Читать книгу Thoroughbreds - William Alexander Fraser - Страница 10

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The day of the race when John Porter went into the betting ring he was confronted with even money about his mare. If he had read on the ring blackboard a notice that she was dead, he would not have been more astonished. He fought his way back to the open of the paddock without making a bet.

“Even money!” ejaculated Dixon when his owner told him of the ring situation, “why, they're crazy. Who's doin' it?”

“Not the public,” declared Porter, “for I was there just after the first betting. It must be your friend Boston Bill that has forestalled us; nobody else knew of the mare's trial.”

“Not on your life, Mr. Porter; Boston plays fair. D'ye think he could live at this game if he threw down his friends?”

“But nobody else even knew that we'd got a good boy for the mare.”

“It don't make no difference,” curtly answered Dixon; “it's a million dollars to a penny whistle that Boston hasn't a dollar on yet. Our agreement was that he'd send in his commission when they were at the post, an' his word's like your own, sir, as solid as a judge's decision. It's some one else. There's somebody behind that damned Langdon—he's not clever enough for all this. D'you know that The Dutchman's runnin' in Langdon's name to-day?”

“He is?'

“Yes; he's supposed to own him.”

“But what's that got to do with Lucretia's price?”

“It means that we're goin' to be allowed to win. The other day they laid against her, an' she got beat; to-day they're holdin' her out, so I suppose she'll win, but somebody else gets the benefit.”

“Gad! that Langdon must be a crook,” muttered Porter. “I'm going to speak to my friend Crane about him again. No honest man should have horses in his stable.”

“That they shouldn't,” asserted Dixon. “But we've got our own troubles to-day. From what I see of this thing, I'd rather back the mare at even money than I would if she was ten to one. If I'm any judge we're being buncoed good and plenty.”

“I think you're right Dixon. I'll go back and have a good bet down on her at evens.”

But in five minutes Lucretia's owner was back in the paddock with the cheerful intelligence that the mare was now three to five.

“I wouldn't back 'Salvator' among a lot of cart horses at that price,” commented Dixon; “leave it alone, an' we'll go for the Stake. We're up against it good and hard; somebody seems to know more about our own horse than we do ourselves.”

“I think myself that the gods are angry with us, Dixon,” said Porter moodily; “and the mortals will be furious, too, whichever way the race goes. They've backed the little mare at this short price no doubt, an' if she's beaten they'll howl; if she wins they'll swear my money was on to-day, and that I pulled her in her last race.”

John Porter sat in the Grand Stand with his usual companion, Allis, beside him, as The Dutchman, Lucretia, and the other Eclipse horses passed down the broad spread of the straight Eclipse course to the five-and-a-half furlong post.

Though Porter had missed his betting, he intuitively felt the joy of an anticipated win. Only a true lover of thoroughbreds can know anything of the mad tumult of exultation that vibrates the heart strings as a loved horse comes bravely, gallantly out from the surging throng of his rivals, peerless and king of them all, stretching his tapered neck with eager striving, and goes onward, past the tribunal, first and alone, the leader, the winner, the one to be cheered of the many thousands wrought to frenzy by his conquest.

“Surely Lucretia will win to-day, father—don't you think so?” asked Allis; “I feel that she will.”

“She's got a big weight up,” he answered. “She's a little bit of a thing, and it may drive her into the ground coming down the Eclipse hill. I expect they'll come at a terrible jog, too; they don't often hang back on that course.”

Now that the betting worry and the labor of getting an honest boy were over—that the horses had gone to the post, and that the race rested with Lucretia herself, Porter's mind had relaxed. Even at the time of the very struggle itself tension had gone from him; he was in a meditative mood, and spoke on, weighing the chances, with Allis as audience.

“But they'll have to move some to beat the little mare's trial—they'll make it in record time if they head her, I think.”

“Isn't the horse that beat her the other day in, too, father?”

“The Dutchman-yes, but I fancy his owner is backing my mare.”

“Father!”

“It wouldn't make any difference, though; she'd beat him anyway. If I'm any judge, he's short.”

Allis felt a rustle at her elbow as though someone wished to pass between the seats. The faintest whiff of stephanotis came to her on the lazy summer air. Involuntarily she turned her head and looked for the harsh-voiced woman who had been verily steeped in the aggressive odor the day of Lauzanne's triumph. Two burly men sat behind her. They, surely, did not affect perfumery. Higher up the stand her eye searched—four rows back sat the woman Alan had said was Langdon's sister. There was no forgetting the flamboyant brilliancy of her apparel. But the almost fancied zephyr of stephanotis was mingling with the rustle at her elbow; she turned her head inquiringly in that direction, and Crane's eyes peeped at her over the stone wall of their narrow lids. He was standing in the passage just beyond her father, now looking wistfully at the vacant seat on her left.

“Good afternoon, Miss Porter—how are you, Porter? May I sit here with you and see Lucretia win?”

“Come in, come in!” answered Porter, frankly.

“I was sitting with some friends higher up in the stand, when I saw you here, and thought I'd like to make one of the victorious party.”

Allis knew who the friends were; the clinging touch of stephanotis had come with him. The discrepancy in Crane's sentiments jarred on Allis. That other day this woman had been his trainer's sister, recognized for politic purposes; to-day he had been sitting with “friends.”

Topping the rail in the distance, just where the course kinked a little to the left, Allis could see the blur of many colored silks in the sunlight. Then it seemed to flatten down almost level with the rail, as the horses broadened out to the earth in racing spread and the riders clung low to the galloping colts, for they had started.

“There they come,” said Crane. “What's in the lead, Porter?” Porter did not answer. A man could have counted thirty before he said, “The Dutchman's out in front—a length, and they're coming down the hill like mad.”

Allis felt her heart sink. Was it to be the same old story—was there always to be something in front of Lucretia?

“Where is your mare?” Crane asked.

His own glass lay idly in his lap. Though he spoke of the race, it was curious that his eyes were watching the play of Allis's features, as hope and Despair fought their old human-torturing fight over again in her heart.

“Now she's coming!” Porter's voice made Crane jump; he had almost forgotten the race. To the close-calculating mind it had been settled days before. The Dutchman would not win, and Lucretia was the best of the others—why worry?

They were standing now—everybody was.

“Now, my beauty, they'll have to gallop,” Porter was saying. They were close up, and Crane could see that Lucretia had got to the bay colt's head, and he was dying away. He smiled cynically as he watched Westley go to the whip on The Dutchman, with Lucretia half a length in the lead. Most certainly Langdon was an excellent trainer; The Dutchman was just good enough to last into second place, and Lucretia had won handily. What a win Crane had had!

A little smothered gasp distracted his momentary thought of success, and, turning quickly, he saw tears in a pair of gray eyes that were set in a smiling face.

“Like a babe on his neck I was sobbing,” came back to Crane out of the poem Allis had recited.

“I congratulate you, Miss Porter,” he said, raising his hat. Then he turned, and held out his hand to her father, saying: “I'm glad you've won, Porter—I thought you would. The Dutchman quit when he was pinched.”

“It wasn't the colt's fault—he was short,” said Porter. “I shouldn't like to have horses in that man's stable—he's too good a trainer for me.”

There was a marked emphasis on Porter's words; he was trying to give Crane a friendly hint.

“You mean it's a case of strawberries?” questioned Crane.

“Well I know it takes a lot of candles to find a lost quarter,” remarked Porter, somewhat ambiguously. Then he added, “I must go down to thank Dixon; I guess this is his annual day for smiling.”

“I'm coming, too, father,” said Allis; “I want to thank Lucretia, and give her a kiss, brave little sweetheart.”

After Allis and her father had left Crane, he sat for a minute or two waiting for the crowd of people that blocked the passageway after each race to filter down on the lawn. The way seemed clearer presently, and Crane fell in behind a knot of loud-talking men. The two of large proportions who had sat behind Allis, were like huge gate posts jammed there in the narrow way. As he moved along slowly he presently had knowledge of a presence at his side—a familiar presence. Raising his eyes from a contemplation of the heels in front of him, he saw Belle Langdon. She nodded with patronizing freedom.

“I lost you,” she said.

“I was sitting with some friends here,” he explained.

“Yes, I saw her,” she commented pointedly.

At that instant one of the stout men in front said, with a bear's snarl, “Well that's the worst ever; I've seen some jobs in my time, but this puts it over anything yet.”

“Didn't you back the little mare?” a thin voice squealed. It was the 'Pout.

“Back nothin'! The last time out she couldn't untrack herself; an' today she comes, without any pull in the weight, and wins in a walk from The Dutchman; and didn't he beat her just as easy the other day?”

Belle Langdon looked into Crane's face, and her eyes were charged with a look of reciprocal meaning. Crane winched. How aggressively obnoxious this half-tutored girl, mistress of many gay frocks, could make herself! There was an implied crime-partnership in her glance which revolted him. Dick Langdon must have talked in his own home. Crane's conscience—well, he hardly had one perhaps, at least it was always subevident; to put it in another way, the retrospect of his manipulated diplomacy never bothered him; but this gratuitous sharing in his evil triumph was disquieting. The malicious glitter of the girl's small black eyes contrasted strongly with the honest, unaffected look that was forever in the big tranquil eyes of Allis.

They were just at the head of the steps, and the Tout was saying to the fat expostulator: “I could have put you next; I steered a big bettor on—he won a thousand over the mare. I saw Boston's betting man havin' an old-time play, an' I knew it was a lead-pipe cinch. He's a sure thing bettor, he is; odds don't make no difference to him, the shorter the better—that's when his own boy's got the mount.”

“It's all right to be wise after the race,” grunted the fat man.

“G'wan! the stable didn't have a penny on Lucretia last time; an' what do you suppose made her favorite to-day?” queried the Tout, derisively. “It took a bar'l of money,” he continued, full of his own logical deductions, “an' I'll bet Porter cleaned up twenty thousand. He's a pretty slick cove, is old 'Honest John,' if you ask me.”

The girl at Crane's side cackled a laugh. “He's funny, isn't he?” she said, nodding her big plumed hat in the direction of the man-group.

“He's a talkative fool!” muttered the Banker, shortly. “The steps are clear on the other side, Miss Langdon, you can get down there. I've got to go into the paddock; you'll excuse me.”

Being vicious for the fun of the thing had never appealed to Crane; he raced as he did everything else—to win. If other men suffered, that was the play of fate. He never talked about these things himself, almost disliked to think of them. He turned his back on Belle Langdon and went down the right-hand steps. On the grass sward at the bottom he stopped for an instant to look across at the jockey board.

Three men had just came out of the refreshment bar under the stand. They were possessed of many things; gold of the bookmakers in their pockets, and it's ever-attendant exhilaration in their hearts. One of them had cracked a bottle of wine at the bar, as tribute to the exceeding swiftness of Lucretia, for he had won plentifully. At that particular stage there was nothing left but to talk it over, and they talked. Crane, avaricious, unhesitating in his fighting, devoid of sympathy, was not of the eavesdropping class, but as he stood there he was as much a part of the other men's conversation as though he had been a fourth member of the brotherhood.

“I tell you none of these trainers ain't in it with a gentleman owner—when he takes to racin'. When a man of brains takes to runnin' horses as a profesh, he's gen'rally a Jim Dandy.” It was he of the wine-opening who let fall these words of wise value.

“D'you mean Porter, Jim?” asked number two of the trio.

“Maybe that's his name. An' he put it all over Mister Langdon this trip.”

“As how?” queried the other.

“Last time he runs his mare she's got corns in her feet the whole journey, an' all the time he owns the winner, Lauzanne, see?—buys him before they go out. Then Langdon thinks The Dutchman's the goods, an' buys him at a fancy price—gives a bale of long goods for him—I've got it straight that he parted with fifteen thousand. Then the gentleman owner, Honest John, turns the trick with Lucretia, an' makes The Dutchman look like a sellin' plater.”

“I guess Langdon'll feel pretty sick,” hazarded number three.

“I'd been watchin' the game,” continued the wine man, “an' soon's I saw a move to-day from the wise guys in the ring, I plumped for the mare 'toot sweet.”'

What an extraordinary thing manipulation was, Crane mused, as he listened; also how considerable of an ass the public was in its theoretical wisdom.

Then the three men drifted away to follow some new toy balloon of erratic possibilities, and Crane wound through the narrow passage which led to the paddock. There he encountered Langdon.

“He didn't run a very good horse, sir,” began the Trainer.

“I thought otherwise,” replied Crane, measuring the immediate vicinity of listeners.

“I had to draw it a bit fine,” declared Langdon, with apologetic remonstrance.

“Running second is always bad business, except in a selling race,” retorted his master.

“I've got to think of myself,” growled Langdon. “If he'd been beat off, there'd been trouble; the Stewards have got the other race in their crop a bit yet.”

“I'm not blaming you, Langdon, only I was just a trifle afraid that you were going to beat Porter's mare. He's a friend of mine, and needed a win badly. I'm not exactly his father confessor, but I'm his banker, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.”

“What about the horse, sir,” asked the Trainer.

“We'll see later on. Let him go easy for the present.”

“I wonder what he meant by that,” Langdon mused to himself, as Crane moved away. “He don't make nobody a present of a race for love.” Suddenly he stumbled upon a solution of the enigma. “Well, I'm damned if that wasn't slick; he give me the straight tip to leave Porter to him—to let him do the plannin'; I see.”