Sherlock Holmes Never Dies- Collection Four
Page 5
Mr. Silver was widening now. He was moving like a tremendous machine. It was Mr. Silver by twelve … then Mr. Silver by fourteen lengths on the final turn. Clam was dropping back, tiring, and it looked like Paul Revere and Lord Commodore would catch him. They were coming up to him. Clam could not keep the pace through a long cup race. But now Mr. Silver was all alone. As he began the long descent down the hill, he was a sixteenth of a mile away from the rest of the horses, in a position that seemed impossible to catch.
The crowd in the Queen’s Stand was on its feet, screaming. A quick glance over to the Grandstand told me that 70,000 more were shouting in ecstasy, watching history unfold in front of them.
Now Mr. Silver was into the final stretch. He was leading the field by eighteen lengths. Behind him, Lord Commodore had taken second and Paul Revere moved into third, passing Clam. With nothing between him and the finish line, the great white colt had opened a twenty-two length lead. No horse had ever run this fast.
“He can’t keep it up” cried one chap behind me. “You’ll kill him, Donny,” shouted another. Everyone was on their feet. Several more shouting their fear that Mr. Silver would collapse before the final stretch.
Even Holmes was on his feet, his eyes glued to this magnificent, this massive, this supernatural white beast. Mr. Silver was going to win the Wheatcroft Cup, utterly demolishing the rest of the field. He came thundering down to the wire, an unbelievable, an amazing performance. He hit the finish, twenty-five lengths in front. Maybe more.
Lord Commodore was now approaching and would make second, with Paul Revere third, and Epitaph fourth. Clam, a superb horse but without the stamina to go the distance had faded to fifth.
We had observed an amazing, unbelievable performance by a supernatural horse. It was as if every one of us knew that we would never, if we lived to a hundred, see anything that came close to the miracle we had just witnessed.
The shouts from the crowd continued unabated. We watched as the official approached the tote board and posted the results. Mr. Silver had won by thirty-one lengths and broken the course record by more than two seconds.
All around us, men and women were embracing each other. Some ladies had fainted and were being totally ignored by the men at their sides, who were up on their chairs, stomping and shouting.
I could not restrain myself and threw my arms around Sherlock Holmes. It mattered not that it was like hugging a gate post, he stiffened and gave me a thin smile.
“Please, Watson, get a grip on yourself. It was a horse race, not a coronation.”
Eventually, the cheering subsided and the crowds moved down towards the track, straining to see into the winner’s circle. Mr. Silver, led by Colonel Ross, with Donny Cotter on his enormous back, was approaching. As he came near the crowds became silent. Men removed their hats, which I though a bit much until I saw that Our Gracious Sovereign Herself was on her way to the circle. The crowd parted as she entered, sitting in a push-chair and followed by several members of the Royal Family and our Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. Behind him was Mr. Garret Hobart, the Vice-President of the United States. He was smiling graciously although I suspected that inside he was seething since, like all Americans, he detested losing, and he especially hated such an overwhelming victory by the Empire that America so relentlessly prided itself on having once defeated.
As we worked our way through the madding crowd, I knew that I was about to incur the disdain and admonishment of Sherlock Holmes when I made my confession.
“I am terribly sorry, Holmes, but I shall have to make a small detour down to the bookmakers. I have a small ticket on the winner and stand to win a little.”
His reaction was not at all what I had expected.
“Do you indeed?” he smiled. “Why congratulations. Allow me to accompany you. Such an occasion of good fortune should be shared between friends.”
I was shocked. Holmes utterly loathed being squeezed and bumped about by the great unwashed, but he was all smiles and we elbowed our way to the bookie with whom I had placed my bet. In return for my £20 ticket, he peeled off my wager and another £20 in return for my bet on Mr. Silver to show. I beamed with pleasure as I stuffed the bills into my pocket.
“Quite right,” I said. “Now we can visit the pub for a round and celebrate. My treat.”
“Not quite yet,” said Holmes. “I have a bit of a detour to make as well. Please follow me.”
I started to do as he requested and then stopped in my tracks, grabbed his arm and turned him around to face me.
“Sherlock Holmes! I am shocked, shocked. You … you placed a bet. I cannot believe it. Now I have seen everything.”
I was utterly stunned. “How much? How much did you bet?”
Holmes tried to maintain his stone face, but a wisp of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. He reached into his pocket and handed me his ticket.
Had my jaw not been attached to my head it would have hit the floor.
“Merciful heavens, Holmes. You put £1000 pounds on the ghost horse to win? Have you lost your mind? What if you had lost? You would have been ruined. Holmes, I cannot believe that you did this!”
I was without words. It was beyond belief that this man who placed such unparalleled value on reason and eschewed emotion and passion at all costs would have taken such a risk.
“I believe,” he said, with a touch of smugness, “that from time to time I have said that once you have eliminated all other possibilities …”
“Good Lord, Holmes. I know what you have said. But what were you thinking? This is madness.”
“As I was saying, once you have eliminated all other horses in the field, the one that remains must be the winner. A handsome bet on Mr. Silver was quite logical. Elementary, my dear Watson. However, if you are buying the round of ale, then I suppose I must cover the dinner.”
I could not stop shaking my head as we walked toward the high-flyer bookmakers section and I watched as Holmes pocketed over four thousand pounds.
The scene outside the stands was one of boisterous chaos. Hawkers and touts were everywhere, enticing anyone who was fortunate to have placed a winning bet to part with their so recently acquired wealth. Carriages and cabs were clogging up the road as throngs of Londoners made their way back to the train stations. As Holmes and I walked back to the hotel, he chatted on pleasantly, demonstrating that even the most resolute of rational men is susceptible to the euphoria that overtakes a man’s mind when he finds himself holding a winning ticket.
After a round of ale, which I was honored to pay for, Holmes became somewhat more serious.
“Kindly indulge me, my dear doctor, and let us return to the Derby Arms close by the racecourse for our supper. While this past hour has been a delightful interlude of pleasant revelry, I cannot escape my responsibility to Scotland Yard, who requested my professional services. While the race itself appears to have been run without any criminal manipulation, I am still faced with the murder of the jockey. We shall not learn any more about the case by sitting here, but I expect that anyone who has any insights into the foul deed can now be found at the adjacent pub and, with luck, his tongue may be loosened by his imbibing.”
The gathering in the Derby Arms was, as expected, loud and raucous, filled with tobacco smoke, laughter, and shouting. The barmaids were moving as quickly as possible through the tightly-packed crowd of patrons, their own hands holding several mugs of ale, and struggling to keep others’ hands away from their legs and buttocks. In one corner I could see our American friends chatting with others from their homeland. Several I recognized from the parade as the owners of Clam, Paul Revere, and Epitaph. The New York brethren were buying the drinks and I could overhear snatches of their conversation. “Yeah, the fix was in…” or “never do I know a race course with turns going both ways and hills…” and “you guys must demand a return match but next time in the good old U S of A ...” I nodded in their direction and they smiled back, lifting a glass of ale as they did so.
The brash young Lord Biggleswade, whose horse, Lord Commodore, had been the fastest of all the English steeds, was sitting at a large table, speaking in loud voice, mostly about himself and his horse, and was constantly groping the poor barmaids as they squeezed past him and saying appallingly rude and lascivious things to them. He had a lot of growing up to do and was a long way from acting like the gentleman he was bred to be.
Throughout the room, I repeatedly heard the name “Mr. Silver” and the endless re-telling of his astounding run, each time with some additional explanation and commentary gratuitously provided by the teller. The not altogether surprising observation was the non-presence of Colonel Ross or any of his entourage. Twenty-five years ago, in Afghanistan, he had a reputation as a teetotaler and as a man of scrupulous personal discipline who would have to be in the middle of a pitched battle before breaking his routine bedtime of half-past ten o’clock.
Holmes and I spent over two hours engaging various fellows in conversation, but each time we attempted to turn the talk to the death of the jockey we were, in a friendly way, ignored or rebuffed. The mood was too celebratory, and no one was interested in ruining the joyful conviviality by dwelling on a sad but now past event.
The eleventh hour of the evening had come and gone when Holmes gave me a tug on the arm, leaned his head toward my ear, and over the din said, “We may as well be on our way. There is nothing more to be gleaned from here. They are all becoming steadily more drunk. Let us go.”
I nodded my agreement and we started to push and elbow our way toward the door. We were within a few feet of it when it suddenly flew open violently and a young man in a groom’s outfit burst in. At the top of his lungs, he screamed,
“THE STABLES ARE ON FIRE!”
Chapter Four
They’re Off
FOR A SECOND OR TWO, the entire pub became silent. Then men leaped to their feet and rushed toward the door. Holmes and I were pushed from behind and swept out into the street. En masse, the crowd began to run the short distance back to the racecourse. I am no runner and if I were ever to doubt that fact the pain in my leg from the Jezail bullet of so many years ago provided an irrefutable reminder. Holmes and many of the younger chaps passed me, but then we were halted by a row of trainers and track officials all shouting, “Stand back! Stand back! The men are bringing the horses out. Stand back!”
Behind them, we all watched in horror. Fire was engulfing the back section of the first stable, the one closest to the racecourse in which were kept the horses that had taken part in the Century Race. The front door of the stable was wide open and several men were bravely running into the building and one by one leading the horses out and handing them off to other men who quickly moved them away from the growing conflagration.
A fellow came running and coughing from the burning building. I recognized him as Robert Blinden, who just two days ago had first raised our suspicions about the death of the jockey.
“We can’t get the last four!” he cried. “They are going crazy. Their hooves are flying all over. We can’t get close to them.”
Proof of his words was given as two of his colleagues came staggering from the building with a third chap being held up between them. I ran forward to give whatever medical attention I could. As I did, I was knocked off my feet by a man running at full speed. From behind I watched as a very tall man, carrying his suit jacket in one hand and a riding crop in the other went running past me and into what had become the gates of hell. All of us stared in silence until, a minute later, Harry the Horse emerged from the barn, his suit jacket was wrapped around the head of Paul Revere. The big race horse was following him obediently. Harry was giving the beast hard whips to his neck with the crop and dragging him forward. As soon as he was a safe distance, he handed the bridle rope to another man, pulled his jacket off the horse’s head and turned back to the stable door.
“Doctor!” Robert shouted at me. “Give me your coat. Hurry!” I ripped my suit coat off and handed it to him. Other men behind me did likewise and handed their garments to two other grooms. The three of them then turned and ran back into the flaming building. The fire by now had moved up the walls and was approaching the front section. The roof in the back section was now in flames.
As a doctor in the medical corps, I had stood behind battle lines and watched as brave men charged forward to engage the enemy, knowing that they stood a very high risk of dying by doing so. Now that dreadful feeling returned and I could sense my heart pounding and my breathing becoming fast and shallow as we waited, hoping and praying that these brave chaps would get out before the inferno collapsed on top of them or they were overcome by the smoke and heat.
One by one they came. First the two grooms, and then came Harry, pulling a very skittish Clam behind him.
“Is that all of them?” shouted someone in the crowd behind me.
“I’ll check!” came the shout back from Robert and he turned and ran back toward the stable door.
“No!” I screamed at him. “It is not worth it. No!”
He could not hear me and raced back in, using my suit coat as a blanket around his head to protect him from the flaming embers that were now falling from the roof and the rafters into to the interior of the barn.
“He is mad with courage,” said Holmes, who was now standing beside me, his arm through mine and clasping me tightly.
Men of the racetrack are not given to sincere utterances of religious expression. But I could hear voices crying out their orisons to the Almighty on behalf of the man who had run back into the fire. Then, as the back part of the building collapsed and fell to the ground with a roar and an explosion of flame we saw the form of a very brave man emerge from the door. He was running for his life, coughing and gasping. When he was out of the reach of the flames he collapsed and several men ran forward, lifted him and pulled him back away from the fire.
Between his coughs and gasps for fresh air Robert sputtered. “They’re all out. The stalls are empty. We got them all.”
A spontaneous round of hurrahs, and well done and similar accolades came from the crowd, who by now must have numbered over a hundred.
The building was beyond saving, and the firemen from the village were now present and directing streams of water on the parts of the structure nearest to the other stables to make sure that the fire could not spread. I bent down to where Robert was sitting and listened to his breathing. He was still coughing but there was no blood in his phlegm and the convulsions of his chest were subsiding. Holmes stood beside me, transfixed by the sight in front of us. The entire edifice was now in flames. Sections of it continued to collapse and soon it was no more that a roaring bonfire, timbers and straw and siding all piled up together and set to burn until it had consumed itself.
Holmes’s body suddenly twisted around as a large hand pulled on his shoulder. Harry the Horse then grabbed my friend by his shirt front and brought Holmes’s face within three inches of his own.
“Look here, Mr. Detective,” Harry said in a tone that left little threat to the imagination. “You better figure out who torches this stable, and when you do you better tell me. Because when you do that guy is going to meet the business end of my Roscoe. You got that, Mr. Detective.”
I knew that Sherlock Holmes did not take kindly to being threatened and that he was a skilled pugilist who would not back down from a fight even with a man so much larger than he as Harry the Horse. Instead, I watched as he raised both his hands, placed them warmly on Harry’s shoulders, and spoke directly to him.
“Mr. Harold Corrigiano,” said Holmes. “You have my word that I will do exactly that. You and I will be fighting for the same side. Now unhand me sir, and compose yourself, and give me the information I need.”
Harry let go of Holmes’s clothing and quietly growle
d. “What do you need to know that is not as obvious as the snoze in the middle of your puss?”
He was still holding Holmes uncomfortably close to him. He relaxed his grip and dropped his hand. Holmes did likewise and let his hands slide off of Harry’s shoulders.
“I am not,” said Holmes, “questioning what you have told me, but I must know how it is that you are so certain that this was an act of arson.”
“If you must know how I know, Mr. Detective, it is because I see a torch at work more than once or twice. So I know that when a fire starts halfway down the side of a wall of a building and then within a few seconds spreads only in one direction and it is around the back of the building and halfway up the other side then that is the work of a torch and not of Mother Nature. Now I am not disputing the right of a torch to set his own building on fire in order to collect his insurance, nor to set the building of his competitor on fire in order to put him out of business for a while. But there are rules to doing so. The first is that you leave the door wide open so no one gets hurt, which this torch did. But it is solidly against the rules to do anything that will harm animals, especially magnificent racehorses, since they do not do anything ever to hurt you. In that barn I see horses in complete fear and terror like as no racehorse should ever have to experience, and if it is not for some brave kids who go running into the fire, then those horses would all be suffering beyond anything you or I can imagine and ending up dead. And nobody is allowed to get away with doing that. Now do you get it, Mr. Detective?”
Holmes smiled back at Harry. “Yes, my friend, I get it, as you say. I shall make certain that whoever perpetrated this atrocity is brought to justice. You may have my word on that, sir.”
Harry the Horse nodded and turned and walked away. Holmes and I walked back up the road to the hotel. He did not speak any more to me that night. After one more brandy and two more pipes, he retired to his room. I then did the same.