“What did you learn?” Annette asked when I reappeared in Greville’s office. She was in there, replacing yet more papers in their proper files, a task apparently nearing completion.
“Enough to look at jewelry shops differently,” I said.
She smiled. “When I read magazines I don’t look at the clothes, I look at the jewelry.”
I could see that she would. I thought that I might also, despite myself, from then on. I might even develop an affinity for black onyx cuff links.
It was by that time four o’clock in the afternoon of what seemed a very long day. I looked up the racing program in Greville’s diary, decided that Nicholas Loder might well have passed over going to Redcar, Warwick and Folkestone, and dialed his number. His secretary answered, and yes, Mr. Loder was at home, and yes, he would speak to me.
He came on the line with almost none of the previous evening’s agitation, bass resonances positively throbbing down the wire.
“I’ve been talking to Weatherby’s and the Jockey Club,” he said easily, “and there’s fortunately no problem. They agree that before probate the horses belong to Saxony Franklin Limited and not to you, and they will not bar them from racing in that name.”
“Good,” I said, and was faintly surprised.
“They say of course that there has to be at least one registered agent appointed by the company to be responsible for the horses, such appointment to be sealed with the company’s seal and registered at Weatherby’s. Your brother appointed both himself and myself as registered agents, and although he has died I remain a registered agent as before and can act for the company on my own.”
“Ah,” I said.
“Which being so,” Loder said happily, “Dozen Roses runs at York as planned.”
“And trots up?”
He chuckled. “Let’s hope so.”
That chuckle, I thought, was the ultimate in confidence.
“I’d be grateful if you could let Saxony Franklin know whenever the horses are due to run in the future,” I said.
“I used to speak to your brother personally at his home number. I can hardly do that with you, as you don’t own the horses.”
“No,” I agreed. “I meant, please will you tell the company? I’ll give you the number. And would you ask for Mrs. Annette Adams? She was Greville’s second-in-command.”
He could hardly say he wouldn’t, so I read out the number and he repeated it as he wrote it down.
“Don’t forget, though, that there’s only a month left of the Flat season,” he said. “They’ll probably run only once more each. Two at the very most. Then I’ll sell them for you, that would be best. No problem. Leave it to me.”
He was right, logically, but I still illogically disliked his haste.
“As executor, I’d have to approve any sale,” I said, hoping I was right. “In advance.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Reassuring heartiness. “Your injury,” he said, “what exactly is it?”
“Busted ankle.”
“Ah. Bad luck. Getting on well, I hope?” The sympathy sounded more like relief to me than anything else, and again I couldn’t think why.
“Getting on,” I said.
“Good, good. Goodbye then. The York race should be on the television on Saturday. I expect you’ll watch it?”
“I expect so.”
“Fine.” He put down his receiver in great good humor and left me wondering what I’d missed.
Greville’s telephone rang again immediately, and it was Brad to tell me that he had returned from his day’s visit to an obscure aunt in Walthamstow and was downstairs in the front hall; all he actually said was, “I’m back.”
“Great. I won’t be long.”
I got a click in reply. End of conversation.
I did mean to leave almost at once but there were two more phone calls in fairly quick succession. The first was from a man introducing himself as Elliot Trelawney, a colleague of Greville’s from the West London Magistrates Court. He was extremely sorry, he said, to hear about his death, and he truly sounded it. A positive voice, used to attention: a touch of plummy accent.
“Also,” he said, “I’d like to talk to you about some projects Greville and I were working on. I’d like to have his notes.”
I said rather blankly, “What projects? What notes?”
“I could explain better face to face,” he said. “Could I ask you to meet me? Say tomorrow, early evening, over a drink? You know that pub just round the. corner from Greville’s house? The Rook and the Castle? There. He and I often met there. Five-thirty, six, either of those suit you?”
“Five-thirty,” I said obligingly.
“How shall I know you?”
“By my crutches.”
It silenced him momentarily. I let him off embarrassment.
“They’re temporary,” I said.
“Er, fine, then. Until tomorrow.”
He cut himself off, and I asked Annette if she knew him, Elliot Trelawney? She shook her head. She couldn’t honestly say she knew anyone outside the office who was known to Greville personally. Unless you counted Prospero Jenks, she said doubtfully. And even then, she herself had never really met him, only talked to him frequently on the telephone.
“Prospero Jenks... alias Fabergé?”
“That’s the one.”
I thought a bit. “Would you mind phoning him now?” I said. “Tell him about Greville and ask if I can go to see him to discuss the future. Just say I’m Greville’s brother, nothing else.”
She grinned. “No horses? Pas de gee-gees?”
Annette, I thought in amusement, was definitely loosening up.
“No horses,” I agreed.
She made the call but without results. Prospero Jenks wouldn’t be reachable until morning. She would try then, she said.
I levered myself upright and said I’d see her tomorrow. She nodded, taking it for granted that I would be there. The quicksand was winning, I thought. I was less and less able to get out.
Going down the passage, I stopped to look in on Alfie, whose day’s work stood in columns of loaded cardboard boxes waiting to be entrusted to the mail.
“How many do you send out every day?” I asked, gesturing to them.
He looked up briefly from stretching sticky tape round yet another parcel. “About twenty, twenty-five regular, but more from August to Christmas.” He cut off the tape expertly and stuck an address label deftly on the box top. “Twenty-eight so far today.”
“Do you bet, Alfie?” I asked. “Read the racing papers?”
He glanced at me with a mixture of defensiveness and defiance, neither of which feeling was necessary. “I knew you was him,” he said. “The others said you couldn’t be.”
“You know Dozen Roses too?”
A tinge of craftiness took over in his expression. “Started winning again, didn’t he? I missed him the first time, but yes, I’ve had a little tickle since.”
“He runs on Saturday at York, but he’ll be odds-on,” I said.
“Will he win, though? Will they be trying with him? I wouldn’t put my shirt on that.”
“Nicholas Loder says he’ll trot up.”
He knew who Nicholas Loder was: didn’t need to ask. With cynicism, he put his just-finished box on some sturdy scales and wrote the result on the cardboard with a thick black pen. He must have been well into his sixties, I thought, with deep lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth and pale sagging skin everywhere from which most of the elasticity had vanished. His hands, with the veins of age beginning to show dark blue, were nimble and strong however, and he bent to pick up another heavy box with a supple back. A tough old customer, I thought, and essentially more in touch with street awareness than the exaggerated Jason.
“Mr. Franklin’s horses run in and out,” he said pointedly. “And as a jock you’d know about that.”