The Dancing Horse

by Angus MacVicar

  ‘What about your coffee, sir?’

  ‘I’ll let you know.

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  With a gentle smile the waiter moved off, threading his way past the serried ranks of tables. Donald glanced at the girl and found that she was watching him with a curiously intent expression.

  As their eyes met she leaned towards him and said: ‘Excuse me, are you — are you particularly interested in that picture?’

  ‘I — er — I beg your pardon?’

  ‘“The Dancing Horse”. I saw you looking at it with the proprietor. I thought you might have some special reason.’

  She was probably about twenty-four — at least six years younger than himself. He was surprised that she should have spoken, for there was nothing hard or bold about her. The blue frock and white hat, though fashionable, were not those of a practised woman of the world. In fact, she looked sad and a little lost, and he could have sworn that behind the make-up her eyelids were red with crying.

  He was about to admit that he had a very special reason for his interest in ‘The Dancing Horse’ when a danger signal buzzed in his head. He couldn’t explain it. With her dark hair and fresh oval face this girl seemed to represent nothing dangerous. Yet he couldn’t help noticing the tensity of her body and the way her hands gripped the edge of the table.

  ‘No special reason,’ he said at last. ‘Being a Scot I’m keen on Hetherington’s work.’

  ‘So that’s it,’ She relaxed a little, peeling off white gloves and placing them with her bag on the bench between them. ‘Please forgive me for asking. I — er — happen to like his paintings, too.’

  It was a firm basis for further talk. She ordered an omelette, and when this had been disposed of they shared Donald’s postponed coffee.

  ‘It’s really too kind of you,’ she said, in her quiet and serious manner, ‘especially as I was rather forward, as my mother used to say.’

  ‘So you’re from Scotland, too?’

  ‘No. I was born here — in London. Though my parents came from Glasgow. My name’s Janet Marshall.’

  ‘Mine’s Grant. Donald Grant. Smoke?’

  She accepted a cigarette and he lit it for her. ‘I was feeling a wee bit lonely this evening,’ she said. ‘Don’t think I make a habit of this!’

  ‘Of course not. Excuse me saying it, but you don’t look the type — not in the least.’

  Pier anxious solemnity was transformed by a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m old enough to accept that as a compliment. By the way, are you an expert on pictures?’

  ‘Hardly!’

  She looked across at ‘The Dancing Horse’, then down at her cup. She sighed, perceptibly. ‘I wish I knew where Sorley Hetherington painted that one.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, Spike Maguire’s just told me.’ The danger signal was no longer so insistent. ‘It’s a landscape at the Mull of Kintyre.’

  For a moment she seemed to hold her breath, and Donald was surprised to see a flicker of satisfaction in her brown eyes. But the moment passed, and his surprise was submerged in the pleasure he found in her company.

  ‘Kintyre! I see,’ she said. And soon she was chatting again in as friendly a way as ever, describing her work with a firm which published reference books. There was a frankness in her talk which made companionship easy; but sometimes Donald suspected that her main thoughts were elsewhere — thoughts which might be both nervous and sad.

  When second cigarettes were alight, he said: ‘Have you been to Scotland recently?’

  ‘Not for ages. Our holidays never seemed to fit in. And anyway, they were always much too short.’

  He nodded. ‘That’s always the trouble about holidays.’ But though he gave no outward sign, his interest had focused on the personal pronoun. ‘Our’ holidays? It had slipped out casually, as if the intimate setting of their talk had momentarily undermined her defences.

  If so, however, she repaired the breach at once by returning to the subject of her job. His curiosity lost itself in a prosaic discussion on printing and the vagaries of printers.

  It was almost eleven when they left the Minotaur. On the busy pavement outside he offered to find a cab to take her home.

  She shook her head, smiling up at him with a curious wistfulness. ‘No, thank you. My place isn’t so very far away.’

  ‘It’s late, you know. Plenty of people here in Greek Street, but in other parts of Soho — ’

  ‘Don’t worry, I can look after myself.’ She spoke with confidence and a certain amount of authority, but he had the impression that she was reluctant to say good night — not because she hated losing his company, of course, but for another reason he couldn’t understand. Suddenly she added: ‘You’re Donald Grant of the Echo, aren’t you?’

  He admitted it.

  ‘I should have known! That shock of red hair, and the big nose with the kink in it. I’ve seen your picture often, at the head of the sports column you write.’

  ‘Miss Marshall,’ he smiled, ‘my hair is as God made it, but blame my nose on a character called Cumberland Ned. He struck it with his elbow in the course of a wrestling match at Braemar.’

  ‘So you’re an athlete?’

  ‘I did tour the Highland Games — in my chequered youth. Now I’m reduced to being tough only in print.’

  ‘I see. Mr. Grant — I wish I could — ’

  She hesitated, her face momentarily bright and eager. Some statement — some admission, perhaps — appeared to be on the point of spilling over. He wanted to blurt out: ‘Go on, tell me what’s in your mind!’ But naturally he didn’t. All he said was: ‘Yes?’

  That small word, however, broke the spell. Her expression once more became withdrawn. ‘I’m sorry,’ she answered. ‘It’s nothing, really. That coffee must have made me light-headed!’

  ‘If there’s anything you want me to do — ’

  ‘Not a thing. Honestly. Are you going home now?’

  ‘No. I think I’ll drop in at the office first — to see the News Editor, Are you sure you don’t want a cab?’

  ‘Quite sure, thank you. And good night, Mr. Grant. I did enjoy the coffee — and our chat.’

  ‘Good night, Miss Marshall. Safe home.’

  Then she was gone, neat high heels flickering in the lights as she mingled with the crowd.

  FOUR

  Donald went to the office and had a chat with Bulldog, who always came in to check the final front-page proof. The News Editor was definitely interested in the events which had taken place in the Minotaur. Satisfied growls rumbled from his throat, and Miss Kelly, had she been present, would have been surprised by the quality and frequency of his smiles.

  At about three o’clock in the morning, when the technical process of launching the main edition was complete, he and Donald left the palace of plate-glass and took a short-cut to High Holborn by way of Towser Lane.

  As they turned into the dark alley Bulldog hunched his shoulders. ‘Thank heaven we got the paper to bed in time for once! Sometimes I think I’m getting too old for it!’

  Their footsteps echoed on the cobbles and among the garbage cans. Donald grinned. ‘Except,’ he said, ‘when your clever young men pick up interesting clues like — ’

  ‘Clever!’ barked Bulldog, seldom slow to annihilate smugness. ‘Clever, my foot! I put you on to the Minotaur. I put you on to ‘The Dancing Horse’. Then you let that girl go without so much as a single question!’

  ‘I told you, Janet Marshall has nothing to do with it. She’s simply an admirer of Hetherington’s work.’

  ‘Humph! Maybe. But she had something on her mind.’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’

  ‘She wanted to know about “The Dancing Horse”. The original mountain. She wanted to know where it is, and she got it out of you with the skill of a Mata Hari!’

  ‘You should write for the films!’

  ‘And why not?

  ‘Why not, indeed
! But I still say there’s nothing sinister about Janet Marshall. She has a personal problem. All right. She’s interested in “The Dancing Horse”. All right. Maybe she’s homesick.’

  ‘Maybe she’s my granny’s step-mother!’ Bulldog grinned suddenly in appreciation of his own verbal extravagance. His suspicious mind flew up from its former roost and alighted again on their present surroundings. ‘Dammit,’ he growled, ‘how damp and dismal it is in here!’

  Donald was accustomed to this kind of mental agility on the part of his boss. He said: ‘How right you are! And the smell gets worse every time.’

  Both of them had often used Towser Lane in the dark hours of early morning. That danger might lurk in its noisome recesses had never before crossed their minds. But now, as they reached a spot about half-way along it — where a small yellow van stood parked tight against a blank doorway — each had an instinct that something was about to happen. And yet the alley appeared to be completely empty. High windows in the brick walls were shut and silent. In the distance, on brightly lit New Oxford Street, occasional traffic went by; but the sound of it was only a faint whisper in the night.

  They stopped for a second or two, glancing about them like housing inspectors. Damp crawled on the brick surfaces, oozing out of small green patches of moss. Dark openings at pavement level gave no clue as to what they concealed. Warehouses, surmised Donald, glimpsing remnants of straw among the cobbles. By day a busy rendezvous of lorries loading and unloading, with straw and cockney badinage flying in the eddying breeze, with the smell of decay concealed by petrol fumes and the odour of cardboard packaging. By night a place of threat and mystery, like a set-piece in a TV thriller.

  ‘Odd how night changes one’s mood,’ he said, carefully lowering his voice.

  ‘Aye. An empty stomach does the same,’ replied Bulldog, heavily. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  As they resumed their walk, neither prepared to admit uneasiness to the other, there was a sudden sound at their heels. They whirled round, like robots triggered by the same spring. Two men were trailing them, one with a flick-knife in his hand. They turned again, to make a run for it; but as they did so, two shadows materialized from behind the yellow van, cutting them off.

  Slowly the newcomers moved in from both sides, like native lion hunters. Bulldog remained surprisingly calm.

  ‘Maybe this is a moment when your brawn and my brain may come in handy,’ he remarked. ‘Look — we could try and break through to High Holborn. Take them by surprise. What d’you think?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come on, then!’

  Donald was amazed by the willingness for action shown by his boss. Bulldog was coming on for sixty. Only a few minutes ago he had been complaining that he was tired and too old for night work. Now he had found an unexpected source of energy. Shoulders hunched, head down like an angry bull, he rushed at the two shadows which blocked their way to New Oxford Street. His lurid invectives echoed up from the damp brickwork.

  A split second later Donald, too, joined in the fight, and it became obvious at once that it was to be a fight for life. In those few hectic minutes he was thankful for his early training as a wrestler, and for the commando course incorporated in his army service. An untrained citizen would have been overwhelmed in the first five seconds.

  Bulldog was exchanging blows with a small man wearing a black neck-tie; but the small man’s companion was bulkier and had a knife. With surprising speed he came weaving forward, unshaven face a mask of hungry cruelty. At the last moment, however, Donald leaped quickly to one side. Then, ignoring finesse, he swung his foot and kicked his adversary in the stomach. A look of utter astonishment crossed the others pasty face. As the knife twanged loose against a wall he uttered a groan and fell in the gutter, where he became violently and disgustingly sick.

  Before Donald could take advantage of the situation enemy reinforcements arrived from behind — the two men whose presence they had first detected.

  Bulldog was still engaging the individual with the neck-tie, so Donald had to act quickly, even as another metal blade gleamed in front of his eyes. He got inside the sweep of the knife and dealt its owner a short, sharp uppercut. The knife tinkled to the cobbles. So did the man, mouth open, partially unconscious. Blood poured from the hand that had held the knife.

  But the fourth attacker was still on his feet, a man with black curling hair and black velveteen facings on the lapels of his padded jacket. He swung what seemed to be a long spanner, and it struck Donald on the upper part of the left arm. The pain was swift and biting, but luckily the arm continued to function. He put his head down and butted his opponent in the chest, feeling a swift, hard pain as a button rasped his forehead. Padded Jacket stumbled and dropped the spanner, but he recovered balance almost immediately and came fighting back.

  Dazed and angry, Donald found that as a boxer he was outclassed. He took a risk, therefore. He jumped in and caught the others flailing right arm. Then he knelt on the slippery cobbles and gave him a ‘flying mare’ across his shoulders. The unfortunate spanner wielder rose into the air like a limp film-dummy, then thudded down and lay still.

  By this time the man with the neck-tie was lying on his back, befuddled and in considerable pain. Bulldog was standing above him, bellowing triumphant threats. But the other two were stirring, and in the circumstances discretion was decidedly the better part of valour.

  ‘Come on, boss!’ exclaimed Donald, and, for a wonder the boss obeyed. As fast as their legs could carry them, they sprinted for New Oxford Street, slipping at times and recovering, their muscles hard with the tension of fear.

  When they reached the lights and the comforting hospitality of a thoroughfare that was still stirring, Donald found himself in a boil of sweat. Bulldog resembled a stout and rather dishevelled hart panting for a water-brook. But in a way he looked younger than usual.

  We made it!’ he gasped, leaning gratefully against a lamp-standard.

  ‘Only just! By golly, that was short and sweet!’

  The News Editor took out a large white handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘Dammit,’ he said, in a tone of deep grievance, ‘they meant to murder us!’

  ‘They certainly did. Are you all right, by the way?’

  ‘More or less. Phew! That was a fine flying mare you finished it off with!’ Suddenly he noticed something and straightened up. ‘Donald, boy,’ he exclaimed, ‘your forehead’s all blood!

  ‘Doesn’t belong to me. One of the chaps got cut with his own knife and it spurted over me.’

  ‘Let me wipe it off. By God, if they’ve wounded you — ’

  ‘Don’t fuss! interrupted Donald, embarrassed by such unusual solicitude. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘H’m.’ Finding nothing beneath the blood, Bulldog was suddenly embarrassed himself. ‘The thing is,’ he growled defensively, ‘I was worried you might claim compensation from the paper.’

  ‘I see. Never thought of that.’

  ‘You never think of anything, as far as I can make out.’ A fish-lorry rattled past, and he looked back into the dark depths of Towser Lane. ‘They don’t seem to be following us,’ he said, abruptly changing the subject.

  ‘They wouldn’t dare attack us here, under the lights.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  They waited. In the alley a motor started up, followed by a grinding of gears. Donald caught a glimpse of yellow receding and fading with the sound of a van’s engine. He said: ‘They’ve gone, I think.’

  Bulldog nodded. ‘That’s a relief!’ He straightened his tie, brushed a hand over the lapels of his coat. He said: ‘Look, you live around this area, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. In David Street.’

  ‘Right. That’s where we’re going now. You owe me a drink!’

  A helmeted constable, slow moving as a champion golfer, paced stoutly along the opposite pavement. But they had no thought of reporting their experience. This story — however it might turn out — bel
onged to the Echo, not to the police. The attack on their persons might or might not have a connexion with the scrap of paper in a dead man’s pocket. If it hadn’t — well, they had suffered little harm, and there would be no point in triggering off a fussy police inquiry. If it had, then it was evidence that as a result of Donald’s investigations things were beginning to move, and it would be fatal to put a brake on their momentum by asking for official help. This conclusion they arrived at without words. In the nature of their business it was inevitable.

  ‘Very well,’ answered Donald. ‘I could be doing with a drink myself. There’s a half-bottle of Glenfroig in the cupboard.’

  ‘Good! Now you’re talking!’ Bulldog patted his shoulder, and they set off across the street.

  Donald’s digs consisted of a sitting-room and bedroom in a second-storey flat belonging to a vicar’s widow. She would have disapproved of him had he made a habit of bringing in loud-voiced friends at all hours of the night; but Donald, in spite of a sophisticated line with his colleagues, was a singularly quiet and sober-living young man. In other words, he was an ideal lodger. When Mrs. Vintage heard him come in that morning, accompanied by a heavy-footed male companion, it caused her not a moment’s anxiety. She turned over and went to sleep again, secure in the knowledge that her Mr. Grant would never let down the prized respectability of her establishment. It was fortunate that she never saw the state of his clothes or the blood on Bulldog’s handkerchief.

  When they had washed, the two men sat down thankfully to drain their whisky glasses. That done, the News Editor leaned back in his chair.

  ‘A life-saver,’ he sighed, adding quietly: ‘What price your girl-friend now?’

  Frowning, Donald put down his glass. ‘What d’you mean?’ he said.

  Bulldog was never impressed by truculence other than his own. ‘You told her you were going to the office,’ he explained. ‘Could be she set those thugs on us.’

  ‘Janet Marshall? Not on your life!’

  His boss smiled, sombrely. ‘You’re twenty-eight. I’m nearly sixty. At my age you see girls in proper perspective.’