His knowledge of horses and of all matters connected with the turf stood him in good stead: hard work and perseverance did the rest. Now, at fifty years of age, he is a very rich man, and practically at the head of a profession, which, if not exactly that of a gentleman, is, at any rate, highly remunerative.

“He owns Manor House, and lived there with his young wife and his only son and heir, Harold.

“It was Mr Keeson who had trained Cigarette for the Earl of Okehampton, and who, of course, had charge of her during her apprenticeship, before she was destined to win a fortune for her owner, her trainer, and those favoured few who had got wind of her capabilities. For Cigarette was to be kept a dark horse – not an easy matter in these days, when the neighbourhood of every racecourse abounds with rascals who eke out a precarious livelihood by various methods, more or less shady, of which the gleaning of early information is perhaps the least disreputable.

“Fortunately for Mr Keeson, however, he had in the groom, Cockram, a trusted and valued servant, who had been in his employ for over ten years. To say that Cockram took a special pride in Cigarette would be but to put it mildly. He positively loved the mare, and I don’t think that anyone ever doubted that his interest in her welfare was every bit as keen as that of the Earl of Okehampton or of Mr Keeson.

“It was to Cockram, therefore, that Mr Kesson entrusted the care of Cigarette. She was lodged in the private stables adjoining the Manor House, and during the few days immediately preceding the Coronation Stakes the groom practically never left her side, either night or day. He slept in the loose box with her, and ate all his meals in her company; nor was anyone allowed to come within measurable distance of the living treasure, save Mr Keeson or the Earl of Okehampton himself.

“And yet, in spite of all these precautions, in spite of every care that human ingenuity could devise, on the very morning of the race Cigarette was seized with every symptom of poisoning, and although, as you say, she is quite herself again now, she was far too ill to fulfil her engagement, and, if rumour speaks correctly, completed thereby the ruin of the Earl of Okehampton.”

2

The man in the corner looked at me through his bonerimmed spectacles, and his mild blue eyes gazed pleasantly into mine.

“You may well imagine,” he continued, after a while, “what a thunderbolt such a catastrophe means to those whose hopes of a fortune rested upon the fitness of the bay mare. Mr Keeson lost his temper for an instant, they say – but for one instant only. When he was hastily summoned at six o’clock in the morning to Cigarette’s stables, and saw her lying on the straw, rigid and with glassy eyes, he raised his heavy riding-whip over the head of Cockram. Some assert that he actually struck him, and that the groom was too wretched and too dazed to resent either words or blows. After a good deal of hesitation he reluctantly admitted that for the first time since Cigarette had been in his charge he had slept long and heavily.

“‘I am such a light sleeper, you know, sir,’ he said in a tear-choked voice. ‘Usually I could hear every noise the mare made if she stirred at all. But, there – last night I cannot say what happened. I remember that I felt rather drowsy after my supper, and must have dropped off to sleep very quickly. Once during the night I woke up; the mare was all right then.’

“The man paused, and seemed to be searching for something in his mind – the recollection of a dream, perhaps. But the veterinary surgeon, who was present at the time, having also been hastily summoned to the stables, took up the glass which had contained the beer for Cockram’s supper. He sniffed it, and then tasted it, and said quietly:

“‘No wonder you slept heavily, my man. This beer was drugged: it contained opium.’

“‘Drugged!’ ejaculated Cockram, who, on hearing this fact, which in every way exonerated him from blame, seemed more hopelessly wretched than he had been before.

“It appears that every night Cockram’s supper was brought out to him in the stables by one of the servants from the Manor House. On this particular night Mrs Keeson’s maid, a young girl named Alice Image, had brought him a glass of beer and some bread and cheese on a tray at about eleven o’clock.

“Closely questioned by Mr Keeson, the girl emphatically denied all knowledge of any drug in the beer. She had often taken the supper tray across to Cockram, who was her sweetheart, she said. It was usually placed ready for her in the hall, and when she had finished attending upon her mistress’ night toilet she went over to the stables with it. She had certainly never touched the beer, and the tray had stood in its accustomed place on the hall table looking just the same as usual. ‘As if I’d go and poison my Cockram!’ she said in the midst of a deluge of tears.

“All these somewhat scanty facts crept into the evening papers that same day. That an outrage of a peculiarly daring and cunning character had been perpetrated was not for a moment in doubt. So much money had been at stake, so many people would be half-ruined by it, that even the nonracing public at once took the keenest interest in the case. All the papers admitted, of course, that for the moment the affair seemed peculiarly mysterious, yet all commented upon one fact, which they suggested should prove an important clue: this fact was Cockram’s strange attitude.

“At first he had been dazed – probably owing to the after-effects of the drug; he had also seemed too wretched even to resent Mr Keeson’s very natural outburst of wrath. But then, when the presence of the drug in his beer was detected, which proved him, at any rate, to have been guiltless in the matter, his answers, according to all accounts, became somewhat confused; and all Mr Keeson and the ‘vet’, who were present, got out of him after that, was a perpetual ejaculation: ‘What’s to be done? What’s to be done?’

“Two days later the sporting papers were the first to announce, with much glee, that thanks to the untiring energy of the Scotland Yard authorities, daylight seemed at last to have been brought to bear upon the mystery which surrounded the dastardly outrage on the Earl of Okehampton’s mare Cigarette, and that an important arrest in connection with it had already been effected.

“It appears that a man named Charles Palk, seemingly of no address, had all along been suspected of having at least a hand in the outrage. He was believed to be a bookmaker’s tout, and was a man upon whom the police had long since kept a watchful eye.