The Great Melbourne Cup Mystery Page 9

  ‘He’s hardly damp, Nat,’ Roy exclaimed, a trace of exultation in his voice.

  Diana stood still. She said nothing. She was astonished by the ecstatic expression on Tom Pink’s weather-beaten face. He threw an arm over and round Olary Boy’s neck. And Olary Boy affectionately rubbed his cheek against Tom’s body.

  ‘You old Snozzler! You damned ole Snozzler!’ Tom said, oblivious to the presence of a lady.

  16

  Taken For A Ride

  Olary Boy’s performance in the Mentone Handicap gained for him serious attention by the sporting writers. One expert wrote: ‘This ugly four-year-old gelding will bear watching,’ while another opinion was expressed thus: ‘A potential star in the racing firmament is Olary Boy, who, although his record is a poor one, shows great promise this spring by the rapid manner his form is improving. Entered for both Cups, Mr. Roy Masters’ brown gelding may produce a surprise.’

  After the determined attempt to get at Olary Boy, Nat Sparks took no further risks with him, finally being induced by Tom Pink to arrange a most efficient guard. While track work proceeded, Sparks even more frequently consulted the jockey.

  King’s Lee won the A. J. C. Derby, carrying seven stone seven. And a week later, at Wodonga, Dick Cusack’s Pieface revealed unmistakable evidence of doping.

  With indignation surging through him, yet lashed by self-contempt for his suspicion of his friend, Roy Masters read several times the account which appeared in the press the following Monday:

  ‘Before the Wodonga Handicap Pieface began to perspire freely, and his conduct became so bad after the race that he was sent home by motor-float. When his trainer returned home after the races, the gelding’s eyes had dilated to an alarming degree, and his mouth was as dry as tinder. He looked like a horse which had run 100 miles. He was restless and whimpered throughout Saturday night, and refused food. Up to a late hour last night he was slowly recovering.’

  Accepting Roy’s advice, Dick scratched Pieface in another country race and had him transferred to Nat Sparks’ stables to keep company with Olary Boy. He did not run in the October Stakes (weight-for-age) at Flemington, but Roy’s horse did, and despite the fact that Olary Boy found himself in superior company, he satisfied even Tom Pink by running fifth.

  ‘He c-c-could ’ave done better, but I d-d-didn’t ride ’im as I could ’ave rid ’im,’ Tom explained to Roy when the latter visited Olary Boy one Sunday afternoon.

  ‘Why was that?’ Roy asked. ‘Did you ride to Nat’s instructions?’

  ‘You w-w-wants Olary Boy to win the Melbourne Cup, don’t you? All right, I d-d-don’t aim to bring old Snozzler to top form one day b-b-before that race. ’Orses is like humans in training. They g-g-gets to a certain pitch, and th-th-then goes stale. We’ll give ’im a solid race on the first day at Caulfield, an’ again in the Caulfield Cup, an’ for the Melbourne ’e’ll be as fit as any of ’em.’

  In the Herbert Power Handicap, Olary Boy gained third place, losing by only half a neck to Captain for second place. Dick’s horse, Pieface, came home among the ruck.

  In the Caulfield Cup, won by King’s Lee, Pieface came in ahead of Olary Boy, the last-named taking sixth place, and this was no disgrace to the pride of Tom Pink’s heart, for early in the race Olary Boy almost came to ground over the fallen Black Princess.

  Olary Boy went out in the Hotham Handicap at 20 to 1, whilst there was no money on Pieface, who was quoted at 100 to 1. But Olary Boy, gaining second place, swung into public favour for the Melbourne Cup, ruling at 5 to 1 on the day before the race.

  And on this day the gang behind the attacks on Roy’s horse and Pieface made a desperate move. At nine o’clock at night, in a heavy rain-storm, a big enclosed car pulled up outside the training quarters occupied by Nat Sparks, and a man presented him with a letter which read:—

  ‘51B Spring Street,

  ‘Dear Nat,

  As I shall be delayed tomorrow in reaching the course through pressure of business, please send Tom Pink to me in company of the bearer.

  The points I wish to discuss with him are important Do not let him delay.

  Yours,

  Roy Masters.’

  Asking the man to wait, Nat Sparks crossed to the stables and there read aloud Roy’s letter.

  ‘A-all right, I’ll change me coat, get me oiler, and ’op away,’ Tom agreed instantly.

  ‘I can’t think what Mr. Roy wants to talk to you about at this time of night,’ Nat said.

  ‘N-nor me, Nat. Still, orders is orders. I’ll see you w-when I cum back. Hooroo.’

  On joining the waiting man, Tom said: ‘G-good n-night!’ to which the other replied gruffly. ‘Same to you.’ At the car the door was opened and he was invited to enter the tonneau. There he discovered a man occupying the far end of the seat, he taking a middle position with his conductor on his right. At once the car slid away.

  ‘G-gonna be fine for the Cup?’ Tom cheerfully inquired.

  ‘Hope so,’ replied the man on his right ‘Care about a drink?’

  ‘Yes, I c-cares a lot, but I ain’t touching the booze t-till t-tomorrow night.’

  ‘Frightened you’ll go off the loose end?’ came the sneered question.

  ‘I am,’ Tom announced candidly.

  ‘One drink’ll do you no harm,’ suggested the man on Tom’s left-hand.

  ‘N-n-nope? Well - I’m d-decidin’.’

  They had covered half the distance to the city when the engine began to stutter very much like Tom Pink. He could hear the driver swearing, and a few seconds later the car was pulled to the side of the street and stopped.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ demanded one of Tom’s companions.

  ‘Don’t know,’ growled the driver. ‘Might be water in the carburettor.’

  ‘Well, you’d better hurry up and know. Mr. Masters wants Mr. Pink here quick.’

  ‘Take a taxi. There’s one on the other corner. I’ve always had trouble with the ignition of this bus.’

  ‘A man ought to take an axe to it,’ opined the one who had offered the drink. ‘Come on. We’ll grab that taxi.’

  Tom was led across the road to a private taxi, whose driver was instructed to deposit them at 51B Spring Street.

  When they moved off, Tom again sitting between the two men on the rear seat, he noted the driver of the other car walking rapidly away. And the direction he took was not towards the garage less than fifty yards distant.

  At high speed the journey to the city was continued, several turns being taken. When they came into the lights of Spencer Street, Tom noticed that both his companions were slouched down into their respective corners, their trilby hats set forward over their eyes.

  The driver’s hat, he noticed, was comparatively new. The upturned brim was even. The man’s prominent ears sharply reminded him of someone, but not until they reached William Street did the groping fingers of his mind produce the original.

  The driver was the slim man who for a few seconds had been silhouetted beside a shorter and more powerful man in the oblong made by an open stable door.

  Tom’s heart missed two beats, and a coldness rose up his legs from his feet. He was in strange company, if the driver indeed was the man who had served a sentence of a month for breaking into Nat’s stables.

  ‘Hey, you, give us a gasper,’ the jockey called loudly.

  The driver, taken off his guard, partly turned his head, and in profile Tom became quite sure. Was he being taken for a ride? The chilling prospect banished his stutter.

  ‘I gotta yell ’cos you blokes are so silent,’ he said, turning to the man on his right. ‘Anyone would think we was goin’ to a funeral.’

  The man was sitting with his arms folded, but the right hand was slipped under the left armpit.

  ‘Yes, it’s much like going to a funeral, isn’t it? A cigarette? Certainly,’ And whilst he offered Tom his case, he chuckled at the jockey’s little joke.

  They crossed Queen Street

  ‘Give
us a match,’ Tom demanded of the second man, and this man sat with his hands in the pockets of his raincoat He produced a box of matches with his left hand.

  ‘Pull up, driver, I want to buy some gaspers.’

  ‘Can’t buy cigarettes this time of night’ pointed out the driver—without turning his head.

  ‘Well, pull up, anyway. Do you hear?’

  ‘We have to take you to Mr. Masters as quickly as possible,’ the right hand man said levelly.

  They were passing Elizabeth Street. It was almost as light as day, despite the falling rain.

  Tom learned forward to tap the driver’s shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry him,’ drawled his left companion. His companion on his right lowered swiftly the blind on that side of the car. That he was actually being ‘taken for a ride’ Tom was now sure.

  He began to laugh just as they reached the Swanston Street intersection, and were stopped by the red traffic light. His laughter was a high-pitched scream of mirth. ‘Fancy taking me for a ride!’ he yelled. ‘Ha-ha-ha! Reminds me of ole Noo York, where they puts ’em on the spot or takes ’em for a ride.’

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed his left hand neighbour. ‘Shut up—d’you hear? If you don’t stop it, I’ll bash you.’

  People waiting to cross the street stared curiously in at Tom, who now was quiet. The other blind was lowered. The red traffic light gave place to the amber light. The driver let out the clutch, and they began to glide across Swanston Street. In complete shadow, Tom sat bolt upright between two men, who watched him like a pair of cats. A quick glance revealed their gleaming eyes beneath their hat brims.

  With his heels hard against the bottom of the seat, Tom lunged forward, his arm straightening his hands slipping by each side of the driver’s head, then to circle round the man’s throat

  His companions grabbed him, but were not quick enough. The driver vented a piercing shriek when Tom’s teeth closed on his right ear. One of the men behind him raised his reversed pistol in order to bring its butt down on Tom’s head, but in that second the car, which had become uncontrollable when the driver’s hands left the wheel, crashed into a stationary Spencer Street train.

  ‘Get!’ shouted the man with the reversed pistol, in a split second refraining from bringing it down on Tom’s skull. They flung open the doors, and ran like dodging hares through the crowd.

  When the police reached the wrecked car, they discovered Tom chewing the driver’s other ear.

  17

  The Parade

  The annual Cup pilgrimage to Melbourne had taken place; sailors from the fleet; politicians from Canberra, and every State capital; sportsmen from every town and city in the Commonwealth; boundary-riding stockmen, truck drivers and cooks from all over outer and central Australia, including Jack Barnett, who had swum three horses across Red Creek.

  The only man who was not infected by the racing carnival spirit was he whose both ears were badly damaged.

  Within half an hour of Tom Pink’s arrival at the City watch-house, Roy had been located at his Club and had explained matters as far as he knew them. Of course, the letter to Nat Sparks was a clever forgery, and it was agreed that it had been determined by these unknown men either to abduct the jockey to prevent him riding Olary Boy, or, as Tom had surmised, they were taking him for a ride, in the American fashion.

  All Australia was at Flemington on the first Tuesday in November. The Flat was a curved block of humanity. The entire Hill was hidden by the thousands there; whilst the lawns before the Members’ and the Grandstands were the parade grounds of fashion.

  After the rain, this veritable garden of a racecourse, with its blooming roses, its beds of flowers and the white-painted railings gleamed with vivid hues, in rivalry with the tiny white puff-clouds dotting the brilliant blue sky.

  Among all that huge multitude there could have been few people less interested in the races preceding the Melbourne Cup than Nat Sparks and Tom Pink, Diana Ross and Roy and Dick, who were with Olary Boy in the saddling paddock.

  ‘L-look at ’im—look at ole S-s-Snozzler,’ Tom implored the small group with him. Olary Boy was being quietly walked about in charge of a boy, and accompanying boy and horse were two tall men, who might have been bankers, but who were detectives. Every time Olary Boy walked from the group, he repeatedly turned his ugly head to look back.

  ‘I believe he is looking for you, Mr. Pink,’ Diana said laughingly.

  ‘Too right, Miss Ross. Anyone w-w-would think I was ’is s-s-sweet’eart, w-wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Well, you are aren’t you?’

  T-I don’t know about b-being s-sweet’earts, Miss, b-but me an’ ’im is good cobbers.’

  ‘Another twenty-five minutes,’ Nat murmured, watch in hand. ‘By gum! I’ll be glad when it’s over.’

  ‘Why the anxiety, Nat?’

  ‘Why the anxiety?’ the trainer repented. ‘Ain’t the authorities guardin’ royalty mighty glad when their journey is ended, and the Kings and Queens safely locked up in their castles? I’ve been imagining fellows taking pot shots at those two horses with long-range rifles, and aeroplanes suddenly appearing to drop bombs on ’em. They’re not safe even here.’

  ‘We cannot do anything more,’ Roy said, thoughtfully. ‘Pieface is looking well today.’

  They watched Dick’s bay gelding brought out to follow Olary Boy.

  ‘He won’t be last, will Pieface,’ was the trainer’s opinion.

  ‘And he won’t be first,’ Dick maintained, with a cheerful grin.

  ‘Might.’

  ‘Might not.’

  A bell rang.

  ‘Righto! Our number’s up,’ announced Nat with obvious relief. Tom Pink and Hurley hurried away to the jockey’s room. Horses were moving out of the small saddling paddock and in their turn went Olary Boy and Pieface guarded by the detectives, Roy and Nat Sparks with all his available boys.

  Their path lay across an open space from the saddling paddock to the end of the lane at that end of the Members’ Stand, a path edged by packed people. In the lane which ran the whole length of the Members’ Stand people crowded thick to watch the famous Melbourne Cup runners pass along to the mounting yard.

  ‘There’s Captain!’ ‘Here comes Black Tulip!’ ‘Olary Boy—ugly isn’t he?’ ‘Wayside Belle.’ ‘Ah - King’s Lee.’ ‘King’s Lee—I only got evens!’ ‘What’s Olary Boy? ’ ‘Oh—he’s ten to one.’

  So the scraps of comment which reached the escort attached to Olary Boy and his stablemate while they passed the crowd among which might lurk a sinister enemy.

  ‘D—s! They’re guarding Pieface and Olary Boy,’ Roy heard a man tell a woman.

  ‘Pieface, what’s the betting on him?’

  ‘Dunno exactly. About 33/11 should think.’

  ‘King’s Lee—ain’t he a hum-dinger?’

  Near the mounting yard the band was playing a lively air. People were swarming up into the vast stands like ants running up trees before the coming of a flood. Beyond, dimmed by the great building and the low hum of the crowd, there came the faint murmur of hoarse voices shouting the odds.

  Tom Pink and Hurley came out of the jockey’s room carrying whips. The detectives hovered near the gate leading out of the yard.

  ‘Ride your best, Hurley?’ Dick said softly when Pieface’s jockey was about to mount.

  Hurley nodded, and smiled faintly, every nerve in him tense and vibrant.

  ‘Don’t you w-w-worry, Mr. Roy. M-me an’ ole s-SnozzIer gonna do our stuff.’

  ‘That’s right, Tom,’ Roy agreed. ‘Whatever the result, I’ll know you will have done your damnedest.’

  ‘You keep your eye on Nazi, Tom,’ Nat whispered. ‘I’d only be a fool to tell you how to ride Olary Boy, but I’m tellin’ you to keep your eyes on Nazi’s jockey.’

  ‘Righto, N-Nat Well, hooroo,’ And from Olary Boy’s back Tom Pink winked openly at owner and trainer and waved his hand to Diana standing outside the mounting yard waiting for Roy and Dick.
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br />   They glimpsed Alverey near the fidgeting King’s Lee, and then were outside, hurrying off with Diana to get a good position in the Members’ Stand from which to view the race.

  18

  21 Starters

  Flushed and out of breath, the girl, with her escort, turned, when in the stand, to view the horses passing along the second lane to the entry to the course. There was Pieface carrying Dick’s colours of red and white stripes and the red cap. Hullo! He was a little frisky or, perhaps, frightened! Her gaze came back to follow Olary Boy, Pink on top, riding as light as a feather. With all her heart she hoped Olary Boy would win—for Roy’s sake, for Tom Pink’s sake—for the sake of Dick Cusack’s wagered thousand pounds.

  Dear, loyal old Dick! It seemed almost that he wanted Olary Boy to win and so give his friend... There was Olary Boy prancing in the lane, awakened at last from his calm lethargy, apparently. Now he was trotting smartly towards the barrier. And there was her guardian coming towards the Members’ Stand after having watched the horses pass along that second lane.

  What a beauty! What a horse was King’s Lee easily cantering down the course to the barrier! And Black Tulip! A jet-black, beautiful mare, full of life! More life than Olary Boy seemed to have in him. He might have been trotting out to a day’s stock work for all the effect the colours and the massed people had on him.

  Of nearly eighty horses nominated for the Melbourne Cup early in June, only twenty-one arrived at the starting barrier.

  Dingo Lad was given inside position, Black Tulip the outer, whilst Olary Boy and Pieface occupied respectively fifth and eleventh places. After his little flare-up in the lane, Olary Boy was behaving well, taking an intelligent, if bored, interest in Black Princess, who was electric with nervous excitement. The horses were on their toes, several of them already streaked with snowy lather.

  A short delay, two fruitless line-ups:—then AWAY!

  Tom Pink was experiencing no physical sensation, no feeling whatsoever. To him it appeared that he was just a mind poised above and behind Olary Boy’s head—a mind governed solely by one idea: to gain a place and keep it until near the end. But not the first place. As twenty other horses were pitted against Olary Boy, so were twenty other brains pitted against his brain.