Thoroughbreds Part 10

She's cleverer than her father."

Crane sat for an hour. Porter had vanished from the landscape, but still the Banker's thoughts clung to his personality as though the peeping eyes saw nothing else.

From the time of the first loan obtained upon Ringwood, Crane had coveted the place. It appealed to him with its elm-bordered, sweeping driveway, leading from gate to old colonial residence. Its thick-gra.s.sed fields and running water made it just the place for a man who tempered his pa.s.sion for racing with common sense. And it would pa.s.s from Porter's hands right enough--Crane knew that. Porter might call it ill luck, but he, Crane the Banker, knew it was the lack of something, the inability to make money.

"Made music to me on Crusader." Yes, that was it. With the Porters it was jingle of spurs, and stride of the horse. All very fine in theory, but racing, as he looked at it, was a question of proper odds, and many other things connected with the betting ring.

Why did the girl, Allis, with her jingling verse creep into his mind.

Perhaps it was because she was so different from the woman who was always steeped in stephanotis. Of the one there was only the memory of an unmodulated voice and oppressive perfume; in truth, of the other there was not much more--just a pair of big, blue-gray, honest eyes, that somehow stared at him fearlessly, and withal with a great sweetness.

Crane suddenly chuckled in dry disapprobation of himself. Grotesquely enough, all at once he remembered that he was forty--that very day forty. He ran his hand over his waistcoat, dipped two fingers into the pocket and drew out a cigar. Ordinarily the face of an alabaster Buddha was mobile and full of expression compared with Crane's. His mind worked behind a mask, but it worked with the clean-cut precision of clockwork.

When his thoughts had crystallized into a form of expression, Crane was very apt to be exactly right in his deductions.

Save for the curling smoke that streamed lazily upward from his cigar one might have thought the banker fast asleep in his chair, so still he sat, while his mind labored with the quiescent velocity of a spinning top. He had won a big stake over Lauzanne's victory. The race had helped beggar Porter, and brought Ringwood nearer his covetous grasp. If Porter failed to win the Eclipse, his finances would be in a pitiable state; he might even have to sell his good filly Lucretia. That would be a golden opportunity.

From desiring the farm, insensibly Crane drifted into coveting the mare.

He fell to wondering whether The Dutchman might not beat Lucretia. A question of this sort was one of the few he discussed with Langdon.

Crane had smoked his cigar out, had settled the trend of many things, and developed the routine for his chessmen.

"I'll give Porter rope enough, in the way of funds, to tangle himself, and in the meantime I'll run up to New York and see what Langdon thinks about The Dutchman," was the shorthand record of his thoughts as he threw away the end of his cigar, took his hat, and pa.s.sed out of the bank.

That evening he talked with his trainer.

"What should win the Eclipse, Langdon?" he asked.

"Well, I don't know what'll start," began the Trainer, with diplomatic caution, running over in his mind the most likely twoyear-olds.

"Would Porter's mare have a chance?"

"I think she would. I hear somethin' about a trial she gave them good enough to win--if I could find out her time--Porter don't talk much, an'

Andy Dixon's like a clam. There's a boy in the stable, Shandy, that I might pump--"

"Don't bother, Mr. Langdon; I dislike prying into anybody's business."

The Trainer stared, but he didn't know that Porter had told Crane all about the trial, and so the latter could afford to take a virtuous pose.

"Has The Dutchman a look in?" continued Crane.

"On his runnin' he has; he wasn't half fit, an' got as bad a ride as ever I see in my life. The race ought to be between 'em--I ain't seen no two-year-olds out to beat that pair."

"If I thought The Dutchman would win I'd buy him. I like game horses, and men, too--that'll take the gaff and try."

"I don't know as the owner'd sell him."

"Do you remember the buying of Silver Foot, Langdon?"

"Yes."

"He was a good horse."

"The best handicap horse in the country, an' he was sold for a song--seven thousand."

"Less than that, the first time," corrected Crane.

"Yes, they stole him from old Walters; made him believe the horse was no good."

"Just so," commented Crane; "I've heard that story," and his smooth, putty-like face remained blank and devoid of all meaning, as his eyes peered vacantly over their lower lids at the Trainer.

Langdon waited for the other to continue, but the Banker seemed wrapped up in a retrospect of the Silver Foot deal.

"I know Billy Smith, that trains The Dutchman," hazarded Langdon; "he's a boozer."

"I'm glad of that--I mean, that you know Smith," declared Crane. "I happen to know the owner--his name is Baker. His racing is what might be called indiscriminate, and like men of that cla.s.s he sometimes blunders upon a good horse without knowing it; and I doubt very much but that if he knew all about the other race--how bad Lauzanne really is; how the mare, Lucretia--well--got shut off, and couldn't get through her horses, say--of course his own trainer, Smith, would have to tell these things, you understand. In fact, if he knew the exact truth, he might take a reasonable offer for The Dutchman."

Langdon nodded approvingly. He loved his subtle master; cards up his sleeves tingled his nerves, and loaded dice were a joy for evermore.

Crane proceeded to unwind the silken cord. "Naturally Smith would hate to lose a fair horse out of his stable, and would, perhaps, attempt to thwart any deal; so I think you might remunerate him for his loss."

"When Silver Foot was sold, they gave him a bad trial before the sale--"

"I'm not interested in Silver Foot," interrupted Crane; "and I shouldn't like to have anything--well, I don't want my name a.s.sociated with anything shady, you understand, Langdon? You are to buy The Dutchman as cheap as you can, and run him as your own horse in the Eclipse. I think Porter's mare will win it, so we needn't lose anything over The Dutchman."

Langdon started. With all his racing finesse he was a babe. The smooth, complacent-faced man in front of him made him realize this.

"But," he gasped, "there was a row over Lauzanne's race. If The Dutchman runs in my name, an' a lot o' mugs play him--it's dollars to doughnuts they will--an' he gets beat, there'll be a kick. I can't take no chances of bein' had up by the Stewards."

"Wait a bit," replied Crane, calmly. "Supposing Porter's mare worked five and a half furlongs in 1.07, how would she go in the Eclipse?"

"She'd win in a walk; unless The Dutchman was at his best when he might give her an argument."

"Well, if I thought The Dutchman could beat the mare, I'd make him win, if he never carried the saddle again," declared Crane, almost fiercely.

Then he interrupted himself, breaking off abruptly. Very seldom indeed it was that Crane gave expression to sentiment; his words were simply a motor for carrying the impact of his well-thought-out plans to the executive agents. "It will be doing Porter a good turn to-to-that is, if Lucretia wins. I fancy he needs a win. Bad racing luck will hardly stop the mare this time--not twice in succession you know, Langdon," and he looked meaningly at his jackal. "You buy The Dutchman, and be good to him."

He laid marked emphasis on the words "be good to him." The trainer understood. It meant that he was to send The Dutchman to the post half fit, eased up in his work; then the horse could try, and the jockey could try, and, in spite of it all, the fast filly of Porter's would win, and his subtle master, Crane, would have turned the result to his own benefit. Why should he reason, or object, or counterplot, or do anything but just follow blindly the dictates of this past master in the oblique game he loved so well? Crane wanted The Dutchman because he was a good horse; he also wanted to have a heavy plunge on Lucretia; but with the son of Hanover in other hands the good thing might not come off. Somehow Langdon felt miserably inefficient in the presence of Crane--his self-respect suffered; the other man's mind was so overmastering, even to detail. The Trainer felt a sudden desire to right himself in Crane's estimation, give some evidence of ordinary intelligence, or capability to carry out his mission. "If The Dutchman's owner was made to think that the horse was likely to break down, throw a splint, or--"

But Crane interrupted him in his quiet, masterful way, saying: "I know nothing of horse trading; I simply furnish the money, loan it to you, my dear Mr. Langdon, and you buy the animal in your own best way. You will pay for him with a check on my bank." No man could close out an interview so effectually as Crane. As Langdon slipped away as though he had been thrust bodily from the room, there was in his mind nothing but admiration of his master--the man who backed up his delicate diplomacy with liberal capital.

In spite of what he had said to Langdon, there was little doubt in Crane's mind but that the son of Hanover was a better horse than Lucretia. A sanguine owner--even Porter was one at times--was so apt to overrate everything in his own stable, especially if he had bred the animal himself, as Porter had Lucretia. To buy The Dutchman and back him on such short owners.h.i.+p to beat Lucretia would have been the policy of a very ordinary mind indeed; he would simply be fencing, with rapiers of equal length, with John Porter.

Crane had attained to his success by thinking a little deeper than other men, going a little beyond them in the carefulness of his plans. He knew intuitively--in fact Porter's unguarded conversation had suggested it--that Lucretia's owner meant to win himself out of his difficult position by backing the little mare heavily for the Eclipse, expecting to get his money on at good odds. By owning The Dutchman Crane could whipsaw the situation; forestall Porter in the betting by backing Lucretia down to a short price himself, and have Jakey Faust lay with a full vigor against the Hanover colt. He would thus confine Porter to stake money, and Ringwood would still lie chained to his bank by the golden links he had forged on the place.

Almost insensibly, side by side with this weed of villainy there was growing in Crane's mind a most peculiar flower of sentiment, a love blossom. Strive as he would--though the apathy of his rebellion somewhat startled him--Crane could not obliterate from his thoughts the wondrous gray eyes of Allis Porter. Even after Langdon was gone, the atmosphere of the room still smirched by unholy underplay, thoughts of the girl came to Crane, jostling and elbowing the evil conceptions of his restless mind. Grotesquely incongruous as it was, Crane was actually in love; but the love flower, pure enough in itself, had rooted in marvelous ground. His pa.s.sion was absolutely love, nothing else--love at first sight. But he was forty, and the methods of that many years must still govern his actions. Instinctively he felt that he must win the girl by diplomacy; and Crane's idea of diplomacy was to get a man irrevocably in his power. If John Porter were indebted to him beyond redemption, if he practically owned Ringwood, why should he not succeed with Allis? All his life he had gone on in just that way, breaking men, for broken men were beyond doubt but potter's clay.

Langdon bought The Dutchman. What methods he employed Crane took no pains to discover; in fact, stopped Langdon abruptly when he sought to enlarge on the difficulties he had overcome in the purchase. The price was the only item that interested Crane--seven thousand dollars; that included everything--even the secret service money.

The horse acquired, Crane had one more move to make; he sent for Jakey Faust, the Bookmaker. Faust and Crane had a reciprocal understanding.

When the Bookmaker needed financial a.s.sistance he got it from the Banker; when Crane needed a missionary among the other bookmakers, Faust acted for him.