Uncharted Seas

by Emilie Loring

  “What next, Miss? We’ve gotta hurry!”

  She stuck her head through the opening. The charming old living room was basking in the sunshine pouring through the diamond panes of the window. It must be noon at least. No time to lose.

  “I will back through the frame, Eddie. Grip my hands till I wriggle them, then let go.”

  “I’ll hold you tight, Miss. Hustle! Mr. Nicholas must be thinking I’ve double-crossed him. Steady!”

  “Let go!”

  She dropped. The jockey’s feet shot through the opening. She was pulling at his arm as he landed.

  “Come on! We …”

  The clock in the hall drew a long wheezing breath and struck. Sharp stared at Sandra.

  “One! Two! Three!”

  “Three! Three! Is the clock running backward?” From the threshold she stared incredulously at the ancient timepiece. Sharp licked dry lips.

  “Three, Miss! Then I’ve been shut up all night! Three! The race is on. Who’s riding Fortune?”

  “Three! three! The horses must be at the post! They’re lunging forward this minute! Can’t you hear the thunder of their hoofs, Sharp? Shout! Shout! Fortune will hear you. He must! Come on, Fortune!”

  “Come on, Fortune! Come on, boy! Come on!”

  Sandra’s voice cracked on a high note. The jockey’s broke on a sob of excitement. His spider-like eyes bulged.

  “Folks hearing would think we’d gone crazy, Miss, an’ I guess we have.”

  “Crazy! I should say we had. How do we know but they are holding the big race waiting for you? Don’t wait! Get to the track! Quick!”

  In the hall she stopped as if galvanized. Her terrified eyes stared at the side door. She clutched the jockey’s arm, whispered:

  “The knob moved! Some one’s waiting to pounce! Watch it!”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Bright skies and a fast track. During the morning the unreserved seaters had thronged the highways: they had come by automobile, by air, by bus, behind plodding horses, on foot, by train, and in boats on the river. Some carried folding chairs, some toted step-ladders. Small boys by the shrill score on bicycles crowded toward the enclosure. A few trees commanding a view of the grounds bent almost double from the weight of daring spectators.

  A day made for racing, and he with a horse bound to win and no jock to ride him, Nicholas Hoyt thought bitterly, as he looked from the Club House porch out upon the laughing, jostling crowd. The panorama throbbed in his blood like the muted beat of oncoming drums; for an instant he forgot his problem.

  It was a stirring show, a show with time-honored embellishments, with a glittering present and a glamorous past close behind it. Through it ran the tradition of years. It was a show in which business and barter, art and science, good and bad, beauty and the beast, waxing careers and waning careers, professional racing folk, confidential touts, trainers and stable owners, smartly dressed bookmakers with their no less smartly dressed womankind, touched elbows. A group of blind veterans with their interpreter were being guided to their seats; a few crippled ex-service men were being carried.

  The grandstand habitués were pouring in, already the seats were filling. The front row boxes were filled with leaders in society, business and public life. A roar of applause greeted the arrival of a heavy-weight boxing champion. In the brilliant September sunshine, women in the latest, swankest fashions, women in costumes of pre-depression vintage in reds, greens, blues, purples, blacks, and browns shifted and shimmered into a gay kaleidoscope of color on the green lawns about the brown oval of the perfectly groomed track. Already dense tiers of spectators lined the rails; the huge parking area was black with cars. On the back stretch the stand for the accommodation of stable hands and their friends was filled. The enclosure rustled with exciting sounds: music drifting from the band, an automobile horn sounding for right of way, voices broadcast by amplifiers, hawkers shouting, flags flapping, the musical fanfare of a four-in-hand horn, the jingle of a silver harness. A gorgeous spectacle!

  Nicholas clenched his fists in his pockets. The time before the race was shortening, and no Sharp. He had been so sure that he would appear that he had made no attempt to secure another jockey to ride Fortune. Even if the man had been sobering up after a drinking bout, he would be better on the black horse than a stranger.

  “Hi, Nick!”

  He wheeled in answer to Jed Langdon’s hoarse whisper.

  “Found Sharp?”

  “No.”

  Langdon’s face was colorless; his eyes looked as if they had been rubbed into their sockets with a dirty finger; the knuckles of the hand which gripped the strap of his binoculars were white. Nicholas spoke to Curtis Newsome who was with him.

  “Heard what happened, Curt? Isn’t it the limit? Instead of shadowing Rousseau, Jed was out with me all night trying to round up that jock. We found his suitcase with his silks hidden in the shrubs here. Didn’t dare call in the police; a mere rumor of his disappearance would play heck with the odds. We’ve found out that Rousseau returned to Seven Chimneys in the early morning; apparently he shot for town when he left after dinner. Now, I’ve got to find some one to ride Fortune. I won’t withdraw him. That’s what the demon who shanghaied Eddie Sharp is waiting for.”

  “Let me ride him.”

  “You, Curt! You’ve cut out jockeying.”

  “Not for you, if you’ll have me.”

  Nicholas felt as if the world had stopped, as if all sound had hushed awaiting his answer; he could feel Langdon tense as a fiddle string behind him. Curt Newsome up on Fortune! Even if he were a stranger to the stallion, his superb riding would take him through. A thought gave him pause:

  “You’ll have to go pro. again. No gentlemen jockeys in this race. What will your wife—”

  “Say listen, Mr. Nicholas, I ask you, have I got to ask permission of—of any one? Am I a man or a tame cat? Will you take me or won’t you?”

  Nicholas flung his arm about the slender shoulders. “Come on! I’ll go change the entry.”

  Langdon relaxed with a sigh of relief. “All set for the shift. I had a session with the stewards. Curt’s weight is right to an ounce. They’re so hot over the disappearance of your jock that they feel justified in making any concession. Only awaiting your O.K., Nick. Sharp’s silks will fit Curt. Hustle and put it through. Somehow a rumor has got around; enthusiasm for Fortune is waning.”

  Not until he was on his way to the paddock with all arrangements made for Curtis Newsome to ride his entry did Nicholas Hoyt draw a long breath. With Curt up his horse had a chance. He had watched Fortune’s exercise gallop under wraps in the morning; the black horse had seemed fit and ready. It wasn’t losing the honor or the money he cared so much about, but it was being licked by Rousseau. Rousseau was at the bottom of the disappearance of Sharp he would bet his last dollar. Anger hurled into his thoughts solution after solution of the mystery of the jockey’s disappearance only to have reason kick them out. He would pin the guilt on Rousseau, and then Sandra …

  Sandra! He plunged his hand back into his pockets. Even with his anxiety about the missing jockey it had taken all his mental control to keep the information Huckins had volunteered in back of his mind. He had been cross-examining the butler. In answering questions as to his activities, the man had said that he had seen Mr. Rousseau and Miss Duval going up the stairs at Seven Chimneys in the early morning. The girl had been whispering. She must have come from the ball some time before, she wasn’t in evening dress, she had been in blue velvet pyjamas. Questioned as to how he knew that, he had answered that as she had opened the door, light had shone upon her. Huckins had explained that he had come home a few minutes earlier and, as was his custom when he came in, had gone over the lower part of the house.

  Sandra and Rousseau! He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t the girl’s instinct warn her that even if the man were Mark Hoyt’s son, he was a bad egg? She would be in Mrs. Pat’s box this afternoon. After the great race, no matter what the outcome, he would �
�

  A professional racing man, in checkered suit and brilliant tie, white topper, and matching spats, caught him by the elbow.

  “Hi, Hoyt! Meet the girl friend. Hoyt owns Fortune, one of the best fancied in the field, next to Iron Man—Five Up comes third in the betting, Remote Control fourth,” he explained to the highly perfumed, sloe-eyed, diamond besprinkled woman with him. “Say, I hear that because the Thoroughbreds failed to round into form, scratches have cut the original entrants to a field of six. What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing. Sorry, got to break away.”

  Nicholas escaped into the milling crowd. Men slapped him on the back; neighbors tried to buttonhole him; his tailor begged for a tip; the head waiter at one of his town clubs eyed him wistfully. He pushed his way through the infield, crowded with the men and women who had come to see the horses as much as the show, jockeys, breeders, stall-walking trainers shaking hands, stablemen and plutocrats exchanging tips and studying the form sheets. Photographers were jumping around like grasshoppers; men were putting numbers up on boards; radio announcers, in the midst of crowds bigger than those about the favorites or the sellers’ windows, were talking into microphones which broadcast over an extensive hookup.

  He stopped in the paddock to watch the entourage of Iron Man who was carrying most of the money. Trainers and grooms, wearing neckties of orange and black—if they wore ties at all—were busy with bandages with orange and black blankets, with buckets and bottles painted in Rousseau’s colors. A stable boy, trying to look indifferent but succeeding only in appearing about to burst with importance, rode by on a lead pony. The air was heavy with the odor of saddlery and sawdust. Breeders were craning their necks for a glimpse of Iron Man’s shoes. The gray stallion might have been cast in metal from flowing mane to billowy tail as he stood gazing into space with unfathomable eyes. Suddenly he stamped a fore foot; ropes of muscles corded into a network on his sleek legs; he rolled his wild eyes as if considering the spot in the front row of eager spectators into which to let a hoof fly with the most devastating effect.

  Nicholas ran a practiced eye over him. Curt had said that Donovan had intimated there was something wrong with the gray. The horse looked fit to him. He caught a glimpse of Rousseau in the background. His skin was pasty. It wasn’t half so pasty as it would be when the race was over and he was accused of abducting Sharp, Nicholas thought furiously, so he moved on.

  Curtis Newsome, in the green and white of Stone House stables, was listening to Parsons’ instructions when Nicholas arrived. His face was the color of old ivory; there was a set to the boy’s jaw Nicholas never had seen before. The crowd gathered was almost as great as that about Iron Man. The black stallion snorted and glared. He reared, thrashed, and kicked a board loose from the wall.

  “Gentle critter, ain’t he?” commented a trainer, and the crowd burst into a nervous guffaw.

  “A horse has got to know his stuff on this course, or turn back at the stall gate,” a man in the front row of spectators observed to his companion.

  “Oh, yeah? So has a jock. I heard that the fella up on this baby’s never been on his back before.”

  “Referrin’ to Curt? Say, he don’t ride just for exercise. You’ll be surprised.”

  Apparently Newsome heard the comments for he linked his arm in Hoyt’s and turned his back on the crowd.

  “Don’t you worry, Mr. Nicholas, if we seem to get away slowest. It’ll take me a second or two to understand Fortune; then watch us say good-bye to the field. Got that paper safe, Jed?”

  Langdon patted the breast of his smart coat. “Right here, Curt, but forget about that. Get me?”

  Newsome laughed shortly. “I’ll forget, all right, after I get started. Did you—did you tell Pat?”

  Langdon wheeled to greet Damon who hurried up eager-eyed and breathless.

  “Wanted to be sure you were all set before I join Mrs. Pat in her box,” he puffed.

  Curtis Newsome turned to Nicholas. “I guess Jed told her, all right. He heard me, but he doesn’t want me to know what she said. She won’t forgive me for riding for you when she’s backing Iron Man, but it seemed the only square deal to me. I’ll never dare go home if we win.”

  His twisted grin hurt Nicholas. “Curt, it isn’t too late—”

  “Too late! It’s a year too late.”

  A stable-boy in orange and black sweater thrust a note into Newsome’s hand and vanished. The jockey looked up at Nicholas with haggard eyes before he untwisted it.

  “Pat’s telling me where I get off, I guess.”

  His already white face went livid as he read the written words. He thrust the paper into Nicholas’ hand.

  “That was all I needed.” His reckless blue eyes flamed as he brought his whip up in salute.

  “To—the ladies! They get me comin’ and goin’. God bless ’em!”

  The bitter sarcasm of the last sentence was drowned in the call:

  “Mount your jockeys!”

  Parsons, the trainer led out Fortune.

  “Look out that this horse isn’t crowded at the start, Curt,” he whispered.

  The bugle sounded Boots and Saddles.

  Curtis Newsome twitched his cap to a cocky angle and mounted. “Good luck to your hoss, Mr. Nicholas. You’re a grand fella,” he leaned over to whisper.

  There was deviltry in Fortune’s flashing eyes, deviltry in his thrashing hoof. Nicholas’ blood chilled. Would his rider be thrown before the race began? He scowled at the hastily scribbled words on the paper which Curt had forced into his hand:

  “If you enter this race as a jockey, it’s all over.

  E.”

  “Estelle has done her darnedest to help Curt lose the race; why, why can’t she let the boy alone?” Nicholas growled, and tore the note to bits.

  A hostler in scarlet coat and white breeches led Iron Man at the head of the parade to the post. A cheer rent the air. The three-year-olds following pranced and curveted and snorted, shifting the red, green, orange, blue, purple, white and black of the jockeys’ silks into a new pattern with every move. The starter in his stand leaned against the rail, ready to press the electrical contact which would ring a gong to start the field away.

  A couple of bad actors, unstrung by the track band, reared and backed and refused to enter the stalls. Fortune caught fire and put on a show. He made a futile attempt to unseat his rider. Curtis Newsome gave him his head while he plunged at assistant starters and terrified stable-boys. The other riders relaxed and waited.

  Jed Langdon caught Nicholas’ arm. “My eye, what a jock! Get Curt, Nick, get him? That boy’s letting Fortune wind up to nth pitch, while the others are letting their mounts cool off.”

  Nicholas nodded. His voice couldn’t get through his tight throat. Langdon’s fingers bit into his arm. “There he goes! Your hoss has decided to be good. He’s in!”

  They watched breathlessly as the assistant starters went from horse to horse to make sure that all were ready.

  “There goes the tape! The bell!”

  Langdon capered with excitement; the crowd in the grandstand and boxes surged to their feet; the jockeys whooped; colors flashed; the field, sleek coats glimmering, plunged forward in the sun. A voice through a microphone shouted:

  “They’re off!”

  Loud speakers, scattered through grandstand, club house, betting ring, and paddock, took up the cry:

  “They’re off!”

  Nicholas raised his binoculars in ice-cold hands. Iron Man was looking good. Five Up, the third choice, was running with head covered; the rangy roan was being smoothly handled. Fortune was lying out behind Remote Control, and then came two others. Corking jockey that he was, would Curt understand the black horse? Nicholas felt his teeth chattering with excitement as the loud speakers boomed:

  “They’re rounding the first turn, Five Up leading! Iron Man second! Remote Control third! Fortune fourth!”

  Curt had told him that he would be slow getting away, Nicholas reass
ured himself.

  “Back stretch, Five Up by two lengths!” the raucous voices shouted. “On the far turn, Five Up tiring! Iron Man going to the front! Remote Control moves up! Fortune moves up! Iron Man leads! Fortune moves up!”

  The crowd went crazy, shouting themselves hoarse as they recognized the black horse’s jockey.

  “That’s Newsome!” “That’s Newsome!” “It’s Curt Newsome!” The words surged about the enclosure in wild acclaim. One shrill boyish voice peaked all others.

  “Step on the gas, Curt! Step on the gas!”

  Nicholas could hear nothing but the pounding of his heart, the thunder of flashing hoofs, but he could see Fortune. The black was hanging on to Remote Control’s heels as the field swung on the turn. He was on the inside! How easily he ran! Great effortless strides. He was coming up! He was coming up! Curt hadn’t used the bat once—was he saving his horse for the last rush? He could just see the jockey’s livid, grim face bent low over the horse’s neck.

  Down the back stretch! Was Iron Man gaining! He was! Was Remote Control tiring? Curt was talking to Fortune!

  A roar went up from thirty thousand throats.

  “Here they come!” “Fortune moving up!” “Fortune passes Remote Control!” The crowd went wild. “Come on, Fortune!” “Come on, Iron Man!” “Fortune and Iron Man neck and neck!”

  In a flash of sizzling speed, ears pricked, the black horse stretched out like a frightened rabbit and passed the gray.

  “Fortune wins!” “Fortune wins!” chorused the loud speakers.

  Thirty thousand deep-throated voices shouted frantic acclaim—thirty thousand voices crumbled into thirty thousand agonized groans, thirty thousand shrieks rent the air.

  “What happened? What happened?” Nicholas demanded of the man next to him.

  “Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see! The winner’s jock! Pitched over his head! Iron Man trampled him!”

  CHAPTER XXIV