Sherlock Holmes Never Dies- Collection Four

by Copland, Craig Stephen

  “Oh,” said Holmes. “I am always reading news of dark horses that surprised everyone by winning at twenty to one. Why not bet on those?”

  “It is true, as the good book says, that the battle is not always to the strong nor the race to the swift. But that’s the way you bet. Allow me, sir, to tax you with some scientific arithmetic. If you bets are all at twenty to one and if in one race out of a hundred a horse wins at twenty to one, then it is a truly certain thing that for every dollar you win you will lose four. If you keep doing that you are either a rich young guy who is doing this to impress some doll, or you are a dumb chump on your way to the poorhouse.”

  “A point well taken,” said Holmes, nodding his now enlightened approval. “Now please permit me to beg your indulgence, and may I ask if you might be willing to advise me on how to lay my bets for the Century Race? I fear I am blind as a mole on my own.”

  The three Americans again looked at each other and then the chap in the yellow suit shrugged his shoulders. “As you have been to us a gracious and generous host, it is appropriate that we return the favor. May I suggest that you, Doc, take notes while we share with you our enlightened insights.

  “I must, however,” he continued, “preface my remarks but affirming that each one of us are not only loyal flag-waving Americans, true to the Red, White, and Blue, we are also indeed Republicans, and so it grieves us to admit to you our inevitable conclusions. Allow me first to impart our insights on our fine American horses.

  “Each of us,” he said, “has a strong emotional attachment to one or more of the American horses. Harry would love to bet all his ducats on the horse named Paul Revere, since he knows that when the weather’s clear, and the track wet that this horse cannot lose since he likes mud. Sorrowful, on the other hand, has had many very joyful days at Aqueduct by placing his bets on Valentine, for whom the morning line is almost always giving odds of five to nine. The horse has a chance at the big race, according to the jockey’s second cousin who is a friend of mine. My bets would have been placed on Epitaph, who according to the Telegraph, is the great-grandson of Equipoise, and the class of his pedigree is nothing at which to be sneezed. So if we were placing our bets on American horses and betting with our hearts, it would be on those. However, a man who bets with his heart instead of his head is a man who is soon out of ducats and back living with his mother. Therefore, we are doing some scientifically serious handicapping and deducing and we are of the conclusion that if you are going to bet on an American horse, then your bets should be on Clam, who two years ago wins the Preakness and wins a dozen or more stakes races since that time. He is the best of the lot, although we are not fond of him personally on account of because his owner, Mr. Montague Quimson-Filmore, says many unkind things about the proud fraternity of handicappers.”

  “Ah,” said Holmes, “looking very much enlightened, “so the smart money is on Clam.”

  “Nah,” said Sorrowful. “It would be, but this big race is not exactly fair. The odds are stacked in favor of the limeys.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Holmes, looking quite indignant. “You have already said that you found no possible criminal fix. How can you say the race is not fair?”

  “We are led to believe,” continued the chap in the yellow suit, “that a racecourse is a racecourse is a racecourse. Some are sprint courses and less than a mile. Others, by which I mean almost all the rest of them, are one mile long, made out of an oval, and flat. The longest race our horses run is the Belmont, which is a mile and four furlongs.”

  “Ah yes,” I piped up. “This race is a Cup course and is to be run on the long track; over two miles, and it has the long hill up and then down.”

  “That, Doc, is what we are now knowing. It is bad enough that our dearly beloved favorites are spending a week on a boat without proper exercise, without which a horse forgets how to run, but our colts do not run truly long courses. Your English horses, on the other hand, are highly experienced in running for a long time on turf. It is like they are playing ball in their home field. They have a distinct advantage of a more than somewhat amount, meaning that no matter how much we wave the flag for our all-American champions, your English horses are going to show their heels to our American steeds, even to our best of the best, the horse that goes by the name of Clam.”

  “All very useful to know,” said Holmes. “You have instructed me as to which horse I should not bet on, but you have given me no enlightenment as to which you have deduced most likely to win.”

  “Well now, sir, it goes like this. Before getting on the boat to come over here I visit my old pals, Patience and Fortitude at their pad looking out over Fifth Avenue, and make my way up to Rosie’s Room and ask for all the back copies of your Sporting News, so that I am able to do my due diligence and a serious handicapping on all your English horses. The lady librarian, who is of a certain age but still a doll, if you like your dolls that age, and at our age we have no choice but to do so; she finagles out of me what I am looking for and to my considerable surprise she not only fetches me the back copies of your newspapers but she tells me that the safe money is being bet on Lord Commodore and Vindication of Yarmouth. I do not know how she knows this, but it seems her dear departed uncle is a successful handicapper, originally from Dublin. But then she says to me, real on the quiet, that I should look at this horse who goes by the name of Mr. Silver and ridden by none other than Donny Cotter.”

  “The ghost horse of Westbury,” I exclaimed. “He is quite the mystery, I must say.”

  “So, Doc, it would appear that you are familiar with this horse and that he is quite the enigma to a handicapper.”

  “Good heavens, Watson,” interrupted Holmes. “What do you mean, a ghost horse?”

  The chap in the yellow suit gestured to me to pick up the story. “There is some confusion about his pedigree,” I said, not entirely sure of myself. “He was brought four years ago to Colonel Ross by a group of Gypsies. They said that they had found a young colt wandering all by himself in the wooded hills between Westbury and Bratten. He was completely white in color. Not a spot of any other markings anywhere. The Gypsies were quite convinced that he was the supernatural offspring of the Great White Horse of Westbury and the long-necked White Horse in Cherhill.”

  “The Roma people,” Holmes observed, “are to be complimented on their skill in sales, especially when dealing with gullible gentry. Pray, continue.”

  “Colonel Ross made inquiries all over Salisbury and Wiltshire, but no stable reported losing a pure white colt. He purchased it from the Gypsies and gave it to his trainers to see if it had any potential as a racehorse. I do not know much more about it as it has not been run in very many races, and those it has run in are mostly long cup races, and its bloodline is completely unknown.”

  “This is what we learned as well,” said the chap in the yellow suit. “We read all the old copies of your Sporting News as well as the Daily Racing Form for every day and at every course in which he runs. It seems that the Colonel, being a very wise guy, runs Mr. Silver only in enough races to have him work up through his conditions and up to the Cup races, but no more. But in seven out of every ten races he runs, he wins. So I am thinking that maybe his jockey is pulling him in those he loses so that the odds in his favor do not get to be overly optimistic. And then I see that earlier this year one of the few races in which he runs is called the Alexandra Stakes, and he wins by five lengths. This to me is not such a big deal until I learn that this race, which is held at your Ascot Racecourse, is two miles and five furlongs and several more yards long. I do not know of any race that is this long in America. To win it Mr. Silver runs the whole thing in four minutes and forty-five seconds, which is a record for the race. So I tell myself that this is one amazing horse and if he is looking good and is not scratched from this big race, then he is the one on which we must place our bets.”

  “Jolly good,” I exclaimed. “A million pounds placed on Mr. Silver to win would return a fortune to you.
A capital idea.”

  I was smiling warmly at these chaps, but they looked somewhat chagrined and stared at the carpet.

  “We must confess, Doc,” the fellow continued, “that we, being true sportsmen, would most assuredly put all of the ducats at our disposal on this horse to win, if only it were our money. But as it is the money of the clients, and as the clients are associated with Fleagal Eagle the lawyer and his friends, we have somewhat chickened out and hedged out bets. We are betting across the board on Mr. Silver as we are highly certain he will be in the money, but we are not in a position to risk putting all the eggs into one basket as we are not the owners of those eggs and the owners are known to be occasionally cantankerous. So against our noble principles, we are playing it safe. If I was you and you are not in a position to lose a copious amount of scratch, I would suggest a similar strategy.”

  I nodded and commended the chaps for their well-reasoned and cautious advice. We chatted for a few more minutes and then Holmes rose and thanked them graciously for their insights and departed in the direction of our rooms. I likewise shook their hands and did not think to ask the fellow in the yellow suit his name, and to this day do not know what it was.

  Holmes disappeared into his bedroom and, to my surprise, emerged some fifteen minutes later looking not at all like a gentleman but more like a drunken groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an inflamed face and disreputable clothes.

  “Merciful heavens, Holmes,” I gasped, “you are a little over-the-top are you not? Epsom Downs is hardly the place to wander around like some drunken ostler.”

  “Which, if I may say so,” he replied, “I shall take that as your vote of confidence, and be quite certain that there is no likelihood of my being identified as London’s only consulting detective. I shall take my disreputable self to the stables and seek to learn whatever I am able to from the many boys and men who are sure to be working there.”

  He departed and I saw nothing of him until the following morning.

  Chapter Three

  They’re at the Post

  I ROSE AT WHAT I THOUGHT was an early hour, only to find Holmes already in the breakfast room puffing on his pipe and surrounded by a minor explosion of racing tabloids, and daily forms. The one in his hands was being attacked by jabs from his pencil.

  “Good morning, Holmes. Any intelligence from your undercover work last evening?”

  He put down his paper and shook his head slowly. “It was not difficult to confirm the information given to us by our colorful American friends,” he said. “The stables in which the participating horses are being kept are indeed under close guard. The track has hired over two dozen retired marines who are guarding every door around the clock. I was able to engage one of them in conversation. He was quite cooperative, having nothing else to do after sunset when guard duty is dreadfully boring. He made it quite clear that no one was permitted inside the stables except those whose names were on the lists and they were accompanied to their specific stalls and back out again. So not much chance of any skullduggery on that front, unless someone were able to bribe one of the guards.”

  “What about the jockeys?”

  “They are all housed at the small inn some two blocks down the road. It is also guarded by marines and again no one is allowed entry who is not on an approved list, and every jockey has a marine minding him around the clock. ”

  “Good heavens,” I said. “Why, a gathering of heads of state would not have that much protection and surveillance. The race organizers really have gone all out to make sure that this event is clean of any corruption.”

  “Yes,” said Holmes. “There are fourteen horses in the race, which leaves me with fourteen men and their entourages to hold as possible suspects. The rewards for the winner of the race are enough to tempt anyone.”

  The Race of the Century, the Wheatcroft Cup, was scheduled for four o’clock in the afternoon. Over 70,000 spectators had descended on Epsom and by noon the racecourse grounds and the surrounding lands were a beehive of laughter and sporting games of all sorts. As the hour of the starting bell approached the crowds moved into the stands. Holmes, courtesy of Scotland Yard, had secured for us some of the most desirable seats in the Queen’s Stand, just ahead of the finish line and high enough to have a clear view of the entire course. Every seat around us was taken, mostly with very posh looking ladies and gentlemen, all dressed to the nines. The toffs, pretending to be learned sportsmen, were reciting horse race statistics to the ladies in their attempts to impress them, and the ladies were pretending to be impressed. All in all, it was a jolly pleasant afternoon.

  At 3:30 pm the horses with their owners and jockeys did their parade past. The American horses had been equipped with a blanket that bore the design of the Stars and Stripes, and the English bore the Union Jack. It did occur to me for a brief second that neither of the flags was honored by having a man bounce his gluteus maximus up and down upon it, but any such insistence on protocol was obviously not being considered this afternoon.

  Every one of the horses looked magnificent. Their manes carefully tied up, their coats brushed and shining, and their jockeys resplendent in gleaming new silks. The crowd around me were all claps and cheers and laughter as each of the horses walked past. The favorites – Lord Commodore, Vindication of Yarmouth, Paul Revere, Valentine, Epigraph, and Clam – all received warm applause and encouragement from their fans.

  Then suddenly the crowd became silent and I could hear only a few gasps of awe. Coming into view was Mr. Silver, two full hands taller than the rest of the horses, and with a massive chest and upper legs that made the others look like scrawny nags. His color was a brilliant white, such that would diminish a bride’s wedding dress if seen alongside. The sunshine bounced off his back and side, rendering him almost a supernatural apparition, a ghost horse. He strutted like a stallion in command of his obedient brood of mares. His jockey, Donny Cotter, splendid in new red and black silks, lifting his helmet, smiled, and waved to the stands.

  The spectators were obligated to respond and they did so with quiet, reverential applause. As the horses were led to the starting gate on the old Cup Course, we again took our seats and the murmuring began.

  Through my field glasses, I watched as Mr. Silver, bearing the number 2, was led into the number 1 post position. Coming in after him was Vindication of Yarmouth, wearing the distinguished Biggleswade colors. The horses were quiet and well-behaved, all led with no problems to the line by the starters. They did not appear to anticipate any trouble. The one horse that has caused a bit of a stir in the Derby, Rheingold of Reading, strutted calmly into place. Beside him, the repeated stakes winner and crowd favorite, Clam, came into line. The rest of the horses, the pick of the crop from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, all took their places, spreading across the entire width of the track.

  Everybody was in line. The bell sounded, the starting mesh dropped and they were off. The line exploded forward as if shot from a row of artillery. Within a few seconds, they were all at full gallop and moving like a thundering horde. Fourteen of the world’s best thoroughbreds were all straining to pull ahead of each other.

  By the first half furlong, the closely packed cluster had thinned out.

  It looked like the early lead went to Paul Revere. Yes, it was Paul Revere one position out from the rails and going for the lead with Lord Commodore on the outside. Mr. Silver was away very well and had good position on the rail as they were moving for the first turn on the old Cup Course. Mr. Silver was moving up to join the leaders. Clam, showing the power he had used when winning the Preakness, on the outside was also moving along strongly.

  As they came through the turn, it was Clam and Mr. Silver right together. Paul Revere had third behind them, and then it was Lord Commodore, and trailing behind him was Epitaph as they approached the second turn. Those two, Clam and Mr. Silver were running together, with Clam on the outside. Clam pulled ahead, with Mr. Silver second as they came around the next turn and entered the
long punishing run up the hill.

  I watch through my field glasses. Holmes was doing the same and I could hear him muttering beneath his breath, “Come on there boy, you can do it. Come on.”

  Behind us, the toffs and ladies were on their feet and starting to cheer.

  The horses had reached the hill. Behind the front two, Clam and Mr. Silver, a large gap was opening up. By midway up the hill it had extended to six lengths, then make it eight lengths back to Paul Revere and Lord Commodore, with Epitaph trailing closely. Then they were into the hill. It had become a match race now. Mr. Silver was on the inside by a head; Clam on the outside. These two magnificent animals had opened up ten lengths on Paul Revere, who was in third by a head, with Lord Commodore in fourth. Then it was another eight lengths back to Epitaph, with Bayard and Desborough and the remainder of the field bunched up well behind.

  The crowd behind me were shouting instructions to the horses and jockeys oblivious to the impossibility of being heard by them.

  The galloping horses continued up to the top of the hill. I could see that Mr. Silver had taken the lead. He had it now by a length and a half. Clam was still second. Ten lengths back was Paul Revere and Lord Commodore. They were approaching the turn now and nearing the descent of the hill. At they entered the turn, it was Mr. Silver. He looked like he was opening. His lead was increasing. Make it three lengths, then three and a half. He was moving toward Tattenham Corner and holding onto a large lead. Clam was in second, but then it was a long way back to Paul Revere and Lord Commodore. Into the corner, it was Mr. Silver and he was blazing along. They passed the halfway pole with the time reading just under two minutes.