The Edge

Chapter Thirteen

Everyone survived the night, although there were a few obvious hangovers at breakfast. Outside the windows, the seemingly endless rock, lakes and conifer scenery had dramatically given way to the wide sweeping rolling prairies, not yellow with the grain that had already been harvested, but greenish grey, resting before winter.

There was a brief stop during breakfast at the town of Medicine Hat which lay in a valley and looked a great deal more ordinary than its name. The passengers dutifully put back their watches when Nell told them we were now in Mountain Time, but where, they asked, were the mountains.

'This afternoon,' she answered, and handed out the day's printed programme which promised Dreadful Developments in The Mystery at eleven-thirty a. m., followed by an early lunch. 'We would reach Calgary at twelve-forty, where the horse car would be detached, and leave at one-thirty, heading up into the Rockies to Banff and Lake Louise. At Lake Louise, the owners would disembark and be ferried by bus to the Chateau, the huge hotel sitting on the Lake's shore, amid Snowy Scenes of Breathtaking Beauty. Cocktails and Startling Discoveries would be offered at six-thirty in a private conference room in the hotel. Have a nice day.'

Several people asked if we were now in front or behind the regular Canadian.

'We're in front,' I said.

'If we break down,' Mr Unwin said facetiously, 'it will be along to help us out.'

Xanthe, sitting next to him, didn't laugh. 'I wish we were behind it,' she said. 'I'd feel safer.'

'Behind the Canadian there are freight trains,' Mr Unwin said reasonably, 'and ahead of us there are freight trains. And coming the other way there are freight trains. We're not all alone on these rails.'

'No, I suppose not.' She seemed doubtful still and said she had slept much better again that past night in her upper bunk than she would have done in her family's own quarters.

I brought her the French toast and sausages she ordered from the menu and filled her coffee cup, and Mr Unwin, holding out his own cup for a refill, asked if I had backed his horse to win at Winnipeg.

'I'm afraid not, sir,' I said regretfully. I put his cup on the tray and poured with small movements, 'But congratulations, sir.'

'Did you go to the races?' Xanthe asked me without too much interest.

'Yes, miss,' I said.

I finished pouring Mr Unwin's coffee and put it by his place, then took my tray and coffee pot along to the next table where the conversation seemed to be about Zak's mystery rather than directly about horses.

'I think the trainer killed Angelica. And the groom too.'

'Why ever should he?'

'He wants to marry Donna for her money. Angelica knew something that would make the marriage impossible, so he killed her.'

'Knew what?'

'Maybe that he's already married.'

'To Angelica?'

'Well… why not?'

'But where does the dead groom come in?'

'He saw the murderer getting rid of the blood-spattered plastic.'

They laughed. I filled their cups and moved on and poured for Daffodil, who had an empty place on her far side. Daffodil, smoking with deep sucking lungfuls, sat with the Flokatis, and nobody else.

No Filmer.

I glanced back along the whole dining car, but couldn't see him anywhere. He hadn't come in while I was serving others, and he hadn't been at the kitchen end when I'd started.

Daffodil said to me, 'Can you bring me some vodka? Ice and lemon.'

'I'll ask, madam,' I said, and asked Emil, and it was he who civilly explained to her that the barman wouldn't be back on duty until eleven, and meanwhile everything was locked up.

Daffodil received the bad news without speaking but jabbed the fire out of her cigarette with some violent stabs and a long final grind. The Flokatis looked at her uncertainly and asked if they could help.

She shook her head. She seemed angry and near tears, but determinedly in control.

'Give me some coffee,' she said to me, and to the Flokatis she said, 'I think I'll get off the train at Calgary. I think I'll go home.'

Small movements saved the day, as I would have spilled the brown liquid all over her hand.

'Oh no!' exclaimed the Flokatis, instantly distressed. 'Oh, don't do that. Your horse ran splendidly yesterday, even if it was only fifth. Ours was nearly last… and we are going on. You can't give up. And you have Laurentide Ice, besides, for Vancouver.'

Daffodil looked at them as if bemused. 'It's not because of yesterday,' she said.

'But why, then?'

Daffodil didn't tell them. Maybe wouldn't; maybe couldn't. She merely pursed her lips tight, shook her curly head, and dug out another cigarette.

The Flokatis having declined more coffee, I couldn't stay to listen any further. I moved across the aisle and stretched my ears, but the Flokatis seemed to get nothing extra from Daffodil except a repeated and stronger decision to go home.

Nell in her straight grey skirt, clipboard in attendance, was still talking to passengers up by the kitchen end. I took my nearly empty coffee pot up there and made a small gesture onwards to the lobby, to where presently she came with enquiring eyebrows.

'Daffodil Quentin,' I said, peering into the coffee pot, 'is upset to the point of leaving the train. She told the Flokatis, not me… so you don't know, OK^? '

'Upset about what?.' Nell was alarmed.

'She wouldn't tell them.'

'Thanks,' she said 'I'll see what I can do.'

Smoothing ruffled feelings, keeping smiles in place; all in her day's work. She started casually on her way through the dining car and I went into the kitchen to complete my mission. By the time I was out again with a full pot, Nell had reached Daffodil and was standing by her, listening. Nell appealed to the Youngs and the Unwins at adjacent tables for help, and presently Daffodil was out of sight in a bunch of people trying to persuade her to change her mind.

I had to wait quite a while to hear what was happening, but finally the whole little crowd, Daffodil among them, went out at the far end into the dome car and Nell returned to the lobby, relaying the news to me in snatches as I paused beside her on to-and-fro journeys to clear away the breakfast debris

'Cumber and Rose…' The Youngs, I thought. 'Cumber and Rose and also the Unwins say there was nothing wrong last night, they all had a splendid time in the Lorrimores' car. Daffodil finally said she'd had a disagreement with Mr Filmer after the party had broken up. She said she had hardly slept and wasn't sure what to do, but there was no fun left in taking Laurentide Ice to Vancouver, and she couldn't face the rest of the journey. The Youngs have persuaded her to go up into the dome with them to think things over, but I honestly think she's serious. She's very upset.'

'Mm.' I put the last of the debris into the kitchen and excused myself apologetically from washing the dishes.

'How can Mr Filmer have upset Daffodil so much?' Nell exclaimed. 'She's obviously been enjoying herself, and he's such a nice man They were getting on together so well, everyone thought.' She paused. 'Mr Unwin believes it's a lovers' quarrel.'

'Does he?' I pondered. 'I think I'll make a recce up the train. See if anything else is happening '

Maybe Daffodil had made advances and been too roughly repulsed, I thought. And maybe not.

'Mr Filmer hasn't been in to breakfast,' Nell said. 'It's all very worrying. And last night everyone was so happy.'

If Daffodil's leaving the train was the worst thing that happened, I thought, we would have got off lightly. I left Nell and set off up the corridor, coming pretty soon to Filmer's bedroom door, which was uninformatively closed.

I checked with the sleeping-car attendant further along the car who was in the midst of folding up the bunks for the day and unfolding the armchairs.

'Mr Filmer? He's in his room still, as far as I know. He was a bit short with me, told me to hurry up. And he's not usually like that. He was eating something, and he had a thermos too. But then we do get passengers like that sometimes. Can't get through the night without raiding the ice box, that sort of thing.'

I nodded noncommittally and went onwards, but I thought that if Filmer had brought food and a thermos on board for breakfast, he must have known in Winnipeg that he would need them, which meant that last night's quarrel had been planned and hadn't been caused by Daffodil.

George Burley was in his office, writing his records.

'Morning,' he said, beaming.

'How's the train?'

'The forward sleeping-car attendants are threatening to resign, eh?, over the vomit in the bathrooms.'

'Ugh.'

He chuckled. 'I brought extra disinfectants aboard in Winnipeg,' he said 'Train-sickness gets them, you know.'

I shook my head at his indulgence and pressed forward, looking as always for gaunt-face but chiefly aiming for the horses.

Leslie Brown, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, regarded me with only half the usual belligerence. 'Come in,' she said, stepping back from her door. 'To be honest, I could do with some help.'

As I'd just passed several green-looking grooms being sorry for themselves in their section, I supposed at first she meant simply physical help in tending the horses, but it appeared that she didn't.

'Something's going on that I don't understand,' she said, locking the entrance door behind me and leading the way to the central space where her chair stood beside the innocent water tank.

'What sort of thing?’ I asked, following her.

She mutely pointed further forward up the car, and I walked on until I came to the final space between the stalls, and there, in a sort of nest made of hay bales, one of the grooms half lay, half sat, curled like an embryo and making small moaning noises.

I went back to Leslie Brown. 'What's the matter with him?' I said.

'I don't know. He was drunk last night, they all were, but this doesn't look like an ordinary hangover.'

'Did you ask the others?'

She signed. 'They don't remember much about last night. They don't care what's the matter with him.'

'Which horse is he with?'

'Laurentide Ice.'

I'd have been surprised, I supposed, if she'd said anything else.

'That's the horse, isn't it,' I asked, 'whose trainer sent separate numbered individual bags of food, because another of Mrs Quentin's horses had died because of eating the wrong things?'

She nodded. 'Yes.'

'And this boy was with the horse all the time in the barns at Winnipeg?'

'Yes, of course. They exercised the horses and looked after them, and they all came back to the train in horse vans yesterday after the races, while the train was still in the siding. I came with them. There's nothing wrong with any of the horses, I assure you.'

'That's good,' I said. 'Laurentide Ice as well?'

'See for yourself.'

I walked round looking at each horse but in truth they all appeared healthy and unaffected, even Upper Gumtree and Flokati who would have been excused seeming thin and fatigued after their exertions. Most of them had their heads out over the stall doors, sure sign of interest: a few were a pace or two back, semi-dreaming. Laurentide Ice watched me with a bright glacial eye, in far better mental health than his attendant.

I returned to Leslie Brown and asked her the groom's name.

'Lenny,' she said. She consulted a list. 'Leonard Higgs.'

'How old is he?'

'About twenty, I should think.'

'What's he like, usually?'

'Like the others. Full of foul language and dirty jokes.' She looked disapproving. 'Every other word beginning with f.'

'When did all this moaning and retreating start?'

'He was lying there all night. The other boys said it was his turn to be in here, but it wasn't really, only he was paralytic, and they just dumped him in the hay and went back to the party. He started the moaning about an hour ago and he won't answer me at all.' She was disturbed by him, and worried, I thought, that his behaviour might be held to be her responsibility.

Rather to her surprise, I took off my yellow waistcoat and striped tie and gave them to her to hold. If she would sit down for a while, I suggested, I would try to sort Lenny out.

Meekly for her, she agreed. I left her perching with my badges of office across her trousered knees and returned to the total collapse in the hay.

'Lenny,' I said, 'give it a rest.'

He went on with the moaning, oblivious.

I sat down beside him on one of the hay bales and put my mouth near his one visible ear.

'Shut up,' I said, very loudly.

He jumped and he gasped and after a short pause he went back to moaning, though artificially now, it seemed to me.

'If you're sick from beer,' I said forcefully, 'it's your own bloody fault, but I'll get you something to make you feel better.'

He curled into a still tighter ball, tucking his head down into his arms as if shielding it from a blow. It was a movement impossible to misconstrue: what he felt, besides alcohol sickness, was fear.

Fear followed Julius Apollo Filmer like a spoor, the residue of his passing. Lenny, frightened out of his wits, was a familiar sight indeed.

I undid the top buttons of my shirt, loosening the collar, and rolled up my cuffs, aiming for informality, and I slid down until I was sitting on the floor with my head on the same level as Lenny's.

'If you're shit scared,' I said distinctly, 'I can do something about that, too.'

Nothing much happened. He moaned a couple of times and fell silent and after a long while, I said, 'Do you want help, or don't you? This is a good offer. If you don't take it, whatever you're afraid of will probably happen.'

After a lengthy pause he rolled his head round, still wrapped in his arms, until I could see his face. He was red-eyed, bony, unshaven and dribbling, and what came out of his slack mouth wasn't a groan but a croak.

'Who the bleeding hell are you?' He had an English accent and a habitual pugnacity of speech altogether at odds with his present state.

'Your bit of good luck,' I said calmly.

'Piss off, 'he said.

'Right.' I got to my feet. 'Too bad,' I said. 'Go on feeling sorry for yourself, and see where it gets you.'

I walked away from him, out of his sight.

'Here,' he said, croaking, making it sound like an order.

I stayed where I was.

'Wait,' he said urgently.

I did wait, but I didn't go back to him. I heard the hay rustling and then a real groan as the hangover hit him, and finally he came staggering into view, keeping his balance with both hands on the green outside of Flokati's stall. He stopped when he saw me. Blinking, swaying, the Race Train T-shirt torn and filthy, he looked stupid, pathetic and spineless.

'Go back and sit down,' I said neutrally. 'I'll bring you something.'

He sagged against the green stall but finally turned round and shuffled back the way he'd come. I went down to Leslie Brown and asked if she had any aspirins.

'Not aspirins, but these,' she said, proffering a box from a canvas holdall. 'These might do.'

I thanked her, filled a polystyrene cup with water and went back to see how Lenny was faring: he was sitting on the hay with his head in his hands looking a picture of misery and a lot more normal.

'Drink,' I said, giving him the water. 'And swallow these.'

'You said you could help me.'

'Yes. Take the pills for a start.'

He was accustomed, on the whole, to doing what he was told, and he must have been reasonably good at his job, I supposed, to have been sent across Canada with Laurentide Ice. He swallowed the pills and drank the water and not surprisingly they made no immediate difference to his physical woes.

'I want to get out of here,' he said with a spurt of futile violence. 'Off this bleeding train. Off this whole effing trip. And I've got no money. I lost it. It's gone.'

'All right,' I said. 'I can get you off.'

'Straight up?' He was surprised.

'Straight up.'

'When?'

'At Calgary. In a couple of hours. You can leave then. Where do you want to go?'

He stared. 'You're having me on,' he said.

'No. I'll get you taken care of, and I'll see you get a ticket to wherever you want.'

The dawning hope in his face became clouded with confusion.

'What about old Icy?' he said. 'Who'll look after him?'

It was the first thought he'd had which hadn't been raw self-pity, and I felt the first flicker of compassion.

'We'll get another groom for old Icy,' I promised. 'Calgary's full of horse people.'

It wasn't exactly true. The Calgary I'd known had been one of the six biggest cities in Canada, half the size of Montreal and on a population par with central Toronto. Time might have changed the statistics slightly, but probably not much. Calgary was no dusty old-west cattle town, but a sky-scrapered modern city set like a glittering oasis in the skirts of the prairies: and the Stampede, in which one July I'd worked as a bronco rider, was a highly organized ten-day rodeo with a stadium, adjacent art and stage shows and all the paraphernalia and razzamatazz of big-time tourist entertainment. But Calgary, even in October, definitely had enough horse people around to provide a groom for Laurentide Ice.

I watched Lenny Higgs decide to jettison his horse, his job and his unbearable present. Fearful that I would bungle the whole business because I'd never before actually tried this sort of unscrambling myself, I strove to remember John Millington's stated methods with people like the chambermaid at Newmarket. Offer protection, make any promise that might get results, hold out carrots, be supportive, ask for help.

Ask for help.

'Could you tell me why you don't want to go on to Vancouver?' I said.

I made the question sound very casual, but it threw him back into overall panic, even if not into foetal position.

'No.' He shivered with intense alarm. 'Piss off. It's none of your effing business.'

Without fuss I withdrew from him again, but this time I went further away, beyond Leslie Brown, right down to the exit door.

'Stay there,' I said to her, passing. 'Don't say anything to him, will you?'

She shook her head, folding her thin arms over my waistcoat and across her chest. The dragon, I thought fleetingly, with the fire in abeyance.

'Here,' Lenny shouted behind me. 'Come back.'

I didn't turn round.

He wailed despairingly at the top of his voice, 'I want to get off this train.'

It was, I thought, a serious cry for help.

I went back slowly. He was standing between Flokati's stall and Sparrowgrass's, swaying unsteadily, watching me with haggard eyes.

When I was near him, I said simply, 'Why?'

'He'll kill me if I tell you.'

'That's rubbish,' I said.

'It isn't.' His voice was high. 'He said I'd effing die.'

'Who said?'

'Him.' He was trembling. The threat had been of sufficient power for him to believe it.

'Who is him?' I asked. 'One of the owners?'

He looked blank, as if I were talking gibberish.

'Who is him?' I asked again.

'Some bloke… I never saw him before.'

'Look,' I said calmingly, 'let's go back, sit on the hay, and you tell me why he said he'd kill you.' I pointed over his shoulders towards the bales and with a sort of exhausted compliance he stumbled that way and flopped into a huddled mess.

'How did he frighten you?' I asked.

'He… came to the barns… asked for me.'

'Asked for you by name?'

He nodded glumly.

'When was this?'

'Yesterday,' he said hoarsely. 'During the races.'

'Go on.'

'He said he knew all about old Icey's food being in numbered bags.' Lenny sounded aggrieved. 'Well, it wasn't a secret, was it?'

'No,' I said.

'He said he knew why… because Mrs Quentin's other horse died… 'Lenny stopped and looked as if an abyss had opened before him. 'He started saying I done it…'

'Done what^?'

Lenny was silent.

'Said you'd poisoned Mrs Quentin's other horse?' I suggested.

'I never did it. I didn't.' He was deeply agitated. 'I never.'

'But this man said you did.'

'He said I would go to jail for it, and "they do bad things to boys like you in jail", he said.' He shivered. 'I know they do. And he said… "Do you want AIDS, because you'll get it in jail, a pretty boy like you.'

Pretty, at that moment, he did not look.

'So what next?' I prompted.

'Well, I… Well, I…' he gulped. 'I said I never did it, it wasn't me… and he went on saying I'd go to jail and get AIDS and he went on and on… and I told him… I told him.'

'Told him what?'

'She's a nice lady,' he wailed. 'I didn't want to… he made me…'

'Was it Mrs Quentin,' I asked carefully, 'who poisoned her horse? '

He said miserably, 'Yes. No. See… she gave me this bag of treats… that's what she said they were, treats… and to give them to her horse when no one was looking… See, I didn't look after that horse of hers, it was another groom. So I gave her horse the bag of treats private, like… and it got colic and blew up and died… Well, I asked her, after. I was that scared… but she said it was all dreadful, she'd no idea her darling horse would get colic, and let's not say anything about it, she said, and she gave me a hundred dollars, and I didn't… I didn't want to be blamed, see?'

I did see.

I said, 'So when you told this man about the treats, what did he say?'

Lenny looked shattered. 'He grinned like a shark… all teeth… and he says… if I say anything about him to anybody… he'll see I get… I'll get… 'He finished in a whisper, 'AIDS.'

I sighed. 'Is that how he threatened to kill you?'

He nodded weakly, as if spent.

'What did he look like'' I asked.

'Like my dad.' He paused. 'I hated my dad.'

'Did he sound like your dad?' I asked.

He shook his head. 'He wasn't a Brit.'

'Canadian?'

'Or American.'

'Well,' I said, running out of questions, 'I'll see you don't get AIDS.' I thought things over. 'Stay in the car until we get to Calgary. Ms Brown will get one of the other grooms to bring your bag here. The horse car is going to be unhitched from the train, and the horses are going by motor van to some stables for two days. All the grooms are going with them, as I expect you know. You go with the other grooms And don't worry. Someone will come to find you and take you away, and bring another groom for Icy.' I paused to see if he understood, but it seemed he did. 'Where do you want to go from Calgary?'

'I don't know,' he said dully. 'Have to think.'

'All right. When the someone comes for you, tell him then what you want to do.'

He looked at me with a sort of wonderment. 'Why are you bothering? ' he asked.

'I don't like frighteners.'

He shuddered. 'My dad frightened the living daylights out of people… and me and Mum… and someone stabbed him, killed him… served him right.' He paused. 'No one ever helped the people he frightened.' He paused again, struggling for the unaccustomed word, and came up with it, 'Thanks.'

With tie and buttons all correctly fastened, Tommy went back to the dining car. Zak was just finishing a scene in which old Ben, the groom who had been importuning Raoul for money on Toronto station, had been brought in from the racegoers' part of the train to give damning (false) evidence against Raoul for having doped the Bricknells' horses, a charge flatly denied by Raoul who contrived to look virtuous and possibly guilty, both at the same time. Sympathy on the whole ended on Raoul's side because of Ben's whining nastiness, and Zak told everyone that a Most Important Witness would be coming to Chateau Lake Louise that evening to give Damaging Testimony. Against whom? some people asked. Ah, said Zak mysteriously, vanishing towards the corridor, only time would tell.

Emil, Oliver, Cathy and I set the tables for lunch and served its three courses. Filmer didn't materialize, but Daffodil did, still shaken and angry as at breakfast. Her suitcase was packed, it appeared, and she was adamant about leaving the party at Calgary. No one, it seemed, had been able to find out from her exactly what the matter was, and the lovers' tiff explanation had gained ground.

I served wine carefully and listened, but it was the appealing prospect of two days in the mountains rather than Daffodil's troubles that filled most of the minds.

When Calgary appeared like sharp white needles on the prairie horizon and everyone began pointing excitedly, I told Emil I would do my best to return for the dishwashing and sloped off up the train to George's office.

Would the credit-card telephone work in Calgary? Yes, it would. He waved me towards it as the train slowed and told me I'd got fifty minutes. He himself, as usual, would be outside, supervising.

I got through to Mrs Baudelaire, who sounded carefree and sixteen.

'Your photograph is on its way,' she said without preamble. 'But it won't get to Calgary in time. Someone will be driving from Calgary to Chateau Lake Louise later this afternoon, and they are going to take it to your Miss Richmond.'

'That's great,' I said. 'Thank you.'

'But I'm afraid there's been no word from Val Catto about your numbers.'

'It can't be helped.'

'Anything else?' she asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'I need to talk to Bill direct.'

'What a shame. I've been enjoying this.'

'Oh,' I said. 'Please… so have I. It's only that it's more than a message and question and answer. It's long… and complicated.'

'My dear young man, don't apologize. Bill was still in Winnipeg ten minutes ago. I'll call him straight away. Do you have a number?'

'Um, yes.' I read her the number on the train's handset. 'The sooner the better, would you tell him?'

'Talk to you later,' she said, and went away.

I waited restlessly through ten wasted minutes before the phone rang.

Bill's deep voice reverberated in my ear. 'Where are you?'

'On the train in Calgary station.'

'My mother says it's urgent.'

'Yes, but chiefly because this cellular telephone is in the Conductor's office and only works in cities.'

'Understood,' he said. 'Fire away.'

I told him about Daffodil's departure and Lenny Higgs's frightened collapse; about what she had not said, and he had.

Bill Baudelaire at length demanded, 'Have I got this straight? This Lenny Higgs said Daffodil Quentin got him to give her horse something to eat, from which the horse got colic and died?'

'Strong supposition of cause and effect, but unprovable, I should think.'

'Yes. They had an autopsy and couldn't find what caused the colic. It was the third of her dead horses. The insurers were very suspicious, but they had to pay.'

'Lenny says she told him she would never do any harm to her darling horses, but she gave him a hundred dollars to keep quiet.'

Bill groaned.

'But,' I said, 'it might have been because she'd had two dead horses already and she was afraid everyone would think exactly what they did think anyway.'

'I suppose so,' he said. 'So where are we now?'

'Going on past experience,' I said, 'I would think-and this is just guessing-that after midnight last night, our quarry told Daffodil that her groom had spilled the beans, and would spill them again to order in public, and that he would see she was warned off at the very least if she didn't sell him… or give him… her remaining share in Laurentide Ice.'

He said gloomily, 'You all know him better than I do, but on form I'd think you may be right We'll know for sure, won't we, if he applies to change the partnership registration before the Vancouver race.'

'Mm,' I agreed. 'Well, if you-the Ontario Racing Commission-feel like giving Daffodil the benefit of the doubt over her horses… and of course you know her better than I do, but it seems to me she may not be intentionally wicked, but more silly… I mean there's something immature about her, for all her fifty years or so… and some people don't think it's all that wicked to defraud insurance companies, perfectly respectable people sometimes do it… and I believe all three horses would have been put down sooner than later, wouldn't they? Anyway, I'm not excusing her if she's guilty, but explaining how she might feel about it…'

'You've got to know her remarkably well.'

'Er… I've just… noticed…'

'Mm,' he said dryly. 'Val Catto said you notice things.'

'Well… I, er, don't know how you feel about this, but I thought that if we spirited Lenny Higgs away, sort of, he wouldn't be around to be threatened, or to be a threat to Daffodil, and if you could tell her somehow that Lenny Higgs had vanished and will not be spilling any beans whatsoever… if you could square it with your conscience to do that… then she doesn't need to part with her half-share and we will have foiled at least one of our quarry's rotten schemes. And that's my brief, isn't it?'

He breathed out lengthily, as a whistle. I held the line and waited.

'Is Lenny Higgs still on the train?' he asked eventually.

'Unless he panics, he's going with the other grooms and horses to their stabling here. I told him someone would come to fetch him and look after him and give him a free ticket to wherever he wants to go.'

'Now, hold on…'

'It's the least we can do. But I think we should follow it up, and positively know his exact ultimate destination, even fix him up with a job, because we in our turn may want him to give evidence against the man who frightened him. If we do, we don't want to have to find him worldwide. And if you can send someone to help him, get them to take along a copy of the photo you've had printed for me, because I'm pretty certain that's the man who frightened him. Lenny should turn to jelly, if it is.'