'Now then,' he put down the pen, 'what is all this about?'

'I don't know what it's about,' I said, 'but this is what happened.' I told him the whole thing. He listened without interrupting, then he said, 'What made you even begin to suspect that this was not a normal fall?'

'Admiral is the safest jumper there is. He's surefooted, like a cat. He doesn't make mistakes.'

But I could see from his politely surprised expression that he knew little, if anything, about steeplechasing, and thought that one horse was as likely to fall as another.

I tried again. 'Admiral is brilliant over fences. He would never fall like that, going into an easy fence in his own time, not being pressed. He took off perfectly. I saw him. That fall was unnatural. It looked to me as though something had been used to bring him down. I thought it might be wire, and I went back to look and it was. That's all.'

'Hm. Was the horse likely to win?' asked Lodge.

'Certain,' I said.

'And who did win?'

'I did,' I said.

Lodge paused, and bit the end of his pen.

'How do the racecourse attendants get their jobs?' he asked.

'I don't really know. They are casual staff, taken on for the meeting, I think,' I said.

'Why would a racecourse attendant wish to harm Major Davidson?' He said this naively, and I looked at him sharply.

'Do you think I have made it all up?' I asked.

'No.' He sighed. 'I suppose I don't. Perhaps I should have said, how difficult would it be for someone who wished to harm Major Davidson to get taken on as a racecourse attendant?'

'Easy,' I said.

'We'll have to find out.' He reflected. 'It's a very chancy way to murder a man.'

'Whoever planned it can't have meant to kill him,' I said flatly.

'Why not?'

'Because it was so unlikely that he would die. I should think it was simply meant to stop him winning.'