Before I could decide whether or not he was intentionally insulting me, Annette came hurrying down the passage calling my name.
“Derek... Oh there you are. Still here, good. There’s another phone call for you.” She about-turned and went back toward Greville’s office, and I followed her, noticing with interest that she’d dropped the Mister from my name. Yesterday’s unthinkable was today’s natural, now that I was established as a jockey, which was OK as far as it went, as long as it didn’t go too far.
I picked up the receiver which was lying on the black desk and said, “Hello? Derek Franklin speaking.”
A familiar voice said, “Thank God for that. I’ve been trying your Hungerford number all day. Then I remembered about your brother...” He spoke loudly, driven by urgency.
Milo Shandy, the trainer I’d ridden most for during the past three seasons: a perpetual optimist in the face of world evidence of corruption, greed and lies.
“I’ve a crisis on my hands,” he bellowed, “and can you come over? Will you pull out all stops to come over first thing in the morning?”
“Er, what for?”
“You know the Ostermeyers? They’ve flown over from Pittsburgh for some affair in London and they phoned me and I told them Datepalm is for sale. And you know that if they buy him I can keep him here, otherwise I’ll lose him because he’ll have to go to auction. And they want you here when they see him work on the Downs and they can only manage first lot tomorrow, and they think the sun twinkles out of your backside, so for God’s sake come.”
Interpreting the agitation was easy. Datepalm was the horse on which I’d won the Gold Cup: a seven-year-old gelding still near the beginning of what with luck would be a notable jumping career. Its owner had recently dropped the bombshell of telling Milo she was leaving England to marry an Australian, and if he could sell Datepalm to one of his other owners for the astronomical figure she named, she wouldn’t send it to public auction and out of his yard.
Milo had been in a panic most of the time since then because none of his other owners had so far thought the horse worth the price, his Gold Cup success having been judged lucky in the absence through coughing of a couple of more established stars. Both Milo and I thought Datepalm better than his press, and I had as strong a motive as Milo for wanting him to stay in the stable.
“Calm down,” I assured him. “I’ll be there.”
He let out a lot of breath in a rush. “Tell the Ostermeyers he’s a really good horse.”
“He is,” I said, “and I will.”
“Thanks, Derek.” His voice dropped to normal decibels. “Oh, and by the way, there’s no horse called Koningin Beatrix, and not likely to be. Weatherby’s say Koningin Beatrix means Queen Beatrix, as in Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, and they frown on people naming racehorses after royal persons.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks for finding out.”
“Any time. See you in the morning. For God’s sake don’t be late. You know the Ostermeyers get up before larks.”
“What I need,” I said to Annette, putting down the receiver, “is an appointments book, so as not to forget where I’ve said I’ll be.”
She began looking in the drawerful of gadgets.
“Mr. Franklin had an electric memory thing he used to put appointments in. You could use that for now.” She sorted through the black collection, but without result. “Stay here a minute,” she said, closing the drawer, “while I ask June if she knows where it is.”
She went away busily and I thought about how to convince the Ostermeyers, who could afford anything they set their hearts on, that Datepalm would bring them glory if not necessarily repay their bucks. They had had steeplechasers with Milo from time to time, but not for almost a year at the moment. I’d do a great deal, I thought, to persuade them it was time to come back.
An alarm like a digital watch alarm sounded faintly, muffled, and to begin with I paid it no attention, but as it persisted I opened the gadget drawer to investigate and, of course, as I did so it immediately stopped. Shrugging, I closed the drawer again, and Annette came back bearing a sheet of paper but no gadget.
“June doesn’t know where the Wizard is, so I’ll make out a rough calendar on plain paper.”
“What’s the Wizard?” I asked.
“The calculator. Baby computer. June says it does everything but boil eggs.”
“Why do you call it the Wizard?” I asked.
“It has that name on it. It’s about the size of a paperback book and it was Mr. Franklin’s favorite object. He took it everywhere.” She frowned. “Maybe it’s in his car, wherever that is.”
The car. Another problem. “I’ll find the car,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. Somehow or other I would have to find the car. “Maybe the Wizard was stolen out of this office in the break-in,” I said.
She stared at me with widely opening eyes. “The thief would have to have known what it was. It folds up flat. You can’t see any buttons.”
“All the gadgets were out on the floor, weren’t they?”
“Yes.” It troubled her. “Why the address book? Why the engagements for October? Why the Wizard?”
Because of diamonds, I thought instinctively, but couldn’t rationalize it. Someone had perhaps been looking, as I was, for the treasure map marked X. Perhaps they’d known it existed. Perhaps they’d found it.
“I’ll get here a couple of hours later tomorrow,” I said to Annette. “And I must leave by five to meet Elliot Trelawney at five-thirty. So if you reach Prospero Jenks, ask him if I could go to see him in between. Or failing that, any time Thursday. Write off Friday because of the funeral.”
Greville died only the day before yesterday, I thought. It already seemed half a lifetime.
Annette said, “Yes, Mr. Franklin,” and bit her lip in dismay.
I half smiled at her. “Call me Derek. Just plain Derek. And invest it with whatever you feel.”
“It’s confusing,” she said weakly, “from minute to minute.”
“Yes, I know.”
With a certain relief I rode down in the service elevator and swung across to Brad in the car. He hopped out of the front seat and shoveled me into the back, tucking the crutches in beside me and waiting while I lifted my leg along the padded leather and wedged myself into the corner for the most comfortable angle of ride.
“Home?” he said.
“No. Like I told you on the way up, we’ll stop in Kensington for a while, if you don’t mind.”
He gave the tiniest of nods. I’d provided him in the morning with a detailed large-scale map of West London, asking him to work out how to get to the road where Greville had lived, and I hoped to hell he had done it, because I was feeling more drained than I cared to admit and not ready to ride in irritating traffic-clogged circles.
“Look out for a pub called the Rook and the Castle, would you?” I asked, as we neared the area. “Tomorrow at five-thirty I have to meet someone there.”
Brad nodded and with the unerring instinct of the beer drinker quickly found it, merely pointing vigorously to tell me.
“Great,” I said, and he acknowledged that with a wiggle of the shoulders.
He drew up so confidently outside Greville’s address that I wondered if he had reconnoitered earlier in the day, except that his aunt lived theoretically in the opposite direction. In any case he handed me the crutches, opened the gate of the small front garden and said loquaciously, “I’ll wait in the car.”
“I might be an hour or more. Would you mind having a quick recce up and down this street and those nearby to see if you can find an old Rover with this number?” I gave him a card with it on. “My brother’s car,” I said.