Читать книгу The Complete Master Criminal Series (Illustrated Edition) - Fred M. White - Страница 12

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SACKVILLE MAYNE was still sober, although it was nearly two. The marble clock in the Mornington Arms Hotel recorded the hour and the phenomenon. Years of vinous environment has not yet robbed Mayne of the manorial air, although the necessary acres for the part were gone long ago.

Neither had Mayne quite lost the art of dining. He had done ample justice to the dinner presented by his peripatetic host the Duke de Cavour. The wines left nothing to be desired.

“I am charmed,” said the Duke in quite passable English, “charmed to have met you again. Our last foregathering in Naples was many years ago.”

For Mayne’s part he had forgotten the incident entirely. The Duke’s memory was evidently more trustworthy than his own. All Mayne knew was that he had been in Naples at the time his noble host had mentioned. The latter, an elderly buck with small eyes and a ludicrous pointed moustache, nodded over his glass.

“Those were pleasant days,” he said, “twenty years ago! Dear me! And yet when I saw you in the billiard room last night I recognised you instantly. And what horses you used to drive in those days!”

Mayne smiled. The Duke had touched him on a tender spot. As the fond mother clings to the reprobate son who spells the family ruin, so did Mayne still love the equine flesh which had been his destruction.

“I’ve come down in the world,” he said. “Egad, how I manage to live upon my paltry little place is a mystery even to myself. But I still continue to have a bit of blood about me. It isn’t every man who can boast of having bred and run two Derby winners.”

“The old Godolphin blood, I presume?” suggested the Duke.

Mayne nodded. There was a bond of union between himself and his host. All he knew about the latter he had gleaned that day from the Almanach de Gotha. The exclusive volume in question recorded the fact that de Cavour was an enthusiast where racing was concerned. In a hazy kind of way, he wondered what so great a man was doing in Mornington.

“You race still?” the Duke asked.

“Oh no, I can’t afford it. I only wish I could. I’ve got a colt entered for the Royal Clarendon Stakes at Oldmarket— run-off next week, you know—but I shall have to forfeit. Bar Sinister can beat any horse in the race bar the favourite—ay, and even beat Rialto too, if wound up.”

“Come, my friend, you are not so poor as all that.”

Mayne smiled into his glass. Good wine develops the philosophical side of a man’s nature. It also taps the well-springs of confidence.

“Indeed I am,” he said; “and yet with a little capital, I think I could see my way clear. I would sell my soul for £1,000.”

“Men are prepared to take big risks for sums like that.”

“I know it. I am prepared to undertake anything short of manslaughter.”

The Duke paused in the manipulation of a cigarette in his slim fingers. For an elderly, gouty gentleman with a suggestion of apoplexy in the region of the carotid, he had remarkably clean sinewy hands.

“I can show you how to make £1,000 with no risk at all,” he said quietly. “All you have to do is to take the money and hold your tongue.”

“How pleasant! And the conditions?”

“Nothing more than the loan of your colt Bar Sinister. You will permit me to find the money for the stakes, and the horse will be sent up to-morrow to a stable I shall mention, and in due course he will win the Royal Clarendon.”

“Without a month’s preparation the thing is impossible.”

The Duke smiled. There was a strange light in his beady eyes.

“There is many a slip, of course,” he responded. “Anyway, it matters very little whether Bar Sinister wins or not. That is a mere detail in my scheme. The question is, can I have the horse if I deposit the money?”

“Now you ask the question, of course you may.”

“Good. Mind, this is a profound secret. The horse is to be sent to Oldmarket to Gunter’s stables to run in your name. Whether Bar Sinister wins or not matters very little. The favourite is firmly established at even money, so if I were you I should not back the colt.”

Mayne nodded carelessly. It was not for him to suggest that some rascality was afloat. He had known in his time racing dukes with no more inherent morality than dustmen. “It’s all the same to me,” he said, “as long as I get the money. By the way, on the day following the Clarendon, the cup is run for at Silverpool. Haven’t you got something starting there?”

“A horse of my own breeding,” the Duke responded. “Confetti. No chance, I fear. The odds are forty to one against. Only a few personal friends know I am in England, or perhaps the odds would be a little less. You will see to this matter at once.”

Mayne gave the desired assurance. Then the Duke proceeded to take from his pocket notes to the value of one thousand pounds.

“I am going to Oldmarket in the morning,” he explained, “but not as the Duke de Cavour. I have my reasons for being known as Mr. Smith. If you desire to communicate with me please do so in that name per Gunter. Again let me urge upon you the advantage of silence in this matter.”

A little while later and Mayne was driving his weedy bay towards his place which lay just outside Mornington. Meanwhile, the Duke de Cavour alias Smith had retired to his private sitting-room. Once there he lighted a cigarette and locked the door. With a quasi-magical sweep of his hand, he removed wig and moustache, and stood confessed for the time being in the legitimate form of Felix Gryde.

“Now let me see how I stand,” he muttered, throwing himself into a chair. “I am the Duke de Cavour. In my disguise, made up from personal inspection of the distinguished individual in question, I could defy the noble mother of de Cavour to tell the difference between us. For the present the genuine article is under private restraint in Genoa. That is a fact of which the world knows nothing. To make matters still more safe, there is no need for me to appear personally, except at the finish to draw the money from the turf commissioners; and nobody will know that the horse running as Confetti in the Silverpool Cup is anything but de Cavour’s colt. One way and another I ought to make £100,000 out of this business; and I deserve it, for the scheme has occupied all my care and attention for a whole year.”

So saying Gryde rose and proceeded to unlock a dispatch box, and took from thence two large photographs. They were both likenesses of horses and appeared to be taken from the same plate. Gryde regarded them long and earnestly.

“A wonderful resemblance.” he said, “the same age to a month, the same marks, the same everything. It’s the Godolphin blood in both, I expect. Upon my word, I don’t know which is Mayne’s Bar Sinister, and which is the favourite for the Grand Clarendon, Sir George Julyan’s Rialto. I wonder what Mayne would say if he knew I had been hanging about here for six weeks to get that photograph. And what a coup this is going to be!”