Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,9

in Charlie West’s lies and lies in my truth. He was prosecutor as well as judge, and was only admitting evidence if it fitted his case.

He was dispersing the accepting awe I had held him in like candyfloss in a thunderstorm, and I could feel an unforgiving cynicism growing in its stead. Also I was ashamed of my former state of trust. With the sort of education I’d had, I ought to have known better.

Mr Newtonnards emerged from the waiting-room and made his way to the witnesses’ end of the Stewards’ table, sporting a red rosebud in his lapel and carrying a large blue ledger. Unlike Charlie West he was confident, not nervous. Seeing that everyone else was seated he looked around for a chair for himself, and not finding one, asked.

After a fractional pause Gowery nodded, and the official-of-all-work near the door pushed one forward. Mr Newtonnards deposited into it his well-cared-for pearl-grey-suited bulk.

‘Who is he?’ I said to Cranfield. Cranfield shook his head and didn’t answer, but he knew, because his air of worry had if anything deepened.

Andrew Tring flipped through his pile of papers, found what he was looking for, and drew it out. Lord Plimborne had his eyes shut again. I was beginning to expect that: and in any case I could see that it didn’t matter, since the power lay somewhere between Gowery and Ferth, and Andy Tring and Plimborne were so much window-dressing.

Lord Gowery too picked up a paper, and again I had the impression that he knew its contents by heart.

‘Mr Newtonnards?’

‘Yes, my Lord.’ He had a faint cockney accent overlaid by years of cigars and champagne. Mid-fifties, I guessed; no fool, knew the world, and had friends in show business. Not too far out: Mr Newtonnards, it transpired, was a bookmaker.

Gowery said, ‘Mr Newtonnards, will you be so good as to tell us about a certain bet you struck on the afternoon of the Lemonfizz Cup?’

‘Yes, my Lord. I was standing on my pitch in Tattersall’s when this customer come up and asked me for five tenners on Cherry Pie.’ He stopped there, as if that was all he thought necessary.

Gowery did some prompting. ‘Please describe this man, and also tell us what you did about his request.’

‘Describe him? Let’s see, then. He was nothing special. A biggish man in a fawn coat, wearing a brown trilby and carrying race glasses over his shoulder. Middle-aged, I suppose. Perhaps he had a moustache. Can’t remember, really.’

The description fitted half the men on the racecourse.

‘He asked me what price I’d give him about Cherry Pie,’ Newtonnards went on. ‘I didn’t have any price chalked on my board, seeing Cherry Pie was such an outsider. I offered him tens, but he said it wasn’t enough, and he looked like moving off down the line. Well…’ Newtonnards waved an expressive pudgy hand, ‘… business wasn’t too brisk, so I offered him a hundred to six. Couldn’t say fairer than that now, could I, seeing as there were only eight runners in the race? Worse decision I made in a long time.’ Gloom mixed with stoicism settled on his well covered features.

‘So when Cherry Pie won, you paid out?’

‘That’s right. He put down fifty smackers. I paid him nine hundred.’

‘Nine hundred pounds?’

‘That’s right, my Lord,’ Newtonnards confirmed easily, ‘Nine hundred pounds.’

‘And we may see the record of this bet?’

‘Certainly.’ He opened the big blue ledger at a marked page. ‘On the left, my lord, just over half way down. Marked with a red cross. Nine hundred and fifty, ticket number nine seven two.’

The ledger was passed along the Stewards’ table. Plimborne woke up for the occasion and all four of them peered at the page. The ledger returned to Newtonnards, who shut it and let it lie in front of him.

‘Wasn’t that a very large bet on an outsider?’ Gowery asked.

‘Yes it was, my Lord. But then, there are a lot of mugs about. Except, of course, that once in a while they go and win.’

‘So you had no qualms about risking such a large amount?’

‘Not really, my lord. Not with Squelch in the race. And anyway, I laid a bit of it off. A quarter of it, in fact, at thirty-threes. So my actual losses were in the region of four hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten. Then I took three hundred and two-ten on Squelch and the others, which left a net loss on the race of one eight five.’

Cranfield and I received a glare in