Quade shook his head. “No, Charlie. It isn’t ours.”
Charlie Boston showed his teeth. “No? Well, we had a ticket on Rameses. You threw it away. Somebody’s found it by this time. O.K., so we found someone else’s ticket. ‘Finder’s keepers, losers weepers,’ my grandmother always said.”
The fat man wailed, “My ticket, my ticket!”
Quade tapped him on the shoulder. “Mister, I threw away a ten-dollar show ticket on Rameses—”
“A ten-dollar ticket!” cried the fat man. “Hell, I threw away a hundred-dollar ticket!”
Quade clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Say, that’s tough, pal. Maybe if you’d offer a reward, someone might—”
The fat man rose to his knees. “That’s an idea. I’ll post a reward!”
“You win,” Quade snapped. “Here’s your ticket. I found it.”
The man got up and fell against Quade. He tore the halves of the tickets from Quade’s hands. “Thanks, mister,” he babbled, “thanks a million.” He stumbled toward the club house and Quade had to spring after him and catch hold of his arm.
“Say, the reward!”
The fat man blinked. “Oh, sure, the reward.” He reached into a pocket and brought out a roll that would have choked Rameses, the horse. He peeled off two bills and shoved them at Quade. “There you are, sir, and many thanks!” He turned and wobbled away.
Quade looked at the reward, stunned.
“Two bucks!” Charlie Boston cried. “Two bucks for a ticket worth nine hundred and eighty! Quade, you—”
He staggered away, too stricken to continue his reproach.
Slowly, Quade folded up the two one-dollar bills and put them in his pocket. Then he walked into the club house, in the direction of the pari-mutuel betting room.
To reach it, he had to walk past the staircase leading up to the rooms of the Turf Club. As he came abreast of the stairs a man hurtled down and collided so savagely with Quade that he went sprawling to the floor. The man fell on top of him.
“What the hell!” Quade cried, angrily. He shoved at the man and wet sticky stuff smeared his hand. Startled, he jerked the hand around to look at it.
He saw blood on his fingers.
He got up from the floor then. The man who had knocked him down remained on the floor. He would never get up. He was dead. It was George Grimshaw.
A tall man in a gray uniform ran up. He looked at the man on the floor and paled. “He’s — dead!”
Quade nodded soberly. “He came tumbling down those stairs. Knocked me over.” His eyes went to the stairs. He started toward them, but the gray-uniformed man rushed past him and blocked Quade with his back.
“I see it!” he said. “And you — up there! Stay where you are!”
Two men and a woman were coming down the stairs. They stopped, puzzled. “What’s the matter, officer?” one of the men asked.
The special policeman shook his head. “Someone’s been hurt. Everyone will have to remain upstairs.”
A heavy-set man in his middle thirties came out of the betting room. He snapped, “What’s going on here, Kleinsmith?”
The uniformed man turned and relief swept across his face. “Hello, Lieutenant. This man,” he pointed to the huddled body on the floor, “came tumbling down those stairs. He’s dead and,” he pointed to the stairs, “there’s a gun lying there.”
The heavy-set man took a fat cigar from his vest pocket and stuck it between his teeth. He rolled it in his mouth and looked at Quade. “There’s blood on your hand, Mister,” he said accusingly.
“Yes,” Quade admitted. “He knocked me over when he fell down the stairs.”
The cigar made a complete circuit of the heavy-set man’s mouth. “Zat so? We’ll get into that in a minute. You, Kleinsmith, run up to the steward’s office. Tell him what happened, then phone the office. After that, come back here and bring some of the boys with you.”
The uniformed man turned to go.
“You forgot something,” Quade said. “The police.”
The heavy-set man scowled. “What do you think I am?”
Quade replied calmly. “Just a special policeman hired by the track. This is murder, man.”
“All right, Kleinsmith,” snapped the track police lieutenant, “call the cops, too. In the meantime,” he glowered at Quade, “let’s have your story. Why’d you knock him off?”
Quade walked deliberately to the stairs and sat down on the lowest step. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and began wiping the blood from his fingers.
“I’ll wait until a policeman comes,” he said.
And wait he did, even though the special detective snarled and stormed at him. Fortunately, the police came within a few minutes, an entire squadron of them, led by Captain Roletti. By that time there was a ring of spectators eighteen deep around the dead man. The police dispersed the crowd quickly, however, driving away everyone but Quade and the track policemen.
“Now then,” said Roletti, a black-haired, dapper man of about forty, “let’s start at the beginning. You, Mister, what’s your name?”
“Oliver Quade. I was on my way to the betting room and when I passed these stairs this man came tumbling down. He knocked me to the floor and fell on me. I pushed him off, and then discovered that he was dead.”
“How’d you know he was dead?”
“How do I know you’re alive?”
Captain Roletti grinned frigidly. “Oh, so it’s going to be like that? Fine! I haven’t had a good scrap all week. So he fell down the stairs and tumbled into your arms. Uh-hum, and where are your witnesses, the people who saw you walking along here when he came down?”
Kleinsmith, the special policeman, said, “I saw it.”
Roletti whirled on Kleinsmith. “Ah, Mr. Kleinsmith, The Eye himself. So you’re his pal, eh?”
Kleinsmith screwed up his face. “No, I never saw the man before in my life.”
“No? Then how’d you happen to be watching?”
“That’s my job. I’m supposed to keep an eye out for slickers and pickpockets.”
Captain Roletti smiled pleasantly. He purred, “Ah, so you were looking out for pickpockets and you were watching Mr. Quade. Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Kleinsmith turned red in the face. “I didn’t say he was a pickpocket. I said that was part of my job. I happened to be watching him because, well — there was some mixup about the last race. The results were announced and some of the people who’d lost tore up their tickets. Then a foul was allowed, which made Rameses a winner. Mr. Mills had torn up a hundred-dollar ticket. This man found it and—”
“And tried to keep it?”
“No. He returned it to Mr. Mills.”
Captain Roletti snorted. “Diogenes! All right, Kleinsmith, get this Mr. Mills. You seem to know him.”
“Oh, yes, he’s a member of the Turf Club.” Kleinsmith went off.
Captain Roletti scowled at Quade. “You’re lucky, Mister. But don’t go yet.” He climbed the stairs and, stooping, examined the gun. Finally, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to pick the gun up by the muzzle. He came down the stairs and handed it to a blue-uniformed policeman.
“Take this to the steward’s office, Cassidy. Blake will be out in a little while with his stuff. He’ll go over it for prints.”
Special Policeman Kleinsmith came back with the fat, perspiring man whose name was Mills. The fat man took a look at the body on the floor.
“George Grimshaw!” he gasped.
“You know him?” snapped Captain Roletti.
“Of course,” replied Mills. “He’s got a stable here.”
Captain Roletti whirled on Kleinsmith. “What’s this? He’s running horses here and you don’t know him?”
“Of course I know him,” replied Kleinsmith.