We had reached the stable gate. I stood back to let her go first, which she acknowledged with a friendly but impersonal smile, and she led her horse away across the yard towards its own box. A thoroughly nice girl, I thought briefly, buckling down to the task of brushing the sweat off Sparking Plug, washing his feet, brushing out his mane and tail, sponging out his eyes and mouth, putting his straw bed straight, fetching his hay and water, and then repeating the whole process with the horse that Patricia had ridden. Patricia, I thought, grinning, was not a nice girl at all.
When I went in to breakfast in the cottage Mrs. Allnut gave me a letter which had just arrived for me. The envelope, postmarked in London the day before, contained a sheet of plain paper with a single sentence typed on it.
"Mr. Stanley will be at Victoria Falls three p.m. Sunday."
I stuffed the letter into my pocket, laughing into my porridge.
There was a heavy drizzle falling when I walked up beside the stream the following afternoon. I reached the gully before October, and waited for him with the rain drops finding ways to trickle down my neck. He came down the hill with his dog as before, telling me that his car was parked above us on the little used road.
"But we'd better talk here, if you can stand the wet," he finished, 'in case anyone saw us together in the car, and wondered. "
"I can stand the wet," I assured him, smiling.
"Good… well, how have you been getting on?"
I told him how well I thought of Beckett's new horse and the opportunities it would give me.
He nodded, "Roddy Beckett was famous in the war for the speed and accuracy with which he got supplies moved about. No one ever got the wrong ammunition or all left boots when he was in charge."
I said "I've sown a few seeds of doubts about my honesty, here and there, but I'll be able to do more of that this week at Bristol, and also next weekend, at Burndale. I'm going there on Sunday to play in a darts match."
"They've had several cases of doping in that village in the past," he said thoughtfully.
"You might get a nibble, there."
"It would be useful…"
"Have you found the form books helpful?" he asked.
"Have you given those eleven horses any more thought?"
"I've thought of little else," I said, 'and it seems just possible, perhaps it's only a slight chance, but it does just seem possible that you might be able to make a dope test on the next horse in the sequence before he runs in a race. That is to say, always providing that there is going to be another horse in the sequence. and I don't see why not, as the people responsible have got away with it for so long. "
He looked at me with some excitement, the rain dripping off the down-turned brim of his hat.
"You've found something?"
"No, not really. It's only a statistical indication. But it's more than even money, I think, that the next horse will win a selling 'chase at Kelso, Sedgefield, Ludlow, Stafford, or Haydock." I explained my reasons for expecting this, and went on, "It should be possible to arrange for wholesale saliva samples to be taken before all the selling 'chases on those particular tracks it can't be more than one race at each two-day meeting and they can throw the samples away without going to the expense of testing them if no… er… joker turns up in the pack."
"It's a tall order," he said slowly, 'but I don't see why it shouldn't be done, if it will prove anything. "
"The analysts might find something useful in the results."
"Yes. And I suppose even if they didn't, it would be a great step forward for us to be able to be on the lookout for a joker, instead of just being mystified when one appeared. Why on earth," he shook his head in exasperation, 'didn't we think of this months ago? It seems such an obvious way to approach the problem, now that you have done it. "
"I expect it is because I am the first person really to be given all the collected information all at once, and deliberately search for a connecting factor. All the other investigations seemed to have been done from the other end, so to speak, by trying to find out in each case separately who had access to the horse, who fed him, who saddled him, and so on."
He nodded gloomily.
"There's one other thing," I said.
"The lab chaps told you that as they couldn't find a dope you should look for something mechanical… do you know whether the horses' skins were investigated as closely as the jockeys and their kit? It occurred to me the other evening that I could throw a dart with an absolute certainty of hitting a horse's flank, and any good shot could plant a pellet in the same place.
Things like that would sting like a hornet. enough to make any horse shift along faster. "
"As far as I know, none of the horses showed any signs of that sort of thing, but I'll make sure. And by the way, I asked the analysts whether horses' bodies could break drugs down into harmless substances, and they said it was impossible."
"Well, that clears the decks a bit, if nothing else."
"Yes." He whistled to his dog, who was quartering the far side of the gully.
"After next week, when you'll be away at Bumdale, we had better meet here at this time every Sunday afternoon to discuss progress. You will know if I'm away, because I won't be here for the Saturday gallops. Incidentally, your horsemanship stuck out a mile on Sparking Plug yesterday. And I thought we agreed that you had better not make too good an impression. On top of which," he added, smiling faintly, "Inskip says you are a quick and conscientious worker."
"Heck… I'll be getting a good reference if I don't watch out."
"Too right you will," he agreed, copying my accent sardonically.
"How do you like being a stable lad?"
"It has its moments… Your daughters are very beautiful."
He grinned, "Yes: and thank you for helping Elinor. She told me you were most obliging."
"I did nothing."
"Patty is a bit of a handful," he said, reflectively, "I wish she'd decide what sort of a job she'd like to do. She knows I don't want her to go on as she has during her season, never-ending parties and staying out till dawn… well, that's not your worry, Mr. Roke."
We shook hands as usual, and he trudged off up the hill. It was still drizzling mournfully as I went down.
Sparking Plug duly made the 250-mile journey south to Bristol, and I went with him. The racecourse was some way out of the city, and the horse-box driver told me, when we stopped for a meal on the way, that the whole of the stable block had been newly rebuilt there after the fire had gutted it.
Certainly the loose boxes were clean and snug, but it was the new sleeping quarters that the lads were in ecstasies about. The hostel was a surprise to me too. It consisted mainly of a recreation room and two long dormitories with about thirty beds in each, made up with clean sheets and fluffy blue blankets. There was a wall light over each bed, poly vinyl-tiled flooring, under floor heating, modern showers in the washroom and a hot room for drying wet clothes. The whole place was warm and light, with colour schemes which were clearly the work of a professional.
"Ye gods, we're in the ruddy Hilton," said one cheerful boy, coming to a halt beside me just through the dormitory door and slinging his canvas grip on to an unoccupied bed.
"You haven't seen the half of it," said a bony long- wristed boy in a shrunken blue jersey, 'up that end of the passage there's a ruddy great canteen with decent chairs and a telly and a ping-pong table and all. "
Other voices joined in.
"It's as good as Newbury."
"Easily."
"Better than Ascot, I'd say."
Heads nodded.