Wobble to Death

SATURDAY
CHAPTER 16

Thackeray could not be certain that the night was the coldest that week, but he knew positively that he had not passed such an uncomfortable four hours since he gave up beat-pounding. There was a paraffin stove in the police office. His boot-welts were so near the flame that smoke rose from them. But his toes stayed bloodless all night. He had borrowed a spare great-coat and tried to insulate his already heavily clad body by tucking it around him as he settled in the one available armchair. It was no substitute for a heavy quilt over a decent horse-hair mattress. So he shiv-ered and grumbled and shifted his bulky form about the creaking framework until five in the morning, when the duty constable put a mug of coffee in his hands. He sipped it dolefully.

Sergeant Cribb had left him in charge of the case.

‘Things to check,’ he had said cryptically. ‘People to see. I may be out all of Saturday morning. You must be here through the night. Watch for anything irregular. Now’s the time people start getting jumpy. Be on the alert, Thackeray.’ Like the experienced constable he was, Thackeray inter-preted this order to mean that he should be available and prepared to be roused from his sleep if anything happened. There was a duty constable in the Hall, and Thackeray ordered him in blunt terms to be faultlessly vigilant, and to wake him only for an extreme emergency or Sergeant Cribb’s return. Cynically he suspected that Cribb’s Saturday morning would be spent mainly in his own bed. Perhaps the Sergeant was justified in keeping his ‘movements’ to him-self; he would need to be at his sharpest to trap the killer in the remaining time.

Thackeray finished his drink, and gripped the empty mug in his hands until he was sure it retained no more warmth. Then he stretched his limbs painfully, unwrapped the coat from around him, yawned and stood upright. A glance in a small mirror confirmed that his beard needed no trimming. He tightened his necktie and bent to lace his boots. Then he took up the dozen or so reports delivered to the office since Cribb’s departure.

They were uniformly unhelpful. Where strychnine had been supplied the recipients were doctors whose names and addresses were provided and could be checked. The amounts were small, anyway. This line of inquiry had been totally without success. There were only hours remaining before the whole community that had pitched camp in the Hall broke up and scattered over the Metropolis. Nothing tangible had been found. They were still grappling with sus-picions. And Cribb was at home sleeping.

Thackeray left the office and walked over to the track. There was plenty of activity there already. Herriott stood among his officials holding forth about the arrangements for this final day. A few reporters had arrived earlier than usual and were badgering the competitors, walking along-side them, demanding statements. There were even some genuine paying spectators, insomniacs probably, who stood or sat apart from each other, studiously isolated.

O’Flaherty was shuffling round at an impressive rate, untroubled now by sore feet. He was swinging his arms with apparent zest, and steadily overtaking rivals, still, it seemed, believing he could cut back Chadwick’s lead.

You had to admire the Irishman’s gameness, thought Thackeray. He was striving until the very finish. That bloated money-grabber, Herriott, was the only one who would benefit by O’Flaherty making a race of it. A close contest was a crowd-puller, all right. There would be a capacity crowd in by early evening, hoping for a superhu-man exhibition from O’Flaherty. Yet anyone who had fol-lowed the race day by day knew well enough that there could be only one result. Even if the Irishman drew level with Chadwick, the Champion would step up his pace and win. It was evident to any discriminating spectator that he was holding something in reserve. He had not needed Harvey’s devious assistance.

Thackeray looked from man to man on the track, seeking out the stately gait of Erskine Chadwick. There was Reid, painfully limping, and Williams and Chalk, in conversation as usual; the two northerners were there, and the veteran who had shared Reid’s hut; and Mostyn-Smith was just coming off for one of his rest-periods. But Chadwick was not among them. No wonder O’Flaherty was going hell for leather!

It was even more worrying for Thackeray that no light was showing in Chadwick’s tent. He hurried across to it and pulled back the flap, uncertain what to expect.

The tent was empty. The bed had been cleared and the blankets folded in military style. The air inside was cold. There was no sign that anyone had been in there for hours.

Thackeray hurried over to Herriott, who now stood alone.

‘Have you seen Captain Chadwick, sir?’

‘Chadwick? Yes, I saw him late last night, before he went out.’

‘Out?’ repeated Thackeray. ‘Where to?’

‘Didn’t you hear? I thought you detectives knew every-thing that goes on here. He went off in a huff after Harvey failed to turn up to give him his massage last night.’

‘When was this?’

‘After one o’clock, when they all came off the track. There was no sign of Harvey, you see.’

‘But he was here!’ protested Thackeray. ‘We interviewed him not two hours before.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Herriott. ‘All I know is that he wasn’t about when Chadwick wanted him. The fellow came asking me if I’d seen Harvey. I told him I hadn’t. I could see he was needled all right. Long time since I heard such words from one of the gentry.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’ asked Thackeray, already dreading the prospect of explaining all this to his sergeant.

‘Yes. He was planning to spend the night in the Turkish bath at Islington Green-only ten minutes away. They say it’s a prime livener of the muscles.’

‘And he hasn’t been seen since?’ said Thackeray, more to himself than Herriott. ‘The race has been on an hour, and he hasn’t shown up!’

‘I shouldn’t concern yourself,’ Herriott advised. ‘He’ll be here any minute. He had a few miles in hand and he’s in far better shape than O’Flaherty. I shouldn’t wonder-why, there he is.’

There Chadwick unmistakably was, marching to his tent at the head of a gaggle of reporters. He wore an overcoat and muffler which he was removing even before he reached the tent. There was no sign of Harvey.

‘Where’s the trainer?’ Thackeray asked Herriott.

The promoter shrugged his shoulders.

‘No one’s seen him since last night. Hooked it, I should think, after you grilled him. Your sergeant has a way of put-ting the fear of Old Nick into a man.’

Thackeray needed no reminding of this. His own palms were sweating at the thought of Cribb’s return. Something had to be done. Harvey must be found.

He left Herriott and bore down rapidly on the police office, venting his fury on the duty constable.

‘You let Chadwick leave the Hall last night, and failed to report it to me! He’s been out all night, and only just got back. And Harvey, his trainer, has gone missing. I want him found, at once! Alert every bloody constable in the building. Get everywhere searched. I’m going to question Chadwick.’ He confronted the Captain as he was making his way to the starting line. The exchange was necessarily short.

‘I’ve got to find Mr Harvey, sir. Do you know his where-abouts?’

‘No.’

‘You haven’t seen him since last night?’

‘No. Out of my way, please.’

It was another hour before Harvey was found. The duty constable who brought the news to Thackeray was white-faced.

‘He’s in bad shape. They took him into a store-room by the main entrance and beat him about the head in there. When he fell they must have kicked his ribs for minutes on end.’

‘He’s too weak to talk, I suppose?’ Thackeray asked with-out much sympathy in his tone.

‘Hardly conscious at all. We’re moving him to the infir-mary as a matter of urgency. What bastards would have done this, do you think?’

‘That’s for you to find out,’ Thackeray told him. ‘My ser-geant won’t investigate, I can tell you. We’ve got our hands full enough. Harvey got what he asked for, anyway. You can’t go round nobbling the opposition and expect to get away with it.’

‘You think O’Flaherty’s cronies did him over?’

‘I’d start with them if there’s no other clues,’ suggested Thackeray. ‘But there’s other interests about-punters, book-ies and their mob. I’d try to get Harvey to talk if I was you. If he coughs anything useful to our inquiry you’ll let me know at once, or I’ll get you dismissed for incompetence.’

The news of the attack upon Harvey circulated quickly enough, but nobody except Chadwick seemed at all sur-prised or disturbed by the information. Rough tactics- boring and baulking, elbow-work and ankle-tapping-were accepted among these professionals, but Harvey’s trick offended their code. It was furtive and cowardly. He was a snake in the grass, and when you catch a snake you don’t toy with it.

Chadwick, deprived of his menial, had to adjust to new conditions-not easy in the final stages of a test of endurance. For the first time he appeared on the track unshaven. If he wanted water he would have to get it him-self from the communal tap by the huts. At dawn he had coped without using any, but at mid-day, when he usually stopped for lunch, he would face the fifty yard walk if he wanted refreshment. The position of his tent, for so long an advantage, had become a handicap.

But Chadwick’s visit to the Turkish bath had liberated his muscle-bound legs, and throughout the first two hours he was alternately running and walking, making up valuable yards on O’Flaherty, now reduced to a robot-like march. Although the Dublin Stag had won back nearly six miles during that first hour, and a close finish seemed in prospect, he looked a beaten man now.

The other sprightly performance on the track was Mostyn-Smith’s. He had taken on a positively aggressive gait, with a pronounced forward tilt from the hips, and arms working like piston-rods. His stride gained in speed rather than length, and he was still light of step. As he turned each time into the straight his spectacles flashed in a patch of light, demanding attention to his efforts. Behind them, no doubt, he was not seeing the amused spectators, but a news-paper advertisement for Dr Mostyn-Smith’s Remedy for all Disorders, tested in the Six-Day Endurance Contest at the Agricultural Hall by its Maker.

Billy Reid was ambling towards the end of his stint with the caustic old ped who had shared his hut. The veteran had modified his approach.

‘Take it nice and easy, young’un. No point in pushing it now. Save it up for the last hour or two. If you show you’re nippy on your pins tonight you’ll earn a shower of browns. They like a game fighter.’

Billy’s lacerated feet were dictating his pace. To ease up would be as painful as to accelerate. He smiled in vague appreciation of the advice.

‘There was a time-in the palmy days-when they’d have thrown sovereigns,’ the old man reminisced. ‘No chance of that tonight. They treat you according to pocket possibil-ities these days, and this ain’t the well-greased contingent. Now at Brompton, fifteen years back, they lined up their carriages and pairs along the trackside. They was the gentry then, that watched us-princes and peers. Old Deer-foot got himself invited to the University to dine with the Prince of Wales, did you know that? A bloody Red Indian sitting down with royalty.’

‘Don’t bother me who watches,’ said Reid, ‘long as they let me finish in me own way.’

‘They’ll do that, lad. No one’s going to stop a game boy-’ ‘They tried to stop the Irishman,’ said Reid.

‘O’Flaherty? Yes. The one that did that was paid out, though. Mind you play dumb when the bobbies come round. They’ll find there’s a lot of queer-sightedness among foot-racers. Nobody saw a bloody thing last night.’

IT WAS A harassing morning for Thackeray. Rarely had he felt so ineffectual. Cribb shows confidence in him, gives him a responsible job, and what happens? Chadwick, a prime suspect, walks out of the Hall, out of police surveillance, for four hours, and nobody stops him. Harvey, another key man in the case, is savagely attacked in the building, and nobody knows who is responsible.

It might have helped if one of the many reports that arrived during the morning at the police office had brought news of the source of strychnine. That might have curbed Cribb’s wrath. Thackeray hopefully examined every one; there was nothing of the least significance in any of them.

And there was another, worse setback to follow. Shortly after mid-day a constable arrived at the office with Sol Her-riott in tow. The promoter was in a state of great agitation. ‘You must do something,’ he yelled at Thackeray. ‘All the prize money-he’s taken it all. Everything! A thousand pounds, near enough. My race is in ruins-hopeless. They’ve been running for six days and I can’t pay them a penny. They’ll kill me when they find out.’

‘Someone’s robbed you, you mean?’ Thackeray struggled to assimilate this new information, scarcely believing his ill-luck. ‘Jacobson-my friend for years! Opened the safe and took out all the prize money-bank-notes. He must have left the Hall this half-hour. I was talking to him-’

‘Jacobson!’

The voice was angry. It was Cribb’s. He was standing at the door. He addressed the young duty constable.

‘You’re in charge, then. See that nobody connected with the race leaves this Hall for any reason. Understand?’

‘Right, Sergeant.’

Cribb turned to Thackeray.

‘Jacobson’s the man we want. Mr Herriott, where’s his lodgings?’

‘Old Street. Over the “Three Ships,”’ answered the pro-moter, in a dazed voice.

‘Come on,’ said Cribb urgently. ‘If he’s only got half an hour on us we’ll catch up with him there.’