The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  Mr. Potter’s visible ambition spread not a yard beyond High Street, Mugby, as I have said; but if you could have pierced below the respectable surface and read his inmost mind, you would have found him a terrible fellow—a sportsman, no less.

  But this secret, interior sportsmanship was wholly platonic—the mere private habit of an imaginative lifetime. From boyhood up in his secret self-communings, Mr. Potter had pictured himself engaged in phantasmagorial feats of sport: bringing down a brace of grouse on one side and a pheasant and a rabbit on the other, with a clean right-and-left from the same trusty rifle with which he had bowled over a magnificent stag at a thousand yards’ range not five minutes before; leading the field, hounds and all, in a gallant burst straight across a dangerous country obstructed by many seven-foot brick walls, and riding down the fox in a spinney after a ten-mile gallop; beating both ’Varsity eights alone in a sculling outrigger for Doggett’s coat and badge; hooking the largest conger-eel on record with the dry fly; and scoring a century of goals off his own bat for his county in Association Rugger. From all which it may be perceived that Mr. Potter’s sportsmanship was of the most highly theoretical and ideal not to say ghostly, character; and the mind is the better prepared for the desperate project lurking that fine morning in Mr. Potter’s breast. He was going to Mugby Races!

  Not brazenly, openly, before the shocked eyes of his fellow-townsmen, but deviously across meadows, with all the horrid joy of a stealthy adventure. Moreover, he was going to bet on a horse.

  It arose through Bigsby. Bigsby was a commercial traveller in lard, and he looked in on Mr. Potter once a fortnight. Bigsby was no sculler or gunner, but a far more desperate character, whose darkling fascination grew on Mr. Potter every fortnight. Bigsby knew all about races and the horses running in them; and, more, he freely communicated his information. He told Mr. Potter—when it was certain that neither Mrs. Potter nor the shopman was listening—what was a certainty for the Derby, a dead snip for the Cesarewitch, and a perfect ankle-biter for the City and Suburban. And when, a year ago, he had prophesied a positively inevitable for the Mugby Stakes itself, and the horse had won, Mr. Potter had become strangely excited.

  After that he paid special attention to Bigsby’s vaticinations. Mostly he found he had forgotten the name of the horse—they were such odd names—as soon as Bigsby had left; but two or three times he remembered and on these rare occasions, stealthily consulting the sporting column of his daily paper after the race, he ascertained that the traveller had really picked the right horse each time out of any number from a dozen to a score. Mr. Potter began to think the matter over very seriously.

  He took a stump of pencil, a bill-head, and some rules of arithmetic. A bet of a sovereign on each of the horses whose performances he had verified would have produced a total profit of seventeen pounds ten. Consequently, one of five pounds on each horse would have brought in eighty-seven pounds ten, and by the same process he perceived that a bet of fifty pounds would have made eight hundred and seventy-five, and one of but you could go on multiplying to any extent, and the prospect was dazzling. The cheesemongery was all right, in a humdrum sort of way, but nothing like this.

  Of course there were serious arguments against betting; all sorts of ruin followed when you lost, and nothing could be less respectable than ruin. But if you only made bets when winning was certain (and Bigsby was astonishing)—why, then, eh? What could be more profitable and, for that reason proper?

  This was the state of Mr. Potter’s cogitations when the time of Mugby Races was coming round again. This time Bigsby was more positive than ever. In fact, he was rather sorry that the result was so wholly foregone and indisputable; he would much have preferred the credit of picking out the winner from a doubtful field. But as things stood there was only one in it—Magpie, of course. Nothing but a loaded gun, fired straight at the quadruped’s head, could prevent Magpie winning the Mugby Stakes by the length of a street.

  “It will be simply a sinful throwing away of money,” said Bigsby, “not to back Magpie—if you can get on. The nuisance is that everybody knows it, and the price is so short. Evens Magpie, as early as this, in a field of very near twenty—well, you know what that means.”

  Mr. Potter didn’t know in the least, but he nodded sagaciously, and then glanced nervously along the counter, lest he were overheard.

  “I’ve never laid a bet,” he said; “but of course it would be all right when it’s quite certain.”

  The word “bet” left Mr. Potter’s lips with a strange shock. It seemed not quite a proper word. It had a bold, raffish flavour and even from the days of his upbringing he had formed the habit of dodging it conversationally with the milder substitute “lay”—“I lay we won’t come, after all”; “It’s upstairs, I’ll lay anything,” and so on.

  “Of course it would be all right when it’s quite certain,” said Mr. Potter.

  “Why, of course,” replied Bigsby. “But Magpie’s almost too much of a certainty. Spoils the race—nothing else in it. It’ll be odds on before the day, and not easy to get on at that.”

  Truly, as Bigsby had said, it would seem sheer improvidence to neglect such an opportunity as this. Ordinary betting, of course was quite indefensible. But when one saw the opportunity of acquiring just as much money as one might arrange for, and at the expense of a low bookmaker—well, what respectable tradesman could hesitate about the propriety of that?

  “I will lay,” said Mr. Potter to himself dodging the raffish word again; “I will go to the races and lay on Magpie. Nobody will know but myself. It will be early-closing day, and Maria will go to my aunt’s.”

  Moreover, when he had won all the money he could get, he would make Maria a handsome present, and so atone for any furtiveness that might oppress his conscience; and in the same way he would cut out that bounceable person, Dodson the draper, who had just put his name down conspicuously for ten pounds in the subscription raised to clear off the debt incurred by the last bazaar in aid of the chapel funds.

  There was a lack of excitement about cheesemongery in Mugby which bored the secretly romantic soul of Potter, and, as a fact, if he had but known it, all his sporting aspirations were nothing but the natural rebellion of that same secretly romantic soul. For years the one excitement vouchsafed him had been the anticipation of a visit from Maria’s rich Uncle Wilkins from the north which had never come off. Maria had always believed that, once her Uncle Wilkins had been made acquainted with Samuel, great good fortune would somehow follow. Uncle Wilkins would certainly, at the lowest, make a large corner for Samuel in his will, and, more probably, struck by his nephew’s business capacity, he would “put something into” the business. Long had Mrs. Potter cherished these hopes, and had brought Potter himself to share them; often had the invitation been extended to Uncle Wilkins, and as often had Uncle Wilkins promised to “drop down on them” unexpectedly at some odd time. But Uncle Wilkins had never come, and even Maria’s hope had waned, while to the ardent soul of Mr. Potter the indefinite prospect of a surprise visit from his wife’s uncle was all too inadequate a supply of excitement to outlast the years. And so, by revulsion of spirit, Uncle Wilkins’s neglect made Samuel Potter a sportsman.

  Thus, in the state of mind produced by all this internal disturbance, Mr. Potter looked out on Mugby High Street on the morning of race day. Such was the disgust of the Mugby tradesmen at the races that the shutters always went up a little before the regular time on race-day, and somehow today they went up sooner than ever. There was an animated competition between the shutters of Cripps the greengrocer and Hopkins the undertaker, which Cripps’s boy won by a bare shutter. Mr. Potter’s shopman got permission to go early to visit his grandmother’s grave. Mrs. Potter was already gone to Aunt Hannah’s, and nothing remained to hinder the sportsman’s departure.

  II.

  A quick step behind, a cry of “Ha! caught you!” and a hand fell on Mr. Potter’s shoul
der. He turned with something like a gasp of horror, but it was only Bigsby.

  “Ha!” cried Bigsby, heartily. “The Mugby contingent goes a-footback to Mugby Races. All alone?”

  “Why, yes,” answered Potter; “I should hope so. There’s sure not to be anybody else from Mugby.” He felt shocked, indeed, at the suggestion. “Why are you here?”

  For the place was a footpath over a field between Mugby and the heath.

  “Got stuck up at Hockwood and missed the train; the one I got in only came to Mugby, and not a thing on wheels to be found. So I’m hoofing it, like you—and we shall just about miss the first race. So trot!”

  Trotting was uncomfortable for Mr. Potter, for, to the best of his ability, he had dressed his part. He had a yellow box-cloth coat, much too hot for the weather, and the brimmiest hat in his possession. Also he had field-glasses on one sling and a satchel on another. These two implements of sport he had fondled lovingly for days, as a boy fondles a new fishing-rod or cricket-bat. There were sandwiches in the satchel, because Mr. Potter could think of nothing else to put in it, and, anyhow, a satchel was the proper thing, as you might see in the illustrated papers. Things that hang on slings will flop when you run, so the trot soon ceased.

  “The Stakes is the second race,” Bigsby remarked, while Potter recovered his breath. “I want to get a bit on Magpie if I can, but it won’t be easy. You might get some sort o’ price at a big meeting, but hardly here. They’ll just bar it, I’m afraid.”

  Mr. Potter’s face fell. If you couldn’t bet on a certainty, what was the good of the whole business? That was the one thing that redeemed the system from depravity; now it all seemed more disgraceful than ever.

  They climbed the last stile and came in view of the heath. The green ring of the course was set about with patches of moving crowd and a confused clamour of shouts told that the first race had started.

  “Missed it,” said Bigsby. “I thought so. We needn’t hurry now; there’s half an hour before the Stakes.”

  They strolled on easily, and presently reached the open part of the course. Mr. Potter threaded the struggling crowd at the heels of Bigsby, who rescued him twice from betting on a certainty in a game of three cards played on the top of an opened umbrella. Presently they arrived at a row of strikingly-dressed and rather noisy gentlemen, each with his satchel hanging before him.

  “Fiver one—there y’are, elevener two Bluestar!” shouted the first, aggressively, at Bigsby.

  “Magpie,” answered Bigsby. “What price?”

  “Full Magpie,” replied the shouter, hastily turning to Mr. Potter. “’Ere, ’levener two Bluestar or Chadwick!”

  They moved on to the next of the row—a very hoarse man with a Union Jack round his hat.

  “’Leven to two,” bayed this patriot; “’leven to two bar one!”

  “Evens Magpie?” queried Bigsby.

  “Bar Magpie; ’leven to two Chadwick or Bluestar, tenner one anything else.”

  “Odds on Magpie?” persevered Bigsby.

  “No Magpie—’ere, give someone else a chance. ’Levener two! ’Levener two, bar one!”

  From number two in the row they went to number three, thence to number four, and so all down the line, with the same result each time. It was no good. There was no betting on this certainty, and the bottom had fallen out of Mr. Potter’s new world. The Turf was a disappointment—a gigantic engine of national demoralization.

  Bigsby stood for a moment at the end of the line and considered. Then he said:—

  “You stay just here while I run over to the enclosure; perhaps I can do it there.”

  Mr. Potter took his stand at the end of the line of bookmakers and began to look about him. Presently a man in the crowd, taking a look at him and another at his satchel, came up and said:—

  “Do you want to lay?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Potter, eagerly. “I do—very much.”

  “Magpie?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Make it evens?”

  “Yes, evens.”

  “Right—a quid,” said the man, promptly producing a sovereign and thrusting it into Mr. Potter’s hand.

  All Mr. Potter’s disgust at the state of the Turf vanished on the spot. This was extraordinary—this touching confidence of a perfect stranger. He hadn’t expected it. Not only was this sterling sportsman ready to bet against a certainty, but he recognized the certainty and paid the money over beforehand. Never again would Mr. Potter suffer a word against the frequenters of race-meetings.

  “Got a ticket?” asked the man.

  “A ticket?” repeated Potter. “No.”

  “Well, you ain’t put it down.”

  “Oh, I sha’n’t forget,” protested Potter; and then bethought him that some acknowledgment of this gentleman’s confiding faith was only proper. So he dived into his pocket and produced a large card headed “S. POTTER, CHEESEMONGER AND PROVISION MERCHANT,” with his address below, and little ornamental remarks, about supplying families and respectfully soliciting orders, scattered round.

  “All right,” said the sportsman, making a note on the back of the card and holding it up. “Magpie a quid.”

  But now Mr. Potter was confronted by a large, staring man wearing horse-cloth tweeds and waving enormous grey Dundreary whiskers. He had overheard the transaction, and now thrust forward a sovereign of his own with an aggressive drive of an enormous hand.

  “Magpie, evens,” said the apparition; and at that moment two other bystanders took up the cry and pushed before him with money extended in their hands.

  Mr. Potter found himself the centre of a small but very eager crowd, who thrust money on him from every side. Bigsby would seem to be a duffer, after all. If he had stayed he might have shared this overwhelming tide of luck. In the midst of it Mr. Potter received a shock; for he looked in the face of one of his eager customers and saw Cripps the greengrocer. Cripps was startled, too; but he handed over his money, a little shamefacedly, and was succeeded, of all marvels, by Dodson the draper! Dodson stopped, coughed, stuffed his hand back into his pocket, and nodded uneasily; then he mumbled vaguely about the fine afternoon and turned away. He was trying to look as though he had come that way by accident.

  Mr. Potter was surprised at the behaviour of his fellow-townsman, and more when he perceived Hopkins, the undertaker, hovering undecidedly at the edge of the crowd. And then there burst through the press, with two half-crowns extended in his hand—his own shopman!

  There was a horrid gasp of mutual recognition, and the wretched hireling turned tail and ran—no doubt in the direction of his grandmother’s grave. And then appeared through the press the amazed face of Bigsby; and with that there was a shout of “They’re off!” and everybody scrambled for a place to see the race.

  Bigsby shouldered the triumphing Potter aside and demanded, “What’s all this? What have you been up to?”

  “Laying,” replied his friend, jubilantly. “Quite a lot of people wanted to bet against Magpie, after all.”

  “Laying! G’law! Do you know what you’ve done? D’you know what laying means?”

  “Yes, betting, of course. I’ve been laying Magpie with all this lot, and they’ve paid their money in advance.”

  “My wig, you’ve done it!” gasped Bigsby, his eyes protruding like those of a lobster. “Laying is betting against, you blithering chump! Those bookies are layers! All this crowd have been backing Magpie, and you’ll have to pay ’em!”

  Everything inside Mr. Potter from his chin downwards seemed to turn over and fall into bottomless space. He gasped and stammered incoherently, and Bigsby heard what he said better than he heard himself.

  “Explain!” cried Bigsby, in reply. “I think I see you explaining to this crowd when they want their money! Can you pay ’em? Because you’re in the soup if you can’t, my hearty! Halloa! Now they�
�re off!” And he took what space he could get on the side of a hillock to watch.

  There had been a false start, but now the race was really begun. There was a roar of shouting, and then a clamour of cries. “Magpie! Magpie all the way! He’s coming out a’ready! Magpie!”

  Mr. Potter stared wildly about him. The situation was terrible—desperate; and he had about two minutes to decide how to meet it. Of course, he would have to pay—but how? The money he had brought with him would be short by forty—fifty—sixty pounds or more. And his nearest resource was the bank at Mugby!

  There was nothing else for it. Either he must be torn to pieces by the infuriated populace or they must wait till he could fetch the money. Now was the only chance; and in fifteen seconds from the start of the race for the Mugby Stakes Mr. Potter was legging it away from the course at the uttermost pace he could tear.

  For a moment he was unnoticed, for the race drew every eye. Then somebody turned with a shout, and in an instant there was a cry of “Welsher!” from a score of throats. Bigsby turned too, and gasped with horror to see one of his best customers eloping with the money of confiding strangers.

  The confiding strangers went after Mr. Potter in a crowd. Cripps the greengrocer, gazing on the scene, was surprised and scandalized, but resolved to call on Potter in the morning rather than interfere. As for Hopkins the undertaker and Dodson the draper, they experienced a virtuous satisfaction. They had not been betting; and they were able to contemplate the utter downfall of their erring townsman with self-approval and no pecuniary loss. Even Mr. Potter’s shopman, had the scene been visible from his grandmother’s grave, might have found occasion for a little self-righteousness on his own account.

  But the hunted cheesemonger guessed nothing of this, having urgent business of his own. He scampered madly ahead, with the angry yells of his pursuers ringing in ears, and saw nothing of the last and only service Bigsby was able to render him. For the man of tallow followed with the crowd, and, selecting what seemed to be the speediest among the pursuers, contrived to blunder against him so that they both came down in a sprawl together.