Later that evening, when Mr. Wilson had had his grub, and had won golden opinions for his imitations of a coyote—no, be explained, he couldn’t do a lion—he rang up Mr. Matthews to explain about the hearse, “Not to worry, sir,” he said. “He’ll be all right up there. I did notice the screws were a bit loose, but I tightened them all up and covered the box with the rug, sort of respectful, see? He won’t give any trouble.”
“I’m sure he won’t, Mr. Wilson,” said Mr. Matthews smoothly. If he was surprised to hear his driver’s voice no one would have guessed. “I knew I could rely on you not to let me down.”
He hung up the receiver. “I guessed he’d notice those screws,” he told himself. “A great stickler for the right thing, Mr. Wilson is. The rug, too—a very happy thought. And he’d hardly notice the air holes—hardly notice ’em.”
Mortimer Matthews poured himself a glass of cowslip wine. “Goodbye, Stanley,” he said. “I always warned you that your slug-a-bed habits would prove your downfall. You have to be up very early—very early indeed—to catch this downy old bird napping.”
Horseshoes for Luck
“Luck?” said the stranger on my left. “tell that to the Marines. There’s no such thing. It’s nothing but superstition, and any sensible man will tell you the same. Look at these people that won’t see the new moon through glass, throw salt over their left shoulder, won’t walk under a ladder or sit down thirteen at table—are they any luckier than anyone else? You bet they aren’t. I had a pal once, full of ideas about one thing being lucky and something else being fatal. He bought a pub, a free house it was, and he called it the ‘Three Horseshoes.’ Full of what he was going to do with it, make it into a regular hotel, with a garage and a bowling green. Bound to be lucky with a name like that, he thought. But the first week some loafer smashed up the bar, and the second week his wife skipped off with a commercial traveller, who hadn’t even paid his account, and the week after that the barmaid helped herself to the till.”
“He should ha’ nailed three horseshoes over the door,” said someone else. “You got to do these things right.”
“That wouldn’t ha’ made a scrap of difference,” said my companion scornfully. “There’s no such thing as luck. What do you say?” and he turned expectantly to Inspector Field, who sat close by.
Field was ready for him. We used to discuss sometimes whether any man could have worked so many apposite cases as he seemed to have done, but if he hadn’t, then he was the best novelist lost to the world since Edgar Wallace.
“Anyone can have horseshoes for me,” he said promptly. “They’re like that other superstition, that a man that’s a gambler must be a good sportsman. It doesn’t follow. Ever heard of Cheesehampton?”
Two or three men nodded. “They’ve got some very fine stables down there.”
“It’s because of those very stables I ever went down there. It was a hotbed of racing folk. The time I was there was just before Goodwood, and I was there because one racing man wasn’t quite the sportsman you might expect. “The day before I started we’d heard from the local police that the people at Cheesehampton were being bothered with anonymous letters. You keep getting outbreaks in various parts of the country and sometimes they’re dangerous and sometimes not. Mostly they’re the work of lunatics. All sorts of quite ridiculous people were getting them, people who had no more reason to fear the police than an archangel. It wasn’t so much that the letters constituted blackmail—mostly they were too silly for that—but some folk were getting upset and it was felt generally that the thing should be stopped. Whoever was responsible didn’t ask for money: he’d put his meaning something like this:
‘You think no one knows what happened at Brighton on the 4th June last. But I do. Beware.’
It was like a story in a kids’ magazine, but there must have been some truth in some of the suggestions, because people were jumpy. Even people who hadn’t had letters were getting that way. Guilty conscience, I suppose. Quite often, of course, the man who got the letter didn’t pay any attention; sometimes he thought it was a maniac, because what the letter contained meant nothing at all. But there were others, as I’ve said, who took it more seriously.
“Well, this had been going on for some time when the writer overstepped his mark. There was a big man there called Bayliss, a rabid racegoer with his own stables. Apart from horses he really hadn’t any life at all. He wasn’t married, never opened a book, never heard a note of music. It was horses with him all the time. I’d been at Cheesehampton only a few hours when he came in waving one of these silly sheets, in a state of great agitation.
“ ‘Look here,’ he shouted, ‘I’ll tell you who this fellow is. Read this.’
“So I read it. It was the usual thing, written on the same kind of paper in the same obviously faked hand. It said:
‘If you do not withdraw Bluebeard from the race for the——Cup, the whole world shall hear the truth about A.’
“ ‘Who’s A?’ I said, and he told me Alcock, his jockey, who was going to ride Bluebeard for the Cup.
“ ‘What’s this chap talking about?’ I went on, and Bayliss looked murder and said: ‘About a year ago I had a couple of horses running in a big race,
and biggish odds on both. I backed one heavily myself, and wouldn’t say anything definite about the other. She was a mare and very temperamental, particularly in wet weather, as mares often are. That was a drenching summer, and though she could make a very good pace if conditions suited her, she was no use unless she was pleased. Alcock was up that day, and if anyone could have coaxed a spurt out of her he was the man, but she was sulky, and even he could do nothing. A neighbour of mine, another racing man called Grey, whose property marches with mine, had a lot of money on her; he’d seen Alcock exercising her and knew she could make a fine pace. Of course, I didn’t tell him not to put money on her—what man would? Anyway, I’m superstitious enough to believe that if you start warning people against your horse it’ll get the inevitable reaction. The result was that Grey backed her heavily and lost a packet; afterwards he came round breathing death and swore that Alcock had pulled the beast. It was so vilely untrue that I was tempted to take action. I told him, anyhow, he could go to the stewards, but naturally he wasn’t going to chance being run in for libel, and the damages would have been pretty heavy. I’m well-known round here and so is Alcock, and Grey hadn’t a leg to stand on, and knew it. Still, he did what he could by dropping hints here and there, nothing definite enough to take up, but damned unpleasant for me, and galling as hell for Alcock. Fortunately, from my point of view, he’s not a very popular chap, and no one paid much attention. But what I am afraid of is that if the yarn goes round often enough he may shake Alcock’s confidence. The boy’s got nothing to fear, actually, but if he gets the notion that anyone believes this ridiculous yarn it’ll shake him to pieces, and he’ll be no use to me or anyone else. And Grey knows that. Naturally, I’m inclined to back my own stable, but I’m not the only man hereabouts that knows that Bluebeard, with Alcock up, will sweep the field next week.’
“I hung around picking up scraps of local talk, and I was told that Bayliss hadn’t overstated the case. One man said: ‘If Alcock were on a rocking-horse he’d get somewhere,’ which might be intended as a compliment, but made the story Grey was spreading sound a bit more likely than before.
“Bayliss told me he hadn’t any intention of taking any notice of the threats, but all the same he wanted some assurance that no harm should befall his jockey. I asked him what proof he had that Grey had actually written the letters, and he had to admit that there was none.
“ ‘Still,’ he urged, ‘no one else has a motive, while Grey’s reeks to Heaven. He’s running a horse of his own, and he backed him some time ago at very heavy odds. He’s not a bad horse, either, but he won’t stand a chance with Bluebeard and both of us know it. Grey’s in desperately low water, and everything depends on his beast winning the race.’
“It appeared that
Grey’s horse was second favourite, but there didn’t seem much doubt in the minds of those best qualified to know that Bluebeard would beat him, though it might be a close thing. I found out, too, that Bayliss’s story of Grey being very deeply dipped was no more than the truth. So the position was pretty ticklish.
“ ‘He’d get me warned off, if he could, but since he can’t, he’ll stop at nothing to put Bluebeard or Alcock or both where they can’t threaten his security.’
“You can see for yourselves it wasn’t a very easy position. I couldn’t accuse Grey of being the author of the anonymous letters, but it didn’t seem to me any harm going round to see him. After all, he might have had one himself. Grey was a laconic sort of fellow; no, he said, he hadn’t been pestered; people with nothing to hide generally weren’t, which shows you how much he knew about human nature, or life, for that matter. I must say I didn’t take to him, a big swaggering sort of chap, too well dressed for me. I like tailor’s dummies in a window, but nowhere else. Besides, his manner irritated me. You could see him putting a policeman in his place every time he opened his mouth. I came away feeling a good deal of sympathy for Bayliss, but reminding myself that a man isn’t a bad hat because you don’t take a fancy to him.
“Coming through the village I ran against Bayliss again, a lot more agitated than he’d been up to now.
“ ‘Look here, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I’ve had another of these damned things;
it’s just come, and this time it’s deadly serious.’
“The new letter read:
‘You had better withdraw your horse while you have the chance. Alcock will never ride him.’
“ ‘That’s tantamount to a threat of murder,’ said Bayliss excitedly, but, of course, I couldn’t allow that.
“ ‘Threat of bodily harm perhaps,’ I agreed, ‘or it might just mean there’s some monkey trick on foot to keep him out of the way till after the race. You’d better keep an eye on him.’
“I wasn’t able to get any definite evidence against Grey, but I thought I’d feel a lot more comfortable when the race had been run. Going back, I thought it all sounded a bit silly; this is England, not Chicago, and you don’t kidnap men in broad daylight. But it didn’t sound so silly twenty-four hours later when a man as white as paper came to find me and said: ‘If you please, sir, there’s been an accident. It’s Alcock. They’ve just found him in a clump of bushes over by Milton Heath.’
“ ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked sharply, and though I think by this time I expected the answer I got, I felt a bit sick when the fellow said: ‘He’s dead all right. Been dead for some hours. Mr. Bayliss is half crazy.’
“ ‘Thrown?’ I asked, and the chap looked sick in his turn and told me: ‘Must have been. And Bluebeard lost his head—he was always an excitable brute; no one but Alcock could ride him—and trampled on him. His head’s smashed... .’
“I went along. They hadn’t moved the body, because Bayliss, as soon as he heard, swore it was foul play, though it was as clear a case of a man being kicked by a horse as ever I’d seen. Alcock must have gone clean over the beast’s head, we decided. Bluebeard had pitched him alongside a bracken clump, and the horse, either frightened by the accident or hurt itself, had done the rest.
“ ‘It looks as though he saw Bluebeard meant trouble,’ said Bayliss, who, I believe, was upset about the boy for his own sake, quite apart from losing the race. ‘Look at the grass here; he must have tried to drag himself out of the horse’s way. It’s all crushed and trampled.’
“ ‘Did he know this part of the country?’ I asked, and was told that he brought the horse here every day.
“ ‘Of course, I never supposed he’d come to grief, riding, and you can say what you like, Inspector, this isn’t a natural death. Someone scared the horse crazy. He wouldn’t have lashed out at his jockey if he hadn’t been terrified out of his wits.’
“I suggested the usual things—a sudden shot, though who’d be shooting there I couldn’t suggest—a piece of paper blowing under Bluebeard’s nose, though there was no sign of any—but Bayliss wasn’t satisfied. Bluebeard, he said, wouldn’t have stampeded his jockey for a mere spasm of fright.
“All the same, it was difficult to see what else could have happened. The doctor said there could be no doubt about cause of death. Evidence showed that the upper part of the head had been crushed by a horse’s hoof. He was a pretty grisly sight, and I was sorry for the boy’s mother, who would have to attend the inquest.
“ ‘Are there any marks of ill-usage on the horse?’ I asked, and Bayliss said he was all right except for a pair of cut knees, but naturally he wouldn’t be able to run in the race forty-eight hours hence. That was when I began to think that, after all, there might be something fishy about the whole affair.
A fall on turf and bracken doesn’t result in cut knees. Grazing and scraping—yes—but cuts—no. When I saw the horse I got more suspicious still; I’m handier with a motor cycle, I confess, when it comes to getting about, but even I know a bad cut when I see one. The place where the accident had happened was just over a slope where a few trees grew, and as I thought about it a new idea came to me. I walked up to the trees and began to examine them, and I found, as I’d half begun to expect, marks on the trunks of two of them, where the bark had been rasped very recently.
“ ‘What’s the matter?’ Bayliss demanded, and he sounded as though I might have had a hand in the affair.
“ ‘Just what I want to know,’ I told him, and I began to hunt on the ground. I was remembering Bayliss’s comment that the grass round the place where Alcock lay had been badly trampled. Well, I found the same condition here.
Half a dozen men might have been stamping on it. Alcock hadn’t threshed about much—the doctor was of opinion that he must have been killed outright by the blow—because there were no blood-stains anywhere, and in any case he had pitched several yards away from the trees. That looked as though it might have been trodden on purpose, and the purpose was to conceal footprints. You couldn’t get the smallest trace from that mess. Presently, after about forty minutes, during which I thought Bayliss was going to break a blood-vessel—I found what I was looking for—two or three little chips of wire snipped clean at the edges.”
“You mean, someone had stretched wire across the path to make the lad take a toss?” That was my neighbour who had talked about luck.
“Exactly. And it must have been someone who knew that Alcock would be coming hell-for-leather down that stretch. Well, that accounted for the cuts on the horse’s legs, and whoever was responsible must have slipped out after wards and cut the wire with a pair of tweezers. That got us on a certain way, proved that Bayliss was right when he spoke of foul play; but it didn’t mean that Grey was the man responsible. Even when we found the wire that had been used, pitched in a pond near-by, it didn’t help us. It was common or garden wire and anyone might have bought it, or had it.
“Bayliss nearly drove me off my head following me round and saying: ‘It’s murder, I tell you, murder. Bluebeard wouldn’t trample his own jockey if he hadn’t been frantic.’
“Someone suggested he might have had his back to the jockey and so didn’t know what he was doing, but that wouldn’t work either. The position in which the lad was lying showed that. The queer thing was that, if Bluebeard had been in a state of frenzy, he shouldn’t have smashed in the whole head. It looked as though there had been just one blow and that he’d cantered back to his stable.
“Well, I thought of this and that, tested a theory and turned it down, and then I asked to see the horse. He’d come back all right on his own account, so it didn’t look as though there had been a plot to kill him. I wasn’t even convinced yet that whoever was responsible had intended to kill the jockey. After all, there was no need to do that, and murder’s an ugly game, with ugly consequences for the murderer.
“At the stables the grooms were looking a bit askance at Bluebeard. Nobody likes a horse that kills its jocke
y; besides, he was known to have a queer temper at the best of times. I said I wanted to see his feet. For a minute no one moved, then Bayliss came shoving past me in a cursing rage and lifted the great feet, one after the other, for me to examine. As he stood back, saying: ‘Well?’ I felt myself sweating.
“ ‘You’re right, sir,’ I told him. ‘There’s more than a toss to this. It’s murder or I’m a Dutchman.’
“You see, there wasn’t a trace of blood on any of those four hoofs. And yet Alcock had been killed by a blow from a horse, and the wound was too deep,too frightful, for no trace to be left on the shoe.
“Bayliss was still shouting that Grey was behind this, and I went off to inquire into Grey’s movements, though I had to handle the affair pretty carefully. I hadn’t an iota of evidence against the fellow. I asked him whether he’d been in the neighbourhood of Milton Heath that morning, and if so, if he’d seen anyone hanging about, but he told me he’d spent his time at the golf club, going round on his own.
“ ‘I don’t want to find myself one of these fellows who turns up beaming to find that every other chap is unfortunately paired off, or is feeling groggy and not up to play,’ he told me, ‘and it seemed to me my eye wasn’t quite as straight as it used to be.’
“Several people remembered seeing Grey at the club, and one man agreed that he had lunched with him. I asked if he’d employed a caddie, but it appeared he hadn’t. He felt he might foozle half his shots, he explained, and he’d feel less of a fool if he were by himself. Well, that was reasonable enough. Few men are heroes to their caddies. I inquired about Grey’s stable,
Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries Page 28
