The Garden Murder Case Page 3

  He had to cede the win to Vanderveer in the Youthful Stakes. He cut in toward the rail on Persian Bard at Bellaire; and he was disqualified for the same thing in Colorado, handing the race over to Grand Score. In the Urban he tried the same rail-diving, with the result that Roving Flirt won by a nose… How’s anyone to know about him? And there’s always the chance he’ll lose, rail or no rail. He’s not a young horse any more, and he’s already lost eighteen races to date. He’s up against some tough babies today—some of the greatest routers from this country and abroad. I’d say he was a pretty bad bet; and yet I know that nut cousin of mine is going to smear him on the nose with everything he owns.”

  He looked up solemnly.

  “And that, Vance, means trouble if Equanimity doesn’t come in. It means a blow-up of some kind. I’ve felt it coming for over a week. It’s got me worried. To tell you the truth, I’m glad you picked this day to sit in with us.”

  Vance, who had been listening intently and watching Garden closely as he talked, moved to the front window where he stood smoking meditatively and gazing out over Riverside Park twenty stories below, at the sun-sprayed water of the Hudson River.

  “Very interestin’ situation,” he commented at length. “I agree in the main with what you say regarding Equanimity. But I think you’re too harsh, and I’m not convinced that he’s a rail-lugger because of any innate passion for wood. Equanimity always had shelly feet and a quarter crack or two, and as a result often lost his plates. And, in addition, he had a bad off fore-ankle, which, when it began to sting at the close of a gruelling race, caused him to bear in toward the rail. But he’s a great horse. He could do whatever was asked of him at any distance on any kind of track. As a two-year-old he was the leading money-winner of his age; as a three-year-old he already had foot trouble and was started only three times; but as a four-year-old he came back with a new foot and won ten important races. The remarkable thing about Equanimity is that he could either go right to the front and take it on the Bill Daly, or come from behind and win in the stretch. In the Futurity, when he was left at the post and entered the stretch in last place, he dropped two of his plates and, in spite of this, ran over Grand Score and Sublimate to win going away. It was a bad foot that kept him from being the world’s outstanding champion.”

  “Well, what of it?” retorted Garden dogmatically. “Excuses are easy to find, and if, as you say, he has a bad foot, that’s all the more reason for not playing him today.”

  “Oh, quite,” agreed Vance. “I myself wouldn’t wager a farthing on him in this big Handicap. I spent some time porin’ over the charts last night after I phoned you, and I decided to stay off Equanimity in today’s feature. My method of fixing the ratings is no doubt as balmy as any other system, but I couldn’t manipulate the ratios in his favor…”

  “What horse do you like there?” Garden asked with interest.

  “Azure Star.”

  “Azure Star!” Garden was as contemptuous as he was astonished. “Why, he’s almost an outsider. He’ll be twelve or fifteen to one. There’s hardly a selector in the country who’s given him a play. An ex-steeplechaser from the bogs of Ireland! His legs are too weak from jumping to stand the pace today. And at a mile and a quarter! He can’t do it! Personally, I’d rather put my money on Risky Lad. There’s a horse with great possibilities.”

  “Risky Lad checks up as unreliable,” said Vance. “Azure Star beat him badly at Santa Anita this year. Risky Lad entered the stretch in the lead and then tired to finish fifth. And he certainly didn’t run a good mile race at the same track when he finished fifth again in a field of seven. If I remember correctly, he weakened in last year’s Classic and was out of the money. His stamina is too uncertain, I should say…” Vance sighed and smiled. “Ah, well, chacun à son cheval … But as you were sayin’, the psychological situation hereabouts has you worried. I gather there’s a super-charged atmosphere round this charmin’ aerie.”

  “That’s it, exactly,” Garden answered almost eagerly. “Super-charged is right. Nearly every day the mater asks, ‘How’s Woody?’ And when the old gentleman comes home from his lab at night he greets me with a left-handed ‘Well, my boy, have you seen Woody today?’… But I could die of the hoof-and-mouth disease without stirring up such solicitude in my immediate ancestors.”

  Vance made no comment on these remarks. Instead he asked in a peculiarly flat voice: “Do you consider this recent hypertension in the household due entirely to your cousin’s financial predicament and his determination to risk all he has on the horses?”

  Garden started slightly and then settled back in his chair. After he had taken another drink he cleared his throat.

  “No, damn it!” he answered a little vehemently. “And that’s another thing that bothers me. A lot of the golliwogs we’re harboring are due to Woode’s cuckoo state of mind; but there are other queer invisible animals springing up and down the corridors. I can’t figure it out. The mater’s illness doesn’t make sense either, and Doc Siefert acts like a pompous old Buddha whenever I broach the subject. Between you and me, I don’t think he knows what to make of it himself. And there’s funny business of some kind going on among the gang that drifts in here nearly every afternoon to play the races. They’re all right, of course—belong to ‘our set,’ as the phrase goes, and spring from eminently respectable, if a trifle speedy, environments…”

  At this moment we heard the sound of light footsteps coming up the hall, and in the archway, which constituted the entrance from the hall into the drawing room, appeared a slight, pallid young man of perhaps thirty, his head drawn into his slightly hunched shoulders, and a melancholy, resentful look on his sensitive, sallow face. Thick-lensed pince-nez glasses emphasized the impression he gave of physical weakness.

  Garden waved his hand cheerily to the newcomer.

  “Greetings, Woody. Just in time for a spot before lunch. You know Vance, the eminent sleuth; and this is Mr. Van Dine, his patient and retiring chronicler.”

  Woode Swift acknowledged our presence in a strained but pleasant manner, and listlessly shook hands with his cousin. Then he picked up the bottle of Bourbon and poured himself a double portion, which he drank at one gulp.

  “Good Heavens!” Garden exclaimed good-humoredly. “How you have changed, Woody!… Who’s the lady now?”

  The muscles of Swift’s face twitched, as if he felt a sudden pain.

  “Oh, pipe down, Floyd,” he pleaded irritably.

  Garden shrugged indifferently. “Sorry. What’s worrying you today besides Equanimity?”

  “That’s enough worry for one day.” Swift managed a sheepish grin; then he added aggressively: “I can’t possibly lose.” And he poured himself another drink. “How’s Aunt Martha?”

  Garden narrowed his eyes.

  “She’s pretty fair. Nervous as the devil this morning, and smoking one cigarette after another. But she’s sitting up. She’ll probably be in later to take a crack or two at the prancing steeds…”

  At this point Lowe Hammle arrived. He was a heavy-set short man of fifty or thereabouts, with a round ruddy face and closely cropped gray hair. He was wearing a black-and-white checked suit, a gray shirt, a brilliant green four-in-hand, a chocolate-colored waistcoat with leather buttons, and tan blucher shoes the soles of which were inordinately thick.

  “The Marster of ’Ounds, b’ Gad!” Garden greeted him jovially. “Here’s your Scotch-and-soda; and here also are Mr. Philo Vance and Mr. Van Dine.”

  “Delighted—delighted!” Hammle exclaimed heartily, coming forward. He extended his hands effusively to Vance. “Been a long time since I saw you, sir… Let me see… Ah, yes. Broadbank. You hunted with me that morning. Nasty spill you got. Warned you in advance that horse couldn’t take the fences. But you were in at the kill—yes, by George! Recollect?”

  “Oh, quite. Jolly affair. A good fox. Never fancied your bolting him from that drain into the jaws of the pack after the sport he showed.”* Vance’s manner was icy—
obviously he did not like the man—and he turned immediately to Swift and began chatting amiably about the day’s big race. Hammle busied himself with his Scotch-and-soda.

  In a few minutes the butler announced lunch. The meal was heavy and tasteless, and the wine of dubious vintage—Vance had been quite right in his prognostication.

  The conversation was almost entirely devoted to horses, the history of racing, the Grand National, and the possibilities of the various entrants in the afternoon’s Rivermont Handicap. Garden was dogmatic in stating his opinions but eminently pleasant and informative: he had made a careful study of modern racing and had an amazing memory.

  Hammle was voluble and suave, and harked back to the former glories of racing and to famous dead heats—Attila and Acrobat in the Travers, Springbok and Preakness in the Saratoga Cup, St. Gatien and Harvester in the English Derby, Pardee and Joe Cotton at Sheepshead Bay, Kingston and Yum-Yum at Gravesend, Los Angeles and White in the Latonia Derby,* Domino and Dobbins at Sheepshead Bay, Domino again and Henry of Navarre at Gravesend, Arbuckle and George Kessler in the Hudson Stakes, Sysonby and Race King in the Metropolitan Handicap, Macaw and Nedana at Aqueduct, and Morshion and Mate, also at Aqueduct. He spoke of the great upsets on the track, both here and abroad—of that early winning of the Epsom Derby by an unnamed outsider known as the “Fidget colt”; of the lone success of Amato over Grey Momus, forty-one years later; of the lucky win of Aboyeur in 1913, when Craganour was disqualified; and of the recent win of April the Fifth. He discussed the Kentucky Derby—the unlooked-for success of Day Star as a result of the poor ride given Himyar, and the tragic failure to win of Proctor Knott. And he talked of the great strategy of “Snapper” Garrison in bringing Boundless home in the World’s Fair Derby of 1893; of the two lucky races of Plucky Play when he won over Equipoise in the Arlington Handicap and over Faireno in the Hawthorne Gold Cup. He mentioned the fateful ride that Coltiletti gave Sun Beau at Agua Caliente, losing the race to Mike Hall. He had a fund of historic information and, despite his prejudices, knew his subject well.

  Swift, nervous and somewhat peevish, had little to say, and though he assumed an outward attitude of attention, I got the impression that other and more urgent matters were occupying his mind. He ate little and drank too much wine.

  Vance contented himself mainly with listening and studying the others at the table. When he spoke at all, it was to mention with regret some of the great horses that had recently been destroyed because of accidents—Black Gold, Springsteel, Chase Me, Dark Secret and others. He spoke of the tragic and unexpected death of Victorian after his courageous recovery, and the accidental poisoning of the great Australian horse, Phar Lap.

  We were nearing the end of the luncheon when a tall, well-built and apparently vigorous woman, who looked no more than forty (though I later learned that she was well past fifty), entered the room. She wore a tailored suit, a silver-fox scarf and a black felt toque.

  “Why, mater!” exclaimed Garden. “I thought you were an invalid. Why this spurt of health and energy?”

  He then presented me to his mother: both Vance and Hammle had met her on previous occasions.

  “I’m tired of being kept in bed,” she told her son querulously, after nodding graciously to the others. “Now you boys sit right down—I’m going shopping, and just dropped in to see if everything was going all right… I think I’ll have a crème de menthe frappé while I’m here.”

  The butler drew up a chair for her beside Swift, and went to the pantry.

  Mrs. Garden put her hand lightly on her nephew’s arm. “How goes it with you, Woody?” she asked in a spirit of camaraderie. Without waiting for his answer, she turned to Garden again. “Floyd, I want you to place a bet for me on the big race today, in case I’m not back in time.”

  “Name your poison,” smiled Garden.

  “I’m playing Grand Score to win and place—the usual hundred.”

  “Right-o, mater.” Garden glanced sardonically at his cousin. “Less intelligent bets have been made in these diggins full many a time and oft… Sure you don’t want Equanimity, mater?”

  “Odds are too unfavorable,” returned Mrs. Garden, with a canny smile.

  “He’s quoted in the over-night line at five to two.”

  “He won’t stay there.” There was authority and assurance in the woman’s tone and manner. “And I’ll get eight or ten to one on Grand Score. He was one of the greatest in his younger days, and the old spark may still be there—if he doesn’t go lame, as he did last month.”

  “Right you are,” grinned Garden. “You’re on the dog for a century win and place.”

  The butler brought the crème de menthe, and Mrs. Garden sipped it and stood up.

  “And now I’m going,” she announced pleasantly. She patted her nephew on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Woody… Good afternoon, gentlemen.” And she went from the room with a firm, masculine stride.

  After a soggy Baba au Rhum, Garden led the way back to the drawing room and the butler followed for further instructions.

  “Sneed,” Garden ordered, “fix the set-up as usual.”

  I glanced at the electric clock on the mantel: it was exactly ten minutes after one.

  Notes

  * Vance at one time owned several excellent race-horses. His Magic Mirror, Smoke Maiden, and Aldeen were well known in their day; and Magic Mirror, as a three-year-old, won two of the most important handicaps on the eastern tracks. But when, in the famous Elmswood Special, this horse broke a leg on entering the back-stretch and had to be destroyed, Vance seemed to lose all interest in racing and disposed of his entire stable. He is probably not a true horseman, any more than he is a truly great breeder of Scottish terriers, for his sentiments are constantly interfering with the stern and often ruthless demands of the game.

  * These three horses were the first to better, by fractions of a second, Jack High’s 1:35 record for the mile at Belmont.

  * In America, where earths are not stopped, not more than one fox in twenty is actually killed in the open, and it is very unpopular—and by many considered unsportsmanlike—to force a fox out of a place in which he has taken refuge, in order to kill him. But this practice is regularly resorted to in England, for various reasons; and occasionally an American Master will ape the English to this extent in order to boast that he had killed his fox and not merely accounted for him.

  * “Lucky” Baldwin, the owner of Los Angeles, insisted upon a run-off (which was the privilege of the owners of dead-heat winners up to 1932), and Los Angeles won.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Rivermont Races

  (Saturday, April 14; 1:10 p. m.)

  “FIXING THE SET-UP” was a comparatively simple procedure, but a more or less mysterious operation for anyone unfamiliar with the purpose it was to serve. From a small closet in the hall Sneed first wheeled out a sturdy wooden stand about two feet square. On this he placed a telephone connected to a loud-speaker which resembled a midget radio set. As I learned later, it was a specially constructed amplifier to enable everyone in the room to hear distinctly whatever came over the telephone.

  On one side of the amplifier was attached a black metal switch box with a two-way key. In its upright position this key would cut off the voice at the other end of the line without interfering with the connection; and throwing the key forward would bring the voice on again.

  “I used to have earphones for the gang,” Garden told us, as Sneed rolled the stand back against the wall beside the archway and plugged the extension wires into jacks set in the baseboard.

  The butler then brought in a well-built folding card table and opened it beside the stand. On this table he placed another telephone of the conventional French, or hand, type. This telephone, which was gray, was plugged into an additional jack in the baseboard. The gray telephone was not connected with the one equipped with the amplifier, but was on an independent line.

  When the two instruments and the amplifier had been stationed and
tested, Sneed brought in four more card tables and placed them about the drawing room. At each table he opened up two folding chairs. Then, from a small drawer in the stand, he took out a long manila envelope which had evidently come through the mail, and, slitting the top, drew forth a number of large printed sheets approximately nine by sixteen inches. There were fifteen of these sheets—called “cards” in racing parlance—and after sorting them he spread out three on each of the card tables. Two neatly sharpened pencils, a well-stocked cigarette box, matches and ashtrays completed the equipment on each table. On the table holding the gray telephone was one additional item—a small, much-thumbed ledger.

  The final, but by no means least important, duty of Sneed in “fixing the set-up” was to open the doors of a broad, low cabinet in one corner of the room, revealing a miniature bar inside.

  A word about the “cards”: These concentrated racing sheets were practically duplicates of the programs one gets at a race track, with the exception that, instead of having each race on a separate page, all the races at one track were printed, one after the other, across a single sheet. There were only three tracks open that month, and the cards on each table were the equivalent of the three corresponding programs. Each of the printed columns covered one race, giving the post position of the horses,* the name of each entry and the weights carried. At the top of each column were the number and distance of the race, and at the bottom were ruled spaces for the parimutuel prices. At the left of each column was a space for the odds; and between the names of the horses there was sufficient room to write in the jockeys’ names when that information was received. (On the day in question, race number Four was that memorable Rivermont Handicap which was to prove the vital primary factor in the terrible tragedy that took place in Professor Garden’s home that afternoon.)

  When Sneed had arranged everything he started from the room, but hesitated significantly in the archway. Garden grinned broadly and, sitting down at the table with the gray telephone, opened the small ledger before him and picked up a pencil.