“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cleek. Read a great deal about you one way and another,” he said, when the major made the introduction—a performance which the captain evidently considered superfluous as between an army officer and a police detective. “Sorry I shan’t be able to remain and study your interesting methods, however. Should have been rather pleased to do so, otherwise.”
“And I for my part should have been pleased to have you do so, Captain, I assure you,” replied Cleek, the first intonation of his voice causing the captain to twitch up his head and stare at him as if he were a monstrosity. “Shall you be leaving us, then, before the investigation is concluded?”
“Well, I’m blest! Why, how in the world—oh—er—yes. Obliged to go. Wire from London this afternoon. Regiment sails for India in two days. Beastly nuisance. Shall miss the Derby and all that. By the way, Norcross, if this chap succeeds in finding the filly in time for the race, that little bet of ours stands, of course?”
“Of course,” agreed the major. “Ready are you, Mr. Cleek? Right you are—come along.” And he forthwith led the way into the stable where Chocolate Maid, like a perfect horse in French bronze, stood munching hay in her box as contentedly as if there were no such things in the world as touts and swindlers and horse thieves, and her companion of two days ago still shared the quarters with her.
“Gad! but she’s a beauty and no mistake, Major,” said Cleek as he went over and, leaning across the low barrier of the enclosure, patted the mare’s shoulder and smoothed her glossy neck. “I don’t wonder that you and her ladyship have such high hopes for her future. The creature seems well nigh perfect.”
“Yes, she is a pretty good bit of horseflesh,” replied he, “but not to be compared with Highland Lassie in speed, wind, or anything. There she is, Mr. Cleek; and it’s as natural as life, the beauty!”
Speaking, he waved his hand toward a framed picture of the missing animal—a coloured gift plate which had been given away with the Easter number of The Horseman, and which Farrow had had glazed and hung just over her box. Cleek, following the direction of the indicating hand, looked up and saw the counterfeit presentment of a splendidly proportioned sorrel with a splash of white on the flank and a white “stocking” on the left forefoot.
“A beauty, as you say, Major,” agreed he, “but do you know that I, for my part, prefer the charms of Chocolate Maid? May be bad judgment upon my part but—there you are. What a coat! What a colour! What splendid legs, the beauty! Mind if I step in for a moment and have a look at her?”
The major did not, so he went in forthwith and proceeded to look over the animal’s points—feeling her legs, stroking her flanks, examining her hoofs. And it was then and then only that the major remembered about the visit to the farrier’s over at Shepperton Old Cross and began to understand that it was not all simple admiration of the animal, this close examination of her.
“Oh, by Jove! I say!” he blurted out as he made—with Cleek—a sudden discovery; his face going first red and then very pale under the emotions thus engendered. “She hasn’t any new shoes on, has she? So she can’t have been taken to the farrier’s after all.”