His daughter raised her eyebrows over her cornflakes. If Moggie took a bribe she had finished with him, she thought.
Moggie ‘the cat’ Reilly, like many other jockeys, kept fit by regular running, and many, also, left their cars outside the pubs at night rather than be done for drink-driving, so no one paid any attention when Moggie jogged to The Stag, plucked his keys from their magnetic box and drove himself home.
When he walked through his door, the telephone began ringing: he picked up the receiver hoping the call would be short. He felt chilled, the warm jog ebbing. He wanted a hot shower and to sit in a warm woollen lumberjack sweater while he drank more coffee and read the newspapers.
A. high nervous hurried voice in his ear said, ‘I want to speak to Reilly. It’s Billington Innes here. Jasper... er... Billington Innes. I own Lilyglit... er... do you know who I mean?’
Moggie Reilly knew well. He said he was Reilly.
Yes. Well... er... I’m selling my horse.’ Billington Innes took a slow deep breath and tried to speak more slowly. ‘I’ve arranged a sale... top price of course... really an excellent sale...’
Moggie Reilly said briefly, ‘Congratulations.’
‘Yes, but, well, do you see, it’s a conditional sale.’
‘Mm?’ Moggie Reilly murmured, ‘Conditional on what?’
‘Well... actually, conditional on his winning this afternoon. Winning the Cloister Hurdle, to be precise...’
‘I see,’ Moggie said with calm, and indeed he did see.
Yes... well, Percy Driffield refused to approach you with this proposition, but...’ he spoke faster, ‘this is not a bribe I’m offering you, not at all. I wouldn’t do that, absolutely not.’
‘No,’ Moggie said.
‘What I’m offering, do you see,’ Jasper Billington Innes continued, coming awkwardly to the point, ‘is in the nature of commission. If my horse Lilyglit wins the Cloister Hurdle, I can finalise the sale on better terms, and... er, well, if you and Storm Cone could have assisted the result in any way, then you would have earned a commission, don’t you see?’
What I see, Moggie Reilly thought to himself, is a quick way to lose my licence. To Jasper Billington Innes he replied reassuringly, ‘Your horse Lilyglit is good enough to win without help.’
‘But think of the handicap. It alters everything. And last time out Lilyglit at level weights beat Storm Cone by only two lengths...’ The voice rose in worry.
‘Mr Billington Innes,’ Moggie Reilly said patiently, near to shivering, ‘there are eleven runners in the Cloister. Theoretically it’s anybody’s race because of the handicap, and if Storm Cone makes his way to the front, I shan’t stop him.’
‘Are you saying you won’t help me?’
‘I’m saying good luck.’
The phone went dead abruptly. Jasper Billington Innes, thought Moggie Reilly, as he headed, undressing, for the shower, was one of the last people he’d have expected to aim to win by flim-flam.
Moggie didn’t know, of course, about the manager at Stemmer Peabody.
Jasper Billington Innes sat beside the telephone, staring unseeingly at the carpet of a small hotel bedroom next door to his gaming club. The deal he had made with his bookmaker and the club proprietors no longer seemed so brilliant as at four in the morning, but he had to admit that they’d been fair and even kind. He’d realised too late, though, that Lilyglit had to win the Cloister Hurdle for him to be left with enough to hold up his head around town. In effect, if Lilyglit won, the prize money would go a long way towards paying his gambling debts. Lilyglit’s value would have risen and his sale would leave a useful surplus. If Lilyglit lost, his sale proceeds would be swallowed by debt. If he lost the race he would be worth less than he would fetch at that moment. His hard-pressed owner had agreed that the horse’s value should decline slightly with every length he was beaten.
Jasper saw betting on Lilyglit to win as a way out, but his bookmaker had shaken his head and refused to increase his debt.
Jasper Innes made a hopeless list of his other saleable assets, none of which were unentailed antiques or portraits. He and Wendy had both from childhood lived among precious objects that belonged for ever to the next generation. Even his old house, dying of rot, belonged to his son and his son and his son, for ever.
Jasper Billington Innes, until that morning, would never have tried to bribe a jockey. He was only vaguely aware of the graceful manner of Moggie’s refusal, and he could think of nothing except his own desolation.
He read again the newspaper assessment of the Cloister Hurdle that lay before him on his room-service breakfast tray.
No. 1 Lilyglit. Worthy favourite, needing to fight all the way with top weight.
No. 2 Fable. In the good strong hands of Arkwright, will he or won’t he be able to come and join the dance?
No. 3 Storm Cone. Jockey, ‘Nine lives’ M. Reilly. They’ll try forever, and the weights favour them, but have they the finishing speed?
Jasper swallowed hard and telephoned a friend who would know how to get in touch with the Arkwrights. He then reached and talked to Vernon Arkwright, who listened without excitement.
Jasper found it easier, the second time, to offer a ‘commission’. He almost believed in it himself.
‘What you want me to do,’ Vernon said, clarifying things baldly, ‘is to prevent Storm Cone from beating Lilyglit.’
‘Er...’
‘And I don’t get paid unless Lilyglit wins and I’ve in some way helped to bring that about. Is that right?’
‘Er... yes.’
Vernon Arkwright sighed. It wasn’t much of a proposition, but the only one they’d been offered.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll do it. But if you default on the agreement, I’ll report your offer to the stewards.’
Jasper wasn’t used to threats. Vernon Arkwright’s bluntness forced him to understand how far he’d travelled towards plain dishonesty. He felt humiliated and wretched. He wavered. He didn’t turn back.
He telephoned Percy Driffield and asked him to place a big bet for him on Lilyglit to win. Driffield, who had done this before, agreed without protest and telephoned his own bookmaker, who accepted the wager.
Christopher Haig, sitting at his table in the weighing-room, smiled at each jockey as he checked colours and number cloth.
Lilyglit, the favourite, was to be ridden as usual by the longtime champion steeplechase jockey: married, three children, a face well known to the public. Trainer Percy Driffield stood by, alert in case of trouble.
Next on the judge’s list came Vernon Arkwright, partner of Fable. Vernon Arkwright, though a villain from eyeballs to spleen, nevertheless amused Christopher Haig who fought to keep his grin within officially suitable limits. The stewards in Christopher Haig’s hearing had sworn to follow Fable every step of the way in the Cloister Hurdle with sword-sharp patrol camera lenses, trying to catch him in crime. Chris Haig thought of warning the jockey but, looking at Arkwright’s cheeky confidence, thought he probably knew.