Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,47

covertly getting his own way. He would have made a great king, I thought wryly, given the chance.

We dropped Danielle off (she waved to both of us and kissed neither) and I drove the two of us back to Eaton Square. Beatrice, naturally enough, came into the conversation.

‘You were shocked,’ Litsi said, amused, ‘when she called you a fortune-hunter. You hadn’t even thought of Danielle’s prospects.’

‘She called me a bad jockey,’ I said.

‘Oh, sure.’ He chuckled. ‘You’re a puritan.’

‘Danielle has the money she earns,’ I said. ‘As I do.’

‘Danielle is Roland’s niece,’ he said as if teaching an infant. ‘Roland and Aunt Casilia are fond of her, and they have no children.’

‘I don’t want that complication.’

He grunted beside me and said no more on the subject, and after a while I said, ‘Do you know why they have no children? Is it choice, or his illness? Or just that they couldn’t?’

‘His illness, I’ve always supposed, but I’ve never asked. He was about forty, I think, when they married, about fifteen years older than her, and he caught the virus not long after. I can’t remember ever seeing him walk, though he was a good skier, I believe, in his time.’

‘Rotten for them,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘He was lucky in some respects. Some people who get that virus – and thank God it’s rare – lose the use of their arms as well. They never speak of it much, of course.’

‘How are we going to save his honour?’

‘You invent,’ Litsi said lazily, ‘and I’ll gofer.’

‘Gofer a lever,’ I said absentmindedly.

‘A lever?’

‘To move the world.’

He stretched contentedly. ‘Do you have any ideas at all?’

‘One or two. Rather vague.’

‘Which you’re not sharing?’

‘Not yet. Have to think a bit first.’ I told him I’d bought a recording telephone that morning. ‘When we get back, we’ll rig it and work out a routine.’

‘He said he would ring again this evening.’

No need to say who ‘he’ was.

‘Mm,’ I said. ‘The phone I bought is also a conference phone. It has a loudspeaker, so that everyone in the room can hear what the caller’s saying. You don’t need the receiver. So when he rings, if it’s you that answers, will you get him to speak in English?’

‘Perhaps you’d better answer, then he’d have to.’

‘All right. And the message we give is … no dice?’

‘You couldn’t just string him along?’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ I said, ‘but to fix him we’ve got to find him, and he could be anywhere. Beatrice knows where he is, or at least how to reach him. If we get him out in the open …’ I paused. ‘What we ideally need is a tethered goat.’

‘And just who,’ Litsi enquired ironically, ‘are you electing for that dead-end job?’

I smiled. ‘A stuffed goat with a mechanical bleat. All real goats must be guarded or careful.’

‘Aunt Casilia, Roland and Danielle, guarded.’

‘And the horses,’ I said.

‘OK. And the horses guarded. And you and I …’

I nodded. ‘Careful.’

Neither of us mentioned that Nanterre had specifically threatened each of us as his next targets: there was no point. I didn’t think he would actually try to kill either of us, but the damage would have to be more than a pin-prick to expect a result.

‘What’s he like?’ Litsi said. ‘You’ve met him. I’ve never seen him. Know your enemy … first rule for combat.’

‘Well, I think he got into all this without thinking it out first,’ I said. ‘Last Friday, I think he believed he had only to browbeat the princess heavily enough, and Roland would collapse. That’s also very nearly what happened.’

‘As I understand it, it didn’t happen because you were there.’

‘I don’t know. Anyway, on Friday night when he pulled the gun out which had no bullets in … I think that may be typical of him. He acts on impulse, without thinking things through. He’s used to getting his own way easily because of his hectoring manner. He’s used to being obeyed. Since his father died – and his father had customarily indulged him – he has run the construction company pretty well as he likes. I’d say he’s quite likely reached the stage where he literally can’t believe he can be defied, and especially not by an old, ill man long out of touch with the world. When Roland rejected him by post, I’d guess he came over thinking, “I’ll soon change all that.” I think in some ways he’s childish, which doesn’t make him less destructive: more so, probably.’

I paused, but Litsi made no comment.

‘Attacking Danielle,’