Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

“‘Favorable odds and the right attitude,’ is it?” said he. “And what might the right attitude be?”

“Prayerful,” said I.

He laughed at that, but then said that it was as good as many he had heard of.

“Do you mean I should do just as this person has asked?”

“Well now I didn’t say that, did I?” He paused, taking a moment to consider the matter. Then: “Here’s how an experienced bettor would handle the problem. First of all, if the person you describe entrusted you with money and those instructions, I’d say you had an obligation to do it just that way-with that person’s money.”

“But Mr. Patley!”

“No, hear me out, Jeremy. What an experienced bettor would do is use his own money to hedge the bet he’d made for the other person.”

“ Hedge the bet?” said I. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you put the money on the safest bet you can make-a sure win, if there is such a thing. That way you’ve more or less insured the loss of the money bet at favorable odds. Of course, the safe bet you make to hedge the other one won’t pay near as well because everybody else will be betting him, too. But it’ll probably pay off just enough. You’ll be covered against the loss, you see?”

Indeed I did see. “It sounds to me like the only sensible way to bet.”

Patley let that stand for a moment or two, though it was clear that he was made a bit uncomfortable by it. But then did he come out with this. “Sensible it may be, but if a body was sensible, he wouldn’t be betting in the first place. Betting is, well, it’s having an inspiration. It’s having a thunderbolt hit you so that you know this is the one! You don’t look at the odds. You don’t worry about how the horse has done in past races. You just know this is the horse that’s going to win today !” It sounded almost like poetry the way he said it then-and perhaps it was a kind of poetry to him. But he did add: “Most of the time it’s just money thrown away when you bet like that. Ah, but once in a while it happens just the way your vision said it would-and what you’ve won is not just a bet, it’s letting you believe your life’s going to get better, that maybe you’ll win all in the end.”

I knew not quite how to take that, and so I did no more than nod and say rather timidly, “Thank you for telling me about hedging bets. That should solve the problem nicely.”

“Think nothing of it.”

We parted shortly afterward-I to our room, where I read myself to sleep, and he to join the group at the bar, men who, like us, had come up from London. I marveled at his endurance, yet then reminded myself that he had slept the distance from just outside London all the way to Cambridge-and I, of course, had not.

It was still quite gray by the time I reached the race course. Indeed, I wondered, from the look of the sky, if it might not rain that day. (It did not.) There was one man alone who stood hunched over the rail. Even from behind-perhaps specially so-I could tell that the on-looker was not Lord Lamford. It was not, however, till he turned round and I saw his face that I recognized him from Shepherd’s Bush on Easter Sunday, one of those who tended Pegasus following the race. I gave him a greeting and received one in return; then did I settle myself relatively near the fellow but made no attempt to question him nor start a conversation with him. We simply watched at some distance, one from the other.

What we saw surprised me somewhat, for, though at a considerable remove, Mr. Deuteronomy and Pegasus were nevertheless visible in the still-dim light. Yet the surprise was that, though the horse was saddled, the jockey led him by the reins at a slow pace that was comfortable to them both. I watched, fascinated, for he seemed to be communicating as they walked. Were his lips moving? They seemed to be; if so, he was communicating directly with Pegasus, for there was no one about at his end of the track to whom he might be speaking. Here and there he took the trouble to point things out along the way. I cannot say that the horse understood, but he certainly gave Mr. Deuteronomy his full attention. I watched them so for some minutes; then, unable to contain myself further, I put to my companion at the rail a question.

“Do my eyes deceive me,” said I, “or is Mr. Deuteronomy actually talking to Pegasus?

“Yes, that’s what he’s doing, pointing things to watch out for along the way, and where they might speed up, and so on.”

“And does the horse. .”

“Does he understand? Yes, I’d say he does. Deuteronomy, he’s got a special talent with them animals. I never seen nothin’ like it in my life before.”

Nor had I. The question that came to me, however, was whether the “special talent” was Mr. Deuteronomy’s or the horse’s. It would be difficult to say.

“Pegasus won’t let nobody but him on his back,” said my companion. “He’ll let me lead him, saddle him, rub him down to dry him off, all of that, but I dare not sit on his back.”

“That is indeed interesting,” said I, “Mr. . Mr. . ”

“Bennett. And you’d be young Mr. Proctor, I s’pose. Deuteronomy said you’d be coming by early.”

So this was the Bennett who had brought the pistol to the gunsmith Joseph Griffin. I would know what Deuteronomy had asked him. Later.

He pulled from his pocket a collapsed spy-glass and offered it to me.

“Here,” said he. “It’s getting lighter. You might want to take a look through this.”

I accepted it with thanks, opened it up, and peered through it. It only tended to confirm what my unaided eyes had suggested. Mr. Deuteronomy kept up a fairly constant chatter with Pegasus at his side. Indeed, through the spy-glass, the image of the jockey came through so plain that, were I a lip-reader, I am sure that I could have caught every word he spoke, all at a distance of a furlong or more. I wondered what he spoke. Which is to say, did Pegasus understand the King’s English, or did the two have a separate language between them? I entertained that thought, and others no less fanciful, whilst I studied the horse and the man approaching. I returned the spy-glass to Mr. Bennett just as the two arrived at our vantage point. He ducked under the rail and gave Mr. Deuteronomy a leg up that he might mount Pegasus. The jockey spoke his thanks politely to Bennett; to me, he gave only a nod. Then did the two, horse and man, start off on a tour of the course.

The first time round, and the second, they did no more than go at a trot. Then, at a signal from Mr. Deuteronomy, Pegasus sped up to a canter. It was twice round so-and then a walk, a trot, and a walk round again, this time Pegasus led round by his rider. Never once did they take the course, or any part of it, at a full gallop. But by this time, too, other horses, and their riders and trainers, had arrived. Deuteronomy signaled Bennett that it was time to go. Halfway up the hill there seemed so many horses marching down to the track that I was certain there would be a repetition of yesterday’s mob-scene in that part we had just left.

I fell in beside Mr. Deuteronomy, eager to talk, yet I saw that he was occupied by thoughts of the race, which was by then but two days hence. He signed his readiness to talk by opening the discussion himself.

“You see from this crowd of horseflesh why we got down here so early,” said he to me.

“Oh, I do indeed. Yesterday there were so many horses on the course, there was scarce any room for those entered in the race. That was in the late morning or early afternoon-sometime in there.”

“Oh, I know how it can be. I hope it clears out a bit this evening, for Pegasus needs a light workout. If it’s as bad as you say, I’ll take him out on the country roads. We have to bring him up to a peak in a couple of days, though. Not easy.”