by Robin Paige
“Gladiator’s not a savage horse!” Patrick exclaimed. “At least, not by nature.” Kate heard the indignation and outrage in his voice and realized how much he was altered from the boy she had known. “Whatever they made him drink,” he said roughly, “that’s what made him wild. The ones who poured that stuff down the horse—they’re the ones who killed Johnny.”
Charles took the pipe out of his mouth. “Did either of the two men happen to say what the substance was?”
“No, they didn’t.” Patrick looked at Charles. “Do you know what it was, sir?”
“Not specifically, no.” Charles pulled on his pipe. “It had to have been a stimulant of some sort. Caffeine, perhaps, or cocaine or heroin—or some sort of mixture.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir,” Patrick said, “why are you interested in what happened to Gladiator?”
“Because some of the men who monitor racing,” Charles replied, “want to make doping illegal. It’s unfair, and dangerous, both to the horse and to other horses and riders.”
“If you had some of the stuff,” Patrick said slowly, “would that help?”
Charles regarded him. “I’m more keen to know who used it, and you’ve already helped to answer that question.” He paused. “Although, from a scientific point of view, I should certainly like to know what it is, so that an attempt can be made to develop a reliable chemical test, using blood or urine, or even the horse’s saliva. Without such a test, it will never be possible to say for sure whether or not a horse has ben doped.” He puffed on his pipe. “Do you know where I might obtain the stuff?”
Patrick looked up, hesitating.
“It’s all right, Patrick,” Kate said, putting a hand on the boy’s arm. “You can tell us. No one will be angry.”
“Well, then,” he said, “I nicked the bottle.”
The corners of Bradford’s mouth quirked. “You nicked the bottle?”
Patrick nodded. “When Mr. Angus made me Gladiator’s traveling lad, he said I was responsible for anything that happened to the horse, and that I should keep a close eye on him to make sure he wasn’t interfered with. I’d never seen the surgeon before, and I don’t think much of Mr. Pinkie.” He made a face. “He’s Mr. Angus’s nephew and he’s supposed to be the second head trainer, but he’s more interested in betting on the races than he is in training the horses and taking good care of them. I couldn’t stop them from doing what they were doing, but I thought—” He shook his head, and Kate saw him trying to swallow his anger. “I saw where the surgeon tossed the bottle. After the race, I picked it up and put it with Gladiator’s gear. It wasn’t quite empty.”
“I see,” Charles said gravely. “And where is this bottle now?”
“It’s under the floorboard in the loft where I sleep,” Patrick said. There was an evident note of relief in his voice, and Kate thought that he was glad to be able to share his secret with someone, and perhaps also glad to get rid of the incriminating bottle. “I’ll give it to you. Maybe you can find out what’s in it.” He shuddered. “I don’t ever want to see Gladiator like that again—his eyes staring and the sweat pouring off him in buckets, and running as if the devil was after him.”
“That bottle,” Charles said. “Can you bring it here tomorrow night, without being detected?”
“I think so, sir. The lads work hard all day, and sleep hard, too. We don’t bed down the horses until Mr. Angus comes round to feel their legs and tendons and look them over. As soon as he’s come and gone, it’s supper and bed. Five o’clock in the morning comes awf’lly early. That’s when we take the horses out for first exercise.”
Kate smiled. “Five o’clock will come early tomorrow, too,” she reminded him, and Charles stood.
“Her ladyship is right,” he said. “It’s late, my boy. But just one or two more questions before you go. When and where is Gladiator racing next?”
“There’s a handicap here at Newmarket,” Patrick said promptly. “On Friday.”
“Thank you,” Charles said. “Do you know who’ll be riding?”
Kate saw a hopeful look cross Patrick’s face, then fade away. She knew he was wishing that he could ride the horse, and knowing at the same time that this was impossible.
“No, sir,” he said finally. “Besides Johnny Bell, there are two other jockeys who regularly ride for the stable, Bill Stevens and Dan Watts. It’ll be one of them, most like.”
And with that, Patrick went out into the night, Kate was driven back to Regal Lodge, and the eventful Monday was concluded.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Tuesday June 6, 1899
At the Jockey Club
The Sporting Life of England!
The Charter of the Isle!
Perish the traitor, heart and hand,
That would, with dastard wile,
Sow discord, jealousy, or strife,
Among the gallant band
Who share and shield our Sporting Life,
The Charter of the Land!
Late 18th-century song
in praise of the Jockey Club
As he had previously planned, Bradford took himself off the next morning to spend the day with his fiancée in Cambridge—but not before reminding Charles that they were to have dinner that night at Wolford Lodge, the home of Edith’s mother, on the Cambridge Road.
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy Edith’s stepfather,” he said as he left. “Colonel Harry Hogsworth, his name is. He has several horses at the Grange House Stable. He may be able to give us some useful information.”
Charles was breakfasting on the omelet and toast that Mrs. Hardaway had brought up for him and reading an article in the Manchester Guardian about the annulment of Alfred Dreyfus’s sentence and the order for his return from Devil’s Island to face a second court-martial at Rennes. It was a case Charles had followed since Dreyfus’s first trial in 1894, and he couldn’t help but feel both relief and dismay: relief at the hope that the French military tribunal would eventually see reason and clear Captain Dreyfus, who had so obviously been made a scapegoat; and dismay that the man would have to undergo yet another humiliating trial. The fundamental unfairness of this ugly business, this appalling miscarriage of justice, had gnawed at Charles for five long years now, but there was nothing that could be done. Events would simply have to take their course.
These thoughts were interrupted when a young man arrived, bearing a note from Admiral North. With apologies, Charles was summoned to the Club at his earliest convenience, within the hour, if at all possible. Reading the note, Charles raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t surprised that Owen North was at Newmarket, for the Jockey Club was officially headquartered here, but he was astonished at such an early-morning summons. He sent the boy back with word that he was on his way, finished his coffee, put on his hat, and set off. Out on the street, he looked up at the lowering gray clouds, turned back, and located a spare black umbrella in the stand in Mrs. Hardaway’s front hallway.
It was not quite raining, but the early June air was dense with drizzle and Charles was glad of the umbrella. As he walked, he passed a dress-shop window and noticed a blue wool shawl that made him think of Kate, the thought of her reminding him of what she had said the evening before. He frowned. Was it possible that Mrs. Langtry had connived at the theft of her jewels—and at the death of her husband? And who was this man who cared for her so passionately that he was willing to steal and kill for her?
These thoughts occupied Charles until he reached the Jockey Club, which was located in a collection of buildings that turned its back on the High Street. These headquarters, Charles knew, had begun as a coffee house, first leased by the Club in the 1750’s and expanded, with an indifferent attention to architecture, over the years. In the early 1880’s, fifty-odd bedrooms had been added to accommodate members coming for the race meetings, and also a suite of apartments for H.R.H. In addition to the buildings on the High Street, the Club had also acquired large tracts of Newmarket Heath from the private individuals who had originally own
ed them, and its control extended to Newmarket racecourse as well.
All these physical expansions reflected the Jockey Club’s growing authority over the Turf. In the early days and until about twenty-five years before, racing had been clouded by dishonesty, corruption, and outright crime, with crooked jockeys and stable staff manipulating the performance of horses while corrupt handicappers and race officials affected the outcomes at the course. But Lord George Bentinck had used several major scandals to tighten the Club’s procedures, Admiral Henry Rous had gone on to clean up handicapping, and by the seventies, the Club had written a set of rules that gave them almost complete control over the Turf: the authority to draw up handicaps; to manage the sums and payment of prize-money; to license officials and racecourses; and to govern conduct and punish misconduct. In fact, the only thing the Club refused to regulate was betting, which the stewards had delegated to Tattersall’s Committee a dozen or so years before, retaining only the right to deal with defaulters.
But while the Club’s rules tended toward the autocratic, the stewards themselves might tend toward the lenient, overlooking infractions when they found it politic to do so. In fact, in yesterday’s Sporting Times, Charles had read an irreverent remark to the effect that when it came to the American invasion of trainers and jockeys, the current stewards were “playing Shut-Eye” to such an extent that “they look like the three blind mice.” He wondered whether Admiral North had read that criticism, and how he might feel about it.
At the door, Charles pulled a brass bell. A footman took his umbrella and directed him upstairs, where he found Owen North behind a desk in a well-appointed office with a series of paintings of horses on the walls and an enlarged photograph of the Prince of Wales with Persimmon, who won the Derby in ’96. To Charles’s surprise, the Newmarket chief constable was there as well, perched uneasily on the edge of a chair, turning his bowler hat in his heavy hands. Jack Murray, the Club’s investigator, lounged morosely against a wall.
“Ah, Sheridan,” Admiral North said, rising and extending his hand. His face was troubled and his voice tense. “I’m sorry to bring you out so early, but we are confronted with an unfortunate bit of business.”
“Perfectly all right, Admiral,” Charles said, seating himself.
“This,” the admiral said, gesturing toward the policeman, “is Chief Constable Watson. He has brought me news of a murder in Newmarket. It seems that one of the local bookmakers, Alfred Day, was shot last night in the alleyway behind the Great Horse.”
“As it happens,” Charles said, “a boy of my acquaintance stumbled over the body and brought me word of it. I was there when the constable arrived. Bloody business, I must say.” He glanced at Watson, whose expression was unreadable. “One of your men conducted a brief investigation and the body was taken off to the surgeon’s.” He sat back, crossing his legs, thinking that with the prizefighting, wagering, and general rowdiness in the town, back-alley violence must be a regular occurrence and murders not uncommon. What did this particular death have to do with the Club—or with him?
Rubbing his chin, Owen North at last produced an answer to Charles’s unspoken question. “It’s possible, indeed, even likely, that there’s a connection between the murder of Alfred Day and the business that you and Mr. Murray are currently looking into. At my request, Chief Constable Watson has agreed to take his men off the case and turn the investigation over to you.”
Take his men off the case? Charles thought, surprised. Does the Club wield that kind of power? “I’m not sure I quite understand,” he said, with an interrogatory glance at the policeman, and waited for him to say something.
A red-haired, burly man whose nose was covered with a fine network of tiny broken veins, the chief constable looked as if he’d be much more at his ease in the back room of the Great Horse than in the offices of the Jockey Club. He regarded his hat for a moment.
“Well, sir,” he muttered, “as I told the admiral, sir, it seems as it’s got more to do with the Club than the town. In which case, sir—”
“Indeed, Watson,” the admiral said. “Very well put.” He stood and extended his hand. “Thank you for coming, and for assisting in this matter. I think we need not keep you from your duties any longer.”
“One moment, please,” Jack Murray said, stepping forward. “You’ve talked to the widow, Constable?”
“One of my men took her the news,” the chief constable said. “That was last night, right after it happened.”
“Thank you,” Murray said. He stepped back and fell silent again.
When the chief constable had gone, North sat down again. “Sorry for this, Sheridan,” he said in a low voice. “Afraid it complicates your task, rather.”
Charles regarded this as an understatement. He had hoped, after he’d obtained the bottle from Patrick and had located and spoken with the veterinary surgeon, to make his report and recommendations to the stewards and be done with the matter. An investigation into a shooting in a dark alleyway, with no suspects ready at hand, was no part of his original commitment—and it was much more than a minor complication. The silence was broken by the wheezy chime of the clock on the wall as it struck the half-hour.
“Why is it that you suspect a connection between Day’s death and the doping?” Charles finally asked.
North studied his fingers, straightened the blotter on the desk, and glanced toward the window as though he hoped to find some distraction there. At last he said, reluctantly: “Alfred Day—he was commonly known as Badger—came to me a few days ago, here in this office. He wanted to complain generally about the practice of doping, and specifically as it related to the last running of the Derby. It appears that quite a number of people bet heavily upon Gladiator and have been unable to settle.” His smile was crooked. “He said that he felt doping was bad for business.”
Jack Murray pushed himself away from the wall. “It is, sir,” he said dourly. “For all his other dishonesties, and God knows there were plenty, Badger was an honest bookmaker. He knew horses, and he knew people, and he studied the form book. But doping changes everything, sir. The good bookies hate it, ’cause it makes the outcome less predictable.” He waved his hand, speaking more warmly. “O’ course, they hear the touts and tips, too, and when they think a horse is doped to win, they’re willin’ enough to make their own wager, to cover themselves. But they’re against it, to a man, Admiral. They’d be glad to see it stopped.”
Owen North sat motionless during this speech, his face impassive. He made no answer.
“So it is only Day’s complaint that ties him to the doping?” Charles asked. If he had to look into a murder, particularly one in which half the rogues in Newmarket might be implicated, he’d much rather start with some useful information.
North looked away. “He implied,” he said, “that he could name names, quite important names. Since the matter obviously involved wagering, I suggested that he approach Tattersall’s Committee with his complaint. But he argued that this had to do with the performance of the horse, not the wager, and of course, there is the matter of the objection, which has not yet been settled. He insisted that his complaint was related to the objection, and hence should be heard by the stewards.” The admiral’s eyes were expressionless. “I am sure you understand the stewards’ reluctance to hear such a complaint at this time. In the event, I told him that the matter was under investigation and that he would be contacted.”
“But he didn’t name names,” Charles said, watching the other’s face. He had thought he knew Owen North well, and could testify to his complete straightforwardness. Now, he wasn’t quite sure.
“I’m afraid not.” North turned toward the window so that Charles could see only the shadowed half of his face. “Perhaps you’re thinking that Day’s coming here might have nothing to do with his death, and that the investigation should have been left to the police.” He turned back, his jaw set, his eyes narrowed. He spoke with force. “I know these Newmarket constables, Sheridan. They
manage to contain the local thuggery, more or less, and they maintain a decent order at the race meetings. But they cannot be relied upon to keep matters confidential.”
There was a tension in the admiral’s face that Charles couldn’t quite read. Was it apprehension, or evasion, or was it deceit? Charles gave what might have been seen as an affirming nod, and North appeared to relax.
“Indeed,” he said, with a touch of cordiality. “I think you can appreciate why I want you to intervene in this, Charles. The problem is very clear. The Newmarket constabulary simply can’t be allowed to intrude into what might very well turn out to be vital Club interests.”
“Yes,” Charles said. “I see.” He didn’t, really, though, and he was troubled by that elusive look on Owen North’s face. He let the silence lengthen, then sat forward in his chair, engaging the admiral’s eyes. He spoke firmly.
“I cannot undertake this aspect of the investigation without your word as a gentleman that the murderer, if and when he is discovered, will be handed over to the authorites and dealt with according to the law.” If the Club believed itself above the law, or intended to use him to subvert the law, he would wash his hands of this dirty business forthwith. He would walk out of the room and fetch Kate and they could both go back to Bishop’s Keep. He would—
“Oh, very well,” North said shortly, “you may have my word—although I cannot think why you should need it. Naturally, the law will be taken into account.”
Charles said nothing. It was not the wholehearted assurance he had hoped for. But now he was beginning to feel intrigued. North seemed to know, or suspect, more than he was saying. But perhaps more to the point, if Charles refused to take on the investigation, he felt it quite likely that North would find someone else who would—and who might not be so concerned about the law’s jurisdiction.