“That Friskaway!” the Pinkerton captain muttered. “What a dog!”
Keene said nothing, waited patiently while disgruntled losers and exultant winners streamed through into the betting enclosure.
Towbee was one of the first at the $50 window. The bearded gambler beamed affably at the cashier who counted out the fat stack of bills, was still beaming when the Pinkertons asked him politely to step into the manager’s private office for a moment.
“What for?” There was no trace of an accent, then, that Keene could detect.
“Mister Madden will explain.” The captain crowded Towbee ahead.
The gambler offered no resistance. “Am I to understand this is an arrest?”
“You’re being held on suspicion.” Keene followed him into the office, closed the door.
“Of what?”
“We’ll start with ‘conspiracy to defraud’ and work up to the real charges later. I imagine the one you’ll have the most trouble with will be ‘murder.’ ”
Towbee showed his fine, even set of teeth. “You can’t panic me, sir.”
“We’re not trying to panic you. We’re trying to convict you. I’ll give you six, two and even right now that we do.”
The gambler’s smile was a little less confident. “I know nothing of any violence, sir.”
“Before we get through, you may.”
Keene moved in on him.
The horses for the sixth were already being walked around the paddock when Keene got there. All he was interested in, at the moment, were the three horses being cooled out by their grooms under the watchful eyes of Bill Sutterfield, Wes Ottover and a trio of husky Pinkertons.
Sutterfield said, “I waited till you got here to take the samples.”
“Oke,” Keene told the vet. “Take ’em.”
“Haven’t checked on My Hon.” Ottover, the Racing Association secretary, waved toward the colt, that’d placed, its glossy black chest still heaving, its polished jet flanks steaming, “but I’d guess we won’t find any positive in Hubba Dub’s secretions. The colt won in three-tenths of a second slower than his last work.”
Keene ignored the big, rangy Hubba Dub — a bay with a long, bony head. “Friskaway’s the one was dored.”
Frank Wayne, striding across the lawn between the small-boy figure of Skit Yolock and the majestic bulk of a statuesque woman Keene recognized from her photographs as Mrs. Kay Larmin, heard the remark.
“You just exercising your mouth, Madden?” the trainer asked. “Or are you filing charges?”
Keene said, “No to the first. Yes to the second.”
The Dowager stared down her nose. “May I ask against whom you intend to make this accusation, Mister— ah—”
Ottover mumbled a hasty introduction. Keene took off his hat.
“I’m not permitted to make charges public, Mrs. Larmin,” the race track detective told her.
“I’m not asking you to.” She was brusque. “I’m certainly entitled to know if any Claybrook personnel is involved.”
The man from the Protective Bureau turned to Yolock. The jockey glared defiantly.
“I’ll put it up to you, Skit,” Keene said. “Couldn’t you tell that Friskaway wasn’t right?”
The rider spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Funny thing. I ride fifteen hundred races a year, an’ I never yet been able to get a mount to tell me when it feels like doin’ its best. Maybe if I had one of them Protective Bureau badges, the gee-gees’d open up an’ tell all.”
Wayne growled, “Don’t duck, Skit! Answer him!”
“Ah—” the jockey shrugged — “the filly wilted pretty sudden, head of the stretch, but—”
Keene said, “Know how it feels to be up on an entry that’s been given a depressant?”
Yolock began an obscenity, cut it short.
“A depressant?” Bill Sutterfield swiveled to peer at Friskaway. “You mean phenobarbital?”
“Or something else,” Keene nodded. “Your chemists would have analyses for that. But maybe something new has been added. Something they haven’t found a twenty-four hour test for.” He moved across to the filly, touched her forelegs. “There’s no quivering, as there’d be if your entry had been raced into the ground, Mrs. Larmin.”
The Dowager touched her trainer’s sleeve. “How about it, Frank?”
Frank Wayne squatted, ran his hands over the filly’s hocks. “He’s sweating properly. It could be. But—”
“Who?” The old lady thrust out her chin at Keene.
Keene put his hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “I expect your trainer has a notion about that.”
“Damn it!” Wayne’s face grew flaming red. “Don’t put me in the middle, you—”
“Check,” Keene said promptly. “You’re right. You’ve been in the middle long enough. You didn’t know for sure and you couldn’t talk.”
The Dowager’s lips became a thin, straight line. “Stop shilly-shallying! Frank could talk to me about anything or anyone.”
Frank Wayne held out his hands. “Take it easy, Kay—”
She ignored him. “You must mean Clay, Mister Madden. You can tell me that much. You have to tell me. Do you suspect Clay?”
“I think your son has known what’s been going on, Mrs. Larmin.” Keene wondered how much she’d heard about Lola Gretsch.
“I will not believe it.” She was vehement. “There aren’t many things I’d put past that boy, but manipulating horse races is one of them. He thinks more of the stables than he does of me.”
Ottover chimed in, “I can’t credit that, at all, Madden. I know for a fact the boy has been a very heavy loser, these last two weeks, betting on his own entries. Surely, if he’d known somebody was taking the edge off them, he wouldn’t have put his money on Claybrook silks.”
Somebody cried, “Wes! Wes!”
They all turned. Jane Arklett was running from the office bungalow — cutting heedlessly across flower beds, bumping into people, her coppery hair jouncing at the nape of her neck with every long-legged stride. She ran with her head thrown back, like a miler who is at the last gasp.
Wayne held Friskaway’s nose, bending to examine the filly’s eyeballs. “This is a hell of a time to come up with a charge like that against Clay, Madden. Kay — Mrs. Larmin — is worried stiff about him in connection with that other matter.”
“Indeed I am,” the Dowager said stonily. “But I have complete confidence in my boy. You’re the second person today to make what I consider preposterous statements about him.”
“It's easy to settle,” Keene said. “Ask him.”
Jane came to a panting halt. She glanced wildly around the group circling the filly.
“Clay? Nobody’s going to ask him anything!” Her voice was flat. “He killed himself in the police station ten minutes ago. Slashed his wrists with a knife. Bled to—”
She held herself rigidly for a second, then burst into tears, flung her arms around the Dowager’s neck, buried her head on the ample bosom, whimpering.
Ottover rushed to her. Wayne caught Mrs. Larmin’s arm to support her. But the old lady put her hands up, disengaged Jane’s grasp, pushed her away. The Dowager made no outcry whatever. Only the spasmodic contraction of the tired facial muscles showed the extent of her shock.
“At least,” she pointed her chin at Madden, “there will be no further mention of the unsavory matter which you brought up, sir. And—” she blinked wretchedly at Jane — “I will not be subject to further humiliation on your account.”
“Don’t be so sure, Mrs. Kay Larmin!” the girl flared at her. She poured venom over every syllable. “You might be subject to a good deal on account of your son’s widow! Yes — I'm Mrs. Larmin, too!”