Shattered by Dick Francis Read Free Book Online Page B

safekeeping—that’s a bit of a laugh—in case he was killed in a car crash, or something like that.”
    â€œLike a steeplechase?”
    â€œHe didn’t expect it.”
    Catherine Dodd’s detective mind trod the two paths I’d reluctantly followed myself since Norman Osprey and his Elvis sideburns had appeared on my horizon. First, someone knew Martin’s secret, and second, someone, and maybe not the same someone, could infer that, one way or another, that secret was known to me. Someone might suppose I’d watched that tape during the evening of Martin’s death, and for safety had wiped it off.
    I hadn’t had a tape player on the Logan Glass premises, but the Dragon over the road made one available generously to the paying guests, and she distributed brochures by the hundred advertising this.
    â€œIf I’d had a tape player handy,” I said, “I probably would have run that tape through early in the evening, and if I thought it awful I might have wiped it off.”
    â€œThat’s not what your friend Martin wanted.”
    After a brief silence I said, “If he’d been sure of what he wanted he wouldn’t have fiddled about with tapes, he would just have told me this precious secret.” I stopped abruptly. “There are too many ifs. How about you coming out for a drink?”
    â€œCan’t. Sorry. I’m on duty.” She gave me a brilliant smile. “I’ll call in another day. And oh! There’s just one loose end.” She produced the ever essential notebook from inside her jacket. “What are your assistants’ names?”
    â€œPamela Jane Evans and John Irish and John Hickory. We leave off John for the men and use their last names, as it’s easier.”
    â€œWhich is the elder?”
    â€œIrish. He’s about ten years older than both Hickory and Pamela Jane.”
    â€œAnd how long have they all worked for you?”
    â€œPamela Jane about a year, Irish and Hickory two to three months longer. They’re all good guys, believe me.”
    â€œI do believe you. This is just for the records. This is actually ... er ... what I dropped in for.”
    I looked at her straightly. She all but blushed.
    â€œI’d better go now,” she said.
    With regret I walked with her as far as the door, where she paused to say good-bye as she didn’t want to be seen with me too familiarly out in the street. She left, in fact, in the bunch of winter tourists, all of them overshadowed by the loud voice of a big man who judged the whole afternoon a waste of time and complained about it all the way back to the group’s warm tour bus. His broad back obscured my view of the departure of Detective Constable Dodd, and I surprised myself by minding about that quite a lot.
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    On Bon-Bon’s telephone, the night before Martin’s funeral, I learned from the Dragon herself that Lloyd Baxter had deemed it correct to fly down for “his jockey’s last ride” (as he put it) but hadn’t wanted to stay with Priam Jones, whom he was on the point of ditching as his trainer. The Dragon chuckled and went on mischievously, “You didn’t have to go all that way to stay with Bon-Bon Stukely, if you didn’t fancy sleeping in your burgled house, lover boy. You could have stayed here with me.”
    â€œNews gets around,” I said dryly.
    â€œYou’re always news in this town, lover, didn’t you know?”
    In truth I did know it, but I didn’t feel it.
    On the evening before Martin’s funeral Priam Jones telephoned, meaning to talk to Bon-Bon, but reaching me instead. I had been fielding commiserations for her whenever I was around. Marigold, Worthington and even the children had grown expert at thanks and tact. I thought how Martin would have grinned at the all-around grade-A improvement in his family’s social skills.
    Priam blustered on a bit, but was, I