checks the size of sixpence, with flowing silk ties as green as May and yellow posies pinned to their lapels, he wore a dignified gray frock coat with a pale gray top hat and sparkling diamond rings on both hands. Never mind that the coat was stained and missing a button and the rings most likely paste, he looked almost as fine as a gentleman.
“Sev’n to two on Ricochet,” Lawrence cried. He held up a coin. “ ’Ere ye are.” Badger’s man, a rusty little fellow with a crooked collar, held out an open satchel.
“Drop it in there,” Badger directed. “Right in there, sir. And take care o’yer ticket, or some evildoer will relieve ye of it.” Badger’s man snapped the satchel shut and scribbled in a black book. He tore out the ticket and handed it to Lawrence.
Amelia frowned as Lawrence pocketed the ticket and fell into step beside her, jaunty and proud as a peacock, now that the long-awaited transaction was over. It wasn’t so much the money she minded; they could afford to lose a crown, if it came to that, although she hoped it wouldn’t, with Baby at home needing new boots. But she’d been raised by Scripture and had been taught that betting was against God’s law. It was against common sense, too, as she knew for herself. At the pub where she and Lawrence stopped on their nights out, she’d seen Mr. Starkey, who earned ten shillings a week, lay down five on a horse while eight little Starkeys shivered at home for want of coal. And Mrs. Hartop, the old woman who swept Dedham High Street for nine shillings a week, was regular with her half-crown though she couldn’t pay the butcher. Betting took money from the poor, Amelia did not doubt, and the parson was right to bang on his drum and shout out its evils, even though not a soul was listening.
But Lady Charles Sheridan, whom Amelia served as lady’s maid, had given her a holiday today, and Amelia was carrying a ruffled white sunshade and wearing her best sprigged muslin with a blue shawl and white cotton gloves. Her own Lawrence, dressed in a fine gray coat and bright blue trousers, had been given the important job of helping Lord Charles Sheridan photograph the finish of the Derby Stakes. And since men had laid down their money since the beginning of time and would go on laying it down whether their wives wished it or not, the practical Amelia set her qualms aside and happily applied herself to the enjoyment of the Derby, counting the crown that Lawrence had dropped into the bookmaker’s satchel as the price of their admission.
But behind all the revelry, above the music, beneath all the whooping and cheering of the great, noisy mob, she could hear Badger’s stentorian voice behind her: “On th’ Derby ’ere! On th’ Derby! Bet th’ Derby now!”
CHAPTER TWO
He was dubbed the Lord Chesterfield, but a better name would be the Tallyrand, of the Ring. A list of his smart sayings would choke up the British Museum, and I never saw him nonplussed but once, and that was when a railway guard wanted two points over the odds. Well do I remember the first wager I had with him. “Take care of your ticket, sir,” he chanted in his most dulcet tones, “or some evil-doer will relieve you of it.” The last time the chant was in the minor key. “Here! Take your bloomin’ custom somewhere else: I’m tired of payin’ you!”… When the history of this man comes to be written, it will be told how he defied the Stewards of the Jockey Club on their native heath and played the noble game of spoof with Her Majesty’s police.
Edward Spencer Mott, quoted in Old Pink ’Un Days J. B. Booth
For his part, Alfred Day, also known as Badger, was having a fine Derby. He looked well, he felt well, and Sobersides, his clerk, was holding a bulging satchel. And why shouldn’t he feel well and happy with his lot in life? Over the past half-dozen years, Badger’s various enterprises-some of them legal, some of them not-had prospered. The bookmaking business, which had begun as a convenient front for his other activities, had particularly flourished. In addition to his Newmarket headquarters, he had opened two other offices in London, and he now employed several men to take wagers for him at the track.
But the fact that Badger could hire helpers didn’t mean that he might absent himself from the Ring. No, indeed. No matter how much money he might make or how much leisure it might buy, he preferred to be where the action was. And what sweeter action might there be in this world than wagering on the Derby, the blue ribbon of the Turf, the grandest event in racing? He raised his hand in a commanding gesture. “Bet on the Derby!” he cried. “Bet on the Derby here!”
A young gentleman stepped out of the crowd in front of him. “Ah, there you are, Badger,” he said expansively, and Badger saw that he was a little drunk. “Mrs. Lillie Langtry would like to put a hundred more on Gladiator. What’re the odds, my good man?”
“The odds, m’lord,” Badger said, “are 66 to 1.” He pursed his lips. He’d studied the form, of course, and hadn’t seen any reason to offer anything more favorable on the unspectacular colt, a lazy runner who’d finished at the back of the field in all but one of his previous outings-so poor a show that one had to wonder why Lord Hunt had bothered to enter him. Even so, there had been quite a run on the outsider in the last hour. The horse’s owner had bet heavily, and the stable, too, followed by several other large wagers. Badger had already begun to think that a game of one sort or another was afoot-and now came Mrs. Langtry with yet another wager. It was enough to raise a bookmaker’s suspicions.
Still, it was out of the question to reject Mrs. Langtry’s custom, even though she had not yet settled her losses from Kempton Park. There was the matter of her occasional cheating too, which she thought he didn’t notice-this time, at least, her bet was placed before the starting bell rang. But while Badger was generally a careful man and kept a close eye on accounts, these issues were of little consequence in the case of Mrs. Langtry, for he was comfortably aware that he had the ability, any time he chose, to require her to settle-and more, too, much more. He’d only been waiting for the propitious moment, when she might feel a compelling reason to do business with him. The thought of this made him quite cheerful, and he nodded shortly at his clerk, who wrote the wager in his black book and tore out a ticket.
“Take care of the ticket, m’lord,” Badger said, offering his ritual caution, “or some evildoer will relieve you of it.”
Lord de Bathe, that silly young fool, took off his top hat and made a great show of sticking the ticket in the band. “And what evildoer,” he asked with a tipsy laugh, “would have the galling effrontery to steal from the most beautiful woman in England?”
Badger bowed. “The odds might be high, m’lord,” he said with a smile, “but one never knows.”
“Well, I’ll give you a tip you can lay on, Badger.” Lord de Bathe jammed his hat crookedly on his head. “I’m going to ask our fair Lillie to marry me. What odds’ll you give on her yes?”
“Oh, I never lay on a sure thing,” Badger said, without hesitation. “But I will say congratulations and well done, my lord,” he added, doffing his hat with a flourish. “Very well done indeed.”
Yes, it was well done, Badger thought, watching the young lord weave his unsteady way through the crowd-at least on Mrs. Langtry’s part. And unless he was mistaken, her coming marriage might bode well for himself, too. Perhaps that propitious moment had arrived.
CHAPTER THREE
