Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 25, No. 3, March 26, 1980

Silver Spectre by Jon L. Breen

Everyone in the racing world hated Stu Gallon...

Want to hear a ghost story? Come on, listen to this. The next drink’s on me. You don’t like ghost stories? Well, call it a detective story then, with yours truly as detective. I can’t prove I was a detective, but then nobody can prove there was a ghost either. You don’t like detective stories? Well, it’s also a racing story — and I know you like racing, because you have today’s program from Santa Anita sticking out of your jacket pocket. Pretty good, huh? I told you I was a detective.

I heard this story years ago, in a bar. It wasn’t a sleazy joint like this one though. It was much cozier, sort of like a friendly English pub. It was back East, in a place called Blakemore Village, an Atlantic resort town. It doesn’t exist any more — it hardly existed then. But there was a racetrack there, Blakemore Downs. It went bankrupt about the time racing was booming all over the country. The whole operation was snake-bit from the first, they say, though it managed to stay in business quite a few years. At the time I got to Blakemore Village, the wrecking ball was only a week or two away from that pretty grandstand. The track had been closed for a couple of years. My paper had assigned me to do a piece on the track — a nostalgia piece, they’d call it today.

I wasn’t too thrilled with the assignment, but I always tried to do my best. In the middle of the day I went out and looked at the track. I talked to the caretaker, the only human being on the premises, an old ex-jockey named Billy Duff. He rode around the grounds on an aged grey gelding, the only horse left at a place where so many crashing hooves had thudded their way to glory or disaster. You can laugh all you want, but sportswriters had to write that way in the old days.

It turned out that nearly everything at the track was still intact. Even the jockey room had racks and racks of bright-colored silks hanging there. Everything was a little dusty and the infield was overgrown with weeds, but you had the idea they could have started racing tomorrow if there’d been any horses to race or any suckers to watch them. No offense, friend. I’m sure you’re a scientific bettor and regularly show a profit on your investments. But I’m sure you’ll agree that most of your brethren lack whatever sense they were born with.

I got what I could from Duff, but he was a closemouthed old timer without many stories to tell, and it began to look as if I’d be writing a dull piece. Over the forty years of Blakemore Downs’ existence, some really fine horses had run there. But I wanted to turn in something more than just a walk through the old newspaper files and racing manuals.

That night I went into the local tavern, sat down at the bar, and ordered a drink. In those days, I did that for information, for color, not just because I wanted to drink away the evening. Now I don’t have that excuse, but back then when I walked up to a bar I was working.

There were a few regulars sitting there shooting the breeze, and they were cordial to me. By that time in the history of Blakemore Village they weren’t seeing many visitors and much of the conversation was devoted to figuring out why their town was dying. They were philosophical enough about it. Just one of those things — boom today, bomb tomorrow.

At a corner table, away from anyone else, was a gaunt and gloomy-faced man of about sixty. He didn’t join in the conversation, but devoted himself to serious drinking. The bartender would provide him with a fresh drink periodically in response to some practically invisible signal, and the other regulars would cast a voyeuristic glance his way every so often.

Promptly at eight o’clock, Billy Duff came in for what was apparently a nightly quick one, something you could set your clock by. He was friendly enough but no more talkative than he had been with me that day at the track. He too cast an interested glance at the man at the corner table. Obviously, he knew him but he made no move to go over and say hello. I offered to buy Billy a drink but he assured me that one was his permanent limit, and he left at a quarter past eight.

I hung on, chatting with the regulars. I was enjoying the conviviality and had a hunch that if the man at the corner table ever got up and left the tavern an interesting story might come my way. It might or might not have any bearing on my story about Blakemore Downs — but by that time I didn’t much care.

Sure enough, about ten o’clock, the man at the corner table lurched to his feet, made his way to the bar with wobbly dignity, wordlessly paid his tab, and made his way out the door.

As soon as he was out of earshot the bartender said, “Old Stu. I haven’t seen him around here in years.”

The other regulars nodded or grunted in uninformative agreement.

Finally I had to ask. “Who is he?”

“Stuart Gallon. He used to be a trainer of racehorses. He led the trainer standings at the Downs for years.”

“He must be sorry to see the place torn down,” I remarked.

One of the regulars snickered. “I don’t know,” he said.

I smiled. “Come on, you guys. There’s a story to tell about this guy. So tell it.”

“You may not be able to use it. It’s sort of a ghost story,” said the bartender.

I shrugged. “I don’t believe in ghosts — but some of my readers might.”

“O.K.” The bartender looked over my shoulder toward the window with a slight smile. “Fog’s rollin’ in,” he said. “Sometimes it gets so thick here you can’t see your hand in front of your face.”

“Save the atmosphere,” I kidded. “Don’t try to scare me. Just tell me the story, and I’ll provide the whistling wind or the cold chill or whatever’s called for when I write it up. And—” I added as an afterthought “—set up a round on me.” I didn’t want to lose the story, whatever it was.

“We do get a lot of fog here though,” the bartender said. “It’s one of the things that didn’t do the Downs any good. Sometimes it would be so foggy in the afternoon they couldn’t even do a full chart of the race. It’d just say ‘fog’ and give the positions at the finish. Along the backstretch, the jockeys could have been wrestling or shooting pool or kissing each other and nobody in the stands’d know it.

“But that’s getting away from the story. Not too far though. The man who just left, Stu Gallon, was not well liked in these parts. Whether it was justified or not, I don’t know.”

“It was justified all right!” snapped one of the regulars, a smallish old man with leathery skin. Another ex-jockey? I wondered.

“I know you think so, Fred. All I know about it of my own knowledge is that he believed in racing his horses a lot. He thought a race wasn’t much harder on a horse than a workout — and he might as well go for the money as just run ’em around the track for no reason. Some folks said that was inhumane, but I don’t know.”

Fred said heatedly, “It wasn’t just that, Charley. A lot of good trainers believed in racing their horses a lot. But Stu Gallon was a hard man. He hated horses — that’s the long and short of it. He’d race them when they weren’t right and he’d take a whip to them if they looked cross-eyed at him. And he didn’t treat people much better. I’d have gone over and punched him one tonight when he came in, but I guess he’s been punished plenty already for what he did.”

“Anyway,” said Charley, the bartender, “for purposes of the story let’s just say Stu Gallon was not a popular man around the racetrack. People who worked for him never seemed to stay long. But he was a successful trainer.

“Now about the best horse Stu Gallon ever trained was a grey stallion named Silver Spectre. Ever heard of him?”

I shook my head. And I knew most of the good horses in those days.

“It was thirty or more years ago, of course, and the Spectre never got to show what he could really do. But he was a good one — right, Fred?”

Fred nodded solemnly. “He could have been a great one. He was a beautiful thing too. His coat was nearly white, and that was a time when grey horses were a novelty on American tracks. I remember folks used to say that grey horses were bad luck, but I never bought that.”

The bartender, who had established himself through the evening as the best raconteur of the group, took up the story again. “Well, Silver Spectre became a real favorite of the track patrons, for his style as much as for his color. He won four straight races at the Downs that year, beating a tougher field each time he went to the post. And every single time he’d enter the first turn at the rear of the field, and on the backstretch he’d sometimes be fifteen or twenty lengths behind the leader, but on the far turn he’d suddenly start to get himself in gear and make his move. As they turned into the stretch he’d be picking up his opposition one by one, and by the finish line he’d have his grey neck in front one way or another. He was a real crowd pleaser, I can tell you. I won some money on him in my day.”

Fred allowed a suggestion of a smile to crease his grim face. “You were lucky, Charley. I just ate his dust.”

“Well, came the week of the Blakemore Handicap — that was a real big race in those days. Horses used to ship in for it from all over the East. One year Equipoise was supposed to come—”

“And another year,” Fred added, “Seabiscuit was supposed to come.”

I laughed. “But who did come?”

“A lot of big horses came,” said Fred. “It really was a big race.”

“Sure it was,” I said. “I remember.”

They seemed mollified. Charley went on. “Well, this particular year everybody was talking about Silver Spectre and whether he was good enough to challenge the great field that would be going to the post that Saturday. He’d beaten the best horses stabled on the grounds, but he hadn’t yet faced any horses as good as some of the ones shipping in. I remember on Tuesday of that week there was a rumor going around that he had hurt himself in his stall and it was doubtful Stu Gallon would run him. All week it was touch and go. But on Saturday, sure enough, his name turned up in the entries.

“Well, the weather that day was typical of the kind of luck that dogged the Downs all the years it was in business—”

“Dogged this whole town, in fact,” another of the regulars amended.

“That’s right. The fog rolled in. The folks in the grandstand — I wasn’t there, I had to work the bar that day — could only see the stretch run. Beyond the turns, around the backside, you couldn’t see a thing. All in all it was a crummy day to have to run the Blakemore Handicap, but they had a big crowd just the same. And sure enough, when the bugler played ‘Boots and Saddles,’ there was Silver Spectre going to the post with Ike McCann on his back.”

Fred tilted his glass in a suggestion of a toast. “A great rider,” he said.

“Some of the folks that were there that day swear that Silver Spectre looked lame in the post parade.”

“If it were now,” Fred put in, “the vet would have scratched him on the spot. They weren’t as careful in them days.”

“Did you think he looked lame?” I asked Fred.

“I wasn’t there — I had a mount in New York that day. I’m glad I missed it.”

I looked around at the other regulars. “Were any of you there?”

None of them had been. I sighed. This was a second- or third-hand story I was getting. And when was the ghost coming into it?

“I’ve seen pictures,” said Charley. “And I know from the pictures that he had one foreleg wrapped going to the post — the right, I think. And we all know that any kind of front bandage makes a bettor wary. But to have just one leg bandaged! You might as well hang a sign reading UNSOUND around the horse’s neck.

“It was a big field for the race — fifteen. They started from behind the webbing — that was before the days of the starting gate, you know. It was a mile-and-a-quarter race, so they went all the way down the homestretch once, in front of the crowd, then all the way around again. Silver Spectre broke with his field, but as usual he dropped quickly to the rear of the pack. He looked to be running O.K. though, and his fans were yelling encouragement to him and Ike McCann as the field passed the stands. If anything, the Spectre was closer to the pace than usual, even though all fourteen others had him beat going to the turn. Then the field swept past the clubhouse and out of sight into the fog.”

Charley paused a beat for emphasis, then gave me the next bit dramatically.

“My friend, fifteen horses entered that fog, and only fourteen returned. It was much later before most of the spectators were to learn that Silver Spectre had gone down on the backstretch, his right foreleg broken. The vet put him down on the spot. What was worse, Ike McCann had fallen on his head, and after a couple of days in a coma he was dead too.”

“It was a terrible tragedy,” said Fred. “They buried Silver Spectre in the infield at the Downs. Ike’s family had him buried in a regular cemetery but, knowing him, I think he’d have liked to be buried alongside the Spectre. He loved that horse.”

“And he hated Gallon,” said Charley.

“Sure. The two emotions went together.”

“Everybody figured Gallon ran the horse when he shouldn’t have,” said Charley.

“And everybody was right,” said Fred. “He did.”

“Up to then, Stu Gallon was unpopular only with people who knew him. Now he was hated by a world of horse lovers who had never met him. Stu Gallon had become the most despised man on the American turf.”

A touch of hyperbole there, I thought. I’d never even heard of Stu Gallon until that evening.

“For a while at least,” Charley went on, “it didn’t seem to make that much difference to Gallon’s career. As I say, he was a good trainer, nasty as he was, and his horses won their share of purses. But then things started to go bad for Stu Gallon. We ought to tell you about a certain morning in October, some thirty years back. It was during the morning training period out at the Downs, and it was pea-soup foggy. You were there, weren’t you, Fred?”

The ex-rider nodded his head. “Yeah, I can give you this part first hand. It was a terrible morning, but the business of training horses went on as usual. The dockers had to keep a close watch on horses going on and off the track. They didn’t want any expensive pieces of horseflesh running into each other in that treacherous fog. Oh, I guess they didn’t want any of us jockeys getting ourselves killed either, but that wasn’t uppermost.

“I remember I was sitting on a brown two-year-old filly. I don’t remember her name — she wasn’t much. We were at the gap on the back-stretch where you could go from the stable area onto the track to work out. The ground crew had been renovating the track, so no one had been allowed to go out for several minutes. The filly’s trainer and I were about to take her onto the track — the chief docker had given us the nod — when all of a sudden this big grey stallion comes charging out of the fog, hell bent for leather. He was hugging the rail, and the boy on his back was pumping him for all he was worth. As he streaked past us, the chief docker was sputtering about how he hadn’t let any horse on the track and where the hell had the grey come from. He told his outrider to go after the horse and rider, but the outrider, who’d turned downright pale, said to him, ‘Not me, boss. I ain’t chasin’ no ghosts.’

“ ‘Ghosts!’ the docker roared at him.

“ ‘Yeah, ghosts,’ he said. ‘You can laugh at me if you want, but that was Silver Spectre, with Ike McCann on his back.’

“We did laugh at him, but not for long. Because nobody ever found that grey horse or his rider. The only other interval on the track is on the front side where the horses come out in the afternoon, and there was a maintenance man working there who said no horse went through that interval all morning. So, as far as anybody could tell, that horse and rider didn’t ever exist at all except along the backstretch rail from out of the soup and back into it.

“And it was that same morning that Stuart Gallon’s little girl was drowned.”

“Somebody drowned his daughter?” I asked.

“No, no, it was an accident,” said Charley. “Hell — nobody, no matter how much they hated Stu, could have wanted a terrible thing like that to happen. It happened in the swimming pool at Gallon’s hotel. It was a sad thing. The death of a child always is. And Stu Gallon was really devoted to her too. Nobody’s all rotten, I guess. Gallon was only mostly rotten.”

“Did you ever see the ghost again, Fred?” I asked.

“No, not me.”

“He was seen again though,” Charley said. “Several times. Always on foggy mornings. People I know have seen him — people who used to come in here.”

I looked around at the gathered regulars. Again, no witnesses.

I think Charley sensed I was losing interest. He leaned across the bar and looked me in the eye. “And every time that grey phantom made his appearance something else terrible happened to Stu Gallon, as if Ike and the Spectre were getting their revenge from beyond the grave. The second time the ghost horse ran Stu Gallon’s wife died. The very same day. Then his house burned down. Then he lost his job with Lakehills Stable and really went on the skids.”

“I was surprised to see him in here tonight,” said Fred.

“Yeah. He hasn’t been in here in years.”

I had a feeling I’d had enough for the evening, enough to drink and enough ghost story. Not that they’d scared me — I wondered if they were making it all up. As I swayed to my feet I asked Fred, “After all the terrible things that happened to him, did most people come to forgive him for the things he did in his earlier days?”

“Well, I never heard that his misfortunes made Stu Gallon any nicer. And some of the things he did back when I knew him are the kind of things you just don’t forgive.”

I said good night to the assembly, paid my bill, and made my way carefully through the fog back to Blakemore Village’s last remaining excuse for a hotel. There I saw the former trainer, Stu Gallon, sitting in the lobby, just staring into space. He did seem to have an oddly haunted look in his eyes.

I have to confess, though, I slept well that night. No nightmares. And if I had had one, it probably would have been about confronting my editor without a good story.

I slept late into the morning, as is my custom. When I was out on the street at eleven, the fog had cleared and it was a bright, sunny day. I was debating whether to try to gather more material for my article or just go back to the city and do my best with what little I had. As I passed the tavern, Charley was just opening up. “You keep long hours,” I said.

“It’s my place and there’s not enough business to hire anybody to help pour. You heard what happened at Blakemore Downs this morning?”

“No. Something happened and I missed it?”

“The town cop came by a few minutes ago and told me. Stu Gallon is dead. They found him out at the Downs. In the infield.”

“What was he doing there?”

“The guys that found him are from the wrecking company that’s going to tear the place down next week. They said he was lying on the grave of Silver Spectre. They say he had a shovel. It seems he was digging.”

I must say that gave me more of a shiver, there in the bright sunlight, than anything I’d heard in the foggy, theatrical gloom of the night before.

“You know what I think?” said Charley. “I think Silver Spectre and Ike McCann made one last appearance this morning.”

And as I’ve thought about it over the years I think that’s what happened too — in a manner of speaking.

Stuart Gallon died of a heart attack, they found. And it could have been brought on by the strain of his crazy digging. Or he could have been frightened to death by something he saw.

A ghost horse and rider coming at him out of the fog? Maybe.

But I thought of that old ex-jockey, Billy Duff, who took care of the place. And I thought of his old grey gelding, the only horse on the grounds. And I thought of that jockey room with the silks still hanging there ready to wear, surely including the silks worn by Ike McCann when he rode Silver Spectre. And I wondered if what scared Stu Gallon to death might not have been a flesh-and-blood man streaking out of the fog on a flesh-and-blood horse, participating in a quite deliberately deadly masquerade. It could have been an act of durable, burning hatred. Or it could have been an act of mercy.

Or it could have been a ghost.