Читать книгу The Flying Fifty-Five - Edgar Wallace - Страница 11
ОглавлениеIX. — THE RACE FOR THE COVENTRY
SIR JACQUES looked at him through his narrowed lids. "Now what is your game, my lad?" he said. "How do you know it will not win?"
"Do as I tell you!"
Mr. Jebson was so urgent that he forgot to be polite, and Sir Jacques, turning, walked back to the ring.
Fifty-Five was by nature as docile as a domestic cat. He followed the tiny stable-lad meekly to a corner of the paddock and submitted to that most delicate of operations, the saddling, without so much as turning his head. Bill had sponged his mouth and was taking a critical pull at the girth when from the course there came a whistle. So keen and shrill it was, that it pierced the babble of talk and the thunder of distant Tattersalls as a bright ray will pierce a mist. The effect upon Fifty-Five was electrical. From being a gentle-mannered beast, he turned in a second to a maddened savage, lashing out with his heels, striving to paw away the lad at his head. Bill gripped the reins and held him. The horse was trembling with excitement, and in his wild eyes was a look of such abject fear that the head lad was aghast. It took him some time to soothe the animal.
"What was that?" He turned to the wondering girl.
"I haven't the slightest idea. I've never seen Fifty-Five do that before."
It was a small stable-boy who supplied the information,
"That was Mr. Jebson, sir," he said.
Bill looked round. He could not see through the scatter of people between him and the rails any sight of the check cap of the late head lad.
"Jebson?" he said incredulously.
The little boy nodded. "Fifty always hated Mr. Jebson, sir. Mr. Jebson used to lace him something cruel."
"Lace him?" said the puzzled Bill. "You mean flog him?"
"Yes, sir, and when Mr. Jebson gets wild, sir, he always whistles. He used to whistle before he laced us boys, and he whistled before he laced Fifty."
"I see," said Bill softly, and again he looked at the girl. "You know nothing of this, of course?" he said, in an almost dictatorial way which for some reason she did not resent.
"I had not the slightest idea," she said. "Jebson was always kind to the horses so far as I knew. It is news to me."
"Patience goes the same way if you whistle, miss," said the little boy," and so do all the other horses."
"I think I'll interview Mr. Jebson," said Bill grimly, and then to the boy: "Take him into the saddling ring, my son, and mind he doesn't eat you."
When the horse and the boy had disappeared into the crowd, he was still thinking.
"You have backed your horse, I suppose, Miss Barrington?"
She nodded. "I've had more on him than I ought to have had," she said; "in fact, I've played up all my winnings on Patience."
"He should be a good thing for the race," said Bill shortly, and accompanied her to the elevator which carries trainers and their head lads to the roof of the stand.
It was an excellent start, with Merrideon, a grey Tetrarch colt, getting perhaps a little the best of it, and they raced in line until they came to the first of the cheap rings. Then...
"Fifty-Five has won it," said Bill quietly. "He is only hack cantering."
The chestnut was in the middle of the course, the jockey sitting motionless upon him, for the colt was running into his bit, and Merrideon was a length behind—there was little or no danger from that source, for Merrideon's rider was already working at his mount, without reducing the margin which separated him from the leader. And then, with the race well run and less than fifty yards to go, something happened. Bill heard the whistle above the roar of the crowd —a shrill, nerve-racking threatening sound. The sensitive colt heard it too. Suddenly he swerved half-way across the course.
"He's won it," said Stella. She was very white, and the hand that held the card shook,
"He has won it and lost it," said Bill gravely. "There'll be an objection. He crossed Merrideon and he wasn't two lengths clear of the second."
Stella's doubts on the subject were almost immediately silenced. The red flag rose to the flag-staff, a hoarse cry of "Objection" was repeated from ring to ring.
Bill, who had not gone into the unsaddling enclosure with the girl, looked round desperately, and then he spotted Reggie and their eyes met.
"Get into the ring and back Merrideon on the objection," he hissed. "Put on as much money as you can. Merrideon will get the race. Do you understand, Reggie?"
Reggie nodded.
Already Tattersalls enclosure was sounding with offers against Merrideon being awarded the race on the objection, and the perspiring Reggie went along the rails betting and betting until his card was covered with figures. And then a notice went up on the number board:
"Fifty-Five disqualified for crossing."
* * * * *
A Sussex special left at half-past six that night, and Stella Barrington and her head lad were the solitary but glum occupants of a first-class carriage.
For once, Stella was irritated by the silence of her servitor. The man with the little beard and the black eye spent the first hour of the journey making calculations with a stub of pencil on the back of his card, muttering to himself, until the girl's nerves were on edge.
"I'm not blaming you, Lord, for telling me to back Fifty-Five, so you needn't sulk," she said, almost tartly.
Bill looked up. "I wasn't sulking, I was exalting," he said.
"What you have to exalt about," snapped Stella," is beyond my understanding. How slow this wretched train is! We shan't be at Fenton until nine o'clock and I brought no food on the train."
"I've got a lunch-basket and a tea-basket, a spirit-stove, and a whole heap of good news," said Bill cheerfully, as he put away his card with a smile. "I don't know how much money you had on Fifty-Five, but I think you've got your losses back and you've won about nine hundred pounds,"
She stared at him. "Are you mad?" she asked.
"Not exactly," said Bill. "I am liable at times to lose my reason, but at the present moment, I am in the very best condition of mental health. I took the liberty of backing Merrideon on your behalf, or at least a friend of mine did. The bookmakers bet on an objection—bet as to whether the first or second will get the race. I suppose you know that? You see, your horse was favourite, and if the race had gone to him, the bookmakers would have had to pay out a lot of money. Merrideon, on the other hand, was third favourite, and they could afford to lay five to four and six to four that Merrideon did not get the race. So I just sent a friend of mine in to back Merrideon."
She was still staring at him helplessly. "But how could you—how could you..." she began. "Would they accept——"
"My friend is a perfect gentleman with an income of a prince," said Bill solemnly. "We were at school and in the army together and he was prepared to make big sacrifices on my behalf, especially when I told him that we couldn't lose. Your horse was disqualified before the objection was ever made, Miss Barrington," he said more seriously. "You know enough about racing to understand that a horse must be two lengths clear before he is allowed to pass obliquely across the horse that is following him. Fifty-Five was scared by that infernal whistle and swerved towards the stand, and it was any odds on his losing the race. So really, I was not taking any risks at all."
She was frowning now. "You're the queerest head lad that any trainer has ever possessed," she said; "and do you really mean that I won on the race?"
"You won on the race," said Bill Lord," thanks to my ingenuity and courage."
She drew a long sigh. "You're a wonderful man."
"I've always thought so," he admitted modestly.
