‘Of course not.’
‘No one at all?’ I pressed.
‘No, certainly not.’ He gave me a hard stare. ‘You don’t broadcast things like that, not in my business, and especially if you aren’t dead sure of your facts. Just what is all this about?’
‘Well...’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry to have misled you, Mr. Lubbock, but I am not really in the market for information. I’m just trying to unstick a bit of the mud that was thrown at Grant Oldfield.’
To my surprise he gave a fat chuckle and knocked half an inch of ash off the cigar.
‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘if you’d agreed to tip me off I’d have been looking for the catch? There’s some jockeys you can square, and some you can’t, and in my line you get an instinct for which are which. Now you...’ he jabbed the cigar in my direction... ‘you aren’t the type.’
‘Thanks,’ I murmured.
‘And more fool you,’ he said nodding. ‘It’s not illegal.’
I grinned.
‘Mr. Lubbock,’ I said, ‘Oldfield was not Robinson, but his career and his health were broken up because you and Mr. Axminster were led to believe that he was.’
He stroked his moustache with his thumb and forefinger of his left hand, wondering.
I went on, ‘Oldfield has now given up all thought of riding again, but it would still mean a great deal to him to have his name cleared. Will you help to do it?’
‘How?’ he said.
‘Would you just write a statement to the effect that you saw no evidence at any time to support your guess that in paying Robinson, you were really paying Oldfield, and that at no time before James Axminster approached you did you speak of your suspicions as to Robinson’s identity.’
‘Is that all?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘It can’t do any harm. But I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. No one but a jockey would go to all that trouble to hide his identity. No one would bother, if his job didn’t depend on not being found out. Still, I’ll write what you ask.’
He unscrewed a pen, took a sheet of hotel writing paper and in a decisive hand wrote the statement I had suggested. He signed it, and added the date and read it through.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Though I can’t see what good it will do.’
I read what he had written and folded the paper, and put it in my wallet.
‘Someone told Mr. Axminster that Oldfield was selling you information,’ I said. ‘If you hadn’t told anyone at all — who knew?’
‘Oh.’ His eyes opened. ‘I see, yes, I see. Robinson knew. But Oldfield would never have let on... so Oldfield was not Robinson.’
‘That’s about it,’ I agreed, standing up. ‘Thank you very much, Mr. Lubbock, for your help.’
‘Any time.’ He waved the diminishing cigar, smiling broadly. ‘See you at the races.’
Sixteen
On Tuesday morning I bought a copy of the Horse and Hound and spent a good while telephoning to a few of the people who had advertised their hunters for sale. With three of them I made appointments to view the animal in question in two days’ time.
Next I rang up one of the farmers I rode for and persuaded him to lend me his Land-Rover and trailer on Thursday afternoon.
Then, having borrowed a tape measure out of Joanna’s work-box — she was out at a rehearsal — I drove the hired car down to James’s stables. I found him sitting in his office dealing with his paper work. The fire, newly lit in the grate, was making little headway against the raw chill in the air, and outside in the yard the lads looked frozen as they scurried about doing up their horses after the second morning exercise.
‘No racing again today,’ James remarked. ‘Still, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky this winter up to now.’
He stood up and rubbed his hands, and held them out to the inadequate fire. ‘Some of the owners have telephoned,’ he said. ‘They’re willing to have you back. I told them...,’ and his lower teeth gleamed as he looked at me from under his eyebrows, ‘... that I was satisfied with your riding, and that you would be on Template in the Gold Cup.’
‘What!’ I exclaimed. ‘Do you mean it?’
‘Yes.’ The glimmer deepened in his eyes.
‘But... Pip...’ I said.
‘I’ve explained to Pip,’ he said, ‘that I can’t take you off the horse when you’ve won both the King Chase and the Midwinter on him. And Pip agrees. I have arranged with him that he starts again the week after Cheltenham, which will give him time to get a few races in before the Grand National. He’ll be riding my runner in that — the horse he rode last year.’
‘It finished sixth,’ I said, remembering.
‘Yes, that’s right. Now, I’ve enough horses to keep both Pip and you fairly busy, and no doubt you’ll get outside rides as well. It should work out all right for both of you.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ I said.
‘Thank yourself,’ he said sardonically. ‘You earned it.’ He bent down and put another lump of coal on the fire.
‘James,’ I said, ‘will you write something down for me?’
‘Write? Oh, you’ll get a contract for next season, the same as Pip.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ I said awkwardly. ‘It’s quite different... would you just write down that it was Maurice Kemp-Lore who told you that Oldfield was selling information about your horses, and that he said he had learned it from Lubbock?’
‘Write it down?’
‘Yes. Please,’ I said.
‘I don’t see...’ He gave me an intent look and shrugged. ‘Oh, very well then.’ He sat down at his desk, took a sheet of paper headed with his name and address, and wrote what I had asked.
‘Signature and date?’ he said.
‘Yes, please.’
He blotted the page. ‘What good will that do?’ he said, handing it to me.
I took Mr. Lubbock’s paper out of my wallet and showed it to him. He read it through three times.
‘My God,’ he said. ‘It’s incredible. Suppose I had checked carefully with Lubbock? What a risk Maurice took.’
‘It wasn’t so big a risk,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t have thought of questioning what he put forward as a friendly warning. Anyway, it worked. Grant got the sack.’
‘I’m sorry for that,’ James said slowly. ‘I wish there was something I could do about it.’
‘Write to Grant and explain,’ I suggested. ‘He would appreciate it more than anything in the world.’
‘I’ll do that,’ he agreed, making a note.
‘On Saturday morning,’ I said, taking back Lubbock’s statement and putting it with his in my wallet, ‘these little documents will arrive with a plop on the Senior Steward’s doormat. Of course they aren’t conclusive enough to base any legal proceedings on, but they should be enough to kick friend Kemp-Lore off his pedestal.’
‘I should say you were right.’ He looked at me gravely, and then said, ‘Why wait until Saturday?’
‘I... er... I won’t be ready until then,’ I said evasively.
He didn’t pursue it. We walked out into the yard together and looked in on some of the horses, James giving instructions, criticism and praise — in that order — to the hurrying lads. I realised how used I had grown to the efficiency and prosperity of his organisation, and how much it meant to me to be a part of it.
We walked slowly along one row of boxes, and James went into the tack-room at the end to talk to Sid about the cancellation of the following day’s racing. Unexpectedly I stopped dead on the threshold. I didn’t want to go in. I knew it was stupid, but it made no difference. Parts of me were still too sore.
The harness hook hung quietly from the centre of the ceiling, with a couple of dirty bridles swinging harmlessly on two of its curving arms. I turned my back on it and looked out across the tidy yard, and wondered if I would ever again see one without remembering.