Whip Hand Part 20

'You look happier,' he said, 'than I've seen you since...'he gestured to my arm, with his gla.s.s. 'Released in spirit. Not your usual stoical self.'

'I've been in Newmarket,' I said. 'Watched the gallops, yesterday morning.'

'I would have thought...' he stopped. 'That I'd be eaten by jealousy?' I said. 'So would I. But I enjoyed it.'

'Good.' 'I'm going up again tomorrow night and staying until after the Guineas next Wednesday.'

'And lunch, next Thursday?'

I smiled and bought him a large pink gin. 'I'll be back for that.'

In due course we ate scallops one-handedly in a wine and cheese sauce, and he gave me the news of Jenny.

'Oliver Quayle sent the address you asked for, for the polish.' He took a paper from his breast pocket and handed it over. 'Oliver is worried. He says the police are actively pursuing their enquiries, and Jenny is almost certain to be charged.'

'When?'

'I don't know. Oliver doesn't know. Sometimes these things take weeks, but not always. And when they charge her, Oliver says, she will have to appear in a magistrates' court, and they are certain to refer the case to the Crown Court, as so much money is involved. They'll give her bail, of course.'

'Bail!'

'Oliver says she is unfortunately very likely to be convicted, but that if it is stressed that she acted as she did under the influence of Nicholas Ashe, she'll probably get some sympathy from the judge and a conditional discharge.'

'Even if he isn't found?' 'Yes. But of course if he is found, and charged, and found guilty, Jenny would with luck escape a conviction altogether.'

I took a deep breath that was half a sigh. 'Have to find him then, won't we?' I said.

'How?'

'Well... I spent a lot of Monday, and all of this morning, looking through a box of letters. They came from the people who sent money, and ordered wax. Eighteen hundred of them, or thereabouts.'

'How do they help?'

'I've started sorting them into alphabetical order, and making a list.' He frowned sceptically, but I went on. 'The interesting thing is that all the surnames start with the letters L, M, N and O. None from A to K, and none from P to Z.'

'I don't see...'

'They might be part of a mailing list,' I said. 'Like for a catalogue. Or even for a charity. There must be thousands of mailing lists, but this one certainly did produce the required results, so it wasn't a mailing list for dog licence reminders, for example.'

'That seems reasonable,' he said dryly.

'I thought I'd get all the names into order and then see if anyone, like Christie's or Sotheby's, say - because of the polish angle - has a mailing list which matches. A long shot, I know, but there's just a chance.'

'I could help you,' he said.

'It's a boring job.'

'She's my daughter.'

'All right then. I'd like it.'. I finished the scallops and sat back in my chair, and drank Charles's good cold white wine.

He said he would stay overnight in his club and come to my flat in the morning to help with the sorting, and I gave him a spare key to get in with, in case I should be out for a newspaper or cigarettes when he came. He lit a cigar and watched me through the smoke. 'What did Jenny say to you upstairs after lunch on Sunday?'

I looked at him briefly. 'Nothing much.'

'She was moody all day, afterwards. She even snapped at Toby.' He smiled. 'Toby protested, and Jenny said "At least Sid didn't whine.' He paused. 'I gathered that she'd been giving you a particularly rough mauling, and was feeling guilty.'

'It wouldn't be guilt. With luck, it was misgivings about Ashe.'

'And not before time.'

From the Cavendish I went to the Portman Square headquarters of the Jockey Club, to keep an appointment made that morning on the telephone by Lucas Wainwright. Unofficial my task for him might be, but official enough for him to ask me to his office. Ex-Superintendent Eddy Keith, it transpired, had gone to Yorkshire to look into a positive doping test, and no one else was going to wonder much at my visit.

'I've got all the files for you,' Lucas said. 'Eddy's reports on the syndicates, and some notes on the rogues he O.K.'d.'

'I'll make a start then,' I said. 'Can I take them away, or do you want me to look at them here?'

'Here, if you would,' he said. 'I don't want to draw my secretary's attention to them by letting them out or getting them xeroxed, as she works for Eddy too, and I know she admires him. She would tell him. You'd better copy down what you need.'

'Right,' I said.

He gave me a table to one side of his room, and a comfortable chair, and a bright light, and for an hour or so I read and made notes. At his own desk he did some desultory pen-pushing and rustled a few papers, but in the end it was clear that it was only a pretence of being busy. He wasn't so much waiting for me to finish as generally uneasy.

I looked up from my writing. 'What's the matter?' I said.

'The... matter?'

'Something's troubling you.' He hesitated. 'Have you done all you want?' he said, nodding at my work.

'Only about half,' I said. 'Can you give me another hour?'

'Yes, but... Look, I'll have to be fair with you. There's something you'll have to know.'

'What sort of thing?'

Lucas, who was normally urbane even when in a hurry, and whose naval habits of thought I understood from long practice with my Admiral father-in-law, was showing signs of embarra.s.sment. The things that acutely embarra.s.sed naval officers were collisions between warships and quaysides, ladies visiting the crew's mess deck with the crew present and at ease, and dishonourable conduct among gentlemen. It couldn't be the first two; so where were we with the third?

'I have not perhaps given you all the facts,' he said.

'Go on, then.'

'I did send someone else to check on two of the syndicates, some time ago. Six months ago.' He fiddled with some paperclips, no longer looking in my direction. 'Before Eddy checked them.'

'With what result?'

'Ah. Yes.' He cleared his throat. 'The man I sent- his name's Mason - we never received his report because he was attacked in the street before he could write it.'

Attacked in the street.... 'What sort of attack?' I said. 'And who attacked him?'