Death At Epsom Downs

As Charles and Bradford drove back from Wolford Lodge to the livery stable, Charles gave Bradford a sketch of the long day’s doings, beginning with the conversation at the Jockey Club and ending with the talk he and Jack Murray had had with Sobersides, at the farmhouse near Snailwell.

“So Mrs. Langtry may be involved in Day’s murder,” Bradford said, in some amazement, having heard of her note to Day that Charles had found in the dead man’s pocket, and her missing gun.

“Kate doesn’t think she shot him,” Charles said, getting down to turn the horse and gig over to the sleepy stableboy. “And on the whole, I’m inclined to agree. It’s clear that Mrs. Langtry meant to meet Badger in St. Mary’s Square to tell him that she could not repay the money she owed him, but I doubt that the man actually made it that far. The evidence suggests that he was murdered shortly after leaving the Great Horse.”

Bradford alighted from the gig. “But her gun is missing,” he said, frowning. “And ten thousand pounds is a great deal of motive. Doesn’t it strike you as highly coincidental?”

“We have no idea whether it was her gun that killed him,” Charles reminded him as they walked off.

There was a silence. “Well, then, what do you think of Colonel Hogsworth’s theory? Jesse Clark certainly had a strong motive, as well as opportunity. If Badger were successful in organizing the Newmarket and London bookmakers, they could put an end to doping.”

“To some of it, perhaps,” Charles said. “Although I’m not as certain as you and Jack Murray that a coalition of bookmakers could stop the practice. More likely, they’d just stir up a scandal in the newspapers-which the stewards certainly don’t want.” He thought again of Owen North, and the strange undercurrents in their morning interview. “The stewards had as much reason as Clark to stop Badger from doing what he threatened to do.”

Bradford slanted him a questioning glance. “Are you suggesting that the Club might have arranged Badger’s murder?” His tone implied that it was an incredible suggestion.

They turned off the High Street and onto Wellington Street. A horse and rider passed them, hooves clip-clopping on the cobbles, but otherwise the street was silent and deserted, and dark shadows filled the intervals between the gas lamps. “I think we ought to entertain the possibility,” Charles said reluctantly. “You know how strongly the Marlborough Set feel about public scandal, especially where wagering is concerned. The last time they were dragged into court, in the Tranby Croft affair, it was a complete fiasco. In the eyes of the country, they looked like fools and dilettantes, with nothing on earth to do but play cards and hurl petty accusations of cheating at one another. If the press made a scandal out of horse doping-”

“But murder!” Bradford exclaimed. “Do you really think the Club would stoop to it?”

“The stewards have a motive,” Charles said firmly. “I can’t overlook it. But I want to interview Eddie Baggs. According to Badger’s clerk, he threatened to kill Badger. Murray is getting a line on him. I hope to be able to see him tomorrow or the next day.”

“What of the clerk himself?” Bradford asked. “Might Sobersides have done it? You say he fled and is hiding out.”

“He’s afraid of Baggs,” Charles said. “After talking with the fellow, I doubt he’d have the courage to fire a gun, even in self-defense.” He paused. “But there’s no shortage of other suspects. I wonder what we should make of this business of Day’s being cheated of sixty thousand pounds by John Bass. Seems like a great amount of money.” Frowning, he added, “I suppose I ought to have a look in the safe at Alfred Day’s home and see what can be found there.”

Still talking, Charles and Bradford turned through the gate and up the path to Hardaway House. As they mounted the stoop, a figure slipped out of the shadows and stepped forward. Charles was startled, until he saw that it was Patrick.

“I’ve brought the bottle, Lord Charles,” he said, holding out a brown-paper package. “It’s got a label on it.”

For a moment, Charles had to ransack his memory. Then he exclaimed: “The dope bottle! A label, you say?”

“With the veterinary’s name on it,” Patrick said. “I hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s there.”

“Very good, boy,” Bradford said. He held open the door. “Come in. Let’s go upstairs where there’s light and see what you’ve brought.”

Now, in the best of all possible worlds, events would have fallen out exactly as Kate had described in her instructions to Amelia that afternoon. Charles would have been mounting the dark stairs behind Bradford and Patrick when the door to Mrs. Hardaway’s apartment opened and that lady appeared in the hallway, wearing a lace nightcap and a flowered wrapper and holding an envelope in her hand, sealed with a blob of red sealing wax. Waving the envelope, she would have called up the stairs after him. Charles would have turned, surprised, then gone back downstairs for the envelope. In Bradford ’s rooms, he would have stood next to the lamp and taken out the two notes folded together, the one in Kate’s neat, careful script, the other in a strange hand. He would have read Kate’s first, with growing surprise, and then unfolded the other and read it, too-and some, at least, of the mystery would have been revealed to him, and his detective work substantially shortened.

But this is not the best of all possible worlds. Mrs. Hardaway, a poor widow who had to rely upon her own strenuous efforts for all her support, had spent a long and trying morning dealing with the hired roofing-men who were supposed to stop up the leaks over the kitchen. She had been so distressed by the poor quality of their work that she had lost her temper with them, and afterwards with the butcher and the greengrocer. These disagreements had taken a severe toll on her limited energies, so that, while she fully intended to sit up with Lady Sheridan’s envelope until Lord Sheridan returned, she had fallen asleep in her chair beside the gas grate.

Thus, since the lady was still sleeping soundly when Charles followed Bradford and Patrick up the stairs, no apartment door opened, no Mrs. Hardaway appeared, no envelope was handed over, no message from Kate was read. And Charles-who could not know that his wife had written urgently to him and was even at that moment lying wide-awake, staring into the dark and thinking over all her suspicions-had no idea what might have been.

Consequently, when he reached Bradford’s apartment, he turned directly to Patrick, while Bradford went to the grate and lit the small fire that was laid there. “Well, Patrick,” he said heartily, “let’s have a look at this bottle you’ve brought. It’s the one you nicked after the doping at the Derby, I take it?”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick said, unwrapping the brown paper to produce a bottle that, according to the colorfully printed label, had once contained Dr. March’s Licorice Cough Syrup, Guaranteed to Cure Coughs in Man or Beast. He reversed the bottle and pointed with a grubby finger. “And that’s the veterinary’s label, sir, with his address on it.”

Charles held it up to the light. “Doctor Septimus Polter, Exning,” he read aloud. “Well done, Patrick! Well done, indeed. We shall certainly have a visit with Doctor Polter tomorrow. He should be able to tell us what he used to dope Gladiator, and by whose orders.”

“It don’t matter now,” the boy said, and dropped his head.

“It doesn’t matter?” Charles put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, noticing for the first time the boy’s evident dejection. “Come, come, Paddy. This isn’t like you. Your information will help us get to the bottom of the doping. Why doesn’t it matter?”

Patrick looked up, blinking away tears. In a low voice, he said, “I’m to ride Gladiator in the ten-furlong handicap on Friday.”

“Hey, now!” Bradford put a lump of coal on the struggling fire and straightened up. “Why so glum, boy? Your first ride as a jockey-it’s a time for celebrating! If you were a little older, we’d pop a cork and have some bubbly.” He looked around the room. “If we had any bubbly, that is. We seem to be fresh out.”

Patrick shook his head. “No celebrating for me,” he said. “We rode trials this afternoon, and Pinkie said that Lord Hunt wants me up. But only if I promise to follow instructions.”

“I don’t see anything wrong in that,” Charles said.

“I do,” the boy said fiercely. “I know what they’ll be. I’ll be told to stop the horse. Gladiator could win that race, I know it! But he isn’t supposed to win. He’s supposed to lose.”

“Ah,” said Bradford, comprehending. “So that’s their game.”

“The game?” Charles asked, looking from one to the other. “I’m not sure I understand. Would someone explain it to me, please?”

“There’s no great mystery to it,” Bradford said, putting his hands in his pockets and backing up to the fire. “It’s a classic method of cheating, one that’s practiced all the time. The owner or the stable picks a horse and consistently runs him to lose, usually by telling the jockey to pull him, sometimes by doping him with some sedative. After running slow in a half-dozen races, the horse is low in the handicap and unbacked. Then he’s put up to win at long odds against horses he ought to be able to beat-in the case of Gladiator, by boosting him with a dose of dope. He wins, his backers clean up, and they haul their earnings home in a handcart.”

“But Gladiator didn’t win in the Derby,” Charles objected.

“No, but he might have,” Bradford responded. “If it hadn’t been for the melee at Tattenham Corner, he’d likely have beaten Flying Fox, or perhaps have finished second. You watch the postings in that ten-furlong handicap on Friday, Charles. Gladiator will be a short-odds favorite, especially with a light rider up.” He squinted at Patrick, measuring him. “What are you, Paddy? Seven stone?”

“Six stone ten,” Patrick said with a sad sort of pride. “Pinkie’s been telling me to keep myself light.”

“Right. Carrying that weight, the horse will go short odds and the stable will bet heavily against him. If Patrick does as he’s told, Gladiator will finish out of the money, and they’ll clean up again.”

“At least,” Patrick said bitterly, “I don’t have to worry that they’ll dope him to win-at least not for this race.”

“You might keep an eye out still, though,” Bradford said in a cautionary tone. “If they don’t trust you, they may dope him to lose.”

Patrick groaned.

“But don’t the stewards keep a strict control over this sort of thing?” Charles asked, with an eye on Patrick. If he was set on becoming a jockey, the lad ought to know the rules of the game-especially those that that were not in any handbook or manual. “Isn’t it the Club’s job to make sure that the horses are run fairly?”

Bradford shrugged. “That’s the beauty of putting up an inexperienced jockey. If the owner or the stable is called to account, they blame the boy. They say that he didn’t ride as he was told, or that he just didn’t know enough to get the best from the horse. They may be faulted for giving the ride to an inexperienced jockey, but they can’t be warned off for generosity.” At the look on Patrick’s face, he shrugged. “Sorry, Paddy, but that’s the way it is.”

“Maybe,” Patrick said quietly. “But it’s not the way it ought to be. Maybe I don’t want to be a jockey after all. I want to ride, but even more, I want the horse to do as well as he can. For the horse’s sake, though, not the owner or the stable. And I want the races to be fair!”

Charles put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, loving his youthful idealism, regretting that he was inevitably to be disappointed by a world in which very little happened the way it ought. “You don’t have to go back to the stable, you know,” he said softly. “You can come back with Lady Sheridan and me to Bishop’s Keep.”

Patrick looked up at him. “I’d like to, but I can’t,” he said stoutly. “I have to see that Gladiator’s safe.” He glanced at Bradford. “I thought I didn’t have to worry about doping. Now I see that I do. So I have to convince them that I’ll ride the race as I’m told.” He was silent for a moment, then broke into a sudden grin. “But you should have seen him run in the trial today, Lord Charles! He beat both Rag and Cannon, and he loved it.” The grin faded. “I wish he could win on Friday,” he said wistfully. “He would love it so.”

Charles looked at him, wishing that he could give the boy what he wanted, but knowing that he could not.