was nothing else he could do. He was sorry he hadn’t been able to solve the… er… problem, and should he send his account to Mr Pembroke at the Savoy, or at Quantum House?
‘Neither,’ I said. ‘We’d like you to carry on working.’ And I told him what had happened to Quantum and very nearly to ourselves.
‘Dear me,’ he said.
I laughed internally, but I supposed‘dear me’ was as apt a comment as any.
‘So would you mind traipsing all the way round again to ask what everyone was doing the day before yesterday between three p.m. and midnight?’
He was silent for an appreciable interval. Then he said, ‘I don’t know that it would be useful, you know. Your family were unhelpful before. They would be doubly unhelpful again. Surely this time the police will make exhaustive enquiries? I think I must leave it to them.’
I was more dismayed than I expected. ‘Please do reconsider,’ I said. ‘If the police go asking the family their movements, and then you do also, I agree they won’t like it. But if after that I too go and ask, they may be upset enough or angry enough to let out things that could tell us… one way or another.’ I paused. ‘I suppose I’m not making much sense.’
‘Do you remember what you said to me about stepping on a rattlesnake?’ he said.
‘Well, yes.’
‘You’re proposing to stir up one with a stick.’
‘We absolutely have to know who the rattlesnake is.’
I heard him sigh and could feel his disinclination.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘could you just meet me somewhere? You gave my father and me summaries of what all the family were doing on thosetwo days we asked about, but there must be much more you could tell me. If you don’t want to visit them again, could you just… help me?’
‘I don’t mind doing that,’ he said. ‘When?’
‘Tonight? Tomorrow?’
Tonight he was already working. Tomorrow he was taking his wife to visit their grandchildren all day as it was Sunday, but his evening would be free. He knew the pub I was staying in, he would come there, he said; he would meet me in the bar at seven.
I thanked him for that anyway, and next telephoned two stables along on the Downs to ask the trainers if I could ride exercise on their horses for several mornings, if it would be useful to them. The first said no, the second said yes, he was a couple of lads short and he’d be glad of the free help. Start Monday, first lot, pull out at seven-thirty, could I be there by seven-fifteen?
‘Yes,’ I said appreciatively.
‘Stay to breakfast.’
Sanity lay in racing stables, I thought, thanking him. Their brand of insanity was my sort of health. I couldn’t stay away for long. I felt unfit, not riding.
I spent the evening in the bar in the pub, mostly listening to a lonely man who felt guilty because his wife was in hospital having her guts rearranged. I never did discover the reason for the guilt but while he grew slowly drunk, I learned a lot about their financial troubles and about his anxieties over her illness. Not a riotously amusing evening for me, though he said he felt better himself from being able to tell a perfect stranger all the things he’d been bottling up. Was there anyone at all, I wondered, going to bed, who went through life feeling happy?
I dawdled Sunday away pleasurably enough, and Norman West, true to his word, appeared at seven.
His age was again very apparent from the grey-white hair downwards, and when I remarked that he looked tired, he said he’d been up most of the previous night but not to worry, he was used to it. Had he been to see his grandchildren? Yes, he had: lively bunch. He accepted a double scotch with water and, under its reviving influence, opened the large envelope he was carrying and pulled out some papers.
‘Your photographs of the family are in here,’ he said, patting the envelope, ‘and I’ve also brought these copies of all my notes.’ He laidthe notes on the small table between us. ‘You can have them to keep. The originals are in my files. Funny thing,’ he smiled fleetingly, ‘I used to think that one day I’d write a book about all my cases, but there they are, all those years of work, sitting in their files, and there they’ll stay.’