A long silence. Then Jack said in a thick disjointed voice, ‘Grace minded so much... about Cranfield taking our horses. She went on and on about it... morning, noon and night. Couldn’t stop. Talk, talk, talk. All the time. Saying she’d like to kill Cranfield... and things like that. I mean... she’s always been a bit nervy... a bit strung up... but Cranfield was upsetting her... I got a bit frightened for her sometimes, she was that violent about him... Well, it was really because of that that I tried to get Cranfield warned off... I mean, he was better warned off than Grace trying to kill him.’
‘Did you truly believe she would?’ I asked.
‘She was ranting about it all the time... I didn’t know if she really would... but I was so afraid... I didn’t want her to get into trouble... dear dear Grace... I wanted to help her... and make things right again... so I set about it... and it wasn’t too difficult really, not once I’d set my mind to it.’
Ferth gave me a twisted smile. I gave him a similar one back and reflected that marriage could be a deadly institution. Grace’s strung up state would have been aggravated by the strain of living with a sexually odd man, and Jack would have felt guilty about it and wanted to make it up to her. Neither of them had been rationally inclined, and the whole situation had boiled up claustrophobically inside their agonised private world. Having dear Grace harping on endlessly would have driven many a stronger man to explosive action: but Jack couldn’t desert her, because he had to stay with his horses, and he couldn’t drive her away because he loved her. The only way he’d seen of silencing his wife had been to ruin Cranfield.
‘Why me?’ I said, trying to keep out the bitterness. ‘Why me too?’
‘Eh?’ He squinted at me, half focussing. ‘You... well... I haven’t anything against you personally... But I thought it was the only way to make it a certainty... Cranfield couldn’t have swindled that race without Squelch’s jockey being in the know.’
‘That race was no swindle,’ I said.
‘Oh... I know that. Those stupid Oxford Stewards... still, they gave me such an opportunity... when I heard about Lord Gowery being in charge. And then, when I’d fixed up with Charlie West and Oakley... Grace’s brother told me, just told me casually, mind you, that his bookmaker had told him that Cranfield had backed Cherry Pie, and do you know what, I couldn’t stop laughing. Just like Grace, I felt... dead funny, it was, that he really had backed Cherry Pie...’
‘What was that about Charlie West?’ Ferth said sharply.
‘I paid him... to say Kelly pulled Squelch back. I telephoned and asked him... if Kelly ever did anything like that... and he said once, in a novice ’chase, Kelly had said, “O.K. Brakes on, chaps,” and I told him to say Kelly had said that in the Lemonfizz Cup, because it sounded so convincing, didn’t it, saying something Kelly really had said...’
Ferth looked at me accusingly. ‘You shielded West.’
I shrugged ruefully. Jack paid no attention: didn’t hear.
He went on miserably: ‘Grace was all right before the dance. She was wonderfully calm again, after Cranfield was warned off. And then Edwin Byler said that we would be keeping his horses for always... and we were happy... in our way... and then we heard... that Kelly was at the dance... saying he’d been framed... and was just on the point of finding out who... and Grace saw Cranfield’s daughter and just boiled over all over again, nearly as bad as before... and I thought... if Kelly was dead... it would be all right again...’
Ferth slowly shook his head. The reasoning which had led Jack Roxford step by step from misfortune to crime defeated him.
‘I thought he wouldn’t feel anything,’ Jack said. ‘I thought that you just blacked out suddenly from carbon monoxide. I thought it would be like going to sleep... he wouldn’t know about it. Just wouldn’t wake up.’
‘You didn’t drill a big enough hole,’ I said without irony. ‘Not enough gas came through at once to knock me out.’
‘I couldn’t find a large enough tube,’ he said with macabre sense. ‘Had to use a piece I had. It was a bit narrow. That was why.’
‘I see,’ I said gravely. So close. Not a few inches from the express train. One eighth of an inch extra in the tube’s diameter would have done it.
‘And you went to look for the piece of manifold, afterwards?’
‘Yes... but you know about that. I was furious with Oakley for not finding it... he said he tried to make you tell, but you wouldn’t... and I said it didn’t surprise me...’
‘Why didn’t you ask him to kill me?’ I said matter-of-factly.
‘Oh, I did. He said he didn’t kill. He said he would dispose of the body if I did it, but he never did the job himself. Not worth it, he said.’
That sounded like the authentic Oakley. Straight from the agent’s mouth.
‘But you couldn’t risk it?’ I suggested.
‘I didn’t have any chance. I mean... I didn’t like to leave Grace alone much... she was so upset... and then, you were in hospital... and then you went back to your flat... and I did try to shift you out into the open somewhere...’
‘You did write to the Stewards’ Secretaries,’ Ferth exclaimed. ‘After all.’
‘Yes... but it was too late... wasn’t it... She really meant it... poor Grace, poor Grace... why did I let her go out... But she seemed so much better this morning... and now... and now...’ His face screwed up and turned red as he tried not to cry. The thought of Grace as he’d last seen her was too much for him. The tears rolled. He sniffed into a handkerchief.
I wondered how he would have felt if he’d seen Grace as I’d seen her. But probably the uncritical love he had would have survived even that.
‘Just sit here quietly a moment, Roxford,’ Lord Ferth directed, and he himself stood up and signed for me to walk with him over to the door.
‘So what do we do with him?’ he said.
‘It’s gone too far now,’ I said reluctantly, ‘To be entirely hushed up. And he’s if anything more dangerous than Grace... She will live, and he will very likely see everything for ever in terms of her happiness. Anyone who treats her badly in any way could end up as a victim of his scheming. End up ruined... or dead. People like nurses... or relations... or even people like me, who did her no harm at all. Anybody...’
Ferth said, ‘You seem to understand his mind. I must say that I don’t. But what you say makes sense. We cannot just take away his licence and leave it at that... It isn’t a racing matter any more. But Lord Gowery...’
‘Lord Gowery will have to take his chance,’ I said without satisfaction. ‘Very likely you can avoid busting open his reputation... but it’s much more important to stop Jack Roxford doing the same sort of thing again.’
‘Yes.’ He said. ‘It is.’ He spread out his hands sideways in a pushing gesture as if wanting to step away from the decision. ‘All this is so distressing.’
I looked down the room at Jack, a huddled defeated figure with nervous eyes and an anxious forehead. He was picking at the tablecloth with his ringers, folding it into senseless little pleats. He didn’t look like a villain. No hardened criminal. Just a tenacious little man with a fixed idea, to make up to dear Grace for being what he was.
Nothing was more useless than sending him to prison, and nothing could do him more harm: yet that, I imagined, was where he would go. Putting his body in a little cage wouldn’t straighten the kinks in his mind. The system, for men like him, was screwy.
He stood up slowly and walked unsteadily towards us.
‘I suppose,’ he said without much emotion, ‘That you are going to get the police. I was wondering... please... don’t tell them about the club... I won’t say Lord Gowery goes there... I won’t tell anybody ever... I never really wanted to... it wouldn’t have done any good, would it? I mean, it wouldn’t have kept those horses in my yard... wouldn’t have made a scrap of difference... So do you think anyone need know about... the club?’