safekeepingâthatâs a bit of a laughâin case he was killed in a car crash, or something like that.â
âLike a steeplechase?â
âHe didnât expect it.â
Catherine Doddâs detective mind trod the two paths Iâd reluctantly followed myself since Norman Osprey and his Elvis sideburns had appeared on my horizon. First, someone knew Martinâs 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 Iâd watched that tape during the evening of Martinâs death, and for safety had wiped it off.
I hadnât 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.
âIf Iâd had a tape player handy,â I said, âI probably would have run that tape through early in the evening, and if I thought it awful I might have wiped it off.â
âThatâs not what your friend Martin wanted.â
After a brief silence I said, âIf heâd been sure of what he wanted he wouldnât have fiddled about with tapes, he would just have told me this precious secret.â I stopped abruptly. âThere are too many ifs. How about you coming out for a drink?â
âCanât. Sorry. Iâm on duty.â She gave me a brilliant smile. âIâll call in another day. And oh! Thereâs just one loose end.â She produced the ever essential notebook from inside her jacket. âWhat are your assistantsâ names?â
âPamela Jane Evans and John Irish and John Hickory. We leave off John for the men and use their last names, as itâs easier.â
âWhich is the elder?â
âIrish. Heâs about ten years older than both Hickory and Pamela Jane.â
âAnd how long have they all worked for you?â
âPamela Jane about a year, Irish and Hickory two to three months longer. Theyâre all good guys, believe me.â
âI do believe you. This is just for the records. This is actually ... er ... what I dropped in for.â
I looked at her straightly. She all but blushed.
âIâd better go now,â she said.
With regret I walked with her as far as the door, where she paused to say good-bye as she didnât 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 groupâs 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-Bonâs telephone, the night before Martinâs funeral, I learned from the Dragon herself that Lloyd Baxter had deemed it correct to fly down for âhis jockeyâs last rideâ (as he put it) but hadnât wanted to stay with Priam Jones, whom he was on the point of ditching as his trainer. The Dragon chuckled and went on mischievously, âYou didnât have to go all that way to stay with Bon-Bon Stukely, if you didnât fancy sleeping in your burgled house, lover boy. You could have stayed here with me.â
âNews gets around,â I said dryly.
âYouâre always news in this town, lover, didnât you know?â
In truth I did know it, but I didnât feel it.
On the evening before Martinâs 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 familyâs social skills.
Priam blustered on a bit, but was, I