“All right, Mr Chifney, but you have got a rummish customer to deal with there,” replied the guardian of the law, stroking his chin, and looking at Derrick, much as a vice-president of the Zoological Society might regard a novelty in wild beasts, that had been half-promised to the establishment, and then withdrawn.
“I have never been treated thus,” complained the trainer, as the three moved away, and the gaping crowd gathered round some other object of attraction, “and have never deserved such treatment from any employer of mine, although I have kept racing-stables these thirty years. I can make some allowance for one who has so much money on this horse, as I know you have, Mr Derrick, but I give you my honour and word that I was as astounded as Mr Blanquette himself, when I heard the news that Jack had skedaddled. He was your own jockey, remember, not mine: no boy in my stables has ever played such a scurvy trick as this.”
“Have you any boy that can take this scoundrel's place?” asked Captain Lisgard impatiently.
“I have got as good riders as can be got, Master Walter, upon so short a notice; and Menelaus shall have the pick of them. But you know what a devil of a temper the horse has; and this Withers was the only lad who understood him.”
“How comes it that Blanquette has gone to look for him?” asked Derrick thoughtfully. “Does he know where he is likely to be found?”
“Not as I know of, sir,” returned the trainer gravely, “He said he would bring him back Dead or Alive—those were his words.”
“Stop a moment, Chifney,” ejaculated Ralph. “I can scarcely find breath to utter even the suspicion of it; and the certainty would, I verily believe, choke me; but do you think it possible that all is not quite on the square with Blanquette himself?”
“Well, Mr Derrick, I'd rather not say. Mr Blanquette is as much the owner of the horse as yourself. He's my employer too—and nobody ever heard Tite Chifney breathe a word”——
“Thousand devils!” cried Derrick, stamping his foot so that the print of it was left in the yielding turf; “is this a time for your senseless scruples? I ask you, do you think it possible that this man—my pal for years, one that has oftentimes faced death in my company, and once shared the last scanty meal that stood between us and starvation—do you think it possible, I say, that this man has sold the race?”
“Well, sir,” replied Mr Chifney frankly, “about victuals eaten under the circumstances you describe, of course I'm no judge; but as to friendship and that, I've known a son play his own father false upon the turf before now; and what an Englishman will do in the way of smartness, you may take your oath a Frenchman will do—and a deuced sight worse too. Moreover, since you press this question, I may say that your partner has been seen talking with Wiley—Lord Stonart's agent—more than once.”