Bolt - By Dick Francis Page 0,49

to show him, as well as Dawson and Litsi, how the recording telephone worked.

The normal telephone arrangements in that house were both simple and complicated: there was only one line, but about a dozen scattered instruments.

Incoming calls rang in only three of those: the one in the sitting room, one in the office where Mrs Jenkins worked by day, and one in the basement. Whoever was near one of those instruments when a call came in would answer, and if it were for someone else, reach that person via the intercom, as Dawson had reached me when Wykeham rang the previous Sunday. This arrangement was to save six or more people answering whenever the telephone rang.

From each guest bedroom outgoing calls could be directly made, as from the princess’s rooms, and her husband’s. The house was rarely as full as at present, Dawson said, and the telephone was seldom busy. The system normally worked smoothly.

I explained that to work the new telephone, one had simply to unplug the ordinary instrument and plug in the new one.

‘If you press that button,’ I said, pointing, ‘the whole conversation will be recorded. If you press that one, everyone in the room can hear what’s being said.’

I plugged the simple box of tricks into the sitting room socket. ‘It had better be in here while we are all around. During the day, if everyone’s out, like today, it can go to Mrs Jenkins’ office, and at night, if Dawson wouldn’t mind, in the basement. It doesn’t matter how many calls are unnecessarily recorded, we can scrub them out, but every time … if one could develop the habit?’

They all nodded.

‘Such an uncouth man,’ Dawson commented. ‘I would know that loud voice anywhere.’

‘It’s a pity,’ Litsi said, when Dawson and Sammy had gone, ‘that we can’t somehow tap Beatrice’s phone and record what she says.’

‘Anytime she’s upstairs, like now, we can just lift the receiver and listen.’

We lifted the receiver, but no one in the house was talking. We could wait and listen for hours, but meanwhile no outside calls could come in. Regretfully Litsi put the receiver back again, saying we might be lucky, he would try every few minutes; but by the time Beatrice reappeared for dinner the intermittent vigil had produced no results.

I had meanwhile talked to Wykeham and collected the messages off my answering machine, neither a lengthy event, and if anyone had inadvertently broken in on the calls, I’d heard no clicks on the line.

Beatrice came down demanding her ‘bloody’ in a flattering white dress covered in sunflowers, Litsi fussing over her with amiable solicitude, and refusing to be disconcerted by ungraciousness.

‘I know you don’t want me here,’ she said bluntly, ‘but until Roland signs on the dotted line, I’m staying.’

The princess came down to dinner, but not Roland, and on our return to the sitting room afterwards Litsi, without seeming to, manoeuvred everyone around so that it was I who ended up sitting by the telephone. He smiled over his coffee cup, and everyone waited.

When the bell finally rang, Beatrice jumped.

I picked up the receiver, pressing both the recorder and conference buttons; and a voice spoke French loudly into our expectations.

ELEVEN

Litsi rose immediately to his feet, came over to me and made gestures for me to give him the phone.

‘It isn’t Nanterre,’ he said.

He took the receiver, disengaged the conference button and spoke privately in French. ‘Oui… non … certainement … ce soir … oui… merci.’

He put down the receiver and almost immediately the bell rang again. Litsi picked up the receiver again, briefly listened, grimaced, pressed the record and conference buttons again, and passed the buck to me.

‘It’s him,’ he said succinctly, and indeed everyone could hear the familiar domineering voice saying words that meant nothing to me at all.

‘Speak English, please,’ I said.

‘I said,’ Nanterre said in English, ‘I wish to speak to Prince Litsi and he is to be brought to the telephone immediately.’

‘He isn’t available,’ I said. ‘I can give him a message.’

‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘I know who you are. You are the jockey.’

‘Yes.’

‘I left instructions for you to leave the house.’

‘I don’t obey your instructions.’

‘You’ll regret it.’

‘In what way?’ I asked, but he wouldn’t be drawn into a specific threat; quite likely, I supposed, because he hadn’t yet thought up a particular mayhem.

‘My notary will arrive at the house tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘He will be shown to the library, as before. He will wait there. Roland de Brescou