10 lb Penalty by Dick Francis Page A

that someone is violently seeking to put paid to my campaign, if not to my life. Dearest Polly, tell him I’ll take my chances and I don’t want him ever again to risk his own neck to preserve mine.”
    “Dearest Polly,” I said—and she smiled vividly with sweetness—“this is the only father I’m ever likely to have. Persuade him to give me a real job in this election. Persuade him he needs a full-time bodyguard. Persuade him to let me try to keep him safe.”
    “I don’t need a bodyguard,” he insisted. “I need you to be a social asset. Isobel Bethune is useless to Paul, but you have this extraordinary gift—which I admit I didn’t expect—of getting people to talk to you. Look at Isobel Bethune! Look at Crystal Harley! I haven’t got a word out of her and she chatters away to you. Look at Mrs. Kitchens, pouring information into your ears.”
    Polly nodded, smiling. “You’re so young, you’re no threat to anyone. They all need to talk, and you’re safe.”
    I said pensively, “How about Orinda? She turned her back on me at the dinner and wouldn’t say a word.”
    Polly clapped her hands together with laughter. “I’ll give you Orinda. I’ll manage it again.”
    “But alone,” I said. “I could talk to her if she was alone, but the Anonymous Lover never leaves her side.”
    “Who?”
    “A. L. Wyvern.”
    “Anonymous Lover!” Polly exclaimed. “Enchanting. His name’s really Alderney, I think. He plays golf. He used to play golf with Dennis.”
    She moved around smoothly, at home in the office, sorting out mugs and making coffee. I couldn’t guess her age nearer than ten years: somewhere between forty or fifty, I thought, but knew I could be wrong. She was again wearing the inappropriate crimson lipstick, this time with a green jacket over a long skirt of brownish tweed: heavy for August. Somehow, with the opaque stockings and “sensible” shoes, one would have expected her to be clumsy, but she was paradoxically graceful, as if she had once been a dancer. She had no rings on her long capable fingers and for jewelry relied on a single strand of maidenly pearls.
    One could have felt sorry for Polly at first sight, I thought, but that would have been a great mistake. She had an inner certainty to go with the goodness. She carried the fuddy-duddy clothes without self consciousness. She was—I fished for the word—serene.
    She said, pouring hot water onto instant-coffee granules, “I don’t see any harm in Benedict appointing himself officially to look after you. After all, he hasn’t done a bad job so far. Mervyn grumbled all over the Town Hall tonight about having to find a lockup garage because Benedict wanted one. He says he doesn’t like Benedict giving him orders.”
    “It was a suggestion, not an order,” my father said.
    “It felt like an order to Mervyn, therefore to him it was an order. Mervyn resents Benedict’s influence over you. Mervyn likes to be in charge.”
    “Ben’s only been here two days,” my father protested.
    Polly smiled. “Ten minutes was probably enough. You’re a brilliant politician on a grand scale, George, but it’s your son who sees into individual minds.”
    My father looked at me thoughtfully.
    “He’s good at it now,” Polly said, “and he’s not yet eighteen. Just wait ten years or so. You brought him here to give yourself social credibility, proving you had a son, you weren’t a bachelor, confirmed or otherwise, and you’ve found an asset you didn’t expect, so use him, George.”
    She stirred the mugs of coffee and distributed it black. My father absentmindedly fished a small container out of a pocket and tapped a sweetener into his drink.
    “George?” Polly prompted.
    He opened his mouth to answer but before he could speak the telephone rang, and as I was nearest I picked up the receiver.
    “Juliard?” a voice said.
    “Benedict. Do you want my father? He’s here.”
    “No. You’ll do. Do you know who you’re talking