The Daffodil Affair (6 page)

‘And you refused?’

‘Of course I refused. Do you think I want to be taken up? It’s contrary to the provisions of the Act.’

Appleby, if he knew little about horses, had necessarily to know much about the law. And this particular piece of legislative wisdom was new to him. ‘You supposed it was illegal? I hardly think–’

‘It was contrary to the provisions of the Act.’ Mr Gee was obstinate. ‘Twenty pounds for nout is certain sure to be contrary to the provisions of the Act.’ He spoke as if from some depth of mournful experience. ‘I’d have been taken up. What else is the likes of you paid to go about after? Taking people up over the Act.’ Mr Gee’s beaming eye looked very shrewdly at Appleby. ‘Police everywhere,’ he said. ‘Gawd!’

Appleby, feeling the shoe leather thicken under his feet and a shadowy metropolitan helmet hover on his brow, concluded that Mr Gee was a man to reckon with; he contrived to combine a mild mania with an accurate appraisal of men. ‘Well, Mr Gee, we’ll say you felt the thing to be irregular and would have nothing to do with it. And the result was that the horse disappeared. I don’t want to know how or when, for I’ve no doubt at all that has been gone over already. But I want you to tell me something about the horse itself.’

‘About Daffodil?’ Mr Gee’s cheerful face clouded, so that it was logical to suppose he was about to attempt a stroke of humour. ‘Well, I always suspected rareying with Daffodil – though, mind you, it may have been galvayning all the same.’ And Mr Gee stooped down and fondled the ear of the dish-faced dog.

Appleby sat down placidly on a bench. ‘My dear sir, I quite realize that an erudite hippologist like yourself–’

‘’Ere,’ said Mr Gee, ‘civil is civil, I’ll have you know. And none of that language in my yard.’

‘Very well, I’ll say nothing at all.’ Appleby took out a pipe. ‘But I’m staying here until you give me a reasonable account of that horse.’

Mr Gee looked deliberately about him, plainly searching for a particularly ponderous shaft of wit. ‘The trouble about Daffodil,’ he said at length, ‘was always in the carburettor. And for that matter I never cared for his overhead valves.’ And at this Mr Gee laughed so suddenly and loudly that the pily dog rose and took to its heels.

‘Come off it.’ Appleby filled his pipe. ‘A joke’s a joke, Mr Gee. But business is business, after all. And I may tell you I hate the stink of petrol. I mayn’t know about galvayning – but I’d take a cab every time, just the same.’

The effect of this mendacious statement was immediate. Mr Gee sat down on the bench in a most companionable way. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said – and lowered his voice. ‘I never half liked that horse. There were old parties that liked him and would order him regular. They thought him almost ’uman. But if there’s one thing I like less than an almost ’uman dog it’s an almost ’uman horse.’

‘I see. By the way, how did Daffodil come to you in the first place?’

‘I had him of a man.’ Mr Gee spoke at once darkly and vaguely. ‘It would have been at Boroughbridge fair, I reckon.’

‘But you don’t know anything about his previous owner?’

‘I reckon I was told.’ Mr Gee was gloomily silent. ‘I suppose you come from London?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I suppose you’ve heard of the Cities of the Plain? Well, add all the lies was ever told in London, mister, to all the hanky-panky Sodom and Gomorrah ever knew – and that’s a horse fair. So you may take it that anything I was told about Daffodil down Boroughbridge way isn’t what you’d call evidence. I’ve bought horses, man and boy, for forty years. And I shuts my ears and opens my eyes.’

It was clear that on what the dusty man would call the provenance of Daffodil there was little to be discovered. Appleby tried another tack. ‘How was he almost human? Was he particularly intelligent?’

Mr Gee shook his head emphatically. ‘Nowise. I don’t think I ever knew a horse more lacking in – well, in horse sense, if you follow me. And that’s what I said to the police when they first came after him. “The horse was half-witted,” I said, “and if he’s gone I’ll cut my losses.” And now I say it again. For who wants a half-witted, almost human horse?’

Appleby looked in some perplexity at Daffodil’s late owner. Mr Gee seemed to be suggesting the same relation between human and equine intelligence as Swift had expressed in his celebrated fable of the Yahoos. And yet Mr Gee was far from being a person of literary mind – nor did the quality of his humorous sallies suggest a taste for the finer ironies. So Appleby tried again. ‘I find it difficult to picture this animal at all. Just
how
was he almost human?’

Mr Gee looked cautiously round the yard – very much, Appleby recalled, as the dusty man had looked round at the cauldron. ‘He knew his numbers,’ said Mr Gee briefly.

‘How very strange.’ Appleby found it difficult to hide his satisfaction. ‘You mean that if, for instance, you happened to mention a number in Daffodil’s presence he would stop and nod or paw out the sum of the digits involved?’

Mr Gee nodded. ‘You’ve got it. “How much to Starbeck?” a fare would ask Bodfish. “Five bob,” Bodfish would say. And, sure enough, Daffodil would nod five times. Unnatural, I call it.’

‘It sounds,’ suggested Appleby cheerfully, ‘as if Daffodil had once been a horse in a show.’

‘But that’s not all.’ Mr Gee laid a hand on Appleby’s arm. ‘Now, listen,’ he said. ‘Nobody believes in the uncanny nowadays, do they?’

‘Certainly not.’ The proposition was extremely doubtful, Appleby thought; but nevertheless it was judicious to agree.

‘Well, then, can you explain this? Daffodil knew the numbers you was
thinking
of – just as well as the others. Indeed, more accurate he was on them, Bodfish says. It would be like this. Bodfish would be driving someone to John’s Well, say. And “I’ll stick her for three bob,” he’d think to himself. And then Daffodil would pull up and do his three times nod or stamp. When he was driving Daffodil, Bodfish had to keep figures out of his head, he says. Now, what do you think of that?’

Appleby thought it rather less remarkable than the first instance of Daffodil’s powers. But as explaining this would require something like a psychological and physiological treatise, he thought it better to refrain. ‘Mr Gee,’ he parried, ‘did it never occur to you that these peculiar powers made Daffodil an unusually valuable horse? Imagine the thing in a circus. Members of the audience are invited to come up, hold Daffodil by the bridle and think of a number. And then Daffodil taps it out. The trick would make any showman’s fortune.’

‘It so happens,’ said Mr Gee with dignity, ‘that I’m not a showman. But if Daffodil is valuable the way you suggest, then you know something about them in whose hands he was before. They weren’t show people, or they wouldn’t have let him go.’

Appleby got up. ‘Mr Gee, you ought to have taken to my profession.’

‘There’s compliments you can return,’ said Mr Gee, ‘and there’s compliments you can’t.’

What they call a Parthian shot, Appleby said to himself as he made his way back to his hotel. And, as far as this evening was concerned, a
coup de grâce
: beguiling as the affair of Daffodil and the witches appeared, he had seen enough of it for that day.

It was the violet hour, and across the Stray the last bath chairs were striving homewards. Conch-like and creeping, they choicely illustrated in their controlled diversity the beautiful social complexity of England. The coolie element was provided in the main by seedy old persons drawn from various strata of the deserving and undeserving poor; there was an admixture, however, of well-found private menials. These latter, Appleby noticed, tended to push, whereas the seedy old persons pulled. Pulling is more efficient, but its associations are quadrupled and lowering; in pushing alone can a certain dignity and aloofness be preserved. With traction and propulsion the seedy persons and the servants laboured towards their goals: hydropathics and hotels, guest homes, boarding-houses, apartments, lodgings, furnished rooms. And the bath chairs too had their hierarchies and orders; a system less of caste than of class – in which there is always the inspiring possibility of rapid rise and always the less cheerful probability of gradual decline. Here and there an enterprising person had contrived to smarten up his stock in trade; but more commonly these vehicles had come down in the world – the varnish cracked, the wickerwork prickly, the hood peeling, the horsehair and kapok coming out in wisps. And through this scene of struggle moved the haughty aristocracy of the kind; bath chairs, with doors and with elaborate windscreens of wood and glass, so that the occupants, dimly discerned, showed like dingy mezzotints in drear mahogany frames. The bath chairs, spoking outwards like a mechanized column deploying, bore away from the focal baths and pumprooms old women who clutched library novels, ivory sticks, triumphantly tracked packages of chocolate peppermint creams. And on the pavements, politely yielding place, were old men of respectable dress and tenuously maintained bank balances; these exercised dogs; prowled in quest of evening papers, of tobacco; cast ancient professional eyes at the multiform signs that even Harrogate stood to arms. England was carrying on.

And Appleby was hurrying to dine. He would have an early meal and go to a cinema and see something really silly – something silly enough to make Daffodil and Hannah Metcalfe look comparatively sensible when he returned to them in the morning. Certainly no more of them tonight.

‘John,’ called a commanding voice from behind him, ‘come here.’

He turned to face the roadway, and his heart sank at what he saw. It was – it could not be other than – an open landau. Two elderly ladies sat expansively and side by side on the principal seat. Opposite to them, and – although she had a whole side to herself – in a more contracted position, was a female figure in a mouse-coloured hat. And on the box, tightly wrapped in rugs like the young of some savage tribe, perched a fat man with a liquid, a frankly taproom eye.

‘How are you, aunt?’ said Appleby. ‘I was just on my way to call.’

‘No doubt.’ The disbelief of Appleby’s aunt was unoffended and matter of fact. ‘Lady Caroline, let me introduce my nephew, John.’

Lady Caroline bowed. She was in the dilemma of those who must combine dignity with a bad cold; her nose and eyes were uncomfortably reddened and she had apparently chosen clothes to match: this gave her an alarmingly combustible look. ‘Maidment will make room,’ said Lady Caroline commandingly.

‘Miss Maidment,’ said Appleby’s aunt politely, ‘will you make room?’

The mouse-hatted lady contracted herself yet further into a corner and Appleby realized with dismay that he was expected to embark. The landau smelt of horse and dust and eucalyptus; it moved off with a creak.

‘Miss Appleby,’ said Lady Caroline, ‘do not you think that Bodfish had better avoid James Street with that horse?’

‘Miss Maidment,’ said Appleby’s aunt, ‘Lady Caroline thinks that Bodfish had better avoid James Street. The horse.’

Miss Maidment twisted round on her seat. ‘Bodfish,’ she said severely, ‘you had better avoid James Street with that horse.’

Bodfish, without uttering or turning round, put up a hand and raised his hat some inches above his head. Lady Caroline turned an appraising eye on Appleby. ‘We are without confidence in the horse,’ she explained. ‘Particularly Miss Maidment. She had an experience with a horse. When young. Maidment – my bag.’

There was a search for Lady Caroline’s bag. Miss Appleby took no part. But presently she spoke. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘remember how often you find it–’ She broke off and looked meaningfully at Lady Caroline.

‘Bodfish,’ called Miss Maidment sternly, ‘stop.’

The landau was brought to a halt and Lady Caroline prized some inches from her seat. The bag had undoubtedly been beneath her. She got out a handkerchief and blew. The equipage drove on. ‘Mr Appleby,’ said Lady Caroline sternly, ‘you are from London?’

‘Yes. I came down today.’

Lady Caroline blew again. ‘The tubes are congested,’ she said.

‘Yes. But not so badly as they were.’

Lady Caroline frowned. ‘Young man, do I understand that you are a physician?’

‘Lady Caroline,’ explained Appleby’s aunt, ‘refers to her chest.’

‘I beg your pardon.’ Appleby was quite unnerved by this misunderstanding. ‘I’m a policeman. I’ve come about Daffodil.’

‘You are the person’ – Lady Caroline looked at Miss Appleby and coughed – ‘you are the officer whom my brother was to send?’

‘Yes, Lady Caroline.’

‘Dear me. My dear’ – she turned to Miss Appleby – ‘I think Bodfish had better attend.’

‘Miss Maidment, Lady Caroline thinks–’

‘Bodfish,’ said Miss Maidment threateningly, ‘pray pay attention.’

Bodfish raised his hat. The quieter streets of Harrogate ambled past with the jerkiness only experienced in cabs and ill-projected films. Appleby, jolting hip to hip with the Assistant-Commissioner’s sister’s companion, reflected that carriage exercise was not altogether a contradiction in terms. And Lady Caroline, having again blown, leant forward and tapped Appleby on the knee with a decorously gloved hand, ‘I must tell you that I have had more satisfaction from the Cruelty to Animals than from the police.’

‘To the Cruelty to Animals,’ said Miss Appleby, ‘one subscribes.’

‘No doubt. But one pays taxes for the police.’ And Lady Caroline fixed her glance severely on Appleby’s tie, an expensive one from the Burlington Arcade. ‘We support the police.’

‘In a sense,’ said Appleby mildly, ‘the police support your brother. So it evens out.’

Miss Maidment contrived a nervous sound in her throat. And Lady Caroline sat back abruptly. ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘I believe your nephew has something of your own wit. But that he has your sufficient sense of decorum I will not at present venture to add. And now, what I was about to observe. The Cruelty to Animals have been most active. And they have arrived, so far, at the remarkable sum of one hundred and eighty-one pounds.’

Appleby looked perplexed. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

‘They have traced Daffodil through what may be described as a little Odyssey.’ Lady Caroline paused, as if reconsidering the propriety of this word. ‘What may be described,’ she amended, ‘as a veritable Chevy Chase. It appears that in the present posture of our affairs – Bodfish, are you attending?’