“I’ll be down in a minute,” he called out, as their steps sounded on the hardwood floor.
Hexford sauntered over to the stalls. Sweetwater stopped near the doorway and glanced very carefully about him. Nothing seemed to escape his eye. He even took the trouble to peer into a waste-bin, and was just on the point of lifting down a bit of broken bottle from an open cupboard when Brown appeared on the staircase, dressed in his Sunday coat and carrying a bunch of fresh, hot-house roses.
He stopped midway as Sweetwater turned towards him from the cupboard, but immediately resumed his descent and was ready with his reply when Hexford accosted him from the other end of the stable:
“An odd beast, this. They don’t drive her for her beauty, that’s evident.”
“She’s fast and she’s knowing,” grumbled the coachman. “Reason enough for overlooking her spots. Who’s that man?” he grunted, with a drop of his lantern jaws, and a slight gesture towards the unknown interloper.
“Another of us,” replied Hexford, with a shrug. “We’re both rather interested in this horse.”
“Wouldn’t another time do?” pleaded the coachman, looking gravely down at the flowers he held. “It’s most time for the funeral and I don’t feel like talking, indeed I don’t, gentlemen.”
“We won’t keep you.” It was Sweetwater who spoke. “The mare’s company enough for us. She knows a lot, this mare. I can see it in her eye. I understand horses; we’ll have a little chat, she and I, when you are gone.”
Brown cast an uneasy glance at Hexford.
“He’d better not touch her,” he cautioned. “He don’t know the beast well enough for that.”