“I see,” Charles said gravely. “And where is this bottle now?”
“It’s under the floorboard in the loft where I sleep,” Patrick said. There was an evident note of relief in his voice, and Kate thought that he was glad to be able to share his secret with someone, and perhaps also glad to get rid of the incriminating bottle. “I’ll give it to you. Maybe you can find out what’s in it.” He shuddered. “I don’t ever want to see Gladiator like that again-his eyes staring and the sweat pouring off him in buckets, and running as if the devil was after him.”
“That bottle,” Charles said. “Can you bring it here tomorrow night, without being detected?”
“I think so, sir. The lads work hard all day, and sleep hard, too. We don’t bed down the horses until Mr. Angus comes round to feel their legs and tendons and look them over. As soon as he’s come and gone, it’s supper and bed. Five o’clock in the morning comes awf’lly early. That’s when we take the horses out for first exercise.”
Kate smiled. “Five o’clock will come early tomorrow, too,” she reminded him, and Charles stood.
“Her ladyship is right,” he said. “It’s late, my boy. But just one or two more questions before you go. When and where is Gladiator racing next?”
“There’s a handicap here at Newmarket,” Patrick said promptly. “On Friday.”
“Thank you,” Charles said. “Do you know who’ll be riding?”
Kate saw a hopeful look cross Patrick’s face, then fade away. She knew he was wishing that he could ride the horse, and knowing at the same time that this was impossible.
“No, sir,” he said finally. “Besides Johnny Bell, there are two other jockeys who regularly ride for the stable, Bill Stevens and Dan Watts. It’ll be one of them, most like.”
And with that, Patrick went out into the night, Kate was driven back to Regal Lodge, and the eventful Monday was concluded.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Sporting Life of England!
The Charter of the Isle!
Perish the traitor, heart and hand,
That would, with dastard wile,
Sow discord, jealousy, or strife,
Among the gallant band
Who share and shield our Sporting Life,
The Charter of the Land!
Late 18th-century song in praise of the Jockey Club
As he had previously planned, Bradford took himself off the next morning to spend the day with his fiancée in Cambridge-but not before reminding Charles that they were to have dinner that night at Wolford Lodge, the home of Edith’s mother, on the Cambridge Road.
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy Edith’s stepfather,” he said as he left. “Colonel Harry Hogsworth, his name is. He has several horses at the Grange House Stable. He may be able to give us some useful information.”
Charles was breakfasting on the omelet and toast that Mrs. Hardaway had brought up for him and reading an article in the Manchester Guardian about the annulment of Alfred Dreyfus’s sentence and the order for his return from Devil’s Island to face a second court-martial at Rennes. It was a case Charles had followed since Dreyfus’s first trial in 1894, and he couldn’t help but feel both relief and dismay: relief at the hope that the French military tribunal would eventually see reason and clear Captain Dreyfus, who had so obviously been made a scapegoat; and dismay that the man would have to undergo yet another humiliating trial. The fundamental unfairness of this ugly business, this appalling miscarriage of justice, had gnawed at Charles for five long years now, but there was nothing that could be done. Events would simply have to take their course.
These thoughts were interrupted when a young man arrived, bearing a note from Admiral North. With apologies, Charles was summoned to the Club at his earliest convenience, within the hour, if at all possible. Reading the note, Charles raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t surprised that Owen North was at Newmarket, for the Jockey Club was officially headquartered here, but he was astonished at such an early-morning summons. He sent the boy back with word that he was on his way, finished his coffee, put on his hat, and set off. Out on the street, he looked up at the lowering gray clouds, turned back, and located a spare black umbrella in the stand in Mrs. Hardaway’s front hallway.
It was not quite raining, but the early June air was dense with drizzle and Charles was glad of the umbrella. As he walked, he passed a dress-shop window and noticed a blue wool shawl that made him think of Kate, the thought of her reminding him of what she had said the evening before. He frowned. Was it possible that Mrs. Langtry had connived at the theft of her jewels-and at the death of her husband? And who was this man who cared for her so passionately that he was willing to steal and kill for her?
These thoughts occupied Charles until he reached the Jockey Club, which was located in a collection of buildings that turned its back on the High Street. These headquarters, Charles knew, had begun as a coffee house, first leased by the Club in the 1750’s and expanded, with an indifferent attention to architecture, over the years. In the early 1880’s, fifty-odd bedrooms had been added to accommodate members coming for the race meetings, and also a suite of apartments for H.R.H. In addition to the buildings on the High Street, the Club had also acquired large tracts of Newmarket Heath from the private individuals who had originally owned them, and its control extended to Newmarket racecourse as well.
All these physical expansions reflected the Jockey Club’s growing authority over the Turf. In the early days and until about twenty-five years before, racing had been clouded by dishonesty, corruption, and outright crime, with crooked jockeys and stable staff manipulating the performance of horses while corrupt handicappers and race officials affected the outcomes at the course. But Lord George Bentinck had used several major scandals to tighten the Club’s procedures, Admiral Henry Rous had gone on to clean up handicapping, and by the seventies, the Club had written a set of rules that gave them almost complete control over the Turf: the authority to draw up handicaps; to manage the sums and payment of prize-money; to license officials and racecourses; and to govern conduct and punish misconduct. In fact, the only thing the Club refused to regulate was betting, which the stewards had delegated to Tattersall’s Committee a dozen or so years before, retaining only the right to deal with defaulters.
But while the Club’s rules tended toward the autocratic, the stewards themselves might tend toward the lenient, overlooking infractions when they found it politic to do so. In fact, in yesterday’s Sporting Times, Charles had read an irreverent remark to the effect that when it came to the American invasion of trainers and jockeys, the current stewards were “playing Shut-Eye” to such an extent that “they look like the three blind mice.” He wondered whether Admiral North had read that criticism, and how he might feel about it.
At the door, Charles pulled a brass bell. A footman took his umbrella and directed him upstairs, where he found Owen North behind a desk in a well-appointed office with a series of paintings of horses on the walls and an enlarged photograph of the Prince of Wales with Persimmon, who won the Derby in ’96. To Charles’s surprise, the Newmarket chief constable was there as well, perched uneasily on the edge of a chair, turning his bowler hat in his heavy hands. Jack Murray, the Club’s investigator, lounged morosely against a wall.
“Ah, Sheridan,” Admiral North said, rising and extending his hand. His face was troubled and his voice tense. “I’m sorry to bring you out so early, but we are confronted with an unfortunate bit of business.”
“Perfectly all right, Admiral,” Charles said, seating himself.