‘You’re getting on well, then, Sid?’ said Lord Hagbourne.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Good, good.’
‘How did the meeting go?’ I asked. ‘On Saturday?’
Both of them seemed faintly surprised at the question.
‘Well, you did hold it, didn’t you?’ I said anxiously.
‘Why yes,’ said Fotherton. ‘We did. There was a moderately good gate, thanks to the fine weather.’ He was a thin, dry man with a long face moulded into drooping lines of melancholy, and on that morning he kept smoothing three fingers down his cheek as if he were nervous.
Lord Hagbourne said, ‘It wasn’t only your security men who were drugged. The stable lads all woke up feeling muzzy, and the old man who was supposed to look after the boiler was asleep on the floor in the canteen. Oxon had given them all a glass of beer. Naturally, your men trusted him.’
I sighed. One couldn’t blame them too much. I might have drunk with him myself.
‘We had the inspector in yesterday to go over the boiler thoroughly,’ said Lord Hagbourne. ‘It was nearly due for its regular check anyway. They said it was too old to stand much interference with its normal working, and that it was just as well it hadn’t been put to the test. Also that they thought that it wouldn’t have taken as long as three hours to blow up. Oxon was only guessing.’
‘Charming,’ I said.
‘I sounded out Seabury Council,’ said Lord Hagbourne. ‘They’re putting the racecourse down on their agenda for next month. Apparently a friend of yours, the manager of the Seafront Hotel, has started a petition in the town urging the council to take an interest in the racecourse on the grounds that it gives a seaside town prestige and free advertising and is good for trade.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said, very pleased.
Fotherton cleared his throat, looked hesitantly at Lord Hagbourne, and then at me.
‘It has been discussed…’ he began. ‘It has been decided to ask you if you… er… would be interested in taking on… in becoming Clerk of the Course at Seabury.’
‘Me?’ I exclaimed, my mouth falling open in astonishment.
‘It’s getting too much for me, being Clerk of two courses,’ he said, admitting it a year too late.
‘You saved the place on the brink of the grave,’ said Lord Hagbourne with rare decisiveness. ‘We all know it’s an unusual step to offer a Clerkship to a professional jockey so soon after he’s retired, but Seabury executive are unanimous. They want you to finish the job.’
They were doing me an exceptional honour. I thanked them, and hesitated, and asked if I could think it over.
‘Of course, think it over,’ said Lord Hagbourne. ‘But say yes.’
I asked them then to have a look at the box of photographs, which they did. They both scrutinised each print carefully, one by one, but they could suggest nothing at the end.
Zanna Martin came to see me the next afternoon, carrying some enormous, sweet-smelling bronze chrysanthemums. A transformed Zanna Martin, in a smart dark green tweed suit and shoes chosen for looks more than sturdy walking. Her hair had been re-styled so that it was shorter and curved in a bouncy curl on to her cheek. She had even tried a little lipstick and powder, and had tidied her eyebrows into a shapely line. The scars were just as visible, the facial muscles as wasted as ever, but Miss Martin had come to terms with them at last.
‘How super you look,’ I said truthfully.
She was embarrassed, but very pleased. ‘I’ve got a new job. I had an interview yesterday, and they didn’t even seem to notice my face. Or at least they didn’t say anything. In a bigger office, this time. A good bit more than I’ve earned before, too.’
‘How splendid,’ I congratulated her sincerely.
‘I feel new,’ she said.
‘I too.’
‘I’m glad we met.’ She smiled, saying it lightly. ‘Did you get that file back all right? Your young Mr Barnes came to fetch it.’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Was it important?’
‘Why?’
‘He seemed very odd when I gave it to him. I thought he was going to tell me something about it. He kept starting to, and then he didn’t.’
I would have words with Chico, I thought.
‘It was only an ordinary file,’ I said. ‘Nothing to tell.’
On the off-chance, I got her to look at the photographs. Apart from commenting on the many examples of her own typing, and expressing surprise that anybody should have bothered to photograph such ordinary papers, she had nothing to say.
She rose to go, pulling on her gloves. She still automatically leaned forward slightly, so that the curl swung down over her cheek.
‘Goodbye, Mr Halley. And thank you for changing everything for me. I’ll never forget how much I owe you.’
‘We didn’t have that lunch,’ I said.
‘No.’ She smiled, not needing me any more. ‘Never mind. Some other time.’ She shook hands. ‘Goodbye.’
She went serenely out of the door.
‘Goodbye, Miss Martin,’ I said to the empty room. ‘Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.’ I sighed sardonically at myself, and went to sleep.
Noel Wayne came loaded on Friday morning with a bulging brief-case of papers. He had been my accountant ever since I began earning big money at eighteen, and he probably knew more about me than anyone else on earth. Nearly sixty, bald except for a grey fringe over the ears, he was a small, round man with alert black eyes and a slow-moving mills-of-God mind. It was his advice more than my knowledge which had turned my earnings into a modest fortune via the stock markets, and I seldom did anything of any importance financially without consulting him first.
‘What’s up?’ he said, coming straight to the point as soon as he had taken off his overcoat and scarf.
I walked over to the window and looked out. The weather had broken. It was drizzling, and a fine mist lay over the distant sea.
‘I’ve been offered a job,’ I said, ‘Clerk of the Course at Seabury.’
‘No!’ he said, as astonished as I had been. ‘Are you going to accept?’
‘It’s tempting,’ I said. ‘And safe.’
He chuckled behind me. ‘Good. So you’ll take it.’
‘A week ago I definitely decided not to do any more detecting.’
‘Ah.’
‘So I want to know what you think about me buying a partnership in Radnor’s agency.’
He choked.
‘I didn’t think you even liked the place.’
‘That was a month ago. I’ve changed since then. And I won’t be changing back. The agency is what I want.’
‘But has Radnor
‘No. I think he might have done eventually, but not since someone let a bomb off in the office. He’s hardly likely to ask me to buy a half share of the ruins. And he blames himself for this.’ I pointed to the sling.
‘With reason?’
‘No,’ I said rather gloomily. ‘I took a risk which didn’t come off.’
‘Which was?’
‘Well, if you need it spelled out, that Kraye would only hit hard enough to hurt, not to damage beyond repair.’
