“It don’t matter now,” the boy said, and dropped his head.

“It doesn’t matter?” Charles put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder, noticing for the first time the boy’s evident dejection. “Come, come, Paddy. This isn’t like you. Your information will help us get to the bottom of the doping. Why doesn’t it matter?”

Patrick looked up, blinking away tears. In a low voice, he said, “I’m to ride Gladiator in the ten-furlong handicap on Friday.”

“Hey, now!” Bradford put a lump of coal on the struggling fire and straightened up. “Why so glum, boy? Your first ride as a jockey-it’s a time for celebrating! If you were a little older, we’d pop a cork and have some bubbly.” He looked around the room. “If we had any bubbly, that is. We seem to be fresh out.”

Patrick shook his head. “No celebrating for me,” he said. “We rode trials this afternoon, and Pinkie said that Lord Hunt wants me up. But only if I promise to follow instructions.”

“I don’t see anything wrong in that,” Charles said.

“I do,” the boy said fiercely. “I know what they’ll be. I’ll be told to stop the horse. Gladiator could win that race, I know it! But he isn’t supposed to win. He’s supposed to lose.”

“Ah,” said Bradford, comprehending. “So that’s their game.”

“The game?” Charles asked, looking from one to the other. “I’m not sure I understand. Would someone explain it to me, please?”

“There’s no great mystery to it,” Bradford said, putting his hands in his pockets and backing up to the fire. “It’s a classic method of cheating, one that’s practiced all the time. The owner or the stable picks a horse and consistently runs him to lose, usually by telling the jockey to pull him, sometimes by doping him with some sedative. After running slow in a half-dozen races, the horse is low in the handicap and unbacked. Then he’s put up to win at long odds against horses he ought to be able to beat-in the case of Gladiator, by boosting him with a dose of dope. He wins, his backers clean up, and they haul their earnings home in a handcart.”

“But Gladiator didn’t win in the Derby,” Charles objected.

“No, but he might have,” Bradford responded. “If it hadn’t been for the melee at Tattenham Corner, he’d likely have beaten Flying Fox, or perhaps have finished second. You watch the postings in that ten-furlong handicap on Friday, Charles. Gladiator will be a short-odds favorite, especially with a light rider up.” He squinted at Patrick, measuring him. “What are you, Paddy? Seven stone?”

“Six stone ten,” Patrick said with a sad sort of pride. “Pinkie’s been telling me to keep myself light.”

“Right. Carrying that weight, the horse will go short odds and the stable will bet heavily against him. If Patrick does as he’s told, Gladiator will finish out of the money, and they’ll clean up again.”

“At least,” Patrick said bitterly, “I don’t have to worry that they’ll dope him to win-at least not for this race.”

“You might keep an eye out still, though,” Bradford said in a cautionary tone. “If they don’t trust you, they may dope him to lose.”

Patrick groaned.

“But don’t the stewards keep a strict control over this sort of thing?” Charles asked, with an eye on Patrick. If he was set on becoming a jockey, the lad ought to know the rules of the game-especially those that that were not in any handbook or manual. “Isn’t it the Club’s job to make sure that the horses are run fairly?”

Bradford shrugged. “That’s the beauty of putting up an inexperienced jockey. If the owner or the stable is called to account, they blame the boy. They say that he didn’t ride as he was told, or that he just didn’t know enough to get the best from the horse. They may be faulted for giving the ride to an inexperienced jockey, but they can’t be warned off for generosity.” At the look on Patrick’s face, he shrugged. “Sorry, Paddy, but that’s the way it is.”

“Maybe,” Patrick said quietly. “But it’s not the way it ought to be. Maybe I don’t want to be a jockey after all. I want to ride, but even more, I want the horse to do as well as he can. For the horse’s sake, though, not the owner or the stable. And I want the races to be fair!”

Charles put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, loving his youthful idealism, regretting that he was inevitably to be disappointed by a world in which very little happened the way it ought. “You don’t have to go back to the stable, you know,” he said softly. “You can come back with Lady Sheridan and me to Bishop’s Keep.”

Patrick looked up at him. “I’d like to, but I can’t,” he said stoutly. “I have to see that Gladiator’s safe.” He glanced at Bradford. “I thought I didn’t have to worry about doping. Now I see that I do. So I have to convince them that I’ll ride the race as I’m told.” He was silent for a moment, then broke into a sudden grin. “But you should have seen him run in the trial today, Lord Charles! He beat both Rag and Cannon, and he loved it.” The grin faded. “I wish he could win on Friday,” he said wistfully. “He would love it so.”

Charles looked at him, wishing that he could give the boy what he wanted, but knowing that he could not.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Leaving a note to let Mrs. Hardaway know that they would not require breakfast (and thereby once again thwarting the delivery of Kate’s letter), Charles and Bradford left Hardaway House well before seven on Wednesday morning, to have breakfast at the Stag Hotel with Jack Murray. Over poached eggs, broiled sheep’s kidneys, mutton chops, toast and marmalade, fresh strawberries, and coffee, they discussed the plan for the day’s investigations.

Jack Murray had not yet got a lead to Eddie Baggs, so he would continue working in that direction by questioning some of Baggs’s known associates, including both of the men in whose company he had been seen at the Great Horse on Monday night: Pinkie Duncan and Jesse Clark. Charles was not anxious to intrude on the grief of the widowed Mrs. Day, but felt it necessary to discover whether there might be anything helpful in Alfred Day’s safe. He also thought it would be useful to have a conversation with Owen North. Bradford, meanwhile, would drive to Exning for a visit with Dr. Septimus Polter. If possible, they would meet back at the Stag sometime around one o’clock and decide what directions should be pursued next.

The Alfred Day family resided at Number 32 Oxford Street, in one of a row of dignified two-story brick houses set close to the street, behind a low iron fence and a pocket garden with an ornate multi-tiered fountain in the center. The house was obviously in mourning, for straw had been laid on the street so that the family’s grief should not be disturbed by passing carts and the brass door knocker was muffled by a black wrapping and adorned with a large crape bow.

The door was opened by a shy parlor maid in a black dress and black apron, who took Charles’s hat and his card and ushered him into the sitting room. Like that in the Hogsworth home, it was crowded with furnishings, but Mrs. Day’s taste in decor ran more to family snapshots, African violets, and lace curtains than to red velvet, tiger-skin rugs, and exotic Indian souvenirs. A state photograph of the long-dead Prince Consort hung on one wall, on another two gold-rimmed plates bearing the images of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and opposite, a large photograph of the Queen in an oval frame, taken on her Jubilee. The photographs and plates were dressed in swags and bows of black crape, as were the lampshades, the potted plants, the chair backs, and the fireplace mantel. Centered on the mantel, between two black candles in gold candlesticks, stood the black-draped photograph of a prosperous-looking man, slightly above middle age, posed in front of Number 29 St. James Street, the words “Alfred Day, Racing Commissions” visible on the plate-glass window of the building behind him. He wore a gray frock coat with a pale gray top hat and an unsuitably mirthful smile on his round face. The deceased Alfred Day looked like a man who was proud of his accomplishments.