"Good heavens! The filly hasn"t "gone wrong" suddenly, has she?"
"She"s done more than "gone wrong"--she"s _gone altogether_! Some beastly, low-lived cur of a horse thief broke into the stables the night before last and stole her--stole her, sir, body and bones--and there"s not so much as a hoofprint to tell what became of her."
"Well, I"m blest!"
"Are you? B"gad, then, you"re about the only one who knows about it that is! For as if that wasn"t bad enough, I"ve not only lost the best filly in England but the best trainer as well: and the brute that carried off the one got at the other at the same time, dash him!"
"What do you mean by "got at" the trainer, Major? Did the man take a bribe and "sell" you that way?"
"What, Tom Farrow? Never in G.o.d"s world! Not that kind of a chap, by George! The man that offered Tom Farrow a bribe would spend the rest of the week in bed--gad, yes! A more faithful chap never drew the breath of life. G.o.d only knows when or how the thing happened, but Farrow was found on the moor yesterday morning--quite unconscious and at death"s door. He had been bludgeoned in the most brutal manner imaginable. Not only was his right arm broken, but his skull was all but crushed in. There was concussion of the brain, of course.
Poor fellow, he can"t speak a word, and the chances are that he never will be able to do so again."
"Bad business, that," declared Cleek, looking grave. "Any idea of who may possibly have been the a.s.sailant? Local police picked up anything in the nature of a clue?"
"The local police know nothing whatsoever about it. I have not reported the case to them."
"Not reported----H"m! rather unusual course, that, to pursue, isn"t it? When a man has his place broken into, a valuable horse stolen, and his trainer all but murdered, one would naturally suppose that his first act would be to set the machinery of the law in motion without an instant"s delay. That is, unless----H"m! Yes! Just so."
"What is "just so"?" inquired the major eagerly. "You seem to have hit upon some sort of an idea right at the start. Mind telling me what it is?"
"Certainly not. I could imagine that when a man keeps silent about such a thing at such a time there is a possibility that he has a faint idea of who the criminal may be and that he has excellent reasons for not wishing the world at large to share that idea. In other words, that he would sooner lose the value of the animal fifty times over than have the crime brought home to the person he suspects."
CHAPTER XII
Lady Mary made a faint moaning sound. The major"s face was a study.
"I don"t know whether you are a wizard or not, Mr. Cleek," he said, after a moment; "but you have certainly hit upon the facts of the matter. It is for that very reason that I have refrained from making the affair public. It is bad enough that Lady Mary and I should have our suspicions regarding the ident.i.ty of the--er--person implicated without letting others share them. There"s Dawson-Blake for one. If he knew, he"d move heaven and earth to ruin him."
"Dawson-Blake?" repeated Cleek. "Pardon, but will that be the particular Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake the millionaire brewer who achieved a knighthood in the last "Honours List" and whose horse, Tarantula, is second favourite for the coming Derby?"
"Yes, the very man. He is almost what you might call a neighbour of ours, Mr. Cleek. His place, Castle Claverdale, is just over the border line of Northumberland and about five miles distant from Morcan Abbey. His stables are, if anything, superior to my own; and we both use the intervening moorland as a training ground. Also, it was Dawson-Blake"s daughter that Lieutenant Chadwick played fast and loose with. Jilted her, you know--threw her over at the eleventh hour and married a chorus girl who had nothing to bless herself with but a pretty face and a long line of lodging-house ancestry. Not that Miss Dawson-Blake lost anything by getting rid of such a man before she committed the folly of tying herself to him for life, but her father never forgave Lieutenant Chadwick and would spend a million for the satisfaction of putting him behind bars."
"I see. And this Lieutenant Chadwick is--whom may I ask?"
"The only son of my elder and only sister, Mr. Cleek," supplied Lady Mary with a faint blush. "She committed the folly of marrying her music master when I was but a little girl, and my father died without ever looking at her again. Subsequently, her husband deserted her and went--she never learnt where, to the day of her death.
While she lived, however, both my brother, Lord Chevelmere, and I saw that she never wanted for anything. We also supplied the means to put her son through Sandhurst after we had put him through college, and hoped that he would repay us by achieving honour and distinction. It was a vain hope. He achieved nothing but disgrace. Shortly after his deplorable marriage with the theatrical person for whom he threw over Miss Dawson-Blake--and who in turn threw him over when she discovered what a useless enc.u.mbrance he was--he was cashiered from the army, and has ever since been a hanger-on at race meetings--the consort of touts, billiard markers, card sharpers, and people of that sort. I had not seen him for six years, when he turned up suddenly in this neighbourhood three days ago and endeavoured to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with one of the Abbey grooms."
"And under an a.s.sumed name, Mr. Cleek," supplemented the major somewhat excitedly. "He was calling himself John Clark and was trying to wheedle information regarding Highland La.s.sie out of my stable-boys. Fortunately, Lady Mary caught sight of him without being seen, and at once gave orders that he was to be turned off the premises, and never allowed to come near them again. He was known, however, to be in this neighbourhood up to dusk on the following evening, but he has never been seen since Highland La.s.sie disappeared. You know now, perhaps, why I have elected to conduct everything connected with this affair with the utmost secrecy. Little as we desire to be in any way a.s.sociated with such a man, we cannot but remember that he is connected with us by ties of blood, and unless Farrow dies of his injuries--which G.o.d forbid! we will hush the thing up, cost what it may. All that I want is to get the animal back--not to punish the man: if, indeed, he be the guilty party; for there is really no actual proof of that.
But if Dawson-Blake knew, it would be different. He would move heaven and earth to get the convict"s "broad arrow" on him and to bring disgrace upon everybody connected with the man."
"H"m, I see!" said Cleek, puckering up his brows and thoughtfully stroking his chin. "So that, naturally, there is--with this added to the rivalry of the two horses--no very good blood existing between Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake and yourself?"
"No, there is not. If, apart from these things, Mr. Cleek, you want my private opinion of the man, it can be summed up in the word "Bounder." There is not one instinct of the gentleman about him.
He is simply a vulgar, money-gilded, low-minded cad, and I wouldn"t put it beyond him to be mixed up in this disappearance of the filly himself but that I know Chadwick was about the place; and for there to be anything between Chadwick and him is as impossible as it is for the two poles to come together, or for oil to a.s.similate with water.
That is the one thing in this world that Dawson-Blake would not do under any circ.u.mstances whatsoever. Beyond that, I put nothing beneath the man--nothing too despicable for him to attempt in the effort to gain his own end and aim. He races not for the sport of the thing, but for the publicity, the glory of getting talked about, and of making the vulgar stare. He wants the blue ribbon of the turf for the simple fame of the thing; and he"d _buy_ it if buying it were possible, and either bribes or trickery could carry off the race."
"H"m! That"s a sweeping a.s.sertion, Major."
"But made upon a basis of absolute fact, Mr. Cleek. He has twice endeavoured to buy Farrow to desert me by an offer of double wages and a pension; and, failing that, only last week he offered my jockey 10,000 cash on the nail to slip off over to France on the night before Derby Day, and promised him a further five thousand if Tarantula carried off the race."
"Oho!" said Cleek, in two different tones; and with a look of supremest contempt. "So our Tinplate Knight is that sort of a sportsman, is he, the cad? And having failed to get hold of the _rider_----H"m! Yes. It is possible--perhaps. Chadwick"s turning up at such a time might be a mere coincidence--a mere tout"s trick to get inside information beforehand, or----Well, you never can tell.
Suppose, Major, you give me the facts from the beginning. When was the animal"s loss discovered--and how? Let me have the full particulars, please."
The major sighed and dropped heavily into a chair.
"For an affair of such far-reaching consequences, Mr. Cleek," he said gloomily, "it is singularly bald of what might be called details, I am afraid; and beyond what I have already told you there is really very little more to tell. When or how the deed was committed, it is impossible to decide beyond the indefinite statement that it happened the night before last, at some time after half-past nine in the evening, when the stable-boy, Dewlish, before going home, carried a pail of water at Farrow"s request into the building where Highland La.s.sie"s stall is located, and five o"clock the next morning when Captain MacTavish strolled into the stables and found the mare missing."
"A moment, please. Who is Captain MacTavish? And why should the gentleman be strolling about the Abbey stable-yard at five o"clock in the morning?"
"Both questions can be answered in a few words. Captain MacTavish is a friend who is stopping with us. He is a somewhat famous naturalist. Writes articles and stories on bird and animal life for the magazines. It is his habit to be up and out hunting for "specimens" and things of that sort every morning just about dawn.
At five he always crosses the stable yard on his way to the dairy where he goes for a gla.s.s of fresh milk before breakfast."
"I see. Captain a young man or an old one?"
"Oh, young, of course. About two or three and thirty, I should say.
Brother of a deceased army pal of mine. Been stopping with us for the past two months. Very brilliant and very handsome chap--universal favourite wherever he goes."
"Thanks. Now just one more question before you proceed, please: About the trainer Farrow getting the stable-boy to carry in that pail of water. Would not that be a trifle unusual at such a time of the night?"
"I don"t know. Yes--perhaps it would. I never looked at it in that light before."
"Very likely not. Stables would be closed and all the grooms, et cetera, off duty for the night at that hour, would they not?"
"Yes. That is, unless Farrow had reason for asking one of them to help him with something. That"s what he did, by the way, with the boy, Dewlish."
"Just so. Any idea what he wanted with that pail of water at that hour of the night? He couldn"t be going to "water" one of the horses, of course, and it is hardly likely that he intended to take on a stableman"s duties and wash up the place."
"Oh, gravy--no! He"s a trainer, not a slosh-bucket. I pay him eighteen hundred a year and give him a cottage besides."
"Married man or a single one?"
"Single. A widower. About forty. Lost his wife two years ago. Rather thought he was going to take another one shortly, from the way things looked. But of late he and Maggie McFarland don"t seem, for some reason or another, to be hitting it off together so well as they did."
"Who"s Maggie McFarland, please?"
"One of the dairymaids. A little Scotch girl from Nairn who came into service at the Abbey about a twelvemonth ago."
"H"m! I see. Then the filly isn"t the only "Highland La.s.sie" in the case, it would seem. Pardon? Oh, nothing. Merely a weak attempt to say something smart, that"s all. Don"t suppose that Maggie McFarland could by any possibility throw light upon the subject of that pail of water, do you, Major?"
"Good lud, no! Of course she couldn"t. What utter rot. But see here--come to think of it now, perhaps _I_ can. It"s as like as not that he wanted it to wash himself with before he went over to the sh.o.e.r"s at Shepperton Old Cross with Chocolate Maid. I forgot to tell you, Mr. Cleek, that ever since Dawson-Blake made that attempt to buy him off, Farrow became convinced that it wouldn"t be safe to leave Highland La.s.sie unguarded night or day for fear of that cad"s hirelings getting at her in some way or another, so he closed up his cottage and came to live in the rooms over the filly"s stable, so as to be on the spot for whatever might or might not happen at any hour. He also bought a yapping little Scotch terrier that would bark if a match fell, and kept it chained up in the place with him. When the discovery of the filly"s disappearance was made that dog was found still attached to its chain, but as dead as Maria Martin. It had been poisoned. There was a bit of meat lying beside the body and it was literally smothered in strychnine."
"Quite so. Keep strychnine about the place for killing rats, I suppose?"
"Yes, of course. They are a perfect pest about the granary and the fodder bins. But of course it wouldn"t be lying round loose--a deadly thing like that. Besides, there never was any kept in that particular section of the stables, so the dog couldn"t have got hold of it by accident. Then there"s another thing I ought to tell you, Mr. Cleek: Highland La.s.sie never was stabled with the rest of the stud. We have always kept her in one especial stable. There are just two whacking big box stalls in the place. She occupies one and Chocolate Maid the other. Chocolate Maid is Lady Mary"s personal property--a fine, blooded filly that will make a name for herself one of these days, I fancy. Dark-coated and smooth as a piece of sealskin, the beauty. To-day she is the only animal in that unlucky place. Yes, come to think of it, Mr. Cleek," he added with a sort of sigh, "that is probably what the poor fellow wanted the pail of water for: to wash up and ride her over to the forge at Shepperton Old Cross."