So next week, perhaps?’
I’m sure that will be all right.’
He beamed happily. ‘Perhaps I’ll come along too.’
Annie Villars said patiently, ‘Bobbie, we ought to go and see about saddling your horse.’
He looked at his watch. ‘By jove, yes. Amazing where the afternoon goes to. Come along, then.’ He gave me another large smile, transferred it intact to Annie, and obediently moved off after her as she started purposefully towards the saddling boxes.
I bought a racecard. The Duke’s horse was a two year old maiden called Thundersticks. I watched the Duke and Annie watch Thundersticks walk round the parade ring, one with innocent beaming pride, the other with judicious non-commitment. The pace-lacking boy rode a bad race, even to my unpractised eye: too far out in front over the first furlong, too far out the back over the last. Just as well the Duke’s colours were inconspicuous, I thought. He took his disappointment with charming grace, reassuring Annie that the colt would do better next time. Sure to. Early days yet. She smiled at him in soft agreement and bestowed on the jockey a look which would have bored a hole through steel plating.
After they had discussed the sweating colt’s performance yard by yard, and patted him and packed him off with his lad towards the stables, the Duke took Annie away to the bar for a drink. After that she had another loser for another owner and another thoughtful detour for refreshment, so that I didn’t manage to catch her on her own until between the last two races.
She listened without comment to me explaining that I thought it might be possible to do something positive about solving the Great Bomb Mystery, if she would help.
‘I thought it was solved already.’
‘Not really. No one knows why.’
‘No. Well, I don’t see how I can help.’
‘Would you mind telling me how well Major Tyderman and Mr Goldenberg know each other, and how they come to have any say in how Rudiments should run in its various races?’
She said mildly, ‘It’s none of your business.’
I knew what the mildness concealed. ‘I know that.’
‘And you are impertinent.’
‘Yes.’
She regarded me straightly, and the softness gradually faded out of her features to leave taut skin over the cheekbones and a stern set to the mouth.
‘I am fond of Midge and Nancy Ross,’ she said. ‘I don’t see how anything I can tell you will help, but I certainly want no harm to come to those two girls. That last escapade was just a shade too dangerous, wasn’t it? And if Rupert Tyderman could do that…’ She paused, thinking deeply. ‘I will be obliged if you will keep anything I may tell you to yourself.’
‘I will.’
‘Very well I’ve known Rupert for a very long time. More or less from my childhood. He is about fifteen years older…. When I was a young girl I thought he was a splendid person, and I didn’t understand why people hesitated when they talked about him.’ She sighed. ‘I found out, of course, when I was older. He had been wild, as a youth. A vandal when vandalism wasn’t as common as it is now. When he was in his twenties he borrowed money from all his relations and friends for various grand schemes, and never paid them back. His family bought him out of one mess where he had sold a picture entrusted to him for safe keeping and spent the proceeds…. Oh, lots of things like that. Then the war came and he volunteered immediately, and I believe all during the war he did very well. He was in the Royal Engineers, I think… but afterwards, after the war ended, he was quietly allowed to resign his commission for cashing dud cheques with his fellow officers.’
She shook her head impatiently. ‘He has always been a fool to himself…. Since the war he has lived on some money his grandfather left in trust, and on what he could cadge from any friends he had left.’
‘You included?’ I suggested.
She nodded. ‘Oh yes. He’s always very persuasive. It’s always for something extremely plausible, but all the deals fall through…’ She looked away across the Heath, considering. ‘And then this year, back in February or March, I think, he turned up one day and said he wouldn’t need to borrow any more from me, he’d got a good thing going which would make him rich.’
‘What was it?’
‘He wouldn’t say. Just told me not to worry, it was all legal. He had gone into