'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.'
There was a short silence.
'Well, well, well,' I said blankly. 'It looks as though I was luckier than Bill.'
'I wish you could remember something about it- anything. What made you suspect you would fall?' asked Lodge.
'I don't know.'
'It was something that happened while you were in the parade ring waiting to mount.' He leaned forward, his dark eyes fixed intently on my face, willing my sluggish memory to come to life. But I remembered nothing, and I still felt weary from head to foot. Concentration was altogether too much of an effort.
I looked out into the peaceful spring garden. Scilla held an armful of forsythia, golden yellow against her blue dress.
'I can't remember,' I said flatly. 'Perhaps it'll come back when my head stops aching.'
Lodge sighed and sat back in his hard chair.
'I suppose,' he said, a little bitterly, 'that you do at least remember sending me a message from Brighton, asking me to do your investigating for you?'
'Yes, I do,' I said. 'How did you get on?'
'Not very well. No one seems to know who actually owns the Marconicar taxi line. It was taken over just after the war by a business man named Clifford Tudor-'
'What?' I said in astonishment.
'Clifford Tudor, respectable Brighton resident, British subject. Do you know him?'
'Yes,' I said. 'He owns several racehorses.'
Lodge sorted out a paper from his briefcase. 'Clifford Tudor, born Khroupista Thasos, in Trikkala, Greece. Naturalized nineteen thirty-nine, when he was twenty-five. He started life as a cook, but owing to natural business ability he acquired his own restaurant that same year. He sold it for a large profit after the war, went to Brighton, and bought for next to nothing an old taxi business that had wilted from wartime restrictions and lack of petrol. Four years ago he sold the taxis, again at a profit, and put his money into the Pavilion Plaza Hotel. He is unmarried.'
I leaned my head back against the window and waited for these details to mean something significant, but all that happened was that my inability to think increased.
Lodge went on. 'The taxi line was bought from Tudor by nominees, and that's where the fog begins. There have been so many transfers of ownership from company to company, mostly through nominees who can't be traced, that no one can discover who is the actual present owner. All business matters are settled by a Mr Fielder, the manager. He says he consults with a person he calls the Chairman by telephone, but that the Chairman rings him up every morning, and never the other way round. He says the Chairman's name is Claud Thiveridge, but he doesn't know his address or telephone number.'
'It sounds very fishy to me,' said my father.
'It is,' said Lodge. There is no Claud Thiveridge on the electoral register, or in any other official list, including the telephone accounts department, in the whole of Kent, Surrey, or Sussex. The operators in the telephone exchange are sure the office doesn't receive a long distance call regularly every morning, yet the morning call has been standard office routine for the last four years.
As this means that the call must be a local one, it seems fairly certain that Claud Thiveridge is not the gentleman's real name.'
He rubbed the palm of his hand round the back of his neck and looked at me steadily. 'You know a lot more than you've told me, amnesia or not,' he said. 'Spill the beans, there's a good chap.'
'You haven't told me what the Brighton police think of the Marconicars,' I said.
Lodge hesitated. 'Well, they were a little touchy on the subject, I would say. It seems they have had several complaints, but not much evidence that will stand up in court. What I have just told you is the result of their inquiries over the last few years.'
'They would not seem,' said my father dryly, 'to have made spectacular progress. Come on, Alan, tell us what's going on.'
Lodge turned his head towards him in surprise. My father smiled.
'My son is Sherlock Holmes reincarnated, didn't you know?' he said. 'After he went to England I had to employ a detective to do the work he used to do in connexion with frauds and swindles. As one of my head clerks put it, Mr Alan has an unerring instinct for smelling out crooks.'
'Mr Alan's unerring instinct is no longer functioning,' I said gloomily. Clouds were building up near the sun, and Scilla's back disappeared through the macrocarpa hedge by the kitchen door.
'Don't be infuriating, Alan,' said my father. 'Elucidate.'
'Oh, all right.' I stubbed out my cigarette, began to scratch my cheek, and dragged my fingers away from the scar with a strong effort of will. It went on itching.
'There's a lot I don't know,' I said, 'but the general gist appears to be this. The Marconicars have been in the protection racket for the last four years, intimidating small concerns like caf‚s and free house pubs. About a year ago, owing to the strongmindedness of one particular publican, mine host of The Blue Duck, business in the protection line began to get, 'unexpectedly rough for the protectors. He set Alsatians on them, in fact.' I told my fascinated father and'an aghast Lodge what Kate and I had learned in The Blue Duck's kitchen, carefully watched by the yellow-eyed Prince.