It was. But Murray, a man of many talents, took a ring of keys from his pocket and, on the third try, unlocked the door. The hinges creaked when he pushed it open and he hallooed loudly, waited a moment, listening, then hallooed again.
“Doesn’t seem to be anyone here, sir,” he said, and Charles followed him into the gloomy interior.
They had entered a dark, narrow hallway. There was a closed door on the right, with a sign that said Office, Private and another at the end of the hall, standing open. Charles stepped past Murray, through the open door and into a spacious room, quite elegantly furnished: the Newmarket headquarters of Alfred Day, Bookmaker.
Murray entered behind Charles. “Well,” he remarked, “this is a bit of all right, wouldn’t you say, sir? Badger’s done quite well for himself.”
On the way to St. James Street, Murray had told Charles what he had learned about Alfred Day, with whom the investigator had been slightly acquainted before he retired from the Yard. Badger had been variously employed before he transformed himself into a bookmaker, most of his business being conducted on the shady side of the law. Day’s father and brother had been Newmarket pawnbrokers, and Badger had started in that business, opening a pawnshop of his own in London. It wasn’t long before the enterprising young fellow had branched out into the fencing of stolen goods and occasionally into outright theft. But Badger was also clever, and although he was occasionally picked up for questioning, he managed to keep himself from prosecution. He was adept at gaming, too, and regularly frequented the Hotel Metropole, where the smart and sporting sets gathered in the casino and billiards room. He won and lost a great deal of money there, on the fringes of several substantial frauds.
But after a number of years in London, Badger seemed to have determined on a different course. He returned to Newmarket, married a draper’s widow with a bit of money of her own, and set himself up as a bookmaker, catering to the fashionable crowd while making himself available to all sorts. The competition was challenging, since there were already a great many established bookmakers in town, but he had immediately flourished, quickly expanding his business to include a variety of wagering activities. Within three years of leaving London, Alfred Day was accounted one of the three or four leading bookmakers in Newmarket.
When Charles expressed surprise at Mr. Day’s speedy success, Murray offered the opinion that it was partly due to his reputation for honesty-that is, he was not known to have welshed on a bet-and partly to his having taken on as his partner a certain Eddie Baggs, from Brighton. Baggs, who apparently knew a very great deal about horses, proved to have a genius for numbers and understood the mechanics of making book to show a profit. While Badger might have been somewhat less gifted than Baggs in the fine art of making book, he had proved to be an astute businessman, demonstrating a great skill in manipulating his competitors. The partnership had proved to be a success. Within the first year Badger and Baggs had bought up the businesses of several of their smaller competitors, adding that custom to their own. By the second year, they had established a second office in London - and neither were hole-in-the-corner affairs, either, where fugitive betting was carried out by weasel-faced clerks. These were fashionable offices, located in areas frequented by smart people, where the swells could gather, smoke their cigars, and exchange racing tips and tidbits.
The Newmarket office was of this sort, Charles saw, as he looked around. The room was dark, but enough light filtered through the draperies over the front window to see that it was carpeted and furnished as a gentleman’s club, with large sofas and stuffed chairs, elegant mahogany breakfronts and bookcases, tables and chairs for gaming and other tables and chairs for catered meals. The walls were hung with gilt-framed paintings of horses and various landscapes and portraits, the high ceiling sparkled with crystal chandeliers, and the lingering odor of cigar smoke hung on the air. The whole interior spoke of gentlemanly leisure and luxury and good taste. Whatever the actual condition of his financial affairs, Mr. Alfred Day had at least succeeded in making a great show of success.
But the room was empty, and Charles could see there was nothing more to be learned beyond the general impression. Back in the hall, he tapped on the door marked Office. Hearing nothing, he opened it.
This room was far more utilitarian than the club room in the front. There was a large blackboard on one wall, scrawled with hierglyphics that Charles could not read; the other walls were papered with calendars of sporting events and announcements of various kinds. There was a desk, a wooden cabinet, and bookcase.
But these things were not what caught and held Charles’s attention. It was the litter of papers on the floor; the desk and cabinet drawers pulled out, and spilled; the books torn and tossed; the two overturned chairs; and the general chaos that had resulted from a violent and haphazard ransacking by someone who was bent on destruction.
Behind Charles, Jack Murray made a low, growling noise.
“Yes,” Charles said without turning. “It appears that someone was here before us.”
“D’you suppose Sobersides is up there?” Murray asked. He nodded toward a steep, open flight of stairs, almost like a ladder, at the back of the room. “Shall I have a quick look, sir? He might be dead.”
“He might be alive,” Charles said, “and armed. We’ll both go.” Carrying his stick, he climbed the stairs. At the top, he put his hat on the stick and lifted it just above the level of the opening in the floor. When nothing happened, he withdrew his hat and climbed up onto the second floor, which proved to be an open loft, with windows at either end.
There was no need for caution, he saw immediately, for the loft room had no human occupant, alive or dead. There was a bed in one corner, the covers flung back, and a square deal table by one window, in the center of which stood an unlit paraffin lamp with a dirty chimney. On the table were the remains of a shepherd’s pie and an empty bottle of ale.
Murray went to a wooden dresser and pulled open the drawers, revealing a jumble of shirts and stockings and underclothing, then to a makeshift corner closet, where he jerked aside the hanging sheet to reveal a well-worn black coat and two pairs of black trousers. An empty satchel and a pair of Wellingtons sat beneath.
“Doesn’t look like he took his clothes,” Murray remarked. “Either he left in a hurry, or he means to come back.”
Back downstairs, Charles poked around in the litter of papers and torn books. There was a small safe in the corner, gaping open. If it had once contained ledger books or the records of betting transactions, they had vanished.
Murray looked around with a frown. “I’d say, sir, that we’re left with a question or two. D’you suppose Badger was killed because he failed to pay up on a bet?”
“It’s possible,” Charles said. “It’s equally possible that he was killed because he wanted to collect. But I doubt if we’ll find any answers here.” He took out his watch. “I’m off to visit the doctor who has possession of Badger’s body. Why don’t you see what you can learn about Sobersides, and where he might have gone? Baggs, too-we’ll certainly want to have a word with him. And anything you might discover about how our victim spent his evening will no doubt be useful. I suppose we shall want to interview the widow.”
Murray nodded, agreeing. “I doubt if she knew much about his business, though. Women don’t, as a rule.”
Charles glanced at his watch. “Shall we say two o’clock, then? At the pub across from the clock tower?”
“Two o’clock,” Murray said. He was almost smiling. “Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
[James Todhunter Sloan] rode throughout the whole of the 1899 season in England,
