“Well, what of it?” Durkin asked.
“Why, this Bryan is the man who took one hundred and ten thousand dollars out of the Aqueduct ring in one day. Since the Gravesend Meeting began, people say he has made nearly half a million. He’s a sort of race-track Curry. He keeps close figures on every race he plays. He has one hundred men and more on his pay roll, and makes his calculations after the most minute investigating and figuring. It stands to reason that he manipulates a little, though the Pinkerton men, as I suppose you know, have never been able to get him off the Eastern tracks. Now, Jim, my firm belief is that there is something ‘cooked up,’ as they say, for tomorrow afternoon, and if we could only find out what this Duke of Kendall business is, we might act on it in time.”
She waited for Durkin to speak. He tapped the top of his head, meditatively, with his right forefinger, pursing his lips as his mind played over the problem.
“Yes, we might. But how are we to find out what the Duke of Kendall and his mere running means?”
“I even took the trouble to look up the Duke of Kendall. He is a MacIntosh horse, the stable companion to Mary J., and ridden by Shirley, a new jockey.”
She could see that he had little sympathy for her suggestion, and she herself lost faith in the plan even as she unfolded it.
“My idea was, Jim, that this horse was going to run—is sure to run, under heavy odds, for what they call ‘a long shot.’”
“But still, how would we be able to make sure?”
“I could go and ask Sunset Bryan himself.”
Durkin threw up his hand with a gesture of angry disapproval.