Death At Epsom Downs

getting home 108 of his 345 mounts… He often stayed the night at Regal Lodge, and it wasn’t one of the guest- rooms he slept in. Music-hall star Letty Lind sang a number which became famous as a saucy reference to Sloan’s affair with Lillie:

“Click, click, I’m a monkey up a stick,

And you must let me have my way.”

For several years… [Lillie Langtry] operated a betting-swindle, originally imparted to her by Tod Sloan, from Regal Lodge. She systematically received a flash from the course of a winner of a race the moment it passed the post, which enabled her to telegraph a big bet on the horse as if she had been on it before the off.

The Gilded Lily Ernest Dudley

For Amelia, the occasions when Lady Charles went visiting were almost like a holiday. This morning, for instance, she had only to fetch tea and the Times upstairs, assist with her mistress’s toilette, and prepare the other outfits to be worn that day-an easy matter, since her ladyship liked to dress in the morning and change only for tea and dinner if necessary-two or at the most three changes of costume, rather than the four or five changes to which other ladies were accustomed. Once these slight chores were finished, Amelia might do as she liked until required to help her mistress bathe and dress.

After the servants’ supper the evening before, Amelia had chatted with Margaret until Mrs. Langtry rang and Margaret scurried upstairs to help her mistress dress for dinner at the Rothschilds’. Then Lady Charles left for the evening. With her ladyship’s permission, Amelia locked the bedroom door and spent the best part of an hour luxuriating in a hot bath, feeling like the Queen herself, then went off to her own tiny cubicle to read.

Amelia had grown quite proficient at reading in the last several years. Her ladyship encouraged all the servants at Bishop’s Keep to read in their spare hours, even providing newspapers and books-and not religious literature, either, as did Lady Kennilworth, Amelia’s cousin’s employer, who had taught her staff to read so that they could study the gospel tracts she pressed on them. No, the books Lady Charles left on the shelf in the servants’ hall were about faraway places and exotic customs, and sometimes even novels, a few of which her ladyship had actually written herself, under the name of Beryl Bardwell. When it was first whispered that Lady Charles indeed was Beryl Bardwell, the knowledge had caused a great stir in Dedham, and some concern among the servants who had early on discovered the author’s true identity and guarded it carefully. It was now a matter of pride, however, because Beryl Bardwell had actually become quite famous, and Lady Charles was the only authoress that any of them had ever known.

But Amelia had not been reading one of her mistress’s fictions last night. She had, instead, shed many tears over the final moving chapters of George Moore’s novel, EstherWaters. As a young woman, the heroine, Esther, worked in a household entirely given over to racing. Seduced and abandoned, she was forced to go to London to give birth and courageously raised her son alone, eventually marrying the child’s father. He had become a bookmaker and was sent to prison when he was convicted of taking wagers in his pub, leaving Esther alone once more. Esther’s plight reawakened in Amelia her unhappiness about her husband’s betting. For it wasn’t just the crown Lawrence had laid and lost on Gladiator at the Derby; he fancied himself a betting man, and Amelia sighed to think of the several lost crowns that might have otherwise gone to pay for Baby’s boots.

But this was too fine an occasion to spoil with sighing. The thought of Baby’s boots led to thoughts of Baby, safe at home with Amelia’s mother, and the thought of her precious daughter sweetly smiling in her sleep chased the more anxious thoughts from Amelia’s mind. She extinguished the light and smiled herself to sleep in the quiet darkness, awakening twice: once at her ladyship’s return at midnight from her evening with Lord Charles, when she got up to make sure that nothing was wanted; and again later, at the sound of a male voice, definitely not that of the Prince of Wales. Amelia had heard that voice at Easton Lodge, and she knew she would never forget it.

Now it was morning, and after her mistress had gone to breakfast, Amelia went down the back stairs to seek out Margaret, who was in the laundry, overseeing the ironing of Mrs. Langtry’s fresh sheets.

“I’ve got nothing to do,” Amelia said. “I’d be glad to ’elp.” She was rewarded with a grateful smile and an armload of fresh towels. Margaret brought the sheets, and the two women went back up the stairs to tidy Mrs. Langtry’s bedroom.

As they made the bed, Amelia said, with a little laugh, “It’s ’ard not to think ’oo slept ’ere last night.” She gave Margaret a significant glance. “I ’eard ’em talkin’ in the ’allway.”

“Well,” Margaret said tartly, “if ye’r thinkin’ it wuz ’Is Nibs ye ’eard, ye kin think agin. ’E don’t just come an’ go when ’e comes-’e comes and stays, ’im and ’is flock of servants, all proud as peacocks and just about as useless. So it wuzn’t ’im, ’cause none of ’em was ’ere to breakfast.”

Taking her place on the opposite side of the bed, Amelia arranged her face in a creditable imitation of bewilderment. “Oh, my,” she said. “You don’t mean, she ’as another-” She stopped, to give Margaret the opportunity to finish her sentence.

Margaret obliged. “That’s eggsac’ly wot I mean,” she said grimly. “And not just one, but lots. Why, last night at nine o’clock, on ’er way to dinner wiv the Prince, she ’ad a ren-dez-vooz wiv another man, in ’er carriage. Would yer believe it? Three in one night!” She flapped the sheet in Amelia’s direction, stern disapproval written in every line of her face.

“Another man?” Amelia asked, widening her eyes in disbelief. She grasped the sheet, clean and sweet-smelling, and straightened it across the bed. “But ’oo? I mean, ’oo’s important enough to put before the Prince?”

“ ’Er bookmaker, that’s ’oo,” Margaret said, tossing her head disdainfully. “The one she cheats.” She grasped the end of the sheet and raised one corner of the mattress at the foot of the bed. “Come now, tuck it in.”

While Amelia tucked in the sheet on her side of the bed, she frowned, thinking of poor Esther Waters, who had married a bookmaker. “ ’Ow does she cheat?”

Margaret picked up the heavy gold and purple coverlet and tossed it onto the bed. “She’s got one of those newfangled telly-phones in the drawing room. Just when a race is finished, somebody at the course phones ’er with the winner. She gives ’er bet to a boy ’oo rides ’is bicycle straight to the bookie wiv it, like she’d laid it on before the off. Or sometimes she telegraphs ’er bet to London. Either way, it’s a cheat.”

Pulling the spread even on both sides, the two women tucked it under and over the pillows. “But doesn’t the bookmaker get onto ’er?” Amelia asked, straightening up. “Seems like any ninny could figure it out.” She turned to the fireplace, where the cinders of last night’s fire remained in the grate. “Would you like me to do the fireplace, Marg’ret?”

“That’ud be a ’elp.” Margaret picked up the feather duster and went to the dressing tables. “I s’pose she doesn’t get found out ’cause she doesn’t do it so very often to the same bookie.” She flicked the duster lightly over the surface. “I know ’ow it’s done,” she added, “ ’cause I ’eard ’er talking on the ’phone, and then to the boy.”

Amelia began to shovel cinders and ashes into the ash bucket. “That’s clever.” She paused. There was a piece of crumpled paper lying loose among the cinders, the edges scorched. It had apparently been saved from burning by virtue of having had wine spilled on it. Quick as thought, Amelia scooped it into the pocket of her apron.

“Clever? Mebbee.” Margaret’s voice was thick with scorn. “But she wa’n’t clever enough to think it up. That American jockey ’oo sleeps ’ere sometimes-’ee showed ’er ’ow to do it. Americans are smart when it comes to cheatin’.” She went to dust the other dressing table.

Amelia cocked her head. “I wonder why she was meeting ’er bookmaker last night. D’ye think she wanted to lay a bet?”

“Don’t be a goose,” Margaret said, picking up the towels and going into the bathroom. “If ye ask me, she ’ad other business with ’im, and it wa’n’t wagers.”

Amelia finished cleaning out the fireplace and swept the hearth. She set the bucket outside the door and went into the bathroom, where Margaret was polishing the faucets with a towel. “I just don’t see,” she said, frowning, “ ’ow any woman ’ud be daft enough to fancy a bookmaker before the Prince.”