Bertie and the Tinman, page 9
As Myrtle eased the corset over her hips and stepped out of it, she offered, “I could try and find out, if you want.”
“When will you see the Squire again?”
“Tomorrow.”
At this juncture in the proceedings, my concentration wavered. It’s no secret that I’ve battled gamely all my life with mixed success against my amorous nature. The sight of Myrtle in chemise and drawers would have made a saint think twice about paradise, but I had more to endure than the visual provocation, for she had hitched her thumbs under my braces and slipped them off my shoulders. The borrowed trousers dropped like a flag at sunset.
She commented, “Nice underwear. Why don’t you take it off?”
“I don’t trust your cockatoo.”
She shook with laughter. “Oh, Bertie, he only takes cigarettes!” She wrenched off her remaining clothes and stood gloriously, glowingly naked. “Come to bed as you are, then.”
Such cheek. Such cheeks.
The cultured element among my readers will be relieved to learn that I didn’t do quite as the lady suggested. I first removed my boots.
How long it was before we were interrupted, I cannot say, except that it was not long enough, either for Myrtle or for me. There had been steps on the stairs several times already, so we paid no attention to a particularly heavy-footed approach until the door was thrust open without even the courtesy of a knock and someone staggered in, collided with Cocky’s perch and knocked it over and crashed on me like the Tay Bridge.
Myrtle, heaven knows how, managed to squirm from under me and ignite the lamp. The cockatoo, quite berserk, was on the pillow pecking tufts of my beard. The intruder was lying across my back in a posture I shall not attempt to describe.
When the light came on and Myrtle bravely removed the bird, I managed to extricate myself. Our uninvited guest was fortunately not a heavy man.
In fact, he was a famous gentleman rider. We both knew him.
“The Squire!” whispered Myrtle.
He opened his eyes and said, “Where am I, Marlborough bloody House?”
Then he shut them again. He was as drunk as the moon in a puddle.
CHAPTER 9
Considering my situation at the end of the last chapter, it may surprise you to learn that I duly attended the Wellington Statue Committee meeting on Saturday morning. I have always been punctilious in attendance to my duties. Ich Dien, as you probably know, is the motto of the Prince of Wales. I serve, no matter what has occurred the night before, never ceasing to amaze my intimates when I rise early after a demanding night. But there’s nothing remarkable in it. With me, it comes down to priorities—generally, pressure on the bladder.
This was the committee’s first opportunity to examine the plaster models submitted by the sculptors. After a couple of hours, dusty debate over whether the likeness to Wellington mattered more than the anatomy of the horse, we chose Mr. Boehm’s design and adjourned to brush the plaster off our suits. The momentous decision as to which direction the statue should face was postponed until the following Saturday, when we agreed to reconvene at Hyde Park Corner. Such are the great affairs of state which occupy me. Prime Ministers of each persuasion, Disraeli and Gladstone, have repeatedly urged the Queen to initiate me into the responsibilities to which I am heir. I am still not permitted to see the contents of a Foreign Office dispatch box. Every impediment possible is put in the way of my travels. “Any encouragement of his constant love of running about,” Mama wrote to Disraeli, “and not keeping at home, or near the Queen, is earnestly and seriously to be deprecated.” Yet what incentive am I given to keep at home?
When the meeting was over, I told my coachman that I had some shopping to do in Jermyn Street, and after he had conveyed me there I would not require him to wait. He’s a trusted servant, totally discreet. How one relies upon such people! Many’s the time he’s driven me to addresses I wouldn’t care to see printed in the Court Circular.
Charlie Buckfast opened his own front door this time, and I don’t mind admitting that I chuckled at the sight of him, for I’d caught him repairing his mustache. One side was waxed, and the other hung limp.
I said, “Is it as late as that?”
He didn’t understand.
I said, “Your face is at half past three.”
Once inside, I settled into one of his leather armchairs and allowed him to continue with the repairs while I gave an account of the night’s adventure. In all important respects, it was a truthful account. If you notice any small discrepancies in what follows, it is because I have always believed that good taste ought to govern one’s conversation.
“Once I had escorted Miss Bliss back to her lodgings,” I explained, “I commenced to examine her—in the legal sense of the word, you understand. That, after all, was my reason for being there.”
Buckfast stood in front of his sideboard mirror combing the unkempt half of his mustache. “That goes without saying, sir.”
“Naturally, Charlie.”
His eyes met mine through the mirror. “And was she . . . forthcoming, sir?”
“My word, yes—it was give-and-take for the best part of an hour, Charlie.”
“Did something emerge?”
I gave a sniff. “I rather think that your wax is becoming overheated.”
He snatched up the fireplace tongs and rescued the tin from the edge of the grate.
I told him as he teased out the whiskers again and twisted them, “Myrtle and I were rudely interrupted in the middle of our exchange. Someone burst through the door, staggered across the room and fell onto the bed.”
“Good Lord! That must have been uncomfortable, sir.”
I said with emphasis, “I got up from the chair where I was seated and went to the bed to protest. The man was obviously drunk, as one would expect. But I did not expect to recognize him, Charlie. It was Abington Baird, the Squire.”
Buckfast turned from the mirror, and the mustache sagged again. “But how on earth . . . ?”
“He’d made an arrangement to meet Myrtle on Saturday, and she assumed he meant Saturday night, after she finished her music hall engagements. She wasn’t prepared for the small hours of Saturday morning, and nor was I. I mean, one simply doesn’t blunder into a lady’s room like that in the middle of the night. It’s not as if it were a house party.”
“Outrageous,” Buckfast agreed. “Did he recognize you?”
“Oh, yes. He wasn’t that inebriated.”
“What did you do, sir?”
“What did I do? My first instinct was to leave at once. Heaven only knows what a scoundrel like Baird would make of one’s predicament, however innocent the explanation. Then I had a second thought. Up to this moment, I’d been extremely reluctant to confront the fellow, whatever his involvement in the Archer mystery. Now, I had the advantage of him. For once, he was away from his gang of roughs and pugilists. Like most bullies, he’s a different man deprived of his support. I told Myrtle to bring me the jug of water on the washstand. She was splendid. She knew what to do.”
“Tipped it over the Squire?”
“The lot. Sobered him up in seconds.”
“Stout work! Was he willing to answer questions?”
“Willing is not the word I would use. He was persuaded.”
Buckfast gave one of his rare smiles. “A little arm-twisting, sir?”
“No, no. I abhor violence. I gave him a cigarette and stepped back like a bombardier.” I grinned, but Buckfast was slow to comprehend, so I explained, “Cocky the cockatoo performed his music hall turn.”
“Ah.”
“The Squire cooperated splendidly after that.”
“So you were enabled to question him about the Cambridgeshire?”
“I was. First, I confirmed that it was true that he won all that money on The Sailor Prince.”
Buckfast remarked without much tact, “I thought everyone in London knew about that.”
“Captain, any detective worth his salt checks everything at the source.”
He colored perceptibly.
“I proceeded to ask what caused him to repose such confidence in a horse at 25-1. He gave an offensive laugh. I’ve never been so close to the man before. He has a profoundly disagreeable countenance, Charlie. Those thick lips like saveloys under that snub nose. Quite revolting.”
“What was his answer, sir?”
“He said he’d heard that I backed The Sailor Prince myself. I told him my reasons were entirely sentimental, making clear by implication that his were not.”
“How did he respond to that?”
“With an enormous belch.”
“How disgusting!”
“Quite.”
“Did you persist, sir?”
“Of course, Charlie. I’m a serious investigator. I asked Myrtle to bring Cocky’s perch a little closer to the bed, and that worked wonders. The Squire told me that The Sailor Prince had been showing better staying power in training this season than it had ever possessed before. It was a revelation. William Stevens, the Compton trainer, couldn’t explain it, but he had the sense to keep its form from the touts.”
“Stevens? I can believe it,” said Buckfast. “The Stevens brothers are up to every kind of trick.”
“They entered it for the Liverpool Summer Cup and told the jockey to drop in on the rails behind the leader and not try anything spectacular. The Sailor Prince finished well up in third, behind the two dead heaters, but it could have won at a canter, given its head.”
“So it didn’t attract much attention.”
“Exactly, Charlie. They didn’t race it again before the Cambridgeshire.”
There was a pause while Buckfast once more performed the twisting operation. He faced me, fingers pinching the spike into shape. “Is that approximately even, sir?”
I nodded, and he applied the wax.
Finally he turned from the mirror fully restored and remarked, “When you said ‘they’ didn’t race the horse again before the Cambridgeshire, who exactly did you mean, sir?”
Charlie Buckfast was nobody’s fool.
I told him, “That’s the crux of it. When the Squire was speaking about the way the horse was prepared for the race, he didn’t use they, he used we. The first time I remarked on this, he told me he kept some horses of his own with Stevens, and he regarded the Yews at Compton as a home away from home. He said he’d often watched The Sailor Prince at work.”
“Who is the registered owner, sir?”
“William Gilbert, of Ilsley.”
“Ah.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know that he’s a neighbor of the Stevens brothers.”
“Well, you’ve obviously worked it out,” I said. “The real owner of The Sailor Prince is the Squire, and it’s registered in Gilbert’s name.”
Buckfast was impressed. “Did you get him to admit as much, sir?”
“With a little help from Cocky. He has scores of horses registered in other people’s names, and pays handsomely for the privilege.”
“That’s a tremendous risk, isn’t it? He could be disbarred from racing if the stewards got to hear of it.”
“Yes, but remember what happened the last time he was warned off.”
(Here, I’d better supply the story, for although it’s well known in Turf circles, I doubt if it will pass down into history. The Squire, like his idol, Archer, is an aggressive, not to say ruthless, rider. His behavior on and off the racecourse has made him countless enemies among the racing fraternity, and no wonder, for when he isn’t showing the way home to their horses, he’s gallivanting with their wives, most of whom go quite giddy over him—or, more likely, his millions. Matters came to a head in a Hunters’ Selling Flat Race at Birmingham in 1882, when the Squire won at a canter and was accused of foul riding by the rider who had finished last, and happened to be Lord Harrington. The Squire had apparently made abusive remarks about Harrington’s riding and threatened to put him over the rails. When it was over and Harrington protested, the Squire said, “I thought you were a bloody farmer.” As a consequence, he was reported to the Jockey Club and we decided to teach the blighter a lesson. We warned him off every course in the country for two years. How do you think he responded? He had the infernal cheek to let it be known that he proposed to buy the Limekilns—the gallops at Newmarket that are the finest anywhere, and practically hallowed ground. We in the Jockey Club were horrified at the prospect. Imagine this outlaw in a position to dictate which trainers used the gallops. He might have fenced the Limekilns off, or even plowed them up! We were compelled to enter clandestine negotiations with the Squire to secure the lease on terms that wouldn’t beggar the club, and of course, he was reinstated before his ban was up.)
Buckfast said, “I daresay he secretly bought The Sailor Prince during the time he was warned off. It repaid him handsomely.”
He poured me a glass of dry sherry and asked what else I’d learned from the Squire.
I responded judiciously, picking my way with care. I had a job for Buckfast that he might not welcome. I’m not renowned for my tact, but I felt some subtlety was wanted here. “He spoke up for Archer, wouldn’t hear a blessed word against him. He said Fred had nothing to be ashamed of over the running of the Cambridgeshire. That rumor Lord Edward Somerset is putting about, to the effect that Fred paid a bribe to stop the favorite, Carlton, is a diabolical slander, in the Squire’s opinion. Fred was offered the ride on Carlton, and he turned it down because he was convinced St. Mirin was the better horse.”
“He’s right about that,” Buckfast conceded. “Fred thought he was on a certainty.”
I continued in the same vein, “The Squire said he had a friendly exchange with Archer on the day of the race. Archer advised him strongly to back St. Mirin.”
Buckfast put aside his sherry as if it were poisoned.
“Charlie, you look skeptical,” I said. “As a matter of fact, Fred gave me the same tip.”
He cleared his throat in a way that signaled disagreement.
“Out with it, man,” I said.
“Well, sir, I have no doubt that Fred gave you a tip, but I question whether he was so generous to the Squire. They were not the bosom friends that the Squire would have you believe.”
“The Squire was Fred’s protégé,” I pointed out. “Have you forgotten the riding lessons?”
“The most expensive riding lessons I ever heard of. Purely a business arrangement,” said Buckfast dismissively. “The Squire paid well, and Fred was never averse to earning some extra.”
“Fred in his capacity as the Tinman,” said I.
“Exactly.”
I remarked as if the thought had just occurred to me, “Wasn’t there talk a year or two ago of Archer and the Squire going into partnership in Newmarket? A joint racing establishment?”
Buckfast winced as if I’d struck him. “The talk was all on one side, sir. Fred would never have sullied his reputation in such an ill-starred venture. He was furious with the Squire for putting the story about. People believed it, unfortunately. The Duke of Portland was one.”
“Silly arse,” I said. (Arthur Portland had acted prematurely when he heard the gossip and ordered Archer to send back his cap and jacket. Fred never rode in the Portland colors again.) “What you’re saying is that the Squire was an embarrassment to Fred. Last night, he was claiming to be his one true friend.”
“That’s utter bilge—begging your pardon, sir.”
I said teasingly, “Do I detect some personal animus here, Charlie?”
He answered, “I have never met the Squire, sir. I have always contrived to keep out of his way. I doubt if he’s aware of my existence.”
“Perfect,” I said, and never meant it more sincerely, “because I want you to follow him.”
His face was a study. I could have thrown a penny into his mouth. “Follow him?”
“Go to the places he frequents. They shouldn’t be difficult to locate. The Greyhound at Newmarket is one. Romano’s in the Strand is another. Where there’s a barney going on, it’s ten to one you’ll find the Squire and his crew. Have another glass of sherry, Charlie. You look as if you need it.”
He said, grappling with the unthinkable, “What would be my purpose in being there?”
“It stands out, doesn’t it, Charlie? The Squire isn’t being honest with us. You just told me he was talking utter bilge. We can’t let him get away with it, can we?”
Buckfast rubbed the side of his chin and wetted his lips. “I suppose if you think he had some influence on Fred’s suicide, sir . . .”
I said, “Never mind what I think. What do you think?”
After a moment’s consideration, he answered, “He’s a dangerous man.”
“Undeniably.”
“And it isn’t just the Squire. There are all those others—Charlie Mitchell, Jem Smith—men whose profession is physical violence. They follow him everywhere. You must have seen them on the racecourse, sir.”
“I saw them in the City Road last night,” I told him.
“They were there?”
“Waiting under a lamppost for the Squire to complete his assignation with Myrtle. She spotted them from the window, at least a dozen of the ugliest specimens of humanity I have ever seen. It was quite impossible for me to return to Marlborough House, as I intended.”
“What did you do?”
“I remained there all night.”
“With Myrtle and the Squire?”
“Not with the Squire. After an hour, we encouraged him to leave. I helped him downstairs and bolted the door after him. It was the only possible course of action. His mob cheered him raucously when he appeared, and presently moved off, thank heavens.”
“But you remained?”
“Solely to protect a lady at risk, Charlie. I don’t underestimate these ruffians, and neither must you.”
