Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

When Mr. Patley announced his hunger to me, I realized that I, too, was hungry, and suggested we return to the Good Queen Bess where we might find us something in the tap-room. And so we started back, pushing our way through the crowd, which had grown a bit during our time at the rail. We pressed on, hands in our pockets, holding tight to our money bags. Just then did we spy the early odds posted at a turf-accountant’s stall. ’Twas Patley saw it first; he gave me a proper nudge in the ribs and pointed out the slate to me.

“There,” said he, “that might be of some interest to you, Jeremy.”

And, indeed, it was of interest-though not so much for the entries it carried as for the one it did not. I studied the list, then, having noted an omission, I studied it again.

“Mr. Patley,” said I. “Pegasus is not here on the slate.”

“I see he ain’t,” said he, attaching little importance to the fact.

“But why should Mr. Deuteronomy tell us he would be here, and then fail to arrive?”

“Oh, if he said he’d come, I for one believe he’ll be here. You see, Jeremy, they can’t post odds on a horse unless he’s present and officially entered.”

I nodded, accepting Mr. Patley’s explanation, yet not quite put at ease by it. I wondered what it was had held them up.

The turf accountant’s stall was at the very fringe of the area surrounding the race course. We went from it quickly through town and arrived at the Good Queen Bess in less time than it would take to tell.

“I believe I’ll inquire at the desk and find out if Mr. Deuteronomy has yet arrived to claim his room,” said I.

“Do as you like.”

Thus did we companions separate-I to make my inquiry, and he to the tap-room. Having no luck at the desk, I turned away, and who should I then spy entering the front door of the inn but Deuteronomy Plummer himself.

We greeted warmly with much hand-slapping and back-slapping. He asked me if all was right with my room, and I assured him that it was. Then did I inquire after his trip to Newmarket.

“We took it nice and slow,” said he. “Arrived just as intended.”

“And Pegasus is in good fettle?”

“Ah, ain’t he though! Every morning I give him a good talking-to, telling him just how he’s going to win this one.”

The idea of a conversation with a horse struck me as rather funny: I laughed, again in spite of myself. For his part, Mr. Deuteronomy was somewhat taken aback at my response.

“You think he don’t understand me? Well then, sir, you think wrong. Ain’t a smarter horse in the world than Pegasus!”

“Well, I’m sure that’s true, but. .” I left the sentence unended and hanging in the air. “Mr. Plummer, could you wait just a moment? I’ve a companion in the tap-room. He’s a Bow Street Runner, and a great enthusiast of your riding. Let me get him, and-”

“No, I’ve got to get these horses stabled,” said he, interrupting, “and watered and fed. Bring him to the track real early tomorrow. We’ll be out there at dawn, or close to it, learning the course.”

He then called to the clerk behind the desk, claiming his room, and ran out to tend to his horses. Well then, thought I, dawn it would be then for me-though Mr. Patley will no doubt be disappointed.

Yet he wasn’t, not in the least: “Oh no, I’m not surprised-and therefore I ain’t disappointed. He’s a real horseman, he is. Most of your lords and your gentry and whatnot, they have no sense of how to treat a horse. First rule we learned in the army was, take care of your horse’s needs, and after he’s been looked after, then-and only then-you take care of yourself.”

I had entered the tap-room to find him at a table near a window. There were two dark ales upon the table, a small loaf, and a big chunk of Stilton cheese. He looked as pleased and contented as I had ever seen him. He beckoned me over to him and gestured grandly at the bread and cheese, as if to say that that should hold us till dinner time. ’Twas then I told him of my meeting with Mr. Deuteronomy, expecting a howl of frustration in response and getting instead the well-reasoned lecture on the necessity of caring first for the horses.

That I have quoted to you already, reader, yet what I have not told is that, having said his piece, he became, all of a sudden, most interested in something or someone just beyond the window. He stared. Then did he rub his chin and stare once again.

“By God,” said he aloud yet to himself, “I believe it’s her. I really do believe it’s her.”

Then did my own eyes turn most immediate to the crowd outside the window. “Where?” said I. “Which one? You mean Alice Plummer, don’t you?”

Yet Constable Patley was already on his feet and running out the door. I pursued him, hesitating just long enough to tell the serving woman to leave all upon the table, for we would be back.

But when?

I rushed out the inn expecting to find Mr. Patley in hot pursuit of Alice Plummer, yet found him just beyond the door, standing, looking about scratching his head. He’d been flummoxed, confused utterly by the great number of women he saw. They were all, it seemed, heading off in three or four different directions, but in general, most moved toward the race course, whence we had just come. Oh, there were men, as well, as many or more than the women. But just at that moment, since it was a woman we searched for, there seemed to be a superabundance of them about. I approached Mr. Patley warily, for he seemed at that moment to be reasoning out in which direction she might have gone. I stood beside him, hesitating. At last, feeling I could wait no longer, I spoke up.

“Constable Patley,” said I, “was it Alice Plummer you spied through the window?”

“What? Oh yes, indeed it was. I seen her a number of times round Seven Dials. I’m just sure it was her. And of course when she reported her little girl missing, too.”

“How was she dressed? What was she wearing?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.” And that he proceeded to do, placing a hand over his eyes that he might better concentrate. “Truth of it is, I was looking at her face and not at her clothes, but it seems to me that her dress was a sort of dark red going into blue. Plum-colored, you might call it.”

“That’s a pretty rare color for a dress. Why don’t you go off in one way, and I’ll take another, and let’s see if we can’t find her.”

“But you don’t even know what she looks like,” he objected.

“That may be,” said I, “but I know what color her dress is. I’ll just stop every woman in a plum-colored dress and ask if her name is Alice Plummer. There couldn’t be too many in such a color.”

“I s’pose not.”

And so it was agreed. He would follow the crowd moving off toward the right, and I the column moving along to the left. We would mix all through and keep our eyes open for the dress of the right color. We would keep going in such a manner until we met at the place where we had viewed the horses out upon the track. If, after a few minutes’ wait, we failed to meet there, then we would go back the way we had come and meet again at the tap-room of the Good Queen Bess. We started upon our separate ways.

Like so many things in life, this plan, so simple in the telling, proved much more difficult in its execution. The chief problem lay in the number of individuals to be struggled through, around, and, ultimately, past. The inertia of the crowd resisted and dominated my every push and squeeze, so that I could finally do little more than find a place and move my feet along at the same rate as the rest. In this way, I reached the rail fence at approximately the same point that we had left earlier. There I waited, quite exhausted by my struggles against the multitude.