The Crime at Tattenham Corner E-Book

Annie Haynes

• Herausgeber: Dean Street Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The body lay face downwards in a foot of water at the bottom of the ditch. Up to the present it has not been identified. But a card was found in the pocket with the name of – The grisly discovery was overshadowed in the public imagination by Derby Day, the most prestigious event in the English horse-racing calendar. But Peep o' Day, the popular favourite for the Derby and owned by the murdered man, won't run now. Under Derby rules, the death means automatic disqualification. Did someone find an ingenious if ruthless way to stop the horse from competing? Or does the solution to the demise of Sir John Burslem lie away from the racetrack? The thoughtful Inspector Stoddart starts to investigate in a crowded field of sinister suspects and puzzling diversions. The Crime at Tattenham Corner was the second of the four Inspector Stoddart mysteries, first published in 1928. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. "We not only encounter thrilling surprises but are introduced to many admirably life-like characters. Miss Haynes is here at her best. Excellent as a detective tale, the book is also a charming novel." Spectator

Leseprobe

ANNIE HAYNESThe Crime at Tattenham Corner

The body lay face downwards in a foot of water at the bottom of the ditch. Up to the present it has not been identified. But a card was found in the pocket with the name of –

The grisly discovery was overshadowed in the public imagination by Derby Day, the most prestigious event in the English horse-racing calendar. But Peep o’ Day, the popular favourite for the Derby and owned by the murdered man, won’t run now. Under Derby rules, the death means automatic disqualification.

Did someone find an ingenious if ruthless way to stop the horse from competing? Or does the solution to the demise of Sir John Burslem lie away from the racetrack? The thoughtful Inspector Stoddart starts to investigate in a crowded field of sinister suspects and puzzling diversions.

The Crime at Tattenham Corner was the second of the four Inspector Stoddart mysteries, first published in 1928. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“We not only encounter thrilling surprises but are introduced to many admirably life-like characters. Miss Haynes is here at her best. Excellent as a detective tale, the book is also a charming novel.” Spectator

The Mystery of the Missing Author Annie Haynes and Her Golden Age Detective Fiction

The psychological enigma of Agatha Christie’s notorious 1926 vanishing has continued to intrigue Golden Age mystery fans to the present day. The Queen of Crime’s eleven-day disappearing act is nothing, however, compared to the decades-long disappearance, in terms of public awareness, of between-the-wars mystery writer Annie Haynes (1865-1929), author of a series of detective novels published between 1923 and 1930 by Agatha Christie’s original English publisher, The Bodley Head. Haynes’s books went out of print in the early Thirties, not long after her death in 1929, and her reputation among classic detective fiction readers, high in her lifetime, did not so much decline as dematerialize. When, in 2013, I first wrote a piece about Annie Haynes’ work, I knew of only two other living persons besides myself who had read any of her books. Happily, Dean Street Press once again has come to the rescue of classic mystery fans seeking genre gems from the Golden Age, and is republishing all Haynes’ mystery novels. Now that her crime fiction is coming back into print, the question naturally arises: Who Was Annie Haynes? Solving the mystery of this forgotten author’s lost life has taken leg work by literary sleuths on two continents (my thanks for their assistance to Carl Woodings and Peter Harris).

Until recent research uncovered new information about Annie Haynes, almost nothing about her was publicly known besides the fact of her authorship of twelve mysteries during the Golden Age of detective fiction. Now we know that she led an altogether intriguing life, too soon cut short by disability and death, which took her from the isolation of the rural English Midlands in the nineteenth century to the cultural high life of Edwardian London. Haynes was born in 1865 in the Leicestershire town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the first child of ironmonger Edwin Haynes and Jane (Henderson) Haynes, daughter of Montgomery Henderson, longtime superintendent of the gardens at nearby Coleorton Hall, seat of the Beaumont baronets. After her father left his family, young Annie resided with her grandparents at the gardener’s cottage at Coleorton Hall, along with her mother and younger brother. Here Annie doubtlessly obtained an acquaintance with the ways of the country gentry that would serve her well in her career as a genre fiction writer.

We currently know nothing else of Annie Haynes’ life in Leicestershire, where she still resided (with her mother) in 1901, but by 1908, when Haynes was in her early forties, she was living in London with Ada Heather-Bigg (1855-1944) at the Heather-Bigg family home, located halfway between Paddington Station and Hyde Park at 14 Radnor Place, London. One of three daughters of Henry Heather-Bigg, a noted pioneer in the development of orthopedics and artificial limbs, Ada Heather-Bigg was a prominent Victorian and Edwardian era feminist and social reformer. In the 1911 British census entry for 14 Radnor Place, Heather-Bigg, a “philanthropist and journalist,” is listed as the head of the household and Annie Haynes, a “novelist,” as a “visitor,” but in fact Haynes would remain there with Ada Heather-Bigg until Haynes’ death in 1929.

Haynes’ relationship with Ada Heather-Bigg introduced the aspiring author to important social sets in England’s great metropolis. Though not a novelist herself, Heather-Bigg was an important figure in the city’s intellectual milieu, a well-connected feminist activist of great energy and passion who believed strongly in the idea of women attaining economic independence through remunerative employment. With Ada Heather-Bigg behind her, Annie Haynes’s writing career had powerful backing indeed. Although in the 1911 census Heather-Bigg listed Haynes’ occupation as “novelist,” it appears that Haynes did not publish any novels in book form prior to 1923, the year that saw the appearance of The Bungalow Mystery, which Haynes dedicated to Heather-Bigg. However, Haynes was a prolific producer of newspaper serial novels during the second decade of the twentieth century, penning such works as Lady Carew’s Secret, Footprints of Fate, A Pawn of Chance, The Manor Tragedy and many others.

Haynes’ twelve Golden Age mystery novels, which appeared in a tremendous burst of creative endeavor between 1923 and 1930, like the author’s serial novels retain, in stripped-down form, the emotionally heady air of the nineteenth-century triple-decker sensation novel, with genteel settings, shocking secrets, stormy passions and eternal love all at the fore, yet they also have the fleetness of Jazz Age detective fiction. Both in their social milieu and narrative pace Annie Haynes’ detective novels bear considerable resemblance to contemporary works by Agatha Christie; and it is interesting to note in this regard that Annie Haynes and Agatha Christie were the only female mystery writers published by The Bodley Head, one of the more notable English mystery imprints in the early Golden Age. “A very remarkable feature of recent detective fiction,” observed the Illustrated London News in 1923, “is the skill displayed by women in this branch of story-telling. Isabel Ostrander, Carolyn Wells, Annie Haynes and last, but very far from least, Agatha Christie, are contesting the laurels of Sherlock Holmes’ creator with a great spirit, ingenuity and success.” Since Ostrander and Wells were American authors, this left Annie Haynes, in the estimation of the Illustrated London News, as the main British female competitor to Agatha Christie. (Dorothy L. Sayers, who, like Haynes, published her debut mystery novel in 1923, goes unmentioned.) Similarly, in 1925 The Sketch wryly noted that “[t]ired men, trotting home at the end of an imperfect day, have been known to pop into the library and ask for an Annie Haynes. They have not made a mistake in the street number. It is not a cocktail they are asking for….”

Twenties critical opinion adjudged that Annie Haynes’ criminous concoctions held appeal not only for puzzle fiends impressed with the “considerable craftsmanship” of their plots (quoting from the Sunday Times review of The Bungalow Mystery), but also for more general readers attracted to their purely literary qualities. “Not only a crime story of merit, but also a novel which will interest readers to whom mystery for its own sake has little appeal,” avowed The Nation of Haynes’ The Secret of Greylands, while the New Statesman declared of The Witness on the Roof that “Miss Haynes has a sense of character; her people are vivid and not the usual puppets of detective fiction.” Similarly, the Bookman deemed the characters in Haynes’ The Abbey Court Murder “much truer to life than is the case in many sensational stories” and The Spectator concluded of The Crime at Tattenham Corner, “Excellent as a detective tale, the book also is a charming novel.”

Sadly, Haynes’ triumph as a detective novelist proved short lived. Around 1914, about the time of the outbreak of the Great War, Haynes had been stricken with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that left her in constant pain and hastened her death from heart failure in 1929, when she was only 63. Haynes wrote several of her detective novels on fine days in Kensington Gardens, where she was wheeled from 14 Radnor Place in a bath chair, but in her last years she was able only to travel from her bedroom to her study. All of this was an especially hard blow for a woman who had once been intensely energetic and quite physically active.

In a foreword to The Crystal Beads Murder, the second of Haynes’ two posthumously published mysteries, Ada Heather-Bigg noted that Haynes’ difficult daily physical struggle “was materially lightened by the warmth of friendships” with other authors and by the “sympathetic and friendly relations between her and her publishers.” In this latter instance Haynes’ experience rather differed from that of her sister Bodleian, Agatha Christie, who left The Bodley Head on account of what she deemed an iniquitous contract that took unjust advantage of a naive young author. Christie moved, along with her landmark detective novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), to Collins and never looked back, enjoying ever greater success with the passing years.

At the time Christie crossed over to Collins, Annie Haynes had only a few years of life left. After she died at 14 Radnor Place on 30 March 1929, it was reported in the press that “many people well-known in the literary world” attended the author’s funeral at St. Michaels and All Angels Church, Paddington, where her sermon was delivered by the eloquent vicar, Paul Nichols, brother of the writer Beverley Nichols and dedicatee of Haynes’ mystery novel The Master of the Priory; yet by the time of her companion Ada Heather-Bigg’s death in 1944, Haynes and her once highly-praised mysteries were forgotten. (Contrastingly, Ada Heather-Bigg’s name survives today in the University College of London’s Ada Heather-Bigg Prize in Economics.) Only three of Haynes’ novels were ever published in the United States, and she passed away less than a year before the formation of the Detection Club, missing any chance of being invited to join this august body of distinguished British detective novelists. Fortunately, we have today entered, when it comes to classic mystery, a period of rediscovery and revival, giving a reading audience a chance once again, after over eighty years, to savor the detective fiction fare of Annie Haynes. Bon appétit!

The Crime at Tattenham Corner

Adjoining the entrance to England’s famed Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey is the village of Tattenham Corner. For many decades horseracing enthusiasts have eagerly alighted at Tattenham Corner railway station to attend the Derby Stakes. Just over a century ago, on 4 June 1913, however, appalled Derby spectators witnessed something deeply shocking take place on the track. Suffragette Emily Davison dashed onto the course, directly in the path of Anmer, King George V’s colt, colliding with horse and rider. Davison, who suffered a fractured skull and internal injuries, died four days later—a martyr, in the admiring eyes of her co-activists, to the cause of woman suffrage.

Mystery writer Annie Haynes’ companion, Ada Heather-Bigg, was, like the martyred Emily Davison, a firm believer in the principle of gender equality, including woman suffrage. Back in 1881 Heather Bigg had made newspaper headlines in the United Kingdom and the United States when she won the University College of London’s Joseph Hume Scholarship in Political Economy, defeating all her male opponents for the prestigious award. Two years before the so-called “Suffragette Derby” of 1913, Heather-Bigg, when filling out the “infirmity” category on the British census form, underscored the word dumb, pointedly explaining in the designated spaces for herself and Haynes, as well as those for the three women servants residing in their household, without a vote.

Presumably Haynes shared her companion’s views on woman suffrage, but it seems doubtful that the detective novelist would herself have endorsed Emily Davison’s particular form of direct action. One of Haynes’ great personal interests in life was racing; and she very much enjoyed having a bit of a flutter on the horses. On the occasion of the 1923 Liverpool Cup, Haynes nearly bet on a specific horse due to a recent dream she had had, in which she had opened the Bible to the following passage: They shall shout out of their lips and their tongues shall be as poisoned arrows. Upon awakening from her dream she looked at the list of entrants in the Liverpool Cup and found a horse named Poisoned Arrow, running at 12-1. In spite of this striking coincidence, the author shied from betting on a horse at such long odds; yet in the event Poisoned Arrow indeed won the race, just as Haynes’ dream had foretold, in a most impressive upset, with the 2-1 favorite, Pharos, coming in third.

Having narrowly missed her chance at winning riches by descrying the mysteries of the racing form, Haynes at least was able to receive income from her popular mystery novels, in two of which--The Crime at Tattenham Corner (1929) and The Crystal Beads Murder (1930)—she drew on her knowledge of the horseracing milieu. In The Crime at Tattenham Corner, Haynes’s series sleuth, Detective-Inspector William Stoddart, is tasked, along with his steadfast assistant Alfred Harbord, with investigating the shooting death of Sir John Burslem, financial magnate and owner of the racehorse Peep o’ Day. Burslem’s body was found in a ditch in Hughlin’s Wood, near Tattenham Corner, on the very day of the running of the Epsom Derby, in which Burslem’s horse Peep o’ Day was, until its owner’s sudden death, the favorite (on Burslem’s death, Peep o’ Day is automatically scratched).

Suspicion focuses on Sir Charles Stanyard, the sporting baronet, whose horse Perlyon was Peep o’ Day’s main rival at the Derby Stakes. Stanyard also is known to have been jilted by Sophie Carlford (youngest daughter of Viscount Carlford), who then became the second—and much younger—wife of Sir John Burslem. Lady Burslem certainly acts as if she has something to hide, as does Sir John’s valet, Ellerby, who vanishes soon after the murder. Pamela Burslem, Sir John’s daughter from his first marriage, needs no convincing from anyone on the subject, insinuating to all and sundry that Sir Charles, likely with Lady Burslem’s connivance, was responsible for her father’s death. But just what does Mrs. James Burslem (“Mrs. Jimmy”), wife of Sir John’s absent Tibetan explorer brother, know about the affair, and what precisely can be reliably divined from the séances performed by Miss Winifred Margetson, Mrs. Jimmy’s American spiritualist friend? (This aspect of the novel may be a nod to the author’s’ prophetic horseracing dream.) Much investigation must be done by Stoddart and Harbord--not to mention a little romancing, strictly in the line of duty, on the inspector’s part--before an arrest can be made. “As we follow their disentangling of the mystery,” noted the Spectator in 1929, “we not only encounter thrilling surprises but are introduced to many admirably life-like characters.” Can you solve The Crime at Tattenham Corner before Annie Haynes’ series sleuths? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets….

Curtis Evans

CHAPTER 1

The big clock outside struck 7.30. Early as it was, Inspector Stoddart was already in his room at Scotland Yard.

He looked up impatiently as his most trusted subordinate, Alfred Harbord, entered after a sharp preliminary tap.

“Yes, sir. You sent for me?”

The inspector nodded. “You are detailed for special duty at once. We are starting in the runabout immediately, so if you want to send a message –” He nodded at the telephone.

Harbord grinned. “My people are pretty well used to my irregular habits, thank you, sir.”

The inspector rose. “The sooner we are off the better, then.” He handed Harbord a typewritten paper. “Wired up,” he said laconically, “from the Downs.”

Mysterious death at an early hour this morning. Some platelayers on their way to work in the cutting beyond Hughlin’s Wood, not far from Tattenham Corner, found the body of a man of middle age in a ditch. He is evidently of the better class and supposed to be a stranger in the district. The body lay face downwards in a foot of water at the bottom of the ditch or dyke. Up to the present it has not been identified. But a card was found in the pocket with the name of –

The corner of the paper had been torn off, evidently on purpose. Harbord read it over.

“Hughlin’s Wood,” he repeated. “I seem to know the name. But I can’t think where the place is.”

“Not a great many miles from Epsom,” the inspector said, as he locked his desk and dropped the keys into his pocket. “Centuries ago, Hughlin’s Wood used to stretch all round and over that part of the Downs, but it has dwindled to a few trees near Hughlin’s village. These trees go by the name of Hughlin’s Wood still. I can tell you the rest as we go along.”

Harbord followed him in silence to the little two-seater in which the inspector was wont to dash about the country. He was an expert driver, but it needed all his attention to steer his car among the whirl of traffic over Westminster Bridge, passing Waterloo and Lambeth.

The inspector glanced at “The Horns” as they glided by it. “We will lunch there on the way back, Harbord.”

He put on speed as they got on the Brixton Road and, passing Kennington Church, tore along through Streatham and Sydenham, and across country until they could feel the fresh air of the Downs in their faces. Then the inspector slackened speed and for the first time looked at his companion.

“What do you make of it?”

“What can I make of it?” Harbord fenced. “Except that you would not be going down unless there was more in the summons than meets the eye.”

Stoddart nodded.

“The body was found face downwards in the stagnant water of a ditch, but the cause of death was a bullet wound in the head. The man had been thrown into the ditch almost immediately after death. In the pocket have been found a card and a couple of envelopes bearing the name of a man high in the financial world. The markings on the linen, etc., correspond. I know this man fairly well by sight. Therefore I am going down to see whether I can identify the remains. See those Downs –”

Harbord looked where he pointed at the vast, billowy expanse around them, then he looked back inquiringly.

“Yes, sir.”

Stoddart waved his hand to the north side. “Over there lie Matt Harker’s stables. He has turned out more winners of the classics than any other trainer. His gees get their morning gallops over the Downs.”

Harbord’s expression changed. “And you connect this dead man at Hughlin’s Wood with Harker’s stables?”

Stoddart looked at him. “I will tell you that in an hour or so.”

As he spoke he turned the car rapidly to the right, and dashing down the road, which was little more than a track, they found themselves at Hughlin’s Wood, with Hughlin’s village in the immediate foreground.

Harbord thought he had seldom seen a more desolate looking spot, or a more appropriate setting for the crime they had come to investigate. A few stark, upstanding pines, growing in rough, stubbly grass, were all that was left of the once mighty wood; a long, straggly hedge ran between them and the road that led to Hughlin’s village. It stood in a cleft in the hill which ran along to the bottom of the Downs. There was a curious cone-like hill just above the Wood. Harbord learned later that it went by the name of Hughlin’s Tomb, and was supposed to contain the remains of a giant named Hughlin, from whom the wood derived its name. On the opposite side of the road was some barren pasture-land, and a little back from the track stood a small hut or barn.

By the Wood apparently the whole of the little population of Hughlin’s village was gathered. A policeman was keeping every one back from the ditch.

The crowd scattered as the car came in sight. Stoddart slowed down and he and Harbord sprang out.

Inside the space which was being kept free two men were standing. One was easily recognized by his uniform as a superintendent of police. The other, a tall, clean-shaven man of military appearance, Harbord identified as Major Vincent, the chief constable of the county.

Major Vincent came to meet them. “Glad to see you, Inspector Stoddart. I hardly hoped that you could be here so soon.”

Stoddart jerked his head at his run-about. “She is a tidy sort of little bus, sir. This is a terrible job!”

“It is,” Major Vincent assented. “This is where the body was found – was flung, I should say – just over here.”

The inspector walked forward and glanced down into the rather deep ditch. Long grasses fringed the edges, broken down and trampled upon now; the bottom was full of evil-smelling water.

Stoddart’s quick, glancing eyes looked round. “Anything found here?”

The superintendent answered:

“Not so far, but we have made no very vigorous search. We waited till you came.”

Stoddart nodded. “Quite right. The body?”

“Over there.” The superintendent pointed to the barn in the field opposite. “Temporary mortuary,” he explained. “The inquest will be opened tomorrow at the Crown Inn down in the village. In the meantime –”

“The body is here, I understand,” the inspector finished. “We will have a look at that first, please, sir.”

He made an imperceptible sign to Harbord as he glanced at Major Vincent.

“Any more evidence as to identity?” he questioned, as they walked across the rough grass together.

Major Vincent shook his head. “You will be able to help us about that, I understand, inspector.”

“I may be able to. I ought to be if your suspicions are well founded,” the inspector answered. “You rang up the house, of course.”

“Of course! Answer, ‘Not at home.’ Said then we were afraid Sir John had met with an accident. His valet is coming down, should be here any minute now.”

“Good!” the inspector said approvingly.

The Major opened the door of the barn. “I will stop out here, and have a cigarette, if you don’t mind,” he said apologetically. “I have been in two or three times already and it has pretty well done for me. It is a ghastly sight.”

Stoddart’s glance spoke his comprehension as he went inside; the doctor and the superintendent followed with Harbord.

Inside was, as Major Vincent had said, “a ghastly sight.” The light was dim, little filtering through, except what came from the open door. The place was evidently used for cattle fodder. The floor was strewn with straw, trodden down and begrimed. The dead man lay on a hastily improvised stretcher of hurdles raised on a couple of others in the middle of the barn.

Stoddart and Harbord instinctively stepped forward softly. The superintendent took off the covering some kindly hand had laid over the distorted face. Then, used though they were to scenes of horror, both Stoddart and Harbord with difficulty repressed an exclamation, so terrible was the sight. A momentary glance was enough to show that the man had been shot through the lower part of the face. The head had lain in the water of the ditch for some time face downwards. It was swollen and livid and grazed, but was not impossible of recognition. Yet, as Stoddart gazed on the figure, still in evening-dress, over the strong-looking hands with their manicured almond nails that had made marks on the palms as they clenched in the death agony, a certain look that Harbord well knew came into the inspector’s eyes. He held out his hand. “The card – ‘Sir John Burslem,’” he read aloud. He looked at the dead man’s wrist-watch, turned it over and looked at the monogram, glanced at a letter that was peeping out of the pocket – “Sir John Burslem, 15 Porthwick Square.” The postmark was that of the previous morning.

The superintendent watched him in silence for a few minutes. At last he said:

“Well, inspector, what do you say – is it Sir John Burslem?”

“I believe so,” the inspector said without hesitation. “It is Sir John Burslem, I firmly believe. But I only had a casual acquaintance with him.”

And, hardened though he was, Stoddart turned aside and blew his nose as his mind glanced from the twisted, broken thing before him to the prosperous financial magnate of whom he retained so vivid a recollection. He replaced the covering over the shattered head and looked at his watch.

“The valet should be here directly. It seems to me we must await more positive identification from him. Until he comes, I should like a few words with you, doctor. How long had death taken place when you first saw the body?”

The doctor coughed. “It is difficult to say with precision. I reached here about half-past seven this morning. I should say the man had been dead at least five hours when I saw him, possibly more, certainly not less.”

“The cause of death?”

“Evidently the man had been shot through the lower part of the face. For anything more we must wait for the post-mortem.” He added a few technical details.

Harbord waited outside with Major Vincent and the superintendent.

“Sir John Burslem,” he repeated thoughtfully. “A financier, you say. I seem to remember this name in some other connection.”

“He was a big gun in what is called high finance,” Major Vincent told him. “It is said that no international deal, no great scheme of Government stock was launched without his advice. For himself, he was head of the great firm of Burslem & Latimer, the iron and jute merchants, Wellmorton Street, and of Burslem & Co., diamond merchants of South Africa, besides being director of Heaven knows how many companies. Sir John Burslem’s name spelt success to any undertaking.”

“And will this” – Harbord jerked his head backward – “mean failure?”

The major shrugged his shoulders. “Heaven knows! One’s imagination fails to picture the world of speculation without Jack Burslem, as he was generally known. But here’s the valet, Ellerby, I expect,” as a car stopped.

An elderly man got out and came towards them. He was looking white and shaken.

“Gentlemen,” he began in a quaking voice as he got near them, “they say that he – that Sir John has had an accident. He – he can’t be – dead!”

“That is what we have brought you here to ascertain, Mr. Ellerby,” Major Vincent said, a touch of pity in his tone as he thought of the ordeal that lay before the man. “You will be able to tell us definitely. The clothes at any rate you will be able to recognize. The face has been – in the water for some time and is terribly swollen.”

The man looked at him, his mouth twitching. “I should know Sir John anywhere, sir,” he said, his manner becoming more composed. “I couldn’t be deceived about him. It is an impossibility.'’

Stoddart went in with him. Harbord stood with the other three at the door. They heard a cry of horror, then a hoarse sob, and Ellerby’s voice, broken now:

“Oh, it is Sir John, sure enough! Oh, yes, his poor face is all swollen, but I could swear to him anywhere. There is the dress coat I put on him yesterday evening, and his shoes, and his eyeglass on his cord, and his wrist-watch. Oh, it is Sir John safe enough. And what are we going to do without him? And her poor young ladyship – and Miss Pamela?”

He came out wiping his eyes openly.

“You identify the body positively as that of Sir John Burslem?” Major Vincent questioned authoritatively.

“Oh, yes, sir, there is not no doubt possible.” Ellerby’s careful, rather precise grammar was forgotten now in his excitement and his own real grief. “I could tell without looking at his face,” he went on, “for there’s just the things I put out for him last night, little thinking. And her poor ladyship with a big party today going to the races!”

“The races – by Jove!” Stoddart looked at his watch and then at Harbord. “Of course that accounts for all the traffic on the road; it’s Derby Day!”

“You are right, sir.”

The valet put away his handkerchief and steadied his voice. “It seems but the other day that poor Sir John was telling us to put our shirts on Peep o’ Day – ‘Best colt Matt Harker ever trained,’ he says, ‘and a dead cert for the Derby; maybe the last we’ll have before the tote comes in,’ Sir John said, ‘so get the best you can beforehand.’ And we did, all of us, at Sir John’s own bucket shop.”

Stoddart’s face altered indefinably. “I hope you didn’t build on the colt winning, Mr. Ellerby.”

“That I have, sir.” The man looked at him half fearfully. “All my own savings and my wife’s I have put on, and I borrowed my sister’s too. It is a tidy lot I stand to win when Peep o’ Day passes the winning-post! Though poor Sir John will never lead her in now.”

“Nor anyone else as the winner of the Derby,” Stoddart said gravely. Don’t you realize what that” – with a nod at the barn – “means to all of you who have put your money on Peep o’ Day?”

Ellerby began to tremble. “No, sir, I don’t. But we got our money on right enough. Sir John, he said it was as safe as if it was in the bank.”

“So he may have thought, though in a gamble there is often a slip betwixt the cup and the lip,” Stoddart said dryly. “But don’t you know that an owner’s death renders void all his horses’ nominations and entries. Peep o’ Day is automatically scratched. If Sir John Burslem had died one minute before the race was run, and, not knowing, Peep o’ Day’s number had gone up, he would be disqualified. Today will be a grand day for the bookies. The favourite scratched at the last minute. You get your money back though, but we must wire at once for the sake of the poor devils who are putting on, on the course. Harker’s the trainer, you said.”

“Yes, sir,” Ellerby stammered, his face working painfully. “Matt Harker said that Peep o’ Day was the best three-year-old he had ever had in training. He carried all the stable money.”

“Well, it is to be hoped Harker hedged a bit,” Stoddart said slowly. “For Peep o’ Day won’t run to-day. And I wonder, I wonder –”

CHAPTER 2

Surely, surely, no hour had ever been so long! Sophie Burslem twisted herself round in bed once more. It was morning. Of course it was morning. The sun was streaming through her open window. She could hear the pleasant, familiar sounds of everyday life, but the sound for which she was waiting and watching did not come. At last she caught the echo of voices, distant at first, then nearer. One of the gardeners was talking on the terrace beneath the window.

“Ay! if Peep o’ Day brings it off and I ain’t no manner of doubt that he will, seeing Sir John himself he said to me, ‘You like a bit of a gamble sometimes, I know, Germain. Well, you will have the safest gamble of your life if you put your shirt on Peep o’ Day. Best colt I’ve ever had,’ Sir John said. Well, my missus and me we drawed our nest-egg out o’ the post office, an’ we put it on Peep o’ Day, months ago, and we got 100 to 8 then. I reckon we will be made folks tomorrow.”

“I am wishing I had done the same,” another voice chimed in, “but I thought there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and so I waited until this morning, and now I’ll only get starting price, and they’re saying it will be odds on. So ’tain’t any good backing Perlyon for a place as I had reckoned on doing. ’Tis sure to be place betting.”

“Ay, ay,” the first speaker assented. “I had a tip for Perlyon myself, but –”

The voices died away in the distance. As Sophie Burslem lay for a moment perfectly still on her pillow, two tears welled up in her eyes and rolled miserably down her cheeks. Peep o’ Day! Peep o’ Day! Those poor men had put their savings on Peep o’ Day. And now Peep o’ Day would never win the Derby!

A minute more and there came the sound for which she had been waiting – a tap at the door. She pulled the lever that raised the latch and her maid came in with her tea. She set it on the table beside the bed.

“It’s a lovely morning, my lady. And Sir John was saying yesterday that fine weather was all that Peep o’ Day wanted. He likes to hear his hoofs rattle, Sir John said. And if it had been heavy going it would have been all against him.”

“Yes,” said Sophie Burslem faintly.

She was stretching herself lazily while from beneath her half-closed eyelids her eyes were keenly watching every moment of the maid’s. Had she not been called a good amateur actress in the days that were gone? She would have to act today if she had never acted in her life before.

“I have put all my savings on Peep o’ Day,” the maid went on. “My young man, he has done the same. We shall have something to talk about tonight, I expect, my lady.”

Beneath the silken counterpane Sophie Burslem’s hands were twisting themselves together in an agony. Then came another of the sounds she was dreading. In the adjoining room some one was moving about opening and shutting drawers; then came silence; then a loud knocking at the door of her room. She made herself speak quietly:

“What is that, Forbes? Just see, will you?” Then she waited again in that blank, awful expectancy. There was a murmured colloquy at the door; strain her ears as she might she could only catch a word or two.

At last Forbes came back. “It is James, my lady; he wants to know if you can tell him where Sir John is?”

“Sir John! I don’t know. Has he gone out?”

“I suppose so, my lady. Somebody wants to see him on important business, and he is not in his room. They are saying he has not slept there, my lady.”

“What?” Sophie Burslem raised herself on one elbow. Then she laughed. “Nonsense! Really for a moment you quite frightened me, Forbes. I expect Sir John has gone out to put a little more on Peep o’ Day. He went over to Oxley last night, you know. Mr. Harker said he had never had a colt he felt so confident about. He is a beauty, Forbes!”

“Yes, my lady.”

But the maid still hesitated. Was she really watching her furtively, Sophie wondered, or was it just her own fancy? Was she always going to be fanciful now?

“James says – please what is he to say to the man on the phone, my lady? He has rung up twice before this morning, James says, and it’s from Scotland Yard, my lady.”

“Scotland Yard!” For one moment Sophie Burslem’s heart seemed to stop beating; then went on again with great suffocating throbs. This time she was sure that her laugh did her credit. So had she laughed on the stage in the old days at Elmhurst. “Poor Forbes! You really look quite frightened. Don’t you know that detectives are down at Oxley watching Peep o’ Day? It is something to do with that, of course. But why is James up here? Where is Ellerby?”

“I don’t know, my lady. He went out ever so early this morning; we are wondering when he will be back, my lady.”

“Rather an extraordinary proceeding on Ellerby’s part,” Sophie commented dryly. “Get my bath ready, please, Forbes, and tell James Sir John will be in directly, I expect.”

She slipped on the side of the bed as she spoke and sat there watching Forbes as she went into the bathroom and turned on the tap.

Sophie Burslem looked very young this morning – too young to be Sir John’s wife. She was a dainty vision in her soft, silken night-robe, with her pretty rounded neck and arms bare. Her shingled, chestnut hair was ruffled, it needed no permanent waving. The pink and white skin was as clear as ever, only the great, appealing brown eyes had altered indefinably. In the big pier-glass opposite she fancied that others could see the terrible fear that lurked in them, the dark circles round them. Long ago some one used to tell her that she had laughing eyes. Would anybody ever say that again? she asked herself. Just now they seemed to move of their own volition, glancing here and there into every corner fearfully. Suddenly they were caught by a tumbled heap of white by the sofa near the window. It was the frock she had worn last night just as she had thrown it down. She stared at it in a species of fascinated horror. Surely she was not mistaken. Across one fold there was an ugly, dark stain!

She got up and went over to it, her bare feet pattering over the polished boards between.

Forbes came back. “My lady, my lady, your slippers.”

Sophie turned round and stood before the heap on the floor, her hands behind her, her breath coming quick and fast.

“Nonsense! I don’t want slippers. You can go, Forbes. I will ring when I am ready.”

Thus dismissed the maid had no choice but to depart. When the door had closed behind her, Sophie turned, and swiftly, noiselessly, almost threw herself on the tumbled white frock! Yes, she had made no mistake. Right in front, just where the silver girdle was caught up by a buckle of brilliants, a reddish brown stain ran almost down to the hem. She put out one finger and touched it – it was dry, quite dry. But there wasn’t one minute to lose. At all hazards that ghastly stain must be done away with. She tore at it with her small, strong hands, but though the silk was soft it was tough, and she could make no impression on it. She caught up a pair of nail-scissors and cut and jagged ruthlessly. Then when she held the long, ragged strip in her hand, she gazed at the remains of what had been one of her prettiest gowns, in despair.

What on earth would Forbes say? But there was no time to think of that now. She caught up the remains of the frock and running into her dressing- room thrust it deep down into the well of the great wardrobe that took up all one side of the room. Then she crammed other things on the top and shut the door firmly. Later on she must think of something to tell Forbes, for now there was nothing to be done but to go on as usual until – She went into her bathroom, crushing up the piece of silk she had torn off in her hand.

She splashed in and out of the warm, scented water, then, when she had rubbed herself down, she lighted a match and tried to set the silk on fire. In vain, it would do nothing but smoulder and make a pungent, acrid smell of burning. What in Heaven’s name was she to do? She dashed open the windows as far as they would go; she unstoppered one of the great bottles of scent on the dressing-table and flung the contents about bathroom and bedroom. Then a sudden inspiration came to her.

Inside the dressing-case, with its wonderful gold and jewelled fittings, which had been one of her husband’s wedding presents, there was a secret drawer. She ran across, put the silk in the drawer, fastening it with a catch of which she alone knew the secret.

She rang for Forbes. The maid came in, wrinkling up her nose.

“Such a smell of burning, my lady!” Her beadlike, inquisitive eyes glanced round the room.

“I don’t notice it,” said Sophie. “Perhaps the gardeners are burning weeds outside. Give me my things quickly, Forbes; I must not be late for breakfast. Sir John means to start early.”

The maid said nothing, but her sniff became accentuated as she went on with her mistress’s toilet, set the soft shingled hair, and finally brought out the gown of grey marocain which Lady Burslem had decided to wear for the races.

Sophie let herself be dressed as if she had been a lay figure. All the while she was listening, listening. At last she was dressed, and her maid clasped a short string of pearls round her neck in place of the long necklace she generally wore.

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. So she had seen herself look a hundred times – and yet would not the first person she met see the horror shadowing her eyes?

She went down to the breakfast-room. Everything was just as usual. A pile of letters lay beside her plate. Sir John’s letters and The Times, folded as he liked it, lay by his. She went round the table and sat down. The very orderly, everyday aspect of the room held something sinister, some suggestion of evil to her jaundiced mind.

Though she drank a cup of tea feverishly and played with an omelette, she could not really eat anything. Presently she heard a knock and a ring at the front door.

She caught the echo of a voice in the hall. It sounded like that of her sister Clare – Mrs. Aubrey Dolphin. She was going with them to the races, of course, but She listened again. Another moment Clare came quickly into the room. With a word to the manservant she closed the door behind her. One look at her face told Lady Burslem that the supreme moment for which she had been waiting was here at last.

Clare came swiftly across the room and caught her sister in her arms.

“Sophie, darling, I bring you terrible news. You must be brave, dear, for all our sakes.”

Sophie tried to free herself from the encircling arms. “What is it?” she questioned hoarsely. “Not Dad!”

Mrs. Dolphin would not let her go.

“No, no, my darling. It is John –”

“John –”

If there had been one drop of colour left in Sophie’s face it was all drained away now.

“Ill,” came slowly from between her stiffening lips. “Ill, Clare, not – not –”

“Ah, dearest, he would want you to be brave for his sake. He – he met with a terrible accident last night, Sophie, dear. And, you see, he was not quite a young man, he could not rally –”

“Why did they not send for me?” Sophie gasped.

“Dear, there was not time. He – he died before they could do anything!”

“He died – John died –”

This time all Mrs. Dolphin’s strength could not hold her sister up. A dead weight, Lady Burslem sank through her arms and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

• • • • •

Meanwhile from all parts of England a great crowd was making its way to Epsom. It was the people’s holiday and the people were bent on making the most of it. All night long, gipsies and parties of nomads had picnicked near the course. This morning the tipsters were busy. For threepence you could learn the winner of every race. Not of the Derby itself. Nobody wanted a tip for that! It was Peep o’ Day’s Derby. Had not owner and trainer and jockey all agreed that Peep o’ Day could not lose the Derby?

Peep o’ Day! Peep o’ Day! You heard it on all sides. Peep o’ Day, the most popular favourite since the war! Peep o’ Day! the crowd exulted.

And over by Peep o’ Day’s box his trainer, Matt Harker, was standing with bowed shoulders, and Howard Williams leaning up against the door would not have been ashamed to confess that there were tears in his eyes. Champion jockey though he was, he had never yet ridden a Derby winner; Matt Harker, though all the other classics had been taken by his stable, had never yet trained a Derby winner! All of them had been confident that today their ambitions would be realized.