The Galloping Corpses

Chapter III Funny Business

The sun had just begun to gild the spires of the old Victorian cupolas on the grandstand as Keene crossed the clubhouse terrace. A light fog drifted lazily across the lake in the infield which losers called the Show Pool. The famous blue canoe tied to the bank swung slowly in the breeze.

A thin, harassed-looking man of about fifty, with a thick mustache dyed too black to match the iron-gray of his hair, detached himself from the little group of trainers and dockers watching the down gallops.

“Goshsake, Madden!” He opened his eyes very wide. “You have an accident, driving in?” He was Wesley Ottover, secretary of the local Racing Association.

“No.” Keene shook hands with him. “What happened to me was strictly intentional.”

Ottover studied the greenish eye, the criss-crossing of surgeon’s adhesive at the corner of Keene’s mouth.

“Somebody,” Keene said, “sent a reception committee to greet me. At the Stirrup and Saddle.”

The racing secretary made an O with his mouth. “Towbee?”

“Not in person. But he was around. I tried to reach you on the phone before I stopped in at his hangout. Young Larmin was there. He knew who I was. Whether Towbee did or not, I can’t say.” Keene didn’t bother to add that Wes Ottover was the only person who was supposed to have known the Protective Bureau man had been due to arrive last night.

The secretary took Keene’s arm. “If you haven’t had breakfast—”

“I’ll have coffee,” Keene said. “It’s all I want. My face feels as if one of the Claybrook stallions had stamped on it. What I need is briefing.”

Ottover picked a table near the rail; where they could appear to be watching the workouts. A waiter brought a white tablecloth, menus.

Ottover said, “Somebody must be getting worried, to give you a going-over like that. In a way, I’m glad, though I'm sorry you had to be on the receiving end. I was afraid they had things sewed up so tight nothing could bother them.”

“Who do you mean?” Keene watched a colt breezing handily along the back-stretch under an exercise boy.

“Towbee. And whoever’s in the fix-ring with him.”

“Young Larmin?”

“Lord, no!” Ottover was vehement. “He’d be the last person. Towbee’s big coups have all been against Claybrook entries. Odds-on favorites, at that. That’s the queer thing. All the mischief involves Larmin horses. I think Clay’s been losing scads, betting on his own starters. I know the failure of the Claybrook silks to finish anywhere near their normal form is causing a lot of ugly talk.”

“Jockey collusion?” Keene could see Earl Yolock — riding monkey-on-a-stick, high on his mount’s withers — coming into the stretch, hand-riding a big black gelding. “Skit” Yolock was Claybrook’s contract rider.

The secretary groaned. “Wish I could say. I can’t put a finger on it, Madden. On the surface, Skit’s as bothered about it as anyone. Frank Wayne, the Claybrook trainer, he’s as near to a nervous collapse as a man of his disposition can get. Clay himself is jumpy as a water-bug — hardly civil to his own mother. She, by the way, is the only one connected with Claybrook who doesn’t seem to be concerned about these cockeyed form-reversals.”

The waiter said, “Eggs, sir?”

Keene shook his head. “Coffee’s all.” His teeth ached enough, without chewing. “Mrs. Larmin, now. She’s hardly ever decent to anyone she doesn’t consider her social equal, is she? And seldom meets up with anyone she admits to that classification?”

Ottover smiled, politely. “She can’t help that high-toned lah-de-dah. It’s bred in. her. But under that crusty surface, she’s a grand horsewoman, Madden. Up to this year, she’s always been active in the management of the stables. She really ran them herself after the General died. Now she’s beginning to turn over the controls to young Clay. He’s duty bound to carry on the Larmin tradition, you know — the first family of Saratoga — at least as far as racing goes. But he doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it. Though I must say he doesn’t interfere with Wayne, the trainer, much.”

“And the mother? She doesn’t interfere with Wayne?”

Ottover waved at a trainer who wandered past. “Not as far as the horses are concerned,” he said carefully. “Apparently it doesn’t trouble her at all when some Claybrook entry that’s been made a two-to-one favorite loses by six lengths to some fugitive from a merry-go-round. It’s ridiculous!”

“Yeah.” Keene couldn’t recall anything ridiculous about the way the back of the dead girl’s head had looked. “What you find out about Towbee?”

“Next to nothing. Plenty of cash. No background we can discover. Lives alone at the Grand Union. Doesn’t have any close friends. Spends his time here at the track from noon on — at the Stirrup and Saddle after the mutuel windows close. He must have taken close to a hundred thousand out of the tote pools — betting against Claybrook horses that were favorites in the morning line. Nowadays, no entry is a favorite unless he has some tickets on it.”

“Pinkertons who police your track can’t get anything on him?”

“No. Or anyone else. No point tracing his phone calls, of course. The operators at the hotel switchboard have been notified to keep their ears open, but they claim he doesn’t get any tips via long distance. On the face of it, he’s just a lucky larry with a fistful of dough who hits the jackpot once or twice a day. But—” Ottover gestured with his coffee cup — “he always make that big killing against a Claybrook horse. It's beginning to smell, Madden.”

“What’s the trainer say?” Keene noticed Skit Yolock’s impatience with the mount he’d been exercising. The big gelding seemed logy, spiritless.

“Frank Wayne? He has plenty to say. He claims the horses that have beaten Claybrook entries in stake races must have been stimulated.”

“Were they?”

“Our vet, Bill Sutterfield, says positively not. He and his assistants have been extra careful about samples. None of the tests have shown any narcotics.”

Keene finished his coffee. “How’ve the Claybrook horses raced, compared with their time trials?”

Ottover held his napkin to his mouth, coughed into it. “I haven’t the figures here.”

Keene waited.

The secretary fidgeted with salt and pepper shakers. “I don’t want to go on record about it. You understand — my position—”

“I understand I had my face practically beaten off within two hours of hitting this town,” Keene said quietly. “Don't nice-nelly around. What’s the story?”

“The truth is, I believe the actual race times of Wayne's starters have been a second or two slower than the best workouts, in most of the — um — suspected races.”

Keene stood up. “Let’s look at those figures.”

Ottover sighed. “They're in my office.”

They walked across the dew of the paddock to the secretary’s bungalow.

“I’m in an extremely difficult position, Madden.”

“So was I. Last night.”

“More precarious than mine, to be sure. But in my case — it’s a question of my job. The Larmins are immensely powerful. I might say, they’re in a controlling position in racing circles here. They can — uh — make you or break you.”

Keene tried to walk without limping. The sore knee-cap made it difficult. “Maybe it was a Larmin who tried to break me.”

“I’m not suggesting anything of the sort,” Ottover exclaimed quickly. “It's only that we want to be extremely careful to have our facts, before we make any — actual accusations.”

“I’m always careful, especially after I’ve had a bust in the jaw.” Keene followed Ottover into the bungalow, stopped cold as a stenographer marched briskly out of the secretary’s private office. The last time he’d seen that copper hair was against Clay Larmin’s shoulder at the Stirrup & Saddle.

She halted abruptly at sight of Keene.

“Oh, hello, Mister Madden.” She smiled, coolly. “I didn’t imagine you’d be up this early, after seeing you at the Stirrup last night.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he answered. “Up all night. With a toothache.”

She followed him with her luminous green eyes as he went into the inner office and closed the door.

Keene took the chair by the side of the secretary’s desk. The knee hurt worse when he was standing.

“Better fire that stenog, fella.”

Ottover looked up from the file drawer where he was pulling out folders. “What? Jane? Goshsake, why?”

“Talks too much. She heard you long-distancing me and tipped off young Larmin about me, last night.” It wasn’t clear to Keene how she’d recognized him. There wouldn’t be any photos of him in Saratoga. Maybe Ottover would have the answer to that one.

Ottover said, “You mean she recognized you?”

“Yep.” It occurred to Keene that if somebody’d spotted the California license plates on his Buick, in the Stirrup & Saddle parking lot, a shrewd guess could have substituted for actual recognition. “I don’t mind that. But I do mind her blabbing track business all over a night club. That’s nokay.”

Ottover agreed. “She didn’t mean anything by it, I’m sure. She probably supposed Clay Larmin already knew you were coming. In any case,” the official rubbed his forehead dejectedly, “I can’t let her go.”

“Why not?”

“What kind of a spot would I be in if I gave the bounce to the future Mrs. Clay Larmin now? I ask you!”

“No kidding?” Keene looked at the door, wondered if the girl was listening on the other side. “Has it been announced?”

Ottover wriggled uncomfortably. “Only by Clay.” He spread his palms helplessly. “You see my predicament. Mrs. Kay Larmin is furious about the — affair. She’s inclined to blame me for helping it along. Nonsense, naturally. I didn’t know anything about it until Clay started dropping in here two or three times a day to see Miss Arklett.”

“How long you known her? She a local girl?”

“Couple of years. Yes. Frank Wayne recommended her. Her family lives out near his summer place. Good solid farm people, but—”

“Not up in the bucks?”

“No. Or in the Social Register, either.”

“Tough. Terrible handicap.” Keene felt like adding that young Larmin hadn’t been in the habit of checking the Blue Book when he picked his female acquaintances.

“Absurd, in this day and age, of course. Trouble was, the Dowager — that’s what everyone calls her, here at the Spa — didn’t mind her son’s taking up with Jane at first. Only objection is to his marrying her.”

“Okay for him to sow his wild oats. But not to raise a hybrid crop. Nice, sweet old lady, hah?”

“A darn fine woman, if you can overlook her — um — aristocratic prejudices, Madden.” Ottover hesitated. “I’ll have to admit I’ve wondered whether Jane will be a good influence on the boy, myself. I don’t think it's any secret that he hasn’t all of his father’s — ah — integrity. All this — this fuss about Claybrook horses not running true to form, that’s just cropped up since Clay took over the reins.”

A buzzer sounded. Ottover picked up the phone.

“Oh!” he said. Then, after another exclamation, “Ask him to step in.”

He racked the receiver, visibly upset. “It’s Wayne. He’s raising the roof. He’s going over Clay’s head—”

The door banged open. A heavy-set man with a face the color of raw steak and china blue eyes that blazed with resentment, filled the doorway.