The Price of Murder Page 15

  As we merged with the crowd, Mr. Patley and I noticed a number of familiar faces from Bedford Street and Seven Dials in London: whores and pickpockets they were, and in such number as I had not seen before. The whores flirted one with another. The pickpockets dipped their hands each in the other’s coats and waistcoats. It was a carnival for thieves. We came at last to a rail fence that marked one of the limits of the course. Coaches and carriages were parked there, hard by, and the dukes and earls stood atop them, observing the activity out on the track through telescopes and spy-glasses. Each seemed to boast a surrounding retinue of a sizable number. There was a good deal of teasing comment that passed back and forth between them. It was for the nobles, as I saw, that this pageant was played out. But what was it they watched so intently out there on the course? I put the question to Mr. Patley.

  “I don’t rightly know,” said he. “I reckon, though, that they’re studying their horses out there—not so much for speed as for gait and behavior on the course and whatnot. There’s a lot to learning a course like this one.”

  “Why this one, especially?”

  “Well, because of its length and the many rough places out there on the heath.”

  “Not an easy course then, eh?”

  “Oh, no. Ain’t a bit of it easy.”

  We had a good view of the horses on the track—though not so good as the nobles and aristocrats atop their vehicles. We had found a spot between two coaches, somewhat protected from the crowd. From it, I watched and took in all that Mr. Patley had to say about the racing of horses in general, and the racing of them at Newmarket in particular. In the course of my days in Newmarket, he passed on to me a wealth of information. It all began, as I recall, with a question I asked about the number of horses out on the track. There was a great swarm of them following those on which the owners had their spy-glasses trained. They were moving along at a ragged pace and with no style whatever. It was almost as if this second line of riders were hoping that some reflected glory might be cast back upon them from the first.

  “They can’t all be running in the King’s Plate race, can they?” I asked Mr. Patley.

  “No, not at all. But it’s one of the faults of this race that there’s far too many in it.”

  “They put no limit on the number?”

  “Well, in a practical way I s’pose they do. They put the entry fee up so high, there’s not so many can afford it. But those who can are free to get out on the course and ride round it as often as they like.” He smiled and shook his head. “It makes for a pretty crowded field, don’t it?”

  “It does indeed.”

  We watched on as the leaders and the pursuing line of stragglers reached the farthest point from us. Then did Patley lose interest (or so it seemed to me) and began looking up and down the rail fence, as if for something he knew had to be there. Having found it, he pointed down to our right.

  “There, Jeremy, just take a look.” There was a line of horses, with overweight riders perched on top awaiting the arrival of the mob of horsemen so that they might join them.

  “What about them?”

  “Well, just look. They’re waiting to take their trip round the course, and there’s none checking to see if they got any right to be here at all, much less to tour the track.”

  “So right now anybody could get on the course?”

  “As long as he’s got a horse to ride.”

  I looked them over, those waiting impatiently for the mounted mob to make the circle complete. I had one more question, the last for a while.

  “Who are those people waiting their turn on the track?”

  “Local gentry.” He spat it out as if it were an oath or an obscenity.

  As near as I could tell, the entire event was staged simply for the entertainment of the local gentry. The nobility—that is, those who owned the horses running the race—seemed to take it all quite earnestly.

  When Mr. Patley announced his hunger to me, I realized that I, too, was hungry, and suggested we return to the Good Queen Bess where we might find us something in the tap-room. And so we started back, pushing our way through the crowd, which had grown a bit during our time at the rail. We pressed on, hands in our pockets, holding tight to our money bags. Just then did we spy the early odds posted at a turf-accountant’s stall. ’Twas Patley saw it first; he gave me a proper nudge in the ribs and pointed out the slate to me.

  “There,” said he, “that might be of some interest to you, Jeremy.”

  And, indeed, it was of interest—though not so much for the entries it carried as for the one it did not. I studied the list, then, having noted an omission, I studied it again.

  “Mr. Patley,” said I. “Pegasus is not here on the slate.”

  “I see he ain’t,” said he, attaching little importance to the fact.

  “But why should Mr. Deuteronomy tell us he would be here, and then fail to arrive?”

  “Oh, if he said he’d come, I for one believe he’ll be here. You see, Jeremy, they can’t post odds on a horse unless he’s present and officially entered.”

  I nodded, accepting Mr. Patley’s explanation, yet not quite put at ease by it. I wondered what it was had held them up.

  The turf accountant’s stall was at the very fringe of the area surrounding the race course. We went from it quickly through town and arrived at the Good Queen Bess in less time than it would take to tell.

  “I believe I’ll inquire at the desk and find out if Mr. Deuteronomy has yet arrived to claim his room,” said I.

  “Do as you like.”

  Thus did we companions separate—I to make my inquiry, and he to the tap-room. Having no luck at the desk, I turned away, and who should I then spy entering the front door of the inn but Deuteronomy Plummer himself.

  We greeted warmly with much hand-slapping and back-slapping. He asked me if all was right with my room, and I assured him that it was. Then did I inquire after his trip to Newmarket.

  “We took it nice and slow,” said he. “Arrived just as intended.”

  “And Pegasus is in good fettle?”

  “Ah, ain’t he though! Every morning I give him a good talking-to, telling him just how he’s going to win this one.”

  The idea of a conversation with a horse struck me as rather funny: I laughed, again in spite of myself. For his part, Mr. Deuteronomy was somewhat taken aback at my response.

  “You think he don’t understand me? Well then, sir, you think wrong. Ain’t a smarter horse in the world than Pegasus!”

  “Well, I’m sure that’s true, but . . .” I left the sentence unended and hanging in the air. “Mr. Plummer, could you wait just a moment? I’ve a companion in the tap-room. He’s a Bow Street Runner, and a great enthusiast of your riding. Let me get him, and—”

  “No, I’ve got to get these horses stabled,” said he, interrupting, “and watered and fed. Bring him to the track real early tomorrow. We’ll be out there at dawn, or close to it, learning the course.”

  He then called to the clerk behind the desk, claiming his room, and ran out to tend to his horses. Well then, thought I, dawn it would be then for me—though Mr. Patley will no doubt be disappointed.

  Yet he wasn’t, not in the least: “Oh no, I’m not surprised—and therefore I ain’t disappointed. He’s a real horseman, he is. Most of your lords and your gentry and whatnot, they have no sense of how to treat a horse. First rule we learned in the army was, take care of your horse’s needs, and after he’s been looked after, then—and only then—you take care of yourself.”

  I had entered the tap-room to find him at a table near a window. There were two dark ales upon the table, a small loaf, and a big chunk of Stilton cheese. He looked as pleased and contented as I had ever seen him. He beckoned me over to him and gestured grandly at the bread and cheese, as if to say that that should hold us till dinner time. ’Twas then I told him of my meeting with Mr. Deuteronomy, expecting a howl of frustration in response and getting instead the well-reasoned lecture on the nece
ssity of caring first for the horses.

  That I have quoted to you already, reader, yet what I have not told is that, having said his piece, he became, all of a sudden, most interested in something or someone just beyond the window. He stared. Then did he rub his chin and stare once again.

  “By God,” said he aloud yet to himself, “I believe it’s her. I really do believe it’s her.”

  Then did my own eyes turn most immediate to the crowd outside the window. “Where?” said I. “Which one? You mean Alice Plummer, don’t you?”

  Yet Constable Patley was already on his feet and running out the door. I pursued him, hesitating just long enough to tell the serving woman to leave all upon the table, for we would be back.

  But when?

  SEVEN

  In which our luck goes down and up in the next few days

  I rushed out the inn expecting to find Mr. Patley in hot pursuit of Alice Plummer, yet found him just beyond the door, standing, looking about scratching his head. He’d been flummoxed, confused utterly by the great number of women he saw. They were all, it seemed, heading off in three or four different directions, but in general, most moved toward the race course, whence we had just come. Oh, there were men, as well, as many or more than the women. But just at that moment, since it was a woman we searched for, there seemed to be a superabundance of them about. I approached Mr. Patley warily, for he seemed at that moment to be reasoning out in which direction she might have gone. I stood beside him, hesitating. At last, feeling I could wait no longer, I spoke up.

  “Constable Patley,” said I, “was it Alice Plummer you spied through the window?”

  “What? Oh yes, indeed it was. I seen her a number of times round Seven Dials. I’m just sure it was her. And of course when she reported her little girl missing, too.”

  “How was she dressed? What was she wearing?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.” And that he proceeded to do, placing a hand over his eyes that he might better concentrate. “Truth of it is, I was looking at her face and not at her clothes, but it seems to me that her dress was a sort of dark red going into blue. Plum-colored, you might call it.”

  “That’s a pretty rare color for a dress. Why don’t you go off in one way, and I’ll take another, and let’s see if we can’t find her.”

  “But you don’t even know what she looks like,” he objected.

  “That may be,” said I, “but I know what color her dress is. I’ll just stop every woman in a plum-colored dress and ask if her name is Alice Plummer. There couldn’t be too many in such a color.”

  “I s’pose not.”

  And so it was agreed. He would follow the crowd moving off toward the right, and I the column moving along to the left. We would mix all through and keep our eyes open for the dress of the right color. We would keep going in such a manner until we met at the place where we had viewed the horses out upon the track. If, after a few minutes’ wait, we failed to meet there, then we would go back the way we had come and meet again at the tap-room of the Good Queen Bess. We started upon our separate ways.

  Like so many things in life, this plan, so simple in the telling, proved much more difficult in its execution. The chief problem lay in the number of individuals to be struggled through, around, and, ultimately, past. The inertia of the crowd resisted and dominated my every push and squeeze, so that I could finally do little more than find a place and move my feet along at the same rate as the rest. In this way, I reached the rail fence at approximately the same point that we had left earlier. There I waited, quite exhausted by my struggles against the multitude.

  Needless to say, I saw no woman in a plum-colored dress.

  Whilst resting against the fence, I became aware that, when I left it, I would have to struggle up the hill against the tide, which would be even more difficult. I decided to wait a bit longer for Constable Patley—at least as long as it took for the sweat to dry upon my brow.

  I gave my attention to the horses out upon the course. They were still out there, learning the ups and downs, the jumps and full-out gallops. And of course the second-rank was there still, following at a respectful trot; and if anything, its number had grown.

  Of the owners there was little more to say. They were yet standing, spy-glasses in hand; their number had also grown—or so it seemed. One of them looked quite familiar, a newcomer, I was sure. He was as well-dressed as any in that line of observers, but fat enough that he had wisely avoided the roof of his coach; if he had managed to climb up upon it, the weight of him might indeed have collapsed it. And so, he stood at the rail not much more than ten feet away. Who was he? I knew that I had seen him before my arrival at Newmarket. As I studied him, I even recalled the sound of his voice—a sort of whining drawl that perfectly matched his rude manner. Then I had it! He was the owner of Pegasus and the employer of Deuteronomy Plummer. I knew him not by name but by title—Lord Lamford he was, and a less likeable man I had never met. I looked round him and saw no sign of Mr. Deuteronomy about, and that was just as well, it seemed to me, for if he were, I’d feel obliged to speak to him, and that seemed wrong here and now.

  Ah well, said I to myself, there’s naught for me to do but return to the Good Queen Bess and the tankard of flat ale which awaited me there. Taking one last look about for Mr. Patley and failing to see him, I plunged ahead into the great crowd and kept an eye open for any color that might be judged plum. Thus did I reach the inn at the top of the hill.

  Entering the tap-room, I found the constable sitting where he had formerly sat, a new tankard of ale before him, and deep in talk with the serving woman. As I took my place at the table, he ended his conversation and asked for a fresh ale “for my young friend.” Then did he push the plate of bread and cheese toward me.

  “I fear I’ve had more than my share,” said he. “We can order some more, if you want it.”

  I could not but notice that Patley seemed far more rested and relaxed than I. How long could he have sat here talking with the serving woman? Could he really have made the same arduous journey that I had just made? Yet, just as I was searching for the right words with which to express my doubts to him, the serving woman returned with my dark ale. After I sweated the way to the race course and back, I confess, my thirst was so great that I quaffed off half the tankard in a few gulps. Then did I dig into the Stilton, slicing off a generous chunk and piling it upon the bread. That took some chewing, and as I chewed, I thought, and by the time I finished it, I had devised my approach.

  “Mr. Patley,” said I, “you must have reached the rail fence round the race course long before I did—been there and gone. Sorry to have missed you, but I was wondering: did you happen to notice Lord Lamford there?”

  “Uh, no, I can’t say as I did,” he replied uneasily.

  “I was going to ask if you’d seen Mr. Deuteronomy with him. But of course, if you didn’t see Lord Lamford, then you couldn’t have seen Deuteronomy with him, now could you?”

  “Well . . . yes, that’s good thinking on your part, Jeremy.”

  I gave him a look of a certain kind. I tucked in my chin and gave him a frown. I’d meant it to seem dubious, suspicious, and it must have, for it wrung from him this confession:

  “I suppose I really ought to tell you, Jeremy, old friend, that I never really made it down as far as the rail fence.”

  “Oh? And how did that come about, Mr. Patley?”

  “Well, you see, it’s like this,” said he, “here I was, pushing and shoving my way through this great bunch of people, and I wasn’t getting nowhere at all. But I kep’ going and looking for that woman in the plum-colored dress. Oh, I looked and looked, but I never did see anyone in a dress of such a color—and then it did come to me. Alice Plummer wasn’t in such a dress when I glimpsed her from this very chair I’m sittin’ in now. Oh no, it wasn’t plum-colored, it was blue—teal blue is what it was. All of a sudden, I was just sure of it. And it wouldn’t have done any good at all to start lookin
g for her, for I must have let pass about a dozen or more just the little ways I’d gone.”

  “Oh,” said I, “I must have let twice that number go by.”

  “Well, there you are,” said he. “It’s an altogether common sort of dress in a common sort of color.”

  “But I went all the way down there for no purpose at all, didn’t I, Mr. Patley?”

  He hesitated for a long moment. “I wouldn’t say it was for no purpose at all,” said he.

  “Oh? And how is that, sir?”

  “At least we know she’s here in Newmarket, don’t we?”

  When the knock came upon the door, I bounded out of bed, ready to greet the day, even though a glance out the window gave proof that it must still be night. I had asked that I be knocked up at five. Had they made it four just to give me an early start? No matter, though, whatever the hour, I was well awake and ready for the day. I gave Patley a shake and received only groaning mumbles for my trouble. Ah well, let him sleep, if sleep he must. Then did I empty my bladder and begin my morning ritual—taking care to wash well and to dress warmly. Yet I’d a feeling that I must leave a reminder of some sort for Mr. Patley. I gave him another shake.

  “Mr. Patley,” said I, “can you hear me?”

  Again the groans and the mumbles; there was, nevertheless, a sort of affirmative sound to them.

  “I’m going down to the track now. If you wish to meet Mr. Deuteronomy, come down there quickly as you can. I can’t say when I’ll return. But I’ll look for you in the tap-room when I come back.”

  Was all that clear to him? I hoped it was. Yet that single grunt I received in response was anything but encouraging. And so, having no better thought, I hurriedly wrote a brief note in which I said much the same thing as I had just spoken in his ear. I propped it against the candle and blew the candle out. I recall my surprise that at that moment the room was not, of a sudden, plunged into complete darkness; the dawning of a new day had begun.