CHAPTER XII

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      Lady Mary made a faint moaning sound. The major’s face was a study.

      “I don’t know whether you are a wizard or not, Mr. Cleek,” he said, after a moment; “but you have certainly hit upon the facts of the matter. It is for that very reason that I have refrained from making the affair public. It is bad enough that Lady Mary and I should have our suspicions regarding the identity of the—er—person implicated without letting others share them. There’s Dawson-Blake for one. If he knew, he’d move heaven and earth to ruin him.”

      “Dawson-Blake?” repeated Cleek. “Pardon, but will that be the particular Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake the millionaire brewer who achieved a knighthood in the last ‘Honours List’ and whose horse, Tarantula, is second favourite for the coming Derby?”

      “Yes, the very man. He is almost what you might call a neighbour of ours, Mr. Cleek. His place, Castle Claverdale, is just over the border line of Northumberland and about five miles distant from Morcan Abbey. His stables are, if anything, superior to my own; and we both use the intervening moorland as a training ground. Also, it was Dawson-Blake’s daughter that Lieutenant Chadwick played fast and loose with. Jilted her, you know—threw her over at the eleventh hour and married a chorus girl who had nothing to bless herself with but a pretty face and a long line of lodging-house ancestry. Not that Miss Dawson-Blake lost anything by getting rid of such a man before she committed the folly of tying herself to him for life, but her father never forgave Lieutenant Chadwick and would spend a million for the satisfaction of putting him behind bars.”

      “I see. And this Lieutenant Chadwick is—whom may I ask?”

      “The only son of my elder and only sister, Mr. Cleek,” supplied Lady Mary with a faint blush. “She committed the folly of marrying her music master when I was but a little girl, and my father died without ever looking at her again. Subsequently, her husband deserted her and went—she never learnt where, to the day of her death. While she lived, however, both my brother, Lord Chevelmere, and I saw that she never wanted for anything. We also supplied the means to put her son through Sandhurst after we had put him through college, and hoped that he would repay us by achieving honour and distinction. It was a vain hope. He achieved nothing but disgrace. Shortly after his deplorable marriage with the theatrical person for whom he threw over Miss Dawson-Blake—and who in turn threw him over when she discovered what a useless encumbrance he was—he was cashiered from the army, and has ever since been a hanger-on at race meetings—the consort of touts, billiard markers, card sharpers, and people of that sort. I had not seen him for six years, when he turned up suddenly in this neighbourhood three days ago and endeavoured to scrape acquaintance with one of the Abbey grooms.”

      “And under an assumed name, Mr. Cleek,” supplemented the major somewhat excitedly. “He was calling himself John Clark and was trying to wheedle information regarding Highland Lassie out of my stable-boys. Fortunately, Lady Mary caught sight of him without being seen, and at once gave orders that he was to be turned off the premises, and never allowed to come near them again. He was known, however, to be in this neighbourhood up to dusk on the following evening, but he has never been seen since Highland Lassie disappeared. You know now, perhaps, why I have elected to conduct everything connected with this affair with the utmost secrecy. Little as we desire to be in any way associated with such a man, we cannot but remember that he is connected with us by ties of blood, and unless Farrow dies of his injuries—which God forbid! we will hush the thing up, cost what it may. All that I want is to get the animal back—not to punish the man: if, indeed, he be the guilty party; for there is really no actual proof of that. But if Dawson-Blake knew, it would be different. He would move heaven and earth to get the convict’s ‘broad arrow’ on him and to bring disgrace upon everybody connected with the man.”

      “H’m, I see!” said Cleek, puckering up his brows and thoughtfully stroking his chin. “So that, naturally, there is—with this added to the rivalry of the two horses—no very good blood existing between Sir Gregory Dawson-Blake and yourself?”

      “No, there is not. If, apart from these things, Mr. Cleek, you want my private opinion of the man, it can be summed up in the word ‘Bounder.’ There is not one instinct of the gentleman about him. He is simply a vulgar, money-gilded, low-minded cad, and I wouldn’t put it beyond him to be mixed up in this disappearance of the filly himself but that I know Chadwick was about the place; and for there to be anything between Chadwick and him is as impossible as it is for the two poles to come together, or for oil to assimilate with water. That is the one thing in this world that Dawson-Blake would not do under any circumstances whatsoever. Beyond that, I put nothing beneath the man—nothing too despicable for him to attempt in the effort to gain his own end and aim. He races not for the sport of the thing, but for the publicity, the glory of getting talked about, and of making the vulgar stare. He wants the blue ribbon of the turf for the simple fame of the thing; and he’d buy it if buying it were possible, and either bribes or trickery could carry off the race.”

      “H’m! That’s a sweeping assertion, Major.”

      “But made upon a basis of absolute fact, Mr. Cleek. He has twice endeavoured to buy Farrow to desert me by an offer of double wages and a pension; and, failing that, only last week he offered my jockey £10,000 cash on the nail to slip off over to France on the night before Derby Day, and promised him a further five thousand if Tarantula carried off the race.”

      “Oho!” said Cleek, in two different tones; and with a look of supremest contempt. “So our Tinplate Knight is that sort of a sportsman, is he, the cad? And having failed to get hold of the rider——H’m! Yes. It is possible—perhaps. Chadwick’s turning up at such a time might be a mere coincidence—a mere tout’s trick to get inside information beforehand, or——Well, you never can tell. Suppose, Major, you give me the facts from the beginning. When was the animal’s loss discovered—and how? Let me have the full particulars, please.”

      The major sighed and dropped heavily into a chair.

      “For an affair of such far-reaching consequences, Mr. Cleek,” he said gloomily, “it is singularly bald of what might be called details, I am afraid; and beyond what I have already told you there is really very little more to tell. When or how the deed was committed, it is impossible to decide beyond the indefinite statement that it happened the night before last, at some time after half-past nine in the evening, when the stable-boy, Dewlish, before going home, carried a pail of water at Farrow’s request into the building where Highland Lassie’s stall is located, and five o’clock the next morning when Captain MacTavish strolled into the stables and found the mare missing.”

      “A moment, please. Who is Captain MacTavish? And why should the gentleman be strolling about the Abbey stable-yard at five o’clock in the morning?”

      “Both questions can be answered in a few words. Captain MacTavish is a friend who is stopping with us. He is a somewhat famous naturalist. Writes articles and stories on bird and animal life for the magazines. It is his habit to be up and out hunting for ‘specimens’ and things of that sort every morning just about dawn. At five he always crosses the stable yard on his way to the dairy where he goes for a glass of fresh milk before breakfast.”

      “I see. Captain a young man or an old one?”

      “Oh, young, of course. About two or three and thirty, I should say. Brother of a deceased army pal of mine. Been stopping with us for the past two months. Very brilliant and very handsome chap—universal favourite wherever he goes.”

      “Thanks. Now just one more question before you proceed, please: About