The Brooklyn had been run and won; won by Langdon's stable, and lost by
John Porter's. That night Allis spent hours trying to put into a letter
to her mother their defeat and their hopes in such a way as to save
distress to her father. She wound up by simply asking her mother to get
Dr. Rathbone to impart as much information as he deemed advisable to his
patient.
They were a very depressed lot at Dixon's cottage that evening. Dixon
was never anything else but taciturn, and the disappointment of the day
was simply revolving in his mind with the monotonous regularity of a
grindstone. They had lost, and that's all there was about it. Why talk
it over? It could do no good. He would nurse up Lucretia, and work back
into her by mile gallops a fitting strength for the Brooklyn Derby. With
incessant weariness he rocked back and forth, back and forth in the big
Boston rocker; while Allis, at a little table in a corner of the room,
sought to compose the letter she wished to send home.
With apathetic indifference the girl heard a constrained knock at the
cottage door; she barely looked up as Dixon opened to a visitor. It was
Crane who entered.
At almost any other time his visit would have been unpleasant. In
his presence even the most trivial conversation seemed shrouded in a
background of interested intentions; but to-night Dixon's constrained
depression weighed heavy on her spirits and irritated her.
“Luck was against you to-day, Dixon,” exclaimed the visitor.
“They were too strong for the little mare,” answered the Trainer,
curtly. “Our cast-off won, of course, but there were a half dozen in the
race that would have beaten Lucretia, I fancy.”
Allis looked inquiringly at the Trainer; he had not talked that way to
her. Then a light dawned upon the girl. She had not associated Dixon
with diplomacy in her mind, she knew that he could maintain a golden
silence, but here he was, actually throwing out to the caller a
disparaging estimate of Lucretia's powers. This perpetual atmosphere of
duplicity was positively distasteful. In the free gallop of the horses
there was nothing but an inspiration to honest endeavor; but in this
subtle diplomacy Allis detected the touch of defilement which her
mother so strongly resented. Perhaps to-night she was more sensitive
to depressing influences; at any rate she felt a great weariness of
the whole business. Then the spirit of resolve rose in open rebellion
against these questionings; almost Jesuitical she became at once. What
mattered the ways or means, so that she did no wrong? Was not the saving
of her father's health and spirit, and his and her mother's welfare
above all these trivial questionings; did not the end justify the means;
might not her success, if the fates in pity gave her any, save her
from--from--she did not even formulate in thought the contingency,
for there stood the living embodiment of it-Crane; everything seemed
crowding her into the narrow confines of her sacrificial crypt.
Crane had spoken to her on his entry. As she was writing he had
continued his discussion of the race with Dixon; perhaps, even--it was a
hopeful thought, born of desire--he had come to see the Trainer. Crane's
next words dispelled that illusion. It was in answer to an observation
from Dixon that he was forced to go to the stables, that Crane said:
“If Miss Porter has no objection I'll remain a little longer; I want to
discuss a matter concerning her father.”
Allis felt quite like fleeing to the stables with Dixon; she dreaded
that Crane was going to bring up again the subject of his affection for
her. But the Trainer had passed out before she could muster sufficient
moral courage to put in execution her half-formed resolve.
“I wanted to speak about that wager on Diablo,” began Crane. A thrill
of relief shot through the girl's heart. Why had be troubled himself to
come to her over such a trifling matter--a pair of gloves, perhaps half
a dozen pairs even.
“I put the bet on some time ago,” he continued, “when Diablo was at a
long price. It was only a trifle, as we agreed upon--” Allis noticed
that he laid particular stress upon “agreed.” “But it has netted you
quite a nice sum, three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars.”
Crane said this in a quiet voice, without unction; but it startled the
girl--she stared in blank amazement. Her companion was evidently waiting
for her to say something; seemed to expect an exclamation of joyous
approval. She noticed that the gray eyes she so distrusted had taken on
that distasteful peeping expression, as though he were watching her walk
into a trap.
“I cannot take it,” answered Allis, decisively, after a pause.
Crane raised his hand in mild protest.
“It was good of you, kind; but how could I accept a large sum of money
like that when I am not entitled to it?”
“You are--it's yours. The bet was made in your name I entered it at the
time in my book, and the bookmaker is ready to pay the money over.”
“I can't take it--I won't. No, no, no!”
“Don't be foolishly sensitive, Miss Allis. Think what your father lost
when he parted with Diablo for a trivial thousand dollars; and it was
my fault, for I arranged the sale. Your father's needs--pardon me, but I
know his position, being his banker--yes, he needs this money badly.”
“My father needs a good many things, Mr. Crane, which he would not
accept as a gift; he would be the last man to do so. We must just go
on doing the best we can, and if we can't succeed, that's all. We can't
accept help, just yet, anyway.”
She was bitter; the reference to her father's troubles, though meant
partly in kindness, angered her. It caused her to feel the meshes of the
net drawing closer about her, and binding her free will. The fight was
indeed on. More than ever she determined to struggle to the bitter end.
Almost indefinably she knew that to accept this money, plausible as the
offering was, meant an advantage to Crane.
“You can't leave this large sum with the bookmaker,” he objected. “He
would like nothing better; he would laugh in his sleeve. I can't take
it; it isn't mine.”
“I won't touch it.”
“Perhaps I had better speak to your father about it,” said Crane,
tentatively; “he can have no objection to accepting this money that has
been won.”
“Father won't take it, either,” answered the girl; “I know his ideas
about such matters. He won't take it.”
Crane brought all his fine reasoning powers to bear on Allis, but failed
signally in his object. He was unaccustomed to being balked, but the
girl's firm determination was more than a match for his adaptable
sophistry. He had made no headway, was quite beaten, when Dixon's
opportune return prevented absolute discomfiture. Crane left shortly,
saying to Allis as he bade them good night: “I'm sorry you look upon
the matter in this light. My object in coming to-night was to give you a
little hope for brightness in your gloomy hour of bad luck; but perhaps
I had better speak to your father.”
“I'd rather you didn't,” she answered, somewhat pleadingly. “Dr.
Rathbone has cautioned us all against worrying father, and this could
have no other result than but to distress him.”
Allis's letter had been completed, but she now added a postscript,
telling her mother briefly of Crane's insistence over the bet, and
beseeching her to devise some plan for keeping this new disturbing
element from her father.
Crane was remaining over night in Gravesend, and, going back to his
quarters, he reviewed the evening's campaign. He had expected opposition
from Allis, but had hoped to overcome the anticipated objections; he had
failed in this, but it was only a check, not defeat.
He smiled complacently over his power of self-control in having allowed
no hint of his absorbing passion to escape him.
Acceptance of this money by Allis, the money which was the outcome of
an isolated generous thought, would have given him a real advantage.
To have spoken, though never so briefly of his hopes for proprietary
rights, would have accentuated the girl's sensitive alarm. He was too
perfect a tactician to indulge in such poor sword play; he had really
left the question open. A little thought, influenced by the desperate
condition of Porter's fortunes, might make Allis amenable to what was
evidently her best interest, should she be approached from a different
quarter.
Crane had made the first move, and met checkmate; the second move would
be through Allis's mother; he determined upon that course. All his old
cunning must have surely departed from him if he could not win this
girl. Fate was backing him up most strenuously. Diablo had been cast
into his hands--thrust upon him by the good fortune that so steadily
befriended him. He was not in the habit of attributing unlooked-for
success to Providence; he rarely went beyond fate for a deity.
Unmistakably then it was fate that had cast the horoscope of his and
Allis's life together. Never mind what means he might use to carry out
this decree; once accomplished, he would more than make amends to the
girl.
He drew most delightful pictures of the Utopian existence his wealth
would make possible for Allis. For the father he would provide a racing
stable that would bring profit in place of disaster. Crane smiled
somewhat grimly as he thought that under those changed circumstances
even Allis's mother might be brought to condone her husband's
continuance in the nefarious profession. If for no other reason than
the great success he had made in the Brooklyn Handicap with Diablo,
his spirits were that evening impossible of the reception of even a
foreshadowing of failure. A suppressed exhilaration rose-tinted every
projected scheme. He would win Allis, and he would win the Brooklyn
Derby with his good colt, The Dutchman.
He went to sleep in this happy glamour of assured success, and, by the
inevitable contrariness of things, dreamed that he was falling over a
steep precipice on The Dutchman's back, and that at the bottom Mortimer
and Allis were holding a blanket to catch him in his fall. Even in his
imaginative sleep, he was saved from a dependence upon this totally
inadequate receptacle for a horse and rider, for he woke with a gasp
after he had traveled with frightful velocity for an age through the
air.
Crane was a man not given to superstitious enthrallment; his convictions
were usually founded on basic manifestations rather than fanciful
visions; but somehow the night's dream fastened upon his mind as he
lingered over a breakfast of coffee and rolls. Even three cups of
coffee, ferociously strong, failed to drown the rehearsal of his
uncomfortable night's gallop. Why had he linked Mortimer and Allis
together? Had it been fate again, prompting him in his sleep, giving him
warning of a rival that stood closer to the girl than he?
More than once he had thought of Mortimer as a possible rival. Mortimer
was not handsome, but he was young, tall, and square-shouldered--even
his somewhat plain face seemed to reflect a tall, square-shouldered
character.
Subconsciously Crane turned his head and scanned critically the
reflection of his own face in a somewhat disconsolate mirror that
misdecorated a panel of the breakfast room. Old as the glass was,
somewhat bereaved of its quicksilver lining at the edge, it had not got
over its habit of telling the truth. Ordinarily little exception
could have been taken to the mirrored face; it was intellectual; no
sign-manual of cardinal sin had been placed upon it; it was neither
low, nor brutal, nor wolfishly cunning in expression. Its pallor rather
loaned an air of distingue, but--and the examination was being conducted
for the benefit of a girl of twenty--it was the full-aged visage of a
man of forty.
More than ever a conviction fixed itself in Crane's mind that, no matter
how strong or disinterested his love for Allis might be, he would win
her only by diplomacy. After all, he was better versed in that form of
love-making, if it might be so called.
Crane was expecting Langdon at ten o'clock. He heard a step in the
breakfast room, and, turning his head, saw that it was the Trainer.
Mechanically Crane pulled his watch from his pocket; he had thought it
earlier; it was ten. Langdon was on time to a minute. Nominally
what there was to discuss, though of large import, required little
expression. With matters going so smoothly there was little but
assurances and congratulations to be exchanged. Diablo's showing in the
big Handicap confirmed Langdon's opinion that both the Black and The
Dutchman had given them a great trial; probably they would duplicate
their success with The Dutchman in the Brooklyn Derby. It was only a
matter of a few days, and the son of Hanover had steadily improved; he
was in grand fettle.
Langdon's appreciation of Crane's cleverness had been enhanced by the
successful termination of what he still believed was a brilliantly
planned coup. He had never for an instant thought that Crane purchased
the horse out of kindness to anyone. It was still a matter of mystery to
him, however, why his principal should wish to keep dark just how he had
learned Diablo's handicap qualities.
Accustomed to reading Langdon's mind, Crane surmised from the Trainer's
manner that the latter had something that he had not yet broached. Their
talk had been somewhat desultory, much like the conversation of men who
have striven and succeeded and are flushed with the full enjoyment of
their success. Suddenly the Trainer drew himself together, as if for a
plunge, and said: “Did you notice Porter's mare in the Brooklyn, sir?”
“Yes; she ran a pretty good race for a three-year-old.”
“She did, an' I suppose they'll start her in the Derby. Do you happen to
know, sir?”
“I fancy they will,” answered Crane, carelessly.
“She stopped bad yesterday; but I've heard somethin'.”
Crane remembered his own suspicion as to Lucretia's rider, but he only
said, “Well?”
“After the race yesterday the jockey, Redpath, was talkin'--to the
Porter gal--”
Crane started. It jarred him to hear this horseman refer to Allis as
“the Porter gal.”
“Redpath told her,” proceeded Langdon, “that when he saw he couldn't
quite win he pulled his mount off to keep her dark for the Derby.”
“How do you know this?”
“A boy in my stable happened to be in the stall an' heard 'em.”
“Who's the boy? Can you believe him?”
“It's Shandy. He used to be with the Porters.”
Like a flash it came to Crane that the spy must be the one who had
written him the note about Faust and the change of saddles.
“Well, that doesn't affect us, that I can see,” commented Crane. “I'm
not backing their mare.”
“It means,” declared Langdon, with great earnestness, “that if Lucretia
could have beat all the others but Diablo, she has a rosy chance for the
Derby; that's what it means. The Black got away with a flyin' start,
and she wore him down, almost beat him; I doubt if The Dutchman could do
that much. She was givin' him a little weight, too.”
“Well, we can't help it. I've backed The Dutchman to win a small
fortune, and I'm going to stand by it. You're in it to the extent of ten
thousand, as you know, and we've just got to try and beat her with our
colt; that's all there is to it.”
“I don't like it,” muttered Langdon, surlily. “She's a mighty good
three-year-old to put up a race like that.”
“She may go off before Derby day,” suggested Crane; “mares are uncertain
at this time of year.”
“That's just it; if she would go off we'd feel pretty sure then. I think
the race is between them.”
“Well, we'll know race day; if she goes to the post, judging from what
you say, it'll be a pretty tight fit.”
“She didn't cut much figure last year when Lauzanne beat her.” Langdon
said this with a drawling significance; it was a direct intimation that
if Lucretia's present jockey could be got at, as her last year's rider
had been--well, an important rival would be removed.
Crane had not been responsible for the bribing of Lucretia's jockey,
though he was well aware what had occurred; had even profited by it.
“There'll be no crooked work this time,” he said; “nobody will interfere
with the mare's rider, I hope,” and he looked significantly at Langdon.
“I don't think they will,” and the Trainer gave a disagreeable laugh.
“From what Shandy tells me, I fancy it would be a bad game. The truth of
the matter is that gosling Redpath is stuck on the gal.”
Crane's pale face flushed hot.
“I believe that Shandy you speak of is a lying little scoundrel. I have
an idea that he wrote me a note, a wretched scrawl, once. Wait, I've got
it in my pocket; I meant to speak to you about it before.”
Crane drew from the inner pocket of his coat a leather case, and after
a search found Shandy's unsigned letter, and passed it over to the
Trainer.
“It's dollars to doughnuts Shandy wrote it. Let me keep this, sir.”
“You're welcome to it,” answered Crane; “you can settle with him. But
about the Derby, I have reasons for wishing to win that race, reasons
other than the money. I want to win it, bad. Do you understand?”
“I think I do. When you say you want to win a race, you generally want
to win it.”
“Yes, I do. But see here, Langdon, just leave their jockey to take
orders from his own master, see?”
“I wasn't goin' to put up no game with him, sir.”
“Of course not, of course not. It wouldn't do. He's a straight boy, I
think, and just leave him to ride the best he knows how. We've got a
better jockey in Westley. Besides, the Brooklyn Handicap has taken a lot
out of their mare; they may find that she'll go back after it. I think
you'd better get rid of that Shandy serpent; he seems ripe for any
deviltry. You can't tell but what he might get at The Dutchman if
somebody paid him. If I'm any judge of outlawed human nature, he'd do
it. I've got to run down to Brookfield on a matter of business,
but shall be back again in a day or so. Just keep an eye on The
Dutchman--but I needn't tell you that, of course.”
“That two-year-old I bought at Morris Park is coughin' an' runnin'
at the nose; I blistered his throat last night; he's got influenza,”
volunteered the Trainer.
“Keep him away from The Dutchman, then.”
“I've got him in another barn; that stuff's as catchin' as measles.”
“If The Dutchman were to get a touch of it, Porter would land the Derby
with Lucretia, I fancy.”
“Or if they got it in their stable we'd be on Easy Street.”
“I suppose so. But Dixon's pretty sharp; he'll look out if he hears it's
about. However, we've got to watch our own horse and let them do the
same.”