Mr. Bowchard, who had the gray, bowed-down look of a henpecked husband, blew on his tea to cool it. “I just ’ad a word with the postman,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Seems as there wuz a killin’ in Newmarket last night.”

“That’s nothin’ new.” Margaret poured more hot water into the teapot and put on the lid. “Somebody’s allus gettin’ hisself killed in Newmarket.”

“It’s the rowdies, ye know,” Mrs. Redditch said to Amelia. “They come down from London fer the boxin’ matches and cockfights and ’orseracin’. The constables do their best, but they get drunk in the taverns and knock each other over the ’ead.”

“Far as I’m concerned,” Margaret said darkly, “it’s good riddance t’ bad rubbish. It’s gettin’ so Christian folk can’t walk down the ’ Igh Street without ’earin’ some ruffian’s crude language. Why, even Pastor Johnson-”

“Wud’n’t no ruffian,” Mr. Bowchard put in, with the air of a man who knows something important and is having a difficult time containing his knowledge. He put his mug down and leaned forward. “Wuz Badger,” he said in a low voice.

“Alfred Day?” Mrs. Redditch asked, surprised. “ ’E’s dead?”

“ ’E’s dead,” Mr. Bowchard said definitively. He leaned back in his chair. “Somebody shot ’im. Last night.”

Margaret let out her breath in a long whoosh. Mrs. Redditch sat staring.

“Badger the bookmaker?” Amelia asked in great surprise, remembering how she had met him at the Derby, and how anxious Lawrence had been to drop his bet into Badger’s satchel.

“Right,” Margaret said grimly. “ ’E ’appens to be Mrs. L.’s bookmaker.” She narrowed her eyes. “When did ’e get hisself killed, Mr. Bowchard?”

The gardener gave her a meaningful look. “After nine and afore ten. Leastwise, that’s wot the postman said. ’E got it from ’is brother Tom, the constable.”

“After nine and afore ten?” Mrs. Redditch cried. “But that’s when Mrs. L. was supposed to meet-” Her hand went to her mouth and her voice trailed off.

“Eggsac’ly, Mrs. Redditch,” Mr. Bowchard said grimly. He put down his mug. “My thoughts eggsac’ly.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Following Jack Murray’s directions, Charles located Dr. Stubbing’s consulting room next door to the chemist’s shop a few paces off the High Street. Several people were hunched forlornly in chairs in the small room at the front, but when Charles handed his card to the stern-faced woman at the desk by the door, she rose and led him down a hallway. She rapped on a closed door, went inside, and almost immediately reopened the door, motioning to Charles.

The doctor was leaning back in his wooden chair, his feet propped on his desk, reading a newspaper. For a long moment, he didn’t stir, even when Charles cleared his throat. Finally, he put the newspaper down and Charles saw a paunchy man with an unruly mane of white hair and bright blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. He regarded Charles with a look of undisguised hostility, not bothering to take his feet off the desk or offer his visitor a chair.

“Chief Constable Watson was here earlier,” the doctor said, without preamble or introduction. His voice was raspy, with a slight Scottish burr.

“Was he?” Charles said pleasantly. “Then you know why I’ve come.” Unbidden, he pulled a chair around to the front of the desk and sat down, taking off his hat.

Dr. Stubbing narrowed his eyes. “Watson said that the Jockey Club had some sort of interest in Alfred Day’s murder. He said they’d brought some member of the Establishment in to take over the investigation.” The doctor’s tone clearly implied that he approved neither of the Jockey Club nor of its intervention in what was obviously a matter for the local constabulary.

Briefly, Charles wondered what else the chief constable might have said. He put his hat on the corner of the desk, wishing that he had a better idea of the relationship between the Club and the people of the town. Horseracing might make Newmarket more prosperous, but criminals and crime inevitably accompanied that sort of prosperity. And even if crime were not an issue, there was the constant traffic, the influx of strangers, the noise and the dirt. He could not blame the local citizens if they felt an active hostility toward the Club at the same time that they enjoyed the economic benefits it brought them.

“I wonder,” Charles said without inflection, “whether you’ve finished the autopsy.”

Dr. Stubbing folded his paper and tossed it on the floor. “I’ve finished near as need be,” he said, clasping his hands over his belly. He pursed pink lips. “Alfred Day died of a bullet wound in the chest.”

“So I presumed, from the entrance wound I observed last night,” Charles said gravely. “I also noticed, when the body was placed on a stretcher to be brought here, that there was no exit wound. The bullet must have remained in the body. Did you extract it?”

The doctor swung his feet off the desk, opened a drawer, and took out a cigar case. “Didn’t bother,” he said flatly. “Somebody shot the poor bastard at close range, and that’s what I’ll tell the coroner’s inquest.” He took a cigar out of the case, closed it, and replaced it in the drawer without offering the case to Charles. “Assuming there is an inquest,” he added. “Or do the gentlemen of the Jockey Club mean to subvert the judicial inquiry as well as the police inquiry?”

Charles did not answer the question. “I’m afraid, Dr. Stubbing, that I must trouble you to extract the bullet. It might be useful in identifying the gun that fired it.”

Dr. Stubbing’s bushy white eyebrows shot up. “The bullet identify the gun?” He grunted skeptically. “You’re joking.”

Charles gave an inaudible sigh. “I’m quite serious, sir. A full decade ago, in Lyons, Professor Lacassagne was able to match the marks on the bullet to the rifling of a particular gun barrel. Last year, in Germany, Dr. Paul Jesserich matched a bullet taken from the victim’s body with a test bullet fired by a revolver belonging to one of the suspects. The testimony of both of these scientists resulted in guilty verdicts.”

“Mumbo jumbo,” Dr. Stubbing muttered, lighting his cigar. “Maybe a foreign jury can be taken in by such pseudo-scientific poppycock, but not one of our English juries. They have better sense.” He eyed Charles. “There’s never been such a case in England, I’ll wager.”

“There was one, sir,” Charles said, “about sixty years ago. But it did not go to the jury. The comparison of the bullet with the mold that formed it persuaded the murderer to plead guilty.”

The doctor harrumphed. “Well, you’re not going to get a Newmarket jury to swallow such an argument. Unless the Club puts its own men into the jury box, of course. And its own judge on the bench.” He pulled on his cigar, his voice rising bitterly. “And don’t try to tell me that won’t happen, sir. I’ve seen what money and influence have already bought in this town, and all in the name of sport.” He spit the word out. “Who’s to say the Club can’t buy justice, as well?”

Charles made no reply, because nothing he said would change the other’s mind. And at some deeper level, there was a part of him that feared that the doctor might be right, and that he himself had been inveigled by Owen North to participate in something he did not fully understand.