The Iron Angel

by Edward D. Hoch

  Michael continued to work out Rom Way on Tuesday and the big horse circled the track a half second faster than before. They spent the morning at the track and then off sightseeing in the afternoon. Konrad was at work and was only able to join them in the evening. Surprisingly it was Alexis who appeared on Wednesday morning, nodding briefly to Segar but obviously directing her attention toward Michael Vlado.

  “How is your horse running?” she asked. “Should I bet him tonight?”

  “There he is, just coming into the home stretch. Judge for yourself.”

  “He runs well. He runs like the Gypsy outlaw he is.”

  “We are not all outlaws,” Michael replied with a slight smile. Segar could not be sure, but the woman might have been flirting. “Tell me,” she continued, “is it true that Gypsy men must pay a bride-price for their women, the opposite of a dowry?”

  He nodded. “The custom exists in China and some other places, too. It is not exclusive with gypsies.”

  “And do you travel in caravans and deliver Gypsy curses?”

  “I am merely a farmer and horse breeder.”

  “Come now! Gypsies know many things.”

  They were standing by the rail and Tanti was just dismounting when there was a shout from the stable area. Fritz Leiden was calling for help. Segar broke into a run with the others following, his police training taking over by instinct. He reached the German and took him by the shoulders. “What’s happened?”

  “In there,” Leiden said, pointing to the nearest stable.

  Segar went in and bent over a man lying on his face in the straw. A wound to the head was open but there was very little blood. “He’s dead,” he told Michael.

  “It’s that Kosok fellow,” Tanti said.

  Segar lifted the man’s head slightly and they saw that it was indeed Kosok. “Did you see anyone near here?” he asked Leiden.

  “Only a stable boy with his wheelbarrow doing his daily cleaning chores! I didn’t see Kosok or anyone else.”

  “You’d better call the police.”

  Later as the police were completing their formalities, Alexis said, “I knew him quite well. Do you think I should admit it?”

  “Not unless they ask you,” Segar advised her. “Never lie to them, but don’t volunteer anything either.”

  “That’s right – you’re a police captain yourself, back in Romania.”

  “Konrad told us he met you through Kosok. What was the man, besides a horse trainer?”

  She shrugged. “He gambled some. I don’t know where he got his money.”

  The police had finished with Fritz Leiden and Michael asked him: “Whose stable is this?”

  “It belongs to Dmitri Ivanov. He trains several horses. All the stables along this side are his.”

  Ivanov himself soon appeared on the scene. He wore jodhpurs and riding boots, giving the appearance of an English country squire until he began conversing in Russian. That particular stable had been unoccupied, he said, since three of his horses had been shipped out to other tracks after Sunday’s races. “Of course I knew Kosok,” he replied to the police investigator’s question. “He was at the track almost every day. Sometimes he trained horses, other times he just hung around. He was always eager to make an easy ruble or two.”

  The investigator, whose name was Nevsky, made notes in a black book. “Who were his enemies, his friends?”

  A few names were mentioned and Konrad Segar was one of them. It was Fritz Leiden who said he’d often seen the dead man talking with the official from the Agriculture Ministry. When Investigator Nevsky perked up at this, Segar wondered if the mention of a government official had made him nervous. Then one of the other detectives came over to Nevsky and told him they’d found something of interest and they moved off to another area of the stables, with Segar and the others following along.

  “Do you think this will delay tonight’s races?” Tanti asked anxiously.

  “I doubt it,” Michael replied. “They make a great deal of money from it. You’ll get your chance to ride.”

  Nevsky and the other detective were examining one of the large wheel-barrows the stable boys used to remove horse manure during their cleaning chores. There seemed to be nothing in it but a pair of stable boy’s overalls and a shirt. The pants cuffs had been turned up but there was only a bit of straw in them. Then the detectives found something else in the folds of clothing – a large hypodermic needle of the sort used to inject horses. “Have its content analyzed,” Nevsky ordered.

  The trainers and jockeys who had gathered around at the news of the killing gradually dispersed and Michael and Tandi went off to Rom Way’s stable nearby. Tanti led the horse into the fresh straw and as he gave him a bucket of water Michael toed at the straw deep in thought.

  Segar was still following Investigator Nevsky about when Konrad arrived. Word of the murder had reached the Ministry office. “What happened here?” he demanded of the detective.

  “A man named Vladimir Kosok was killed by a blow on the head. It seems to have happened an hour or two before the body was found. You knew the man, Comrade Segar?”

  “I knew him, yes.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “I came here to ask questions, not answer them. My office is in charge of operations here, as you know.”

  “I understand that,” Nevsky reached into a plastic evidence bag he was carrying. “You see, Comrade, this box of matches was found clutched in the dead man’s hand.”

  Segar and his brother both stared at it. On the side of the box was the symbol of the Agriculture Ministry. Segar had seen some like it at Konrad’s apartment. “He might have gotten that anywhere,” Konrad said. “No doubt they’ve been left here on occasion by myself and others from the office.”

  “But he was clutching it as if he had just grabbed it from his killer. And we found a hypodermic needle, too. Its contents are being analyzed.”

  Konrad was grim-faced. “To answer your earlier question, I saw the dead man her yesterday morning while I was watching the horses work out.”

  “Very well.” Investigator Nevsky made another note in his book. Segar saw that he must take some action. “Perhaps you would allow me to aid in the investigation. I am a captain of police back in Romania.”

  “We can handle it quite well,” the Russian assure him, closing his notebook and walking away.

  “They suspect me,” Konrad said. “I could see it in his eyes.”

  “Surely your position –”

  “I am not important enough to sway a murder investigation.”

  “But you had no motive for killing Kosok.”

  “Some might think my love for Alexis was motive enough. He resented our affair. On Sunday when you saw him leaving my apartment he had been there to warn me away from her.”

  “I didn’t know,” Segar said quietly.

  “I must go find her.”

  “She was with us earlier, watching the workout. She may be with Michael at the stable.”

  They found her there, patting Rom Way while Michael brushed him down. When he heard of the latest developments the Gypsy was troubled. “We did not mean to bring you problems,” he told Konrad.

  “You have not brought them.”

  “I hope not. Some feel the coming of gypsies brings an ill wind.”

  “I urged you to come,” Konrad reminded him. “I’ll be cheering you on tonight.”

  Segar managed to get Michael aside. “The official police want none of my help. But you have aided me before in investigations. Do you see anything we might have missed?”

  “Many things,” the Gypsy said. “But let us await the results of the investigation and of tonight’s races.”

  Rom Way ran in the fourteenth race, near the end of the evening’s card. He took an early lead and then dropped back as Michael and Segar cheered him on from the rail. Konrad and Alexis were there too, adding their encouragement. One of Ivanov’s horses had surged to the lead and Alexis shouted, “I hope h
e loses! Come on, Rom Way!”

  Tanti used his whip just once but it was enough to spur RomWay on. He came even with Ivanov’s horse and then in the home stretch edged him out by half a length. Rom Way had won his first big race.

  The exhilaration they all felt in watching could hardly match Tanti Slatina’s in riding the winner. He jumped down from his mount to accept Michael's enthusiastic hug and a kiss from Alexis. When they’d all calmed down, Segar saw Michael draw the young woman aside. “Why were you so anxious that Ivanov’s horse lose?” he asked.

  “Ivanov and Kosok were partners on that horse,” she replied.

  “Partners? The horses are owned by the state. The men were only trainers.”

  “Partners in wagering. They had a system for betting large sums of money – more than is allowed by law. They bribed a cashier to punch out extra tickets for them so they wouldn’t have to run between windows buying them.” She took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t be telling you this if Vladimir were still alive. I really did love him once.”

  The small purse for winning the race was awarded and they started off to celebrate. There was talk of entering another race on Friday evening but Fritz Leiden informed Michael that the Friday card was already full. “Perhaps on Sunday,” he suggested.

  That was when Investigator Nevsky appeared, grim-faced as ever. “I understand your Gypsy horse was the winner,” he said with a trace of distaste.

  “You should have bet on him,” Michael Vlado replied with ease. “The payoff was very good. If they posted odds, he would have gone at about ten to one.”

  “It is highly irregular for a privately owned horse to race at the Hippo-drome or anywhere in Russia. You must be aware of that. One wonders if Kosok was threatening to report this to the proper authorities.”

  “We received no money,” Michael assured him. “Only the regular trainer and jockey fees and our percentage of the purse. Russian horses travel to Berlin and Dusseldorf. Certainly German horses race here on occasion. You know as well as I do you have no basis for threats.”

  Nevsky’s lips twisted into a slight grin. It was the first time he’d attempted anything approaching a smile. “I can have you arrested on suspicion this very minute. No one will care what happens to a Gypsy.”

  “Perhaps we’d make more sense if we worked together,” Michael suggested.

  “What sort of Gypsy name is Michael anyway?”

  “A Romanian sort. I was named after King Michael, our country’s last monarch before it became a communist state.”

  “And a poor communist state it is,” Nevsky grumbled. “Neither a Gypsy nor a Romanian receives my sympathy.”

  “If you intend to arrest me, tell me one thing first. What were the contents of that hypodermic needle?”

  “Is that any business of yours?”

  “It could be.”

  “The hypodermic needle contained a powerful stimulant. Any horse injected with it before a race would have a good chance of winning. However, the most routine urine test for drugs would have revealed it.”

  Michael Vlado nodded. “Could I speak with you in private?”

  “About what?”

  “My theory on the case.”

  They walked away together while Segar watched. Michael was talking, explaining, and after some moments Nevsky started talking too. They might have been having an argument. Finally they returned and it was Nevsky who spoke, “Mr. Vlado has some interesting theories on the case.”

  “Could we all go someplace and talk?” Michael asked.

  Tanti suggested a room where the jockeys relaxed before their races. With the last race about to be run, it was empty now except for Fritz Leiden who was busy cleaning up. Nevsky led Michael, Tanti, Segar, Konrad, and Alexis inside. “Now tell them your theory.”

  “Yes,” Michael said. “I thought of it when someone said they’d seen a stable boy by the place where Kosok’s body was found. Why would he have been there? To clean the stables? But this is Wednesday morning and Ivanov had shipped off the horses that used those stables after Sunday’s races. They would have been cleaned on Monday – or yesterday at the latest. Isn’t that right, Fritz?”

  “You’re correct,” Leiden agreed. “No stable boy should have been in that area this morning.”

  “But if it wasn’t a real stable boy, who was it? The hypodermic needle tells us that. It was someone posing as a stable boy to get near the horses, to inject one of them with a powerful stimulant. As bad luck would have it, Kosok ran into him, probably recognized him as a fellow gambler and got himself killed. I think if Investigator Nevsky checks on known gamblers with special interest in this evenings horses, he may find the killer.”

  Surprisingly, the Russian detective agreed. “You will all be leaving in the morning, going back to Romania?”

  “I think it’s best,” Michael said over young Tanti’s objections. “We’ve raced at the Hippodrome and won. Why press our luck?”

  “Why indeed?” the Russian said.

  After he’d gone, Segar took Michael aside. “What sort of story did you feed him earlier?”

  “What I just said, as far as it went. I also told him that Kosok and Ivanov were gambling partners. And I told him about the scheme to bribe one for the cashiers.”

  “What about my brother?”

  “He’ll be all right as long as we don’t race again. He made some big bets too, didn’t he?”

  “I suppose so,” Segar admitted. “I saw Alexis collecting some winnings after Rom Way won.”

  “You and I, we’re better off back in Romania,” Michael said.

  Konrad saw them off in the morning. They stopped at the Hippodrome to pick up the horse trailer with Rom Way and said goodbye to Fritz Leiden. Then they headed south the way they had come. A summer mist hung over the valleys and the sun was only starting to break through and warm the air.

  “That was quite a trip,” Tanti said. “Something I’ll remember a long time.”

  “I should think so,” Segar agreed. “Racing at the Hippodrome is some-thing that happens once in a lifetime.”

  Michael was at the wheel guiding the car and trailer along the divided highway. It wasn’t until they left the main road that he relaxed and spoke. “In a way I’m sorry we went.”

  “Because of the murder?” Segar asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You think my brother killed him don’t you?”

  “No. In fact I knew from the start that he was innocent. You see, the killer posed as a stable boy and Konrad couldn’t have fit into those overalls. You’ll remember the pant legs were turned up for a short person.”

  “Maybe it was one of the stable boys.”

  “No. He wouldn’t have risked abandoning his overalls. Kosok’s head wound left virtually no blood in the stable where we found him – that indicates he was killed elsewhere and dumped there.”

  “Someone carried the body in broad daylight?”

  “Wheeled it would be more accurate. Kosok was small man – his body would have fit into one of those big wheelbarrows the stable boys use. Covered with a tarp and a bit of straw, no one would see it. Remember, someone did notice a stable boy with a wheelbarrow near those stables. And I asked myself something else. Why was a stable boy’s costume needed at all? Anyone could have pushed that wheelbarrow without attracting attention. Unless their regular clothes were distinctive enough to catch the eye.”

  Captain Segar felt uneasy. “What are you trying to say, Michael?”

  “That the killer of Vladimir Kosok had to be a small person, like a jockey. That he had to be wearing eye-catching clothing, like a Gypsy. That he had to have murdered Kosok in our stable where fresh straw covered the bloodstains. Tanti, why did you kill him?”

  They stopped the car at the side of the road while Tanti Slatina went off to the woods and was sick. Presently Michael and Segar followed him, and sat with him.

  “I found him in the stable with that needle,” Tanti said sobbing it out with an emotion that s
hook his whole body. “He tried to bribe me to inject the stimulant into Rom Way. He said if I did it just before the race Rom Way would win. What he really wanted was a disqualification so the horse he backed – Ivanov’s horse – would win. When I refused, he said he’d inject Rom Way himself. We struggled and I hit him with a horseshoe. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Segar asked. “Why did you move the body?”

  “I – I wanted to race at the Hippodrome. I wanted it more than anything else on earth. If I admitted killing him even by accident, I knew they’d put me in jail and I wouldn’t race. So I put on the overalls and shirt and moved his body in a wheelbarrow to an empty stable. The hypodermic needle must have fallen into the wheelbarrow and I missed it.”

  Michael nodded. “You said it was Kosok before we turned over the body, though you barely knew him. That made me suspicious, and when I saw the fresh straw in our stable I searched the floor for bloodstains and found them. But I had to let you ride.”

  “What if my brother had been arrested?” Segar asked Tanti quietly. “What about that box of matches in Kosok’s hand?”

  “I picked them up at his apartment for a souvenir. Kosok must have ripped them from my pocket during our struggle without me realizing it. Believe me Captain, I would have confessed if Konrad was arrested, I still will.”

  Michael stood up helping Tanti to his feet. “You just have, to a captain in the Romanian police.”

  Segar nodded and followed them back to the car. He stood for a moment looking at Rom Way in the trailer and then he got into the car with them. “It’s out of my jurisdiction,” he said at last. “Let’s go home.”

  BLOOD OF A GYPSY

  It had been some weeks since Captain Segar had last driven into the foothills of the Transylvanian Alps to visit his Gypsy friend Michael Vlado in the little village of Gravita. He never imagined that his next trip would come at the instigation of his commanding officer.

  Inspector Krisana sat at his cluttered desk beneath the tricolor Romanian flag with its coat of arms centered directly over his head. “I believe you have some close contacts among the hill Gypsies, Captain Segar.”