“His name is Day, I believe,” Kate said, putting down her fork. “He seems to have been called Badger.” Suddenly she was not very hungry, thinking of poor Mr. Day’s family gathered around a breakfast table where one chair was vacant and would never be filled. Whatever his occupation, he was a human being, who had felt love and anger and fear and-
There was a strangled sound, and a crash of porcelain. Kate looked up to see that Lillie’s face had gone ashen. Her eyes were wide and dark. The cup lay broken on the table, and a splash of coffee stained the bodice of Lillie’s blue silk dress.
“Lillie!” Kate exclaimed, putting her hand on the other’s arm. “Are you all right? Shall I call someone?” She reached for the small brass bell that sat on the table. “The butler? Or would you prefer your maid?”
“No!” Lillie shook her head violently and sucked in her breath with a small gasping noise. She made a fist and held it to her mouth, coughing. “I’m-I’m fine. A mouthful of coffee just went the wrong way down.” She coughed again, and began to fan herself violently with her other hand. “Such a little thing, really. Don’t trouble yourself, please.”
The momentary lapse into what had seemed to Kate like real emotion was almost under control and the actress had nearly regained command-but not quite. The rouge on Lillie’s cheeks showed as bright circles against the pallor of her skin and the hand at her mouth was trembling.
Kate sat back. “I know that sometimes it helps to talk about things that distress us,” she said quietly. It was true, or at least it had always been so with her, and she spoke with unfeigned compassion. “I would hold anything you share with me in the utmost confidence, Lillie.”
For a brief instant, Lillie’s eyes met hers. Her lips trembled and she seemed on the very edge of speaking. But then she stepped back from the brink.
“There’s nothing to share, my dear,” she said, with an enormous effort at naturalness. She reached for her damask napkin and dropped it onto the small puddle of coffee, which was threatening to drip off the table and onto the floor. “I was… merely startled. You see, I know Mr. Day. Anyone who has ever placed a bet at the racecourse knows him.” She forced a careless smile. “He’s become rather a Newmarket fixture, and I must say that he’s taken a great deal of my money over the past few years.” She closed her eyes briefly and opened them again, wide. “But of course winning and losing is part of the game of racing. One doesn’t hold his successes against him.”
Kate gave Lillie a sympathetic look. “Oh, of course,” she said, and added, tactfully, “I’m sure I would be quite startled if one of my acquaintances were to suffer a similar fate. Had you seen him recently?”
Ignoring the question, Lillie glanced down at her stained bodice and pushed back her chair. “My, haven’t I made a right royal mess of myself,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’ll go and change. And when I come back, you can ask me all the questions you like and write down every answer in that notebook of yours.”
Kate watched her make her exit-an impressive one, under the circumstances. But Kate, and Beryl Bardwell, were left to wonder what secret connection had existed between Lillie Langtry and the murdered bookmaker. Her reaction had been so dramatic, yet so real. Was it merely surprise, or something more? Was she afraid? Of what? Of whom? Why?
But Kate also knew that while Lillie Langtry might pretend to complete candor, the answers to these questions were not likely to come from her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Welshers, bookies who took your money but were nowhere to be found if your horse won, were without question the most hated of all racecourse crooks. If caught, they were usually subjected to a terrible vengeance by an enraged racing crowd. The treatment differed from course to course: at Catterick they were tarred and feathered, while at any course close to a river they were stripped naked and thrown into the water. More than one welsher was done to death.
The Fast Set: The World of Edwardian Racing George Plumptre
St. James proved to be a cobbled street only one block long not far from the Jockey Club and the Subscription Rooms, where bookmakers and racehorse owners assembled and called over the racing card on the night before a big race. Number Twenty-nine was a narrow, two-story redbrick building with a small plate-glass window set in the front, hung with heavy green draperies to prevent curious passersby from seeing within. On the outside of the window was painted Alfred Day, Racing Commissions in ornate black lettering trimmed and bordered in gold. A folded copy of the Sporting Times lay on the stoop where it had been tossed and a CLOSED sign hung crookedly across the front door. Charles pressed his face to the glass and peered into the dark interior, but he could see nothing.
“They ain’t in th’ office, sir,” piped a shrill voice. “They don’t gen’rally open up ’fore noon.”
Charles turned to see a ragged boy of ten or eleven. The rain that had succeeded the earlier drizzle had ceased, but there was still a fine mist in the air, and the boy’s hair and clothing were thoroughly wet. He was pushing a muddy wooden barrow into which a twig cage, bound with leather thongs, had been haphazardly set. The cage contained three twittering ferrets pushing frantically against the bars.
Charles went back down the steps to the street, followed by Jack Murray. “You know Mr. Day, then?” Charles asked.
The boy nodded vigorously, set down his barrow with a thud, and pushed his wet hair off his forehead. “If y’er ’ere to place a bet, sir, yer might go round th’ back an’ ring. Sobersides ’as a room upstairs. If ’e’s in, ’e’ll take care o’ yer.”
Charles reached into his pocket for a coin. “Thank you,” he said. “Do you live nearby?”
“Back there, in a room, sir, wiv me mother an’ brothers, sir.” Pocketing the coin, the boy pointed down a dark passageway between two brick buildings across the street. At the end of the passageway was a dingy courtyard, and yet another building.
“I see,” Charles said. He looked down at the ferrets, which were scrambling over one another in their frantic efforts to escape. “I suppose you went out early this morning to tend your ferret traps, did you?” He paused. “I wonder if you saw anyone attempting to enter Mr. Day’s office.”
The boy gave this question some thought, seemed on the brink of speaking, then hesitated. Charles found another coin and proffered it. The boy took it eagerly.
“I wuz out at three, sir, ’fore the rain. Ferrets is ’ard t’ catch in the day. They sleeps then, down in their dens. So they ’as to be got before dawn.” He gestured toward the bookmaker’s establishment. “When I went out, there wuz two men comin’ round from th’ back, ’urryin’ like. Seemed odd t’me, sir, it bein’ the middle of the night, which is why I recollects it.”
Jack Murray, standing behind Charles, stepped forward. “What kind of men?” he asked. “Gentlemen?”