Дик Фрэнсис - High Stakes

The horse put up a good show, considering.

There were twenty-two runners, none of them more than moderate, and they delivered the sort of performance Energise would have left in the next parish. His substitute was running in his own class and finished undisgraced in sixth place, better than I would have expected. The crowd briefly cheered the winning favourite, and I thought it time to melt prudently and inconspicuously away.

I had gone to Stratford with more hope than certainty that the horse would actually run without the exchange being noticed. I had been prepared to do anything I reasonably could to achieve it, in order to give Ganser Mays the nasty shock of losing every penny he’d laid out on his squeezer.

What I hadn’t actually bargained for was the effect the lost race would have on Felicity.

I saw her afterwards, though I hadn’t meant to, when she went to meet her returning horse. The jockey, a well-known rider who had doubtless been told to win, was looking strained enough, but Felicity seemed on the point of collapse.

Her face was a frightening white, her whole body shook and her eyes looked as blank as marbles.

If I had ever wanted any personal revenge, I had it then, but I drove soberly away from the racecourse feeling sorry for her.

Rupert Ramsey met me with a stony face, not at all the expression one would normally expect from a successful trainer who had invited one of his owners to dinner.

‘I’m glad you’re early,’ he said forbiddingly. ‘Please come into the office.’

I followed him across the hall into the familiar room which was warm with a living log fire. He made no move to offer me a drink and I thought I might as well save him some trouble.

‘You’re going to tell me,’ I said, ‘that the horse which left here this morning is not the one which returned.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘So you don’t deny it?’

‘Of course not.’ I smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have thought all that much of you if you hadn’t noticed.’

‘The lad noticed. Donny. He told the head lad, and the head lad told me, and I went to see for myself. And what I want is an explanation.’

‘And it had better be good,’ I added, imitating his schoolmasterly tone. He showed no amusement.

‘This is no joke.’

‘Maybe not. But it’s no crime, either. If you’ll calm down a fraction, I’ll explain.’

‘You have brought me a ringer. No trainer of any sense is going to stand for that.’ His anger was cold and deep.

I said, ‘The horse you thought was Energise was the ringer. And I didn’t send him here, Jody did. The horse you have been trying to train for the Champion Hurdle and which left here this morning, is a fairly useless novice called Padellic.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘As Energise,’ I pointed out, ‘you have found him unbelievably disappointing.’

‘Well...’ The first shade of doubt crept into his voice.

‘When I discovered the wrong horse had been sent here, I asked you expressly not to run him in any races, because I certainly did not want you to be involved in running a ringer, nor myself for that matter.’

‘But if you knew... why on earth didn’t you immediately tell Jody he had made a mistake?’

‘He didn’t,’ I said simply. ‘He sent the wrong one on purpose.’

He walked twice around the room in silence and then still without a word poured us each a drink.

‘Right,’ he said, handing me a glass. ‘Pray continue.’

I continued for quite a long while. He gestured to me to sit down and sat opposite me himself, and listened attentively with a serious face.

‘And this security firm...’ he said at the end. ‘Are you expecting Jody to try to get Energise back?’

I nodded. ‘He’s an extremely determined man. I made the mistake once of underestimating his vigour and his speed, and that’s what lost me Energise in the first place. I think when he got home from Chepstow and heard what Felicity and the box driver and the lad had to say, he would have been violently angry and would decide to act at once. He’s not the sort to spend a day or so thinking about it. He’ll come tonight. I think and hope he will come tonight.’

‘He will be sure Energise is here?’

‘He certainly should be,’ I said. ‘He’ll ask his box driver about the journey and his box driver will tell him about the census. Jody will question closely and find that Pete Duveen was there too. Jody will, I think, telephone to ask Pete Duveen if he saw anything unusual and Pete, who has nothing to hide, will tell him he brought a black horse from here. He’ll tell him he took a black horse home again. And he’ll tell him I was there at the census point. I didn’t ask him not to tell and I am sure he will, because of his frank and open nature.’

Rupert’s lips twitched into the first hint of a smile. He straightened it out immediately. ‘I don’t really approve of what you’ve done.’

‘Broken no laws,’ I said neutrally, neglecting to mention the shadowy area of Bert’s police-impression uniform.

‘Perhaps not.’ He thought it over. ‘And the security firm is here both to prevent the theft of Energise and to catch Jody red-handed?’

‘Exactly so.’

‘I saw them in the yard this evening. Two men. They said they were expecting instructions from you when you arrived, though frankly at that point I was so angry with you that I was paying little attention.’

‘I talked to them on my way in,’ I agreed. ‘One will patrol the yard at regular intervals and the other is going to sit outside the horse’s box. I told them both to allow themselves to be enticed from their posts by any diversion.’

‘To allow? ’

‘Of course. You have to give the mouse a clear view of the cheese.’

‘Good God.’

‘And I wondered... whether you would consider staying handy, to act as a witness if Jody should come a-robbing.’

It seemed to strike him for the first time that he too was Jody’s victim. He began to look almost as Charlie had done, and certainly as Bert had done, as if he found counter-measures attractive. The tugging smile reappeared.

‘It depends of course on what time Jody comes... if he comes at all... but two of my guests tonight would be the best independent witnesses you could get. A lady magistrate and the local vicar.’

‘Will they stay late?’ I asked.

‘We can try.’ He thought for a bit. ‘What about the police?’

‘How quickly can they get here if called?’

‘Um... Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour.’

‘That should be all right.’

He nodded. A bell rang distantly in the house, signalling the arrival of more guests. He stood up, paused a moment, frowned and said, ‘If the guard is to allow himself to be decoyed away, why plant him outside the horse’s door in the first place?’

I smiled. ‘How else is Jody to know which box to rob?’

The dinner party seemed endless, though I couldn’t afterwards remember a word or a mouthful. There were eight at table, all better value than myself, and the vicar particularly shone because of his brilliance as a mimic. I half-heard the string of imitated voices and saw everyone else falling about with hysterics and could think only of my men outside in the winter night and of the marauder I hoped to entice.

To groans from his audience the vicar played Cinderella at midnight and took himself off to shape up to Sunday, and three others shortly followed. Rupert pressed the last two to stay for nightcaps: the lady magistrate and her husband, a quiet young colonel with an active career and a bottomless capacity for port. He settled happily enough at the sight of a fresh decanter, and she with mock resignation continued a mild flirtation with Rupert.