“That’s the way it is more often than not,” said Constable Patley, pretending to have an authority he did not really possess.
“Just as I thought. Well, it was today it came to me whilst Bennett and me were visiting Pegasus in the stable. My sister told me something-actually two things that I thought might help you find him-and through him, her. She gave a name to Maggie’s father, and I believe it was Stephen. Now, as I said, she described him as tall and fair. I b’lieve she said, he had straw-colored hair. Did I tell you that?”
“I’m not sure,” said I, quite honestly.
“Well, that’s a description of a sort, ain’t it? And there’s this, too. She made some remark about waking up beside him with hay in her hair. Now that, to me, says that she was sleeping in a hayloft. Where do they have haylofts?”
“Well, all over-in farms for one.”
“Where else?”
“In stables,” said I, “right here in town. So if we find a young fellow, tall and fair, named Stephen, working in a stable here, then we’re also likely to find her?”
“That’s as I see it,” said Mr. Deuteronomy.
“Well, I be damned,” said Constable Patley.
When we ended, we two thanked Mr. Deuteronomy most effusively and respectfully as our host settled the bill with the serving woman. We began drifting away. But our host summoned me back by name. Mr. Patley, eager to get himself to the jakes, hurried on.
“What will you, sir?” said I, returning.
“A couple of matters,” said he, “that I’d like to discuss with you. The first is none of my affair. I’m simply Lord Lamford’s errand boy in this. Last thing he said to me was he didn’t want me talking to you anymore. You can see by the way we spent the last hour or so, just how much I respect that.”
“But why?” said I. “Why should he object to me?”
“I be damned if I know-except somehow or other he’s gotten wind that you work for the Blind Beak. He said something about you having no right to nose about where you’re not wanted for Sir John. So I was going to ask you not to come to Pegasus’s evening workout. You’re welcome to come to the one in the morning. He never gets up till noon, anyways. If his lordship ain’t around, we can talk. Suit you?”
I sighed. “Suits me well enough.”
“Well and good. Now, the second matter is from me and me alone, and it concerns me and me alone, and I’d like it to be confidential between us two. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“I’d like you to place that hundred-pound bet for me, the one I mentioned I was going to put down on Pegasus, put it in your name and not mine.”
“Would I be doing anything illegal if I did?”
“No, I would never ask you to do anything like that. They get nervous when they see a jockey wearing racing colors placing a bet on any horse.”
“I can understand that.”
“And I want you to wait until just before the race, because there’s just a chance that the odds may be even more favorable then. We’ll see. I’ll get the money to you on race day. But that’s the day after tomorrow, ain’t it?”
Then did we part with a clap and shake of the hands.
EIGHT
Next morning, Mr. Patley and I were up and out very early. In point of fact, we arrived only minutes after Deuteronomy, Bennett, and Pegasus. There was but a suggestion of gray dawn in the east as we took our places at the rail end. Yet it grew lighter and lighter most swiftly, and by the time Pegasus was saddled and the jockey was atop the horse, it was not long till sunrise. All this was done in near-complete silence. There seems to be something in the early morning air that enforces quiet. Mr. Deuteronomy made no effort whatever to attempt to communicate with me.
He took two laps at a trot, then a canter, and back to a trot, then, for the first time that morning, at a full gallop, and only then was Pegasus allowed a walk. The important thing, as Mr. Patley explained it, was to keep the horse moving. Yet there was never any sign from Pegasus that he wished to rest. He seemed always to be ready to go round again at full gallop-and not only to be ready, but eager to do so.
Mr. Patley shook his head and whispered to me, “I never saw a horse so willing.”
At the first sign of another horse and rider, Deuteronomy pulled him in and ended Pegasus’s sport. No more gallops, though he might be permitted to prance a bit.
“What say you to a bit of breakfast?” asked Mr. Patley. “My turn to buy.”
“Well,” said I, “that suits me well, but let’s return by way of the market.”
“Why? You so hungry that you can’t wait?”
“No, it’s just that I was figuring that if we’re hungry, then Stephen and Alice must be, too. I think it’s a good time of the day to look for her there.”
“How is it you always got an answer for me that makes good sense?”
“I guess I’m just a sensible young fellow,” said I.
“There you go,” said Patley. “You did it again.”
The market area was even larger than I had at first realized. There was a whole street of fruit and vegetables that led off from the market square, which I had not noticed previously. The sun was well up now, and the crowd from the hill poured down from above. I dawdled my way through the market that the constable might have a chance to peer into the face of each and every woman we passed, whether she be dressed in a teal-blue or a plum-colored frock, or whatever. Alas, he looked in vain, for she was nowhere to be seen. I rewarded him for his effort with an apple-from the barrel, of course, but unbruised and unspotted. It cost me a pretty penny.
Up at the inn, eating a breakfast of johnny-cakes and coffee, we discussed how we might go about seeking Alice Plummer, and what we might do with her if and when she be captured.
“’Twould be an awful pity to leave Newmarket before the race is run,” said he to me.
“Well,” said I, “that’s true enough. I’ve even agreed to do a favor for someone. I’d have to back out of my promise if we headed right back to London.”
Mr. Patley put on a gloomy face and let go a great sigh. “It ain’t good to back out of a promise. That someone you’re doing the favor for wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Deuteronomy, would it?”
“It might be just anyone, but I’m not free to say who it is.”
“I’ll take that to mean that I’m right.”
“Just as you choose,” said I with a smile.
And why the smile? Not merely to bedevil Mr. Patley, for there were simpler ways of doing that. I’d had an idea, one that would make it unnecessary to tie our prisoner to the bed in our room at the Good Queen Bess; to bind and gag her; or to do anything that might ultimately prove embarrassing to us and reflect badly upon Sir John; one, in short, that would work to the satisfaction of all except Alice Plummer.
Though I now had an idea of just where Alice might be, and Mr. Deuteronomy had told us enough about Stephen so that we might recognize him in a small crowd, it was still no easy matter to find them. We must have visited near a dozen stables, asking for Stephen, telling our lies and half-truths about our need to find him, lies that sounded merely specious even to me. Then, let us say, at the thirteenth stable (it may have been at a greater or lesser number, but that is what we shall call it), we found our Stephen.
Mr. Deuteronomy’s description had done him fair justice: he was tall (about six feet) and certainly fair (his hair was so blond that it appeared at first look to be white), and he could not deny his name was Stephen, for he answered to it when Mr. Patley bellowed out the name. He came from the rear of the stable, a pail of water in his hand. I allowed Mr. Patley to take the lead at this place, as he had at each one thus far.
“Your name is Stephen, then?” Mr. Patley asked.
“Supposing it is,” he said, “what was it you wanted?”