Part 2

‘I did not know then how good and noble she is.—My head is queer and strange, Lucrece; I cannot tell you now. To-morrow, perhaps, if I am better, I will tell you everything. I am glad now that they brought me here.’

Meanwhile, Maxwell was pacing about the drawing-room, having entirely forgotten the unfortunate woman in his own perplexity. He had been there perhaps half an hour, when Enid entered. She was not too occupied to notice the moody, thoughtful frown upon his face.

‘What a sad thing for her, poor woman!’ she said.—‘How did it happen, Fred?’

‘Poor woman?’ Maxwell asked vaguely. ‘How did what happen?’

‘Why, Fred, what is the matter with you?’ Enid exclaimed with vague alarm. ‘How strange you look! Surely you have not forgotten the poor creature you brought here not more than half an hour ago?’

Maxwell collected himself by a violent effort. ‘I had actually forgotten. I was thinking of something else.—Enid, dear, I am going away!’

‘Going away! Any one would think, from the expression of your face and the tone of your voice, you were never going to return. Where are you going?’

There was a very considerable chance of his not returning, he felt, and he smiled at the grim idea. ‘I am not going far—at least not very far, in this age of express trains and telegraphs. I wish I could take you with me, darling; for I am going to a place you have often longed to see—I am going to Rome.’

‘To Rome? Is it not very sudden? You never told me before.’

‘Well, it is rather sudden. I have not known it long. You see, I could not tell you a thing I was ignorant of myself.’

‘I wish you were not going,’ Enid said reflectively. ‘I have a feeling that some evil will come of this. And yet I suppose you must go. Is it business of your own, Fred?’

Maxwell hesitated. He could not prevaricate with those clear truthful eyes looking up so earnestly to his own. The soul of honour himself, he could not forgive the want of it in others; but he temporised now. ‘Well, not exactly my own,’ he stammered, trying to make the best of a bad case, ‘or I would not go. It is a secret, which I cannot tell even you; but I shall not be long away.’

‘A secret which you cannot tell even me,’ Enid repeated mechanically. ‘Then it must be something you are very much ashamed of.’

‘Indeed, it is not,’ Maxwell began eagerly, hesitated, and stopped. After all, she was right. It was a secret, a terrible, shameful secret, against which all the manliness in him revolted. For a time he was silent, hanging down his head for very shame, as the whole force of his position came upon him. For the first time, he realised where his rashness had led him, and what he was about to lose.

Enid looked at him in amazement, strangely mixed with a terrible and nameless fear. ‘Fred!’ she cried at length, white and trembling, ‘you are going away upon the mission of that awful League! You cannot deny it.—O Fred! Fred!’

He tried to soothe her as she lay sobbing in his arms, but to no avail. The most fervent promises and the most endearing words she heeded not, crying that he was going from her never to return; and her fears were strengthened when he mournfully but firmly declined to speak of his mission. Presently, when she grew a little calmer, she raised her wet cheeks to him and kissed him. She was pale now, but confident, and striving with all the artifices in her power to persuade him from his undertaking; but tears and prayers, threats even, could not avail.

He shook his head sadly. ‘I would that I could stay with you, Enid,’ he said at length, holding her close in his arms; ‘but this much I can tell you—that I dare not disobey. It is as much as my life is worth.’

‘And as much as your life is worth to go,’ echoed the sobbing girl. ‘What is life to me without you? And now this thing has come between us, parting us perhaps for ever!’

‘I hope not,’ Maxwell smiled cheerfully. ‘I trust not, darling. My time away is very short; and doubtless I shall not be called upon again for a time—perhaps never.’

Enid dried her eyes bravely and tried to smile. ‘Good-bye, Fred,’ she said brokenly; ‘and heaven grant that my fears are groundless! If anything happened to you, I believe I should die.’

‘I shall come back, darling.—And now, good-bye, and God bless you.’

After he was gone, Enid threw herself down upon the lounge and wept.

* * * * *

Le Gautier’s star was in the ascendant. His only dangerous rival would soon be hundreds of miles away on a hazardous mission, out of which, in all human probability, he could not come unscathed, even if he escaped with life; a prospective father-in-law wholly in his power; and a bride _in posse_, upon whose fears he could work by describing graphically her father’s danger, with the moral, that it would be her duty to her parent to wed his preserver, Le Gautier. This, in fine, was the pretty scheme the wily adventurer had sketched out in his busy brain, a scheme which at present looked like being brought to a successful issue.

Another source of congratulation to this inestimable young man was the progress he was making with the fair stranger, known to him as Marie St Jean. By the time a fortnight had passed, he had been in Ventnor Street more than once, and quite long enough to feel a passion stronger than he had ever experienced before. It was absolutely dangerous to him, he knew, to be with her so often; but like the moth and the candle, the attraction was so great that he found it impossible to keep away—not that he lost his head for a moment, though he well knew that Marie St Jean could turn him round her finger; but he had formed his plans even here. The first step was to betray the League—the scheme was not quite ripe yet, and the news of Maxwell uncertain—and then take Marie St Jean for a tour upon the continent. There would be plenty of time to return and marry Enid afterwards without any unnecessary bother; for he had already made up his mind that Miss St Jean was too proud to show her wrongs to the world.

On the Monday afternoon following Maxwell’s departure, Le Gautier turned his steps in the direction of Grosvenor Square, feeling on good terms with himself and all mankind. His schemes were prospering hugely. It was clearly useless, he determined, now to hesitate any longer; the blow must be struck, and the sooner the better for all parties concerned. With this intention upmost in his mind, he trippingly ascended the steps of Sir Geoffrey’s house and knocked.

He found the baronet in the library, engaged as usual over some volume of deep spiritualistic research; the thing had become a passion with him now, and every spare moment was spent in this morbid amusement. He was getting thin and haggard over it, and Le Gautier thought he looked very old and careworn as he watched him now.

‘You have come just in time,’ he cried, placing a paper-knife in the book and turning eagerly to Le Gautier. ‘I have a passage here that I am unable to understand. Listen to this.’

‘I have something more important to speak of,’ Le Gautier interrupted. ‘I have something more pressing on hand than that attractive subject. Sir Geoffrey, next week I am summoned to Warsaw.’

The baronet began to feel anxious; he knew perfectly well what was coming, and, like all weak men, he dreaded anything like evil. The part that he had to play was a despicable one, and he feared his daughter’s angry scorn. Like a recalcitrant debtor, he began to cry for time, the time that never comes. ‘So you informed me last week,’ he replied, twisting a paper-knife in his hands uneasily. ‘I hope you will have a pleasant journey. How long do you expect to be detained there?’

‘I cannot tell; it depends upon the amount of business to be done. I may be away six weeks; but, at the very least, I do not see how I can get back to England under the month.’

Sir Geoffrey’s face lighted, in spite of his air of regret. Le Gautier noticed this; nothing escaped the ken of those keen black eyes.

‘And when you return, we will complete our little arrangements,’ Sir Geoffrey exclaimed cheerfully. ‘No hurry, you know, no haste in such matters as these; and, referring to our previous conversation, we cannot be too careful in treading such uncertain ground. Enid’——

‘Precisely,’ Le Gautier interrupted. ‘With all due deference to your opinion, there is need of action, which is a very different matter from that raw haste which your poet tells us is half-sister to delay. I must have something definite settled before I leave England.’

‘’Pon my honour, you know, you young men are very hasty,’ the baronet fidgeted; ‘there is no controlling you. In my time, things were quite different; men professed a certain deference to women, and did not take so much for granted as you do now’——

‘Sir Geoffrey,’ Le Gautier interrupted again, ‘things change; men alter; but perfect love is the same for all time. I love your daughter, and would make her my wife.’

In spite of the baronet’s feeble-mindedness, there was always something in the Frenchman’s higher flights which jarred upon his nerves, a sense of insincerity, a certain hollow, grotesque mockery, which pained him. The last word struck upon him like some chords played out of tune. Still the spell was upon him; he had nought to do but obey.

‘We perfectly understand that,’ he replied, ‘and therefore need say no more about it. You have my promise; indeed, how can it be otherwise with the memory of that awful manifestation before me? And the word of a Charteris is always sufficient. But I do think, Le Gautier, that you are pushing this thing too far.’

‘Let the depth of my love excuse my impetuosity;’ and again the words struck harshly on the listener’s ears. ‘Surely the excuse is a good one. I am leaving England shortly; and before I go, I must—nay, I will have an answer to the question which affects my happiness so deeply. It is only fair, only just that I should know my fate.’

Sir Geoffrey speculated feebly what he was to do with a man like this. ‘But have a little patience; let me prepare her for your proposal.’

‘Which you will promise to do, and put off day after day, as a man does who has an unpleasant task to perform. No, Sir Geoffrey; I do not wish to conduct my wooing second-hand. There is no time like the present; my motto is “Now.” I do not ask you to help me; but before I leave this house, it is my intention to speak to your daughter.’

In sheer desperation, not unmixed with a little irritation, Sir Geoffrey rang the bell, and desired the servant to conduct Le Gautier up-stairs. The thing must come sooner or later, he knew; and so long as he was not asked personally to interfere, he did not so much mind, though he was not unconscious of sundry twinges of conscience as his arbitrary visitor disappeared.

RACING ROGUERIES.

To a man not infected with the disease, Turf-mania must appear the blindest of all infatuations. The gambler who trusts to the fall of the cards, arguing that in the natural fitness of things he is certain to be a winner some day, and spends all his time in calculating the doctrine of chances, is a rational person to the gull who, knowing what a mass of roguery leavens the Turf, will yet stake money, honour, and life upon its eventualities. Yet this is done every day, not only by greenhorns, but by men who are quite alive to the mysterious workings of the betting ring, who are fully aware that the ability of the horse or the jockey is the last factor to be taken into consideration; who can amuse you for hours with stories of the swindles practised by owners, trainers, jockeys, ‘rings,’ and who yet go on putting their money on the horse ‘that must win’—and never wins—in utter defiance of their foregathered knowledge. The racing ‘prophet’ who is behind the scenes, who makes ‘the turf’ the business of his life, not only fools the readers of the newspaper to which he sells his vaticinations, but himself as well, and often returns from a race as penniless as the silly ones who pin their faith upon his oracular utterances. Even the bookmaker has his ‘fancies,’ upon which he stakes, and loses, the money that fools have put into his purse, with a blind confidence that is almost incredible.

A certain horse has acquitted himself well in his trial gallops; there is not one in the race can beat him; and _if_ he were allowed to do his best, would undoubtedly be the winner. But, as Touchstone says, ‘There is much virtue in an if.’ In the first place, the owner may not intend him to win, and may have actually made arrangements for laying against his own horse. Or if the owner be ‘straight,’ the jockey may have been bribed to check the horse’s speed as he nears the winning-post by some one whose interest it is that the horse shall not win. All these may work together, or each may have different interests in the event. And even should the animal be meant in all honesty to win, a stable lad for a five-pound note may secretly physic the horse, and good-bye the chances of the favourite on the morrow. Or some lurking ruffian in the pay of another owner or bookmaker may contrive to gain admission into the stable unknown to the animal’s guardians, and ‘nobble’ for himself. But even after every form of knavery has been set aside, there are contingencies that still render the risks of backing horses enormous. The jockey may spend the night before the race in dissipation, and mount with swimming head and nerveless hands; or in his cups he may betray some secret of the stable that will give the advantage to a rival; or the horse himself may become sick, or be out of form, or stumble, or be thrown out by a cur running across the course, or other accidents easy of occurrence; and yet, knowing all this, men will madly risk large sums upon the supposition that no such _contretemps_ will happen.

A few anecdotes, however, of undeniable authenticity will better illustrate the tricks of the Turf than would pages of reflections and generalisations.

About half a century ago, at Newmarket, several horses who stood high in the betting, at different times suddenly went off sick just before the race for which they were entered; some died, others recovered, but all were disabled for the time being, and favourites that a few hours previously outstripped every rival, would come straggling yards behind the field. Every one knew they had been ‘nobbled;’ but for a long time the perpetrator remained undiscovered; at last, however, a notorious scoundrel, one Dan Dawson, was caught red-handed poisoning the troughs. During the trial, it came out that he had made a regular trade of these nefarious practices, and it was more than suspected that not a few of the biggest men on the Turf were his employers. But although he was condemned to death, whether from the hope that some among his influential patrons would intercede for a reprieve, or from that hatred which certain men of his class have against ‘peaching,’ he never betrayed them, and remained silent to the end. The most minute precautions are taken to guard the racehorse from such dangers, yet the cunning or daring of his enemies frequently proves more than a match for the care of his owners.

In 1842, Lanercost was regarded as the certain victor for the Ascot Cup. While he was being conveyed to the course in a van, the grooms in charge stopped at an inn between Leatherhead and Sunninghill to refresh, leaving one to keep watch. Just after they had gone into the house, two sailors came out of it. ‘Hillo,’ cried one, ‘here’s Lanercost; let’s have a peep at him;’ and he sprang up on the side of the van, while his companion at the same time diverted the attention of the man on guard. A moment afterwards, the first jumped down again, and then the two disappeared into a copse: it was all done so quickly that the groom had no time to interpose; and before he could summon his mates, the men were out of sight. When the race came on, instead of achieving the anticipated victory, poor Lanercost came in last. In the course of the ensuing month, he entirely changed colour, and was never fit to run again. There is no doubt that the pretended sailor had contrived to administer some powerful drug to the animal during the few seconds he hung over his box.

Somewhere about the same time, a horse named Marcus was the favourite for the St Leger. The day before the race, while he and some other horses were standing at the _Doncaster Arms_, an ill-looking fellow entered the kitchen of that tavern and seated himself beside a boiler from which the stable lads were every now and then drawing water for their charges. There was no one in the kitchen save a maid-servant, whom the stranger sent out to bring him a pot of beer. When she returned, the girl was going to fill her tea-kettle from the boiler, but the fellow stopped her by saying: ‘I wouldn’t take my tea-water from there if I was you, it looks so yellow and greasy.’

‘All right; I’ll get it outside,’ she answered. When she came back the second time, the man had gone.

The next morning two horses were found dead in their stalls; while Marcus, who was just able to run, came in last, and also died during the day. Upon the bodies being opened, arsenic was found in their stomachs. The girl then remembered the incident of the loafer, who had no doubt poisoned the water in the copper; and had she been as stubborn as most of her kind, several human victims would have been added to the equine list. By the defeat of Marcus, the owner of a horse named Chorister won seven thousand pounds.

Sometimes the defeat of the favourite is brought about by less bold but more subtle means; and occasionally the tables are turned in a very unexpected manner, as in the following instance. For the Doncaster of 1824, Jerry—a horse belonging to a well-known sporting man named Gascoigne—was the favourite. A little before the event came off, however, George Payne, a noted Turfite, got ‘the tip’ from John Gully, the ex-prizefighter, that Jerry would not win; and the day before the race, these two worthies, doubtless well knowing _why_, laid six thousand against him. Gascoigne could not understand how it was that the more he backed his horse, which was in magnificent condition, the less it advanced in favour. He felt sure there was a screw loose somewhere, but he could not tell in what direction to look for it. Two nights before the race, as he was taking a walk in the outskirts of Doncaster, he paused at a turnpike gate, and just at that moment a postchaise stopped to pay toll. By the light of the lamp which the toll-keeper held in his hand, Gascoigne observed the jockey who was to ride Jerry next day seated within, almost helplessly drunk, between two of the most notorious blacklegs of the time. In a moment he saw it all. Hurrying away, lest he should be recognised, he went back to his hotel, and set about concocting measures to counteract the plot that he perceived had been formed against him. Without making known his discovery to any one, he secured the services of another jockey, bound the man down to silence; and at the last moment, just as the traitor was going to mount, his substitute slipped into the saddle, and won the race, to the discomfiture and well-merited loss of the conspirators, who had betted all they possessed upon the event.

Men called ‘Touts’ are employed by bookmakers and others to watch racehorses at exercise and report upon their condition; these spies are abhorred by trainers and owners, and have to pursue their espionage under many difficulties, sometimes lying in a dry or a damp ditch, or a hole covered over with brambles, or on the roof of a stable, to be ready to witness the morning gallop. When detected, they do not often escape under a horsewhipping or a ducking. On one bitterly cold night, a fellow had crawled upon the roof of a stall to listen if the favourite had a cough. Aware of his presence, though pretending to be ignorant of it, the trainer ordered the stable boys to throw up pails of water upon the spot where he was ensconced until the very clothes froze upon the poor wretch’s back; but he had the consolation of hearing the horse stabled beneath cough several times, and next morning the odds were heavy against the favourite. Unfortunately for the rogues, however, the favourite on the previous night had been moved into another stable, and a horse with a cough had been substituted, to deceive the tout, with the result that those who ventured their money on his information, lost.

A much cleverer ruse was the following. An owner named Wilson was about to try a two-year-old colt. ‘We shall be watched, and his white right fore-leg will be sure to be noticed,’ remarked the trainer.—‘Leave that to me,’ said Mr Wilson. Next morning, he was at the stable at daybreak, and with some black paint soon changed the colour of the leg; while a brush dipped in white transferred the distinguishing mark to a far inferior horse, which showed but poorly beside the other. The tout on the watch naturally took one for the other, and reported accordingly. The next day, a certain nobleman gave fifteen hundred for the falsified animal, which was worth about four.

We have purposely omitted the more celebrated Turf swindles, such as the ‘Running Rein’ fraud, and others that made a sensation in their day, confining ourselves to the less known affairs, which were not found out until reparation to the victims was impossible, our principal desire being to make clear to ‘the outsiders’ the enormous odds against which they stake their money.

Those who are not behind the scenes may suppose that the bookmakers (pencillers) and the ‘knowing ones’ generally, enjoy a perfect immunity from the perils and dangers, pitfalls and temptations, of horseracing; but that is not the case. Not unfrequently they walk blindly into the trap they set for others; the biter is frequently bitten; and many an ingenious fraud has been put upon the ‘pencillers’ by outside betting-men, as the two following stories will show. For obvious reasons, all data are suppressed, but the truth of the anecdotes can be vouched for.