The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

  The first time round, and the second, they did no more than go at a trot. Then, at a signal from Mr. Deuteronomy, Pegasus sped up to a canter. It was twice round so-and then a walk, a trot, and a walk round again, this time Pegasus led round by his rider. Never once did they take the course, or any part of it, at a full gallop. But by this time, too, other horses, and their riders and trainers, had arrived. Deuteronomy signaled Bennett that it was time to go. Halfway up the hill there seemed so many horses marching down to the track that I was certain there would be a repetition of yesterday’s mob-scene in that part we had just left.

  I fell in beside Mr. Deuteronomy, eager to talk, yet I saw that he was occupied by thoughts of the race, which was by then but two days hence. He signed his readiness to talk by opening the discussion himself.

  “You see from this crowd of horseflesh why we got down here so early,” said he to me.

  “Oh, I do indeed. Yesterday there were so many horses on the course, there was scarce any room for those entered in the race. That was in the late morning or early afternoon-sometime in there.”

  “Oh, I know how it can be. I hope it clears out a bit this evening, for Pegasus needs a light workout. If it’s as bad as you say, I’ll take him out on the country roads. We have to bring him up to a peak in a couple of days, though. Not easy.”

  “Still think you’ll win?” I asked.

  “I haven’t seen any yet who could likely take him.”

  We trudged along in silence for a fair distance, but then did I recall one of the reasons that had brought me down to the track so early in the morning. I had news for him.

  “Yesterday, just after I saw you in the Good Queen Bess, we saw your sister.”

  “Alice? I wasn’t just a-leading you on, now was I? Did you catch her?”

  “No, she got away from us-or not that exactly. Constable Patley, who knows her by sight, saw her through the tap-room window. But by the time we got outside, she was nowhere in sight.”

  “But you’re sure it was her?”

  “Oh, I’m sure as long as Mr. Patley is-and he is truly sure.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “And he’d like to meet you. There’s not much about horse racing he doesn’t know.”

  “That so?”

  “He was a horse soldier, he was. I hope to find him there in the tap-room, eating breakfast.”

  “Hope” was the operative word in that statement, for while it was true that I hoped to find him there, I had no certainty of it. Thus was I surprised and gratified to see him there in the tap-room, just beginning what looked to be a considerable breakfast, eggs and all. I pointed him out to Mr. Deuteronomy, then ushered him over that I might introduce the two men. When Mr. Patley saw us approaching through the crowd, his mouth dropped open in surprise, and he rose in awe to accept the honor that was about to be bestowed upon him.

  “Mr. Patley,” said I to him, “I have the pleasure to present to you Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer.”

  He was quite speechless, so overcome that when the jockey offered him his hand, all he could do was stare down at it for an embarrassing length of time until he realized at last that Mr. Deuteronomy wished to shake hands with him. Then did he grasp it and pump the hand so hard I feared he might do it damage. Mr. Patley urged us to sit down and waved over the serving woman.

  What passed during the next hour or so was a fascinating discussion of Mr. Deuteronomy’s career as a race rider, of which I understood only about half, at most. I simply hadn’t the background in racing to comprehend many of the questions asked and the answers given. Nor could I be so bold as to attempt to reproduce any part of it here. What I can offer the reader, however (and which may be somewhat more germane to the matter at hand), is the comparatively brief conversation that the two had regarding Deuteronomy’s sister, Alice.

  This postscript to the main body of their talk occurred after the last bite of breakfast had been eaten and the final cup of coffee had been downed. I recall that a lull came, and, in the course of it, Mr. Deuteronomy leaned back and fixed the constable with a most piercing look.

  “I understand, Mr. Patley,” said he, “that you met my sister a day or two after her daughter, Maggie, was taken away.”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Plummer, sir.”

  “And she claimed that Maggie had been stolen?”

  “True, sir.”

  “Why do you suppose she did that?”

  “Ah, well. I wondered that m’self. And the best I could come up with is this: If she said that her daughter had been stolen, then whatever happened to the girl, she would be free of blame. Children are bought, sold, and stolen every day in London, but still, buying and selling them is against the law.”

  “I recall,” said I, “that Sir John once said that it is considered as slavery in the sense that it is commerce in human beings.”

  “And if someone should just happen to notice that Maggie was no longer about and that your sister was somewhat richer, they might point the finger at her, but nothing could be proved, for, after all, she’d reported that her child had been stolen from her.”

  “But that was what happened, was it not?” said Mr. Deuteronomy. “Someone did envy her that she had become richer of a sudden, didn’t they?”

  “Yes,” said I, “’twas her neighbor next door, Katy Tiddle, the day before she was murdered. Yet she herself was in on it in some way, and that, I’m sure, was what got her killed.”

  Deuteronomy Plummer nodded at that, and he did keep his silence for what seemed a very long time. At last he turned to me and said, “What do you think about this?”

  “First of all, from what I’ve heard from you and from others about your sister, I’d say she was not bright enough to think of that matter of reporting Maggie stolen.”

  “Oh, I agree with you there,” said he. “What sense she had, left her with all that gin she drank. Must’ve been that Katy Tiddle, or someone a bit higher up the ladder.”

  “And it was Katy Tiddle from whom I took the pistol, the one that must be a mate to that one brought in to the shop of Joseph Griffin, Gunsmith, by your Mr. Bennett.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve spoken to him about that, and he doesn’t know a thing about it, so he says. Can’t imagine how that pistol came into her possession.”

  “And you accept that, do you?”

  “Oh yes.”

  He was, it seemed to me, a bit too quick with his assurances.

  “I’ve a question for you,” said Mr. Patley to Deuteronomy.

  “And what is that?”

  “How did it come that you were so certain that your sister would be here in Newmarket around race day? I was glad when Jeremy here invited me along, but I didn’t expect for a minute that we would find her in this great mob of people-the main reason being I didn’t think that she’d be here, didn’t think there was a chance of it. But here we come, Jeremy and me, and we catch sight of her first day.”

  “So I hear. But truth to tell, I was sure she’d be here because she told me she would be.”

  “Told you she’d be here?” Patley repeated, somewhat amazed.

  “Yes, it was two or three years ago, maybe three or four. Anyways, I’d located her at last, and I’d been riding in races round London for about a year. We was on better terms then, mostly because of little Maggie. She was the sweetest little thing you ever did see back then-small for her age and she couldn’t talk much, but so pretty and just as affectionate as she could be. Took my heart away, she did.

  “Anyways, as I said, we was on better terms then, and I took them both to the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, celebrating something or other. Alice kept Maggie quiet giving her little sips of gin-watered down o’course. So the two of them was both gettin’ pretty tipsy, and we hadn’t had a thing to eat yet. Alice was actin’ more silly and sentimental by the minute. Pretty soon she started talkin’ about Maggie’s father. Seems that when she ran off from the farm-the family farm-she wandered round for a while, then come upon New
market just as they were gettin’ ready for the races here. Well, for a country girl run away from home there couldn’t be anything more exciting than this here-most particularly when she met a young fella about her age, so tall and fair she’d never seen nothin’ like him ever before. She was just carried away by him, she was.

  “‘Oh, Deuteronomy,’ she says to me. ‘He took my maidenhead, yet never was one so freely given. We was together a month or so, then we had our first quarrel-just a little lover’s tiff was all it was, but I got all carried away and left for London right off.’

  “But she promised me right then that if ever she got a little money ahead she would go right back up to Newmarket and make another baby with her tall, straw-haired young fellow. That was how she put it. She promised me.”

  The rest of that day went much like the one before. We searched for Alice Plummer-without result. There was but this alteration in our plan. Whereas we had spent the morning looking for her between our inn and the track below, we spent the afternoon exploring the area above the Good Queen Bess; for after all, was she not coming down the hill when Constable Patley spied her through the tap-room window? So she was-and so there was naught to do but go higher and search more industriously. Yet how large or small the town of Newmarket was had to play some part in all this. It was not a place of immense size, after all. True, its population had been swollen many times over, but we could cover the space of it in not much more than a couple of hours. And so we wandered through that area upon the hill above and saw that it was much like the area that surrounded the inn. There were inns, stables, houses, no shops to speak of, but many tents, lean-tos, and other temporary shelters. It appeared to me as if the good burghers of Newmarket were making a pretty penny from this notable event, now a feature of the racing calendar.

  I recall remarking on this to Mr. Patley in the midst of our searches, and he responded, “Well, it ain’t bad as London for stealing a poor man’s coppers, but you put a lot of money into any town in England, and this is what you’re likely to get.”

  “I think if we were to make this tour at nightfall,” said I, “we would find that the residents of the makeshift dwellings are holding their own insofar as separating a poor man from his coppers.”

  “P’rhaps so,” said he. “Are you truly proposing that we make such a tour?”

  “No, not really. I believe we can spend our time better in another manner. Mr. Deuteronomy said to me earlier that he would be taking Pegasus out for a run in the early evening if the course is not too crowded. I thought you might like to see him put through his paces.”

  “Would I, though! Indeed! Just as soon as the sun goes low in the sky.”

  Thus was it agreed. We had by that time looked so long and hard for Alice that I felt not the slightest guilt in temporarily deserting our search.

  So it was that at the time suggested by Mr. Patley we made our way down the hill to watch Pegasus’s second run of the day. It would not be long until sundown and, again, not long after that before night fell. All the many against whom I had struggled to return to the Good Queen Bess yesterday in the early afternoon were now returning; and so it was a bit of a battle making our way down to the track whereon I had watched Pegasus through his morning workout.

  Yet we arrived in ample time, for, just as we approached, I spied Mr. Bennett aiding Mr. Deuteronomy with a leg up into the saddle.

  “Look how well he sits up there!” Mr. Patley exclaimed admiringly.

  And it was true. I have not done justice to the rider’s seat upon his mount. Though a small man, as I have described him, one had no doubt that he was in command once he took his place upon Pegasus. It was there in his erect posture, even in the set of his features. A few words to the horse-I would have given anything to know what he said-and they were away. The horse went at a trot and only later increased his pace to a canter-and how beautifully the two of them did move together. The way ahead was clear.

  Meanwhile did Bennett retire, ducking beneath the rail, then leaning over it, that he might study horse and man better. He, too, in his way, knew horses as well as Mr. Deuteronomy. He stood some distance away from us, so that I was certain that I would not be overheard if I were to voice to Mr. Patley my opinion of him.

  “That man there,” said I, nodding toward Bennett.

  “The trainer?”

  “I suppose that’s what he is, yes. I like him well enough, but I don’t accept his disavowal of all knowledge of how that pistol came into the hands of Katy Tiddle.”

  “Disavowal?”

  “Denial. Nor do I accept Mr. Deuteronomy’s ready acceptance of that denial.”

  “Seemed a little hasty to me, too,” said Mr. Patley. “What do you plan to do about it?”

  “Nothing, for the moment,” said I, “but I just wanted you to know how I felt about them-and find out how you felt, too.”

  “Much as I like our Mr. Deuteronomy, that’s how I feel.”

  We left it at that and turned our attention to the track. This was indeed the time to watch Pegasus at exercise. The light held good for far longer than I expected, and it was not long until the two of them, horse and rider, were the only such pair upon the course. It was then that the rider urged the horse to a canter. And only when all the rail-birds (as they are known) had departed, he allowed Pegasus to break into a full gallop, as the horse had been straining to do for many minutes. ’Twas not, by any means, the horse’s fastest, or so I was informed by Constable Patley. But fast enough it was, and both jockey and mount gloried in it. Nevertheless, it was growing dark-too dark to circle round at such speed. Or so Deuteronomy judged it, for he reined in to a halt just as a most impressive coach and four pulled up at the rail.

  Who could it have been but Lord Lamford?

  He hopped down from the coach quick as his considerable bulk would allow and was followed by a sharp-featured man of uncertain age.

  “Hi, you there, Deuteronomy! Give us another lap on Pegasus, will you?”

  “Can’t do it, Lord Lamford. It’s a bit too dark for it now.”

  “Do as I say, fellow. I want the Duke of Queensberry to see what he can do.”

  “Well, all right. Will a trot round the course do for you?”

  “Certainly not. Do it at full gallop.”

  “He could break a leg, my lord.”

  “Then I’ll buy another like him. Do as I say!”

  With a sigh and a shrug, Mr. Deuteronomy took the leg up offered him by Mr. Bennett.

  “Your jockey’s right, you know. It is a bit too dark for this track,” said the Duke of Queensberry. (Whatever his reputation otherwise, he knew his horses.)

  “I just want you to see what he can do,” said Lord Lamford.

  “Well, let’s see, by all means.”

  Mr. Deuteronomy leaned forward and whispered something in the horse’s ear. Mr. Bennett backed away, and, seconds later, the horse was off at a gallop.

  Ah, but was it a full gallop? Of that I was unsure. I thought I had seen Pegasus run faster but a few minutes before, and I was sure I had done so last Sunday in Shepherd’s Bush. A horse like Pegasus (I was later told by Mr. Patley) can often appear to run at his utmost and still hold back a bit to be called from him by the right jockey. There could be no doubt that Mr. Deuteronomy was the right jockey, but he chose not to call from him that something extra.

  Mr. Patley looked my way and gave me a wink.

  Once Pegasus had cleared the brook that ran cross the race course, it was evident that he would not break his leg-at least not that evening. He drew up just opposite us. Deuteronomy halted him so sudden that the horse reared, and just as soon as four hooves were firm upon the turf, the rider slid off and handed him over to Mr. Bennett.

  “Ah, well, Lord Lamford,” said the Duke of Queensberry, “you’ve got a good little horse there. He’ll win a few races for you. I’ve heard of your jockey, though. What’s his name?”

  “Er. . Deuteronomy something. I’m not sure.”

  “I�
��d like to meet him.”

  “Certainly, certainly.”

  And having said that, he called out for Mr. Deuteronomy. As the jockey marched past us, he muttered out the corner of his mouth that he would meet us for dinner in the tap-room.

  “I’ve something to tell,” said he.

  Once he was past and presented to the Duke of Queensberry, I turned to Mr. Patley and suggested that we be on our way. He was more than willing-eager, in fact, to be quit of Lord Lamford. We wasted no time.

  When we had started up the hill, Patley turned to me and said, “Now, Jeremy, I understand why you have so little use for that fellow Lamford-or whatever his family name might be.”

  But I hardly heard him at all, for I was just at that moment looking at something so astonishing that it did fair amaze me. ’Twas the slate that hung high above the stall of the turf accountant, giving the odds on each horse. I had looked at it the day before and complained that Pegasus was not even listed, and the constable had explained that it was because he had not yet been officially entered. Well, now he was entered and was listed at the very bottom.

  “Mr. Patley,” said I, “just look at the odds on Pegasus!”

  “Well, it don’t matter what they be,” said he. “The place is closed for now, and. . and-oh, dear God in heaven, I never did see such odds as that!”

  Yet there it was, posted plain upon the slate: “Pegasus, 33 to 1.” We stopped, stared, repeated it each to himself, over and over again.