The Great Melbourne Cup Mystery Read online

Diana halted abruptly, and stared at the Argentinian. She could observe no mirth, no mockery, in his face, or in his eyes which blazed at her. One vertical line appeared between her brows. Was Alverey laughing at her, or had he spoken of cocktail shakers in ignorance? Surely not. He was far too polished a gentleman to offer a half-hidden give at her expense.

  Quick to sense her changed mood, he tendered apology for anything he might have said not quite the thing, suspecting his reference to cocktail shakers and a sideboard, a fantastic allegory he had heard Dick Cusack use whilst he listened outside the window. Diana, however, dismissed his apology laughingly, and requested to be taken to the birdcage.

  Here, as though behind the scenes of a theatre, the equine actors awaited their call, several kicking their stalls or tossing their heads, impatient of the delay in taking them into the limelight. A bay madam imagined herself queen of the Cannibal Islands whilst she walked about sedately with a small size in jockeys on her back.

  Diana noted a well-dressed man raise his hat to them when he passed. To her, he was unknown, but Alverey knew him, for he returned the courtesy.

  A quaint equine face looked at them from a stall which they passed. His upper lip was laid back over his nostrils in what was not a yawn, and then abruptly he returned to normal and whinnied, whinnied not at Diana and her escort, but at someone behind them.

  Alverey swung round; Diana, a little less precipitately—to find Tom Pink regarding them with suspicious eyes.

  ‘Theese—is he Olary Boy?’ the Argentinian asked.

  ‘Yus—’e is. You b-b-backin’ ’im?’ Tom demanded, as though it were a sin to back any horse.

  ‘I think not. I think he not win the Heatherlie Handicap. He—what you say?—not look a fast horse.’

  ‘You’re r-right, mister,’ Tom said in spluttering agreement ‘’E c-c-couldn’t race an ant up a tree. I—’Ere—stand aside! Gawd! Wot you done? What you done to Olary Boy?’ The jockey’s eyes were blazing first at the Argentinian and then at Diana. With astonishment she noted how the pupils of his eyes contracted to little points of stabbing grey light. ‘Hey, Mr. Sparks! Bill! Come quick! Come quick! Someone’s doped Olary Boy. My Gawd! they’ve doped me ole cobber.’

  Horrified by Tom’s outrageous accusation, experiencing a strong desire to run before the hurrying crowd of men closed in on her, Diana turned round to look at the horse. But a few seconds since a healthy, intelligent lovable horse now revealed undoubted signs of physical distress.

  Above the tumult she heard Tom Pink’s voice screaming commands and curses. She seemed to be the centre of a mob of milling men. Alverey was lost to her on the outskirts of the throng. A man gripped her round the waist, and offered a path for them with his other fist. Arrest! Surely she was not being arrested? She had nothing to do with Olary Boy being doped. Then:

  ‘It’s all right, Diana,’ spoke a well-known voice.

  ‘Oh—oh, it’s you, Roy. Oh, Roy, get me away, please!’

  12

  The Letter

  ‘Why, you are all upset, Diana,’ Roy said, becoming concerned. ‘Steady now. Everything is all right.’

  ‘But—but Roy, we didn’t do it,’ Diana protested, her eyes wide with horror.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Dope Olary Boy. We—’

  ‘Of course you didn’t dope Olary Boy. What an extraordinary thing to say!’

  ‘But the jockey. Tom Pink, he shouted that we did.’

  ‘Tom Pink did not refer to you or to Senor Alverey, rest assured,’ Roy told her earnestly. ‘I saw just what happened or rather just what didn’t happen. I had come into the bird cage and espied you and Alverey standing facing Olary Boy. Tom Pink then was hurrying towards you. You turned round and spoke to him, and then suddenly he spun about and yelled out that Olary Boy had been doped. Even now we cannot be sure that the horse is doped.’

  ‘Oh, but his is, Roy. He looked most peculiar. Now, you go back. I’ll be all right. I’ll be all right. I’ll go along to the stand and hunt up guardie or one of the girls.’

  ‘Sure you will be all right? I wouldn’t leave you only I’m so anxious.’

  ‘Quite sure,’ Diana said, smiling bravely. ‘You hurry back, and then come and tell me just what has happened.’

  ‘Very well—if you are feeling quite recovered. Are you?’

  ‘Yes. But I was so frightened by all those men rushing towards us. Now go. I—I! Thank you for rescuing me.’

  ‘Tush! I am mightily glad to have beaten Alverey to it,’ Roy frankly said, before hurrying back to the bird cage entrance.

  The lightning flash of rumour already had darted outward from the scene of the alleged doping, and Roy found difficulty in getting to the gate of the bird cage. Officials were keeping the people back, and to questions of: ‘Is it High Prince?’ and ‘Is it this or that favourite horse?’ replied invariably in the negative. Somehow Roy felt a little peeved that none asked if it were Olary Boy.

  Of course, he was at once admitted. Over by Olary Boy’s stall there was but a small crowd gathered, the size of this crowd determined by three uniformed and several plainclothes policemen, who were first questioning and then escorting to the entrance people who had no official business there.

  ‘Make way, please,’ Roy demanded authoritatively, which enabled him to reach the stall. Two vets, Nat Sparks and Tom Pink were working on the horse.

  ‘Any hope of saving him, Nat?’ Roy asked the trainer, clutching Sparks by the arm.

  Sparks turned a rage-whitened face to his employer.

  ‘Yes—with luck. I didn’t think so a while back. Listen to Tom!’

  ‘The d-d-dirty dogs. N-never mind, Snozzler. We’ll get our own b-b-back on them d-dopin’ swine. Come on—another gargle now. Just one m-more to ease them p-pains.’

  The policeman standing by obviously thought as did everyone else, that the situation fully excused Tom Pink’s lurid expletives, for he made no move even to remonstrate.

  ‘Tom says there are a man and a woman in this,’ Sparks growled. ‘He saw them in front of the horse when he had left him only a minute.’

  ‘They are above suspicion, Nat. The lady was Miss Ross, a very great friend of mine, and the man was Senor Alverey, the owner of King’s Lee, and a millionaire.’

  ‘Well, how did the horse get the dope? No one else was near him.’

  ‘I don’t know, Nat. But neither one of the two I have mentioned could possibly have done such a thing.’

  ‘Well—it beats me. I could understand it better if Olary Boy was a top-notcher.’

  ‘Remember the letter instructing that man to watch the horse, a letter signed by a mysterious Three of Four. There is something crook going on.’

  ‘There is that. If we get Olary Boy over this he’ll have to be guarded. He was comin’ on well, and with a fair field might have got into a place.’

  An hour later Olary Boy seemed to round a very nasty corner, and by the end of the day was able to get to the motor van which took him back to the quarters Nat Sparks shared with another trainer on the outskirts of Flemington.

  After Roy had reported to the anxious Diana and her guardian, he ran into Senor Alverey.

  ‘Ah—how is thee horse, Mistaire Masters?’ inquired the Argentinian blandly.

  ‘He will probably get over it,’ Roy replied quietly. ‘Are you aware that my jockey accused you of doping the animal?’

  Senor Alverey’s eyelids drooped. His voice, if anything became more bland.

  ‘The—the mind of simpleecity hunts in the dark. Meese Ross and I stood admiring the horse. Nothing else. The horse—he was well. We turn our backs to heem to converse with the jockey and then when we turn to the horse again, heem very ill.’

  Steadily Roy looked into the black eyes gleaming beneath semi-shut lids. For one second their eyes held in this steady stare as though they were duelling swordsmen.

  ‘I did not think, and I am sure no one else does that you could possibly have done it,’ Roy said quietly. ‘Even
if Miss Ross had not been with you, you would, as far as I can see, have no object in doping a second-rate horse. Everyone knows, of course, that Olary Boy is entered for the Melbourne Cup, but, again as everyone knows, he has a very poor chance against your horse, King’s Lee.’

  ‘I hope the beest horse wins, Mistaire Masters,’ Alverey said, now smiling.

  ‘I do, too. King’s Lee running in the Hill Stakes at Rosehill, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, that is so. He will win.’

  ‘Good. I’ll put a tenner on him,’ Roy said a little less coldly.

  ‘Me! I put one thousand pounds on heem.’

  ‘It is nice to be a millionaire. Au revoir.’

  So these two parted, like two dogs unable to make their minds whether to fight or to be friends.

  Both perturbed and mystified, Roy drove back to town, his sub-conscious entity controlling the car, his conscious mind constantly asking a question and demanding to this question a reply.

  Who was behind the attack on Olary Boy? Now, more sure that his suspicions of Alverey were groundless, the elimination of the Argentinian increased the mystery. Diana had not given Alverey the ‘wee chance’, and, consequently, Roy became certain that the purchase of King’s Lee was due to conceit. Having overheard the conversation between Dick and himself relative to the ‘wee chance’, Alverey had got it into his head that if he should win the Melbourne Cup his siege to Diana’s heart would be crowned with victory.

  The possessor of such a horse as King’s Lee would have no cause to fear his horse’s defeat by either Olary Boy or Pieface. No—it was not logical to suspect Alverey.

  Then who else was there to be suspected? Who was there interested enough in Olary Boy to fear his possible success in the immediate future or the distant future as represented by the Melbourne Cup? Dick Cusack? But how absurd. The very thought was an insult to his, Roy’s, intelligence. To be sure, Pieface had done well in the Werribee Handicap early in June, and better still, at Bendigo in mid-August. But Dick! Good old sporting Dick! Perish the evil thought!

  The paper that night announced the facts of the attack on Olary Boy, and when Roy met Old Masters at dinner his father’s eyes were gleaming wickedly.

  ‘Hum-hug!’ he grunted when Joyce, his butler-valet-slave put soup before him. ‘Have you any mind about who doped the horse?’

  ‘None, Dad.’

  ‘Or who is behind the man who doped your horse?’

  Roy shook his head.

  ‘Joyce—the salt. Hum-hug! Think it was Alverey?’ the old man pressed with astonishing freedom, before the butler of many parts.

  ‘No. I can think of no one sufficiently concerned,’ Roy replied with equal freedom, knowing how implicitly his father trusted Joyce, who had served him nearly thirty years. ‘That there is someone out to do the horse an injury is obvious. Tom Pink, some time ago was bribed to impart information. He gave false information, and when the briber refused to part up, Tom went through his pockets. He purloined a letter which gave the briber instructions to try and bribe him. And the letter was signed most peculiarly—simply by the three words, Three of Four. I—’

  ‘What the devil are you doing, Joyce?’ roared Old Masters when the butler, then by the sideboard, clattered the plates.

  ‘Sorry, sir. A plate slipped.’

  ‘Well, remember I don’t pay you to let plates slip. How did you say the letter was signed, Roy?’

  ‘Three of Four. Just those three words,’ Roy replied; and turned sharply round to observe Joyce. The butler then was midway between the sideboard and his end of the table. The man’s face plainly indicated strain.

  ‘You ill, Joyce?’ Roy asked kindly.

  ‘Er—no sir. Letting the plate fall upset me sir. I am seldom clumsy, sir.’

  ‘Don’t do it again. You might break a confounded plate and if you do the cost will be docked out of your wages,’ Old Masters snapped. ‘What’s this? This New Zealand cod?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Hug-hum! I’ll take your word for it it’s not Port Phillip shark. Yes, it appears obvious that some gang or other is working against Olary Boy. Heard from Dick? Has he had any similar trouble?’

  ‘He has not written so, and I heard from him last week,’ Roy replied, and mentally cursed himself for permitting that vile suspicion to flare up again.

  ‘Hum-hug! It’s either him or Alverey. Alverey for choice. You are sure that letter was signed by Three of Four.’

  ‘Of course; I have it here.’

  Roy took the letter from his cigarette case and handed it to Joyce to take round to his father. He watched the butler lay the folded sheet on the right side of his father’s plate. The old gentleman went on unconcernedly eating and only after he had finished the course did he raise his glasses on their black ribbon, affix them to his nose and take up the letter.

  For what appeared to the curious Roy to be several seconds, his father studied that letter, with Joyce standing behind him, staring down at the letter over his shoulder, his eyes wide and most positively indicating terror.

  ‘You are confoundedly impertinent, Joyce,’ Old Masters said, in his business voice. ‘I quite expect I shall have to sack you. Hum-hug!’

  13

  The Mysterious Mr. Leader

  The next time Roy dined with Old Masters was on the Friday evening preceding the mid-September race fixture at Moonee Valley at which Olary Boy was to run in the Tullamarine Handicap, over a distance of one and one-quarter miles.

  During dinner Joyce evidenced no nervousness when handling plates, or when actually serving, and his strange demeanour on that former occasion Roy put down to quite natural causes. Possibly the fellow was getting old; most certainly he was not overworked.

  ‘How is that horse of yours going to run tomorrow, do you think?’ Old Masters inquired, after the soup.

  ‘It is difficult to prophesy, Dad. Nat says he has picked up wonderfully after that doping attack at Caulfield. It shook the horse a lot.’

  ‘Salts of atropine they gave him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but what agency was used to administer it remains a mystery. I see by tonight’s paper that King’s Lee is widely tipped to win the Hill Stakes at Rosehill.’

  ‘He ought to find little difficulty in winning, according to what Leader told me this morning.’

  ‘Ah—so you were discussing racing in business hours?’ Roy said lightly.

  Old Masters glared at his son.

  ‘Horseracing was a minor subject. Of primary importance was Senor Alverey,’ snapped the old man.

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes. Leader was in Argentina a year. It is seldom that the son inherits the business acumen of the father, but young Alverey obviously does. Whether of set purpose or by accident, I don’t know, but Leader informed me that Alverey found out several matters concerning Diana of which we were ignorant, and which may account for his determination to marry her.’

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘Yes. Even though a man may be a millionaire, a woman whom he loves, in possession of about a quarter of a million pounds is preferable to the woman he loves possessing a bare patrimony.’

  ‘I hardly follow you,’ Roy said with knit brows.

  ‘As I have just said. Alverey has discovered matters relating to Diana which we didn’t know—until Leader told me.’

  ‘Who is this Leader?’

  ‘No matter—a business friend of mine,’ Old Masters replied impatiently. ‘Joyce, who supplied this meat?’

  ‘Smith and Smith, sir,’ replied the butler-valet-slave.

  ‘Change the butcher, d’you hear? I don’t expect any butcher to expect me to eat leather. Now, coming back to Diana and friend Alverey. Like me, Ross married late in life; in fact, later in life than I did. He had strange ideas about marriage; love, and all that. He foresaw that if Diana had possession of his fortune on her coming of age, she would be sought after by all the society adventurers in the world. And, knowing that the amount of that fortune is close upon
a quarter of a million, I agree with him.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘A quarter of a million pounds, Roy. So what does old Ross do? He appointed his old friend, Tindale, and another friend named Harrison, as co-trustees over the money, giving them full control and with authority to act as he had secretly arranged with them.

  ‘That knowledge anyone can gain. What Leader found out were the secret instructions given to Tindale and Harrison, which precisely was what Alverey learned.’

  ‘What were they?’ Roy asked when Old Masters abruptly ceased talking.

  ‘That I am not going to divulge to you, son. You wouldn’t thank me if I did. But the fool arrangement made by Ross is sufficient to induce even a man of Alverey’s undoubted financial standing to go crooked.’

  ‘In that case, I wish you had not told me as much.’

  ‘It’s done, Roy. What is it Joyce?’

  ‘Perhaps later, sir.’

  ‘What the devil do you mean?’ Old Masters roared. ‘What is it?’

  Obviously reluctant, Joyce stammered:

  ‘It is Mr. Leader, sir. He wishes to see you.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the library, sir. He told me to tell you, sir, there is no hurry.’

  ‘All the same if there were. I haven’t finished my dinner yet. See that he has cigars and whisky. I will be with him presently.’

  Without departing from his usual leisureliness, Old Masters proceeded with, and completed, the really one good meal he permitted himself daily. He and his son discussed horses and their form; Mr. Tindale and his history where it interlocked with that of Charles Ross, deceased; and subjects of social importance, until their cigars finished, he said, rising:

  ‘You will have to excuse me this evening, my boy. Leader and I have to discuss business. I hope Olary Boy will have luck tomorrow. You seem determined to stand by him and I think you are unwise not to snap up Austral Pan when he’s on the market. He would give King’s Lee a better race for the Cup than your horse.’

  ‘I am sticking to Olary Boy,’ Roy said firmly. ‘To run Austral Pan would not be fair to Dick with his Pieface. As it is, Pieface and Olary Boy are in the same street. As you are pushing me out, I’ll go now.’