battered varnish. No name of owner or trainer painted anywhere on the doors or bodywork.
There was no one in the driver's cab. I walked round to the back, opened the door, and climbed in.
The horse-box was empty except for a bucket, a hay net, and a rug, the normal travelling kit for racehorses. The floor was strewn with straw, whereas three days earlier it had been swept clean.
The rug, I thought, might give me a clue as to where the box had come from. Most trainers and some owners have their initials embroidered or sewn in tape in large letters on the corners of their horse rugs. If there were initials on this one, it would be easy.
I picked it up. It was pale fawn with a dark brown binding. I found the initials. I stood there as if turned to stone. Plainly in view, embroidered in dark brown silk, were the letters A.Y.
It was my own rug.
Pete, when I ran him to earth, looked in no mood to answer any questions needing much thought. He leaned back against the weighing-room wall with a glass of champagne in one hand and a cigar in the other, surrounded by a pack of friends similarly equipped. From their rosy smiling faces I gathered the celebration had already been going on for some time.
Dane thrust a glass into my hand.
'Where have you been? Well done on Palindrome. Have some bubbly. The owner's paying, God bless him.' His eyes were alight with that fantastic, top-of-the-world elation that I had so lately felt myself. It began to creep back into me too. It was, after all, a great day. Mysteries could wait.
I drank a sip of champagne and said, 'Well done yourself, you old son-of-a-gun. And here's to the Gold Cup.'
'No such luck,' said Dane. 'I haven't much chance in that.' And from his laughing face I gathered he didn't care, either. We emptied our glasses. I'll get another bottle,' he said, diving into the noisy, crowded changing room.
Looking around I saw Joe Nantwich backed up into a nearby corner by the enormous Mr Tudor. The big man was doing the talking, forcefully, his dark face almost merging with the shadows. Joe, still dressed in racing colours, listened very unhappily.
Dane came back with the bubbles fizzing out of a newly opened bottle and filled our glasses. He followed my gaze.
'I don't know whether Joe was sober or not, but didn't he make a hash of the last race?' he said.
'I didn't see it.'
'Brother, you sure missed something. He didn't try a yard. His horse damned nearly stopped altogether at the hurdle over on the far side, and it was second favourite, too. What you see now,' he gestured with the bottle, 'is, I should think, our Joe getting the well-deserved sack.'
'That man owns Bolingbroke,' I said.
'Yes, that's right. Same colours. What a fool Joe is. Owners with five or six goodish horses don't grow on bushes any more.'
Clifford Tudor had nearly done. As he turned away from Joe in our direction we heard the tail end of his remarks.
'- think you can make a fool of me and get away with it. The Stewards can warn you off altogether, as far as I'm concerned.'
He strode past us, giving me a nod of recognition, which surprised me, and went out.
Joe leaned against the wall for support. His face was pallid and sweating. He looked ill. He took a few unsteady steps towards us and spoke without caution, as if he had forgotten that Stewards and members of the National Hunt Committee might easily overhear.
'I had a phone call this morning. The same voice as always. He just said, Don't win the sixth race and rang off before I could say anything. And then that note saying Bolingbroke, this week – I don't understand it- and I didn't win the race and now that bloody wog says he'll get another jockey- and the Stewards have started an inquiry about my riding- and I feel sick.'
'Have some champagne,' said Dane, encouragingly.
'Don't be so bloody helpful,' said Joe, clutching his stomach and departing towards the changing-room.
'What the hell's going on?' said Dane.
'I don't know,' I said, perplexed and more interested in Joe's troubles than I had been before. The phone call was inconsistent, I thought, with the notes. One ordered business as usual, the other promised revenge. 'I wonder if Joe always tells the truth,' I said.
'Highly unlikely,' said Dane, dismissing it.
One of the Stewards came and reminded us that even after the Champion Hurdle, drinking in the weighing room itself was frowned on, and would we please drift along into the changing room. Dane did that, but I finished my drink and went outside.
Pete, still attended by a posse of friends, had decided that it was time to go home. The friends were unwilling. The racecourse bars, they were saying, were still open.
I walked purposefully up to Pete, and he made me his excuse for breaking away. We went towards the gates.
'Whew, what a day!' said Pete, mopping his brow with a white handkerchief and throwing away the stub of his cigar.
'A wonderful day,' I agreed, looking at him carefully.
'You can take that anxious look off your face, Alan, my lad. I'm as sober as a judge and I'm driving myself home.'
'Good. In that case you'll have no difficulty in answering one small question for me?'
'Shoot.'
'In what horse-box did Palindrome come to Cheltenham?' I said.
'Eh? I hired one. I had five runners here today. The hurdler, the mare, and the black gelding came in my own box. I had to hire one for Palindrome and the novice Dane rode in the first.'
'Where did you hire it from?'
'What's the matter?' asked Pete. 'I know it's a bit old, and it had a puncture on the way, as I told you, but it didn't do him any harm. Can't have done, or he wouldn't have won.'
'No, it's nothing like that,' I said. 'I just want to know where that horse-box comes from.'
'It's not worth buying, if that's what you're after. Too old by half.'
'Pete, I don't want to buy it. Just tell me where it comes from.'
'The firm I usually hire a box from, Littlepeths of Steyning.' He frowned. 'Wait a minute. At first they said all their boxes were booked up; then they said they could get me a box if I didn't mind an old one.'
'Who drove it here?' I asked.
'Oh, one of their usual drivers. He was swearing a bit at having to drive such an old hen coop. He said the firm had got two good horse-boxes out of action in Cheltenham week and he took a poor view of the administration.'
'Do you know him well?'
'Not exactly well. He often drives the hired boxes, that's all. He's always grousing about something. Now, what is all this in aid of?'
'It may have something to do with Bill's death,' I said, 'but I'm not sure what. Can you find out where the box really comes from? Ask the hire firm? And don't mention me, if you don't mind.'
'Is it important?' asked Pete.
'Yes, it is.'
'I'll ring 'em tomorrow morning, then,' he said.
As soon as he saw me the next day, Pete said, 'I asked about that horse-box. It belongs to a farm near Steyning. I've got his name and address here.' He tucked two fingers into his breast pocket, brought out a slip of paper, and gave it to me. 'The farmer uses the box to take his hunters around, and his children's show jumpers in the summer. He sometimes lets the hire firm use it, if he's not needing it. Is that what you wanted?'
'Yes, thank you very much,' I said. I put the paper in my wallet.
By the end of the Festival meeting I had repeated the story of the wire to at least ten more people, in the hope that someone might know why it had been put there. The tale spread fast round the racecourse.
I told fat Lew Panake, the well-dressed bookmaker who took my occasional bets. He promised to'sound out the
