Death at Epsom Downs Read online

  The moon had been swallowed by fog, but Patrick knew where he was by the clink of glasses, the rough male laughter, and the smell of sour beer that clung to the damp night air. He was directly behind the Great Horse pub, an old coaching inn which had been made redundant for its original purpose by the railway line and in which every sort of roguery and villainy had been plotted over the years. The Great Horse occupied a long, narrow building with rafters high above and sawdust on the floor, a bar along one wall and scarred deal tables along the other, and a large back room where various belligerent encounters occurred: prizefights, dogfights between vicious red bull terriers, and the cockfights that had been illegal for fifty years but which continued unabated. Staggering sums were wagered in that room—Patrick knew, for he had seen with his own eyes the sums of money that changed hands. Now, there was a vicious flurry of growls and barks and a loud cheer, and Patrick shivered. He was fond of dogs, and he did not like the idea of one dog destroying another.

  But Wellington Street was a few paces ahead, and Hardaway House, with its brick gateway, just to the right. More relieved than he cared to admit that he had almost reached his destination, Patrick set off again, hurrying now, for the clock in the tower was striking ten.

  He didn’t get far. Three or four quick steps, and he was lying flat on his face in the middle of the alley, his nose scraped, the wind knocked out of him. He lay there a moment, stunned and half-bewildered, then sat up, cursing loudly and rubbing his nose. He turned to see what had tripped him up.

  A log that someone had carelessly left lying across the alleyway? He put his hand on it.

  No, not a log, a roll of canvas, unexpectedly warm to the touch. He frowned, feeling farther along, and then farther still, discovering by degrees that what he had tripped over was neither a log nor a roll of canvas but a leg, a man’s leg, and that the owner of the leg was lying flat on his back with his toes turned up, dead drunk.

  But as Patrick got to his feet, he realized that his hand was wet and slippery and when the moon peered over the fog for her own surreptitious glance at the scene, he saw to his dismay that it was covered with blood. With mounting horror, he turned to look at the man, whose eyes were staring open and whose waistcoat was soaked with blood.

  He was not dead drunk after all. He was bloodily and indisputably dead. And he was no stranger.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Hardaway House

  Nowadays we have so few mysteries left to us that we cannot afford to part with one of them.

  “The Critic as Artist”

  Oscar Wilde

  Charles looked up when he heard steps in the hallway and then the door opened and Kate was in Bradford’s drawing room, throwing off her shawl and looking eagerly around.

  “Where is he?” she demanded, breathless. “Charles, where’s Patrick?”

  “Not here yet, my dear,” Charles said, folding the Sporting Times and putting it aside. “I’m glad you could get away tonight. I was afraid it might not be convenient for you to—”

  “He is coming, isn’t he?” Kate interrupted, almost frantic. “You said he would be here, Charles! But it’s so late for a child to be out on the streets. Anything might happen to him out there! He might be hurt! He might—”

  “Sit down, Kate.” Charles stood with a smile and gestured to his wing chair before the fire. “I’ll get you a brandy.”

  Charles watched his wife as she sank into the chair, thinking how lovely she was when she was passionate—and she was certainly passionate about Patrick, who had taken the place in her heart of the child she had lost, of the children she would never have. But Charles knew boys, and he feared that her passion might frighten Patrick and send him hurtling away again.

  He cleared his throat. “Patrick is hardly a child,” he said quietly. “He’s very much a young man. He’s working in the stable at the Grange House, apprenticing as a jockey. As it turns out, he was Gladiator’s traveling lad at the Derby. He—”

  “A jockey!” Kate took the brandy Bradford offered her. “But what about school, for goodness sake?” Her voice rose. “What about our plans for him?”

  “It would seem that Patrick has made his own plans for himself,” Charles said. “He looks fit and in excellent health. But I very much fear,” he added, hoping she would understand, “that any pressure on our part to return him to school will be met with resistance.”

  “But he needs an education!” Kate cried. “He needs—”

  “Rather,” Charles interrupted firmly, “I propose that we encourage him to make his own choices and stay in touch with him so that we can support him, whatever he chooses to do with his life.” He paused. “I hope you can agree to that, my dear. Otherwise, I’m afraid we will lose him again.”

  “But I did so want—” She turned the brandy snifter in her fingers. “I’m afraid he won’t—” After a moment she gave a small sigh. “Perhaps you’re right, Charles. Perhaps I’m holding too hard, hoping too much.” She studied him for a moment, her head tilted, her hair catching the firelight. “The problem is that I’ve never been a boy, so I don’t understand all their ways. But I know how often I do just the opposite thing, when someone gives me what sounds like an order.” She smiled a little, and her voice took on a tone of light irony. “I shall try not to smother the poor child—the young man—with an overabundance of motherly love.”

  “Thank you, my dear.” Charles sat back, grateful, as he often was, for his wife’s intuitive understanding. He had the feeling, too, that when Kate saw Patrick and realized how he had grown in the months since they’d been apart, she would realize that he was right. To stay connected to Patrick, they had to let him go.

  The door opened again, and Bradford came in. “Hello, Kate,” he said warmly. “I hope that Mrs. Langtry did not think it rude that we took you away this evening.”

  “Not at all, as it turned out,” Kate replied. “At teatime, she received a message from the Prince. It seems that he has come to visit his horses and is staying with Mr. Rothschild at the Palace House. Mrs. Langtry was invited to a late supper, so I was left to my own devices.” She leaned forward, her gray eyes intent. “I am so glad I decided to visit Mrs. Langtry. She is utterly fascinating—but frightening, too!”

  “Oh?” Bradford asked, amused. “The celebrated Gilded Lily, frightening? What’s she done to you, Kate?”

  “Well, see what you think,” Kate said. Then, speaking slowly and carefully, as if she were trying to recall every detail, she told them what she had overheard in the garden outside Mrs. Langtry’s drawing room, and what Amelia had told her afterward.

  “Wait a minute,” Charles said. “Do I understand that this man claims to have taken her jewels and disposed of them for her? And that he got rid of Edward Langtry as well?”

  “That’s the gist of it,” Kate replied. “And what is equally interesting, she didn’t attempt to dispute him. In fact, she begged him not to speak of it, for fear they might be overheard by the servants.”

  Bradford frowned. “The jewels—I was out of the country at the time. How was it that they were stolen?”

  “It was quite an interesting story,” Charles said. “According to the newspaper reports, she kept her jewels—forty thousand pounds worth—in a black enameled tin box, which was reported to be fireproof. She carried the box with her when she toured with her plays, and when she was in London, left it in the Union Bank, quite close to her home. Several summers ago, ’95, I think it was, she went to the Continent for a few weeks, and when she came back to London, sent her butler to the bank for the jewel box. He returned, distraught, with word that the bank had delivered the box to her some three weeks before. He was accompanied by an equally distraught bank officer, who showed Mrs. Langtry the handwritten order for the box. She immediately pointed out that the signature wasn’t hers. It was forged from the Pear’s Soap advertisement which bears her name.”

  “But they were her own jewels,” Kate pointed out. “If she connived in their theft, she wa
s only stealing from herself.”

  “But there’s more,” Charles said. “Shortly after the theft, she sued the bank for negligence, for the full amount of the loss. George Lewis represented her, I think. She settled for something like ten thousand pounds. I remember being surprised that Lewis didn’t press for more.”

  “So it’s possible that she had the bank’s settlement,” Bradford remarked, “and the jewels as well.”

  “Or the money they fetched,” Charles said. “They were probably fenced immediately.”

  “Not a bad little coup, especially when the value of the publicity is counted into it,” Bradford said. “I’m sure that once people learned of the loss, attendance at her plays shot up immediately.” He frowned. “But what’s this about a conspiracy to get rid of Edward Langtry, Kate? And who the devil was this man she was talking to?”

  “Lillie never called him anything but that nickname,” Kate said, “and I didn’t catch more than a glimpse of him as he left. I cannot say for certain that there was a conspiracy, or how deeply Lillie was involved. She didn’t contradict him, though, only pleaded with him not to talk about it for fear of being overheard. Before they parted, they were openly quarreling. They actually traded blows.” She shook her head, as if not quite believing what she had heard. “I don’t suppose he was injured, but she had to go to supper at the Rothschilds with a badly bruised cheek. She excused it to me by saying that she had run into an open door in the hallway.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Bradford said dryly. “When she was involved with that fellow Baird—the man people called the Squire—she sported black eyes and bruises quite regularly. When someone asked her why she put up with it, she said that for every black eye the Squire gave her, she got five thousand pounds worth of apology—or so Punch claimed.”

  “An apology?” Charles murmured, “or blackmail?”

  “Both, perhaps,” Bradford replied in an ironic tone. “She went for a weekend in Paris with Bobby Peel, who had promised to buy her some new Worth gowns. When the Squire caught up with her, he beat the both of them. She was in hospital for a fortnight, and it was said that she suffered a broken nose. But she came out the richer by fifty thousand pounds and the title to his yacht. She called it the White Lady. Everybody else called it ‘The Black Eye.’ ”

  Kate looked thoughtful. “This man Baird, the Squire—he’s dead?”

  “He died in New Orleans five or six years ago,” Bradford said. “Drank himself to death, according to the newspapers. At the time, it was quite a story—in part because of Mrs. Langtry’s disappointment. Baird was worth some three or four million pounds, and she apparently expected to inherit. But he executed a codicil a few days before he departed for America, leaving everything to his mother. The Gilded Lily didn’t get a penny.”

  “I wonder—” Kate began. But she didn’t get to finish. There was a loud knocking at the door, and Patrick burst in, wild-eyed. His shirt was torn and dirty, his nose dripped blood, and there was blood smeared on his hand and on his shirt and knickers. He looked utterly panic-stricken.

  Charles, taken aback, leapt to his feet with an exclamation of concern. Bradford, too, stood quickly and came forward. But Kate, to her great credit, scarcely batted an eyelash.

  “Patrick!” she said warmly, “how very delightful to see you! I was so pleased when his lordship told me that you would be here tonight.” She rose and went toward the boy. “My goodness, how tall you’ve grown, in such a very short time.” She bent over and kissed him on both cheeks, then, looking down at his hand, added, with only the slightest concern in her voice, “You seem to have gotten into quite a bit of blood, though. Did you meet with an accident on your way?”

  Kate’s warm calm seemed to steady the boy. He took in a breath, straightened his shoulders, and turned to Charles. “It’s Mr. Day, the bookmaker, sir. He’s in the alley, behind the Great Horse.” He looked down at his bloody hand and grimaced. “He’s dead. Somebody killed him.”

  “By Jove!” Bradford exclaimed. “Old Badger’s dead?” He started toward the door. “Well, then, let’s have a look. Come on, Sheridan. You too, boy. You can show us where you found him.”

  Kate put out a hand. “I think,” she said, “that Patrick might stay here with me.”

  Charles stood and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, meeting his wife’s eyes. “Patrick found the body, Kate, so the constable will want to speak with him. Stay here by the fire, my dear. We’ll be back in a little while.”

  For a moment he thought she might argue to keep the boy with her. Then she reached for her shawl. “I’m coming too,” she said firmly.

  This time, Charles knew better than to object.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Late Supper

  The first report of doping in racing horses in England occurred at Worksop, where an edict in 1666 banned the use of “exciting substances . . .” Since time immemorial horses had been dosed with whiskey before races, but toward the end of the nineteenth century the pace accelerated. Stimulating doping as we know it today was apparently born and bred in the New World and came to the Old World about the year 1900 . . .

  Drugs and the Performance Horse

  Thomas Tobin, 1981

  It was nearly an hour later when the group rejoined in Bradford’s lodging. The constable had been summoned, Patrick’s scanty evidence taken, and the body of Alfred Day, bookmaker, borne off to the surgery of a nearby doctor, who would perform an autopsy the following morning. But as Kate watched the proceedings, she thought that it didn’t require a doctor to confirm that the man had died violently. Anyone observing the corpse, even in the flickering light of the constable’s lantern, would have remarked on the bloody hole in the front of his brown waistcoat and realized that it was made by a gun, fired at close range.

  Bradford went directly to the sideboard. “I think a brandy is in order,” he said, and began to pour.

  “Patrick and I will have tea,” Kate said, with a glance at the boy, whose face was still very white. “And perhaps you might see whether there is any bread and butter in the pantry. While Patrick washes up,” she added, with a suggestive smile at the boy. She went to the gas kettle and lit it.

  Bradford handed a brandy to Charles. “I think Mrs. Hardaway is still awake. I’ll see what she can find for us.”

  A little later, Kate sat on one end of the sofa, pouring hot tea and passing a plate of bread and butter and slices of cake to Patrick, on the other end of the sofa. To her surprise, he took only one slice of bread and butter and declined the cake, explaining in a serious tone that all apprentice jockeys had to be very careful of their weight, for the lighter they were, the more likely they were to ride. To herself, Kate thought worriedly that Patrick could scarcely be much lighter, but she kept her concern to herself.

  By mutual consent, there was little said about the dead man in the alleyway, other than Bradford’s remark that Newmarket was a betting town and saw its share of violent quarrels, which usually took place over money or women and often resulted in bloodshed. Kate observed that the crime had nothing to do with them, aside from the unfortunate happenstance of Patrick’s stumbling over the body, and changed the subject, drawing Patrick out about his adventures since leaving school and doing her best to show only interest and to hide the deep concern she felt at the thought of the boy tramping alone across half of southern England.

  “Lord Charles tells me that you’re enjoying your work at the stable,” she said, after Patrick had sketched what was no doubt a much-abridged narrative of the months leading up to his coming to Newmarket. She smiled encouragingly. “I’m not surprised. I know how much you have always loved horses. And how very good you are with them.”

  Patrick nodded. “I do love horses,” he said. “Especially Gladiator.” There was a pause, and a guarded glance at Bradford, whom he had met for the first time that night. Then, to Charles, a tentative “I was hoping you might help, m’lord.”

  “Yes,” Charles said, ta
mping his pipe and lighting it, “we must talk about the horse. You said that someone made him drink something out of a bottle. Tell us more, please.”

  With one more glance at Bradford, Patrick spoke rapidly, as if he were saying something he’d had on his mind for a while. “Well, you see, sir, Gladiator’s a lazy horse—at least, on the track. But when he’s galloped on Southfields or across the Flat on the west side of town, he goes like the wind.” A small, proud smile ghosted across his mouth. “As he did yesterday, with me up.”

  “But the horse didn’t run like a lazy horse at the Derby,” Bradford remarked, from the depths of his overstuffed chair.

  “No, sir.” Patrick’s face darkened. “Before the race, when the farrier was putting on his plates, Mr. Pinkie and a veterinary surgeon came. They gave Gladiator something in a bottle, and it made him . . .” He gestured with his hands, helplessly, and Kate saw that there were still traces of the dead man’s blood under his nails. “Right away, it made him act wild. It was all Johnny could do to get him off to a fair start, and when they got to the corner, the horse ran against the rail and—” His voice failed him and he dropped his head.

  “We know,” Charles said sympathetically. “It’s too bad.”

  Patrick’s head came up. “It wasn’t Johnny’s fault,” he said, in quick defense of his friend. A look of guilt washed over his face. “I had the chance to warn him and didn’t. If I’d told him, maybe he would have ridden differently—or not at all.”

  “I doubt that’s so,” Bradford said gently. “When a horse turns savage, there’s not much a jockey can do except try to hold on. And your friend couldn’t reject a ride he’d agreed to and hope to keep riding—especially at the Derby.”