Джозефина Тэй - The Man in the Queue

When the first race was over, and the little eddy of lucky ones had surrounded the bookmakers and been sent gloating away, Grant began his work. He pursued his inquiries steadily until the ring began to fill again with eager inquirers after odds for the second race, when he returned to the paddock. But no one seemed to have heard of Sorrell, and it was a rather disconsolate Grant who joined Murray in the paddock before the fourth race – a handicap hurdle – in which Murray’s horse was running. Murray was sympathetic, and as Grant stood with him in the middle of the parade ring he mixed adjurations to admire his horse with suggestions for the tracking of Sorrell. Grant wholeheartedly admired the magnificent bay that was Murray’s property and listened with only half an ear to his suggestions. His thoughts were worried. Why did no one in the silver ring know Sorrell?

The jockeys began to filter into the ring, the crowd round the rail thinned slightly as people moved away to points of vantage on the stands, lads kept ducking eager heads under their charges’ necks in anxiety to intercept the summons that would mean mounting time.

‘Here comes Lacey,’ said Murray, as a jockey came stepping catlike over the wet grass to them. ‘Know him?’

‘No,’ said Grant.

‘Flat-race crack really, but has a go over hurdles occasionally. Crack at that too.’

Grant had known that – there is very little between a Scotland Yard inspector and omniscience – but he had never actually met the famous Lacey. The jockey greeted Murray with a tight little smile, and Murray introduced the inspector without explaining him. Lacey shivered slightly in the damp air.

‘I’m glad it’s not fences,’ he said, with mock fervour. ‘I’d just hate to be emptied into the water today.’

‘Bit of a change from heated rooms and all the coddling,’ said Murray.

‘Been in Switzerland?’ asked Grant conversationally, remembering that Switzerland was the winter Mecca of flat-race jockeys.

‘Switzerland!’ repeated Lacey in his drawling Irish voice. ‘Not me. I’ve had measles. Measles – if you’d believe it! Nothing but milk for nine days and a whole month in bed.’ His pleasant, cameo-like face twisted into an expression of wry disgust.

‘And milk is so fattening,’ laughed Murray. ‘Talking of fat, did you ever know a man called Sorrell?’

The jockey’s pale bright eyes trickled over the inspector like twin drops of icy water and came back to Murray. The whip, which had been swinging pendulum-wise from his first finger, swung slowly to a halt.

‘I think I can remember a Sorrell,’ he said, after some cogitation, ‘but he wasn’t fat. Wasn’t Charlie Baddeley’s clerk called Sorrell?’

But Murray could not recall Charlie Baddeley’s clerk.

‘Would you recognize a sketch?’ asked the inspector, and took Struwwelpeter’s impressionistic portrait from his pocketbook.

Lacey took it and looked at it admiringly. ‘It’s good, isn’t it! Yes; that’s old Baddeley’s clerk, all right.’

‘And where can I find Baddeley?’ asked Grant.

‘Well, that’s rather a difficult question,’ said Lacey, the tight smile back at his mouth. ‘You see, Baddeley died over two years ago.’

‘Oh? And you haven’t seen Sorrell since?’

‘No, I don’t know what became of Sorrell. Probably doing office work somewhere.’

The bay was led up to them. Lacey took off his coat, removed a pair of galoshes, which he laid neatly side by side on the grass, and was thrown into the saddle. As he adjusted the leathers he said to Murray, ‘Alvinson isn’t here today’ – Alvinson was Murray’s trainer. ‘He said you would give me instructions.’

‘The instructions are the usual ones,’ said Murray. ‘Do as you like on him. He should about win.’

‘Very good,’ said Lacey matter-of-factly, and was led away to the gate, horse and man as beautiful a picture as this weary civilization can provide.

As Grant and Murray walked to the stands, Murray said, ‘Cheer up, Grant. Baddeley may be dead, but I know who knew him. I’ll take you down to talk to him as soon as this is over.’ So it was with a real enjoyment that Grant watched the race; saw the colour that flickered and streamed against the grey curtain of the woods on the back stretch, while a silence settled eerily on the crowd – a silence so complete that he might have been there alone with the dripping trees, and the grey wooded countryside, and the wet grass; saw the long struggle in the straight and the fighting finish, with Murray’s bay second by a length. When Murray had seen his horse again and congratulated Lacey, he led Grant into Tattersalls and introduced him to an elderly man, with the rubicund face of the man who drives mail coaches through the snow on Christmas cards. ‘Thacker,’ he said, ‘You knew Baddeley. What became of his clerk, do you know?’

‘Sorrell?’ said the Christmas-card man. ‘He set up for himself. Has an office in Minley Street.’

‘Does he come to the course?’

‘No, don’t think so. Just has an office. Seemed to be doing quite well last time I saw him.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Oh, long time.’

‘Do you know his home address?’ asked Grant.

‘No. Who wants him? He’s a good boy, Sorrell.’

The last irrelevance seemed to suggest suspicion, and Grant hastened to assure him that no harm was intended Sorrell. At that Thacker put his first and second fingers into either corner of his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle in the direction of the railings at the edge of the course. From the crowd of attentive faces which this demonstration had turned towards him he selected the one he wanted. ‘Joe,’ he said in stentorian tones, ‘Let me speak to Jimmy a minute, will you?’ Joe detached his clerk, as one detaches a watch and chain, and presently Jimmy appeared a clean, cherubic youth with an amazing taste in linen.

‘You used to be pally with Bert Sorrell, didn’t you?’ asked Thacker.

‘Yes, but I haven’t seen him for donkey’s years.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Well, when I knew him he had rooms in Brightling Crescent, off the Fulham Road. I’ve been there with him. Forget the number, but his landlady’s name was Everett. He lived there for years. Orphan he was, Bert.’

Grant described the Dago, and asked if Sorrell was ever friendly with a man like that.

No, Jimmy had never known him in such company, but then, as he pointed out, he hadn’t seen him for donkey’s years. He had dropped out of the regular crowd when he started on his own, though he sometimes went racing for his own amusement or perhaps to pick up information.

Through Jimmy, Grant interviewed two more people who had known Sorrell; but neither could throw any light on Sorrell’s companions. They were self-absorbed people, these bookmakers, looking at him with a vague curiosity and obviously forgetting all about him the minute their next bet was booked. Grant announced to Murray that he had finished, and Murray, whose interest had waned with the finish of the handicap hurdle, elected to go back to town at once. But as the car slid slowly out of the press Grant turned with a benedictory glance at the friendly little course which had provided him with the information he sought. Pleasant place. He would come back some day when he had no business on his mind to bother him, and make an afternoon of it.

On the way up to town Murray talked amiably of the things he was interested in: bookmakers and their clannishness. ‘They’re like Highlanders,’ he said. ‘They may squabble among themselves, but if an outsider butts into the scrap, it’s a case of tartan against all.’ Horses and their foibles; trainers and their morals; Lacey and his wit. Presently he said, ‘How’s the queue affair getting along?’