Many doors, it seemed, were open to determined earls.

"And finally," he added, with a lop-sided smile, 'the bar keeper of the Golden Platypus in Perlooma says he'd trust you with his sister, in spite of your good looks. "

"And what were your conclusions, after all that?" I asked, my resentment a little better under control.

"That you are a dull, laborious prig," he said pleasantly.

I relaxed at that, and laughed, and sat down.

"Quite right," I agreed.

"On the other hand, everyone says you do keep on with something once you start it, and you are used to hard physical work. You know so much about horses that you could do a stable lad's job with your eyes shut standing on your head."

"The whole idea is screwy," I said, sighing.

"It wouldn't work, not with me, or Arthur Simmons, or anybody. It just isn't feasible. There are hundreds of training stables in Britain, aren't there? You could live in them for months and hear nothing, while the dopers got strenuously to work all around you."

He shook his head.

"I don't think so. There are surprisingly few dishonest lads, far fewer than you or most people would imagine. A lad known to be corruptible would attract all sorts of crooks like an unguarded gold mine All our man would have to do would be to make sure that the word was well spread that he was open to offers. He'd get them, no doubt of it."

"But would he get the ones you want? I very much doubt it."

"To me it seems a good enough chance to be worth taking. Frankly, any chance is worth taking, the way things are. We have tried everything else. And we have failed. We have failed in spite of exhaustive questioning of everyone connected with the affected horses. The police say they cannot help us. As we cannot analyse the drug being used, we can give them nothing to work on. We employed a firm of private investigators. They got nowhere at all.