Читать книгу The Case Of Miss Elliott - Baroness Orczy - Страница 9

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The man in the corner looked at me through his bonerimmed spectacles, and his mild blue eyes gazed pleasantly into mine.

“You may well imagine,” he continued, after a while, “what a thunderbolt such a catastrophe means to those whose hopes of a fortune rested upon the fitness of the bay mare. Mr Keeson lost his temper for an instant, they say— but for one instant only. When he was hastily summoned at six o’clock in the morning to Cigarette’s stables, and saw her lying on the straw, rigid and with glassy eyes, he raised his heavy riding-whip over the head of Cockram. Some assert that he actually struck him, and that the groom was too wretched and too dazed to resent either words or blows. After a good deal of hesitation he reluctantly admitted that for the first time since Cigarette had been in his charge he had slept long and heavily.

“‘I am such a light sleeper, you know, sir,’ he said in a tear-choked voice. ‘Usually I could hear every noise the mare made if she stirred at all. But, there— last night I cannot say what happened. I remember that I felt rather drowsy after my supper, and must have dropped off to sleep very quickly. Once during the night I woke up; the mare was all right then.’

“The man paused, and seemed to be searching for something in his mind— the recollection of a dream, perhaps. But the veterinary surgeon, who was present at the time, having also been hastily summoned to the stables, took up the glass which had contained the beer for Cockram’s supper. He sniffed it, and then tasted it, and said quietly:

“‘No wonder you slept heavily, my man. This beer was drugged: it contained opium.’

“‘Drugged!’ ejaculated Cockram, who, on hearing this fact, which in every way exonerated him from blame, seemed more hopelessly wretched than he had been before.

“It appears that every night Cockram’s supper was brought out to him in the stables by one of the servants from the Manor House. On this particular night Mrs Keeson’s maid, a young girl named Alice Image, had brought him a glass of beer and some bread and cheese on a tray at about eleven o’clock.

“Closely questioned by Mr Keeson, the girl emphatically denied all knowledge of any drug in the beer. She had often taken the supper tray across to Cockram, who was her sweetheart, she said. It was usually placed ready for her in the hall, and when she had finished attending upon her mistress’ night toilet she went over to the stables with it. She had certainly never touched the beer, and the tray had stood in its accustomed place on the hall table looking just the same as usual. ‘As if I’d go and poison my Cockram!’ she said in the midst of a deluge of tears.

“All these somewhat scanty facts crept into the evening papers that same day. That an outrage of a peculiarly daring and cunning character had been perpetrated was not for a moment in doubt. So much money had been at stake, so many people would be half-ruined by it, that even the nonracing public at once took the keenest interest in the case. All the papers admitted, of course, that for the moment the affair seemed peculiarly mysterious, yet all commented upon one fact, which they suggested should prove an important clue: this fact was Cockram’s strange attitude.

“At first he had been dazed— probably owing to the after-effects of the drug; he had also seemed too wretched even to resent Mr Keeson’s very natural outburst of wrath. But then, when the presence of the drug in his beer was detected, which proved him, at any rate, to have been guiltless in the matter, his answers, according to all accounts, became somewhat confused; and all Mr Keeson and the ‘vet’, who were present, got out of him after that, was a perpetual ejaculation: ‘What’s to be done? What’s to be done?’

“Two days later the sporting papers were the first to announce, with much glee, that thanks to the untiring energy of the Scotland Yard authorities, daylight seemed at last to have been brought to bear upon the mystery which surrounded the dastardly outrage on the Earl of Okehampton’s mare Cigarette, and that an important arrest in connection with it had already been effected.

“It appears that a man named Charles Palk, seemingly of no address, had all along been suspected of having at least a hand in the outrage. He was believed to be a bookmaker’s tout, and was a man upon whom the police had long since kept a watchful eye. Palk had been seen loafing around the Manor House for the past week, and had been warned off the grounds once or twice by the grooms.

“It now transpired that on the day preceding the outrage he had hung about the neighbourhood of the Manor House the whole afternoon, trying to get into conversation with the stable-boys, or even with Mr Keeson’s indoor servants. No one, however, would have anything to do with him, as Mr Keeson’s orders in those respects were very strict: he had often threatened any one of his employés with instant dismissal if he found him in company with one of these touts.

“Detective Twiss, however, who was in charge of the case, obtained the information that Alice Image, the maid, had been seen on more than one occasion talking to Palk, and that on the very day before the Coronation Stakes she had been seen in his company. Closely questioned by the detective, Alice Image at first denied her intercourse with the tout, but finally was forced to admit that she had held conversation with him once or twice.

“She was fond of putting a bit now and again upon a horse, but Cockram, she added, was such a muff that he never would give her a tip, for he did not approve of betting for young women. Palk had always been very civil and nice-spoken, she further explained. Moreover, he came from Buckinghamshire, her own part of the country, where she was born; anyway, she had never had cause to regret having entrusted a half-sovereign or so of her wages to him.

“All these explanations delivered by Alice Image, with the flow of tears peculiar to her kind, were not considered satisfactory, and the next day she and Charles Palk were both arrested on the charge of being concerned in the poisoning of the Earl of Okehampton’s mare Cigarette, with intent to do her grievous bodily harm.”