried ten seconds during which my eyes were still unused to the dim light, I ended up standing with my back to the end post of one of the partition walls.

The horse-box was divided into three stalls with two partition walls between them, and there was a space across the whole width of the box at the back, usually occupied by lads travelling with their horses.

Two of the men held my arms. They stood on each side of the partition and slightly behind me, and they had an uncomfortable leverage on my shoulders. The post of the partition was padded with matting, as it always is in racehorse boxes, to save the horses hurting themselves while they travel. The mattress tickled my neck.

The driver stepped up into the box and shut the door. His manner, still incredibly deferential, held a hint of triumph. It was entitled to. He had set a neat trap.

'Very sorry to have to do this, sir,' he said politely. It was macabre.

'If it's money you want,' I said, 'you're going to be unlucky. I don't bet much and I didn't have a good day at the races today. I'm afraid you've gone to a lot of trouble for a measly eight quid.'

'We don't want your money, sir,' he said. 'Though as you're offering it we might as well take it, at that.' And still smiling pleasantly he put his hand inside my jacket and took my wallet out of the inside pocket.

I kicked his shin as hard as I could, but was hampered because of my position against the post. As soon as they felt me move the two men behind me jerked my arms painfully backwards.

'I shouldn't do that, sir, if I was you,' said the friendly driver, rubbing his leg. He opened my wallet and took out the money, which he folded carefully and stowed inside his leather coat. He peered at the other things in the wallet, then stepped towards me, and put it back in my pocket. He was smiling, faintly.

I stood still.

'That's better,' he said, approvingly.

'What's all this about?' I asked. I had some idea that they intended to ransom me to my distant millionaire parent. Along the lines of 'Cable us ten thousand pounds or we post your son back to you in small pieces.' That would mean that they knew all along who I was, and had not just stopped any random motorist in a likely-looking car to rob him.

'Surely you know, sir?' said the driver.

'I've no idea.'

'I was asked to give you a message, Mr York.'

So he did know who I was. And he had not this minute discovered it from my wallet, which contained only money, stamps, and a cheque book in plain view. One or two things with my name on were in a flapped pocket, but he had not looked there.

'What makes you think my name is York?' I asked, trying a shot at outraged surprise. It was no good.

'Mr Alan York, sir, was scheduled to drive along this road on his way from Kempton Park to the Cotswolds at approximately five fifteen p.m. on Saturday, February 27th, in a dark blue Lotus Elite, licence number KAB 890. I must thank you, sir, for making it easy for me to intercept you. You could go a month on the road without seeing another car like yours. I'd have had a job flagging you down if you'd been driving, say, a Ford or an Austin.' His tone was still conversational.

'Get on with your message. I'm listening,' I said.

'Deeds speak louder than words,' said the driver, mildly.

He came close and unbuttoned my jacket, looking at me steadily with wide eyes, daring me to kick him. I didn't move. He untied my tie, opened the neck of my shirt. We looked into each other's eyes. I hoped mine were as expressionless as his. I let my arms go slack in the grip of the two men behind me, and felt them relax their hold slightly.

The driver stepped back and looked towards the fourth man, who had been leaning against the horsebox wall, silently. 'He's all yours, Sonny. Deliver the message,' he said.

Sonny was young, with sideboards. But I didn't look at his face, particularly. I looked at his hands.

He had a knife. The hilt lay in his palms, and his fingers were lightly curled round it, not gripping. The way a professional holds a knife.

There was nothing of the driver's mock deference in Sonny's manner. He was enjoying his work. He stood squarely in front of me and put the point of his short blade on my breastbone. It scarcely pricked, so light was his touch.

Oh bloody hell, I thought. My father would not be at all pleased to receive ransom messages reinforced by pleas from me for my own safety. I would never be able to live it down. And I was sure that this little melodrama was intended to soften me up into a suitably frightened state of mind. I sagged against the post, as if to shrink away from the knife, Sonny's grim mouth smiled thinly in a sneer.

Using the post as a springboard I thrust forwards and sideways as strongly as I knew how, bringing my knee up hard into Sonny's groin and tearing my arms out of the slackened grasp of the men behind me.

I leaped for the door and got it open. In the small area of the horse-box I had no chance, but I thought that if only I could get out into the thicket I might be able to deal with them. I had learned a nasty trick or two about fighting from my cousin, who lived in Kenya and had taken lessons from the Mau Mau.

But I didn't make it.

I tried to swing out with the door, but it was stiff and slow. The driver grabbed my ankle. I shook his hand off, but the vital second had gone. The two men who had held me clutched at my clothes. Through the open door I glimpsed the man who had been leading the horse up and down. He was looking enquiringly at the horse-box. I had forgotten about him.

I lashed out furiously with feet, fists and elbows, but they were too much for me. I ended up where I began, against the matting-padded post with my arms pulled backwards. This time the two men were none too gentle. They slammed me back against the post hard and put their weight on my arms. I felt the wrench in my shoulders and down my chest to my stomach. I shut my teeth.

Sonny, clutching his abdomen, was half sitting, half kneeling in the corner. He watched with satisfaction.

'That hurt the bastard, Peaky,' he said. 'Do it again.'

Peaky and his mate did it again.

Sonny laughed. Not a nice laugh.

A little more pressure and I should have some torn ligaments and a dislocated shoulder. There didn't seem to be much I could do about it.

The driver shut the horse-box door and picked the knife up from the floor, where it had fallen. He was not looking quite so calm as before. My fist had connected with his nose and blood was trickling out of it. But his temper was intact.

'Stop it. Stop it, Peaky,' he said. 'The boss said we weren't to hurt him. He made quite a point of it. You wouldn't want the boss to know you disobeyed him, would you?' There was a threat in his voice.

The tension on my arms slowly relaxed. Sonny's smile turned to a sullen scowl. It appeared I had the boss to thank for something, even if not much.

'Now, Mr York,' said the driver reproachfully, wiping his nose on a blue handkerchief, 'all that was quite unnecessary. We only want to give you a message.'

'I don't like listening with knives sticking into me,' I said.

The driver sighed. 'Yes, sir, I can see that was a mistake. It was meant for you to understand that the warning is serious, see. Take no notice of it, and you'll find you're in real trouble. I'm telling you, real trouble.'

'What warning?' I said, mystified.

'You're to lay off asking questions about Major Davidson,' he said.

'What?' I goggled at him. It was so unexpected. 'I haven't been asking questions about Major Davidson,' I said weakly.

'I don't know about that, I'm sure,' said the driver, mopping away, 'but that's the message, and you'd do well to take heed of it, sir. I'm telling you for your own good. The boss don't like people poking into his affairs.'

'Who is the boss?' I asked.

'Now, sir, you know better than to ask questions like that. Sonny, go and tell Bert we've finished here. We'll load up the horse.'

Sonny stood up with a groan and went over to the door, his hand still pressed to his groin. He yelled something out of the window.

'Stand still, Mr York, and you'll come to no harm,' said the driver, his politeness unimpaired. He mopped, and looked at his handkerchief to see if his nose was still bleeding. It was. I took his advice, and stood still. He opened the door and climbed down out of the horse-box. A little time passed during which Sonny and I exchanged glares and nobody said anything.

Then there was the noise of bolts and clips being undone, and the side of the horse-box which formed the ramp was lowered to the ground. The fifth man, Bert, led the horse up the ramp and fastened him into the nearest stall. The driver raised the ramp again and fastened it.

I used the brief period while what was left of the daylight flooded into the box, to twist my head round as far as I could and take a clear look at Peaky. I saw what I expected, but it only increased my bewilderment.

The driver climbed into the cab, shut the door, and started the engine.

Bert said, 'Take him over to the door.' I needed no urging.

The horse-box began to move. Bert opened the door. Peaky and his pal let go of my arms and Bert gave me a push. I hit the ground just as the accelerating horse-box pulled out of the lay-by on to the deserted road. It was as well I had had a good deal of practice at falling off horses. Instinctively, I landed on my shoulder and rolled.

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.

The Lotus still stood in the lay-by. I picked myself up, dusted the worst off my suit, and walked over to it. I intended to follow the horse-box and see where it went. But the thorough driver had seen to it that I should not. The car would not start. Opening the bonnet to see how much damage had been done, I found that three of the four sparking plugs had been taken out. They lay in a neat row on the battery. It took me ten minutes to replace them, because my hands were trembling.

By then I had no hope of catching the horse-box or of finding anyone who had noticed its direction. I got back into the car and fastened the neck of my shirt. My tie was missing altogether.

I took out the AA book and looked up the registration letters PX. For what it was worth, the horse-box was originally registered in West Sussex. If the number plate were genuine, it might be possible to discover the present owner. For a quarter of an hour I sat and thought. Then I started the car, turned it, and drove back into Maidenhead.

The town was bright with lights, though nearly all the shops were shut. The door of the police station was open wide. I went in and asked for Inspector Lodge.

'He isn't in yet,' said the policeman at the enquiry desk, glancing up at the clock. It was ten past six. 'He'll be here any minute, if you care to wait, sir.'

'He isn't in yet? Do you mean he is just starting work for the day?'

'Yes, sir. He's on late turn. Busy evening here, Saturday,' he grinned. 'Dance halls, pubs, and car crashes.' I smiled back, sat down on the bench and waited. After five minutes Lodge came in quickly, peeling off his coat.

'Evening, Small, what's new?' he said to the policeman at the enquiry desk.

'Gentleman here to see you, sir,' said Small, gesturing to me. 'He's only been waiting a few minutes.'

Lodge turned round. I stood up. 'Good evening,' I said.

'Good evening, Mr York.' Lodge gave me a piercing look but showed no surprise at seeing me. His eyes fell to the neck of my shirt, and his eyebrows rose a fraction. But he said only, 'What can I do for you?'

'Are you very busy?' I asked. 'If you have time, I would like to tell you- how I lost my tie.' In mid-sentence I funked saying baldly that I had been manhandled. As it was, Small looked at me curiously, clearly thinking me mad to come into a police station to tell an inspector how I lost my tie.

But Lodge, whose perception was acute, said, 'Come into my office, Mr York.' He led the way. He hung up his hat and coat on pegs and lit the gas fire, but its glowing bars couldn't make a cosy place of the austere, square, filing-cabineted little room.

Lodge sat behind his tidy desk, and I, as before, faced him. He offered me a cigarette and gave me a light. As the smoke went comfortingly down into my lungs, I was wondering where to begin.

I said, 'Have you got any further with the Major Davidson business since the day before yesterday?'

'No, I'm afraid not. It no longer has any sort of priority with us. Yesterday we discussed it in conference and consulted your Senior Steward, Sir Creswell Stampe. In view of the verdict at the inquest, your story is considered, on the whole, to be the product of a youthful and overheated imagination. No one but you saw any wire. The grooves on the posts of the fence may or may not have been caused by wire, but there is no indication when they were made. I understand it is fairly common practice for groundsmen to raise a wire across a fence so that members of the riding public shall not try to jump it and make holes in the birch.' He paused, then went on, 'Sir Creswell says the view of the National Hunt Committee, several of whom he has talked to on the telephone, is that you made a mistake. If you saw any wire, they contend, it must have belonged to the groundsman.'

'Have they asked him?' I said.

Lodge sighed. 'The head groundsman says he didn't leave any wire on the course, but one of his staff is old and vague, and can't be sure that he didn't.'

We looked at each other in glum silence.

'And what do you think, yourself?' I asked finally.

Lodge said, 'I believe you saw the wire and that Major Davidson was brought down by it. There is one fact which I personally consider significant enough to justify this belief. It is that the attendant who gave his name as Thomas Cook did not collect the pay due to him for two days' work. In my experience there has to be a very good reason for a workman to ignore his pay packet.' He smiled sardonically.

'I could give you another fact to prove that Major Davidson's fall was no accident,' I said, 'but you'll have to take my word for it again. No evidence.'

'Go on.'

'Someone has been to great pains to tell me not to ask awkward questions about it.' I told him about the events in and around the horse-box, and added, 'And how's that for the product of a youthful and overheated imagination?'

'When did all this happen?' asked Lodge.

'About an hour ago.'

'And what were you doing between then and the time you arrived here?'

'Thinking,' I said, stubbing out my cigarette.

'Oh,' said Lodge. 'Well, have you given any thought to the improbabilities in your story? My chief isn't going to like them when I make my report.'

'Don't make it then,' I said, smiling. 'But I suppose the most glaring improbability is that five men, a horse, and a horse-box should all be employed to give a warning which might much more easily have been sent by post.'

'That certainly indicates an organization of unusual size,' said Lodge, with a touch of irony.

'There are at least ten of them,' I said. 'One or two probably in hospital, though.'

Lodge sat up straighter.

'What do you mean? How do you know?'

'The five men who stopped me today are all taxi-drivers. Either from London or Brighton, but I don't know which. I saw them at Plumpton races three days ago, fighting a pitched battle against a rival gang.'

'What?' Lodge exclaimed. Then he said, 'Yes, I saw a paragraph about it in a newspaper. Do you recognize them positively?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Sonny had his knife out at Plumpton, too, but he was pinned down by a big heavy man, and didn't get much chance to use it. But I saw his face quite clearly. Peaky you couldn't mistake, with that dark widow's peak growing down his forehead. The other three were all rounded up into the same group at Plumpton. I was waiting to give someone a lift, and I had a long time to look at the taxi-drivers after the fight was over. Bert, the man with the horse, had a black eye today, and the man who held my right arm, whose name I don't know, he had some sticking plaster on his fore head. But why were they all free? The last I saw of them, they were bound for the cells, I thought, for disturbing the peace.'

'They may be out on bail, or else they were let off with a fine. I don't know, without seeing a report,' said Lodge. 'Now why, in your opinion, were so many sent to warn you?'

'Rather flattering, sending five, when you come to think of it,' I grinned. 'Perhaps the taxi business is in the doldrums and they hadn't anything else to do. Or else it was, like the driver said, to ram the point home.'

'Which brings me,' said Lodge, 'to another improbability. Why, if you were faced with a knife at your chest, did you throw yourself forward? Wasn't that asking for trouble?'

'I wouldn't have been so keen if he'd held the point a bit higher up; but it was against my breast bone. You'd need a hammer to get a knife through that. I reckoned that I'd knock it out of Sonny's hand rather than into me, and that's what happened.'

'Didn't it cut you at all?'

'Not much,' I said.

'Let's see,' said Lodge, getting up and coming round the desk.

I opened my shirt again. Between the second and third buttons there was a shallow cut an inch or so long in the skin over my breastbone. Some blood had clotted on the cut and there was a dried rusty trail down my chest where a few drops had run. My shirt was spotted here and there. Nothing. I hadn't felt it much.

Lodge sat down again. I buttoned my shirt.

'Now,' he said, picking up his pen and biting the end of it. 'What questions have you been asking about Major Davidson, and of whom have you asked them?'

'That is really what is most surprising about the whole affair,' I said. 'I've hardly asked anything of anybody. And I certainly haven't had any useful answers.'

'But you must have touched a nerve somewhere,' said Lodge. He took a sheet of paper out of the drawer. 'Tell me the names of everyone with whom you have discussed the wire.'

'With you,' I said promptly. 'And with Mrs Davidson. And everyone at the inquest heard me say I'd found it.'

'But I noticed that the inquest wasn't properly reported in the papers. There was no mention of wire in the press,' he said. 'And anyone seeing you at the inquest wouldn't have got the impression that you were hell-bent on unravelling the mystery. You took the verdict very calmly and not at all as if you disagreed with it.'

'Thanks to your warning me in advance what to expect,' I said.

Lodge's list looked short and unsatisfactory on the large sheet of paper.

'Anyone else?' he said.

'Oh- a friend- a Miss Ellery-Penn. I told her last night.'

'Girl friend?' he asked bluntly. He wrote her down.

'Yes,' I said.

'Anyone else?'

'No.'

'Why not?' he asked, pushing the paper away.

'I reckoned you and Sir Creswell needed a clear field. I thought I might mess things up for you if I asked too many questions. Put people on their guard, ready with their answers – that sort of thing. But it seems, from what you've said about dropping your enquiries, that I might as well have gone ahead.' I spoke a little bitterly.

Lodge looked at me carefully. 'You resent being considered youthful and hot-headed,' he said.

'Twenty-four isn't young,' I said. 'I seem to remember England once had a Prime Minister of that age. He didn't do so badly.'

'That's irrelevant, and you know it,' he said.

I grinned.

Lodge said, 'What do you propose to do now?'

'Go home,' I said, looking at my watch.

'No, I meant about Major Davidson.'

'I'll Ask as many questions as I can think of,' I said promptly.

'In spite of the warning?'

'Because of it,' I said. 'The very fact that five men were sent to warn me off means that there is a good deal to find out. Bill Davidson was a good friend, you know. I can't tamely let whoever caused his death get away with it.' I thought a moment. 'First, I'll find out who owns the taxis which Peaky and Co. drive.'

'Well, unofficially, I wish you luck,' said Lodge. 'But be careful.'

'Sure,' I said standing up.

Lodge came to the street door of the police station and shook hands. 'Let me know how you get on,' he said.

'Yes, I will.'

He raised his hand in a friendly gesture, and went in. I resumed my interrupted journey to the Cotswolds. My wrenched shoulders were aching abominably, but as long as I concentrated on Bill's accident I could forget them.

It struck me that both the accident and the affair of the horse-box should give some clue to the mind which had hatched them. It was reasonable to assume it was the same mind. Both events were elaborate, where some simpler plan would have been effective, and the word 'devious' drifted into my thoughts and I dredged around in my memory chasing its echo. Finally I traced it to Joe Nantwich and the threatening letter which had reached him ten days late, but decided that Joe's troubles had nothing to do with Bill's.

Both the attack on Bill and the warning to me had been, I was certain, more violent in the event than in the plan. Bill had died partly by bad luck, and I would have been less roughly handled had I not tried to escape. I came to the conclusion that I was looking for someone with a fanciful imagination, someone prepared to be brutal up to a point, and whose little squibs, because of their complicated nature, were apt to go off with bigger bangs than were intended.

And it was comforting to realize that my adversary was not a man of superhuman intelligence. He could make mistakes. His biggest so far, I thought, was to go to great lengths to deliver an unnecessary warning whose sole effect was to stir me to greater action.

For two days I did nothing. There was no harm in giving the impression that the warning was being taken to heart.

I played poker with the children and lost to Henry because half my mind was occupied with his father's affairs.

Henry said, 'You aren't thinking what you're doing, Alan,' in a mock sorrowful tone as he rooked me of ten chips with two pairs.

'I expect he's in love,' said Polly, turning on me an assessing female eye. There was that, too.

'Pooh,' said Henry. He dealt the cards.

'What's in love?' said William, who was playing tiddly-winks with his chips, to Henry's annoyance.

'Soppy stuff,' said Henry. 'Kissing, and all that slush.'

'Mummy's in love with me,' said William, a cuddly child.

'Don't be silly,' said Polly loftily, from her eleven years. 'In love means weddings and brides and confetti and things.'

'Well, Alan,' said Henry, in a scornful voice, 'you'd better get out of love quick or you won't have any chips left.'

William picked up his hand. His eyes and mouth opened wide. This meant he had at least two aces. They were the only cards he ever raised on. I saw Henry give him a flick of a glance, then look back at his own hand. He discarded three and took three more, and at his turn, he pushed away his cards. I turned them over. Two queens and two tens. Henry was a realist. He knew when to give in. And William, bouncing up and down with excitement, won only four chips with three aces and a pair of fives.

Not for the first time I wondered at the quirks of heredity. Bill had been a friendly, genuine man of many solid virtues. Scilla, matching him, was compassionate and loving. Neither was at all intellectually gifted; yet they had endowed their elder son with a piercing, exceptional intelligence.

And how could I guess, as I cut the cards for Polly and helped William straighten up his leaning tower of chips, that Henry already held in his sharp eight-year-old brain the key to the puzzle of his father's death.

He didn't know it himself.