Sow discord, jealousy, or strife,
Among the gallant band
Who share and shield our Sporting Life,
The Charter of the Land!
Late 18th-century song in praise of the Jockey Club
As he had previously planned, Bradford took himself off the next morning to spend the day with his fiancee in Cambridge-but not before reminding Charles that they were to have dinner that night at Wolford Lodge, the home of Edith’s mother, on the Cambridge Road.
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy Edith’s stepfather,” he said as he left. “Colonel Harry Hogsworth, his name is. He has several horses at the Grange House Stable. He may be able to give us some useful information.”
Charles was breakfasting on the omelet and toast that Mrs. Hardaway had brought up for him and reading an article in the Manchester Guardian about the annulment of Alfred Dreyfus’s sentence and the order for his return from Devil’s Island to face a second court-martial at Rennes. It was a case Charles had followed since Dreyfus’s first trial in 1894, and he couldn’t help but feel both relief and dismay: relief at the hope that the French military tribunal would eventually see reason and clear Captain Dreyfus, who had so obviously been made a scapegoat; and dismay that the man would have to undergo yet another humiliating trial. The fundamental unfairness of this ugly business, this appalling miscarriage of justice, had gnawed at Charles for five long years now, but there was nothing that could be done. Events would simply have to take their course.
These thoughts were interrupted when a young man arrived, bearing a note from Admiral North. With apologies, Charles was summoned to the Club at his earliest convenience, within the hour, if at all possible. Reading the note, Charles raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t surprised that Owen North was at Newmarket, for the Jockey Club was officially headquartered here, but he was astonished at such an early-morning summons. He sent the boy back with word that he was on his way, finished his coffee, put on his hat, and set off. Out on the street, he looked up at the lowering gray clouds, turned back, and located a spare black umbrella in the stand in Mrs. Hardaway’s front hallway.
It was not quite raining, but the early June air was dense with drizzle and Charles was glad of the umbrella. As he walked, he passed a dress-shop window and noticed a blue wool shawl that made him think of Kate, the thought of her reminding him of what she had said the evening before. He frowned. Was it possible that Mrs. Langtry had connived at the theft of her jewels-and at the death of her husband? And who was this man who cared for her so passionately that he was willing to steal and kill for her?
These thoughts occupied Charles until he reached the Jockey Club, which was located in a collection of buildings that turned its back on the High Street. These headquarters, Charles knew, had begun as a coffee house, first leased by the Club in the 1750’s and expanded, with an indifferent attention to architecture, over the years. In the early 1880’s, fifty-odd bedrooms had been added to accommodate members coming for the race meetings, and also a suite of apartments for H.R.H. In addition to the buildings on the High Street, the Club had also acquired large tracts of Newmarket Heath from the private individuals who had originally owned them, and its control extended to Newmarket racecourse as well.
All these physical expansions reflected the Jockey Club’s growing authority over the Turf. In the early days and until about twenty-five years before, racing had been clouded by dishonesty, corruption, and outright crime, with crooked jockeys and stable staff manipulating the performance of horses while corrupt handicappers and race officials affected the outcomes at the course. But Lord George Bentinck had used several major scandals to tighten the Club’s procedures, Admiral Henry Rous had gone on to clean up handicapping, and by the seventies, the Club had written a set of rules that gave them almost complete control over the Turf: the authority to draw up handicaps; to manage the sums and payment of prize-money; to license officials and racecourses; and to govern conduct and punish misconduct. In fact, the only thing the Club refused to regulate was betting, which the stewards had delegated to Tattersall’s Committee a dozen or so years before, retaining only the right to deal with defaulters.
But while the Club’s rules tended toward the autocratic, the stewards themselves might tend toward the lenient, overlooking infractions when they found it politic to do so. In fact, in yesterday’s Sporting Times, Charles had read an irreverent remark to the effect that when it came to the American invasion of trainers and jockeys, the current stewards were “playing Shut-Eye” to such an extent that “they look like the three blind mice.” He wondered whether Admiral North had read that criticism, and how he might feel about it.
At the door, Charles pulled a brass bell. A footman took his umbrella and directed him upstairs, where he found Owen North behind a desk in a well-appointed office with a series of paintings of horses on the walls and an enlarged photograph of the Prince of Wales with Persimmon, who won the Derby in ’96. To Charles’s surprise, the Newmarket chief constable was there as well, perched uneasily on the edge of a chair, turning his bowler hat in his heavy hands. Jack Murray, the Club’s investigator, lounged morosely against a wall.
“Ah, Sheridan,” Admiral North said, rising and extending his hand. His face was troubled and his voice tense. “I’m sorry to bring you out so early, but we are confronted with an unfortunate bit of business.”
“Perfectly all right, Admiral,” Charles said, seating himself.
“This,” the admiral said, gesturing toward the policeman, “is Chief Constable Watson. He has brought me news of a murder in Newmarket. It seems that one of the local bookmakers, Alfred Day, was shot last night in the alleyway behind the Great Horse.”
“As it happens,” Charles said, “a boy of my acquaintance stumbled over the body and brought me word of it. I was there when the constable arrived. Bloody business, I must say.” He glanced at Watson, whose expression was unreadable. “One of your men conducted a brief investigation and the body was taken off to the surgeon’s.” He sat back, crossing his legs, thinking that with the prizefighting, wagering, and general rowdiness in the town, back-alley violence must be a regular occurrence and murders not uncommon. What did this particular death have to do with the Club-or with him?
Rubbing his chin, Owen North at last produced an answer to Charles’s unspoken question. “It’s possible, indeed, even likely, that there’s a connection between the murder of Alfred Day and the business that you and Mr. Murray are currently looking into. At my request, Chief Constable Watson has agreed to take his men off the case and turn the investigation over to you.”
Take his men off the case? Charles thought, surprised. Does the Club wield that kind of power? “I’m not sure I quite understand,” he said, with an interrogatory glance at the policeman, and waited for him to say something.
A red-haired, burly man whose nose was covered with a fine network of tiny broken veins, the chief constable looked as if he’d be much more at his ease in the back room of the Great Horse than in the offices of the Jockey Club. He regarded his hat for a moment.
“Well, sir,” he muttered, “as I told the admiral, sir, it seems as it’s got more to do with the Club than the town. In which case, sir-”
“Indeed, Watson,” the admiral said. “Very well put.” He stood and extended his hand. “Thank you for coming, and for assisting in this matter. I think we need not keep you from your duties any longer.”
“One moment, please,” Jack Murray said, stepping forward. “You’ve talked to the widow, Constable?”
“One of my men took her the news,” the chief constable said. “That was last night, right after it happened.”
“Thank you,” Murray said. He stepped back and fell silent again.
When the chief constable had gone, North sat down again. “Sorry for this, Sheridan,” he said in a low voice. “Afraid it complicates your task, rather.”
Charles regarded this as an understatement. He had hoped, after he’d obtained the bottle from Patrick and had located and spoken with the veterinary surgeon, to make his report and recommendations to the stewards and be done with the matter. An investigation into a shooting in a dark alleyway, with no suspects ready at hand, was no part of his original commitment-and it was much more than a minor complication. The silence was broken by the wheezy chime of the clock on the wall as it struck the half-hour.
“Why is it that you suspect a connection between Day’s death and the doping?” Charles finally
