The Vanity Girl Part 38

"The horse's mechanism is primitive, that's what it is--it's primitive,"

said Lonsdale. "And to risk ten thousand pounds on a primitive mechanism like a horse--Shut up, you brute, _you're_ not entered for the Guineas.

I say, this steering-gear is very unreliable, you know."

Dorothy had wanted to ask Lonsdale more about the owner of Chimpanzee; but at this moment the sun burst forth from behind a great white April cloud full-rigged, the shadow of which floated over the glittering green of the Heath just as the horses emerged from the Birdcage, escorted on either side by hors.e.m.e.n and horsewomen of fame and beauty. It was a fair scene, to play a part in which Dorothy exultantly felt that it was worth while to lose even more than 10,000. The coats of the horses s.h.i.+mmered in the sunlight; the colors of the jockeys blended and s.h.i.+fted like flowers in the wind; no tournament of the Middle Ages with all its plumes and pennons could have offered a fairer scene.

Tufton joined his friends, and, turning their mounts, they rode back toward the winning-post.

"I say, Tony, Chimpanzee has shunted to three's--only a fraction's difference now between him and Moonbeam," he was murmuring.

"Tell me more about Houston," said Dorothy to Lonsdale. "I don't think I can bear to watch the race."

"Cheer-oh, Doodles! You can't feel more queasy than I do. And I've told you all I know about Houston."

"But why should he call his horse Chimpanzee?"

There was a roar from the crowd.

"They're off!"

They were off on that royal mile of Newmarket.

"Flitten was told to ride him out from the start. d.a.m.n him, why doesn't he do so?" said Tony.

"He is, old boy. He's all right. Don't get nervy," said Tufton.

"Which is Chimpanzee?"

"That bay on the outside."

"What colors?"

"Yellow. Harcourt up."

"Take him along! Take him along! Good G.o.d, he's not using the whip already, is he?"

"No, no! No, no!"

"d.a.m.nation!" cried Tony, "why didn't we keep to the inclosure? I believe my horse is beaten. Don't look round, you little blighter! It's not an egg-and-spoon race."

The spectators were roaring like the sea.

"Moonbeam! Chimpanzee! Moonbeam! Moonbeam!" was shouted in a crescendo of excitement.

There was a momentary lull.

"Moonbeam by a head," floated in a kind of unisonant sigh along the rails.

"O Lord!" Lonsdale gulped. "I'd sooner drive a six-cylinder Lee-Lonsdale at sixty miles an hour through a school treat."

The strain was over; the n.o.ble owner had led in the n.o.ble winner; the ceremonies of congratulation were done; there was a profitable settlement to expect on Monday; yet Dorothy was ill at ease. The resuscitation of Hausberg clouded her contentment. Coincidence would not explain his purchase of the Diavola colt, his naming of it Chimpanzee, and his running it to beat Moonbeam. To be sure, he had failed, but a man who had taken so much trouble to create an effect would be more eager than ever after such a failure to ... "to do what?" she asked herself. Was he aiming at revenge? Such a fancy was melodramatic, absurd ... after all these years deliberately to aim at revenge for a practical joke. Besides, she had had nothing to do with the affair in St. John's Wood. Nor had Tony except as an accessory after the fact. Yet it was strange; it was even sinister. And how odd that Lonsdale should be present at this sinister resurrection.

"Lonnie," she said, "do you remember about the monkey?"

"What monkey? Did you have a monkey on Moonbeam?"

"Not money, you silly boy--the chimpanzee you put in Hausberg's rooms."

"Of course I remember it. So does he, apparently, as he's called his horse after it."

"I know. I feel nervous. I think he's going to bring us bad luck."

"h.e.l.lo, Doodles, you're looking very gloomy for the wife of the man who is going to win the Derby," said Tony, coming up at that moment, all smiles. "I've just bet fifty pounds for you on one of Cobbett's fillies, which he says is a good thing for the Wilbraham. And the stable's in luck."

Dorothy won 250 in a flash, it seemed--the race was only four furlongs--and when in the last race of the day she backed the winner of the Bretby Handicap and won another 250 Tony told her cheerfully that she ought not to gamble because she was now a monkey to the good.

Dorothy was depressed. The 500, outside the ill omen of its being called a monkey in slang, a.s.sumed a larger and more portentous significance by reminding her of the 500 she had borrowed from her mother when she first went on the stage and of the way she had invested some of it afterward with Leopold Hausberg. All her delight in Moonbeam's victory had been destroyed by a dread of the unknown, and she suddenly pulled Tony's sleeve, who was busily engaged in taking bets against his horse for the Derby. He turned round rather irritably.

"What is the matter with you?"

"Give it up," she begged. "Don't bet any more."

"Give up betting when I've just won twenty-five thousand pounds over the Guineas and am going to win one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds over the Derby? Besides, I thought you were going to live happily ever afterward if Moonbeam won?"

He turned away again with a laugh, and Tufton's grave head-shake was not much consolation to Dorothy. She was walking away a few paces in order not to overhear Tony's jovial badinage with the bookmakers, when a suave voice addressed her over the shoulder and, looking round, she saw Leopold Hausberg.

"You've forgotten me, Lady Clarehaven," he was saying. "I must explain that I--"

"Yes, yes," Dorothy interrupted, quickly, "you're Mr. Houston. I've just been told so by Mr. Lonsdale, whom no doubt you also remember."

She mentioned Lonsdale's name deliberately to see if Houston would speak about the monkey or even show a hint of displeasure at the mention of Lonsdale's name, but there was no shadow on his countenance, and he only asked her if she would not introduce him to her husband.

"I should like to congratulate him," he said, "though his win hit me pretty hard."

At this moment Tony with a laugh closed his betting-book and joined them.

"By Jove! there's not a sportsman among you," he called back to the bookmakers. "What do you think, Doodles? There's not one of them who'll give me four thousand to a thousand against Moonbeam for the Derby....

I'm sorry, I didn't see you were talking to somebody."

Dorothy made the introduction.

"I'll give you four thousand to a thousand, Lord Clarehaven," the new-comer offered. "Or more if you wish to bet. I don't think my horse showed his true form to-day. He swerved badly at the start, and my jockey says he was kicked."

Clarehaven was delighted to find somebody who would lay against Moonbeam, and he entered in his book a bet of 20,000 to 5,000.

"I had the pleasure of meeting Lady Clarehaven before her marriage,"

Houston was explaining. "I should have called upon you long ago, but I've been away for some years in South Africa."

"Making money, eh?" said Tony, holding in his mouth like a cigarette the pencil that was going to make money for him.