“I simply adore Canada! What I’ve seen, that’s to say. Which isn’t the whole thing, of course. Really only Toronto and the Royal Winter Fair. I’m going to try for a stop-over in Montreal on my way home—try out my French, you know—but I mayn’t be able to spare the time. Must get back to my stud, you see. So much to be done at this time of year.”

“I’m glad you approve of us,” said Darcourt. “Now, about your father—”

“Oh, yes. Daddy. That’s what we’re here to talk about, isn’t it? That’s the reason for this lovely lunch in this absolutely super restaurant. Because you’re writing about him, aren’t you? I scribble a little myself, you know. Pony stories for children. They sell a few hundred thousand, to my surprise. But just before we get onto Daddy, there’s one thing—rather hush-hush, but I know you’re discreet—that I think isn’t just the way it should be in Canada, and unless something is done before it goes too far it could let you down fearfully. I mean, it could bring about a drop in world prestige.”

Ah, politics, thought Darcourt. Politics, which rages like the hectic in the veins of every Canadian, and quickly infects visitors—even Little Charlie, otherwise Miss Charlotte Cornish, who sat before him digging into the poached salmon.

“And what is that?” he asked, without wanting to know.

Little Charlie leaned forward conspiratorially, a loaded fork poised like a wand in her hand; there was a flake of salmon clinging to her lower lip.

“It’s your farriery,” she whispered. The flake was detached by the whisper and sped across the table toward Darcourt’s plate. She was the sort of woman who combines acceptable table manners with obvious greed; the lapels of her excellent tweed jacket carried evidence of hasty, joyous gobbling.

“Farriery?” he said, puzzled. Had Canada’s farriery gone to pot, and he had not noticed? Had the word some significance unknown to him?

“Don’t imagine I’m faulting your vets,” said Little Charlie. “First-class, so far as I can judge. But it’s the degree below the vet; the farrier groom who is the real companion and confidant of the pony. The vet is there for the big stuff, of course: colic, and farcy, and strangles and all those dreadful things that can ruin a fine creature. But it’s the farrier who gives the hot mash when the beastie is a wee bit sicky-pussy from a chill, or a tumble. It’s the farrier who pets and comforts when things haven’t gone just the way the beastie would like at a show. I call the farrier the pony’s nurse. In fact, in my stud I have this most wonderful girl—well, she must be my age, but she’s a girl to me—her name’s Stella, but I always call her Nursie, and believe you me she lives up to her name. I’d trust Stella far beyond most vets, let me tell you.”

“How lucky you are to have her,” said Darcourt. “Now, about the late Francis Cornish, I suppose you have some memories of him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Little Charlie. “But just a moment; I want to tell you something that happened yesterday. I was judging—head of the judges, really—and the most exquisite little Shetland stallion was brought in. A real winner! Eyes bright and well spaced; fine muzzle and big nostrils, deep chest and splendid withers, marvellous croup—a perfect picture! I tell you, I’d have bought him, if I could raise the cash. Won’t tell you his name, because I don’t want this to get around—though of course I trust you—and at his head was this groom, not a bit the kind of fellow you’d expect to see with such a little sweetie, and when the pony tossed his head—as they’ll do, you know, because they know they’re being judged, and they have pride—he jerked the bridle and said, ‘Hold still, damn you,’ under his breath! But I heard, and I tell you my heart went out to that little creature. ‘Are you the farrier?’ I said to him—not sharply, but firmly—and he said, ‘Yeah, I look after him,’ almost insolently. And I thought, well, I’ve seen quite a lot of that this last few days, and it sickens me. Then he jerked the bridle again and the pony nipped him! And he hit the pony on the nose! Well, of course that was that as far as judging goes. Show me a biter and I’ll show you a potential bolter and probably a jibber. And all because of that brute of a groom!”

“Distressing, certainly,” said Darcourt. They were moving on toward strawberry shortcake, made with tasteless imported strawberries, but that was what Little Charlie wanted, and Darcourt was trying to prime the pump of her memory. “Was your father fond of animals, do you recall?”

“Couldn’t say,” said Little Charlie, busy with her spoon. “It was pretty much all King and Country with him, as I was told it. But don’t imagine that because I said I might have bought that stallion I’m really keen on Shetlands. Of course they sell well to people with children, because they look so sweet. But they’re a deceiving kind of pony, you know. Such a short step. Keep a child too long on a Shetland and you may have spoiled her forever as a rider. What she needs as soon as she’s big enough is a good Welsh, with a strain of Arab. They’re the ones with style and action! They’re my bread-and-butter. Not for polo, mind you. There it’s Exmoor and Dartmoor, and I breed a lot of those. In fact—this is telling tales out of school but what the hell!—I sold an Exmoor stallion to His Royal Highnesss stable a couple of years ago, and HRH said—I was told this very much in confidence—he’d never seen a finer little stallion.”

“I won’t tell a soul. Now, about your father—”

“He was a four-year-old and just coming into his best. For Gods sake, I said to HRH’s man, don’t push him too hard. Give him time and he’ll get you twenty-five to forty first-class foals every year until he s twenty. But if you push him now—Well, you’ll never believe this, but I’ve seen a fine stallion forced to serve as many as three hundred mares a season, and after five years he’s just plain knackered! Like people. Quality, not quantity, is the root of the whole thing. Of course they can soldier on. They’re wonderfully willing, you know. But its the sperm. The sperm count in an overworked stallion goes down and down, and though he may look like Don Juan he’s just Weary Willie. As Stella says—she’s very broad-spoken, sometimes—his willy is willing but the trollybobs are weak. So that’s it. Never, never be greedy with your stallion!”

“I promise you I never will. But now I really think we ought to talk about your father.”

“Of course. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The ruling passion. I do rattle on. Stella says so. Well, as to Daddy, I never saw him.”

“Never?”

“Not to remember. I suppose he saw me, when I was a tiny. But not after I’d begun to notice. But he cared for me. That’s to say he sent money regularly to look after me, and all the farriery was left to my grandmother. Prudence Glasson, you know. The whole gang were related, in various distant degrees. You see, my mummy was Ismay Glasson, and her father was Roderick Glasson, who was kin to Daddy from another point of the compass. I wouldn’t have bred them that way if it had been my stud, but that’s all past and done with. My very first pony, when I was four—a sweet Shetland—had a ticket on his bridle, ‘For Little Charlie from Daddy’.”

“You remember your mother, of course?”

“No, not a bit. You see—this is the family skeleton—Mummy was a bolter. Not long after I was born she just took off, and left me to Daddy and my grandparents. Mind you, I think she was a sort of high-minded bolter; she went to Spain to fight in the war and I always assumed she was killed there, but nobody ever gave me any details. She was by way of being a beauty, but from pictures I’d say she was a bit overbred; nervous and high-strung, and likely to bite, and bolt, and jib, and do all those things.”