Читать книгу The Flying Fifty-Five - Edgar Wallace - Страница 9

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"My dear old thing," twittered Reggie. "Why ever did you do it? What the dickens do you mean by it? I've never heard of anything so extraordinary."

"Reggie!" said Bill imperiously. "Shut up—and kindly remain shut up! I've got a job!"

"You've got a job?" Reggie almost screamed the words. "Are you mad? Suppose one of these infernal newspaper men recognised you? How would it look? The Earl of Fontwell working in an infernal stable as a—a head lad I"

"None of these infernal newspaper men will recognise me," said Lord Fontwell. "I'm not such a cadger for publicity as you are, Reggie, and I doubt if any of them know me by sight."

At this outrageous accusation, Reggie could only gasp.

"Now that you are here, I have a few words to say to you, and I want to say them quickly. You've got a horse running in the Coventry."

"So have you," said the other in surprise.

Lord Fontwell nodded. "Go along and see my trainer, I will give you a note, if it is necessary—and tell him that mine is not to run. Also, Reggie, yours is not to run. Do you understand?"

Reggie was incapable of speech.

"After you have seen Bond, I want you to seek out Thrapton, and ask him, as a great favour to me, not to run his filly for the Coventry—anyway, it hasn't a chance if mine runs. None of ours have a chance against Miss Barrington's, but that fact you've got to keep to yourself, and if you go in and spoil the market, Reggie, I'll break your infernal head."

"But Thrapton——" said Reggie.

"Thrapton will do it if you tell him I ask it as a favour. He doesn't think a great deal of his filly's chance. Besides, he has several runners at Ascot and very likely he'll win the Ascot Stakes. So he won't miss seeing his colours in one race. Now trot along. I'll wait for you here."

It was nearly half an hour before Reggie returned. Fortunately, there is an interval of an hour between the first and the second race at Ascot, an hour of social recreation, when the balconies overlooking the lawn at the back of the stands are crowded with lunchers, and the more abstemious sit at their ease in the shade of the trees, listening to the band.

"I've seen Bond, Bill," he said," and he is perfectly upset. He said either mine or yours was certain to win it."

"What did Thrapton say?"

"It took me a devil of a long time to find him," explained Reggie. "First I went into the Royal Artillery mess and then I went into the Sports Club tent——"

"I don't want a history of your travels, dear old man," said Bill wearily. "Did you find him?"

"I did," said Reggie. "I found him and he has agreed. He asked me if you were perfectly sober, and I assured him that you were."

"You didn't tell him about my black eye, did you?" asked the other quickly.

"I didn't, but I was terribly tempted to. But it struck me," said Reggie confidentially and wisely, "that if I'd mentioned your black eye, they would spot you in the paddock. How did you get it, Bill?"

"I had a slight combat with a gentleman in Cambridge," said the other carelessly. "Now, Reggie, you are not to back this horse of Miss Barrington's."

"What a stunner! What a beauty! What a charming girl!" said Reggie emphatically. "I can well understand why you've taken the job, old boy. It came to me in a flash as I was crossing the course. I said to myself: 'Why, naturally, the dear old thing is head over heels in love with the pretty lady——'"

"The things you tell yourself," said Lord Fontwell un-pleasantly, "could not be repeated in a court of law without your committing perjury. Reggie, you are to keep quiet about me, and you must not breathe a word about my association with Miss Barrington's stable. As to my being in love with her—you're drunk. I've gone into the stable for a lark. Anyway, I've got to learn something about racing—I've been owning horses for five years."

"If anybody knows more about racing than you do, Bill," said the other soberly," I should like to meet him."

"Avaunt! flatterer," said the other.

William D'Arcy Merricourt, eighth Earl of Fontwell, watched the receding figure of his friend, and with his hands thrust into his ill-fitting breeches pockets strolled toward the stable.

He found the girl in the box of Fifty-Five.

"I'm not running Fifty-Five in the Coventry," she said.

Bill did not swoon. "You're not running Fifty-Five in the Coventry?" he repeated hollowly. "You must run him—he is certain to win—you must run him!"

She stared at him in amazement. "That is why I am not running him, because he is not certain to win," she said. "Lord Fontwell's horse——"

"It isn't running," said Bill promptly.

"Not running? Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"But Western Heath——"

"That's not running either," said Bill stolidly.

She looked down the card.

"Lord Thrapton's horse isn't running either," said Bill, gazing thoughtfully at the skies. "None of them are running."

She looked first at the horse and then at her head lad.

"I was sending Fifty-Five home with Patience—there's a special leaving this afternoon, but if your information is correct——"

"Of course it is correct," said Bill reproachfully. "Do I ever tell you anything that isn't true? Fifty-Five will win the Coventry. It's worth eighteen hundred and you can get a good price for your money. Mind you, Miss Barrington," he went on more earnestly, "I think your horse would have won even if my—my information were inaccurate. I've been looking round the paddock at some of the candidates, and rare exotics they are! They've all got beautiful Ascotty coats, polished and burnished like mahogany and satinwood. That means they've been kept in super-heated stables and their muscles encased in fat. I like to see a horse rough and hard as Fifty-Five is."

Stella Barrington was still undecided. "I haven't engaged a jockey," she said.

"Take Marton," he replied promptly. "He'll be glad of the ride now that my—my—er—landlord's horse isn't running—I'll fix it for you."

He hurried back in search of Reggie, and by the greatest of good fortune found that young man sitting on a bench by the railings of the paddock staring at the crowd on the other side of the course. Reggie listened and obeyed meekly.

"I shall wake up presently," he said. "I know it is a dream."

"If you want pinching or kicking," suggested Bill Fontwell unpleasantly, "always remember that I am around."

He returned to Stella in a few minutes.

"I've fixed the ride," he said. "Now hop into the ring like a good girl and bet your shir—your worldly possessions on Fifty-Five. They're betting on the Coventry and you'll get a good price for your money."

Stella regarded him wonderingly. "You seem to have taken complete charge of the stable and all its policy," she said with a note of irritation, though she was smiling, "and really, Lord, you must not tell me what I have to do, and what I ought not to do. It is very bad for the stable-boys."

"But very good for you," said Bill, smiling like an angel. "Really, I'm most awfully sorry, Miss Barrington, if I have annoyed you. You see, this is not the first racing stable I have been associated with, and there were times, before I came down in the world, when I had horses of my own."

There was an appeal to the girl's sympathetic heart which was irresistible.

Sir Jacques Gregory had crossed the course, after the decision of the Trial Stakes, to the marquee of his club. He was a perturbed and ruffled man, and of the twin causes of his uneasiness, the loss of his money was the least. He was reminded that there was a purely material side to his annoyance when he caught a glimpse of a thin-faced man who was waiting for him near the club entrance.

"Well, Jebson," he growled. "You're a pretty fine information bureau! You told me that Patience hadn't a ghost of a chance, and that he was too fat to run."

"He was fat enough when I galloped him last week," grumbled Jebson. "I don't think the others are much good, sir."

"You're a fool—my horse had been tried a certainty. Now what about this Fifty-Five of hers? Is it running in the Coventry?"

"I shouldn't think so," said Jebson, shaking his head. "If it does, it has no chance. Besides, I don't think Fifty-Five gets more than four and a half furlongs, and this uphill finish will be all against him."

Sir Jacques nodded curtly and was passing on.

"Excuse me, sir," said Jebson, "did you see the new head lad she's got?"

"No," said Sir Jacques impatiently. "Why the devil should I worry about head lads? You don't suppose I am interested in her stable hands, do you?"

"He's a tramp," said Jebson, "just a tramp she picked up on the road. And that's against the rules of racing, Sir Jacques. I know 'em by heart! By the rules of racing you are not allowed to take anybody into your stable unless you get a recommendation from their previous employer."

Sir Jacques was now interested. "A tramp, eh?" he said thoughtfully. "What sort of person was he—a dead beat?"

Jebson nodded. "He ought to be easy to work," he said significantly, and the baronet's cold eyes struck the smile from his face.

"I don't know what you mean, Jebson," he said. "Now, you can go and see Mr. Baldwin and tell him to take you on. You might also try to get in touch with this head lad —take him out somewhere and give him a drink. I suppose you have some of the money I gave you this morning?"

"Yes, sir," said Jebson with alacrity.

This was not a particularly obnoxious commission. Jebson could have gone on for the rest of his life taking out strange head lads and giving them drinks. He had a paddock badge, and stepped forth in search of Stella Barrington's new broom.

He found him sitting on the ground with his back against the wooden fence, far, far from the maddening crowd, and he was alternately eating bread and cheese and drinking ginger-beer from a bottle.

He looked up as Jebson approached him.

"Good morning, Bill," said Stella's ex-employee.

"Good morning yourself," said Bill. "But who gave you permission to call me by my most sacred title?"

"That's your name, isn't it?"

Mr. Jebson seated himself by the other's side.

"That's rotten tack," he said, with a grimace of disgust at the ginger-beer. "Come along and have a bottle of bubbly."

"This is bubbling enough for me," said Bill. He had not the slightest idea who his visitor was.

"How do you like the job?" asked Jebson. "I had it for ten months, but I couldn't stand it any longer. She doesn't know much about the game, you know," he said pityingly.

A light began to dawn upon the Earl of Fontwell. "She doesn't know... you mean Miss Barrington? Oh, I see, you're Jebson, are you?" He looked at the rat-faced man with the curiosity with which an entomologist would regard a new specimen of bug. "Well, I won't be answerable for Miss Barrington's knowledge, my friend, but of this I am sure—that your last stable was a stable of performing fleas, for I swear you know nothing about horses."

Jebson gasped. Nobody had ever questioned the fact that he was a super horseman.

"Or your job may have been something more noble—say training rabbits for conjurors, or running a garage of performing seals," went on the remorseless Bill. "When I came to Fenton there wasn't a horse except Fifty-Five who was not as fat as butter. I found every stable more like a pigsty than an abode for decent race-horses. Of course, Miss Barrington didn't know the funny little tricks that head lads employ in order to bluff their employers. She didn't know of the ventilating holes that you'd stuffed up with straw; she didn't know of the short measure corn she was receiving, or the little monthly cheque you were getting from the contractor. She didn't even know that you flogged the apprentices, or that you ruined two of the horses by sheer brutality."

Mr. Bill Lord said all this in the calmest possible tone, and Jebson could only wag his jaw helplessly.

"These are serious charges you're making against me," he said. "I could have the law on you for this, or I could give you a punch on the jaw, and I would too, if this wasn't Ascot."

Bill turned his head and surveyed his diminutive threatener.

"Away, rodent!" he said scornfully.

Mr. Jebson obeyed so quickly that one might have thought he recognised himself in Bill's terse description.