He screwed up his eyes in concentration and went on. 'Then the man with the funny voice said, You are not to win on Admiral, Major Davidson. Daddy just laughed, and the man said, I'll pay you five hundred pounds if you promise not to win. And Daddy said, Go to hell and I nearly snorted because he was always telling me not to say that. Then the whispery man said he didn't want Daddy to win, and that Admiral would fall if Daddy didn't agree not to win, and Daddy said You must be mad. And then he put down the telephone, and I ran back to my room in case he should come up and find me listening.'
'Did you say anything to your father about it?' I asked.
'No,' said Henry frankly, 'That's the big snag about listening. You have to be awfully careful not to know too much.'
'Yes, I can see that,' I said, trying not to smile.
Then I saw the flicker in Henry's eyes as the meaning of what he had heard grew clearer to him. He said jerkily, 'It wasn't a joke after all, was it?'
'No, it wasn't,' I said.
'But that man didn't make Admiral fall, did he? He couldn't- could he? Could he?' said Henry desperately, wanting me to reassure him. His eyes were stretched wide open and he was beginning to realize that he had listened to the man who had caused his father's death. Although he would have to know one day about the strand of wire, I didn't think I ought to tell him at that moment.
'I don't really know. I don't expect so,' I lied calmly. But Henry's wide eyes stared blindly at me as if he were looking at some inward horror.
'What's the matter?' said Polly. 'I don't understand why Henry is so upset. Just because someone told Daddy they didn't want him to win is no reason for Henry to go off in a fit.'
'Does he always remember so clearly what people say?' I asked Polly. 'It's a month ago, now, since your father died.'
'I expect Daddy and that man said a lot of things that Henry has forgotten,' said Polly judiciously, 'but he doesn't make things up.' And I knew this was true. He was a truthful child.
He said stonily, 'I don't see how he could have done it.'
I was glad at least that Henry was dealing with his revelation practically and not emotionally. Perhaps I had not done him too much harm, after all, in making him understand what he had heard and disregarded.
'Come along to bed and don't worry about it, Henry,' I said, holding out my hand to him. He took it, and uncharacteristically held on to it all the way along the landing and into his bedroom.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
While I was dressing myself at tortoise pace the following morning the front door bell rang downstairs, and presently Joan came up to say that an Inspector Lodge would like to see me, please.
'Tell him I'll be down as soon as possible,' I said, struggling to get my shirt on over the thick bracing bandage round my shoulders. I did up most of the buttons, but decided I didn't need a tie.
The strapping round my ribs felt tight and itched horribly, my head ached, large areas of flesh were black still and tender, I had slept badly, and I was altogether in a foul mood. The three aspirins I had swallowed in place of breakfast had not come up to scratch.
I picked up my socks, tried to bend to put them on with my one useful arm, found how far away my feet had become, and flung them across the room in a temper. The day before, in the hospital, the nurse with nice teeth had helped me to dress. Today perverseness stopped me asking my father to come and do it for me.
The sight of my smudgy, yellow, unshaven face in the looking-glass made matters no better. Henry's 'horrible monster from outer space' was not so far off the mark. I longed to scratch the livid scar on my cheek, to relieve its irritation.
I plugged in my electric razor and took off the worst, brushed my hair sketchily, thrust my bare feet into slippers, put one arm into my hacking jacket and swung it over the other shoulder, and shuffled gingerly downstairs.
Lodge's face when he saw me was a picture.
'If you laugh at me I'll knock your block off. Next week,' I said.
'I'm not laughing,' said Lodge, his nostrils twitching madly as he tried to keep a straight face.
'It's not funny,' I said emphatically.
'No.'
I scowled at him.
My father said, glancing at me from behind his Sunday newspaper in the depths of an armchair by the fire, 'You sound to me as if you need a stiff brandy.'
'It's only half-past ten,' I said crossly.
'Emergencies can happen at any time of the day,' said my father, standing up, 'and this would appear to be a grave one.' He opened the corner cupboard where Scilla kept a few bottles and glasses, poured out a third of a tumbler full of brandy, and splashed some soda into it. I complained that it was too strong, too early, and unnecessary.
My father handed me the glass. 'Drink it and shut up,' he said.
Furious, I took a large mouthful. It was strong and fiery, and bit into my throat. I rolled the second mouthful round my teeth so that the scarcely diluted spirit tingled on my gums, and when I swallowed I could feel it slide warmly down to my empty stomach.
'Did you have any breakfast?' asked my father.
'No,' I said.
I took another, smaller gulp. The brandy worked fast. My bad temper began draining away, and in a minute or two I felt reasonably sane. Lodge and my father were looking at me intently as though I were a laboratory animal responding to an experiment.
'Oh very well then,' I admitted grudgingly, 'I feel better.' I took a cigarette from the silver box on the table and lit it, and noticed the sun was shining.
'Good.' My father sat down again.
It appeared that he and Lodge had introduced themselves while they waited for me, and Lodge had told him, among other things, about my adventures in the horse-box outside Maidenhead, a detail I had omitted from my letters. This I considered to be treachery of the basest sort, and said so; and I told them how Kate and I had tracked down the horse-box, and that that particular line of enquiry was a dead end.
I took my cigarette and glass across the room and sat on the window seat in the sun. Scilla was in the garden, cutting flowers. I waved to her.
Lodge, dressed today not in uniform but in grey flannels, fine wool shirt, and sports jacket, opened his briefcase, which lay on the table, and pulled out some papers. He sat down beside the table and spread them out.
He said, 'Mr Gregory rang me up at the station on the morning after your fall at Bristol to tell me about it.'
'Why on earth did he do that?' I asked.
'You asked him to,' said Lodge. He hesitated, and went on, 'I understand from your father that your memory is affected.'
'Yes. Most bits of that day at Bristol have come back now, but I still can't remember going out of the weighing room to ride Palindrome, or the race or the fall, or anything.' My last mental picture was of Sandy walking out into the rain. 'Why did I ask Pete to tell you I fell?'
'You asked him before the race. You apparently thought you were likely to fall. So, unofficially, I checked up on that crash of yours.' He smiled suddenly. 'You've accounted for all my free time lately, and today is really my day off. Why I bother with you I really don't know!' But I guessed that he was as addicted to detecting as an alcoholic to drink. He couldn't help doing it.
He went on, 'I went down to Gregory's stables and took a look at Palindrome. He had a distinct narrow wound across his front on those two pads of flesh-'
'Chest,' I murmured.
'- Chest, then; and I'll give you one guess at what cut him.'
'Oh, no,' I said, guessing, but not believing it.
'I checked up on the attendants at the fences,' he said. 'One of them was new and unknown to the others. He gave his name as Thomas Butler and an address which doesn't exist, and he volunteered to stand at the farthest fence from the stands, where you fell. His offer was readily accepted because of the rain and the distance of the fence from the bookmakers. The same story as at Maidenhead. Except that this time Butler collected his earnings in the normal way. Then I got the clerk of the course to let me inspect the fence, and I found a groove on each post, six feet six inches from the ground.'