I could see that my irascible friend spoke the language of truth. The advertisements were withdrawn, the enquiry stopped, and the countess received her valuable dressing-case intact, and with apologies without number from the hands of the man who had carried it off by mistake.
What he would have done with it had I not appeared on the scene, I cannot guess.
CHAPTER VIII.
CREMORNE: A ROMANCE OF THE DERBY.
My Bad Derby Book— Backing Cremorne at Ruinous Prices—Death of Agent in Derby Week—Loss of £10,000—Agent comes to Life—Detection of the Gross Fraud.
The extraordinary circumstances about to be related for the first time in print occurred in my green and salad days, and had a lasting influence on my life. Some of the particulars are known to a few men in London, and they own, as will the public when they learn the facts, that a more carefully concocted fraud has seldom been heard of. The man at the bottom of it is dead now, and my promise of secrecy is no longer binding.
By the death of a relation I came into a large sum of money, and started what turned out to be a ruinous speculation—a yearling book on the Derby; i.e., I commenced to lay against the candidates for Epsom honours when they were a year old, and continued the process until the judge's decision was known.
Amongst others, I laid heavily against Mr. Savile's horse, Cremorne. When Cremorne came out as a two-year-old and won his engagements in such gallant style, he became immediately first favourite for the Derby, which he eventually won, and my book was anything but an object for admiration. If the horse kept well through the winter months the "getting out" would be fearful. The price during the Goodwood week in the previous July was so short, it was much better to wait the chances of accident.