I smiled. ‘It was while I was in the Army that they offered me this job.’
‘Safe, I suppose,’ he said, making allowances. ‘Prospects, pension, and all that.’
‘Mm,’ I said non-committally. ‘Actually, I really came here today to see you, to ask you about Chrysalis.’
‘Have they found him, do you know?’ he said.
‘Not yet, no. The American who bought him is a friend of my boss, and they’ve asked me, as I know you, to see if you would do them a favour.’
‘If I can,’ he said promptly. ‘If I can.’
‘Their problem is’, I explained, ‘that if and when a loose horse is found, especially if he’s some distance from where he was lost, how are they to be sure it is Chrysalis.’
He looked startled and then amused. ‘That certainly is a problem. But Chrysalis hasn’t been in my yard since... let’s see... four years last October. I don’t know whether I’d be certain of him, not absolutely certain, if I saw him, for instance, among twenty others rather like him. And you’d want it to be more positive than that.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Actually I rang your home this morning and your secretary said I’d find you here. And he also said Chrysalis’s old lad would be here. Sam Kitchens. Would you mind if I had a word with him?’
‘That’s right, he came with Milkmaid for the four-thirty. No, I don’t mind, you ask him what you like.’
‘Mr Dave Teller, who bought Chrysalis, wonders whether you would let Sam Kitchens go over to the States for a few days, if and when the horse turns up, to identify him. Mr Teller will pay his fare and expenses.’
Arkwright laughed. ‘Sam will like that. He’s not a bad chap. Pretty reliable.’
‘Then if he’s needed, you’ll get a cable saying which flight he’s to go on, and so on. Will that be all right?’
He nodded. ‘You tell the American I’ll let him go.’
I thanked him. ‘They’ll be very grateful.’ I bought him another vodka and tonic and we talked about horses.
Sam Kitchens walked his fair young Milkmaid around the parade ring and I risked ten bob on her, but she turned out to be a cow. I joined Arkwright while he ran his hand down the filly’s legs and listened to the jockey explaining forcibly that it wasn’t down there that the trouble lay, but up in her pea-sized brain.
Lads usually resent criticism of their charges, but from his expression Kitchens, a short stocky man of about thirty, held much the same view. I asked him, after introductions from Arkwright, whether he would know Chrysalis again with enough certainty to testify if necessary in a court of law.
‘Sure,’ he said without hesitation. ‘I’d know the boy. I had him three years. Sure, I’d know him. Maybe I couldn’t pick him out of a herd, now, but I’d know him close to. The way his hide grows, and little nicks in his skin, I wouldn’t have forgotten those.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said, nodding. ‘Was there... is there... anything special about him, which might help someone who’d never seen him before to recognize him?’
He thought it over for several minutes. ‘It’s four years. More, nearly five, see. The only thing I remember is, we had trouble with his off hind hoof. It was thin, used to crack at the same place every time. But the stud he went to might have cured it, as he wasn’t racing any more. Or he might just have grown out of it, being older now.’ He paused. ‘Tell you something, he liked sardines. He’s the only horse I know of who had a taste for sardines.’
I smiled. ‘That’s pretty odd. How did you find out?’
‘Took my tea into his box once. Sardines on toast. I put it down for a minute on the window sill, and when I looked round he’d scoffed the lot. It tickled me, it did. I used to share a tinful with him sometimes, after that. He always liked them.’
I stayed for the last race and picked another loser. I would have made a lousy trainer, anyway.
Chapter Seven
I reached the Air Terminal at eight-fifteen, but Lynnie was there first.
‘I couldn’t sleep much,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been to America before.’
I’d been to America a dozen times. I hadn’t slept much either.
Lynnie’s clothes, a deep pink shiny PVC raincoat over the orange tan dress, were having an anti-soporific effect on everyone in sight. Resisting an urge to grope for dark glasses I felt an uncommon lift to the spirits, which lasted to mid Atlantic. There Lynnie went to sleep and a strong wave of non-enthusiasm for finding Chrysalis invaded my mind like one enormous yawn. I wouldn’t mind, I thought idly, I really wouldn’t mind lazing around that swimming pool with Eunice and Lynnie, doing nothing at all but drink in sunshine, peace, Scotch, and an uninterrupted view of two well-shaped females in bikinis. Peace most of all. Lie like a log, and not think, not feel. And sleep. Sleep for sixteen hours a day and mindlessly laze away the other eight: a programme as near to death as dammit. A very small step from there to eternity, to make the peace permanent...
‘What are you thinking about?’ Lynnie said.
She had opened her eyes and was watching my face.
‘Heaven,’ I said.
She shook her head slightly. ‘Hell, more like.’ She sat up briskly. ‘How long before we land?’
About an hour.’
‘Will I like Mrs Teller?’
‘Haven’t you met her before?’ I asked.
‘Once, when I was little. I don’t remember her.’
I smiled. ‘She isn’t easy to forget.’
‘Exactly,’ Lynnie said. ‘There’s something odd about me going to stay with her. Of course I said I’d love to, and who wouldn’t go off on any trip to get away from school, let alone a super one like this, but I distinctly think that Daddy and Mr Teller have an ulterior motive and I want to know what it is.’
‘They want her to have company, to stop her drinking too much alone.’
‘Wow!’ She looked surprised. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘They didn’t say so. I’m only guessing.’
‘But I can’t stop her drinking,’ she protested.
‘Don’t try. She doesn’t get drunk. And you’ll like her all right, as long as your ears don’t fall off.’
She laughed. ‘My mother wouldn’t approve of her?’
‘Quite likely not.’
‘I expect that’s why I’ve only met her once.’ She grinned at me mischievously without a shred of self-consciousness, Joan’s influence waning visibly with every hundred miles.
It was late morning, local time, when we checked in at the Biltmore. From there Lynnie departed on foot for a private tour of New York, and I cabbed down town to Buttress Life. The heatwave was still in position, the air still saturated. Lethargy and haze hung over the city, and buildings shivered like mirages through the blue exhausts of the cars. Once over the Buttress building’s threshold the temperate zone took over: I rode up to the seventh floor with the humidity in my clothes condensing into water, and sagged damply into Walt’s spare chair in four seven.
‘Good trip?’ he said. ‘You look...’ he hesitated.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Pooped.’
He smiled. It was worth waiting for. There’s a load to be read in a smile, and Walt’s was a good one.
‘How’s it with the Snail Express?’ I asked.
He picked a list off his desk. ‘They were very co-operative. Only trouble is, they had about thirty-five trailers out on those dates which just might have been going west on the turnpike.’ He handed me the paper sympathetically. ‘It was a pretty long shot, of course.’