THE PURITY OF THE TURF
After that, life at Twing jogged along pretty peacefully for a bit.
Twing is one of those places where there isn’t a frightful lot to do
nor any very hectic excitement to look forward to. In fact, the only
event of any importance on the horizon, as far as I could ascertain,
was the annual village school treat. One simply filled in the time by
loafing about the grounds, playing a bit of tennis, and avoiding young
Bingo as far as was humanly possible.
This last was a very necessary move if you wanted a happy life, for the
Cynthia affair had jarred the unfortunate mutt to such an extent that
he was always waylaying one and decanting his anguished soul. And when,
one morning, he blew into my bedroom while I was toying with a bit of
breakfast, I decided to take a firm line from the start. I could stand
having him moaning all over me after dinner, and even after lunch; but
at breakfast, no. We Woosters are amiability itself, but there is a
limit.
“Now look here, old friend,” I said. “I know your bally heart is broken
and all that, and at some future time I shall be delighted to hear all
about it, but----”
“I didn’t come to talk about that.”
“No? Good egg!”
“The past,” said young Bingo, “is dead. Let us say no more about it.”
“Right-o!”
“I have been wounded to the very depths of my soul, but don’t speak
about it.”
“I won’t.”
“Ignore it. Forget it.”
“Absolutely!”
I hadn’t seen him so dashed reasonable for days.
“What I came to see you about this morning, Bertie,” he said, fishing a
sheet of paper out of his pocket, “was to ask if you would care to come
in on another little flutter.”
If there is one thing we Woosters are simply dripping with, it is
sporting blood. I bolted the rest of my sausage, and sat up and took
notice.
“Proceed,” I said. “You interest me strangely, old bird.”
Bingo laid the paper on the bed.
“On Monday week,” he said, “you may or may not know, the annual village
school treat takes place. Lord Wickhammersley lends the Hall grounds
for the purpose. There will be games, and a conjurer, and cokernut
shies, and tea in a tent. And also sports.”
“I know. Cynthia was telling me.”
Young Bingo winced.
“Would you mind not mentioning that name? I am not made of marble.”
“Sorry!”
“Well, as I was saying, this jamboree is slated for Monday week. The
question is, Are we on?”
“How do you mean, ‘Are we on’?”
“I am referring to the sports. Steggles did so well out of the Sermon
Handicap that he has decided to make a book on these sports. Punters
can be accommodated at ante-post odds or starting price, according to
their preference. I think we ought to look into it,” said young Bingo.
I pressed the bell.
“I’ll consult Jeeves. I don’t touch any sporting proposition without
his advice. Jeeves,” I said, as he drifted in, “rally round.”
“Sir?”
“Stand by. We want your advice.”
“Very good, sir.”
“State your case, Bingo.”
Bingo stated his case.
“What about it, Jeeves?” I said. “Do we go in?”
Jeeves pondered to some extent.
“I am inclined to favour the idea, sir.”
That was good enough for me. “Right,” I said. “Then we will form a
syndicate and bust the Ring. I supply the money, you supply the brains,
and Bingo--what do you supply, Bingo?”
“If you will carry me, and let me settle up later,” said young Bingo,
“I think I can put you in the way of winning a parcel on the Mothers’
Sack Race.”
“All right. We will put you down as Inside Information. Now, what are
the events?”
* * * * *
Bingo reached for his paper and consulted it.
“Girls’ Under Fourteen Fifty-Yard Dash seems to open the proceedings.”
“Anything to say about that, Jeeves?”
“No, sir. I have no information.”
“What’s the next?”
“Boys’ and Girls’ Mixed Animal Potato Race, All Ages.”
This was a new one to me. I had never heard of it at any of the big
meetings.
“What’s that?”
“Rather sporting,” said young Bingo. “The competitors enter in couples,
each couple being assigned an animal cry and a potato. For instance,
let’s suppose that you and Jeeves entered. Jeeves would stand at a
fixed point holding a potato. You would have your head in a sack, and
you would grope about trying to find Jeeves and making a noise like a
cat; Jeeves also making a noise like a cat. Other competitors would be
making noises like cows and pigs and dogs, and so on, and groping about
for _their_ potato-holders, who would also be making noises like cows
and pigs and dogs and so on----”
I stopped the poor fish.
“Jolly if you’re fond of animals,” I said, “but on the whole----”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “I wouldn’t touch it.”
“Too open, what?”
“Exactly, sir. Very hard to estimate form.”
“Carry on, Bingo. Where do we go from there?”
“Mothers’ Sack Race.”
“Ah! that’s better. This is where you know something.”
“A gift for Mrs. Penworthy, the tobacconist’s wife,” said Bingo
confidently. “I was in at her shop yesterday, buying cigarettes, and
she told me she had won three times at fairs in Worcestershire. She
only moved to these parts a short time ago, so nobody knows about her.
She promised me she would keep herself dark, and I think we could get a
good price.”
“Risk a tenner each way, Jeeves, what?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Girls’ Open Egg and Spoon Race,” read Bingo.
“How about that?”
“I doubt if it would be worth while to invest, sir,” said Jeeves. “I am
told it is a certainty for last year’s winner, Sarah Mills, who will
doubtless start an odds-on favourite.”
“Good, is she?”
“They tell me in the village that she carries a beautiful egg, sir.”
“Then there’s the Obstacle Race,” said Bingo. “Risky, in my
opinion. Like betting on the Grand National. Fathers’ Hat-Trimming
Contest--another speculative event. That’s all, except for the Choir
Boys’ Hundred Yards Handicap, for a pewter mug presented by the
vicar--open to all whose voices have not broken before the second
Sunday in Epiphany. Willie Chambers won last year, in a canter,
receiving fifteen yards. This time he will probably be handicapped out
of the race. I don’t know what to advise.”
“If I might make a suggestion, sir.”
I eyed Jeeves with interest. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look
so nearly excited.
“You’ve got something up your sleeve?”
“I have, sir.”
“Red-hot?”
“That precisely describes it, sir. I think I may confidently assert
that we have the winner of the Choir Boys’ Handicap under this very
roof, sir. Harold, the page-boy.”
“Page-boy? Do you mean the tubby little chap in buttons one sees
bobbing about here and there? Why, dash it, Jeeves, nobody has a
greater respect for your knowledge of form than I have, but I’m
hanged if I can see Harold catching the judge’s eye. He’s practically
circular, and every time I’ve seen him he’s been leaning up against
something, half asleep.”
“He receives thirty yards, sir, and could win from scratch. The boy is
a flier.”
“How do you know?”
Jeeves coughed, and there was a dreamy look in his eye.
“I was as much astonished as yourself, sir, when I first became aware
of the lad’s capabilities. I happened to pursue him one morning with
the intention of fetching him a clip on the side of the head----”
“Great Scott, Jeeves! You!”
“Yes, sir. The boy is of an outspoken disposition, and had made an
opprobrious remark respecting my personal appearance.”
“What did he say about your appearance?”
“I have forgotten, sir,” said Jeeves, with a touch of austerity. “But
it was opprobrious. I endeavoured to correct him, but he outdistanced
me by yards and made good his escape.”
“But, I say, Jeeves, this is sensational. And yet--if he’s such a
sprinter, why hasn’t anybody in the village found it out? Surely he
plays with the other boys?”
“No, sir. As his lordship’s page-boy, Harold does not mix with the
village lads.”
“Bit of a snob, what?”
“He is somewhat acutely alive to the existence of class distinctions,
sir.”
“You’re absolutely certain he’s such a wonder?” said Bingo. “I mean, it
wouldn’t do to plunge unless you’re sure.”
“If you desire to ascertain the boy’s form by personal inspection, sir,
it will be a simple matter to arrange a secret trial.”
“I’m bound to say I should feel easier in my mind,” I said.
“Then if I may take a shilling from the money on your
dressing-table----”
“What for?”
“I propose to bribe the lad to speak slightingly of the second
footman’s squint, sir. Charles is somewhat sensitive on the point,
and should undoubtedly make the lad extend himself. If you will be at
the first-floor passage-window, overlooking the back-door, in half an
hour’s time----”
I don’t know when I’ve dressed in such a hurry. As a rule, I’m what
you might call a slow and careful dresser: I like to linger over the
tie and see that the trousers are just so; but this morning I was all
worked up. I just shoved on my things anyhow, and joined Bingo at the
window with a quarter of an hour to spare.
The passage-window looked down on to a broad sort of paved courtyard,
which ended after about twenty yards in an archway through a high wall.
Beyond this archway you got on to a strip of the drive, which curved
round for another thirty yards or so, till it was lost behind a thick
shrubbery. I put myself in the stripling’s place and thought what steps
I would take with a second footman after me. There was only one thing
to do--leg it for the shrubbery and take cover; which meant that at
least fifty yards would have to be covered--an excellent test. If good
old Harold could fight off the second footman’s challenge long enough
to allow him to reach the bushes, there wasn’t a choirboy in England
who could give him thirty yards in the hundred. I waited, all of a
twitter, for what seemed hours, and then suddenly there was a confused
noise without, and something round and blue and buttony shot through
the back-door and buzzed for the archway like a mustang. And about two
seconds later out came the second footman, going his hardest.
There was nothing to it. Absolutely nothing. The field never had a
chance. Long before the footman reached the half-way mark, Harold was
in the bushes, throwing stones. I came away from the window thrilled to
the marrow; and when I met Jeeves on the stairs I was so moved that I
nearly grasped his hand.
“Jeeves,” I said, “no discussion! The Wooster shirt goes on this boy!”
“Very good, sir,” said Jeeves.
* * * * *
The worst of these country meetings is that you can’t plunge as heavily
as you would like when you get a good thing, because it alarms the
Ring. Steggles, though pimpled, was, as I have indicated, no chump,
and if I had invested all I wanted to he would have put two and two
together. I managed to get a good solid bet down for the syndicate,
however, though it did make him look thoughtful. I heard in the next
few days that he had been making searching inquiries in the village
concerning Harold; but nobody could tell him anything, and eventually
he came to the conclusion, I suppose, that I must be having a long
shot on the strength of that thirty-yards start. Public opinion
wavered between Jimmy Goode, receiving ten yards, at seven-to-two, and
Alexander Bartlett, with six yards start, at eleven-to-four. Willie
Chambers, scratch, was offered to the public at two-to-one, but found
no takers.
We were taking no chances on the big event, and directly we had got
our money on at a nice hundred-to-twelve Harold was put into strict
training. It was a wearing business, and I can understand now why most
of the big trainers are grim, silent men, who look as though they had
suffered. The kid wanted constant watching. It was no good talking to
him about honour and glory and how proud his mother would be when he
wrote and told her he had won a real cup--the moment blighted Harold
discovered that training meant knocking off pastry, taking exercise,
and keeping away from the cigarettes, he was all against it, and it was
only by unceasing vigilance that we managed to keep him in any shape at
all. It was the diet that was the stumbling-block. As far as exercise
went, we could generally arrange for a sharp dash every morning with
the assistance of the second footman. It ran into money, of course, but
that couldn’t be helped. Still, when a kid has simply to wait till the
butler’s back is turned to have the run of the pantry, and has only to
nip into the smoking-room to collect a handful of the best Turkish,
training becomes a rocky job. We could only hope that on the day his
natural stamina would pull him through.
And then one evening young Bingo came back from the links with a
disturbing story. He had been in the habit of giving Harold mild
exercise in the afternoons by taking him out as a caddie.
At first he seemed to think it humorous, the poor chump! He bubbled
over with merry mirth as he began his tale.
“I say, rather funny this afternoon,” he said. “You ought to have seen
Steggles’s face!”
“Seen Steggles’s face? What for?”
“When he saw young Harold sprint, I mean.”
I was filled with a grim foreboding of an awful doom.
“Good heavens! You didn’t let Harold sprint in front of Steggles?”
Young Bingo’s jaw dropped.
“I never thought of that,” he said, gloomily. “It wasn’t my fault. I
was playing a round with Steggles, and after we’d finished we went into
the club-house for a drink, leaving Harold with the clubs outside. In
about five minutes we came out, and there was the kid on the gravel
practising swings with Steggles’s driver and a stone. When he saw
us coming, the kid dropped the club and was over the horizon like a
streak. Steggles was absolutely dumbfounded. And I must say it was a
revelation even to me. The kid certainly gave of his best. Of course,
it’s a nuisance in a way; but I don’t see, on second thoughts,” said
Bingo, brightening up, “what it matters. We’re on at a good price.
We’ve nothing to lose by the kid’s form becoming known. I take it he
will start odds-on, but that doesn’t affect us.”
I looked at Jeeves. Jeeves looked at me.
“It affects us all right if he doesn’t start at all.”
“Precisely, sir.”
“What do you mean?” asked Bingo.
“If you ask me,” I said, “I think Steggles will try to nobble him
before the race.”
“Good Lord! I never thought of that.” Bingo blenched. “You don’t think
he would really do it?”
“I think he would have a jolly good try. Steggles is a bad man. From
now on, Jeeves, we must watch Harold like hawks.”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“Ceaseless vigilance, what?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“You wouldn’t care to sleep in his room, Jeeves?”
“No, sir, I should not.”
“No, nor would I, if it comes to that. But dash it all,” I said, “we’re
letting ourselves get rattled! We’re losing our nerve. This won’t do.
How can Steggles possibly get at Harold, even if he wants to?”
There was no cheering young Bingo up. He’s one of those birds who
simply leap at the morbid view, if you give them half a chance.
“There are all sorts of ways of nobbling favourites,” he said, in
a sort of death-bed voice. “You ought to read some of these racing
novels. In ‘Pipped on the Post,’ Lord Jasper Mauleverer as near as a
toucher outed Bonny Betsy by bribing the head lad to slip a cobra into
her stable the night before the Derby!”
“What are the chances of a cobra biting Harold, Jeeves?”
“Slight, I should imagine, sir. And in such an event, knowing the boy
as intimately as I do, my anxiety would be entirely for the snake.”
“Still, unceasing vigilance, Jeeves.”
“Most certainly, sir.”
* * * * *
I must say I got a bit fed with young Bingo in the next few days. It’s
all very well for a fellow with a big winner in his stable to exercise
proper care, but in my opinion Bingo overdid it. The blighter’s mind
appeared to be absolutely saturated with racing fiction; and in stories
of that kind, as far as I could make out, no horse is ever allowed to
start in a race without at least a dozen attempts to put it out of
action. He stuck to Harold like a plaster. Never let the unfortunate
kid out of his sight. Of course, it meant a lot to the poor old egg if
he could collect on this race, because it would give him enough money
to chuck his tutoring job and get back to London; but all the same, he
needn’t have woken me up at three in the morning twice running--once to
tell me we ought to cook Harold’s food ourselves to prevent doping: the
other time to say that he had heard mysterious noises in the shrubbery.
But he reached the limit, in my opinion, when he insisted on my going
to evening service on Sunday, the day before the sports.
“Why on earth?” I said, never being much of a lad for evensong.
“Well, I can’t go myself. I shan’t be here. I’ve got to go to London
to-day with young Egbert.” Egbert was Lord Wickhammersley’s son, the
one Bingo was tutoring. “He’s going for a visit down in Kent, and I’ve
got to see him off at Charing Cross. It’s an infernal nuisance. I
shan’t be back till Monday afternoon. In fact, I shall miss most of the
sports, I expect. Everything, therefore, depends on you, Bertie.”
“But why should either of us go to evening service?”
“Ass! Harold sings in the choir, doesn’t he?”
“What about it? I can’t stop him dislocating his neck over a high note,
if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Fool! Steggles sings in the choir, too. There may be dirty work after
the service.”
“What absolute rot!”
“Is it?” said young Bingo. “Well, let me tell you that in ‘Jenny,
the Girl Jockey,’ the villain kidnapped the boy who was to ride the
favourite the night before the big race, and he was the only one who
understood and could control the horse, and if the heroine hadn’t
dressed up in riding things and----”
“Oh, all right, all right. But, if there’s any danger, it seems to
me the simplest thing would be for Harold not to turn out on Sunday
evening.”
“He must turn out. You seem to think the infernal kid is a monument of
rectitude, beloved by all. He’s got the shakiest reputation of any kid
in the village. His name is as near being mud as it can jolly well
stick. He’s played hookey from the choir so often that the vicar told
him, if one more thing happened, he would fire him out. Nice chumps we
should look if he was scratched the night before the race!”
Well, of course, that being so, there was nothing for it but to toddle
along.
There’s something about evening service in a country church that
makes a fellow feel drowsy and peaceful. Sort of end-of-a-perfect-day
feeling. Old Heppenstall was up in the pulpit, and he has a kind of
regular, bleating delivery that assists thought. They had left the door
open, and the air was full of a mixed scent of trees and honeysuckle
and mildew and villagers’ Sunday clothes. As far as the eye could
reach, you could see farmers propped up in restful attitudes, breathing
heavily; and the children in the congregation who had fidgeted during
the earlier part of the proceedings were now lying back in a surfeited
sort of coma. The last rays of the setting sun shone through the
stained-glass windows, birds were twittering in the trees, the women’s
dresses crackled gently in the stillness. Peaceful. That’s what I’m
driving at. I felt peaceful. Everybody felt peaceful. And that is why
the explosion, when it came, sounded like the end of all things.
I call it an explosion, because that was what it seemed like when it
broke loose. One moment a dreamy hush was all over the place, broken
only by old Heppenstall talking about our duty to our neighbours; and
then, suddenly, a sort of piercing, shrieking squeal that got you right
between the eyes and ran all the way down your spine and out at the
soles of the feet.
“EE-ee-ee-ee-ee! Oo-ee! Ee-ee-ee-ee!”
It sounded like about six hundred pigs having their tails twisted
simultaneously, but it was simply the kid Harold, who appeared to be
having some species of fit. He was jumping up and down and slapping at
the back of his neck. And about every other second he would take a deep
breath and give out another of the squeals.
Well, I mean, you can’t do that sort of thing in the middle of the
sermon during evening service without exciting remark. The congregation
came out of its trance with a jerk, and climbed on the pews to get a
better view. Old Heppenstall stopped in the middle of a sentence and
spun round. And a couple of vergers with great presence of mind bounded
up the aisle like leopards, collected Harold, still squealing, and
marched him out. They disappeared into the vestry, and I grabbed my hat
and legged it round to the stage-door, full of apprehension and what
not. I couldn’t think what the deuce could have happened, but somewhere
dimly behind the proceedings there seemed to me to lurk the hand of the
blighter Steggles.
* * * * *
By the time I got there and managed to get someone to open the door,
which was locked, the service seemed to be over. Old Heppenstall was
standing in the middle of a crowd of choir-boys and vergers and sextons
and what not, putting the wretched Harold through it with no little
vim. I had come in at the tail-end of what must have been a fairly
fruity oration.
“Wretched boy! How dare you----”
“I got a sensitive skin!”
“This is no time to talk about your skin----”
“Somebody put a beetle down my back!”
“Absurd!”
“I felt it wriggling----”
“Nonsense!”
“Sounds pretty thin, doesn’t it?” said someone at my side.
It was Steggles, dash him. Clad in a snowy surplice or cassock, or
whatever they call it, and wearing an expression of grave concern, the
blighter had the cold, cynical crust to look me in the eyeball without
a blink.
“Did you put a beetle down his neck?” I cried.
“Me!” said Steggles. “Me!”
Old Heppenstall was putting on the black cap.
“I do not credit a word of your story, wretched boy! I have warned you
before, and now the time has come to act. You cease from this moment to
be a member of my choir. Go, miserable child!”
Steggles plucked at my sleeve.
“In that case,” he said, “those bets, you know--I’m afraid you lose
your money, dear old boy. It’s a pity you didn’t put it on S.P. I
always think S.P.’s the only safe way.”
I gave him one look. Not a bit of good, of course.
“And they talk about the Purity of the Turf!” I said. And I meant it to
sting, by Jove!
* * * * *
Jeeves received the news bravely, but I think the man was a bit rattled
beneath the surface.
“An ingenious young gentleman, Mr. Steggles, sir.”
“A bally swindler, you mean.”
“Perhaps that would be a more exact description. However, these things
will happen on the Turf, and it is useless to complain.”
“I wish I had your sunny disposition, Jeeves!”
Jeeves bowed.
“We now rely, then, it would seem, sir, almost entirely on Mrs.
Penworthy. Should she justify Mr. Little’s encomiums and show real
class in the Mothers’ Sack Race, our gains will just balance our
losses.”
“Yes; but that’s not much consolation when you’ve been looking forward
to a big win.”
“It is just possible that we may still find ourselves on the right side
of the ledger after all, sir. Before Mr. Little left, I persuaded him
to invest a small sum for the syndicate of which you were kind enough
to make me a member, sir, on the Girls’ Egg and Spoon Race.”
“On Sarah Mills?”
“No, sir. On a long-priced outsider. Little Prudence Baxter, sir, the
child of his lordship’s head gardener. Her father assures me she has a
very steady hand. She is accustomed to bring him his mug of beer from
the cottage each afternoon, and he informs me she has never spilled a
drop.”
Well, that sounded as though young Prudence’s control was good. But how
about speed? With seasoned performers like Sarah Mills entered, the
thing practically amounted to a classic race, and in these big events
you must have speed.
“I am aware that it is what is termed a long shot, sir. Still, I
thought it judicious.”
“You backed her for a place, too, of course?”
“Yes, sir. Each way.”
“Well, I suppose it’s all right. I’ve never known you make a bloomer
yet.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
* * * * *
I’m bound to say that, as a general rule, my idea of a large afternoon
would be to keep as far away from a village school-treat as possible.
A sticky business. But with such grave issues toward, if you know
what I mean, I sank my prejudices on this occasion and rolled up. I
found the proceedings about as scaly as I had expected. It was a warm
day, and the hall grounds were a dense, practically liquid mass of
peasantry. Kids seethed to and fro. One of them, a small girl of sorts,
grabbed my hand and hung on to it as I clove my way through the jam to
where the Mothers’ Sack Race was to finish. We hadn’t been introduced,
but she seemed to think I would do as well as anyone else to talk to
about the rag-doll she had won in the Lucky Dip, and she rather spread
herself on the topic.
“I’m going to call it Gertrude,” she said. “And I shall undress it
every night and put it to bed, and wake it up in the morning and dress
it, and put it to bed at night, and wake it up next morning and dress
it----”
“I say, old thing,” I said, “I don’t want to hurry you and all that,
but you couldn’t condense it a bit, could you? I’m rather anxious to
see the finish of this race. The Wooster fortunes are by way of hanging
on it.”
“I’m going to run in a race soon,” she said, shelving the doll for the
nonce and descending to ordinary chit-chat.
“Yes?” I said. Distrait, if you know what I mean, and trying to peer
through the chinks in the crowd. “What race is that?”
“Egg ’n Spoon.”
“No, really? Are you Sarah Mills?”
“Na-ow!” Registering scorn. “I’m Prudence Baxter.”
Naturally this put our relations on a different footing. I gazed at her
with considerable interest. One of the stable. I must say she didn’t
look much of a flier. She was short and round. Bit out of condition, I
thought.
“I say,” I said, “that being so, you mustn’t dash about in the hot sun
and take the edge off yourself. You must conserve your energies, old
friend. Sit down here in the shade.”
“Don’t want to sit down.”
“Well, take it easy, anyhow.”
The kid flitted to another topic like a butterfly hovering from flower
to flower.
“I’m a good girl,” she said.
“I bet you are. I hope you’re a good egg-and-spoon racer, too.”
“Harold’s a bad boy. Harold squealed in church and isn’t allowed to
come to the treat. I’m glad,” continued this ornament of her sex,
wrinkling her nose virtuously, “because he’s a bad boy. He pulled my
hair Friday. Harold isn’t coming to the treat! Harold isn’t coming to
the treat! Harold isn’t coming to the treat!” she chanted, making a
regular song of it.
“Don’t rub it in, my dear old gardener’s daughter,” I pleaded. “You
don’t know it, but you’ve hit on rather a painful subject.”
“Ah, Wooster, my dear fellow! So you have made friends with this little
lady?”
It was old Heppenstall, beaming pretty profusely. Life and soul of the
party.
“I am delighted, my dear Wooster,” he went on, “quite delighted at
the way you young men are throwing yourselves into the spirit of this
little festivity of ours.”
“Oh, yes?” I said.
“Oh, yes! Even Rupert Steggles. I must confess that my opinion of
Rupert Steggles has materially altered for the better this afternoon.”
Mine hadn’t. But I didn’t say so.
“I have always considered Rupert Steggles, between ourselves, a rather
self-centred youth, by no means the kind who would put himself out to
further the enjoyment of his fellows. And yet twice within the last
half-hour I have observed him escorting Mrs. Penworthy, our worthy
tobacconist’s wife, to the refreshment-tent.”
I left him standing. I shook off the clutching hand of the Baxter kid
and hared it rapidly to the spot where the Mothers’ Sack Race was just
finishing. I had a horrid presentiment that there had been more dirty
work at the cross-roads. The first person I ran into was young Bingo. I
grabbed him by the arm.
“Who won?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice.” There was bitterness in the chappie’s
voice. “It wasn’t Mrs. Penworthy, dash her! Bertie, that hound Steggles
is nothing more nor less than one of our leading snakes. I don’t know
how he heard about her, but he must have got on to it that she was
dangerous. Do you know what he did? He lured that miserable woman into
the refreshment-tent five minutes before the race, and brought her out
so weighed down with cake and tea that she blew up in the first twenty
yards. Just rolled over and lay there! Well, thank goodness, we still
have Harold!”
I gaped at the poor chump.
“Harold? Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard?” Bingo turned a delicate green. “Heard what? I haven’t heard
anything. I only arrived five minutes ago. Came here straight from the
station. What has happened? Tell me!”
I slipped him the information. He stared at me for a moment in a
ghastly sort of way, then with a hollow groan tottered away and was
lost in the crowd. A nasty knock, poor chap. I didn’t blame him for
being upset.
They were clearing the decks now for the Egg and Spoon Race, and I
thought I might as well stay where I was and watch the finish. Not that
I had much hope. Young Prudence was a good conversationalist, but she
didn’t seem to me to be the build for a winner.
As far as I could see through the mob, they got off to a good start.
A short, red-haired child was making the running with a freckled
blonde second, and Sarah Mills lying up an easy third. Our nominee was
straggling along with the field, well behind the leaders. It was not
hard even as early as this to spot the winner. There was a grace, a
practised precision, in the way Sarah Mills held her spoon that told
its own story. She was cutting out a good pace, but her egg didn’t even
wobble. A natural egg-and-spooner, if ever there was one.
Class will tell. Thirty yards from the tape, the red-haired kid tripped
over her feet and shot her egg on to the turf. The freckled blonde
fought gamely, but she had run herself out half-way down the straight,
and Sarah Mills came past and home on a tight rein by several lengths,
a popular winner. The blonde was second. A sniffing female in blue
gingham beat a pie-faced kid in pink for the place-money, and Prudence
Baxter, Jeeves’s long shot, was either fifth or sixth, I couldn’t see
which.
And then I was carried along with the crowd to where old Heppenstall
was going to present the prizes. I found myself standing next to the
man Steggles.
“Hallo, old chap!” he said, very bright and cheery. “You’ve had a bad
day, I’m afraid.”
I looked at him with silent scorn. Lost on the blighter, of course.
“It’s not been a good meeting for any of the big punters,” he went on.
“Poor old Bingo Little went down badly over that Egg and Spoon Race.”
I hadn’t been meaning to chat with the fellow, but I was startled.
“How do you mean badly?” I said. “We--he only had a small bet on.”
“I don’t know what you call small. He had thirty quid each way on the
Baxter kid.”
The landscape reeled before me.
“What!”
“Thirty quid at ten to one. I thought he must have heard something, but
apparently not. The race went by the form-book all right.”
I was trying to do sums in my head. I was just in the middle of working
out the syndicate’s losses, when old Heppenstall’s voice came sort of
faintly to me out of the distance. He had been pretty fatherly and
debonair when ladling out the prizes for the other events, but now he
had suddenly grown all pained and grieved. He peered sorrowfully at the
multitude.
* * * * *
“With regard to the Girls’ Egg and Spoon Race, which has just
concluded,” he said, “I have a painful duty to perform. Circumstances
have arisen which it is impossible to ignore. It is not too much to say
that I am stunned.”
He gave the populace about five seconds to wonder why he was stunned,
then went on.
“Three years ago, as you are aware, I was compelled to expunge from
the list of events at this annual festival the Fathers’ Quarter-Mile,
owing to reports coming to my ears of wagers taken and given on the
result at the village inn and a strong suspicion that on at least one
occasion the race had actually been sold by the speediest runner. That
unfortunate occurrence shook my faith in human nature, I admit--but
still there was one event at least which I confidently expected to
remain untainted by the miasma of professionalism. I allude to the
Girls’ Egg and Spoon Race. It seems, alas, that I was too sanguine.”
He stopped again, and wrestled with his feelings.
“I will not weary you with the unpleasant details. I will merely say
that before the race was run a stranger in our midst, the manservant
of one of the guests at the Hall--I will not specify with more
particularity--approached several of the competitors and presented each
of them with five shillings on condition that they--er--finished. A
belated sense of remorse has led him to confess to me what he did, but
it is too late. The evil is accomplished, and retribution must take
its course. It is no time for half-measures. I must be firm. I rule
that Sarah Mills, Jane Parker, Bessie Clay, and Rosie Jukes, the first
four to pass the winning-post, have forfeited their amateur status
and are disqualified, and this handsome work-bag, presented by Lord
Wickhammersley, goes, in consequence, to Prudence Baxter. Prudence,
step forward!”