Chapter 3

“Didn't I tell you--Lauzanne wins in a walk!” the falsetto voice was an exultant squeak of hilarious excitement.

“You called the turn.” Even Ned's baritone had risen to a false-keyed tenor; he was standing on his toes, peering over the heads of taller men in front.

Allis brushed from her eyes the tears of sympathy that had welled into them, and, raising her voice, spoke bravely, clinging to the vain hope: “Lucretia is game, father--she may win yet--the race is not lost till they're past the post.”

Then her voice died away, and she kept pleading over and over in her heart, “Come on Lucretia--come on, brave little mare! Is she gaining, father--can you see?”

“She'll never make it up,” Porter replied, as he watched the jumble of red, and yellow, and black patterned into a trailing banner, which waved, and vibrated, and streamed in the glittering sunlight, a furlong down the Course--and the tail of it was his own blue, whitestarred jacket. In front, still a good two lengths in front, gleamed scarlet, like an evil eye, the all red of Lauzanne's colors.

“Where is Lucretia, father?” the girl asked again, stretching her slight figure up in a vain endeavor to see over the shoulders of those in front.

“She had an opening there,” Porter replied, speaking his thoughts more than answering the girl, “but the boy pulled her into the bunch on the rail. He doesn't want to get through. Oh!” he exclaimed, as though some one had struck him in the face.

“What's wrong? Has she--”

“It's the Minstrel. His boy threw him fair across Lucretia, and knocked her to her knees.” He lowered his glasses listlessly. “It's Lauzanne all the way, if he lasts out. He's dying fast though, and Westley's gone to the whip.”

He was looking through his glasses again. Though beaten, his racing blood was up. “If Lauzanne wins it will be Westley's riding; the Hanover colt, The Dutchman, is at his quarter. He'll beat him out, for the Hanovers are all game.”

“Come on you, Lauzanne!” Even the exotic stephanotis failed to obliterate the harsh, mercenary intensity of the feminine cry at the back of Allis.

“He's beat!” a deep discordant voice groaned. “I knew he was a quitter;” the woman's companion was pessimistic.

Like trees of a forest, swayed by strong compelling winds, the people rocked in excitement, tiptoed and craned eager necks, as they watched the magnificent struggle that was drawing to a climax in the stretch. Inch by inch the brave son of Hanover was creeping up on Lauzanne. How loosely the big Chestnut galloped--rolling like a drunken man in the hour of his distress. Close pressed to his neck, flat over his wither lay the intense form of his rider--a camel's hump--a part of the racing mechanism, unimpeding the weary horse in the masterly rigidity of his body and legs; but the arms, even the shoulders of the great jockey thrust his mount forward, always forward--forward at each stride; fairly lifting him, till the very lurches of Lauzanne carried him toward the goal. And at his girth raced the compact bay son of Hanover; galloping, galloping with a stout heart and eager reaching head; straining every sinew, and muscle, and nerve; in his eye the brave desire, not to be denied.

Ah, gallant little bay! On his back was the offspring of unthinking parents--a pin-head. Perhaps the Evil One had ordained him to the completion of Langdon's villainy with Lauzanne. At the pinch his judgment had flown--he was become an instrument of torture; with whip and spur he was throwing away the race. Each time he raised his arm and lashed, his poor foolish body swayed in the saddle, and The Dutchman was checked.

“Oh, if he would but sit still!” Porter cried, as he watched the equine battle.

The stand mob clamored as though Nero sat there and lions had been loosed in the arena. The strange medley of cries smote on the ears of Allis. How like wild beasts they were, how like wolves! She closed her eyes, for she was weary of the struggle, and listened. Yes, they were wolves leaping at the throat of her father, and joying in the defeat of Lucretia. Deep-throated howls from full-chested wolves: “Come on you, Lauzanne! On, Westley, on! The Bay wins! The Dutchman--The Dutchman for a thousand!”

“I'll take--”

But the new voice was stilled into nothingness by the shrill, reawakening falsetto. “Go on, Westley! Lauzanne wins--wins--wins!” it seemed to repeat. Allis sank back into her seat. She knew it was all over. The shuffle of many feet hastening madly, the crash of eager heels down the wooden steps, a surging, pushing, as the wolf-pack blocked each passage in its thirstful rush for the gold it had won, told her that the race was over.

No one knew which horse had won. Presently a quiet came over the mob like a lull in a storm. Silently they waited for the winning number to go up.

“I believe it's a dead heat,” said Porter; and Allis noted how calm and restful his voice sounded after the exultant babel of the hoarse-throated watchers.

“Where was Lucretia, father?”

“Third,” he answered, laconically, schooling his voice to indifference. “I hope it's a dead heat, for if Lauzanne gets the verdict I've got to take him. I don't want him after that run; they made him a present of the race at the start, and he only just squeezed home.”

“Why must you take the horse, father, if you don't want him? I don't understand.”

“I suppose there's no law for it--I said I would, that's all. The whole thing is crooked though; they stole the race from Lucretia and planted me with a dope horse, and hanged if I don't feel like backing out. Let Langdon go before the Stewards about the sale if he dare.”

“Did you give your word that you'd buy the horse, father?”

“I did; but it was a plant.”

“Then you'll take him, father. People say that John Porter's word is as good as his bond; and that sounds sweeter in my ears than if I were to hear them say that you were rich, or clever, or almost anything.”

“Lauzanne gets it!” called the eager grating voice behind them. “There go the numbers, Ned--three, five, ten; Lauzanne, The Dutchman, Lucretia. I knew it. Dick don't make no mistakes when he's out for blood.”

“He drew it a bit fine that time,” growled Ned, still in opposition; “it was the closest sort of a shave.”

“Hurrah, Lauzanne!”

Again there was more hurrying of feet as the Chestnut's backers who had waited in the stand for the Judge's decision, hurried down to the gold mart.

“You'll take Lauzanne, father,” Allis said, when the tumult had stilled; “it will come out right somehow--I know it will--he'll win again.”

John Porter stood irresolutely for a minute, not answering the girl, as though he were loath to go close to the contaminating influence that seemed part and parcel of Lauzanne, and which was stretching out to envelop him. He was thinking moodily that he had played against a man who used loaded dice, and had lost through his own rashness. He had staked so much on the race that the loss would cut cripplingly into his affairs.

“I guess you're right, Allis,” he said; “a man's got to keep his word, no matter what happens. I never owned a dope horse yet, and unless I'm mistaken this yellow skate is one to-day. I'll take him though, girl; but he'll get nothing but oats from me to make him gallop.”

Then Porter went resolutely down the steps, smothering in his heart the just rebellion that was tempting him to repudiate his bargain.

As he reached the lawn, a lad swung eagerly up the steps, threw his eye inquiringly along row after row of seats until it stopped at Allis. Then he darted to her side.

“Hello, Sis--been looking for you. Where's Dad?”

“Gone to get Lauzanne.”

“Lauzanne!” and the boy's eyes that were exactly like her own, opened wide in astonishment.

“Yes; father bought him.”

“The deuce! I say, Allis, that won't do. Don't you know there's something wrong about this race? I just saved myself. I backed the little mare for a V--then I heard something. This Langdon's a deuce of a queer fish, I can tell you. I wonder Crane has anything to do with him, for the Boss is straight as they make them.”

“Did you back Lauzanne then, Alan?”

“You bet I did; quick, too; and was hunting all over for the gov'nor to tell him. You see, I know Langdon--he comes to the bank sometimes. He's that slick he'll hardly say 'Good-day,' for fear of giving something away.”

“Then how did you--how did people know there was something wrong?”

“Oh, a woman, of course--she blabbed. I think she's Dick Langdon's sister, and--”

“Hush-hh!” and Allis laid her hand on the boy's arm, indicating with her eyes the woman in the seat behind.

“I'd better go and tell father--”

“You needn't bother; he knows. It's a question of honor. Father said he'd buy the horse, and he's gone to make good.”

“I wouldn't; that sort of thing will break a man.”

“It's a good way to go broke, Alan. Perhaps we'd all be richer if it wasn't so strong in the Porter blood; but all the same, brother, you do just as father is doing to-day--always keep your word. I tell you what it is, boy”--and her face lighted up as she spoke--“father is a hero--that's what he is; he's just the biggest, bravest man ever lived. He couldn't do a mean act. How did you get away from the bank, Alan?” she said, changing the subject; “I didn't know you were coming to-day.”

“Mortimer was light, and took on my work. He's a good sort.”

“Does he bet?”

The boy laughed. “Mortimer bet? That's rich. We call him 'Old Solemnity' in the bank; but he doesn't mean any harm by it--he just can't help it, that's all. If he had a stiff ruff about his neck, you could pose him for a picture of one of those old Dutch burgomasters.”

“He's doing your work, and you're making fun of him, boy.”

“You can't make fun of him, at him, or with him; he's a grave digger; but you can trust him.”

“That's better.”

“If I'd killed a man and needed a friend to help me out, I'd go straight to Mortimer; he's got that kind of eyes. Do you know why he's doing my work to-day?”

“Because you're away, I suppose.”

“Because you recited that doggerel about The Run of Crusader.”

“Alan! I've never spoken to Mr. Mortimer.”

“That's why he choked the butcher the night of the concert--I mean--”

“You're talking nonsense, Alan.”

“I'm not, I know when a man's interested. Hello. Blest if the Boss isn't coming this way--there's Crane. See, Allis? I've a notion to tell him that his trainer is a crook.”

“No, you won't, Alan--you're too young to gabble.”

Philip Crane had evidently intended going higher up in the stand, but his eye lighting on the brother and sister, he stopped, and turned in to where they were sitting.

“Good afternoon, Miss Porter.”

Allis started. Was the stand possessed of unpleasant voices? There was a metallic ring in Crane's voice that affected her disagreeably. He was almost a stranger to her; she hardly remembered ever having spoken to him.

He turned and nodded pleasantly to Alan, saying, “May I take this seat? I'm tired. The Cashier let you oft for the day, eh?” he continued. “Came up to see your father's mare run, I suppose--I'm deuced sorry she was beaten.”

“What are they waiting for--why have they taken the horses' numbers down again? Are they trying to steal the race from Lauzanne now?” It was the woman's voice behind them, petulantly exclaiming.

Crane turned in his seat, looked over his shoulder, and raised his hat.

“The impatient lady is my trainer's sister,” he explained in a modulated tone to Allis. “A trainer is quite an autocrat, I assure you, and one must be very careful not to forget any of the obvious courtesies.”

Allis wondered why he should find it necessary to make any explanation at all.

“I want to thank you, Miss Porter, for that reading about Crusader.”

Allis's eyes opened wide.

“Yes, I was there,” Crane added, answering the question that was in them.

As he said this a man came hurriedly up the steps, spoke to a policeman on guard, and searched the faces with his eyes. Catching sight of Crane, he came quickly forward and whispered something in his ear.

“Excuse me, I must go--I'm wanted,” Crane said to Allis.

As he turned, the Trainer's sister spoke to him.

“What's the matter, Mr. Crane--there's something going on up in the Stewards' Stand?”

“I fancy there's an objection, though I don't know anything about it,” he answered, as he went down the steps with the messenger.

Allis breathed more freely when he had gone. Somehow his presence had oppressed her; perhaps it was the fierce stephanotis that came in clouds from the lady behind that smothered her senses. Crane had said nothing--just an ordinary compliment. Like an inspiration it came to the girl what had affected her so disagreeably in Crane--it was his eyes. They were hard, cold, glittering gray eyes, looking out from between partly closed eyelids. Allis could see them still. The lower lids cut straight across; it was as though the eyes were peeping at her over a stone wall.

“What did I tell you about Crusader?” Alan said, triumphantly. “There's another.”

“Alan!”

“I wondered why Mr. Crane was so deuced friendly; but there's nothing to get cross about, girl, he's a fine old chap, and got lots of wealth.”

He leaned forward till he was close to his sister's ear, and added, in a whisper, “Her ladyship behind, Belle Langdon, is trying to hook him. Phew!--but she's loud. But I'm off--I'm going to see what the row is about.”

IV

When John Porter left the stand, the horses had just cantered back to weigh in. The jockeys, one after another, with upraised whip, had saluted the Judge, received his nod to dismount, pulled the saddles from their steeds, and, in Indian file, were passing over the scales. As Lucretia was led away, Porter turned into the paddock. He saw that Langdon was waiting for him.

“Well, he won, just as I said he would,” declared the latter; “you've got a good horse cheap. You'd ought to've had a bet down on him, an' won him out.”

“He won,” answered Porter, looking straight into the other's shifty eyes, “but he's a long way from being a good horse--no dope horse is a good horse.”

“What're you givin' me?” demanded Langdon, angrily.

“Just what every blackguard ought to have--the truth.”

“By God!” the Trainer began, in fierce blasphemy, but John Porter took a step nearer, and his gray eyes pierced the other man's soul until it shriveled like a dried leaf, and turned its anger into fear.

“Oh, if you want to crawl--if you don't want to take Lauzanne--”

But Porter again interrupted Langdon---“I said I'd take the horse, and I will; but don't think that you're fooling me, Mr. Langdon. You're a blackguard of the first water. Thank God, there are only a few parasites such as you are racing--it's creatures like you that give the sport a black eye. If I can only get at the bottom of what has been done to-day, you'll get ruled off, and you'll stay ruled off. Now turn Lauzanne over to Andy Dixon, and come into the Secretary's office, where I'll give you a check for him.”

“Well, we'll settle about the horse now, an' there'll be somethin' to settle between us, John Porter, at some other time and some other place,” blustered Langdon, threateningly.

Porter looked at him with a half-amused, half-tolerant expression on his square face, and said, speaking in a very dry convincing voice: “I guess the check will close out all deals between us; it will pay you to keep out of my way, I think.”

As they moved toward the Secretary's office, Porter was accosted by his trainer.

“The Stewards want to speak to you, sir,” said Dixon.

“All right. Send a boy over to this man's stable for Lauzanne--I've bought him.”

The Trainer stared in amazement.

“I'll give you the check when I come back,” Porter continued, speaking to Langdon.

“There's trouble on, sir,” said Dixon, as they moved toward the Stewards' box.

“There always is,” commented Porter, dryly.

“The Stewards think Lucretia didn't run up to her form. They've had me up, an' her jock, McKay, is there now. Starter Carson swears he couldn't get her away from the post--says McKay fair anchored the mare. He fined the boy fifty dollars at the start.”

“I think they've got the wrong pig by the ear--why don't they yank Langdon? he's at the bottom of it. It a pretty rich, Andy, isn't it? They hit me heavy over the race, and now they'd like to rule me off for that thief's work,” and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Langdon.

“Yes, racin's hell now,” commented Dixon with laconic directness. “It seems just no use workin' over a good horse when any mut of a crook who is takin' a turn at plungin' can get at the boy. I believe Boston Bill's game of gettin' a straight boy to play, an' lettin' the horses go hang, is the proper racket.”

“Yes, a good boy is better than a good horse nowadays; but they're like North Poles--hard to come by.”

“Some mug give the Stewards a yarn that you'd bought Lauzanne, sir, an' sez that's why you didn't win with the mare.”

Porter stopped, and gasped in astonishment. What next?

“You see,” continued Dixon, apologetically, “I didn't know you was meanin' to buy that skate, so I says it was all a damned lie.”

“Things are mixed, Andy, ain't they?”

“I didn't know, sir.”

“Of course not--I didn't mention it to you--it was all a fluke. But I don't blame you, Andy. I'll go and talk to the Stewards--they're all right; they only want to get at the truth of it.”

As Porter went up the steps of the Stewards' Stand, he felt how like a man mounting a scaffold he was, an innocent man condemned to be hanged for another's crime.

The investigation had been brought about by a note one of the Stewards had received. The sender of the missive stated in it that he had backed Lucretia heavily, but had strong reasons for believing there was a job on. The backer was a reliable man and asked for a fair run for his money. The note had come too late--just as the horses were starting--to be of avail, except as a corroboration of the suspicious features of the race. Starter Carson's evidence as to McKay's handling of the mare coincided with the contents of the note. Then there was the fact of Porter's having bought Lauzanne. The Stewards did not know the actual circumstances of the sale, but had been told that Lucretia's owner had acquired the Chestnut before the race. Where all was suspicion, every trivial happening was laid hold of; and Alan's trifling bet on Lauzanne had been magnified into a heavy plunge--no doubt the father's money had been put up by the boy. A race course is like a household, everything is known, absolutely everything.

Porter was aghast. Were all the Furies in league against him? He was more or less a believer in lucky and unlucky days, but he had never experienced anything quite so bad as this. He, the one innocent man in the transaction, having lost almost his last dollar, and having been saddled with a bad horse, was now accused of being the perpetrator of the villainy; and the insinuation was backed up by such a mass of circumstantial evidence. No wonder he flushed and stood silent, lost for words to express his indignation.

“Speak up, Mr. Porter,” said the Steward, kindly. “Those that lost on Lucretia are swearing the mare was pulled.”

“And they're right,” blurted out Porter. “I know what the mare can do; she can make hacks of that bunch. She was stopped, and interfered with, and given all the worst of it from start to finish; but my money was burnt up with the public's. I never pulled a horse in my life, and I'm too old to begin now.”

“I believe that,” declared the Steward, emphatically. “I've known you, John Porter, for forty years, man and boy, and there never was anything crooked. But we've got to clear this up. Racing isn't what it used to be--it's on the square now, and we want the public to understand that.”

“What does the boy say,” asked Porter; “you've had him up?”

“He says the mare was 'helped;' that she ran like a drunken man--swayed all over the course, and he couldn't pull her together at all.”

“Does he mean she was doped?”

“You've guessed it,” answered the Steward, laconically.

“That's nonsense, sir; and he knows it. Why, the little mare is as sweet as a lamb, and as game a beast as ever looked through a bridle. Somebody got at the boy. I can prove by Dixon that Lucretia never had a grain of cocaine in her life--never even a bracer of whiskey--she doesn't need it; and as for the race, I hadn't a cent on Lauzanne.”

“But your son.”

“He had a small bet; I didn't know that, even, until they were running.”

“Did you tell him not to back Lucretia, for he did Lauzanne?”

“I told him not to bet at all.”

“And you played the mare yourself?”

For answer Porter showed the Steward his race programme, on which was written the wager he had made on Lucretia, and the bookmaker's name.

“Ask Ullmer to bring his betting sheet,” the Steward said to an assistant.

On the sheet, opposite John Porter's badge number, was a bet, $10,000 to $4,000, in the Lucretia column.

“Did this gentleman make that bet with you?” the Steward asked of Ullmer.

“He carries the number; besides I know Mr. Porter, I remember laying it to him.”

“Thank you, that will do. Hit you pretty hard,” he said, turning to Porter. “And you hadn't a saver on Lauzanne?”

“Not a dollar.”

“What about your buying him--is there anything in that story?”

Porter explained the purchase. The Steward nodded his head.

“They seem to have been pretty sure of winning, those other people,” he commented; “but we can't do anything to them for winning; nor about selling you the horse, I fear; and as far as you're concerned, Lucretia was supposed to be trying. Who gave your jockey orders?”

“Dixon. I don't interfere; he trains the horses.”

“We'd like to have Dixon up here again for a minute. I'm sorry we've had to trouble you, Mr. Porter; I can see there is not the slightest suspicion attaches to you.”

In answer to the Steward's query about the order to McKay, Dixon said: “I told McKay the boss had a big bet down, and to make no mistake--no Grand Stand finish for me. I told him to get to the front as soon as he could, and stay there, and win by as far as he liked. I got the office that there'd be somethin' doin' in the race, an' I told him to get out by himself.”

After Dixon was dismissed, the Stewards consulted for a minute, with the result that McKay was suspended for the balance of the meeting, pending a further investigation into his methods.

* * * * * * * * * * *

During the carpeting of Porter and Dixon, a sea of upturned faces, furrowed by lines of anxious interest, had surrounded the Judge's box. Wave on wave the living waters reached back over the grassed lawn to the betting ring. An indefinable feeling that something was wrong had crept into the minds of the waiting people, tense with excitement.

As the horses had flashed past the post, and, after a brief wait for decision, Lauzanne's number had gone up, his backers had hastened eagerly to the money mart, and lined up in waiting rows behind the bookmakers' stands. There they waited, fighting their impatient souls into submission, for the brief wait would end in the acquiring of gold. Why did not the stentorian-voiced crier send through the ring the joyful cry of “All right!” The minutes went by, and the delay became an age. A whisper vibrated the throng, as a breeze stirs slender branches, that the winner had been disqualified--that there had been an objection. First one dropped out of line; then another; one by one, until all stood, an army of expectant speculators, waiting for the verdict that had its birthplace up in that tiny square building, the Stewards' Stand.

“It's over the pulling of Lucretia,” a man said, simply to relieve his strained feelings.

“It was the most barefaced job I ever saw,” declared another; “it's even betting the stable gets ruled off.” He had backed Porter's mare, and was vindictive.