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
