To the Hilt by Dick Francis Page A

briefly, that money’s gone too.”
    “It sounds hopeless. ”
    “I’ve known worse.”
    “And what about the King Alfred Cup?”
    “Ah.” He concentrated on his teeth. “You might ask Sir Ivan where it is.”
    “At Cheltenham,” I said, puzzled. “They run it at Cheltenham a month on Saturday.”
    “Ah,” he said again. “You’re talking about the race. ”
    “Yes. What else?”
    “The Cup itself,” he said earnestly. “The King Alfred Gold Cup. The chalice. Medieval, I believe.”
    I rubbed a hand over my face. Bruises were catching up.
    “It’s extremely valuable,” Tobias said. “Sir Ivan should really consider selling it to offset some of the debt. But there is some doubt as to whether it belongs to the brewery or to Sir Ivan personally and... I say,” he broke off, “are you feeling all right?”
    “Yes.”
    “You don’t look it. Would you like some coffee?”
    “Very much.”
    He bustled about, organizing what turned out to be tea.
    I took another of Keith Robbiston’s pills and slowly stopped sweating. The tea was fine. I smiled feebly to allay Tobias’s kind concern and explained I’d traveled all night on the train, which seemed to him reason enough for faintness in the afternoon, even without the rainbowed eye.
    “Actually,” I said, getting a better grip on things, “I was wondering about the race itself, not the trophy. The race is part of the brewery’s prestige. A sign of its success. Would... er... would the creditors agree to go ahead on the basis of keeping up public confidence in the brewery, even though the prize money will have to be found, and also the money for an entertaining tent and lunch and drinks for maybe a hundred guests? It’s the brewery’s best advertisement, that race. Canceling it now, at this late stage, when the entries are already in, would send a massive message to all and sundry that the company’s in a shaky state... and there’s nothing like an ill wind for blowing a dicky house to rubble.”
    He gazed at me. “You’ll need to say all that to the committee.”
    “She . . . your insolvency angel, couldn’t she say it?” His gaze wandered over my hair and down to my paint-marked jeans, and I could see him think that the race had a better chance of survival with a more conventional advocate.
    “You’ll need to convince her.” He smiled briefly. “You’ve convinced me. ” He paused. “Incidentally, among the brewery’s possible assets there is a racehorse. That’s to say, it’s unclear again whether it belongs to the brewery or to Sir Ivan himself. I’d be glad if you could clarify it.”
    “I?”
    “You are in total charge. Your comprehensive powers of attorney make that unquestionably clear.”
    “Oh.”
    “Sir Ivan must have absolute faith in you.”
    “In spite of how I look?”
    “Well...” He gave me suddenly a broad grin. “Since you mention it, yes.”
    “I’m a painter,” I explained, “and I look like one. You don’t find droves of painters in pinstripes.”
    “I suppose not.”
    I drank a second cup of tea and asked idly, “What is the name of the horse?”
    “How do you hide a horse, Alexander... ?”
    Hide a horse. Ye gods.
    “It’s called Golden Malt,” Tobias said.
    Yesterday morning, I thought morosely, I was leading the peaceful if eccentric life of a chronicler of the equally eccentric compulsion to hit a small white ball a furlong or two and tap it over lovingly landscaped grass until it drops into a small round hole. Yesterday morning’s sensible madness now lay the other side of a violent robbery, an aching body, an edge-of-the-grave stepfather, his ordeal by domesticity and his shift onto my shoulders of ever-expanding troubles.
    Ivan, I saw, wanted me to keep his horse hidden away from the clutches of bankruptcy. Ivan had given me the legal right to commit an illegal act.
    “What are you thinking?” Tobias asked.
    “Um ... um... How is the brewery going to pay its workers this