Journeying back to New York, Crane reviewed in detail his interview
with Mrs. Porter. He congratulated himself upon his wisdom in having
instituted his love suit by proxy. With all his masterfulness he was
very considerably in awe of Miss Allis. There was a not-to-be-daunted
expression in her extraordinary eyes which made him feel that a love
tilt with her would be a somewhat serious business. He pictured himself
as an ardent lover; he would cut a droll figure in that role, he knew;
emotions were hardly in his line. He might feel such an assertive
emotion as love quite as strongly as anyone, in fact, did, but could he
express himself with faultless consistency? He rather doubted it. His
usual slow-advancing method was certainly ordained of this intricate
endeavor; and he had made great progress with the mother, the one above
all others to be placated; adversity, continuous as it promised to
be, would probably settle Porter's influence in his favor. His plan of
action plainly was to be often at Ringwood to familiarize the household
with his presence. The acquiring of Diablo would facilitate that.
Diablo--a skate! He laughed to himself over his purchase. Certainly
Langdon would laugh at him, too; not openly, of course; Crane wouldn't
tolerate that. What an influence this girl had over him, to be sure! Any
man who had endeavored to sell him a bad horse would have had a hopeless
task; with but a nod of encouragement from Allis he would have bought
every horse--all the useless crooks they had; the stable was full of
them, Lauzanne among the rest.
The influence was dividing his nature into a dual one; starting into
life infantile thoughts of a generous morality; an unrest of great
vigor was coming to him, retribution; possibly the power to feel the
difference between an avariciousness, fathering dishonesty, and this new
recognition of other rights.
On his arrival in New York he sent for his trainer.
“I bought a horse at Ringwood. I want you to look after him, Langdon,”
he said. “Their man, Gaynor, will send him direct to your stables.”
The Trainer's face brightened. “Did you get Lucretia after all?”
“No; I bought a big black, Diablo.”
The look of delight faded from Langdon's eyes quickly. “The devil!” he
exclaimed.
“That's what I said; that's his name.”
“But he's the most uncertain brute that ever wore a set of plates.
You'll get no good of him, sir; he's bad, clean through. It's come down
to him from his second sire, Robert the Devil, without a bit of the
good, either. He'd break a man that would follow him.”
“He won't break me,” answered Crane, quietly; “nor you, either,
Langdon--you've got too much sense.”
This subtle tribute mollified the Trainer.
Crane proceeded: “I remember the horse quite well. Four thousand was
paid for him as a yearling; as a two-year-old he was tried out good
enough to win the Futurity; but when it came to racing he cut it and
finished in the ruck.”
“That's right,” commented Langdon. “He owes me a good bit, that same
Johnny; his people thought him a lead-pipe cinch, and I went down the
line on him to my sorrow.”
“Just so. You know him as well as I do. It's a great way to get
acquainted with them, isn't it, Langdon; put your money on, and have the
good thing go down?”
Langdon had the highest possible opinion of his master's astuteness and
began to waver in his antipathy to Diablo.
“You think he's really good, then, sir; did he show you a fast trial?”
“I didn't even see the horse,” Crane answered, looking dreamily out of
the window. “I bought him to--”
He paused in reflection; he couldn't tell Langdon why he had bought him,
and he hardly cared to have his prestige with the Trainer destroyed. He
continued, shifting the subject--matter a trifle, “You did John Porter
up over Lauzanne last summer, Langdon--”
“Me?” questioned 'the Trainer. Was Crane forgetting his share in the
matter?
“Yes, you!” affirmed the other, looking him steadily in the eye. “You
sold him Lauzanne, and Lauzanne was loaded.”
Langdon said nothing. What the devil was coming?
“Well,” drawled Crane, “Porter's badly hurt; he's out of the race for
some time to come. They're friends of mine.”
“They're friends,” mused Langdon; “who in thunder are they?”
“They're friends of mine, and I offered to buy Lauzanne back, just to
help them out; but the old man's daughter has got the Chestnut for a
hack, and she won't sell him. It was Diablo's fault that Porter got the
fall, so they were willing to part with him, and I took the brute.”
This was certainly a new role for Crane to play, Langdon thought;
his employer helping people out when they were in difficulties was
a revelation. The Trainer felt inclined to laugh. No doubt there was
something back of it all; some tout must have given Crane information
of a fast gallop Diablo had done, and he had gone to Ringwood to buy the
horse, thinking that Porter would be selling some of his racers owing to
the accident.
Langdon tried to remember what Shandy had said about Diablo, or whether
the boy had mentioned his name at all.
“I wonder what condition he's in?” the Trainer remarked, questioningly.
“Physically I think he's all right; it seems he galloped something under
forty miles with Porter before he came a cropper. But I understand they
had an imp of a boy, Sheedy, or 'Shaney'--”
“Shandy,” corrected Langdon.
“Yes, that's the name,” affirmed Crane, drawing a semicircle in the air
with his cigar, “and he's a devil on wheels, by all accounts. Diablo's
no angel, as you've said, Langdon, and this boy made him a heap worse.
You've handled some bad horses in your time, and know more about it than
I do; but I'd suggest that you put Westley--he's a patient lad--to look
after the Black; give him quite a bit of work, and when you've got him
right, try him out with something, and if he shows any form we'll pick
out a soft spot for him. Let me see, he's a maiden--fancy that, buying a
four-year-old maiden!”
Langdon laughed approvingly. Crane was evidently coming back to his view
of the case.
“Well, as I've said, he's a maiden, and we'll try and graduate him out
of that class. It will be a great chance for a killing if we can round
him into his early two-year-old form; and you can do it, Langdon, if
anybody on earth can.”
“Now I've got him on his reputation,” thought Crane, idly brushing
specks of cigar ash from the front of his coat.
“Just as I thought,” mused Langdon; “the old man's got a horse after his
own heart. Everybody thinks Diablo's no good, but the boss has found out
something, and is on for the biggest kind of a coup.”
“How's The Dutchman coming on?” asked Crane, intimating by the question
that the subject of Diablo bad been closed out, for the present, at
least.
“Great. He cleans up his four quarts three times a day, and is as big as
a cart horse. I never had a better doer in my hands. If he keeps well,
and I think he will, you have a great chance with him for the Brooklyn
Derbv.”
“That's encouraging. There are some good horses in it, though, White
Moth and others. However, I'll back The Dutchman to win fifty thousand,
and there'll be ten thousand in that for you, Langdon, if it comes off.”
The Trainer's mouth watered. Money was his god. Horses were all right as
a means to an end, but the end itself was gold. He would stop at nothing
to attain that end; his avaricious mind, stimulated by Crane's promise,
came at once to the disturbing element in the pleasant prospect,
Shandy's report of Lucretia's good form.
“Did you find out anything about Porter's mare Lucretia? I know White
Moth's form; both fit and well. The Dutchman holds him safe over the
Derby journey.”
“No; I didn't hear anything about Porter's mare.”
“I have,” said Langdon, decisively. “I paid a boy to keep an eye on her,
and he says she'll be hard to beat.”
Crane frowned. “What boy?” he asked, abruptly.
“Shandy.”
“Well, just drop that; chuck that game. John Porter has his own
troubles. If he can win, let him. He can't if The Dutchman keeps well;
but anyway, our own horses will keep us fully occupied.”
Langdon was dumbfounded. If Crane had opened the Bible and read a
chapter from St. Luke he would not have been more astonished. It had
occurred to him that he had done a remarkably smart thing; he had
expected commendation for his adroitness in looking after his master's
interests. This disapprobation of such a trivial matter as the touting
off of an opponent's horses was another new discovery in his master's
character. Where were they at, anyway? Presently Crane would be asking
him to give the public a fair run for their money each time out.
All at once a light dawned upon Langdon. Crane was doubling on him. He
saw it like a flash. His employer had a tout on the ground himself; that
was how he had got next some good performance of Diablo's. My, but it
was clever; he could appreciate it. Crane rose in his estimation again.
Quite humbly he answered: “Very, well; it's not my funeral; I'll bring
The Dutchman to the post fit to run the race of his life. If Lucretia
beats him it won't be my fault. I thought perhaps you might want to
hedge a bit on Porter's mare.”
“I don't think it. I'll stand The Dutchman; there are too many in
to start backing them all. Let me know if the Black gives you any
encouragement, and I'll see about placing him.”
After Langdon had gone Crane lighted a fresh cigar and let his thoughts
circle about Allis and Diablo. It would be just like the play of Fate
for the horse to turn out good, now that John Porter had got rid of him.
When evil fortune set its hard face against a man he could do little
toward making the wicked god smile, and Porter, even when he was about,
was a poor hand at compelling success.
. . . . . . . . . .
Jakey Faust learned of Diablo's transition from Porter's to Langdon's
stable. This information caused him little interest at first; indeed, he
marveled somewhat at two such clever men as Crane and Langdon acquiring
a horse of Diablo's caliber.
Faust's business relationship with Crane was to a certain degree
tentative. Crane never confided utterly in anybody; if agents obeyed
his behests, well and good; and each transaction was always completed in
itself. He had discovered Faust and used him when it suited his purpose.
Some time after the purchase of Diablo, Jakey, reading his Morning
Telegraph, came with much interest upon the entries for the Brooklyn
Handicap, published that day. They were all the old campaigning Handicap
horses, as familiar to Faust as his fellow members of the betting ring.
As his eye ran down the long list a sudden little pig grunt of surprise
bubbled up through his fat throat. “Gee, Diablo! Oh, ho, Mr. Crane!”
He tore out the list and put it in his pocket; then he sat for a time,
thinking. The result was a run down to Gravesend to pay just a friendly
visit to Langdon.
As far as Crane was concerned, the Trainer and the Bookmaker were like
two burglars suddenly coming upon each other while robbing the same
house; they were somewhat in a condition of armed neutrality, toward
each other.
Faust hoped that Langdon would talk about Diablo; but the Trainer was
like most of his guild generally, a close-mouthed man, so Jakey had to
make his own running.
“What's the boss goin' to do with Diablo?” he asked Langdon.
“Must 've bought him for a work horse, I guess,” the Trainer answered.
“Is he any good?”
“He can eat; that's all I see from him yet.”
“What did he buy him for?”
“To help a snoozer that was sittin' in bad luck.”
Faust had an odd habit of causing his fat sides to ripple like troubled
water when he wished to convey the impression that he was amused; he
never laughed, just the rib ripple.
“What's funny?” Langdon asked, eying Jakey, with querulous disfavor.
“Crane buying a horse to help a man,” answered the Cherub, wondering if
Langdon was so devoid of humor as to take it seriously.
“Crane told me so himself,” said the Trainer; “Porter's hurt, an' I
guess they're in a hole, an' the boss took over Diablo.”
“Say, Dick,” and Faust edged close enough to tap the other man's ribs
with his thumb, “were you born yesterday? I say,” continued the Cherub,
for Langdon had turned away somewhat impatiently, “what's the good av
givin' me that gup; you didn't stand for it yourself--not on yer life.
Th' old man's pretty slick; buys a bad horse to help a poor mutt, an'
enters him in the Brooklyn, eh?”
“The Brooklyn!” exclaimed Langdon, thrown off his guard.
With corpulent intensity the Cherub melodramatically drew from his
pocket the Telegraph clipping and tendered it to Langdon, watching the
latter's face closely. “That's the pea, Dick, eh?” he asked.
Langdon was thinking. Was Crane doubling on him all around? Why the
devil hadn't he told him?
“Now you ain't takin' in that fairy tale of Crane's any more'n I am,
Dick. Why can't we do a bit for ourselves over this; it won't hurt the
boss none. Won't throw him down. This horse was a good youngster, an'
Crane didn't get him without seein' him do somethin'. You jest keep me
posted, an' if he shapes good I can back 'm fer an old-time killin',
see? I'll divvy up straight.”
Langdon didn't answer at once--not with satisfaction to Faust; he knew
that Crane held the butter for his bread, even the bread itself; but
here was a man with cake, and he loved cake. Finally, in the glamour
of Jakey's talk of untold wealth to be acquired, Langdon, swayed by
the cupidity of his nature rather than his better judgment, promised
half-heartedly to cooperate with Faust.
But no sooner had the latter gone than the lode-star of Langdon's
self-interest flickered clearly in view, and he promised Mr. Jakey,
mentally, a long trip to a very hot place, indeed, rather than a
surreptitious partnership over Diablo.
It was some little time after this, while Faust was feeling somewhat
irritated at the absence of information from Langdon, that he had an
interview with Crane.
“I want you to back The Dutchman to win fifty thousand for me over the
Brooklyn Derby,” the latter said.
“But there's no winner book on it,” objected Faust.
“That's just where your cleverness will come in,” suavely answered
Crane. “There's no hurry, and there are always people looking for
foolish money. There's one such in Chicago, O'Leary; and I fancy they
could even be found in New York. But you ought to get fifty to one,
about it, if you put it on easy.”
“I see you have Diablo entered for the Brooklyn,” Faust put out as a
feeler. “Don't you want a commission worked on him?”
“I didn't enter him; that was somebody else's foolishness, and I don't
want to back him.”
“He's a hundred to one.”
“A thousand would be short odds, I should say,” answered Crane. “But
wait a bit. I bought him just to--well, I took him from some people who
were tired of his cannibal ways, and promised to have a small bet on him
the first time he ran, for--for the man.” The equivocation was really a
touch of delicacy. “You might take the odds to fifty for me; there's not
one chance in a million of his starting, but I might forget all about
this little matter of the bet, even if I were foolish enough to pay
post-money on him.”
“Hadn't I better dribble on more from time to time, if he has a chance?”
“Not of my money, thanks!” The “thanks” clipped like a steel trap, and
the business was completed.
Faust went away more than ever suspicious of Crane and Diablo. That
fifty dollars being put on for anybody else was bunkum. What was Crane
up to anyway? If he really meant to back the horse he would not have
started with such a trifle. Perhaps Diablo had been stuck in the
Brooklyn simply to see how the handicapper would rate him.
Faust was convinced that Crane had some big coup in view; he would wait
a little, and at the first move have a strong play himself.