I was just giving Joe up when he came out of the gate and hailed me with no apology for his lateness. But I was not the only person to notice his arrival.
The tall dark Mr Tudor strode towards us.
'Nantwich, be so good as to give me a lift into Brighton, will you?' he said, authoritatively. 'As you can see, the taxis are out of action, and I have an important appointment in Brighton in twenty minutes.'
Joe looked at the taxi-drivers with vague eyes.
'What's happened?' he said.
'Never mind that now,' said Tudor impatiently. 'Where is your car?'
Joe looked at him blankly. His brain seemed to be working at half speed. He said, 'Oh – er – it isn't here, sir. I've got a lift.'
'With you?' said Tudor to me. I nodded. Joe, typically, had not introduced us.
'I'll be obliged if you will take me into Brighton,' said Tudor, briskly. 'I'll pay you the regular taxi fare.'
He was forceful and in a hurry. It would have been difficult to refuse to do him a favour so small to me, so clearly important to him.
'I'll take you for nothing,' I said, 'but you'll find it a bit of a squeeze. I have a two-seater sports car.'
'If it's too small for all of us, Nantwich can stay here and you can come back for him,' said Tudor in a firm voice. Joe showed no surprise, but I thought that the dark Mr Tudor was too practised at consulting no one's convenience but his own.
We skirted the groups of battered taxi-drivers, and threaded our way to my car. Tudor got in. He was so large that it was hopeless to try to wedge Joe in as well.
'I'll come back for you, Joe,' I said, stifling my irritation. 'Wait for me up on the main road.'
I climbed into the car, nosed slowly out of the car park, up the racecourse road, and turned out towards Brighton. There was too much traffic for the Lotus to show off the power of the purring Climax engine, and going along at a steady forty gave me time to concentrate on my puzzling passenger.
Glancing down as I changed gear, I saw his hand resting on his knees, the fingers spread and tense. And suddenly I knew where I had seen him before. It was his hand, darkly tanned, with the faint bluish tint under the finger-nails, that I knew.
He had been standing in the bar at Sandown with his back towards me and his hand resting flat on the counter beside him, next to his glass. He had been talking to Bill; and I had waited there, behind him, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. Then Tudor finished his drink and left, and I had talked with Bill.
Now I glanced at his face.
'It's a great shame about Bill Davidson,' I said.
The brown hand jumped slightly on his knee. He turned his head and looked at me while I drove.
'Yes, indeed it is.' He spoke slowly. 'I had been hoping he would ride a horse for me at Cheltenham.'
'A great horseman,' I said.
'Yes indeed.'
'I was just behind him when he fell,' I said, and on an impulse added, 'There are a great many questions to be asked about it.'
I felt Tudor's huge body shift beside me. I knew he was still looking at me, and I found his presence overpowering. 'I suppose so,' he said. He hesitated, but added nothing more. He looked at his watch.
'Take me to the Pavilion Plaza Hotel, if you please. I have to attend a business meeting there,' he said.
'Is it near the Pavilion?' I asked.
'Fairly. I will direct you when we get there.' His tone relegated me to the status of chauffeur.
We drove for some miles in silence. My passenger sat apparently in deep thought. When we reached Brighton he told me the way to the hotel.
'Thank you,' he said, without warmth, as he lifted his bulk clumsily out of the low-slung car. He had an air of accepting considerable favours as merely his due, even when done him by complete strangers. He took two steps away from the car, then turned back and said, 'What is your name?'
'Alan York,' I said. 'Good afternoon.' I drove off without waiting for an answer. I could be brusque too. Glancing in the mirror I saw him standing on the pavement looking after me.
I went back to the racecourse.
Joe was waiting for me, sitting on the bank at the side of the road. He had some difficulty opening the car door, and he stumbled into his seat, muttering. He lurched over against me, and I discovered that Joe Nantwich was drunk.
The daylight was almost gone. I turned on the lights. I could think of pleasanter things to do than drive the twisty roads to Dorking with Joe breathing alcohol all over me. I sighed, and let in the clutch.
Joe was nursing a grievance. He would be. Everything which went wrong for Joe was someone else's fault, according to him. Barely twenty, he was a chronic grumbler. It was hard to know which was worse to put up with, his grousing or his bragging, and that he was treated with tolerance by the other jockeys said much for their good nature. Joe's saving grace was his undoubted ability as a jockey, but he had put that to bad use already by his'stopping' activities, and now he was threatening it altogether by getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon.
'I would have won that race,' he whined.
'You're a fool, Joe,' I said.
'No, honestly, Alan, I would have won that race. I had him placed just right. I had the others beat, I had 'em stone cold. Just right.' He made sawing motions with his hands.
'You're a fool to drink so much at the races,' I said.
'Eh?' He couldn't focus.
'Drink,' I said. 'You've had too much to drink.'
'No, no, no, no-' The words came dribbling out, as if once he had started to speak it was too much effort to stop.
'Owners won't put you on their horses if they see you getting drunk,' I said, feeling it was no business of mine, after all.
'I can win any race, drunk or not,' said Joe.
'Not many owners would believe it.'
'They know I'm good.'
'So you are, but you won't be if you go on like this,' I said.
'I can drink and I can ride and I can ride and I can drink. If I want to.' He belched.
I let it pass. What Joe needed was a firm hand applied ten years ago. He looked all set now on the road to ruin and he wasn't going to thank anyone for directions off it.
He was whining again. That bloody Mason-'
I didn't say anything. He tried again.
'That bloody Sandy, he tipped me off. He bloody well tipped me off over the bloody rails. I'd have won that race as easy as kiss your hand and he knew it and tipped me off over the bloody rails.'
'Don't be silly, Joe.'
'You can't say I wouldn't have won the race,' said Joe argumentatively.
'And I can't say you would have won it,' I said. 'You fell at least a mile from home.'
'I didn't fall. I'm telling you, aren't I? Sandy bloody Mason tipped me off over the rails.'
'How?' I asked idly, concentrating on the road.
'He squeezed me against the rails. I shouted at him to give me more room. And do you know what he did? Do you know? He laughed. He bloody well laughed. Then he tipped me over. He stuck his knee into me and gave a heave and off I went over the bloody rails.' His whining voice finished on a definite sob.
I looked at him. Two tears were rolling down his round cheeks. They glistened in the light from the dashboard, and fell with a tiny flash on to the furry collar of his sheepskin coat.
' Sandy wouldn't do a thing like that,' I said mildly.
'Oh yes he would. He told me he'd get even with me. He said I'd be sorry. But I couldn't help it, Alan, I really couldn't.' Two more tears rolled down.