Dead Cert

CHAPTER EIGHT

On Saturday morning as I sat with Scilla and the children and Joan round the large kitchen table having a solidly domestic breakfast, the telephone rang.

Scilla went to answer it, but came back saying, 'It's for you, Alan. He wouldn't give his name.'

I went into the drawing-room and picked up the receiver. The March sun streamed through the windows on to a big bowl of red and yellow striped crocuses which stood on the telephone table. I said, 'Alan York speaking.'

'Mr York, I gave you a warning a week ago today. You have chosen to ignore it.'

I felt the hairs rising on my neck. My scalp itched. It was a soft voice with a husky, whispering note to it, not savage or forceful, but almost mildly conversational.

I didn't answer. The voice said, 'Mr York? Are you still there?'

'Yes.'

'Mr York, I am not a violent man. Indeed, I dislike violence. I go out of my way to avoid it, Mr York. But sometimes it is thrust upon me, sometimes it is the only way to achieve results. Do you understand me, Mr York?'

'Yes,' I said.

'If I were a violent man, Mr York, I would have sent you a rougher warning last week. And I'm giving you another chance, to show you how reluctant I am to harm you. Just mind your own business and stop asking foolish questions. That's all. Just stop asking questions, and nothing will happen to you.' There was a pause, then the soft voice went on, with a shade, a first tinge, of menace, 'Of course, if I find that violence is absolutely necessary, I always get someone else to apply it. So that I don't have to watch. So that it is not too painful to me. You do understand me, I hope, Mr York?'

'Yes,' I said again. I thought of Sonny, his vicious grin, and his knife.

'Good, then that's all. I do so hope you will be sensible. Good morning, Mr York.' There was a click as he broke the connexion.

I jiggled the telephone rest to recall the operator. When she answered I asked if she could tell me where the call had come from.

'One moment, please,' she said. She suffered from enlarged adenoids. She came back. 'It was routed through London,' she said, 'but I can't trace it beyond there. So sorry.'

'Never mind. Thank you very much,' I said.

'Pleasure, I'm sure,' said the adenoids.

I put down the receiver and went back to my breakfast.

'Who was that?' asked Henry, spreading marmalade thickly on his toast.

'Man about a dog,' I said.

'Or in other words,' said Polly, 'ask no questions and you'll be told no thumping lies.'

Henry made a face at her and bit deeply into his toast. The marmalade oozed out of one corner of his mouth. He licked it.

'Henry always wants to know who's ringing up,' said William.

'Yes, darling,' said Scilla absently, rubbing some egg off his jersey. 'I wish you would lean over your plate when you eat, William.' She kissed the top of his blond head.

I passed my cup to Joan for more coffee.

Henry said, 'Will you take us out to tea in Cheltenham, Alan? Can we have some of those squelchy cream things like last time, and ice-cream sodas with straws, and some peanuts for coming home?'

'Oh, yes,' said William, blissfully.

'I'd love to,' I said, 'but I can't today. We'll do it next week, perhaps.' The day of my visit to Kate's house had come at last. I was to stay there for two nights, and I planned to put in a day at the office on Monday.

Seeing the children's disappointed faces I explained, 'Today I'm going to stay with a friend. I won't be back until Monday evening.'

'What a bore,' said Henry.

The Lotus ate up the miles between the Cotswolds and Sussex with the deep purr of a contented cat. I covered the fifty miles of good road from Cirencester to Newbury in fifty-three minutes, not because I was in a great hurry, but out of sheer pleasure in driving my car at the speed it was designed for. And I was going towards Kate. Eventually. Newbury slowed me to a crawl, to a halt. Then I zipped briefly down the Basingstoke road, past the American air base at Greenham Common, and from the twisty village of Kingsclere onwards drove at a sedate pace which seldom rose above sixty.

Kate lived about four miles from Burgess Hill, in Sussex.

I arrived in Burgess Hill at twenty-past one, found my way to the railway station, and parked in a corner, tucked away behind a large shooting brake. I went into the station and bought a return ticket to Brighton. I didn't care to reconnoitre in Brighton by car: the Lotus had already identified me into one mess, and I hesitated to show my hand by taking it where it could be spotted by a cruising taxi driven by Peaky, Sonny, Bert, or the rest.

The journey took sixteen minutes. On the train I asked myself, for at least the hundredth time, what chance remark of mine had landed me in the horsebox hornet's nest. Whom had I alarmed by not only revealing that I knew about the wire, but more especially by saying that I intended to find out who had put it there? I could think of only two possible answers; and one of them I didn't like a bit.

I remembered saying to Clifford Tudor on the way from Plumpton to Brighton that a lot of questions would have to be answered about Bill's death; which was as good as telling him straight out that I knew the fall hadn't been an accident, and that I meant to do something about it.

And I had made the same thing quite clear to Kate. To Kate. To Kate. To Kate. The wheels of the train took up the refrain and mocked me.

Well, I hadn't sworn her to secrecy, and I hadn't seen any need to. She could have passed on what I had said to the whole of England, for all I knew. But she hadn't had much time. It had been after midnight when she left me in London, and the horse-box had been waiting for me seventeen hours later.

The train slowed into Brighton station. I walked up the platform and through the gate in a cluster of fellow passengers, but hung back as we came through the booking hall and out towards the forecourt. There were about twelve taxis parked there, their drivers standing outside them, surveying the out-pouring passengers for custom. I looked at all the drivers carefully, face by face.

They were all strangers. None of them had been at Plumpton.

Not unduly discouraged, I found a convenient corner with a clear view of arriving taxis and settled myself to wait, resolutely ignoring the cold draught blowing down my neck. Taxis came and went like busy bees, bringing passengers, taking them away. The trains from London attracted them like honey.

Gradually a pattern emerged. There were four distinct groups of them. One group had a broad green line painted down the wings, with the name Green Band on the doors. A second group had yellow shields on the doors, with small letters in black on the shields. A third group were bright cobalt blue all over. Into the fourth group I put the indeterminate taxis which did not belong to the other lines.

I waited for nearly two hours, growing stiffer and stiffer, and receiving more and more curious looks from the station staff. I looked at my watch. The last tram I could catch and still arrive at Kate's at the right time was due to leave in six minutes. I had begun to straighten up and massage my cold neck, ready to go and board it, when at last my patience was rewarded.

Empty taxis began to arrive and form a waiting line, which I now knew meant that another London train was due. The drivers got out of their cars and clustered in little groups, talking. Three dusty black taxis arrived in minor convoy and pulled up at the end of the line. They had faded yellow shields painted on the doors. The drivers got out.

One of them was the polite driver of the horse-box. A sensible, solid citizen, he looked. Middle-aged, unremarkable, calm. I did not know the others.

I had three minutes left. The black letters were tan-talizingly small on the yellow shields. I couldn't get close enough to read them without the polite driver seeing me, and I had not time to wait until he had gone. I went over to the ticket office, hovered impatiently while a woman argued about half fares for her teenage child, and asked a simple question.

'What is the name of the taxis with yellow shields on the doors?' The young man in the office gave me an uninterested glance.

'Marconicars, sir. Radio cabs, they are.'

'Thank you,' I said, and sprinted for the platform.

Kate lived in a superbly proportioned Queen Anne house which generations of Gothic-ruin-minded Victorians had left miraculously unspoilt. Its graceful symmetry, its creamy gravelled drive, its tidy lawns already mown in early spring, its air of solid serenity, all spoke of a social and financial security of such long standing that it was to be taken entirely for granted.

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.

Kate met me at the door and took my arm, and walked me across the hall.

'Aunt Deb is waiting to give you tea,' she said. 'Tea is a bit of a ritual with Aunt Deb. You will be in her good graces for being punctual, thank goodness. She is very Edwardian, you'll find. The times have moved without her in many ways.' She sounded anxious and apologetic, which meant to me that she loved her aunt protectively, and wished me to make allowances. I squeezed her arm reassuringly, and said, 'Don't worry.'

Kate opened one of the white panelled doors and we went into the drawing-room. It was a pleasant room, wood panelled and painted white, with a dark plum-coloured carpet, good Persian rugs, and flower-patterned curtains. On a sofa at right angles to a glowing log fire sat a woman of about seventy. Beside her stood a low round table bearing a silver tray with Crown Derby cups and saucers and a Georgian silver teapot and cream jug. A dark brown dachshund lay asleep at her feet.

Kate walked across the room and said with some formality, 'Aunt Deb, may I introduce Alan York?'

Aunt Deb extended to me her hand, palm downwards. I shook it, feeling that in her younger days it would have been kissed.

'I am delighted to meet you, Mr York,' said Aunt Deb. And I saw exactly what Dane meant about her chilly, well-bred manner. She had no warmth, no genuine welcome in her voice. She was still, for all her years, or even perhaps because of them, exceedingly good-looking. Straight eyebrows, perfect nose, clearly outlined mouth. Grey hair cut and dressed by a first-class man. A slim, firm body, straight back, elegant legs crossed at the ankles. A fine shirt under a casual tweed suit, hand-made shoes of soft leather. She had everything. Everything except the inner fire which would make Kate at that age worth six of Aunt Deb.

She poured me some tea, and Kate handed it to me. There were pƒt‚ sandwiches and a home-made Madeira cake, and although tea was usually a meal I avoided if possible, I found my jinks in Brighton and no lunch had made me hungry. I ate and drank, and Aunt Deb talked.

'Kate tells me you are a jockey, Mr York.' She said it as if it were as dubious as a criminal record. 'Of course I am sure you must find it very amusing, but when I was a gel it was not considered an acceptable occupation in acquaintances. But this is Kate's home, and she may ask whoever she likes here, as she knows.'

I said mildly, 'Surely Aubrey Hastings and Geoffrey Bennett were both jockeys and acceptable when you were – er – younger?'

She raised her eyebrows, surprised. 'But they were gentlemen,' she said.

I looked at Kate. She had stuffed the back of her hand against her mouth, but her eyes were laughing.

'Yes,' I said to Aunt Deb, with a straight face. 'That makes a difference, of course.'

'You may realize then,' she said, looking at me a little less frigidly, 'that I do not altogether approve of my niece's new interest. It is one thing to own a racehorse, but quite another to make personal friends of the jockeys one employs to ride it. I am very fond of my niece. I do not wish her to make an undesirable- alliance. She is perhaps too young, and has led too sheltered a life, to understand what is acceptable and what is not. But I am sure you do, Mr York?'

Kate, blushing painfully, said, 'Aunt Deb!' This was apparently worse than she was prepared for.

'I understand you very well, Mrs Penn,' I said, politely.

'Good,' she said. 'In that case, I hope you will have an enjoyable stay with us. May I give you some more tea?'

Having firmly pointed out to me my place and having received what she took to be my acknowledgement of it, she was prepared to be a gracious hostess.

She had the calm authority of one whose wishes had been law from the nursery. She began to talk pleasantly enough about the weather and her garden, and how the sunshine was bringing on the daffodils.

Then the door opened and a man came in. I stood up.

Kate said, 'Uncle George, this is Alan York.'

He looked ten years younger than his wife. He had thick well-groomed grey hair and a scrubbed pink complexion with a fresh-from-the-bathroom moistness about it, and when he shook hands his palm was soft and moist also.

Aunt Deb said, without disapproval in her voice, 'George, Mr York is one of Kate's jockey friends.'

He nodded. 'Yes, Kate told me you were coming. Glad to have you here.'

He watched Aunt Deb pour him a cup of tea, and took it from her, giving her a smile of remarkable fondness.

He was too fat for his height, but it was not a bloated-belly fatness. It was spread all over him as though he were padded. The total effect was of a jolly rotundity. He had the vaguely good-natured expression so often found on fat people, a certain bland, almost foolish, looseness of the facial muscles. And yet his fat-lidded eyes, appraising me over the rim of the teacup as he drank, were shrewd and unsmiling. He reminded me of so many businessmen I had met in my work, the slap you-on-the-back, come-and-play-golf men who would ladle out the Krug '49 and caviar with one hand while they tried to take over your contracts with the other.

He put down his cup and smiled, and the impression faded. 'I am very interested to meet you, Mr York,' he said, sitting down and gesturing to me to do the same. He looked me over carefully, inch by inch, while he asked me what I thought of Heavens Above. We discussed the horse's possibilities with Kate, which meant that I did most of the talking, as Kate knew little more than she had at Plumpton, and Uncle George's total information about racing seemed to be confined to Midday Sun's having won the Derby in 1937.

'He remembers it because of Mad Dogs and Englishmen,' said Kate. 'He hums it all the time. I don't think he knows the name of a single other horse.'

'Oh, yes I do,' protested Uncle George. 'Bucephalus, Pegasus, and Black Bess.'

I laughed. 'Then why did you give a racehorse to your niece?'

Uncle George opened his mouth and shut it again. He blinked. Then he said, 'I thought she should meet more people. She has no young company here with us, and I believe we may have given her too sheltered an upbringing.'

Aunt Deb, who had been bored into silence by the subject of horses, returned to the conversation at this point.

'Nonsense,' she said briskly. 'She has been brought up as I was, which is the right way. Gels are given too much freedom nowadays, with the result that they lose their heads and elope with fortune hunters or men-about-town of unsavoury background. Gels need strictness and guidance if they are to behave as ladies, and make suitable, well-connected marriages.'

She at least had the grace to avoid looking directly at me while she spoke. She leaned over and patted the sleeping dachshund instead.

Uncle George changed the subject with an almost audible jolt, and asked me where I lived.

' Southern Rhodesia,' I said.

'Indeed?' said Aunt Deb. 'How interesting. Do your parents plan to settle there permanently?' It was a delicate, practised, social probe.

'They were both born there,' I answered.

'And will they be coming to visit you in England?' asked Uncle George.

'My mother died when I was ten. My father might come some time if he is not too busy.'

'Too busy doing what?' asked Uncle George interestedly.

'He's a trader,' I said, giving my usual usefully noncommittal answer to his question. 'Trader' could cover anything from a rag-and-bone man to what he actually was, the head of the biggest general trading concern in the Federation. Both Uncle George and Aunt Deb looked unsatisfied by this reply, but I did not add to it. It would have embarrassed and angered Aunt Deb to have had my pedigree and prospects laid out before her after her little lecture on jockeys, and in any case for Dane's sake I could not do it. He had faced Aunt Deb's social snobbery without any of the defences I could muster if I wanted to, and I certainly felt myself no better man than he.

I made instead a remark admiring an arrangement of rose prints on the white panelled walls, which pleased Aunt Deb but brought forth a sardonic glance from Uncle George.

'We keep our ancestors in the dining-room,' he said.

Kate stood up. 'I'll show Alan where he's sleeping, and so on,' she said.

'Did you come by car?' Uncle George asked. I nodded. He said to Kate, 'Then ask Culbertson to put Mr York's car in the garage, will you, my dear?'

'Yes, Uncle George,' said Kate, smiling at him.

As we crossed the hall again for me to fetch my suitcase from the car, Kate said, 'Uncle George's chauffeur's name is not really Culbertson. It's Higgins, or something like that. Uncle George began to call him Culbertson because he plays bridge, and soon we all did it. Culbertson seems quite resigned to it now. Trust Uncle George,' said Kate, laughing, 'to have a chauffeur who plays bridge.'

'Does Uncle George play bridge?'

'No, he doesn't like cards, or games of any sort. He says there are too many rules to them. He says he doesn't like learning rules and he can't be bothered to keep them. I should think bridge with all those conventions would drive him dotty. Aunt Deb can play quite respectably, but she doesn't make a thing of it.'

I lifted my suitcase out of the car, and we turned back.

Kate said, 'Why didn't you tell Aunt Deb you were an amateur rider and rich, and so on?'

'Why didn't you?' I asked. 'Before I came.'

She was taken aback. 'I- I- er- because-' She could not bring out the truthful answer, so I said it for her.

'Because of Dane?'

'Yes, because of Dane.' She looked uncomfortable.

'That's quite all right by me,' I said lightly. 'And I like you for it.' I kissed her cheek, and she laughed and turned away from me, and ran up the stairs in relief.

After luncheon – Aunt Deb gave the word three syllables – on Sunday I was given permission to take Kate out for a drive.

In the morning Aunt Deb had been to church with Kate and me in attendance. The church was a mile distant from the house, and Culbertson drove us there in a well-polished Daimler. I, by Aunt Deb's decree, sat beside him. She and Kate went in the back.

While we stood in the drive waiting for Aunt Deb to come out of the house, Kate explained that Uncle George never went to church.

'He spends most of his time in his study. That's the little room next to the breakfast room,' she said. 'He talks to all his friends on the telephone for hours, and he's writing a treatise or a monograph or something about Red Indians, I think, and he only comes out for meals and things like that.'

'Rather dull for your aunt,' I said, admiring the way the March sunlight lay along the perfect line of her jaw and lit red glints in her dark eyelashes.

'Oh, he takes her up to Town once a week. She has her hair done, and he looks things up in the library of the British Museum. Then they have a jolly lunch at the Ritz or somewhere stuffy like that, and go to a matinee or an exhibition in the afternoon. A thoroughly debauched programme,' said Kate, with a dazzling smile.

After lunch, Uncle George invited me into his study to see what he called his'trophies'. These were a collection of objects belonging to various primitive or barbaric peoples, and, as far as I could judge, would have done credit to any small museum.

Ranks of weapons, together with some jewellery, pots, and ritual objects were labelled and mounted on shelves inside glass cases which lined three walls of the room. Among others, there were pieces from Central Africa and the Polynesian Islands, from the Viking age of Norway, and from the Maoris of New Zealand. Uncle George's interest covered the globe.

'I study one people at a time,' he explained. 'It gives me something to do since I retired, and I find it enthralling. Did you know that in the Fiji Islands the men used to fatten women like cattle and eat them.'

His eyes gleamed, and I had a suspicion that part of the pleasure he derived from primitive peoples lay in contemplation of their primitive violences. Perhaps he needed a mental antidote to those lunches at the Ritz, and the matinees.

I said, 'Which people are you studying now? Kate said something about Red Indians-?'

He seemed pleased that I was taking an interest in his hobby.

'Yes. I am doing a survey of all the ancient peoples of the Americas, and the North American Indians were my last subject. Their case is over here.'

He showed me over to one corner. The collection of feathers, beads, knives, and arrows looked almost ridiculously like those in Western films, but I had no doubt that these were genuine. And in the centre hung a hank of black hair with a withered lump of matter dangling from it, and underneath was gummed the laconic lable, 'Scalp'.

I turned round, and surprised Uncle George watching me with a look of secret enjoyment. He let his gaze slide past me to the case.

'Oh, yes,' he said. 'The scalp's a real one. It's only about a hundred years old.'

'Interesting,' I said non-committally.

'I spent a year on the North American Indians because there are so many different tribes,' he went on. 'But I've moved on to Central America now. Next I'll do the South Americans, the Incas and the Fuegians and so on. I'm not a scholar, of course, and I don't do any field work, but I do write articles sometimes for various publications. At the moment I am engaged on a series about Indians for the Boys' Stupendous Weekly.' His fat cheeks shook as he laughed silently at what appeared to be an immense private joke. Then he straightened his lips and the pink folds of flesh grew still, and he began to drift back towards the door.

I followed him, and paused by his big, carved, black oak desk which stood squarely in front of the window. On it, besides two telephones and a silver pen tray, lay several cardboard folders with pale blue stick-on labels marked Arapaho, Cherokee, Sioux, Navajo, and Mohawk.

Separated from these was another folder marked Mayas, and I idly stretched out my hand to open it, because I had never heard of such a tribe. Uncle George's plump fingers came down firmly on the folder, holding it shut.

'I have only just started on this nation,' he said apologetically. 'And there's nothing worth looking at yet.'

'I've never heard of that tribe,' I said.

'They were Central American Indians, not North,' he said pleasantly. 'They were astronomers and mathematicians, you know. Very civilized. I am finding them fascinating. They discovered that rubber bounced, and they made balls of it long before it was known in Europe. At the moment I am looking into their wars. I am trying to find out what they did with their prisoners of war. Several of their frescos show prisoners begging for mercy.' He paused, his eyes fixed on me, assessing me. 'Would you like to help me correlate the references I have so far collected?' he said.

'Well- er- er-' I began.

Uncle George's jowls shook again. 'I didn't suppose you would,' he said. 'You'd rather take Kate for a drive, no doubt.'

As I had been wondering how Aunt Deb would react to a similar suggestion, this was a gift. So three o'clock found Kate and me walking round to the big garage behind the house, with Aunt Deb's grudging consent to our being absent at tea-time.

'You remember me telling you, a week ago, while we were dancing, about the way Bill Davidson died?' I said casually, while I helped Kate open the garage doors.

'How could I forget?'

'Did you by any chance mention it to anyone the next morning? There wasn't any reason why you shouldn't- but I'd like very much to know if you did.'

She wrinkled her nose. 'I can't really remember, but I don't think so. Only Aunt Deb and Uncle George, of course, at breakfast. I can't think of anyone else. I didn't think there was any secret about it, though.' Her voice rose at the end into a question.

'There wasn't,' I said, reassuringly, fastening back the door. 'What did Uncle George do before he retired and took up anthropology?'

'Retired?' she said. 'Oh, that's only one of his jokes. He retired when he was about thirty, I think, as soon as he inherited a whacking great private income from his father. For decades he and Aunt Deb used to set off round the world every three years or so, collecting all those gruesome relics he was showing you in the study. What did you think of them?'

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.'

The garage was a converted barn. There was plenty of room for the four cars standing in it in a row. The Daimler, a new cream coloured convertible, my Lotus, and after a gap, the social outcast, an old black eight-horse-power saloon. All of them, including mine, were spotless. Culbertson was conscientious.

'We use that old car for shopping in the village and so on,' said Kate. 'This georgeous cream job is mine.

Uncle George gave it to me a year ago when I came home from Switzerland. Isn't it absolutely rapturous?' She stroked it with love.

'Can we go out in yours, instead of mine?' I asked. 'I would like that very much, if you wouldn't mind.'

She was pleased. She let down the roof and tied a blue silk scarf over her head, and drove us out of the garage into the sunlight, down the drive, and on to the road towards the village.

'Where shall we go?' she asked.

'I'd like to go to Steyning,' I said.

'That's an odd sort of place to choose,' she said. 'How about the sea?'

'I want to call on a farmer in Washington, near Steyning, to ask him about his horse-box,' I said. And I told her how some men in a horse-box had rather forcefully told me not to ask questions about Bill's death.

'It was a horse-box belonging to this farm at Washington,' I finished. 'I want to ask him who hired it from him last Saturday.'

'Good heavens,' said Kate. 'What a lark.' And she drove a little faster. I sat sideways and enjoyed the sight of her. The beautiful profile, the blue scarf whipped by the wind, with one escaping wisp of hair blowing on her forehead, the cherry-red curving mouth. She could twist your heart.

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.

'Up by there,' said the tallest girl, pointing.

'Up by there' turned out to be a prosperous workmanlike farm with a mellow old farmhouse and a large new Dutch barn rising behind it. Kate drove into the yard and stopped, and we walked round through a garden gate to the front of the house. Sunday afternoon was not a good time to call on a farmer, who was probably enjoying his one carefree nap of the week, but it couldn't be helped.

We rang the door bell, and after a long pause the door opened. A youngish good-looking man holding a newspaper looked at us enquiringly.

'Could I speak to Mr Lawson, please?' I said.

'I'm Lawson,' he said. He yawned again.

I said I understood he had a horse-box for hire. He rubbed his nose with his thumb while he looked us over. Then he said, 'It's very old, and it depends when you want it.'

'Could we see it, do you think?' I asked.

'Yes,' he said. 'Hang on a moment.' He went indoors and we heard his voice calling out and a girl's voice answering him. Then he came back without the newspaper.

'It's round here,' he said, leading the way. The horsebox stood out in the open, sheltered only by the hay piled in the Dutch barn. APX 708. My old friend.

I told Lawson then that I didn't really want to hire his box, but I wanted to know who had hired it eight days ago. And because he thought this question decidedly queer and was showing signs of hustling us off at once, I told him why I wanted to know.

'It can't have been my box,' he said at once.

'It was,' I said.

'I didn't hire it to anyone eight days ago. It was standing right here all day.'

'It was in Maidenhead,' I said, obstinately.

He looked at me for a full half a minute. Then he said, 'If you are right, it was taken without me knowing about it. I and my family were all away last week-end. We were in London.'

'How many people would know you were away?' I asked.

He laughed. 'About twelve million, I should think. We were on one of those family quiz shows on television on Friday night. My wife, my eldest son, my daughter, and I. The younger boy wasn't allowed on because he's only ten. He was furious about it. My wife said on the programme that we were all going to the Zoo on Saturday and to the Tower of London on Sunday, and we weren't going home until Monday.'

I sighed. 'And how soon before you went up to the quiz show did you know about it?'

'A couple of weeks. It was all in the local papers, that we were going. I was a bit annoyed about it, really. It doesn't do to let every tramp in the neighbourhood know you'll be away. Of course, there are my cowmen about, but it's not the same.'

'Could you ask them if they saw anyone borrow your box?'

'I suppose I could. It's almost milking time, they'll be in soon. But I can't help thinking you've mistaken the number plate.'

'Have you a middleweight thoroughbred bay hunter, then,' I said, 'with a white star on his forehead, one lop ear, and a straggly tail?'

His scepticism vanished abruptly. 'Yes, I have,' he said. 'He's in the stable over there.'

'Surely your men would have missed him when they went to give him his evening feed?' I said.

'My brother – he lives a mile away – borrows him whenever he wants. The men would just assume he'd got him. I'll ask the cowmen.'

'Will you ask them at the same time if they found a necktie in the box?' I said. 'I lost one there, and I'm rather attached to it. I'd give ten bob to have it back.'

'I'll ask them,' said Lawson. 'Come into the house while you wait.' He took us through the back door, along a stone-flagged hall into a comfortably battered sitting-room, and left us. The voices of his wife and children and the clatter of teacups could be heard in the distance. A half-finished jigsaw puzzle was scattered on a table; some toy railway lines snaked round the floor.

At length Lawson came back. 'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'the cowmen thought my brother had the horse and none of them noticed the box had gone. They said they didn't find your tie, either. They're as blind as bats unless it's something of theirs that's missing.'

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.

Kate and I drove off towards the sea.

She said, 'Not a very productive bit of sleuthing, do you think? Anyone in the world could have borrowed the horse-box.'

'It must have been someone who knew it was there,' I pointed out. 'I expect it was because it was so available that they got the idea of using it at all. If they hadn't known it would be easy to borrow, they'd have delivered their message some other way. I dare say one of those cowmen knows more than he's telling. Probably took a quiet tenner to turn a blind eye, and threw in the horse for local colour. Naturally he wouldn't confess it in a hurry to Lawson this afternoon.'

'Well, never mind,' said Kate lightheartedly. 'Perhaps it's just as well Farmer Lawson had nothing to do with it. It would have been rather shattering if he had turned out to be the head of the gang. You would probably have been bopped behind the ear with a gun butt and dumped in a bag of cement out at sea and I would have been tied up on the railway lines in the path of oncoming diesels.'

I laughed. 'If I'd thought he could have possibly been the leader of the gang I wouldn't have taken you there.'

She glanced at me. 'You be careful,' she said, 'or you'll grow into a cosseting old dear like Uncle George. He's never let Aunt Deb within arm's length of discomfort, let alone danger. I think that's why she's so out of touch with modern life.'

'You don't think danger should be avoided, then?' I asked.

'Of course not. I mean, if there's something you've got to do, then to hell with the danger.' She gave an airy wave with her right hand to illustrate this carefree point of view, and a car's horn sounded vigorously just behind us. A man swept past glaring at Kate for her unintentional signal. She laughed.

She swung the car down to the sea in Worthing, and drove eastwards along the coast road. The smell of salt and seaweed was strong and refreshing. We passed the acres of new bungalows outside Worthing, the docks and the power stations of Shoreham, Southwick, and Portslade, the sedate fa‡ades of Hove, and came at length to the long promenade at Brighton. Kate turned deftly into a square in the town, and stopped the car.

'Let's go down by the sea,' she said. 'I love it.'

We walked across the road down some steps, and staggered across the bank of shingle on to the sand. Kate took her shoes off and poured out a stream of little stones. The sun shone warmly and the tide was out. We walked slowly along the beach for about a mile, jumping over the breakwaters, and then turned and went back. It was a heavenly afternoon.

As we strolled hand in hand up the road towards Kate's car, I saw for the first time that she had parked it only a hundred yards from the Pavilion Plaza Hotel, where I had driven Clifford Tudor from Plumpton ten days earlier.

And talk of the devil, I thought. There he was. The big man was standing on the steps of the hotel, talking to the uniformed doorman. Even at a distance there was no mistaking that size, that dark skin, that important carriage of the head. I watched him idly.

Just before we arrived at Kate's car a taxi came up from behind us, passed us, and drew up outside the Pavilion Plaza. It was a black taxi with a yellow shield on the door, and this time it was close enough for me to read the name: Marconicars. I looked quickly at the driver and saw his profile as he went past. He had a large nose and a receding chin, and I had never seen him before.

Clifford Tudor said a few last words to the doorman, strode across the pavement, and got straight into the taxi without pausing to tell the driver where he wanted to go. The taxi drove off without delay.

'What are you staring at?' said Kate, as we stood beside her car.

'Nothing much,' I said. 'I'll tell you about it if you'd like some tea in the Pavilion Plaza Hotel.'

'That's a dull dump,' she said. 'Aunt Deb approves of it.'

'More sleuthing,' I said.

'All right, then. Got your magnifying glass and bloodhound handy?'

We went into the hotel. Kate said she would go and tidy her hair. While she was gone I asked the young girl in the reception desk if she knew where I could find Clifford Tudor. She fluttered her eyelashes at me and I grinned encouragingly back.

'You've just missed him, I'm afraid,' she said. 'He's gone back to his flat.'

'Does he come here often?' I asked.

She looked at me in surprise. 'I thought you knew. He's on the board of governors. One of the chief shareholders. In fact,' she added with remarkable frankness, 'he very nearly owns this place and has more say in running it than the manager.' It was clear from her voice and manner that she thoroughly approved of Mr Tudor.

'Has he got a car?' I asked.

This was a very odd question, but she prattled on without hesitation. 'Yes, he's got a lovely big car with a long bonnet and lots of chromium. Real classy. But he doesn't use it, of course. Mostly it's taxis for him. Why. just this minute I rang for one of those radio cabs for him. Real useful, they are. You just ring their office and they radio a message to the taxi that's nearest here and in no time at all it's pulling up outside. All the guests use them-'

'Mavis!'

The talkative girl stopped dead and looked round guiltily. A severe girl in her late twenties had come into the reception desk.

'Thank you for relieving me, Mavis. You may go now,' she said.

Mavis gave me a flirting smile and disappeared.

'Now, sir, can I help you?' She was polite enough, but not the type to gossip about her employers.

'Er – can we have afternoon tea here?' I asked.

She glanced at the clock. 'It's a little late for tea, but go along into the lounge and the waiter will attend to you.'

Kate eyed the resulting fishpaste sandwiches with disfavour. This is one of the hazards of detecting, I suppose,' she said, taking a tentative bite. 'What did you find out about what?'

I said I was not altogether sure, but that I was interested in anything that had even the remotest connexion with the yellow shield taxis or with Bill Davidson, and Clifford Tudor was connected in the most commonplace way with both.

'Nothing in it, I shouldn't think,' said Kate, finishing the sandwich but refusing another.

I sighed. 'I don't think so, either,' I said.

'What next, then?'

'If I could find out who owns the yellow shield taxis-'

'Let's ring them up and ask,' said Kate, standing up. She led the way to the telephone and looked up the number in the directory.

'I'll do it,' she said. 'I'll say I have a complaint to make and I want to write directly to the owners about it.'

She got through to the taxi office and gave a tremendous performance, demanding the names and addresses of the owners, managers and the company's solicitors. Finally, she put down the receiver and looked at me disgustedly.

'They wouldn't tell me a single thing,' she said. 'He was a really patient man, I must say. He didn't get ruffled when I was really quite rude to him. But all he would say was, Please write to us with the details of your complaint and we will look into it fully. He said it was not the company's policy to disclose the names of its owners and he had no authority to do it. He wouldn't budge an inch.'

'Never mind. It was a darned good try. I didn't really think they would tell you. But it gives me an idea-'

I rang up the Maidenhead police station and asked for Inspector Lodge. He was off duty, I was told. Would I care to leave a message? I would.

I said, 'This is Alan York speaking. Will you please ask Inspector Lodge if he can find out who owns or controls the Marconicar radio taxi cabs in Brighton? He will know what it is about.'

The voice in Maidenhead said he would give Inspector Lodge the message in the morning, but could not undertake to confirm that Inspector Lodge would institute the requested enquiries. Nice official jargon. I thanked him and rang off.

Kate was standing close to me in the telephone box. She was wearing a delicate flowery scent, so faint that it was little more than a quiver in the air. I kissed her, gently. Her lips were soft and dry and sweet. She put her hands on my shoulders, and looked into my eyes, and smiled. I kissed her again.

A man opened the door of the telephone box. He laughed when he saw us. 'I'm so sorry- I want to telephone-' We stepped out of the box in confusion.

I looked at my watch. It was nearly half-past six.

'What time does Aunt Deb expect us back?' I asked.

'Dinner is at eight. We've got until then,' said Kate. 'Let's walk through the Lanes and look at the antique shops.'

We went slowly down the back pathways of Brighton, pausing before each brightly lit window to admire the contents. And stopping, too, in one or two corners in the growing dusk, to continue where we had left off in the telephone box. Kate's kisses were sweet and virginal. She was unpractised in love, and though her body trembled once or twice in my arms, there was no passion, no hunger in her response.

At the end of one of the Lanes, while we were discussing whether to go any further, some lights were suddenly switched on behind us. We turned round. The licensee of The Blue Duck was opening his doors for the evening. It looked a cosy place.

'How about a snifter before we go back?' I suggested.

'Lovely,' said Kate. And in this casual inconsequential way we made the most decisive move in our afternoon's sleuthing.

We went into The Blue Duck.