Dead Heat - By Dick Francis & Felix Francis Page 0,114

to himself. ‘No, that’s ridiculous.’

‘What’s ridiculous?’ I asked him.

He looked up at my face. ‘I was just thinking aloud,’ he said.

‘So tell me your thoughts,’ I urged him. Caroline and Bernard stopped talking and looked expectantly across at Toby.

‘No, it was nothing,’ he said.

‘Tell us anyway,’ I said.

‘I was just wondering if it could be used for marbling.’

There was a brief silence as we thought about what he had said.

‘And what the hell is “marbling”?’ asked Bernard in his best lawyer voice.

‘It’s not the proper name, but it’s what I call it,’ Toby said.

‘Call what?’ asked Sally, coming back into the room with a silver tray with teapot, cups and so on, plus some chocolate biscuits that clearly caught Bernard’s eye.

‘Toby was just saying that this ball could be used for marbling,’ I said.

‘What’s that?’ she asked, setting the tray down on a table.

‘Yes, what is this “marbling”?’ implored Bernard.

Toby looked at Caroline and he seemed a bit embarrassed.

‘It’s placing a large glass marble in the uterus of a mare to simulate a pregnancy.’

‘But why would anyone do that?’ asked Caroline.

‘To stop her coming into season,’ said Toby.

‘Sorry,’ said Bernard. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘Suppose you don’t want a filly or a mare coming into season at a certain time,’ said Toby. ‘You place a large marble or two through her cervix and into the uterus. The fact that there is something in the uterus already seems somehow to fool the animal into thinking that she is pregnant so she doesn’t ovulate, come into season or go on heat.’

‘Why would that be a problem anyway?’ I asked.

‘Well, sometimes it may be that you want the mare in season at an exact moment, say for breeding on a specific day to a stallion, so you could marble the mare for a few weeks, then remove the marbles and, hey presto, the mare comes on heat almost immediately. I don’t know it all; you’d have to ask a vet. But I do know it’s done a lot. Some show jumpers are kept off heat for major competitions. Otherwise they can go all moody and don’t behave properly. Just like a woman.’ He laughed, and Sally playfully smacked his knee.

‘Or a polo pony,’ I said. ‘You probably wouldn’t want a female polo pony to be in season during a match, especially if there were some male ponies playing as well.’

‘Certainly not if any of them were full horses,’ said Toby.

‘Full horses?’ asked Bernard, munching on a biscuit.

‘Stallions,’ said Toby. ‘As opposed to geldings.’

Bernard seemed to wince a little, and he pressed his knees tightly together.

‘So you think this ball could be used instead of a glass marble?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘They’re about the same size. But it would have to be sterilised. At least on the outside.’

‘How many did you say could be inserted?’ I asked.

‘One or two is normal, I think,’ he said. ‘But I do know that at least three have been used. Maybe more. You would have to ask a vet.’

‘Wouldn’t they just fall out?’ asked Caroline, amused.

‘No,’ said Toby. ‘You need to give the mare an injection to open the cervix to get them in. The marbles are placed in the uterus through a tube that looks like a short piece of plastic drainpipe. When the injection wears off, the cervix closes and keeps them in. Easy. I’ve seen it done.’

‘But how do you get them out again?’ I asked.

‘I’ve never actually seen them come out,’ he said, ‘but I think you just give the mare the cervix-opening injection and the marbles are pushed out naturally.’

‘But surely this ball wouldn’t be big enough to smuggle drugs,’ said Bernard. ‘In horses or otherwise.’

‘I was told that Peter Komarov imports horses by the jumbo-jetful,’ I said. ‘How many horses could you get on a jumbo?’

‘I’ll try and find out,’ said Toby, and he went out of the drawing room.

‘We shall assume that each horse would have a minimum of three balls placed in it,’ I said.

‘Only the female horses,’ said Caroline.

‘True,’ I said. ‘But wouldn’t they all be females if that is what he wanted?’

‘Wouldn’t it depend on which horses were due to be imported?’ said Sally.

‘Not if Komarov owned the horses as well,’ I said.

Toby came back. ‘According to LRT, the transport people who take and collect horses from Gatwick and Luton, there can be up to eighty horses on a jumbo.’

‘Phew,’ I said. ‘That’s a lot of horseflesh.’

‘Eighty horses times three balls each,’ said Caroline. ‘Two hundred and