When John Porter left the stand, the horses had just cantered back
to weigh in. The jockeys, one after another, with upraised whip, had
saluted the Judge, received his nod to dismount, pulled the saddles
from their steeds, and, in Indian file, were passing over the scales.
As Lucretia was led away, Porter turned into the paddock. He saw that
Langdon was waiting for him.
“Well, he won, just as I said he would,” declared the latter; “you've
got a good horse cheap. You'd ought to've had a bet down on him, an' won
him out.”
“He won,” answered Porter, looking straight into the other's shifty
eyes, “but he's a long way from being a good horse--no dope horse is a
good horse.”
“What're you givin' me?” demanded Langdon, angrily.
“Just what every blackguard ought to have--the truth.”
“By God!” the Trainer began, in fierce blasphemy, but John Porter took
a step nearer, and his gray eyes pierced the other man's soul until it
shriveled like a dried leaf, and turned its anger into fear.
“Oh, if you want to crawl--if you don't want to take Lauzanne--”
But Porter again interrupted Langdon---“I said I'd take the horse, and
I will; but don't think that you're fooling me, Mr. Langdon. You're a
blackguard of the first water. Thank God, there are only a few parasites
such as you are racing--it's creatures like you that give the sport a
black eye. If I can only get at the bottom of what has been done to-day,
you'll get ruled off, and you'll stay ruled off. Now turn Lauzanne over
to Andy Dixon, and come into the Secretary's office, where I'll give you
a check for him.”
“Well, we'll settle about the horse now, an' there'll be somethin'
to settle between us, John Porter, at some other time and some other
place,” blustered Langdon, threateningly.
Porter looked at him with a half-amused, half-tolerant expression on his
square face, and said, speaking in a very dry convincing voice: “I guess
the check will close out all deals between us; it will pay you to keep
out of my way, I think.”
As they moved toward the Secretary's office, Porter was accosted by his
trainer.
“The Stewards want to speak to you, sir,” said Dixon.
“All right. Send a boy over to this man's stable for Lauzanne--I've
bought him.”
The Trainer stared in amazement.
“I'll give you the check when I come back,” Porter continued, speaking
to Langdon.
“There's trouble on, sir,” said Dixon, as they moved toward the
Stewards' box.
“There always is,” commented Porter, dryly.
“The Stewards think Lucretia didn't run up to her form. They've had me
up, an' her jock, McKay, is there now. Starter Carson swears he couldn't
get her away from the post--says McKay fair anchored the mare. He fined
the boy fifty dollars at the start.”
“I think they've got the wrong pig by the ear--why don't they yank
Langdon? he's at the bottom of it. It a pretty rich, Andy, isn't it?
They hit me heavy over the race, and now they'd like to rule me off for
that thief's work,” and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the
direction of Langdon.
“Yes, racin's hell now,” commented Dixon with laconic directness. “It
seems just no use workin' over a good horse when any mut of a crook who
is takin' a turn at plungin' can get at the boy. I believe Boston Bill's
game of gettin' a straight boy to play, an' lettin' the horses go hang,
is the proper racket.”
“Yes, a good boy is better than a good horse nowadays; but they're like
North Poles--hard to come by.”
“Some mug give the Stewards a yarn that you'd bought Lauzanne, sir, an'
sez that's why you didn't win with the mare.”
Porter stopped, and gasped in astonishment. What next?
“You see,” continued Dixon, apologetically, “I didn't know you was
meanin' to buy that skate, so I says it was all a damned lie.”
“Things are mixed, Andy, ain't they?”
“I didn't know, sir.”
“Of course not--I didn't mention it to you--it was all a fluke. But I
don't blame you, Andy. I'll go and talk to the Stewards--they're all
right; they only want to get at the truth of it.”
As Porter went up the steps of the Stewards' Stand, he felt how like a
man mounting a scaffold he was, an innocent man condemned to be hanged
for another's crime.
The investigation had been brought about by a note one of the Stewards
had received. The sender of the missive stated in it that he had backed
Lucretia heavily, but had strong reasons for believing there was a
job on. The backer was a reliable man and asked for a fair run for his
money. The note had come too late--just as the horses were starting--to
be of avail, except as a corroboration of the suspicious features of
the race. Starter Carson's evidence as to McKay's handling of the mare
coincided with the contents of the note. Then there was the fact of
Porter's having bought Lauzanne. The Stewards did not know the actual
circumstances of the sale, but had been told that Lucretia's owner had
acquired the Chestnut before the race. Where all was suspicion, every
trivial happening was laid hold of; and Alan's trifling bet on Lauzanne
had been magnified into a heavy plunge--no doubt the father's money had
been put up by the boy. A race course is like a household, everything is
known, absolutely everything.
Porter was aghast. Were all the Furies in league against him? He was
more or less a believer in lucky and unlucky days, but he had never
experienced anything quite so bad as this. He, the one innocent man in
the transaction, having lost almost his last dollar, and having been
saddled with a bad horse, was now accused of being the perpetrator
of the villainy; and the insinuation was backed up by such a mass of
circumstantial evidence. No wonder he flushed and stood silent, lost for
words to express his indignation.
“Speak up, Mr. Porter,” said the Steward, kindly. “Those that lost on
Lucretia are swearing the mare was pulled.”
“And they're right,” blurted out Porter. “I know what the mare can do;
she can make hacks of that bunch. She was stopped, and interfered with,
and given all the worst of it from start to finish; but my money was
burnt up with the public's. I never pulled a horse in my life, and I'm
too old to begin now.”
“I believe that,” declared the Steward, emphatically. “I've known you,
John Porter, for forty years, man and boy, and there never was anything
crooked. But we've got to clear this up. Racing isn't what it used to
be--it's on the square now, and we want the public to understand that.”
“What does the boy say,” asked Porter; “you've had him up?”
“He says the mare was 'helped;' that she ran like a drunken man--swayed
all over the course, and he couldn't pull her together at all.”
“Does he mean she was doped?”
“You've guessed it,” answered the Steward, laconically.
“That's nonsense, sir; and he knows it. Why, the little mare is as sweet
as a lamb, and as game a beast as ever looked through a bridle. Somebody
got at the boy. I can prove by Dixon that Lucretia never had a grain of
cocaine in her life--never even a bracer of whiskey--she doesn't need
it; and as for the race, I hadn't a cent on Lauzanne.”
“But your son.”
“He had a small bet; I didn't know that, even, until they were running.”
“Did you tell him not to back Lucretia, for he did Lauzanne?”
“I told him not to bet at all.”
“And you played the mare yourself?”
For answer Porter showed the Steward his race programme, on which was
written the wager he had made on Lucretia, and the bookmaker's name.
“Ask Ullmer to bring his betting sheet,” the Steward said to an
assistant.
On the sheet, opposite John Porter's badge number, was a bet, $10,000 to
$4,000, in the Lucretia column.
“Did this gentleman make that bet with you?” the Steward asked of
Ullmer.
“He carries the number; besides I know Mr. Porter, I remember laying it
to him.”
“Thank you, that will do. Hit you pretty hard,” he said, turning to
Porter. “And you hadn't a saver on Lauzanne?”
“Not a dollar.”
“What about your buying him--is there anything in that story?”
Porter explained the purchase. The Steward nodded his head.
“They seem to have been pretty sure of winning, those other people,”
he commented; “but we can't do anything to them for winning; nor about
selling you the horse, I fear; and as far as you're concerned, Lucretia
was supposed to be trying. Who gave your jockey orders?”
“Dixon. I don't interfere; he trains the horses.”
“We'd like to have Dixon up here again for a minute. I'm sorry we've
had to trouble you, Mr. Porter; I can see there is not the slightest
suspicion attaches to you.”
In answer to the Steward's query about the order to McKay, Dixon said:
“I told McKay the boss had a big bet down, and to make no mistake--no
Grand Stand finish for me. I told him to get to the front as soon as he
could, and stay there, and win by as far as he liked. I got the office
that there'd be somethin' doin' in the race, an' I told him to get out
by himself.”
After Dixon was dismissed, the Stewards consulted for a minute, with the
result that McKay was suspended for the balance of the meeting, pending
a further investigation into his methods.
* * * * * * * * * * *
During the carpeting of Porter and Dixon, a sea of upturned faces,
furrowed by lines of anxious interest, had surrounded the Judge's box.
Wave on wave the living waters reached back over the grassed lawn to the
betting ring. An indefinable feeling that something was wrong had crept
into the minds of the waiting people, tense with excitement.
As the horses had flashed past the post, and, after a brief wait for
decision, Lauzanne's number had gone up, his backers had hastened
eagerly to the money mart, and lined up in waiting rows behind the
bookmakers' stands. There they waited, fighting their impatient souls
into submission, for the brief wait would end in the acquiring of gold.
Why did not the stentorian-voiced crier send through the ring the joyful
cry of “All right!” The minutes went by, and the delay became an age.
A whisper vibrated the throng, as a breeze stirs slender branches, that
the winner had been disqualified--that there had been an objection.
First one dropped out of line; then another; one by one, until all
stood, an army of expectant speculators, waiting for the verdict that
had its birthplace up in that tiny square building, the Stewards' Stand.
“It's over the pulling of Lucretia,” a man said, simply to relieve his
strained feelings.
“It was the most barefaced job I ever saw,” declared another; “it's even
betting the stable gets ruled off.” He had backed Porter's mare, and was
vindictive.
“Not on your life,” sneered a Tout, wolfishly; “a big owner always gets
off. The jock'll get it in the neck if they've been caught.”
“Why don't they pay?” whined the fourth. “What's the pulling of the mare
got to do with it? The best horse won.” He was a backer of Lauzanne.
“Bet yer life the bookies won't part till the numbers of the placed
horses an' riders are up on that board again. They've run them down,
don't you see?” chimed in the Tout.
“I'll take two to one The Dutchman gets it,” said a backer of that
horse. “There's a job on, and they'll both get disqualified. Porter's
kid won ten thousand over Lauzanne, and that's why they stiffened the
mare.”
“That's what the Public are up against in this game,” sneered the backer
of Lucretia.
“And the jock'll have to stand the shot; I know how it goes,” asserted
the Tout.
“You ought to know,” drawled Lauzanne's backer. The racing men within
earshot smiled, for the Tout had been a jockey before his license had
been taken away for crooked work.
“Hello! here it comes,” cried Lauzanne's backer, as a fat, red-faced man
came swiftly down from the Stewards' Stand, ran to the betting ring, and
pushing his way through the crowd, called with the roar of a gorilla:
“Al-l-l right! Lauzanne, first! The Dutchman, second! Lucretia, third!
They're al-l-l weighed in!”
A Niagara of human beings poured from the lawn to the ring; they ran as
though the course was on fire and they sought to escape.
“What about Lucretia?” some one asked.
“They've broke McKay,” the red-faced crier answered; “suspended him.”
“What did I tell you?” sneered the Tout, maliciously; “it's the under
dog gets the worst of it every time.”
* * * * * * * * * * *
A Celt, is an outspoken man when the prod of his hot temper has loosened
his tongue, and Mike Gaynor was a Celt in excess.
The injustice that had come to his benefactor, John Porter, had stirred
a tempest in his Irish soul. A fierce exclamation of profane wrath had
gone up from him as he watched the bad start from over the paddock rail.
A misguided retribution led Starter Carson to pass from the Judges'
Stand after the race, along the narrow passage between the Club Stand
and the course, to the paddock gate. There he met Mike, who forthwith
set to flailing him.
“Did ye notice a little mare called Lucretia in that race, Mr.
Carson--did ye see anythin' av her at all down at the post?”
Carson's eyes twinkled uneasily. Years of starting had taught him that
self-control was nine out of ten rules which should govern the Starter's
actions.
“Was there anythin' th' mather wit' yer ancestor's eyes that ye come by,
Mister Carson?”
The Starter made answer with a smile of good-humored tolerance. But Mike
was only warming up; the hot blood was stinging his quick brain, and his
sharp tongue galloped on with unbridled irresponsibility. With the deep
pathos of scorn he continued:
“Ye'r Carson the Stharter--Mister Carson! S'help me, Bob! ye couldn't
sthart a sthreet car down hill wit' bot' brakes off!”
Carson ceased to smile; the smile had passed to other faces, the owners
of which were listening with fiendish delight to the castigation.
Some one touched Mike on the arm, saying, “Come over into the paddock,
Gaynor; you're barkin' up the wrong tree.” It was Dixon.
“Bot' t'umbs up! This game's too tough fer me--I'll ship me plugs to
Gravesend. Whin a straight man like Porther gets a deal av this kind.”
“Never mind, Mike,” interrupted Dixon; “let it drop.”
Carson opened his lips to retort, then closed them tight, set his square
jaw firmly, turned on his heel, and walked away.
“What d' ye think av it, b'ys?” appealed Mike to the others.
“You're wrong, Gaynor,” declared a thin, tall, hawkfaced man, who was in
his shirt sleeves; “my boy was in that run, and it isn't Carson's fault
at all. It's dope, Mike. Lauzanne was fair crazy with it at the post;
and McKay was dead to the world on the little mare--the Starter couldn't
get him away.”
“That's right, Mike,” added Dixon; “Carson fined the boy fifty, an' the
Stewards set him down.”
“Is that straight goods?” asked Gaynor, losing confidence in the justice
of his wordy assault.
“Yes, you're wrong, Mike,” they all asserted.
In five minutes Gaynor had found Carson, and apologized with the full
warmth of a penitent Irishman.
V
For a week John Porter brooded over Lucretia's defeat, and, worse still,
over the unjust suspicion of the unthinking public. Touched in its
pocket, the public responded in unsavory references to Lucretia's race.
Porter loved a good horse, and liked to see him win. The confidence
of the public in his honesty was as great a reward as the stakes. The
avowed principle of racing, that it improved the breed of horses, was
but a silent sentiment with him. He believed in it, but not being rich,
raced as a profession, honestly and squarely. He had asserted more than
once that if he were wealthy he would never race a two-year-old. But
his income must be derived from his horses, his capital was in them; and
just at this time he was sitting in a particularly hard streak of bad
luck; financially, he was in a hole; morally, he stood ill with the
public.
His reason told him that the ill-fortune could not last; he had one
great little mare, good enough to win, an honest trainer--there the
inventory stopped short; his stock in trade was incomplete--he had not a
trusty jockey. In his dilemma he threshed it out with Dixon.
“How's the mare doing, Andy?” he asked. “What did the race do to her?”
“She never was better in her life,” the Trainer answered, proudly. Then
he added, to ease the troubled look that was in the gray eyes of his
master, “She'll win next time out, sir--I'll gamble my shirt on that.”
“Not with another McKay up.”
“I think she's good enough for the 'Eclipse,' sir, dashed if I don't. I
worked her the distance, and she shaded the time they made last year.”
“What's the use,” said Porter, dejectedly; “where'll we get a boy?”
“Oh, lots of the boys are straight.”
“I know that,” Porter answered, “but all the straight ones are tied hand
and foot to the big stables.”
“I've been thinkin' it over,” hazarded Dixon, tentatively--“Boston
Bill's got a good lad--there's none of them can put it over him, an' his
boss ain't got nothin' in the 'Eclipse,' I know.”
“That means the same old game, Andy; we nurse the horse, get him into
condition, place him where he can win, and then turn him over to a
plunger and take the small end of the divide. Boston Bill would back her
off the boards.
“The stake'd mount up to seven or eight thousand, an' the win would
square the little mare with the public.”
“And I'd do that, if I didn't land a dollar,” said Porter. “Andy, it
hurt me more to see the filly banged about there in the ruck than it did
giving up the money.”
The Trainer smiled. With him this was unusual; there was a popular
superstition that he never smiled except when one of his horses won.
But his heart expanded at Porter's words, for he, too, was fond of the
little mare.
Then Porter spoke again, abruptly, and fast, as though he feared he
might change his mind: “They downed me last trip, Dixon--I guess I'm
getting a bit slow in my paces; and you do just as you like--arrange
with Boston Bill if you think it's good business. He makes a specialty
of winning races--not pulling horses, and we need a win, too, I guess.”
“Thank you, sir. We'll land that stake; an' p'raps the sharp division'll
take a tumble. I'll bet a dollar they'll go for The Dutchman--he ran a
great race the other day, an' he's in the Eclipse--if they start him.
Lurcetia's right on edge, she's lookin' for the key hole, an' may go
back if we don't give her a race. We'd better get the money for the oat
bill while it's in sight. She oughter be a long price in the bettin',
too,” continued Dixon, meditatively; “the public soon sour on a beaten
horse. You'll have a chance to get even.”
“I don't like that part of it,” muttered Porter; “I'm in the black books
now. People have no reason at all--no sense; they've got it into their
heads that dirty job was of my making, and if the filly starts at ten to
one, and I win a bit, they'll howl.”
“You can't make a success of racin', sir, an' run your stable for the
public--they don't pay the feed bill.”
“Perhaps you're right, Dixon,” answered Porter.
For immediate financial relief Porter knew that he must look to
Lucretia--no other horse in his stable was ready to win; but more
immediately he must arrange certain money matters with his banker, who
was Philip Crane. To Porter, Crane had been a tolerant financier, taking
the man's honesty liberally as a security; not but what Ringwood
had been called upon as a tangible asset. So that day, following his
conversation with Dixin, the master of Ringwood had an interview with
his banker. It was natural that he should speak of his prospects--his
hopes of winning the Eclipse with Lucretia, and, corroboratively,
mention her good trial.
“I think that's a good mare of yours, Mr. Porter,” said Crane,
sympathetically. “I only race, myself in a small way, just for the
outdoor relaxation it gives me, you know, so I'm not much of a
judge. The other horse you bought--the winner of the race, I mean,
Lauzanne--will also help put you right, I should say.”
Porter hesitated, uneasily. He disliked to talk about a man behind his
back, but he knew that Langdon trained for Crane, and longed to give
the banker a friendly word of warning; he knew nothing of the latter's
manipulation of the trainer.
With a touch of rustic quaintness he said, with seeming irrelevance to
the subject, “Have you ever picked wild strawberries in the fields, Mr.
Crane?”
“I have,” answered the other man, showing no surprise at the break, for
life in Brookfield had accustomed him to disjointed deals.
“Did you ever notice that going down wind you could see the berries
better?”
Crane thought for a moment. “Yes, that's right; coming up wind the
leaves hid them.”
“Just so,” commented Porter; “and when a man's got a trainer he's nearly
always working up wind with him.”
“The trainer hides things?” queried Crane.
“Some do. But the outsiders walking down wind see the berries.”
And the Banker pondered for a minute, then he said, “Whose garden are
the berries in, Mr. Porter, yours or mine?”
“Well, you've always been a good friend of mine, Mr. Crane,” Porter
answered, evasively.
“I see,” said the other, meditatively; “I understand. I'm much obliged.
If I thought for an instant that any trainer wasn't dealing perfectly
straightforward with me, I'd have nothing more to do with him--nothing
whatever.”
Crane sat looking through the open window at John Porter as the latter
went down the street. About his thin-lipped, square-framed mouth hovered
an expression that might have been a smile, or an intense look of
interest, or a touch of avaricious ferocity. The gray eyes peeped over
the wall of their lower lids, and in them, too, was the unfathomable
something.
“Yes,” he repeated, as though Porter still stood beside him, “if Langdon
tried to deceive me, I'd crush him. Poor old Porter with his story of
the strawberries! If he were as clever as he is honest, he wouldn't have
been stuck with a horse like Lauzanne. I told Langdon to get rid of that
quitter, but I almost wish he'd found another buyer for him. The horse
taint is pretty strong in that Porter blood. How the girl said that
line,
'And a hush came over the clamorous mob;
Like a babe on his neck I was sobbing.'
She's cleverer than her father.”
Crane sat for an hour. Porter had vanished from the landscape, but still
the Banker's thoughts clung to his personality as though the peeping
eyes saw nothing else.
From the time of the first loan obtained upon Ringwood, Crane had
coveted the place. It appealed to him with its elm-bordered, sweeping
driveway, leading from gate to old colonial residence. Its thick-grassed
fields and running water made it just the place for a man who tempered
his passion for racing with common sense. And it would pass from
Porter's hands right enough--Crane knew that. Porter might call it ill
luck, but he, Crane the Banker, knew it was the lack of something, the
inability to make money.
“Made music to me on Crusader.” Yes, that was it. With the Porters it
was jingle of spurs, and stride of the horse. All very fine in theory,
but racing, as he looked at it, was a question of proper odds, and many
other things connected with the betting ring.
Why did the girl, Allis, with her jingling verse creep into his mind.
Perhaps it was because she was so different from the woman who was
always steeped in stephanotis. Of the one there was only the memory
of an unmodulated voice and oppressive perfume; in truth, of the other
there was not much more--just a pair of big, blue-gray, honest
eyes, that somehow stared at him fearlessly, and withal with a great
sweetness.
Crane suddenly chuckled in dry disapprobation of himself. Grotesquely
enough, all at once he remembered that he was forty--that very day
forty. He ran his hand over his waistcoat, dipped two fingers into the
pocket and drew out a cigar. Ordinarily the face of an alabaster Buddha
was mobile and full of expression compared with Crane's. His mind worked
behind a mask, but it worked with the clean-cut precision of clockwork.
When his thoughts had crystallized into a form of expression, Crane was
very apt to be exactly right in his deductions.
Save for the curling smoke that streamed lazily upward from his cigar
one might have thought the banker fast asleep in his chair, so still he
sat, while his mind labored with the quiescent velocity of a spinning
top. He had won a big stake over Lauzanne's victory. The race had helped
beggar Porter, and brought Ringwood nearer his covetous grasp. If Porter
failed to win the Eclipse, his finances would be in a pitiable state; he
might even have to sell his good filly Lucretia. That would be a golden
opportunity.
From desiring the farm, insensibly Crane drifted into coveting the mare.
He fell to wondering whether The Dutchman might not beat Lucretia. A
question of this sort was one of the few he discussed with Langdon.
Crane had smoked his cigar out, had settled the trend of many things,
and developed the routine for his chessmen.
“I'll give Porter rope enough, in the way of funds, to tangle himself,
and in the meantime I'll run up to New York and see what Langdon thinks
about The Dutchman,” was the shorthand record of his thoughts as he
threw away the end of his cigar, took his hat, and passed out of the
bank.
That evening he talked with his trainer.
“What should win the Eclipse, Langdon?” he asked.
“Well, I don't know what'll start,” began the Trainer, with diplomatic
caution, running over in his mind the most likely twoyear-olds.
“Would Porter's mare have a chance?”
“I think she would. I hear somethin' about a trial she gave them good
enough to win--if I could find out her time--Porter don't talk much, an'
Andy Dixon's like a clam. There's a boy in the stable, Shandy, that I
might pump--”
“Don't bother, Mr. Langdon; I dislike prying into anybody's business.”
The Trainer stared, but he didn't know that Porter had told Crane all
about the trial, and so the latter could afford to take a virtuous pose.
“Has The Dutchman a look in?” continued Crane.
“On his runnin' he has; he wasn't half fit, an' got as bad a ride as
ever I see in my life. The race ought to be between 'em--I ain't seen no
two-year-olds out to beat that pair.”
“If I thought The Dutchman would win I'd buy him. I like game horses,
and men, too--that'll take the gaff and try.”
“I don't know as the owner'd sell him.”
“Do you remember the buying of Silver Foot, Langdon?”
“Yes.”
“He was a good horse.”
“The best handicap horse in the country, an' he was sold for a
song--seven thousand.”
“Less than that, the first time,” corrected Crane.
“Yes, they stole him from old Walters; made him believe the horse was no
good.”
“Just so,” commented Crane; “I've heard that story,” and his smooth,
putty-like face remained blank and devoid of all meaning, as his eyes
peered vacantly over their lower lids at the Trainer.
Langdon waited for the other to continue, but the Banker seemed wrapped
up in a retrospect of the Silver Foot deal.
“I know Billy Smith, that trains The Dutchman,” hazarded Langdon; “he's
a boozer.”
“I'm glad of that--I mean, that you know Smith,” declared Crane. “I
happen to know the owner--his name is Baker. His racing is what might be
called indiscriminate, and like men of that class he sometimes blunders
upon a good horse without knowing it; and I doubt very much but that if
he knew all about the other race--how bad Lauzanne really is; how the
mare, Lucretia--well--got shut off, and couldn't get through her horses,
say--of course his own trainer, Smith, would have to tell these things,
you understand. In fact, if he knew the exact truth, he might take a
reasonable offer for The Dutchman.”
Langdon nodded approvingly. He loved his subtle master; cards up his
sleeves tingled his nerves, and loaded dice were a joy for evermore.
Crane proceeded to unwind the silken cord. “Naturally Smith would hate
to lose a fair horse out of his stable, and would, perhaps, attempt to
thwart any deal; so I think you might remunerate him for his loss.”
“When Silver Foot was sold, they gave him a bad trial before the sale--”
“I'm not interested in Silver Foot,” interrupted Crane; “and I shouldn't
like to have anything--well, I don't want my name associated with
anything shady, you understand, Langdon? You are to buy The Dutchman as
cheap as you can, and run him as your own horse in the Eclipse. I
think Porter's mare will win it, so we needn't lose anything over The
Dutchman.”
Langdon started. With all his racing finesse he was a babe. The smooth,
complacent-faced man in front of him made him realize this.
“But,” he gasped, “there was a row over Lauzanne's race. If The Dutchman
runs in my name, an' a lot o' mugs play him--it's dollars to doughnuts
they will--an' he gets beat, there'll be a kick. I can't take no chances
of bein' had up by the Stewards.”
“Wait a bit,” replied Crane, calmly. “Supposing Porter's mare worked
five and a half furlongs in 1.07, how would she go in the Eclipse?”
“She'd win in a walk; unless The Dutchman was at his best when he might
give her an argument.”
“Well, if I thought The Dutchman could beat the mare, I'd make him win,
if he never carried the saddle again,” declared Crane, almost fiercely.
Then he interrupted himself, breaking off abruptly. Very seldom indeed
it was that Crane gave expression to sentiment; his words were simply
a motor for carrying the impact of his well-thought-out plans to the
executive agents. “It will be doing Porter a good turn to-to-that is, if
Lucretia wins. I fancy he needs a win. Bad racing luck will hardly stop
the mare this time--not twice in succession you know, Langdon,” and he
looked meaningly at his jackal. “You buy The Dutchman, and be good to
him.”
He laid marked emphasis on the words “be good to him.” The trainer
understood. It meant that he was to send The Dutchman to the post half
fit, eased up in his work; then the horse could try, and the jockey
could try, and, in spite of it all, the fast filly of Porter's would
win, and his subtle master, Crane, would have turned the result to his
own benefit. Why should he reason, or object, or counterplot, or do
anything but just follow blindly the dictates of this past master in the
oblique game he loved so well? Crane wanted The Dutchman because he was
a good horse; he also wanted to have a heavy plunge on Lucretia; but
with the son of Hanover in other hands the good thing might not come
off. Somehow Langdon felt miserably inefficient in the presence
of Crane--his self-respect suffered; the other man's mind was so
overmastering, even to detail. The Trainer felt a sudden desire to
right himself in Crane's estimation, give some evidence of ordinary
intelligence, or capability to carry out his mission. “If The Dutchman's
owner was made to think that the horse was likely to break down, throw a
splint, or--”
But Crane interrupted him in his quiet, masterful way, saying: “I know
nothing of horse trading; I simply furnish the money, loan it to you, my
dear Mr. Langdon, and you buy the animal in your own best way. You
will pay for him with a check on my bank.” No man could close out an
interview so effectually as Crane. As Langdon slipped away as though he
had been thrust bodily from the room, there was in his mind nothing but
admiration of his master--the man who backed up his delicate diplomacy
with liberal capital.
In spite of what he had said to Langdon, there was little doubt in
Crane's mind but that the son of Hanover was a better horse than
Lucretia. A sanguine owner--even Porter was one at times--was so apt
to overrate everything in his own stable, especially if he had bred the
animal himself, as Porter had Lucretia. To buy The Dutchman and back him
on such short ownership to beat Lucretia would have been the policy of
a very ordinary mind indeed; he would simply be fencing, with rapiers of
equal length, with John Porter.
Crane had attained to his success by thinking a little deeper than other
men, going a little beyond them in the carefulness of his plans. He
knew intuitively--in fact Porter's unguarded conversation had suggested
it--that Lucretia's owner meant to win himself out of his difficult
position by backing the little mare heavily for the Eclipse, expecting
to get his money on at good odds. By owning The Dutchman Crane could
whipsaw the situation; forestall Porter in the betting by backing
Lucretia down to a short price himself, and have Jakey Faust lay with
a full vigor against the Hanover colt. He would thus confine Porter to
stake money, and Ringwood would still lie chained to his bank by the
golden links he had forged on the place.
Almost insensibly, side by side with this weed of villainy there was
growing in Crane's mind a most peculiar flower of sentiment, a love
blossom. Strive as he would--though the apathy of his rebellion somewhat
startled him--Crane could not obliterate from his thoughts the wondrous
gray eyes of Allis Porter. Even after Langdon was gone, the atmosphere
of the room still smirched by unholy underplay, thoughts of the girl
came to Crane, jostling and elbowing the evil conceptions of his
restless mind. Grotesquely incongruous as it was, Crane was actually
in love; but the love flower, pure enough in itself, had rooted in
marvelous ground. His passion was absolutely love, nothing else--love at
first sight. But he was forty, and the methods of that many years must
still govern his actions. Instinctively he felt that he must win the
girl by diplomacy; and Crane's idea of diplomacy was to get a man
irrevocably in his power. If John Porter were indebted to him beyond
redemption, if he practically owned Ringwood, why should he not succeed
with Allis? All his life he had gone on in just that way, breaking men,
for broken men were beyond doubt but potter's clay.
Langdon bought The Dutchman. What methods he employed Crane took no
pains to discover; in fact, stopped Langdon abruptly when he sought to
enlarge on the difficulties he had overcome in the purchase. The price
was the only item that interested Crane--seven thousand dollars; that
included everything--even the secret service money.
The horse acquired, Crane had one more move to make; he sent for Jakey
Faust, the Bookmaker. Faust and Crane had a reciprocal understanding.
When the Bookmaker needed financial assistance he got it from the
Banker; when Crane needed a missionary among the other bookmakers, Faust
acted for him.
“I want to back Lucretia for the 'Eclipse,”' Crane said to the
bookmaker.
“Lucretia,” ejaculated Faust. “She'll have a rosy time beatin' Dutchy on
their last race. They'll put a better boy up on the colt next time, an'
he ought to come home all by himself” “Yes, a fairish sort of a jock
will have the mount I think-Westley's a good enough boy.”
“Westley?” came wonderingly from Faust.
“Yes; Langdon owns The Dutchman now.”
The Cherub pursed his fat round lips in a soft whistle of enlightenment.
It had staggered him at first that Crane, for whose acumen he had a
profound respect, should have intended such a hazardous gamble; now he
saw light.
“Then my book is full on the Porter mare?” he said, inquiringly. Crane
nodded his head.
“An' I lay against the Hanover colt?”
Again Crane nodded.
“It's not bookmaking,” continued Faust.
“I'm not a bookmaker,” retorted Crane. “And see here, Faust,” he
continued, “when you've got my money on the Porter mare--when and how I
leave to you--I want you to cut her price short--do you understand? Make
her go to the post two to one on, if you can; don't forget that.”
“If the mare goes wrong?” objected Faust.
“I don't think she will, but you needn't be in a hurry--there's plenty
of time.”
“What's the limit?” asked Faust.
“I want her backed down to even money at least,” Crane answered;
“probably ten thousand will do it. At any rate you can go that far.”
Then for a few days Langdon prepared his new horse for the Eclipse
according to his idea of Crane's idea; and Dixon rounded Lucretia to
in a manner that gladdened John Porter's heart. They knew nothing of
anything but that Lucretia was very fit, that they had Boston Bill's
jockey to ride straight and honest for them, and that with a good price
against the mare they would recoup all their losses.