"Fair enough. How often do you do this sort of thing?" I tucked the envelope of money into my pocket.
He shrugged, looking pleased with himself.
"I can spot blokes like you a mile off. Inskip must be slipping, though. First time I've known him pick a bent penny, like. But those darts matches come in very handy… I'm good, see. I'm always in the team. And there's a lot of stables in Yorkshire… with a lot of beaten favourites for people to scratch their heads over."
"You're very clever," I said. He smirked. He agreed.
I walked up the hill planning to light a fuse under TNT. " the high explosive kid.
In view of the black-moustached man's offer I decided to read through Beckett's typescript yet again, to see if the eleven do pings could have been the result of systematic spying. Looking at things from a fresh angle might produce results, I thought, and also might help me make up my mind whether or not to back out of the spying job and go to one of the doped horse's yards as arranged.
Locked in the bathroom I began again at page one. On page sixty-seven, fairly early in the life history of the fifth of the horses, I read "Bought at Ascot Sales, by D. L. Mentiff, Esq." of York for four hundred and twenty guineas, passed on for five hundred pounds to H. Humber of Posset, County Durham, remained three months, ran twice unplaced in maiden hurdles, subsequently sold again, at Doncaster, being bought for six hundred guineas by N. W. Davies, Esq. " of Leeds.
Sent by him to L. Peterson's training stables at Mars Edge, Staffs, remained eighteen months, ran in four maiden hurdles, five novice 'chases, all without being placed. Races listed below. " Three months at Humber 's. I smiled. It appeared that horses didn't stay with him any longer than lads. I ploughed on through the details, page after solid page.
On page ninety-four I came across the following:
" Alamo was then offered for public auction at Kelso, and a Mr. John Arbuthnot, living in Berwickshire, paid three hundred guineas for him.
He sent him to be trained by H. Humber at Posset, County Durham, but he was not entered for any races, and Mr. Arbuthnot sold him to Humber for the same sum. A few weeks later he was sent for resale at Kelso.
This time Alamo was bought for three hundred and seventy-five guineas by a Mr. Clement Smithson, living at Nantwich, Cheshire, who kept him at home for the summer and then sent him to a trainer called Samuel Martin at Malton, Yorkshire, where he ran unplaced in four maiden hurdles before Christmas, (see list attached). "
I massaged my stiff neck. Humber again.
I read on.
On page one hundred and eighty, I read, "Ridgeway was then acquired as a yearling by a farmer, James Green, of Home Farm, Crayford, Surrey, in settlement of a bad debt. Mr. Green put him out to grass for two years, and had him broken in, hoping he would be a good hunter.
However, a Mr. Taplow of Pewsey, Wilts, said he would like to buy him and put him in training for racing. Ridgeway was trained for flat races by Ronald Streat of Pewsey, but was unplaced in all his four races that summer. Mr. Taplow then sold Ridgeway privately to Albert George, farmer, of Bridge Lewes,
Shropshire, who tried to train him himself but said he found he didn't have time to do it properly, so he sold him to a man a cousin of his knew near Durham, a trainer called Hedley Humber. Humber apparently thought the horse was no good, and Ridgeway went up for auction at Newmarket in November, fetching two hundred and ninety guineas and being bought by Mr. P. J. Brewer, of The Manor, Witherby, Lanes. "
I ploughed right on to the end of the typescript, threading my way through the welter of names, but Humber was not mentioned anywhere again.
Three of the eleven horses had been in Humber 's yard for a brief spell at some distant time in their careers. That was all it amounted to.
I rubbed my eyes, which were gritty from lack of sleep, and an alarm clock rang suddenly, clamorously, in the silent cottage. I looked at my watch in surprise. It was already half past six. Standing up and stretching, I made use of the bathroom facilities, thrust the typescript up under my pyjama jacket and the jersey I wore on top and shuffled back yawning to the dormitory, where the others were already up and struggling puffy- eyed into their clothes.
Down in the yard it was so cold that everything one touched seemed to suck the heat out of one's fingers, leaving them numb and fumbling, and the air was as intense an internal shaft to the chest as iced coffee sliding down the oesophagus. Muck out the boxes, saddle up, ride up to the moor, canter, walk, ride down again, brush the sweat off, make the horse comfortable, give him food and water, and go in to breakfast. Repeat for the second horse, repeat for the third, and go in to lunch.
While we were eating Wally came in and told two others and me to go and clean the tack, and when we had finished our tinned plums and custard we went along to the tack room and started on the saddles and bridles. It was warm there from the stove, and I put my head back on a saddle and went solidly asleep.
One of the others jogged my legs and said, "Wake up Clan, there's a lot to do," and I drifted to the surface again. But before I opened my eyes the other lad said, "Oh, leave him, he does his share," and with blessings on his head I sank back into blackness. Four o'clock came too soon, and with it the three hours of evening stables:
then supper at seven and another day nearly done.
For most of the time I thought about Humber's name cropping up three times in the typescript. I couldn't really see that it was of more significance than that four of the eleven horses had been fed on horse cubes at the time of their doping. What was disturbing was that I should have missed it entirely on my first two readings. I realized that I had had no reason to notice the name Humber before seeing him and his horse and talking to his lad at Leicester, but if I had missed one name occurring three times, I could have missed others as well.
The thing to do would be to make lists of every single name mentioned in the typescript, and see if any other turned up in association with several of the horses. An electronic computer could have done it in seconds. For me, it looked like another night in the bathroom.
There were more than a thousand names in the typescript. I listed half of them on the Wednesday night, and slept a bit, and finished them on Thursday night, and slept some more.
On Friday the sun shone for a change, and the morning was beautiful on the moor. I trotted Sparking Plug along the track somewhere in the middle of the string and thought about the lists. No names except Humber's and one other occurred in connection with more than two of the horses. But the one other was a certain Paul J. Adams, and he had at one time or another owned six of them. Six out of eleven. It couldn't be a coincidence. The odds against it were phenomenal. I was certain I had made my first really useful discovery, yet I couldn't see why the fact that P. J. Adams, Esq. " had owned a horse for a few months once should enable it to be doped a year or two later. I puzzled over it all morning without a vestige of understanding.
As it was a fine day, Wally said, it was a good time for me to scrub some rugs. This meant laying the rugs the horses wore to keep them warm in their boxes flat on the concrete in the yard, soaking them with the aid of a hose pipe, scrubbing them with a long-handled broom and detergent, hosing them off again, and hanging the wet rugs on the fence to drip before they were transferred to the warm tack room to finish drying thoroughly. It was an unpopular job, and Wally, who had treated me even more coldly since Sparking Plug's disgrace (though he had not gone so far as to accuse me of engineering it), could hardly conceal his dislike when he told me that it was my turn to do it.
However, I reflected, as I laid out five rugs after lunch and thoroughly soaked them with water, I had two hours to be alone and think. And as so often happens, I was wrong.