The ‘Sport of Kings’, in crisp autumnal sunshine at Brighton the following afternoon, seemed much more royal and exhilarating than in the seedy London betting shop. Ruth had won five pounds at the Tote and was in high spirits. So engrossed had she become in the colourful spectacle around her that the object of their journey – the search for Curly – had very nearly slipped her mind. She was to be forgiven, however, for it was her first visit to a large race-track.
Holt was content to let her display her enthusiasm, for her genuine interest in the races served to disguise his own preoccupation. They had dressed in sporty tweeds and Holt wore a powerful pair of field-glasses slung around his neck in addition to his usual photographic equipment. Ostensibly he used the binoculars to follow the horses as they rounded distant bends in the track, but in fact he more often trained them on the faces of the crowd in the Grandstand and the various enclosures. And although he went to the paddock at the beginning of each race, apparently to form an opinion of the runners, he spent more time glancing idly at the spectators than in appraising horse or jockey.
It was just after the start of the fourth race that he announced suddenly in a low, tense murmur, ‘Got him!’
‘Where?’ asked Ruth without taking her eyes off the horses as they swept in a tight pack into the first bend.
‘The last place you’d expect. He must have come into money recently. He’s sitting in the Grandstand – fairly high, near the back – at about two o’clock from the centre. Here, take my glasses.’
Ruth adjusted the binoculars and scanned the Grandstand slowly. Her heart gave a queer leap as the dull white expanse of Curly’s head swam into focus. Suddenly he turned and his pale eyes seemed to stare straight at her. Startled, she lowered the binoculars and pretended to engage Holt in lively conversation. It was ridiculous – he was at least five hundred yards away – and yet she had the uncanny feeling that those great eyes were boring into the back of her neck.
‘What do we do now?’ she whispered.
‘We watch the race,’ replied Holt calmly, retrieving the binoculars. ‘I’ve placed two pounds for you on a French nag. It’s an outsider, but I liked the look of it in the paddock. Number Seven. There she goes, look – moving up on the inside rail!’
Ruth was drawn back into the surging excitement of the race. Order was emerging from the confusion of brilliant jockey colours, flying hooves, the gleam of equine muscle strained to the uttermost. Three runners began to press to the front of the tight field, and the crowd rose with a mounting wave of excitement. Ruth found herself waving and shouting for Number Seven. The horses thundered round the final bend and down the home stretch. Number Seven inched forward – first a nose, then a neck, then half a length, and by the time it had flashed past the finishing post it was showing a wild pair of heels to its two nearest rivals.
‘Philip, you’re fantastic!’ Ruth cried, quite forgetting herself and throwing her arms round his neck. ‘You must have a nose for winners! How much is my booty?’
‘Something in the neighbourhood of forty pounds, I think. And what’s more,’ he added, turning from the Grandstand and lowering his glasses, ‘Curly’s looking pleased with himself too. I think this is the right moment for us to get chummy! Let’s get your money and then we’ll seek him out.’
They jostled their way through the crowd towards the Totalisator and stood in the queue at one of the windows. They had barely reached the head of the queue and collected Ruth’s winnings when Holt stiffened, gave a tense, silent nod of the head, and broke from the line.
‘Philip, wait for me!’ Ruth wailed, scurrying after him.
‘Come on! I’ve just spotted Curly!’
Holt was tall enough to keep his target in sight as they weaved through the crowd, but for Ruth it was simply a question of hanging on to her boss’s sleeve.
‘Hold it! He’s stopping. Don’t let him see us!’ Holt rapped out urgently.
They took cover in the lee of a programme seller as Curly went up to a thin, raffish-looking man somehow clearly stamped with the hallmark of a bookmaker. Reluctantly the bookie produced his wallet and took out several five-pound notes. Curly’s great hand closed over the money like a bulldozer’s grab. For a few moments the two men remained in conversation, just out of earshot, and Holt discreetly slipped his Olympus Pen F camera from his pocket and took a snap of the couple; then Curly slapped the bookie on the back, glanced furtively around him, and strode with giant steps into the crowd where only the putty-coloured dome of his head remained visible.
‘Where’s he going, I wonder?’ Holt set off in pusuit. ‘This isn’t the way back to the Grandstand.’
‘As far as I can see it’ll take us to the car park.’
It was indeed the car park for which Curly was aiming. Had he won such a large sum on the last race that he was content for the day? What if he drove off before they could pin him down?… Holt quickened his pace – only to realise with sudden dismay that Curly was no longer in sight. One moment he had been there, towering above the ranks of parked cars, and the next instant he had vanished.
‘Now how the hell did that happen! Hyde said he was as slippery as a weasel, but that beats everything!’
Ruth shook her head in bewilderment. ‘What do we do now?’
From the distance came the excited roar of the crowd at the race-course, but in the vast car park there was not a soul to be seen.
Despondently they stared around them and discussed the situation, reaching no decision. Holt lit a cigarette, without protest from Ruth. He threw away the match and thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets …
‘Lookin’ for someone?’ a deep voice growled from behind them.
They whirled round. Ten paces away, leaning nonchalantly against a mini-bus, stood Curly with a gun in his hand.
Ruth choked back a cry of alarm.
Holt gripped her elbow and said coolly, ‘Yes, Curly. We were looking for you.’
‘Thought so. Smelt it yesterday, when you was nosin’ round Tottenham Court Road. A couple o’ phonies, that’s what you are!’
‘Go on, Curly.’
‘Just a couple o’ phonies,’ he repeated. ‘You should ’ave kept yer mouth shut, mate, when that cabbie knocked the paper out yer ’and – you should ’ave kept yer mouth shut.’
‘Thanks for the advice. I’ll be more careful next time.’
‘If there is a next time. Get in!’ He jerked the muzzle of the gun towards the mini-bus.
‘Oh, are we – er – going somewhere?’ Holt appeared more self-possessed than he felt as he steered Ruth towards the bus.
‘S’right, mate! You said you was lookin’ for me, didn’t you? You and me and the bird ’ere’s going for a little ride. – Ah no, not that side, matey! You get in behind the wheel with the bird beside yer. I’m lazy, see? I prefer to sit in the back and watch while you keep yer mind on the traffic.’
‘Driving with a gun in my back is liable to make me nervous,’ Holt said.
‘I dare say. But don’t worry, chum,’ Curly replied, slipping the gun into his raincoat pocket.
‘I wasn’t plannin’ to wave it at them fancy coppers on the Royal Parade.’ Idly he picked up a thick piece of wood that lay on the ground. It was a sawn-off stump as thick as a fence-post. ‘Shouldn’t think it’ll be necessary, would you?’ he said, snapping the stump with his enormous hands as though it were a twig. Then he slid into the mini-bus behind Holt and rested his arms along the back of the driver’s seat with the huge hands clearly in view. They got the point.
Holt started the engine and backed carefully.
Once out of the car park Curly gave clear instructions for the route he wanted to take. Holt said nothing, giving all his attention to getting the feel of the vehicle. It might prove useful to be able to handle her well, in the event of a chance of getting rid of Curly. Driving the mini-bus was not quite like handling the controls of the Mustang, but the brakes seemed good and the second gear unusually powerful.
Curly obviously knew Brighton like the back of his hand. He seemed anxious to get clear of the centre of the town as quickly as possible. They soon found themselves on the high cliff road out of Brighton that led eastward towards Newhaven. On a long, lonely stretch with green turf to their left, and on their right frequent glimpses of steep white cliffs dropping vertically to the sea, Curly gave the order to halt. He sat back and produced his revolver, evidently considering Holt a potential danger now that he was no longer occupied with the wheel.
‘All right, out with it! What is it yer want?’
‘Just a little information, Curly.’
‘Such as?’
‘What you know about the Vance Scranton murder.’
Holt was watching him in the rear-view mirror. Curly was a poor actor. He turned even paler than normal, licked his flabby lips with a dry tongue, then struggled to assume a truculent air. ‘Sorry, mate! You’re on the wrong number.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Dead sure.’
‘And if I offer to buy the information?’
‘I tell yer, you got the wrong number! I ain’t got nothin’ to sell.’
‘Would forty pounds make you change your mind?’
Curly gave a hollow laugh. ‘Made more’n that on the fourth race this afternoon. Anyway, I got nothin’ to sell. My ’ands is clean.’
‘Nobody’s accusing you of murder, Curly. We just want a tip as to where to start looking, that’s all.’
‘I don’t know nothin’, mate.’
‘But it’s true, isn’t it, that you were in the neighbourhood on the night this American student was murdered? – No, don’t bother to stall, Curly, we’ve got our information from top sources. Inspector Hyde sends his regards, by the way.’
‘So that’s who you’re workin’ for. Well you can just tell ’im from me that I ain’t—’
‘Let me bring you up to date, Curly. It’s Mr and Mrs Robert Scranton that I’m working for – the murdered boy’s parents. They’re rich Americans and they’ll pay a good price to anyone who’s helpful. They’ve asked me to investigate their son’s death.’
‘’Fraid you’ve taken on a very nasty job, mate.’
‘I thought you said you knew nothing about it!’ Holt put in swiftly.
A slow smile spread over the ex-convict’s features. ‘So I did … Pretty quick, aren’t yer?… Well, you might prove a bit too quick for your own good one o’ these days. Take my advice and keep out o’ this Scranton business. From what I’ve ’eard it’s not the sort of thing for a toff like you to get mixed up in. And you wouldn’t want this little bird of yours to get hurt neither, now would you?’
‘I’m not so fragile,’ Ruth retorted. ‘Listen, Curly, aren’t you forgetting something?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Muswell Hill – six years ago?’
‘What … what the hell’s Muswell Hill got to do with it?’
Holt said, bitingly, ‘Inspector Hyde leaned over backwards to help you then, because he thought you’d had a hard break. I think he saved you about four years in clink, didn’t he?’
Curly was silent.
‘Have you forgotten, Curly?’ Ruth insisted. ‘I don’t think you have.’
‘What you drivin’ at?’
‘It’s perfectly simple,’ she said briskly. ‘Now’s your chance to pay back that favour.’
‘Why don’t he ask me hisself?’
‘Because he knows you wouldn’t be seen dead talking to him! He’s had to ask you through us.’
Curly’s Adam’s apple worked convulsively and his hulking body seemed to screw itself into knots as he fought a battle with his conscience. Then a curtain of fear seemed to draw over his eyes and his voice was harsh as he declared, ‘We’re wastin’ time! Let’s get back to the nags, shall we? You got nothin’ for me, an’ I got nothin for you – nor Inspector Hyde neither. So let’s just part friends, shall we?’
Holt began to protest but Curly cut him short. ‘Turn ’er round and drive back! And look sharp!’
There seemed no point in arguing; Curly was flourishing the revolver in an ugly manner. Holt started up the engine again. He glanced in the rear mirror and waited for a small delivery van to overtake him, experiencing a motorist’s twinge of annoyance at the way it crawled past. When it had gone the path was clear for Holt to swing in a U-turn to the other side of the road.
Curly had not seen the van; he had been busy stuffing the gun into his raincoat pocket. He looked up just as Holt was pulling out of the turn. Instantly, he hurled himself over the back of the seat, swearing vehemently, and peered out of the rear window. ‘Look out – he’s stopping!… He’s goin’ into a turn!… For Christ’s sake step on it!’
Holt slipped into second gear and thrust his foot down, uncomprehending, but recognising fear in Curly’s voice. In the rear mirror he saw the van swing into a U-turn just as he had done. A second later it was in swift pursuit and, judging by the speed at which it began to catch up with them, this was no ordinary delivery van but a harmless looking exterior containing a hotted-up engine.
‘What’s all this about, Curly?’ Holt shouted.
‘Keep yer ’ead down! Just keep yer bloody ’ead down!’ came the hoarse reply.
Ruth was scrambling over the seat, clutching Holt’s pocket camera. A great hand flattened her to the floor. ‘Lie flat, you little idiot! D’you want to get killed?’
There was the ring of splintering glass as Curly smashed out the rear window with the butt of his revolver, and an instant later came the crack of a bullet.
‘Curly – you fool! If you kill anyone—’ roared Holt.
‘The tyres, mate, that’s all I want! The tyres – same as them.’
Further shots were exchanged, then the van changed tactics. With a surge of speed it bore in from the side and began to force Holt off the road. This was the manoeuvre he had anticipated; the men in the van were not shooting to kill, they wanted to promote an ‘accident’ the kind of accident which, with steep cliffs dropping to stony beaches fifty feet below, could only result in a burst of flame from the petrol tank and instant death for all three of them. Holt was ready.
‘Hold tight, everybody!’ he yelled.
With exquisite timing he waited until the very last second before metal scraped on metal, then slammed on his brakes, lunged with a fearful grinding into bottom gear, and hauled for all he was worth on the hand-brake. The attacking van had been swerving in hard, intent on forcing him over the cliff. Holt’s action, though it caused the mini-bus to swerve wildly for a moment, had successfully dropped him ‘into the slot’ like a racing driver just behind his opponent. When the van lay almost broadside on Holt changed like lightning into second gear and stamped on the accelerator. The front bumper of the bus caught the van like a cowcatcher on an American train; the van lifted clear off the road, overturned, and, bouncing and slithering over the turf, disappeared over the rim of the white cliff. There followed a violent explosion and a sheet of blinding flame.
The impact slewed the bus into a wild slalom, but Holt fought it viciously and finally forced it to a standstill on the grass verge within a few feet of the jagged cliff edge.
From a call-box on Brighton station Holt telephoned his report to Inspector Hyde.
‘The one thing I’m not too happy about, Inspector, is that we didn’t stop to see what had happened to those thugs in the van.’
‘You said the petrol tank exploded,’ said Hyde reasonably. ‘What was there for you to do? I haven’t had the official report through yet, of course, but I imagine they were killed instantaneously.’
‘Yes, but perhaps we ought to have … Yes, I suppose it does seem a bit ridiculous to talk about first aid when a vanload of ruffians have done their level best to kill you. Anyway, Curly wouldn’t hear of our going back. He brandished his damned gun and insisted we drive him to Brighton railway station. He was in a tearing hurry to get on the train – just couldn’t wait to shake the dust of Brighton off his heels.’
‘That’s not hard to understand. His cronies are evidently gunning for him. Did he take the London train?’ Hyde asked.
‘No, Chichester. Are you going to pick him up?’
‘Not yet. I’ll have him followed. He might lead us in the right direction. He knows something, I’m sure of it. Didn’t you get anything useful out of him at all?’
‘Yes; but I don’t know yet what it means. He warned me to keep my nose out of the Scranton murder, said it was an ugly business. And then he said, “I reckon I owe my life to you, the way you handled this bus just now. So here’s my message to Inspector Hyde. Then nobody won’t owe nobody no favours.”’
‘Yes – go on, Holt.’
‘He said: “Tell him, they forgot the ring”. That’s all – just “tell him they forgot the ring.”’
Hyde was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘It’s rather a cryptic message. What do you make of it?’
‘I told you, I don’t know. I haven’t really had time to collect my wits yet, but I’ll think about it on my way up to Town. I had been planning to drive over to Deanfriston as it’s only fifteen miles away, but this little drama needs a bit of digesting, I feel. And anyway, I think Ruth ought to have a break.’
‘Quite so, quite so. Drop in at the Yard when you can, Holt. The labs may have turned up something on those Christopher postcards by then. By the way, did you or Ruth get a good look at the men in the van?’
Holt gave a dry laugh. ‘I was rather busy trying not to be stampeded off the edge of the cliff! But Ruth was very smart – she grabbed my camera and managed to get two or three shots out of the rear window, and one from the side when they came level with us. Goodness knows if they’ll develop, she’s not a professional.’
‘It sounds professional enough to me! Bring in the film as soon as you can. Wonderful girl, Ruth! I don’t think you really value her enough, you know.’
‘I seem to have heard that before,’ Holt said a trifle stiffly, and rang off.
Through the darkening afternoon Holt drove the Mustang back to London as though the engine were new and required to be run in. Once, on an open stretch of road near Crawley, a butcher’s errand-boy on a moped overtook them; it was probably the supreme moment of his life.
‘Now this is what driving must have been like round about the turn of the century,’ Ruth said. ‘Peaceful, smooth …’
‘Please be quiet, Ruth. I’m thinking.’
Ruth’s mischievous grin faded. ‘“They forgot the ring”?’
‘“They forgot the ring”. Whose ring? Vance Scranton’s obviously. It was the only thing that was missing from the body. A simple signet ring, of no great value, apparently. Yet somebody stole it … And yet if they stole it, they didn’t forget it, did they?’
‘It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps Curly’s just hanging a red herring in front of our noses.’
Holt frowned. ‘Do you really think that?’
Ruth did not reply immediately. Then at last she said, ‘No. As a matter of fact, I think he was telling the truth. That incident up on the cliff top shook him to the core; and when a person gets scared – really scared – they don’t pretend. I think he meant what he said.’
‘That was my impression too. But it still doesn’t make sense.’
Holt said no more but continued to drive northwards at the same leisurely speed. Then, without warning, an exclamation sprang from his lips and he slid through a rapid change of gears until the Mustang was showing its taillights to everything else on the road.
Ruth sat upright, on the alert at once. ‘Something has bitten you?’ she asked eagerly.
‘Something has! Something so fantastic that …’
‘Well, what is it?’
‘… I wonder … It’s impossible!… Or is it?’
‘Fascinating conversation,’ Ruth said dryly, almost bursting with curiosity but quite determined not to betray it. ‘No doubt you’ll tell me, in your own good time …’
Miraculously they avoided all speed traps and drew up outside Holt’s yellow front door as Big Ben announced that it was eight o’clock. Without stopping to garage the car he thrust the key into the lock and bounded up the stairs to the studio.
A quick search through a notebook revealed Inspector Hyde’s private number, and just as he stretched out his hand towards the telephone it startled him by ringing.
The conversation which followed was brief and he had hung up by the time Ruth strolled in with the Olympus Pen F in her hand. ‘Who was that?’
‘Scranton from the Savoy. He says he’s been trying to get me all afternoon. Sounds pretty het-up about something. He wants me to go round right away.’
‘Has someone sent him another issue of the New Feature?’
‘No, I don’t think so, not this time. Come on, let’s go.’
Ruth indicated the camera she was holding. ‘What about this film?’
‘We’ll do that when we get back.’
In the Mustang they threaded their way through light evening traffic and Ruth asked, ‘Is this likely to affect your brilliant new theory, Philip?’
‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, it may even confirm it,’ was the enigmatic reply.
Ruth had not long to wait before she learnt the answer. When they arrived at the Savoy Robert Scranton was pacing up and down near the Reception Desk. He hurried them to the lift.
‘I’ll let Mother tell you in her own words,’ he said as they travelled smoothly upwards. ‘I must warn you, though, she’s kinda hysterical right now. I don’t ever remember her being so worked up! I’d have sent for a doc, but she insisted on seeing you first.’
Holt nodded, making no comment.
They crossed soft carpets to the door of Scranton’s suite. He took out his key and let them in.
Mrs Scranton lay on a couch in front of an electric fire. She looked frailer than ever, and deep shock was evident in her features. Yet, also, in her eyes there was something resembling elation; it frightened Ruth by its unexpectedness.
‘Please forgive me if I don’t get up,’ Mrs Scranton said. ‘I have the most fantastic thing to tell you – I guess it’s shaken me up.’
‘I think I know what you’re going to tell me,’ Holt said calmly. Robert Scranton was at his wife’s side, holding her hand. They both stared in silent astonishment, and Holt continued, ‘Have you, by any chance, heard from or seen your son recently, Mrs Scranton?’
Ruth let out a tiny gasp as Mrs Scranton nodded slowly and answered in little more than a whisper, ‘Yes. I saw Vance this morning. How did you know?’