Дик Фрэнсис - High Stakes

She laughed with pleasure.

‘I don’t believe it. I simply don’t believe it. I never dreamt you could have made the Rola toys.’

‘I’ve made others, though.’

‘What sort?’

‘Um... the latest in the shops is a coding machine. It’s doing quite well this Christmas.’

‘You don’t mean the Secret Coder?’

‘Yes.’ I was surprised she knew of it.

‘Do show me. My sister’s giving one each to the boys, but they were already gift-wrapped.’

So I showed her the coder, which looked like providing me with racehorses for some time to come, as a lot of people besides children had found it compulsive. The new adult version was much more complicated but also much more expensive, which somewhat increased the royalties.

From the outside the children’s version looked like a box, smaller than a shoe box, with a sloping top surface. Set in this were letter keys exactly like a conventional typewriter, except that there were no numbers, no punctuations and no space bar.

‘How does it work?’ Allie asked.

‘You type your message and it comes out in code.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Try it.’

She gave me an amused look, turned so that I couldn’t see her fingers, and with one hand expertly typed about twenty-five letters. From the end of the box a narrow paper strip emerged, with letters typed on it in groups of five.

‘What now?’

‘Tear the strip off,’ I said.

She did that. ‘It’s like ticker-tape,’ she said.

‘It is. Same size, anyway.’

She held it out to me. I looked at it and came as close to blushing as I’m ever likely to.

‘Can you read it just like that?’ she exclaimed. ‘Some coder, if you can read it at a glance.’

‘I invented the damn thing,’ I said. ‘I know it by heart.’

‘How does it work?’

‘There’s a cylinder inside with twelve complete alphabets on it, each arranged in a totally random manner and all different. You set this dial here... see,’ I showed her, ‘to any numbers from one to twelve. Then you type your message. Inside, the keys don’t print the letter, you press on the outside, but the letter that’s aligned with it inside. There’s an automatic spring which jumps after every five presses, so the message comes out in groups of five.’

‘It’s fantastic. My sister says the boys have been asking for them for weeks. Lots of children they know have them, all sending weird secret messages all over the place and driving their mothers wild.’

‘You can make more involved codes by feeding the coded message through again, or backwards,’ I said. ‘Or by switching the code number every few letters. All the child receiving the message needs to know is the numbers he has to set on his own dial.’

‘How do I decode this?’

‘Put that tiny lever... there... down instead of up, and just type the coded message. It will come out as it went in, except still in groups of five letters, of course. Try it.’

She herself looked confused. She screwed up the tape and laughed, ‘I guess I don’t need to.’

‘Would you like one?’ I asked diffidently.

‘I sure would.’

‘Blue or red?’

‘Red.’

In another cupboard I had a pile of manufactured coders packed like those in the shops. I opened one of the cartons, checked that the contents had a bright red plastic casing and handed it over.

‘If you write me a Christmas message,’ she said, ‘I’ll expect it in code number four.’

I took her out to dinner again as I was on a bacon-and-egg level myself as a cook, and she was after all on holiday to get away from the kitchen.

There was nothing new in taking a girl to dinner. Nothing exceptional, I supposed, in Allie herself, I liked her directness, her naturalness. She was supremely easy to be with, not interpreting occasional silences as personal insults, not coy or demanding, nor sexually a tease. Not a girl of hungry intellect, but certainly of good sense.

That wasn’t all, of course. The spark which attracts one person to another was there too, and on her side also, I thought.

I drove her back to Hampstead and stopped outside her sister’s house.

‘Tomorrow?’ I said.

She didn’t answer directly. ‘I go home on Thursday.’

‘I know. What time is your flight?’

‘Not till the evening. Six-thirty.’

‘Can I drive you to the airport?’

‘I could get my sister...’

‘I’d like to.’

‘Okay.’

We sat in a short silence.

‘Tomorrow,’ she said finally. ‘I guess... If you like.’

‘Yes.’

She nodded briefly, opened the car door, and spoke over her shoulder. ‘Thank you for a fascinating day.’

She was out on the pavement before I could get round to help her. She smiled. Purring and contented, as far as I could judge.

‘Good night.’ She held out her hand.

I took it, and at the same time leant down and kissed her cheek. We looked at each other, her hand still in mine. One simply cannot waste such opportunities. I repeated the kiss, but on her lips.

She kissed as I’d expected, with friendliness and reservations. I kissed her twice more on the same terms.

‘Good night,’ she said again, smiling.

I watched her wave before she shut her sister’s front door, and drove home wishing she were still with me. When I got back I went into the workshop and retrieved the screwed up piece of code she’d thrown in the litter bin. Smoothing it, I read the jumbled up letters again.

No mistake. Sorted out, the words were still a pat on the ego.

The toy man is as great as his toys .

I put the scrap of paper in my wallet and went upstairs to bed feeling the world’s biggest fool.

On Wednesday morning Charlie Canterfield telephoned at seven-thirty. I stretched a hand sleepily out of bed and groped for the receiver.

‘Hullo?’

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve been trying your number since Sunday morning.’

‘Out.’

‘I know that.’ He sounded more amused than irritated. ‘Look... can you spare me some time today?’

‘All of it, if you like.’

My generosity was solely due to the unfortunate fact that Allie had felt bound to spend her last full day with her sister, who had bought tickets and made plans. I had gathered that she’d only given me Monday and Tuesday at the expense of her other commitments, so I couldn’t grumble. Tuesday had been even better than Monday, except for ending in exactly the same way.

‘This morning will do,’ Charlie said. ‘Nine-thirty?’

‘Okay. Amble along.’

‘I want to bring a friend.’

‘Fine. Do you know how to get here?’

‘A taxi will find it,’ Charlie said and disconnected.

Charlie’s friend turned out to be a large man of Charlie’s age with shoulders like a docker and language to match.

‘Bert Huggerneck,’ Charlie said, making introductions.

Bert Huggerneck crunched my bones in his muscular hand. ‘Any friend of Charlie’s is a friend of mine,’ he said, but with no warmth or conviction.

‘Come upstairs,’ I said. ‘Coffee? Or breakfast?’

‘Coffee,’ Charlie said. Bert Huggerneck said he didn’t mind, which proved in the end to be bacon and tomato ketchup on toast twice, with curried baked beans on the side. He chose the meal himself from my meagre store cupboard and ate with speed and relish.

‘Not a bad bit of bleeding nosh,’ he observed, ‘considering.’

‘Considering what?’ I asked.

He gave me a sharp look over a well-filled fork and made a gesture embracing both the flat and its neighbourhood. ‘Considering you must be a rich bleeding capitalist, living here.’ He pronounced it “ capit alist”, and clearly considered it one of the worst of insults.