Dick Francis - Odds against

He disappeared and came back shortly with a chair.

‘The things I do for you!’ he said, setting it down in front of me. ‘A dim little bird in the typing pool is now squatting on a stool. I chatted her up a bit.’

‘What this place needs is some more equipment,’ I murmured.

‘Don’t be funny,’ said Dolly. ‘Every time the old man buys one desk he takes on two assistants. When I first came here fifteen years ago we had a whole room each, believe it or not…’

The rearranged office settled down again, with my table wedged into a corner next to Dolly’s desk. I sat behind it and spread out the photographs to sort them. The people who developed and printed all the agency’s work had come up with their usual excellent job, and it amazed me that they had been able to enlarge the tiny negatives up to nine by seven inch prints, and get a clearly readable result.

I picked out all the fuzzy ones, the duplicates at the wrong exposures, tore them up, and put the pieces in Dolly’s waste paper basket. That left me with fifty-one pictures of the contents of Kraye’s attaché cash. Innocent enough to the casual eye, but they turned out to be dynamite.

The two largest piles, when I had sorted them out, were Seabury share transfer certificates, and letters from Kraye’s stockbroker. The paper headed S.R. revealed itself to be a summary in simple form of the share certificates, so I added it to that pile. I was left with the photographs of the bank notes, of share dealings which had nothing to do with Seabury, and the two sheets of figures I had found under the writing board at the bottom of the case.

I read through all the letters from the stockbroker, a man called Ellis Bolt, who belonged to a firm known as Charing, Street and King. Bolt and Kraye were on friendly terms; the letters referred sometimes to social occasions on which they had met; but for the most part the typewritten sheets dealt with the availability and prospects of various shares (including Seabury), purchases made or proposed, and references to tax, stamp duty, and commission.

Two letters had been written in Bolt’s own hand. The first, dated ten days ago, said briefly:

Dear H.

Shall wait with interest for the news on Friday.

E

The second, which Kraye must have received on the morning he went to Aynsford, read:

Dear H.

I have put the final draft in the hands of the printers, and the leaflets should be out by the end of next week, or the Tuesday following at the latest. Two or three days before the next meeting, anyway. That should do it, I think. There would be a lot of unrest should there be another hitch, but surely you will see to that.

E

‘Dolly,’ I said. ‘May I borrow your phone?’

‘Help yourself.’

I rang upstairs to Bona Fides. ‘Jack? Can I have a run-down on another man as well? Ellis Bolt, stockbroker, works for a firm called Charing, Street and King.’ I gave him the address. ‘He’s a friend of Kraye’s. Same care needed, I’m afraid.’

‘Right. I’ll let you know.’

I sat staring down at the two harmless looking letters.

‘Shall wait with interest for the news on Friday’. It could mean any news, anything at all. It also could mean the News; and on the radio on Friday I had heard that Seabury Races were off because a lorry carrying chemicals had overturned and burned the turf.

The second letter was just as tricky. It could easily refer to a shareholders’ meeting at which a hitch should be avoided at all costs. Or it could refer to a race meeting — at Seabury — where another hitch could affect the sale of shares yet again.

It was like looking at a conjuring trick: from one side you saw a normal object, but from the other, a sham.

If it were a sham, Mr Ellis Bolt was in a criminal career up to his eyebrows. If it was just my suspicious mind jumping to hasty conclusions I was doing an old-established respectable stockbroker a shocking injustice.

I picked up Dolly’s telephone again and got an outside line.

‘Charing, Street and King, good morning,’ said a quiet female voice.

‘Oh, good morning. I would like to make an appointment to see Mr Bolt and discuss some investments. Would that be possible?’

‘Certainly, yes. This is Mr Bolt’s secretary speaking. Could I have your name?’

‘Halley. John Halley.’

‘You would be a new client, Mr Halley?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I see. Well, now, Mr Bolt will be in the office tomorrow afternoon, and I could fit you in at three thirty. Would that suit you?’

‘Thank you. That’s fine. I’ll be there.’

I put down the receiver and looked tentatively at Dolly.

‘Would it be all right with you if I go out for the rest of the day?’

She smiled. ‘Sid, dear, you’re very sweet, but you don’t have to ask my permission. The old man made it very clear that you’re on your own now. You’re not accountable to me or anyone else in the agency, except the old man himself. I’ll grant you I’ve never known him give anyone quite such a free hand before, but there you are, my love, you can do what you like. I’m your boss no longer.’

‘You don’t mind?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t. I’ve a notion that what the old man has always wanted of you in this agency is a partner.’

‘Dolly!’ I was astounded. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘He’s not getting any younger,’ she pointed out.

I laughed. ‘So he picked on a broken-down jockey to help him out.’

‘He picks on someone with enough capital to buy a partnership, someone who’s been to the top of one profession and has the time in years to get to the top of another.’

‘You’re raving, Dolly dear. He nearly chucked me out yesterday morning.’

‘But you’re still here, aren’t you? More here than ever before. And Joanie said he was in a fantastically good mood all day yesterday, after you’d been in to see him.’

I shook my head, laughing. ‘You’re too romantic. Jockeys don’t turn into investigators any more than they turn into…’

‘Well, what?’ she prompted.

‘Into auctioneers, then… or accountants.’

She shook her head. ‘You’ve already turned into an investigator, whether you know it or not. I’ve been watching you these two years, remember? You look as if you’re doing nothing, but you’ve soaked up everything the bloodhounds have taught you like a hungry sponge. I’d say, Sid love, if you don’t watch out, you’ll be part of the fixtures and fittings for the rest of your life.’

But I didn’t believe her, and I paid no attention to what she had said.

I grinned. ‘I’m going down to take a look at Seabury Racecourse this afternoon. Like to come?’

‘Are you kidding?’ she sighed. Her in-tray was six inches deep. ‘I could have just done with a ride in that rocket car of yours, and a breath of sea air.’

I stacked the photographs together and returned them to the box, along with the negatives. There was a drawer in the table, and I pulled it open to put the photographs away. It wasn’t empty. Inside lay a packet of sandwiches, some cigarettes, and a flat half bottle of whisky.

‘I began to laugh. ‘Someone,’ I said,’will shortly come rampaging down from Missing Persons looking for his Missing Lunch.’

Seabury Racecourse lay about half a mile inland, just off a trunk road to the sea. Looking backwards from the top of the stands one could see the wide silver sweep of the English Channel. Between and on both sides the crowded rows of little houses seemed to be rushing towards the coast like Gadarene swine. In each little unit a retired schoolmaster or civil servant or clergyman — or their widows — thought about the roots they had pulled up from wherever it had been too cold or too dingy for their old age, and sniffed the warm south salt-laden air.