Dick Francis - For Kicks

"Daniel," he said. His voice was low and thick.

I didn't think I needed any sympathy. I hooked my left thumb into my pocket, struck a faint attitude, and raised a grin.

"Hullo, Edward."

His face lightened, and he laughed.

"You're so bloody tough," he said. Well. let him think so.

I said, "Could you possibly use your influence to get me a bath?"

"You can have whatever you like as soon as you are out."

"Out? For good?"

"For good," he nodded.

"They are dropping the charge."

I couldn't disguise my relief.

He smiled sardonically.

"They don't think it would be worth wasting public funds on trying you. You'd be certain of getting an absolute discharge. Justifiable homicide, quite legitimate."

"I didn't think they believed me."

"They've done a lot of checking up. Everything you told them on Thursday is now the official version."

"Is Humber… all right?"

"He regained consciousness yesterday, I believe. But I understand he isn't lucid enough yet to answer questions. Didn't the police tell you that he was out of danger?"

I shook my head.

"They aren't a very chatty lot, here. How is Elinor?"

"She's well. A bit weak, that's all."

"I'm sorry she got caught up in things. It was my fault."

"My dear chap, it was her own," he protested.

"And Daniel… about Patty… and the things I said…"

"Oh, nuts to that," I interrupted.

"It was a long time ago. When you said " Out" did you mean " out" now, this minute?"

He nodded.

"That's right."

"Then let's not hang around in here any more, shall we? If you don't mind?"

He looked about him and involuntarily shivered. Meeting my eyes he said apologetically, "I didn't foresee anything like this."

I grinned faintly.

"Nor did I."

We went to London, by car up to Newcastle, and then by train. Owing to some delay at the police station discussing the details of my return to attend Adams' inquest, any cleaning up processes would have meant our missing the seats October had reserved on the nonstop Flying Scotsman, so I caught it as I was.

October led the way into the dining car, but as I was about to sit down opposite him a waiter caught hold of my elbow.

"Here you," he said roughly, 'clear out. This is firstclass only. "

"I've got a first-class ticket," I said mildly.

"Oh yes? Let's see it, then."

I produced from my pocket the piece of white cardboard.

He sniffed and gestured with his head towards the seat opposite October.

"All right then." To October he said, "If he makes a nuisance of himself, just tell me, sir, and I'll have him chucked out, ticket or no ticket." He went off, swaying to the motion of the accelerating train.

Needless to say, everyone in the dining car had turned round to have a good view of the rumpus.

Grinning, I sat down opposite October. He looked exceedingly embarrassed.

"Don't worry on my account," I said, "I'm used to it." And I realized that I was indeed used to it at last and that no amount of such treatment would ever trouble me again.

"But if you would rather pretend you don't know me, go ahead." I picked up the menu.

"You are insulting."

I smiled at him over the menu.

"Good."

"For deviousness, Daniel, you are unsurpassed. Except possibly by Roddy Beckett."

"My dear Edward… have some bread."

He laughed, and we travelled amicably to London together, as ill-assorted looking a pair as ever rested heads on British Railways' starched white antimacassars.

I poured some more coffee and looked at my watch. Colonel Beckett was twenty minutes late. The pigeons sat peacefully on the window sill and I shifted gently in my chair, but with patience, not boredom, and thought about my visit to October's barber, and the pleasure with which I had had my hair cut short and sideburns shaved off. The barber himself (who had asked me to pay in advance) was surprised, he said, at the results.

"We look a lot more like a gentleman, don't we? But might I suggest… a shampoo?"

Grinning, I agreed to a shampoo, which left a high water mark of cleanliness about midway down my neck. Then, at October's house, there was the fantastic luxury of stepping out of my filthy disguise into a deep hot bath, and the strangeness with which I afterwards put on my own clothes. When I had finished dressing I took another look in the same long mirror. There was the man who had come from Australia four months ago, a man in a good dark grey suit, a white shirt, and a navy blue silk tie: there was his shell anyway. Inside I wasn't the same man, nor ever would be again.

I went down to the crimson drawing-room where October walked solemnly all round me, gave me a glass of bone dry sherry and said, "It is utterly unbelievable that you are the young tyke who just came down with me on the train."

"I am," I said dryly, and he laughed.

He gave me a chair with its back to the door, where I drank some sherry and listened to him making social chit-chat about his horses.

He was hovering round the fireplace not entirely at ease, and I wondered what he was up to.

I soon found out. The door opened and he looked over my shoulder and smiled.

"I want you both to meet someone," he said.

I stood up and turned round.

Patty and Elinor were there, side by side.

They didn't know me at first. Patty held out her hand politely and said, "How do you do?" clearly waiting for her father to introduce us.

I took her hand in my left one and guided her to a chair.

"Sit down," I suggested.

"You're in for a shock."

She hadn't seen me for three months, but it was only four days since Elinor had made her disastrous visit to Humber's. She said hesitantly, "You don't look the same… but you're Daniel." I nodded, and she blushed painfully.

Patty's bright eyes looked straight into mine, and her pink mouth parted.

"You… are you really? Danny boy?"

"Yes."

"Oh." A blush as deep as her sister's spread up from her neck, and for Patty that was shame indeed.

October watched their discomfiture.

"It serves them right," he said, 'for all the trouble they have caused. "

"Oh no," I exclaimed, 'it's too hard on them. and you still haven't told them anything about me, have you? "

"No," he agreed uncertainly, beginning to suspect there was more for his daughters to blush over than he knew, and that his surprise meeting was not an unqualified success.

"Then tell them now, while I go and talk to Terence… and Patty… Elinor" They looked surprised at my use of their first names and I smiled briefly, "I have a very short and defective memory."

They both looked subdued when I went back, and October was watching them uneasily. Fathers, I reflected, could be very unkind to their daughters without intending it.

"Cheer up," I said.

"I'd have had a dull time in England without you two."

"You were a beast," said Patty emphatically, sticking to her guns, "YesI'm sorry."

"You might have told us," said Elinor in a low voice.

"Nonsense," said October.

"He couldn't trust Patty's tongue."

"I see," said Elinor, slowly. She looked at me tentatively.

"I haven't thanked you, for… for saving me. The doctor told me… all about it." She blushed again.

"Sleeping beauty," I smiled.

"You looked like my sister."

"You have a sister?"

"Two," I said.

"Sixteen and seventeen."

"Oh," she said, and looked comforted.

October flicked me a glance.

"You are far too kind to them, Daniel. One of them made me loathe you and the other nearly killed you, and you don't seem to care."

I smiled at him.

"No. I don't. I really don't. Let's just forget it."

So in spite of a most unpromising start it developed into a good evening, the girls gradually losing their embarrassment and even, by the end, being able to meet my eyes without blushing.