‘You did this, Miss Andrews?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s so clever. I could never do anything like that.’
‘I didn’t know that I could until I tried.’
Seeing how anxious her visitor was, Madeleine took her into the kitchen and made a pot of tea. When she had taken a few sips from her cup, Bonny Rimmer slowly began to relax. Coming to London for the first time was an unsettling experience for a country girl. The size and speed of everything was terrifying to her, and she felt as if she had stumbled into a foreign country. Madeleine tried to reassure her.
‘I’ll walk you to the station afterwards,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Miss Andrews – getting here was a real trial.’
‘London can be overpowering for all of us sometimes.’
‘It scares me.
‘Did you bring anything with you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Bonny, putting down her cup to open her handbag. ‘There’s not much, I’m afraid.’ She took out a handful of items and put them on the table. ‘John asked me to look after these letters from his friend because he couldn’t read.’ A forlorn smile brushed her lips. ‘I was going to teach him.’
Madeleine looked at the meagre legacy of John Feeny. Apart from the letters, a few trinkets bought for Bonny and a rabbit’s foot he had given her for luck, the only thing there was a short note, written by Brian Dowd, confirming that Feeny had been taken on his payroll.
‘He was so proud to get that job,’ said Bonny. ‘Dozens of lads wanted to work at Mr Dowd’s stables but John was the one he chose. It was hard work but he liked it there – at first. He had dreams of riding in Mr Dowd’s colours and winning big races.’
‘It was not to be.’
‘No, Miss Andrews.’
‘But he lasted a couple of years,’ said Madeleine, seeing the date at the top of the paper. ‘Since he fell out with Mr Dowd, I’m surprised he kept this record of working there.’
‘He needed the address so that he could write to Jerry Doyle.’ Bonny gave a shy smile. ‘Or get someone else to write for him.’
‘I’m surprised the note was not damaged when he swam ashore.’
‘John was not stupid. He knew he might get wet on the voyage so he wrapped everything he had in a piece of oilskin. That includes this,’ she said, holding up a misshapen gold ring. ‘It belonged to John’s mother. He wanted me to take care of it until the day I could wear it as Mrs Feeny.’ Bonny slipped it on the appropriate finger. ‘You see, Miss Andrews? It fits.’
Madeleine was disappointed. She could see nothing there that would be of any use to Colbeck but she decided to hold on to some of it nevertheless. Bonny was quite happy to leave the letters and the note behind as long as she could take the wedding ring and the trinkets with her. They were her only mementoes of the young man she had loved. Madeleine thanked her.
‘When Inspector Colbeck has looked at these other items,’ she said, ‘I’ll make sure that you get them back.’
‘Will they be any use?’
‘That’s for the inspector to decide.’
‘You like him, don’t you?’ said Bonny.
‘Well, yes,’ replied Madeleine, caught unawares by the bluntness of the question. ‘I suppose that I do.’
‘I can hear it in your voice when you say his name.’
‘He’s been very kind to us.’
Madeleine gave her a brief account of how Robert Colbeck had come into her life and how he had solved the series of crimes that started with a train robbery in which Caleb Andrews was badly injured. Bonny listened with fascination.
‘Does that mean he’ll be able to catch John’s killer?’ she said.
‘I have no doubt about it.’
‘What will happen to him?’
‘He’ll be hanged.’
‘I wish I was there to see it,’ said Bonny with unexpected anger. ‘He deserves terrible pain for what he did to John. I hate him. He’ll roast in Hell for this crime.’
Madeleine was surprised by the outburst from such a placid girl but she understood the strain that Bonny Rimmer must be under. As they drank their tea, she moved the conversation to more neutral topics and her visitor calmed down. Before they left, however, Madeleine returned to the subject that had brought them together.
‘You told me that John had no enemies.’
‘None to speak of,’ said Bonny. ‘He always got on with people.’
‘He didn’t get on with Mr Dowd.’
‘That was because he ran out of patience. Mr Dowd made all sorts of promises to him about how he’d be a champion jockey one day but they were just lies. He never let him ride in a single race and John realised that he never would.’
‘Was that when they had their argument?’
‘Yes,’ said the other. ‘John used bad language towards Mr Dowd and that was that. He was thrown out of the stables without any pay. You know the rest, Miss Andrews.’
‘I can see why John was so grateful to meet a friend like you,’ said Madeleine. ‘For the first time in his life, he had something to look forward to.’
‘Oh, he did. John didn’t just want to prove to everyone that he could be a good jockey. He wanted to beat Mr Dowd’s horses in every race he could. That’s what kept him going,’ said Bonny. ‘He told me that he’d never be really happy until he could get his own back on Mr Dowd. It was like a mission.’
Brian Dowd had had a more than satisfactory day at the races, One of his horses had come second in the opening race and Quicklime, as he had predicted, won the last race on the card. Wearing a frock coat and top hat, he sat among the privileged spectators in the grandstand and relished his position. Lord Hendry, by contrast, had had a miserable afternoon. All of his bets were misplaced, especially the one on his own horse, Darius, in the final race. After a promising start, the animal had pulled up lame three furlongs from home. It was irksome. As he made for the exit, the last person he wanted to encounter was the smirking Irishman.
‘It was a rehearsal for tomorrow,’ said Dowd.
‘What was?’
‘That last race – my horse winning by a mile from yours.’
‘Darius went lame,’ said Lord Hendry.
‘A sure sign of lack of fitness – he was badly trained.’
‘I need no advice from you about training horses, Dowd.’
‘Apparently, you do,’ taunted Dowd. ‘You can’t even train Odysseus to stay on your wall. He galloped off somewhere, I hear.’
‘Who told you that?’ snarled Lord Hendry.
‘You’d be surprised what I get to hear. The rumour is that the painting was stolen in the night. True or false?’
‘You ought to know the answer to that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s just the kind of thing you’d do. When you failed to cripple Odysseus in his travelling box, you paid someone to steal that portrait of him instead. It’s typical of your low Irish cunning.’
‘I wondered how long it would be before you started abusing my country,’ said Dowd cheerfully. ‘You English are so ungrateful. We dig your canals for you, we build your railways and we show you how to train racehorses properly yet you still sneer at us.’
‘Do you have my painting?’ demanded Lord Hendry.
‘I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.’
‘Do you know where it is?’
‘No, Lord Hendry, and, quite frankly, I don’t care. The only horse that interests me at the moment is Limerick Lad. When he runs in the Derby tomorrow, you’ll see why.’
Dowd walked away before the other man could speak. Lord Hendry muttered a few obscenities under his breath then joined the queue at the exit. His first thought had been that Hamilton Fido was behind the theft of the painting but he now felt that Dowd was a likely suspect as well. He believed that the Irishman had deliberately sought him out to gloat over the loss of the portrait. Lord Hendry decided to report that fact to Robert Colbeck.