Monk set-tled his fare, made some arrangement with the driver and stepped quickly across the pavement and up the tiled path to the porch of a house. He held a key ready and had let him-self in before the cab trundled away.
He stood in a darkened, stone-floored hallway and waited, while his eyes adjusted and identified a pot of ferns to his left and a monstrous hall-stand beside it. He deposited his cap and overcoat, felt blindly for his tie and straightened it, groomed his hair with his palms, which he afterwards brushed on his trousers, and called aloud, ‘Which way?’
A woman’s voice answered: ‘In here.’
Monk found a line of light which broke the regularity of the wainscoting, and fumbled above it for a door- handle. He let himself into a large drawing-room, lit by gas, but mainly illuminated by a well-banked log fire, which glowed orange and flickered in miniature on a dozen glass ornaments and on the polished surfaces of ornate dark- wood furniture. The ceiling was high, but the movement of the flames glowed there, too. Over the marble mantelpiece, in place of a mir-ror, was a broad presentation belt, glittering with studs and silver embossments.
Monk stood by the door, reluctant to step from the stained floorboards on to the small island of carpet in the centre. If Monk had been a sensitive man, his hesitation might have had some symbolic significance. For the occu- pant of the tufted island, smiling from a velvet sofa, was Cora Darrell.
‘You are very punctual,’ she said. ‘Would you like a chair?’ ‘Thank you. I’d rather sit on the footstool here and warm myself for a while.’
‘What was happening when you left?’
‘Not very much,’ Monk answered. ‘He’s sleeping till four. Should sleep content, too, for he’s in the lead.’
‘He is all right, Sam?’
‘Oh, pretty good, pretty good. A spot of foot trouble towards the end, but that will pass. If he needs encourage-ment he only has to look at Chadwick. I never saw a man so beat at the end of one day.’
For some seconds neither spoke. A clock under a glass dome on the mantelshelf chimed the hour. Monk spread his hands to the fire and rubbed them vigorously.
‘You say four,’ Cora said. ‘That isn’t long. You must leave by half past three. Have you arranged a cab?’
He stood, warming the backs of his thighs.
‘Of course. Are you tired? Did you enjoy your dinner out?’
She smiled towards the fire.
‘The meal was excellent, but I could have wished for dif-ferent company. One day I shall persuade you to escort me for an evening.’
‘I like this arrangement better,’ said Monk. ‘Let them with the money provide the food and wine. I supply what you don’t want from them. Ain’t that so?’
He had perched himself on an edge of the sofa and was raising her face in his open palms. Cora allowed Monk to kiss her.
‘And what,’ she murmured, ‘have you brought to break my resistance?’
Monk grinned with the confidence of a suitor who has already stated the time available for love’s preliminaries.
‘As it happens, I did bring this. Where are the glasses?’
From his pocket came a flask of whisky, which Cora may well have seen earlier in her husband’s tent, with other rubs and embrocations. She pointed to a cabinet sideboard on which glasses were waiting. He filled them generously, giv-ing no thought to Darrell’s deprived limbs.
‘My name should be on there,’ he said, indicating the cham-pion’s belt above the mantelpiece. ‘Fifteen years back, or less per-haps, I ran Johnny White, the Gateshead Clipper, ten miles at Bow Running Grounds. Could have beaten him easy after six. He wasn’t the same man who thrashed Deerfoot. Out of form, he was, and I was twenty and going full bat. Then they offered me fifty to run to the book. Like a mug I agreed. Johnny won in slow time and kept the belt till Young England thrashed him. I’m glad it was Charlie who finally won it outright, though. I’m out there with him, when he runs, every yard.’
‘Except when you take his place here,’ said Cora, laugh-ing. ‘Take my drink, Sam. I’ve already drunk enough this evening.’
Monk drained his own glass, and then Cora’s.
‘There ain’t much time,’ he said. ‘Let’s get upstairs.’
She was shaking her head.
‘I wouldn’t like that, Sam. Why do you think I banked the fire up in here? The bed is cold. This is different, anyway. Charles has never approached me here. Here, Sam. Love me in here.’
Monk was feeling warm for the first time in twenty-five hours and readily acquiesced. He draped himself along the sofa and kissed her resolutely.
Minutes later Cora knelt before the fire while Monk began the tantalising work of disrobing her. She had slipped off her shoes, but the rest was left to him. His fingers coped haltingly with hooks and eyes and tiny buttons. The dress bodice eventually fell.
‘Warm your hands again before you touch my camisole,’ she commanded him between giggles, squealing as his hands gripped her shoulders and he buried his face in her neck.
‘Bows, Sam. They shouldn’t trouble you so much. Here, I’ll pull off a stocking while you untie them.’
The next layer presented its own problems.
‘Leave the corset, then, and I’ll manage my skirt and pet-ticoats,’ she offered. ‘Turn out the gas.’
When he turned she was stepping from a frothy moun-tain of petticoats. Monk gathered himself. There remained the corset. The rest would not be difficult.
She gasped with relief from constriction as the unlacing progressed. And finally corset, white chemise, lace drawers, black silk stockings and garters lay scattered.
‘If I had the patience and time,’ whispered Monk, ‘I’d make you undress me.’
Instead he stripped himself in seconds, and lifted her gen-tly back to the sofa.
‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘Much better in a warm room beside a fire.’
Feargus O’Flaherty grunted, turned on his side and sniffed again. He felt sure that he had not been sleeping long. It could not be one of his dreams, he was certain, for he remembered the race, his aching legs and the hut. Nothing was going to make him leave the warmth of that bed; not for three more hours, anyway. But what was that blasted smell, which had not been there before? He opened his eyes reluctantly and looked across to the bed that Mostyn-Smith had been allocated. It was still empty. That greenhorn would probably walk all night. He’d need to if he was going to make a hundred miles. Grinning contentedly, the Irishman closed his eyelids and began to drift back to unconsciousness.
Suddenly the warmth drained from his veins. His limbs tensed and he held his breath. In the hut he could distinctly hear the sound of breathing. And Mostyn-Smith’s bed lay undisturbed. O’Flaherty slowly lifted his head from the pile of clothes which served as a pillow and looked along the length of the bed towards the door, which was slightly open. His eyes swivelled to the right and left, but nobody was vis-ible. His head dropped heavily back on the pillow and he lis-tened again.
The breathing was still there, more urgently now, and the smell had returned. But what made O’Flaherty’s eyes bolt wide in horror was a second sound, a powerful scratching on the stone floor, the unmistakable movement of something large, heavy and alive, steadily towards his bed. With a yell of fear the Irishman leapt upright on the bed-or almost upright, for in rising he crashed his head on the hut roof, groaned and collapsed. The young girl who had been detailed by Jacobson to scrub the hut screamed, jumped to her feet and bolted for the doorway, crashing over her pail of liquid carbolic as she went. O’Flaherty lay dazed and groaning. When he recovered enough to open his eyes again they focused on a scrubbing-brush lying in a pool of carbolic. He crossed himself, swore violently and bundled the bedclothes over his shivering body and head.
Sam Monk returned to the Hall before four and hur-ried to the restaurant.
‘What did you want?’ asked the only other customer, who sat at the end of a long table with an empty cup and saucer in front of him. It was Chadwick’s man, Harvey.
‘Coffee. Is there anyone inside?’
