I had spent most of the previous evening on the Internet. I had learned all sorts of things about polo I hadn’t known, and would probably have been happy never to know. It had been an Olympic sport five times, but not since 1936, when Argentina had won the gold medal. It seemed they were still the major force in world polo, and most of the ponies used still came from South America.
The Hurlingham Polo Association was the governing body of the game in the United Kingdom, even though no matches have, in fact, been played at Hurlingham Club since the polo fields were dug up to provide food for war-torn Londoners in 1939.
I had looked up the rules on their Web site. They ran to fifty pages of closely printed text and were so complicated that it was a surprise to me that anyone understood them at all. I was amused to discover that if the three-and-a-half-inch wooden ball were to split into two unequal parts after being hit by a mallet or trodden on by a pony, a goal could still be scored if the larger part were deemed to have passed between the posts. I could just imagine what a defender might have said if defending the wrong part of the ball. The rules even went so far as to state in writing that the mounted umpires were not allowed to use their cell telephones during play, while the nonmounted referee should avoid distractions like talking to his neighbors or using his phone while watching from the sidelines.
I had also discovered that polo ponies were not actually ponies at all. They were horses. Many were Argentinean Criollo horses, and others were ex-Thoroughbred racehorses that had proved to be not fast enough to be winners on the track. In America, Thoroughbreds were often crossed with quarter horses to produce fast, sure-footed animals capable of quick acceleration and deceleration, and able to make the sharp turns essential for success. But ponies, they certainly were not, averaging over fifteen hands, or five feet, at the withers, rather than the maximum fourteen and a half hands of a true pony.
In spite of a head full of fairly useless information, I came up with no answers to my questions. However, I did find out the final of a tournament was scheduled for that coming Sunday at the Guards Polo Club, near Windsor. Perhaps I would go. Even better, perhaps I would take Caroline.
“ARE YOU CRAZY?” said Caroline when I phoned her. “I haven’t got time to go to a bloody polo match. And you’re meant to be resting. You’re still concussed, remember?”
“It’s only for the afternoon,” I said. “And concussion affects memory.”
“You’re really serious about going, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“But I know nothing about polo,” she complained.
“So what?” I said. “Neither do I.”
“Then what on earth do you want to go for?” she said.
“Well, you know my mad theory about the bombing and the poisoned dinner?” I said. “I have an itching feeling that it might have something to do with polo. I know it sounds daft and I might be barking up the wrong tree, but I want to go to a polo match and ask a few questions.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” she said. “Of course I’ll come. Shall I wear my deerstalker and bring a magnifying glass?”
“Do I detect a degree of skepticism?” I asked, laughing. “To tell the truth, I’m very doubtful as well. But I have nowhere else to look.”
“So what do I wear?” Caroline asked.
“Tweed suit and green wellies,” I said.
“I don’t have a tweed suit,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “Something fairly smart and warm. The forecast is not great for Sunday.”
“Do I need a hat?” she said.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“You’re no bloody good,” she said. “I thought you knew about the horsy world.”
“Racing,” I said, “not polo.”
“Same thing. Both messing about on horses.”
She had lots to learn.
I SPENT most of Saturday kicking my heels around the cottage and studying the hands of my watch as they swept ever so slowly around and around, wishing they would hurry up so I could be on my way to Fulham. On my way to Caroline.
But the day wasn’t a complete waste. During the morning, I called Margaret Jacobs at the saddlery shop. She wasn’t very friendly.
“What do you want?” she demanded in a rather cross tone.
“What’s wrong, Margaret?” I said.
“You made Patrick and me so ill after that dinner,” she said. “I thought we were dying.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If it is any consolation, I was desperately ill as well. And I didn’t make everyone ill on purpose.”
“No, I suppose not.” She mellowed, but only a bit. “But it said in the paper that your restaurant was closed for decontamination. There must have been something wrong for them to do that. And we’d been eating there only the week before too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the restaurant,” I told her. “We have been inspected by the Food Standards Agency and given a clean bill of health. There never was anything wrong with it.”
“There must have been,” she said. “Otherwise, why were we so ill?”
I decided not to tell her about the kidney beans and my belief that someone had poisoned the dinner on purpose. Instead, I changed direction.
“Margaret,” I said, “I know that you and Patrick were invited to the lunch given by Delafield Industries on 2,000 Guineas day. Was your illness the reason why you didn’t go?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I was really looking forward to that day, but we had both been up all night.”
“I suppose, in the end, it was good that you didn’t go,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Don’t you know?” I said. “The box where the bomb went off at the races was the box where that lunch was held. All those people who died were the Delafield staff and their guests.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“Margaret,” I said, “are you still there?”
“I didn’t realize it had been that box that had been bombed,” she said, sounding very shocked. “My God. We could have been killed.”
“But you weren’t,” I said, trying to be reassuring.
“I was so cross we couldn’t go,” she said. “In fact, I still wanted to in spite of feeling so lousy. It was Patrick who insisted we shouldn’t and we had a huge row about it.” She paused. “Those poor people.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was there. I cooked the lunch.”
“Did you?” she said, somewhat surprised. “If I’d known that, I might not have been so keen.”
“Oh thanks,” I said.
“Sorry,” she said. But she didn’t add that she didn’t mean it.
“Margaret,” I said, “the Hay Net restaurant is perfectly safe, I promise you.”
“Mmm,” she replied, not sounding as if she believed it.
“Come to dinner as my guest, and bring Patrick.”
“Maybe,” she said. And maybe not, I thought. The saddlery business run by Patrick and Margaret Jacobs supplied equine equipment to the majority of the stables in the town, and I needed them not to spread their suspicions about my food. It was very easy to get a bad reputation, whether deserved or not, and a bad reputation was very hard to get rid of.
“Think about it,” I said. “And feel free to bring a couple of guests with you.” How much would I have to offer, I wondered, before she agreed?
“When?” she asked. I had her hooked.
“Anytime you like,” I said, reeling her in. “How about next weekend?”
“Saturday?” she said.