Thoroughbreds Part 7

he answered, as he went down the steps with the messenger.

Allis breathed more freely when he had gone. Somehow his presence had oppressed her; perhaps it was the fierce stephanotis that came in clouds from the lady behind that smothered her senses. Crane had said nothing--just an ordinary compliment. Like an inspiration it came to the girl what had affected her so disagreeably in Crane--it was his eyes.

They were hard, cold, glittering gray eyes, looking out from between partly closed eyelids. Allis could see them still. The lower lids cut straight across; it was as though the eyes were peeping at her over a stone wall.

"What did I tell you about Crusader?" Alan said, triumphantly. "There's another."

"Alan!"

"I wondered why Mr. Crane was so deuced friendly; but there's nothing to get cross about, girl, he's a fine old chap, and got lots of wealth."

He leaned forward till he was close to his sister's ear, and added, in a whisper, "Her ladyship behind, Belle Langdon, is trying to hook him.

Phew!--but she's loud. But I'm off--I'm going to see what the row is about."

IV

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 pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d!" 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 G.o.d, 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," bl.u.s.tered 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 anch.o.r.ed 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 h.e.l.l 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 d.a.m.ned 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ma.s.s of circ.u.mstantial 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."