Wobble to Death (9 page)
CONSTABLE THACKERAY, BRISK AND important, strode through the afternoon crowd gathering at the turnstiles. He nodded curtly to the uniformed policeman on duty and was admitted through the ‘officials only’ gate. Without cutting his stride in the least he marched to the stand entrance, was recognised by an official and waved on. Across the tracks he stepped, without a glance at the entertainment being pro-vided. He was the bearer of news. The morning had been dull, even humiliating. While brown-coated scientists had toyed with their apparatus, testing the contents of the crate, Thackeray had been compelled to sit, waiting outside, unfit to be admitted to their researches. Now he was elevated; nobody in that Hall had the information that he did.
The sergeant was standing alone at one end of the cen-tral area, observing the race. Thackeray crunched to a too-formal halt a yard away. He moved his right arm through the beginning of a salute, and then, collecting himself, snapped it down again. Cribb continued to look in the other direction.
‘Defeats me,’ he said, as much to himself as the constable, ‘what makes a man watch these antics. Sport? Not racing thoroughbreds, this bunch, now are they? A lame cove limp-ing round in boots ain’t poetry in motion, to my eyes.’
Thackeray coughed meaningfully. Cribb turned his eyes briefly to him and then back to the race. The walkers, mostly old troupers, were giving a restrained matinee per-formance.
‘Could be the chink of coin, I suppose. Plenty of betting men here. But six days! I like a result in five minutes, no more. When you back a runner, Thackeray, see he’s got a tail. And if that tail ain’t straight in the wind as he runs, the race is too long. Remember that. You’ve not backed any of this lot, have you?’
Thackeray shook his head, too preoccupied with his news to take this conversation further.
‘How d’you get on, then?’ Cribb inquired, as though the reason for Thackeray’s air of urgency had just entered his brain. ‘How’s the Bunsen and beaker brigade? You got ’em hopping about, I hope.’
Thackeray banished small-talk with his confidential tone. ‘The strychnine, Sarge. It was all in the bottle.’
‘Monk’s bracer?’
‘All in that. Enough to kill Darrell and a dozen more. He must have ladled in the stuff, they said.’
‘What about the food? Anything there?’
‘None at all, Sarge. And none in the other bottles.’
‘They definitely confirm strychnine?’
‘A large amount, they told me. More than Monk said he bought. Darrell stood no chance after one mugful.’
‘Hm. Looks bad for Monk. Widow threatens to sue as well. We’ll keep this close. You’ve spoken to no one?’
Thackeray jerked his head upwards like an affronted cockerel.
‘Not a living soul.’
‘Very good. Now, Constable. There’s more important work to be done. We must check Monk’s statement. That chemist—Hayward of Bethnal Green. I want you to see him. Find out what he sold Monk. Ask to see the book. Check the signature. Ask when he sold strychnine to Monk before, and how much. And Thackeray . . .’
‘Sergeant?’
‘Treat him gentle. Man might lie if he thinks he’s in deep.’ ‘I will, Sarge.’
‘When you’ve done that,’ Cribb continued, ‘go to Monk’s lodging-house. You’ll need to see him first. Get the key. Write yourself a pass for him to sign. Whatever’s necessary. Find the phial of strychnine and bring it back. Search the room for more. Thorough, mind. Could have hidden it. He hasn’t the look of a Charlie Peace, but we have to check. Any bottle, empty or not, we’ll have for analysis. Got all that?’
Thackeray nodded, hoping that he had.
‘When shall I report, Sarge?’
‘Time you’ve done that lot, better be tomorrow. I’m stay-ing on here an hour and that’s enough. Need to know who backs these wobblers. Interrogation, Thackeray. Patient questioning. After that I’ll be ready for a sleep. Never felt so tired.’
‘In here tomorrow?’ asked Thackeray.
‘This very spot, and early. Have to tackle the trainer again. Shake his story a bit if we can. You get off now, and look him up. Last I heard he was in the bar.’
Thackeray headed at a conscientious rate in that direc-tion, while Cribb ambled to the enclosure where the book-makers had their stands, among sellers of oranges, pies and humbugs. The afternoon was a slack period. Some bookies had reserved their spaces, and would return in the evening. Several though stood idly in small groups facing the crowd, who waited, like them, for the evening.
Cribb approached a pair who looked the senior represen-tatives present. He had recognised the shorter man, a stout, rubicund character, with a fine growth of whiskers about the mouth and chin.
‘The Major, ain’t it?’ Cribb exclaimed. ‘Never thought to see you off the turf. What’s up—gees not paying these days?’ For a second there was hesitation. Then the bookie raised a finger in salute.
‘Of course! Wally Cribb! Sharpest crusher in London! What’s your fancy then, Sergeant? What say one of these prime beasts to beat Chadwick?’ He jerked his head in the direction of O’Flaherty and Chalk, then indulging in a whimsical jog for a few laps. ‘Give you good odds against the Irishman.’
Cribb was shaking his head.
‘You know me better than that, Major. If they paid me enough I might find the stake for a likely nag at Epsom or Newmarket. Not for a bunion Derby, though. No, I’m here on business. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be in Islington, I prom-ise you.’
‘Checking licences, are you?’ inquired the second bookie, warily.
‘That’s not a sergeant’s job,’ his friend enlightened him. ‘No. Cribby’ll be checking on the party that died. And don’t ask him about it. He won’t talk. What
can
we do for you, Sergeant?’
‘Charles Darrell,’ announced Cribb, with such emphasis that he could have been a court usher. ‘The pedestrian. Backed himself, had he?’
‘Don’t they all? He got in early at a good price. Stood to net five hundred if he won. Confident, he must have been, or soft-headed. A man who stakes a hundred usually hedges some of it.’
‘So he really thought he’d win,’ mused Cribb. ‘What hap-pened to the odds when you knew he was dead?’
‘Made a bloody mockery of ’em, Sergeant, if you’ll excuse the term. What odds can we offer on Chadwick now? He was favourite to start with. Now it’s a fiver to a gooseberry. You won’t get any odds at all on him from these lads—not unless he breaks down or takes a fit. Man’s got ten miles in hand. Look at him.’
Chadwick passed near to them, certainly making sound progress, and walking more stylishly than any of his rivals.
‘Is he well-backed?’ asked Cribb.
‘Oh yes. There’s plenty who stand to scoop a tidy sum when the soldier wins, himself included. There were some pretty bets made on Monday, when Darrell got ahead, I can tell you. Willy here took seventy to forty from Chadwick’s trainer, didn’t you, mate?’
Willy nodded glumly.
‘Darrell looked good, you see,’ the ‘Major’ continued. ‘And the touts had watched his breathings at the Wick. Chadwick had to be favourite on his known form, but Darrell looked a clinker at four to one. Then off goes Darrell on Sunday night like a dog after aniseed, and Chadwick’s odds began to lengthen. That’s when the fast boys like Harvey got their stake on.’
‘And Chadwick himself? Does he stand to win anything?’ ‘Runs into three figures, I’ve heard. Not that I took any-thing from him, thank the Lord. Yes, come Saturday night, Captain Chadwick will stand on velvet. Now how about Mostyn-whatsit at five hundred to one? Can I tempt you with that?’
‘You can’t,’ smiled Cribb. ‘I wonder why you stay here. There’s not much left in this affair for you lads. Unless one of the second-raters steps out sharpish, that is. What sort of business can you do?’
The ‘Major’ smiled.
‘Side-bets, Sergeant, side-bets. Hazard a guess now. Who covered most miles in the first twelve hours today?’
‘Chadwick, I suppose.’
‘And there you’d lose your stake. O’Flaherty’s the boy.’
‘Really? Shows how cute I am to hold back. Any other heavy bets on Chadwick, besides his own?’
‘Couldn’t say.’
‘How about the management? Mr Herriott stand to recoup anything?’
‘I wouldn’t know, Sergeant. He doesn’t deal with the likes of us, anyway. We’re small men.’
‘Jacobson?’ persisted Cribb.
A smile appeared among the whiskers.
‘Poor old Walter? No one here would touch a bet he made. He’s tried, of course, but we’re not charity, Sergeant. Jacobson’s under the hatches and every bookie knows it.’
‘That so? No credit for him, then. A poor man’s best off like me, you know, watching a race for the joy of pure athletics. Ah well. Must leave you to your work. Good to see you.’
With a wink and a wave he moved away towards an exit, leaving the pure athletics to continue without his support for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
HARVEY HAD BROUGHT IN a plateful of roast duck pre-pared at a restaurant near by. With the help of the gas-ring it was still warm when Chadwick came into the tent at seven. As soon as he had loosened the champion’s boot-laces and cleaned off his face with the sponge, Harvey lifted the plate-cover. He watched for the response to this favourite meal. It was quite five seconds before Chadwick reacted at all, and then it was not the duck that he commented on.
‘I am singularly depressed. Open a bottle of wine.’
Harvey lifted a
Graves Supérieur
from the crate behind the clothes-cupboard, drew the cork and poured a small amount into a glass for Chadwick to taste.
‘Fill it up, man! This isn’t the Café Royal.’
‘Sir.’
‘And massage my legs, or I’ll never get back on the track.’ Harvey applied himself to the task. He knew Chadwick well enough to keep silent at these times. The dinner, which might have been Billy Reid’s eel-broth for all the recogni-tion it got, was quickly dispatched. Chadwick sat back in his chair, moaning abstractedly. At length he addressed the attendant.
‘My neck is paining me. See if you can loosen it, will you? I really doubt,’ he went on dismally, ‘whether I can endure this torment for another three days. The rewards seem less and less worth pursuing as one goes on. And the effort’—he shuddered—‘the effort, Harvey, is almost impossible to muster. It was better on the inside track. Now I’m involved in a physical battle if I try to go any faster than these—these lumbering apes. My ribs ache from the battering they’ve received. I tell you, this is no race. It’s a battle for survival.’
‘I’ve seen, sir,’ Harvey agreed. ‘They’ll put you out if they can. It frets me. But I’ve listened to their talk. They won’t dare knock you down and cripple you. It’s the sly nudge and the shin-tap that they use. If they can they’ll break your spirit that way. Like,’ and he cast about for a comparison that the Captain would appreciate, ‘like a siege, sir. Slowly starving you out. Mustn’t let morale get low.’
Chadwick reached for an orange.
‘I suppose so,’ he sighed. ‘Tighten my boots, will you? I must get out there again.’
Harvey obeyed, and, as he kneeled pieces of orange-peel fell about him on the floor.
‘You’ve got to keep on, sir,’ he urged. ‘For the Regiment, too.’
There was an intensity about Harvey’s manner that pen-etrated even Chadwick’s weariness. When he had eaten the orange he swallowed a second glass of wine and stumped back to the track.
DESPITE THE BOOKMAKERS’ VERDICT that the interest had been drawn from the race, the stands filled steadily dur-ing the evening. Perhaps, as Herriott predicted, the prospect of Chadwick struggling to defend his lead on the outer track was the attraction. Possibly it was interest in Darrell’s dramatic death, and the morbid hope of a second collapse. Whatever the reason, the ‘gate’ amounted to over £400 when it was counted at eleven, almost double the tak-ings for each of the first two days. And the influx greatly enriched the atmosphere in the Hall. For the first time spec-tators were in the gallery, as well as the stands and the enclo-sure. The band at its most energetic could not drown the bedlam from around the track, as one favourite or another appeared to gain ground.
The 250-mile landmark—generally reckoned to be the end of the first half of the journey—was reached by several of the entrants during the evening. Chadwick’s achievement in reaching this mark as early as two in the afternoon was politely clapped by the handful then present. But when Billy Reid and the Scythebearer hobbled through shortly after ten the roar of acclamation and the waving of hats set the flags above flapping, and flickered the gaslight. The most support came for O’Flaherty. His height and red hair made him an easy figure to pick out, and it was believed that he was the only man left capable of offering Chadwick a seri-ous challenge. Waves of chanting and cheering lifted the Irishman to extraordinary efforts. For almost two hours he was ‘mixing’—alternately walking and trotting—making the others’ efforts seem puny. Williams, the Half-breed, who had kept pace with O’Flaherty until noon, was forced by blistering to walk on the sides of his boots, and the odds against him doubled between nine and ten. The curiosity of the event, Mostyn-Smith, betrayed no ill-effects from his lack of any sustained sleep since the start. Those who remembered his unenterprising pace on the first day now declared that he had not slowed in the least since then. The dawdler of Monday was going as well as anyone except O’Flaherty and Chadwick.
