G. G.
“What’s in the other letter?” Boston asked.
Quade felt it. “It’s not money, so I don’t think I’ll open it — not right now, anyway.”
“Well, what’re we going to do?”
Quade said, “We’ve got seventeen twenty-five left of the twenty. Do you think the manager of the hotel would take it as a down payment?”
Boston winced. “No, he looked like a guy who’d made up his mind to do something and was going through with it. That’s your fault, Ollie. You been ridin’ him pretty hard this past month.”
“I know,” Quade admitted. “I was counting on a break. It didn’t come. Well, we’ve got just one chance.”
“What’s that?”
“The race-track. Perhaps we can run this into enough to pay the hotel bill.”
Boston exclaimed. “But, Ollie! For years you been squawking about my playing the ponies. And now—”
“Now, it’s necessity. The seventeen dollars won’t stave off the hotel manager. A couple of hundred might. And what other way can we make a couple of hundred in a few hours?”
Boston looked suspiciously at Quade. “Say, that note! You want to go to the races because that fellow Grimshaw wrote Lund he was going there. That’s why you want to go.”
Quade said, “Tsk! Tsk! Such deduction!”
“That’s it,” persisted Boston. “You want to play detective again. That means we’re going to get knocked around some more. And when it’s all over you and me will be behind the eight ball again.”
“We’re there, now!”
“Huh?”
“Lund’s body is going to be found sooner or later. Three people, Grimshaw and the two thugs, knew we were going there this afternoon. No, four. The cab driver, too. How long do you think it’ll be before they have us down at the Fairfax Station?”
Boston winced. “Ow!”
Forty-five minutes later, Quade and Boston alighted from the special race-track bus. Ahead of them were the huge buildings of the grandstand and club house. Beyond the buildings was the track. They walked across the vast parking lot and approached the ticket windows.
“Club house, two-twenty!” snorted Boston. “Let’s go over to the grandstand.”
By way of reply, Quade stepped to the ticket window. “Two club-house tickets,” he said.
At the gate he spent fifteen cents for a program. When they were inside, walking up the long flight of stairs to the club house, Boston said:
“Fifty cents bus fare, four-forty for tickets, fifteen cents for programs. How much does that leave us?”
“You forgot the seventy-five cents taxi fare back to the hotel where we got the bus,” replied Quade. “That leaves us a total of eleven dollars and forty-five cents.”
“And you want to win enough to pay our hotel bill?”
“Oh, I’ll be satisfied with a couple of hundred profit. I leave that part of it up to you, Charlie. I may be the Human Encyclopedia, but one of the things I don’t know is how to pick horses. You’ve always been talking about your marvelous system. So go ahead, do your stuff.”
Charlie Boston took the program from Quade. “What do you want to bet on the first race? Two dollars.”
“Why delay the agony? If your system’s good, it’ll be just as good for the entire amount, won’t it?”
Charlie Boston perked up. “That’s the way I like to play ’em myself. If you’re going to bet on the nags, bet on them right. That’s my system.”
By this time they were in the club house. Quade was somewhat disconcerted by the size of it and the crowd. “Never find anyone in this mob,” he grumbled. “You’d think people had other things to do than come to the races.”
A red-coated bugler on the track, put his instrument to his mouth and blew on it. The horses began parading out of the paddock.
“What about the bet, Charlie?” Quade asked.
“In just a minute. Hmm, yes, Rameses is my horse. Ten bucks to show. Come on, Ollie.”
They started back to the club house, to the pari-mutuel betting room. Quade caught Boston’s arm. “Why to show, Charlie?”
“Because that’s my system. I never bet a horse to win. Only to show. I never lose that way.”
“I’ll not say anything about last winter when we were in Florida,” Quade said, “provided you don’t lose today.”
“I won’t lose!” said Boston, emphatically. “This race is a cinch. There’s the window. Just tell him a ticket on Rameses, Number six.”
A minute later Quade rejoined Boston. He rubbed the ticket between his thumb and forefinger. “This is for the Lincoln Hotel,” he said.
“Come on!” exclaimed Charlie. “The horses are going to the post now. They’ll be off in a minute.”
The cry of “They’re off!” went up before they got back to the front side of the club house.
Thirty thousand people immediately went nuts.
Quade couldn’t even see the horses. There were too many people on their feet in front of him. But finally he found a spot, where, by standing on his toes, he managed to catch a diagonal view of the track.
A voice blared over a public address system.
“At the turn. Skyhigh… Betty May second by a length… Beefboy. Cold Water coming up on the outside… Rameses.”
“Rameses!” yelled Charlie Boston.
The announcer droned, “In the stretch, Beefboy and Skyhigh, neck and neck. Betty May third… and Rameses! Rameses coming up.”
“Come on, Beefboy!” screamed several thousand throats. And just as many roared. “Skyhigh!.. Betty May!.. Rameses!”
The horses thundered across the finish line, not a single length separating the first four animals. The announcer gave the result even as the numbers of the winning horses flashed on the tote board. “Beefboy, first, Skyhigh second and Betty May third!”
Oliver Quade took the ten-dollar pari-mutuel ticket from his pocket and tore it up. “Charlie,” he said, “just what is this system of yours?”
Charlie Boston winced. “Why, I wait until they parade the horses, then I pick the best looking of the black ones.”
Quade growled deep in his throat. “After all these years of listening to you blab about how you could pick them!”
The voice of the announcer exclaimed, “Hold your tickets, everybody. A foul has been claimed against the rider of Beefboy! Hold your tickets!”
Charlie Boston yelped, “Our ticket!” He stooped and began searching among the forest of moving legs for the ticket Quade had torn and thrown away. Here and there others who had thrown away tickets prematurely were also scrambling for them. A fat, perspiring man, moaned, “My ticket, my ticket!”
Charlie Boston came up with two halves of a pari-mutuel ticket. “Whew!” he panted, triumphantly. “That was close.”
The voice on the public address system droned, “The foul has been allowed. Beefboy is disqualified. The winner is Sky-high. Betty May is second and Rameses third.”
“Whew!” yelled Charlie Boston. “We win! I told you my system worked. It had to. There was only one black horse in this race.”
Oliver Quade snatched the pieces of pasteboard from Boston’s hands and raised himself to his toes to consult the tote board out on the field. He inhaled softly. “Nine-eighty to show!”
He turned and stumbled over the fat man who was down on his knees. The man exclaimed, “My ticket! My ticket!”
“Come on, Ollie,” Charlie Boston cried, “let’s go and collect.”
Oliver Quade gripped Charlie Boston’s arm. “Charlie, this ticket — it’s not ours!”
“What? You mean it’s no good?”
“I mean,” said Quade, “our ticket was for ten bucks. This one’s for a hundred.”
For an instant, Charlie Boston’s face was stricken. Then slowly the lines lifted and an expression of huge delight spread over the broad face. “And it pays nine-eighty!”