BY RICHARD PARKER we- fefft. Of CALIF. 'QUIETLY HE SLIPPED ALONG THE FOOTPLATE" THE WHIP BY RICHARD PARKER NOVELIZED FROM CECIL RALEIGH'S GREAT DRURY LANE MELODRAMA ILLUSTRATED WITH PICTURES FROM THE PLAY - NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY 1913 Copyright, 1913, by THE MACAULAY COMPANY CONTENTS CHAPTER PACE I. AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION . . n II. DIANA THE HUNTRESS . .... 27 III. No TRESPASSERS 36 IV. A MOUSE IN THE STABLE . . . . 57 V. THE ACCIDENT 70 VI. THE TIME AND THE PARSON . . 83 VII. THE TRIALS OF LOVE ..... 99 VIII. MARRIAGE MADE EASY .... 107 IX. A WOMAN SCORNED 125 X. AN UNEXPECTED GUEST . . . .142 XI. A POOR DESSERT 151 XII. BRANCASTER PLUNGES AGAIN . .157 XIII. CAPTAIN SARTORIS RECEIVES . . 193 XIV. COFFEE AND REPARTEE .... 209 XV. AT MADAME TUSSAUD'S . . . .218 XVI. LOCKED IN 242 XVII. MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS .... 253 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XVIII. THE WRECK 266 XIX. AT NEWMARKET 274 XX. MRS. D'AQUILA'S INSPIRATION . . 284 XXI. THE TRUTH AT LAST 291 XXII. THE WHIP WINS ........ 301 ILLUSTRATIONS "Quietly he slipped along the footplate" Frontispiece FACING PAGE " 'I thought perhaps you were asleep,' Lady Diana said" 125 " "They're after me !' he panted" 193 "Harry put his arm about her. 'Come away, lass!' he said" 216 "The Whip was led to safety" 272 "He joined their hands and held them both in his" 300 THE WHIP THE WHIP CHAPTER I AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION LADY DIANA set her mount at the stiffly railed fence before her, and as the pack, scenting the food waiting in the kennels, swept through the barrier, Lady Diana went over it. In mid air she saw a picture, vividly and anxiously. Under the royal oak sat an art- ist sketching. So intent was he on his out- line of the kennels and mushroomed stables that he gave no attention to the hounds and apparently was not conscious of the ap- proach hurtling through the air of the lady on her palfrey. The original impetus of Lady Diana's ii THE WHIP leap would have carried woman and horse squarely into the person of the artist. But the moment the girl had seen him a paralyz- ing inhibition had stayed the force of horse and rider almost in the air, and both lost their carrying power, making a very bun- gling finale of what had been originally a very fine movement. But as it was, the easel, made on the spot by the artist out of twigs and dead branches, had been shattered by a movement of one of the hunter's sleek legs, and, worse an iron- shod hoof had made an ugly mark upon the artist's left wrist, which had laid at rest on the moss while his right hand sketched. In a trembling hurry Lady Diana swung from the saddle. Her mount, disregarded, was allowed to amble away, and browsed without restraint. "Oh, I'm so sorry pray tell me that you're not hurt severely," she said, and raised her eyes to the stranger's face. 12 AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION She saw clean cut features, black eyes with just a shade of amusement of whim in them though there must have been pain in that wrist and wavy black hair. The man was in rough tweeds, and a cloth hat of his suit's pattern lay a little way off. But from beneath and beyond the stranger's features, Lady Diana Sartoris got her impression of the man. There were sadness, wistfulness, a sense of the decay of a fine nature, a look of tragedy. His hurt did not appear to concern him. Indeed, his whole being seemed devoted to a scrutinizing, an appraising of her. From her green little hat and her long green coat, he turned to note that cold perfection of her features, that fair chiseling which, with her perfect health, and consequent confident poise, made this young woman at times seem almost too self-centered, too well schooled. Without answering the man stood watch- ing her, almost hungrily, yet with no repul- 13 THE WHIP sive effect and very respectfully. The girl repeated her inquiry. "Not a bit," he returned carelessly. "It was really very stupid of me not to have noticed a pack in full cry for its kennel feed- ing, and so inspiring an object as their mis- tress." He had covered his hurt with his hand- kerchief and knotted and twisted it before the girl could offer to minister to him. "Such absorption can only be excused in a very great artist, and such I assure you I can scarcely hope to be." His deprecating motion brought his open sketch book nearer the girl and her eyes fell upon its pages. "Why, there's the kennels!" she ex- claimed. "Oh! I mustn't think of your sketches, but your hurt. I am profoundly sorry. If I could do anything " "A little thing that I can attend to easily, after a bit," he said then in courteous anx- 14 iety to turn the current of her thoughts he went on: "It really gives an idea of them, doesn't it? See, here are some of the dogs." The book was now in the girl's hand. "I've noticed you about sketching for the past four mornings," she confessed, turning the pages. "And, ah, see, here's Dido!" With a laugh the artist answered, "I'm glad it's good enough to recog- nize." "Oh, yes but," she began and hesitated. "Ah, there's a but," laughed the stranger, merrily. "I draw a little myself, you know," went on the girl, "and dogs and horses are rather my strong point." There was no pride in her manner, only the sublime self-confidence of a Sartoris of Yorkshire. "And you don't think they're mine," the stranger said, amusement in his eye, but his voice perfectly serious. 15 THE WHIP "I don't say that," resumed the self-con- fident girl, "but you see it isn't quite right Look, just here the turn of the head." Again there was a jovial light in the stranger's smile. "Would you put it right for me?" he asked. Lady Diana caught the bridle of her horse and strode toward the stables. "Come along, then," she said imper- sonally, "and we'll see what we can do." In the level bit of ground before the sta- bles she was greeted kindly and affection- ately by hurrying stablemen, her arrival having been announced in a way by the pack, which without requiring the guidance of the whips, had rushed to the feeding troughs. "Take my horse, one of you, will you? And someone bring out Dido," she ordered in a tone that seemed very gracious to the 16 AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION English about her, but would have jarred upon even an American waiter. A kennelman carried out the hound in his arms and deposited her near Lady Diana. With the sketch book on her knee, the girl pointed her riding-crop at Dido. "Can you manage to hold her?" she asked. The stranger, taking the hound, seated himself on the corner of the stone bridge that spanned a little stream and was a link in the highway that ran by the stables. "How's that?" he asked. "Just a little more round," she returned. "Sol That's capital!" Then she busied herself with her pencil. "Do you exhibit?" she asked, turning up- on him for a second an oblique look, then another upon the drawing. "Very little," he said, with marked hesi- tation. THE WHIP; "Whose whose name am I to look for?" she inquired, a trace of personal kindliness in her glance. "I'd rather not give my name until I've done more for my reputation," he said a trifle awkwardly and in some con- cern. The personal touch faded from her man- ner and she became again the self-centered, impregnable personality characteristic of the Englishwoman or man at will. "Oh, as you like," she said. Then, hold- ing out the sketch toward him, she went on : "There, look, how's that?" "By Jove, it's splendid. What magic you can work with just a touch or two," he exclaimed. She made him a little bow, with some- thing not hostile in it, and began quickly to turn the pages of the book. "Oh, you paint landscapes, too," she said; "and they're very good, too. That's a deli- 18 AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION cious little bit, and that's the spinny where we killed last Fall and I got the brush. And, oh! the old half fortress half tower sort of place. It looks as though it might be" She was looking toward the seat of the last Earl of Brancaster in the distance, dimly visible up the glen. "The Rievers," the stranger finished her sentence. "It is. Haven't you ever been there?" "Nobody about here goes," returned Lady Diana. "You see, it belongs to Lord Bran- caster, and he hardly ever visits it, though I've heard he's here now. Did he give you permission to sketch it?" The stranger nodded. "I shouldn't have thought he would have had much sympathy with artists or art," she said. "Why not?" he asked, his glance for the moment falling. 19 THE WHIP "His tastes are rather er notorious. I'm afraid he's rather a byword about here. Even the country people call him 'The Wicked Earl.' " The thoughtless words of this young Eng- lishwoman, who was as yet too immature to exercise a fine judging sense, aroused the artist and he went closer to the girl. "And because a lot of yokels give a man an odious nickname," he said tersely, "you judge him unheard. What do you know of him?" "Nothing, thanks," said Lady Diana. "Isn't it a bit rough on him to believe on mere hearsay?" asked the artist. "I don't, but my grandfather, who has a kind word for everyone, says that his grand- father was a soldier, his father a soldier and a gentleman, but he hopes the son will never darken his doors. And all the world says he fritters away his life and is flinging away his fortune." 20 AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION The stranger smiled with a sense of pain reflected in his face. "What the world says is often malice," he said, going to the rescue of Lord Bran- caster, "but I'm sorry to hear what Lord [Beverley said. Nobody's all bad. Perhaps it's because Lord Beverley doesn't know him that he thinks so ill of him. Perhaps if you knew him, you might find some little good" "I'm sure I hope so," said Lady Diana. But the stranger continued: "I'm sure he'd hope so. If he has played havoc with his life, mayn't he repent his folly? Perhaps in a sense he never had a chance perhaps he never had a father or mother in his youth to direct him and per- haps he'll turn out all right now perhaps no good woman " A softly insidious voice thrust itself into the intimacy that seemed about to begin be- tween these two young people. 21 THE WHIP "Ah, there you are," it said. Both the girl and the man looked up and saw in the road a motor car with a chauffeur and a woman stepping out from it. For the briefest space the two women measured glances. Lady Diana saw a tall, rather dark and foreign appearing young woman of an uncertain age, whose black hair and sharp features gave her, in the estimation of anyone seeing her for the first time, a certain aspect of power. A moment later she was walking toward them. The artist was not pleased at this intru- sion, and Diana saw that upon his face was that tragic mask she had noted when they saw each other for the first time, not so many minutes ago. "So this is where you come to sketch so often," went on the woman from the motor car. "Delightful place! Pray introduce me." 22 AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION The artist interposed himself between the two women, almost as though he feared harm to the younger of the two. "I'm only a stranger here," he said, while Lady Diana, quite at her ease ignored a sit- uation that to one of another nationality might have been a trifle embarrassing. The intruder again swept Lady Diana with her eyes. "Indeed," she said, a subtle menace in her tones. "Well, it's lucky I found you. If we are going for our usual spin together, Frangois wants to tell you something about the car the brake doesn't act properly." Lady Diana was not pleased with her scrutiny of the other woman. She was too young to have esteemed the other fast, but there was a certain something about the tall and dark intruder that repelled this young Englishwoman. So she continued, though the other talked at her, to seclude herself in her British reserve. 23 THE WHIP To the artist, the situation appeared greatly to need relief. So to create a diver- sion, he walked toward the road where the car and chauffeur were waiting. "We'll take it down to the village and look for a blacksmith," he volunteered. But the woman who had come for him in the motor did not move. She was still in hope that Lady Diana would recognize her existence. "Can't it be done here?" she asked, still eyeing the young English noblewoman and anxious for some offer of aid that would en- able her to make Lady Diana's acquaint- ance. "Certainly not," returned the artist al- most roughly, "and, besides, here are the horses. The car may frighten them if we leave it in this neighborhood." The woman of the motor car looked down L the road and saw the Beverley string being 24 AN UNUSUAL INTRODUCTION led and ridden from the exercising on the Downs. "Dear things," she said for Lady Diana's benefit. "How splendidly they look. Race horses, too. I should have loved to see them. I'd no notion that there were any so near to us. To whom do they belong?' 7 "Lord Beverley," said the artist very shortly indeed. "Come along." "Lord Beverley! Really," exclaimed the woman, and then, made bolder by this revelation, she spoke directly to Lady Diana: "I am so sorry we were in the way pray tell Lord Beverley I'll take great care it doesn't happen again." But this gracious speech won from the girl only a nod of the head and the singu- larly British irritating "Thank you," with a rising inflection at the end. "Please make haste; they are here," the artist cautioned her. 25 THE WHIP "Yes, yes, dear," the dark woman re- turned and then smiled at Lady Diana, "Good morning." Another little nod of the blond head and a "Thank you" were her only rewards. The artist bowed very impersonally and, with the woman who had come for him, rode down the road. Musingly Lady Diana looked after them. "I wonder who he is," she said, "and what hold she has on him." CHAPTER II DIANA THE HUNTRESS flTo Lady Diana Sartoris, "the cleanest sportswoman in all England" the orators of the hunt breakfasts of the Beverley Hounds would have it so a fence was merely an obstacle. And so after this morn- ing with the Beverley pack, Lady "Di" on her return to the kennels of her grandfather, the Marquis of Beverley, found a defiant pleasure in putting her hunter over every such obstacle. It was to this delight of hers, therefore, that a little later in the day the unknown artist owed his damaged wrist. Though it was one of those perfect York- shire mornings, when ( rural England seems made for the sportsman, Lady Diana's gal- lop at the heels of the pack had not been al- together of pleasure. 27 THE WHIP To begin with, her grandfather, the pom- pous and morally bombastic Marquis of Beverley, had been in no good humor. Al- though Falconhurst, the most secluded and retired of the several country seats of the family, was filled with the members of a house party specially invited for Lady Diana Sartoris' benefit, Beverley had care- fully warned the guests away from the Downs, and indeed had sent all of them otter hunting with Captain Greville Sartoris, Lady Diana's cousin. "And otter hunting of all sports in the world!" Lady Diana had breathed sar- castically to her maid. "One might quite as well hunt a mouse as an otter, you know." The reason Lady Diana knew, of course. The Whip, the newest racer in the great stables of Beverley, was being exercised on the Downs that morning and although this expected successor to the Newmarket win- 28 DIANA THE HUNTRESS ners, Silver Cloud, Falconhurst, and Bever- ley's Hope, had not had her trial and was not likely to have for some time, the racing Marquis was determined that no strange eyes should learn anything of the speed pet of his declining years. Stable secrets had been leaking of late in regard to some of the others in the string, but none should escape respecting the Whip. This prohibition had extended to Lady Diana herself. It was not that through her there was danger of the betting ring getting advance information, but the young girl who shared almost equally in Beverley's affection for the Whip could not have been with the promising filly and her stable mates without being upon the back of the speediest. For the girl rode the Whip or any of the other racers in the Beverley stables, as Diana of old hunted, with divine inspira- tion. 29 THE WHIP "But the little filly's growing up or rather my granddaughter Lady Diana, is growing up," the Marquis had said more than once, "and a filly isn't a colt, any more rather a young woman of position and rank isn't a girl, and she really can't ride with the lads of my stable." So Lady Diana, in the warm rebellion of youth, at the first trammeling appearance of that convention which ultimately molds us all until we lose our little distinguishing essence and become as so many peas, was ir- ritated by this abrupt separation from the things of her childhood. Hence this finely strung, perhaps ordi- narily too emotionless, young Englishwoman took the highest and roughest of the ob- stacles in her course as she followed in the wake of the Beverley hounds. For the hounds were not the features of a hunt, but merely out on one of their exercising expe- ditions, when to "keep their scent in" they DIANA THE HUNTRESS were permitted to range for trails under the guidance of whips. One of the obstacles which Lady Diana took that morning was a stone fence that sep- arated the lands of Falconhurst from the property of the Earl of Brancaster, in the midst of which stood the old stone tower, Rievers. As her hunter cleared the fencing cleanly and for a moment trespassed up- on the lands of one regarded by the simple folk of Yorkshire as "the wicked earl," the girl looked toward the rocky heights accen- tuated by the feudal tower, continuing to the eye the long upward ascent of stone. To her mood of the moment, while Rie- vers appeared less barren and more the abode of a human being, still there was the sinister atmosphere of a place of ill omen, which was not decreased by an open window and the movement of a hanging at one of the casements in the more modern part of the structure. THE WHIP Even with the evidences of a home life about the tower which there were not the place would have worn its air of sullen tragedy, its seeming appearance of a center radiating unwholesome forces. Then as she cantered along over a level expanse skirting the eminence upon which Rievers stood, and cast a glance upward oc- casionally, Lady Diana thought of what her grandfather had told her when she was a child. It was shortly after the death in the service of her father, and the death of his comrade, Robert, the Earl of Brancaster, in the same Indian engagement. Her father and Brancaster, sire of the present Bran- caster, had planned that the little Lady Diana and the young Hubert should unite the fortunes and lands of the two almost princely houses. But her father had been killed and his father, too. The young Earl, without the repressing authority of a parent, had begun life as a boy 32 with too much money and no sense of re- sponsibility. His mother had died soon after he was born. He had not been a bad- natured lad, but as a little boy he had been precocious. What, under proper training, would have been clean, clear, pure sports- manship as thorough as that of Lady Diana herself, became in him a mere gaming spirit. He gambled with nice observance of eti- quette and of honor but still he defied chance. As a result he at last found him- self in the hands of the money lenders and what part of Rievers that wasn't entailed was mortgaged. There were women, too, in this young man's life, but of these Lady Diana knew nothing. But though they came and went, they never seemed to have penetrated to the core of the young Hubert to infect him with the virus of diseased imagination. The boy seemed asleep and too good natured to put his house in order. His friends predicted 33 THE WHIP that if he ever really aroused himself he would rid himself of his questionable ac- quaintances effectively, cleanly and finally. Dismissing the supposedly dissolute, young belted Earl from her thoughts, Lady Diana came to the last fence which sepa- rated her from the glen in which the Falcon- hurst kennels and stables stood. From the level plateau immediately above the glen there floated down to her the shouts of the lads on the backs of the prides of the Mar- quis's stables. Beverley had held the lads in stern repression; but the stimulating air, the vast tonic of nervous horseflesh beneath their knees and the thrill of mad motion could not keep the youngsters entirely silent. The fine fire of it all kindled Lady Diana. In the light of her girlhood experiences only such sounds as came to her from the Downs were needed to create vividly in her imagination active pictures of the scenes 34 DIANA THE HUNTRESS above her. She knew it. She loved it She wanted to be again a part of it. In revolt at the things that she dimly sensed as governors of her whole after life, she had put spur to her horse and sent him straight at the high fence, beyond which waited the unknown, in the figure of one who was to play a larger part in Lady Diana's future than either could have ever dreamed. 35! CHAPTER III NO TRESPASSERS WHEN the imperious person with the dark hair had borne away her somewhat unen- thusiastic swain, thoughts of the two were out of the mind of Lady Diana before she had formulated any conscious conclusions, for her grandfather's whole string was now led into the yard of the stables. Though Tom Lambert, the trainer of the horses, was nominally in charge of all of the animals, he paid no attention to any save the nervous, skittish creature covered with her horse "clothing" and wearing over it all a horse rug. Lambert in person was leading her. "Ah! Tom, there you are why what are you leading the Whip for?" Lady Diana exclaimed as she walked up to the trainer. 36 NO TRESPASSERS "Motor car, my lady!" Lambert ex- plained, taking off his hat. "She don't like 'em." Lady Diana smiled. "She's not alone, Tom," she said. "No, my lady, but 'owever you 'ates 'em, you can't eat 'em." "And I shouldn't try," she laughed. "She would, my lady!" the trainer con- tinued, pointing to the horse. "The fitter she gets, the worse she gets. I believe she'd charge a battery an' eat the guns!" "Nonsense!" Lady Diana replied, as she went up to the mare and patted her nose. "Nonsense ! It's only because you don't un- derstand her. She's a dear isn't she, Harry?" And she looked up appealingly to the jockey who was stuck to the saddle as if he had grown there. "With you, my lady," the boy answered. "And she's all right with me. But a 37 THE WHIP stranger would have a better time trying to tackle a tiger." The girl stroked the Whip's neck lov- ingly. "They'll find her a lion when they tackle her on the course the first time she runs > won't they, Tom?" She turned to Lambert once more. "Yes, my lady." Then, to the jockey "Walk her on, Harry mustn't get cold. This way! The paddock gate's open take the rein, now we're off the road." As Harry Anson, the Whip's jockey, turned his prancing mount toward the stables, Lambert held up a warning hand in a gesture of silence to his young mistress. "What do you mean, Tom?" Lady Diana exclaimed. "The Markis won't let me try 'er yet, my lady, but I believe the Whip's about the best mare as ever looked through a bridle." 38 NO TRESPASSERS "I don't care what she looks through, (Tom, as long as she is the best." Lambert shook his head in a pessimistic fashion. "But the very best ship is no good with- out the man at the wheel." The trainer looked gloomily at the young girl. "Surely Harry is good enough?" There was a world of surprise in her eager eyes. "When he's himself," was Lambert's laconic answer. "Who else is he?" Lady Diana asked, with a slight frown on her pretty, puzzled face. "Don't know, my lady but 'e's a 'ang- dog, mournful sort o' beggar at times, with no spirits and no lip not a bit like our Harry." Lady Di laughed blithely. There was a world of relief in her musical voice as she exclaimed : "Sounds a bit like our Harry in love!" "No, my lady 1" Lambert said. And then, 39 THE WHIP in a confidential tone he continued "I did think at one time, as he favored the second kitchen maid, but she was only a flash in the pan. It's worse than that." Lady Diana was not averse to a bit of gossip with Tom Lambert, who had been her grandfather's trainer for almost thirty years. "Not love? Not money surely?" She was determined that the trainer should be more explicit. "Shouldn't have thought it, my lady he's that simple " "What else can he have on his mind then, Tom?" Lambert threw up his hands in despair. " 'Anged if I know, my lady," he replied. "But I don't want it on the Whip's back. Light heart makes light weight. But a bally boy with the blues thinks he's riding a 'earse 'orse." 40 NO TRESPASSERS "Oh! But Harry hasn't ridden like that yet!" she protested. a No, my lady, not quite," Lambert ad- mitted, "only you see well, then, if any- thing did go wrong with Harry, who else could ride our crack?" "Tom!" Lady Diana exclaimed, with an unmistakable note of decision ringing clear in her voice, "we must find out what's the matter." "Quietly, my lady I wouldn't speak to the Markis about it just now. He's a bit irritable." A troubled look crossed Lady Diana's pretty face. "Yes I've noticed it. What's wrong?" And she turned a searching gaze on the trainer's round and ruddy countenance. Tom shook his head ominously. Then he glanced hurriedly around to see that there were no eavesdroppers about. THE WHIP "Stable mouse has been squeaking," he ex- plained in a low voice. "What do you mean?" Lady Diana asked in a tone of exasperation. Her pa- tience was becoming exhausted at Lam- bert's mysterious hints and peculiar man- ner. "Stable secrets getting out, my lady * that's what I mean, to put it plain." Tom's fat face was worried into puckers. "What! again? But I don't know why grandfather minds. He only races for the love of it. But it is strange." "It is, my lady," Lambert hastened to say, in much excitement. "Licks me 'ollow! Gives his lordship touts on the brain! Do 'arf our work before daylight and if 'e sees a bush waggle 'e sends the 'orses 'ome and still if we've anything worth backing some- body always knows. It's on 'is nerves, my lady. Why, the other morning he caught poor old Mother Griffiths near the Downs 42 NO TRESPASSERS picking mushrooms ninety in the shade she is and blind as a kitten but he swore if she did it again blest if he wouldn't raise her rent! And then cussed at 'er just as if 'e was talking to a bloomin' telephone! B'lieve he thinks there's touts in the stable chimbley touts in the corn-bin touts down the rab- bit-'oles an' touts a 'overing over'ead in 'eavenly aeroplanes whenever the 'orses so much as goes out for a walk. It's toutitis, my lady, and I'm catching it myself a 'orri- ble illness, which I 'ave known drive even married men to drink!" Lady Diana burst into peals of silvery laughter. "As bad as that!" she cried. "Well, Tom, we must do our best to cure my grandfather at once." "Yes, my lady," Tom replied. "Ah ! here he is now!" As Lambert spoke, Lady Diana's grand- father, the Marquis of Beverley, came rid- 43 THE WHIP ing into the yard in a village cart, driven by the Honorable Mrs. Beamish, the middle- aged, distant cousin of Lady Diana, and her companion. The Marquis looked angrily up the road along which the strange automobile had borne away the artist and his insistent com- panion. "Di! Dil" the Marquis called, with some heat. "Yes, dear?" The caress in Lady Diana's answer was unmistakable. She helped the fine looking, elderly man out of the cart, as he asked, with impatience: "Who are those people in that confounded motor thing?" "Strangers, dear at least, to me!" she re- plied. "They looked like a man and a woman," her grandfather sputtered. "Yes, I thought so too," she answered teas- ingly. 44 NO TRESPASSERS "Don't be silly, Di ! What were they do- ing?" "I think she came to pick him up. He is an artist. I have seen him several times sketching." "Here?" And the Marquis' face grew a bit red. "Yes by the Bourne." "Well, I won't have it!" he exploded. "You hear me? Give orders, Tom for all we know the feller's a tout confounded tout of the worst possible description !" "He does not look it," Lady Diana said, quietly. "They never do," the Marquis interposed, firmly. "Remember that chap who came here last year playin' the photographer?" Mrs. Beamish nodded vigorously to her esteemed relative. "Yes, there you are," she put in. "An- other artist " "Quite so," said the Marquis, finding an 45 THE WHIP appreciative audience. "Actually snapping the string at exercise then bringin' an ac- tion against me for assault and battery!" "After you put him under the stable pump, Lord Beverley," the Honorable Mrs. Beamish added, with emphasis. "And broke his camera over his head and nearly broke his neck!" Lady Diana laughed, unable to restrain her amusement "Well ! what did he expect?" the Marquis asked, with some show of surprise. Tom Lambert came loyally to the sup- port of his master. "Quite right, my lord! No good having a dark horse if all the world knows it!" "And they shan't know till the Two Thou- sand's over and we've won it!" The Mar- quis' heart was set on winning the classic that took its name from the two thousand guineas of prize money that it offered an- nually to the winner. "Rather! But er we don't know as 46 NO TRESPASSERS we shall for sure till we try the mare, my lord. I do wish, sir, that you'd let us see what she can do against a good 'un." Lam- bert hung expectantly on the Marquis' words. "Plenty of time for that, Tom we don't want to leave the race on the trial ground but we'll have no touts or trespassers on any ground." That the Marquis of Bever- ley was accustomed to having his own way in the world was unmistakable. "Well, Grand-dad, you needn't trouble about this trespasser. I know he's an ar- tist." Lady Diana put her hand lovingly upon her grandfather's arm. The proud old gentleman's face lit up as he looked down at her fondly and he said, gently "My dear, he wouldn't show his hand to you." "He's shown me his sketch book, Grand- father." "You've talked to him, then, Di?" 47 THE WHIP "Several times "My dear, what about?" he expostu- lated. "About art scenery the hounds " she explained. "But not about the 'orses, my lady?" Lam- bert interrupted. "We didn't mention the horses!" Mrs. Beamish cast a significant look at Lambert and remarked, sarcastically "What a dull conversation!" The Marquis of Beverley disregarded Mrs. Beamish's sarcasm, and he patted Lady Diana's hand as he said gently "Well, don't do it again, dear, please. I don't like strangers especially about the horses." "You don't like anyone near them, Grand- father. We've got a house full of friends, but you send them all away to hunt otters with Greville and practically warn them off the Downs." Lady Diana's hospitable soul 48 NO TRESPASSERS had often been hurt by her Grandfather's high-handed treatment of guests. "Seems a bit churlish I dare say, Di, but I race for myself, not the crowd. Don't forget our old saying 'A Yorkshireman's house is his friend's, but a Yorkshireman's horse is his own.' I'll never let our horses be turned into public betting machines if I can help it so no more talks with stran- gers, Di, you understand me." And with a gesture of finality the strong-willed old gen- tleman drew Lady Diana with him toward the stables. Tom Lambert turned to Mrs. Beamish with a most confidential manner. "And a good thing, too, if I may say so, Mrs. B.," he remarked. "What do you mean?" "You know how free Lady Di is," Lam- bert explained. "She'll pass the time o' day with anyone of course at her age she don't know no better." 49 THE WHIP "I know she knows no worse," Mrs. Bea- mish retorted with a slight rasp in her voice. "But the other party may," said the trainer, in a low voice. "Lambert!" "Well, I say artists ain't no class to come hanging round after Lady Di," Tom has- tened to add. "There are artists and artists "That's my meaning, Mrs. B. p'raps this one's worse than usual." "Thank goodness I have a pure mind," was Mrs. Beamish's acid retort. The insinuation wasted itself upon Tom Lambert's sensibilities, which were not ex- actly of the aesthetic variety. "I wonder what those two were talking about," he said, thoughtfully. "What two?" Mrs. Beamish inquired. "Why, Lady Di and that artist chap, of course if he didn't come here after the horses what did he come after?" 50 NO TRESPASSERS "Tom Lambert I'm afraid you've got a suspicious mind," Mrs. Beamish informed him. "Well, I won't conceal from you, Mrs. B., that a racing stable ain't a place that in- spires you with much confidence in human nature, and when I hear of a young man talking to a young woman and she is a young woman " "Don't talk nonsense, Tom " "I don't I put two and two together " "When there's only one and one " Mrs. Beamish interposed with a somewhat vicious emphasis. "My experience teaches me " Lambert continued, ignoring the thrust. "If I were you, Tom Lambert, I should feel a bit delicate about referring to my ex- perience." And Mrs. Beamish turned her back upon the now discomfited Lambert. "I've seen you," she continued, "talking with a certain young woman." THE WHIP "What young woman?" asked Tom, with mouth open in astonishment. "Myrtle Anson I've seen you!" "Well, I like that!" Lambert gasped. "It looked it! Catch you doing it if you didn't trust a man not that I do " "Don't you trust me Mrs. B., after all these years?" Tom's eyes, as well as his yoice, spoke endless devotion. "Tom Lambert, I won't conceal from you that a man about a racing stable is not one who inspires me with unlimited confidence." It was quite apparent that the temperature in Mrs. Beamish's vicinity was rapidly ap- proaching the freezing point. "Well, I'm blest!" Lambert remon- strated. "Just because I had a few words with the girl to ask her what's the matter with young Harry." "H'm! I hope Old Harry had nothing to do with it!" 52 NO TRESPASSERS "Betty!" And Tom moved nearer to the object of his affection. "Mrs. Beamish, if you please " said the outraged lady with a toss of her head. "Mrs. Beamish honorable madam you're jealous!" the trainer exclaimed, de- lighted that it was so. "Of you? I? Never!" returned the flame of his youth. "Not now, perhaps," he returned, tempo- rizing. "But in the old days don't you re- member how wild you was with me about little Susie Dobbs when you and me was keeping company " "We never kept company," returned the Hon. Mrs. Beamish, furious. "Well, if we didn't, then we ought to have kept company," answered the literal Tom, "with me walking out with you and kissing you." "Once only, and by accident," cut in the 53 elderly flame of days when the Beverley sta- bles were smaller. "Well, I suppose a collision's an accident, but I liked it and so did you," said Lam- bert. "I didn't," denied Mrs. Beamish. "You and I were happy," went on the Whip's master, "till Beamish came along and you got taken with him. I can't forget you, Betty, and what might have hap- pened. Don't you ever remember, Betty, before you was a great lady?" The air of the woman toward Tom was kinder that it had been for some time. "I'm not a great lady, Tom," she said gently, for one of her vigorous personality. "I'm a poor relation, though Lord Beverley doesn't treat me like one but I am! I'm lady Di's companion and distant cousin by marriage. I'm a sort of female major-domo of the household and I'm very happy, Tom. I'm not a snob, but I've got to re- 54 NO TRESPASSERS member that I'm the Honorable Mrs. Beamish that I'm Lord Beverley's cousin by marriage that he looks upon me as one of the family that I mustn't disgrace it by -by" "Thinking of the likes of me," said Tom sadly. "All you think of is that you've mar- ried into a noble family not that you came out of of a h'm " "Out of a shop. Oh, you needn't mind saying it. I'm not ashamed of it." "Why should you be?" went on Lambert. "Ah, they don't make shops like that nowa- days. I can see it now as if it was yester- day, and smell it. And what apples your mother did sell. Many's the time she's give me one when I was a nipper. Lord! I wish Captain Beamish had never been quartered in our town never set eyes on you." "I made him a good wife, Tom," said Betty, a shade of regret in her voice. 55 THE WHIP "I'll be bound you did! But you'd have made me a better, if only you hadn't been educated above your station. I mean above mine. Ain't it no good my hoping, Betty?" A trifle sadly the Hon. Mrs. Beamish smiled as she said, with an air meant to be final: "No good, Tom! If ever I feel weak I take down the Peerage and look up Beverley Geoffrey Vandeleur Delacroix George Jocelyn, tenth Marquis of and it strengthens me to do my duty in that station of life." "To which it did not please God to call you," supplemented Tom Lambert decis- ively when she hesitated. Realizing the futility of further argu- ment, Mrs. Beamish made her way toward the great house, leaving poor Tom to extract such comfort as he could from his beloved horses. 56 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE ALL the morning Capt. Greville Sartoris, the cousin of Lady Diana, and the heir to the Beverley title, though the fortune would go to the Marquis's granddaughter, had led the greater portion of the house party in an otter hunt. Now, with the hounds that they had taken for their rather tame hunt in full cry, they were pursuing a large she-otter the dogs had started. Through the open the little crea- ture fled, followed by the yelping pack not that, of course, with which Lady Diana had run and the party of men and women on foot with their savage otter spears. The animal had found its courses along the little stream no longer in their accus- tomed solitude, so now she seemed to feel 57 THE WHIP that there would be safety in going toward the spots never deserted. In any event she broke cover completely and made for the kennels and stables, still, however, keeping close to the east bank of the Bourne. Across the stable yard the small pursued object scurried in an effort to get far enough away to make a dive into a deep pool there. Over the retaining walls and other obstacles in their path leaped the men of the party. Sartoris was first, but after he had made one frenzied lunge with his spear he real- ized that the otter had escaped. With an exclamation of anger he buried his spear in the ground, and then looked up to find the amused but scornful eyes of his cousin upon him. "Don't, Greville, it's horrible," the girl exclaimed, while her grandfather was show- ing the fox hounds and some of his famous racing string to the visitors. 58 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE "What is?" Sartoris asked, not realizing that the girl was condemning a pastime that he regarded as sport. ''Otter killing like that otter hunt- ing," she answered. "But you like fox hunting?" went on Sar- toris in the bland tones of surprise of the Englishman of his wiry type, with his wisp of a mustache and his weak appearing fig- ure, which hid considerable skilled strength. "You like to see a draggled, beaten fox torn to pieces alive." "No, I don't," interrupted the girl. "But it's done," went on the man. "I know," said the girl. "That's why if I were a man I'd ride nothing but steeple- chases. I love a run best when the fox gets clean away. I love a race with neither whip nor spur! I love sport and in the best sport there's no pain!" It was for such speeches as that and actions, too that they called Lady Di- THE WHIP ana "the cleanest sportswoman in all Eng- land." "Not if you're beaten?" questioned the cousin. "Not if you played fair," said the girl. Her cousin was moved to reveal almost unconsciously some of that queer sporting philosophy which sustained him in the some- what questionable practices which were al- ready being commented upon in his London clubs. "I confess I have a weakness for win- ning," he said with an air of frankness. "Whatever the odds in your favor, there is a certain pleasure in pursuit in getting home." As to give emphasis to his words, he drove the head of his spear into the ground. He raised his eyes and, with a start, found Myrtle Anson, the young sister of Harry Anson, the Whip's jockey, near him. She 60 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE had come quietly into the yard and, as if moved by an impulse of her budding wom- an's heart that she could not entirely con- trol, had gone straight toward Sartoris. Lady Diana had not seen the girl, for the back of the Marquis's granddaughter was turned to this more humble young woman. For a moment Sartoris regarded the girl, then with a slight move of his shoulders he turned away. Myrtle Anson, seemingly cut to the heart, sank on a rock at the edge of the stream and continued to watch him with eyes of love. This little bit of by-play had consumed but a moment, and while it was taking place and Sartoris was still eyeing the sister of the jockey, Lady Diana was replying to his last observation: "There's pleasure in getting home? On a weak thing that can't defend itself or strike back?" 61 THE WHIP Her words seemed to the sick conscience of Sartoris to hold a double entendre, and he looked sharply at his cousin. "Eh?" he exclaimed, suspiciously and ex- pectantly. But Lady Diana, who had noticed noth- ing and was but speaking of the immediate subject before them, went on : "I mean a weak thing like an otter. In sport there must be a fair chance." It was with genuine relief that Sartoris answered: "I know, but I prefer lowest weight in life's handicap a shade of odds in my fa- vor, when I'm trying to win. But you're a girl and mix sentiment with your sport- ing." The women of the house party now claimed the attention of Lady Diana as they called upon her to explain the points of some of the racers. About them during this time the anxious Marquis hovered. 62 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE He had ordered the Whip put in a locked box stall, and not even the most charming entreaties of the fairest of his guests could induce him to unlock the door. With a furtive glance about him, Sar- toris walked toward Myrtle Anson sitting like a lowly muse of tragedy by the Bourne. This quick glance of Sartoris was by no means a precaution, for he knew that the few words that he might publicly exchange with the pretty sister of the jockey would not cause any comment, but his act was one of instinct. There was something furtive and almost sinister about this sportsman who took care to win when he could without causing too much of a scandal, and his rapid survey of the position of his equals was the tribute to his own caution. But the first words he spoke to the girl were ordinary enough. He disliked "emo- tion and all that sort of nonsense, you know," and he did not often exhibit it 63 THE WHIP "Morning, Miss Anson. Been botaniz- ing again?" he asked, lifting his hat and pointing to a leather case she carried slung over her shoulder. "Yes," said the girl in a dull monotone. "Up on the Wold?" he asked, lowering his voice with that cautious instinct, though there was no one to hear them. "How I could see the Wold," said the girl, meaning creeping between her words. "With glasses?" he persisted. For answer the girl showed him a pair of field glasses concealed in the case. "Anything worth seeing?" Bitterly she replied: "No opponent Silver Shoe the Rover and the Whip a striding gallop, but noth- ing like a trial." There was that in her voice which would have told an expert in human nature that the girl despised herself for what she was 64 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE doing, but that she could not resist the de- mands of this man. But the cousin of Lady Diana did not honor the girl with the slightest concern for her feeling. He was thinking only of the horses and of how many times he had won handily because of some bit of stable in- formation he had been able to extract from the girl. "I wonder if their dark horse is worth anything?" he went on, his gambler's sense playing in and out of a series of calcula- tions as to odds and weights. "What a pile one could win if one knew ! Twenty to one I Look here, Myrtle, you can pump your brother, if you like. He must know." "He won't tell," said the girl, almost sul- lenly. The tone of the Captain was kinder, now that he had found something that the girl could do for him. 65; THE WHIP "You can make him," he said. "I can't," she answered, her breast rising and falling. "I believe he suspects " "You?" "You." "Me?" exclaimed Sartoris. There was self-loathing, accusation and defiance of all the world in the girl's face. "You and me," she said slowly, but almost savagely. But if he felt any impending danger at her words Sartoris did not show it. There was almost bantering humor in his face, as the girl hurried on in little panting gasps: "My brother used to tell me everything. When he told me stable secrets I told you I have been a traitor to him and a traitor to them all I have betrayed Lady Di, whom I love I have sold out Lord Bever- ley, who gave us a home and everything we have in the world and I have forgotten all that and have sold him out sold him out 66 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE for nothing at all nothing in the whole wide world. A girl only does that for one reason, and my brother knows that." With white fury Sartoris turned upon her. For a moment it seemed as though he would hurl at her the heavy spear in his hand. "You've told him?" he demanded sav- agely. Myrtle faced him bravely, but in a mo- ment her head drooped. "No I haven't turned traitor to you, Greville," she said brokenly. Into the whole manner of the Captain there came a great change. He was as near to pity as his shallow nature ever permitted as he said fervently: "Of course, you haven't, little Myrtle." Instantly the jockey's sister moved closer to him. He took one quick step backward and his tone became lighter as he hurried on to bridge the gap of emotion: "But, come, now, don't talk heroics THE WHIP about traitors and things. Beverley never bets. If the wide world knew his stable secrets it would do no harm. If you give me a tip or two heaven knows I want it badly enough who's hurt?" "I am," said the girl, much of her resis- tance gone because of his few kindly words of the moment, too soon passed. "And I shan't do it again." "Nonsense! You'll tell me when the Whip's tried." "I shan't be here to see." "No?" "No I can't stay here much longer, I dare not" "Nonsense, where will you go?" "Isn't that for you to say? Haven't you promised?" Sartoris shrugged his shoulders, and then became aware that Harry Anson was stand- ing near the main door of the stables with anxious, speculative eyes upon him. He 68 A MOUSE IN THE STABLE left Myrtle and strolled toward the stable. His eyes for a moment looked keenly into the face of the boy, and then, with a sud- den, unwilling movement of his head, he turned aside, unable, despite his wonderful customary self-control, to face Myrtle's brother. But Harry Anson's eyes did not waver. CHAPTER V THE ACCIDENT LORD BEVERLEY was worried over something the women of his granddaughter's house party had told him. They had described the course of the otter hunt and this descrip- tion had displeased him exceedingly, though he was at much pains not to let the women see it. Accordingly, he went straight to Captain Sartoris, whom he instinctively dis- liked, though he tried to overcome that feel- ing. "Greville," exclaimed the Marquis, "I'm afraid from what I hear that you went tres- passing this morning." "Oh, did we?" exclaimed Sartoris, lightly, not attaching much importance to the opin- ions of the racing Marquis upon any sub- ject. 70 THE ACCIDENT "Yes, from beyond the bend where the Bourne winds through the Brancaster prop- erty," Beverley continued, in a modified tone. "Of course so it does," answered Sar- toris. "Well, we didn't go far. Surely it doesn't matter. As a neighbor Brancaster wouldn't object." Beverley frowned as he went on in his ponderous and bombastic tone: "He's a neighbor to whom I object cer- tainly not one from whom I'd ask favors." One of the women of the house party, Lady Antrobus, had overheard the two men use the name Brancaster. Of Lady Antro- bus it had been said that "she rushed in where well, you know, my dear." Her shrewish curiosity made her anxious to know what they were saying of Brancaster, so, despite the breeding of her line, she in- terjected herself into the conversation. "Lord Brancaster will have to sell the THE WHIP Rievers for a song if he goes on racing so desperately," she said. She was an old neighbor of the Mar- quis, and her chance touching upon a hobby of Beverley aroused his ire. "Pardon me," said he, "betting so desper- ately. Gambling is not racing." "He's a wonderfully cool gambler," went on the chatty tongue of his feminine neigh- bor. "I saw him at Sandown last Autumn betting over the rail with all the bookmak- ers on the other side raging at him like a pack of wolves." Sartoris himself had taken the other end of some of these bets, and his smile was rue- ful as he put in: "With Kelly, the Leviathan, leading them, hurling the odds at his head in thou- sands." It was plain that Lady Antrobus, who had known of Brancaster since he was a boy, had a sort of admiration for him. 72 THE ACCIDENT "And he never turned a hair," she went on. "I believe he loves the excitement." The failure of the plan of the father of Lady Diana and of Brancaster had left a deep bitterness in the heart of Beverley. The good man's bark was worse than his bite, however. The Marquis felt that a man of his own position and morality owed it to the world to point out every horrible example, even if that example were the son of an old family friend. "For how otherwise can the rising generation get the proper moral perspec- tive?" he had asked more than once. So now he did not hesitate, though he was well aware that his utterances would place him in the light of seeming rather less of a gentleman than he was, in the minds of those who might not understand his real feeling in this and related matters. "He won't love paying for it," he said, "and for his other follies" Even 73 THE WHIP Beverley felt that he was going too far. But the mind of Lady Antrobus was alert for any bit of gossip. "Are they so very costly?" she continued, hoping to open the doors of the Marquis's indignation. But Lord Beverley glanced at Lady Diana not very far off. Then he coughed, as he returned hesitatingly: "Hem er I have heard so." Mrs. Antrobus added fuel to what she felt was a flame about to expire. "I've only met him once," she said, with the air of one contradicting the Marquis, "and I thought he'd charming manners and was quite good looking. Every youngster must sow his wild oats, you know, my dear Marquis." Lady Antrobus had partially succeeded. Beverley did not, it is true, add to her fund of knowledge regarding the escapades of Brancaster, but he did express his own opin- 74 THE ACCIDENT ion most forcibly, though in his somewhat stilted phrase. "Certainly, let him sow all the wild oats he wishes," he said, "but not in my garden. If you women of position in social England did your duty, a boy like Brancaster would be cut. Yes, and we men are just as much to blame too, for we should cut him for your sakes. We smile too much and look the other way in these days. Many a youngster would be saved from perdition if his elders only spoke out as men and gentlemen should speak, as I myself would speak to Brancas- ter, if he ever came here. "If we all acted as we should in regard to these spendthrift boys and these wastrels more than half of them would turn from their folly and become worthy of their an- cestors. If Brancaster ever came to Fal- conhurst I would not hesitate to say to him: While my women folk live in my house, you are not welcome within it.' ' 75 THE WHIP Lady Antrobus sighed at thought of the young Earl, who was so unwelcome in the home of the friends of his father. She might have returned to the attack, but at this moment a loud cry from Captain Ray- ner, one of the men of the house party, drew not only her attention but that of Beverley and all the rest as well. Rayner was standing near the highway, which passed not very far from a corner of the stables, and he was looking upward along the tortuous course of the road as it steadily mounted to the highlands. Down that road from the plateau above, a large touring automobile was rushing, swaying from side to side as the man at the wheel desperately took the many turns in the course. There was a woman beside him. Suddenly she arose and screamed. A moment later she had jumped from the car, and was standing in safety in the THE ACCIDENT road watching the terrifying descent of the automobile. Not all of the women in the group at the Falconhurst stables saw the woman after she had left the lurching vehicle, as some of them were too occupied with their own fears and terrors. For gradually, after their first moments of amazement, they realized that the car was beyond control. After the woman jumped the man looked backward for just a fleeting instant as though assuring himself that she was safe. Then he doubled over his wheel. To the autoists among the watchers it was soon apparent that the man in the car pos- sessed no means of checking its momentum. Plainly the brakes were not working. As he came nearer and nearer to them they could see that he was fumbling with his change gear lever, in an effort to throw the reverse into mesh and check the car. But 77 THE WHIP something stuck and the gears did not en- gage. The Lady Diana moved closer to the road, her face white, but self-possessed. She thought that she recognized the staunch figure in the car, which through some deep- seated instinct of sportsmanship did not, and had not, attempted to leave its seat. Making a megaphone of her hands she called up : "Throw in your first throw in your first that'll slacken you." But even before she spoke the man in the car had been attempting to do so. The lever shot forward, and then before he could try to mesh the gears, the car ca- reened on two wheels. The rider's hand was forced to quit the lever and with his other hand grasp more firmly the wheel. He rounded the curve and literally fell, car and man, down the last descent that sep- parated him from the bit of road beside the Falconhurst stables. Now he seemed to 78 THE ACCIDENT have clear sailing, for the road ran straight, and half a mile beyond the stables there was a slight rise that would be more than suffi- cient to check the speed of the car, intense though it was. As the car and man blurred past Lady Diana she thought she caught from the car the words, "Thank you," and the flash of a hand waved in the air. The next instant there was a thunderous crash, followed by the manifold and multi- tudinous sounds of separate mechanisms of metal being rent asunder all in one second, yet following one another in minute frac- tions of that second. The eye of the rider must have 'deviated from his course in that brief moment when he had waved his hand and called his thanks to the girl who had had the presence of mind to shout to him the only thing possible in that crisis. His car, deviating ever so slightly in that 79 THE WHIP instant, had rushed into the stone corner of the bridge just at the side of the footpath. It lay in fragments and twisted bits of metal. The man, hurled to the middle of the high- way, sprawled there, bleeding and uncon- scious. For a long moment men and women stood without moving. Then Rayner and Bever- ley broke the spell, and a half dozen of them darted forward, took up the form in the road and carried it into the stable yard. Upon her arm Lady Diana received the limp, hanging head, as they put the man upon the ground. "Quick, Lambert, some brandy," ordered Beverley to the Whip's trainer. "Grandfather, he's dying," Lady Diana exclaimed pityingly. Then she looked long into the face. "It's the stranger, my artist," she said, a vast sadness falling upon her as she saw the wrist, lying there limp, upon which not so 80 THE ACCIDENT long before her hunter had set its mark. He had laughed so blithely and had taken so good-naturedly what had seemed to her a matter of so much concern, and here he lay dead, or dying. Poor stranger! Poor art- ist! But a step from laughter to death! she reflected sadly. Now Lambert had brought the brandy but he did not hand it to the Marquis as he caught sight of the poor, pale face. "My lord, it's the man we thought a tout," he said to his employer. "I can't help that," answered Beverley im- patiently. "The pony cart, quick! The man's hurt. We must take him to the house at once at once!" Captain Sartoris had been looking into the face of the inert stranger on the ground for several moments in a puzzled fashion. He knew that he knew the man, but the banishment of consciousness had made such a difference in the features that for the mo- 8 1 THE WHIP ment he could not identify them. Suddenly he made an exclamation. "Good heavens, cousin! Do you see who this is?" came from him as his memory cleared. The Marquis looked at the man on the ground and then into the face of the Cap- tain, an unspoken inquiry in his own eyes. Sartoris took a deep breath, the better to subdue his own lively astonishment. "It's it's Brancaster," he said. 82 CHAPTER VI THE TIME AND THE PARSON FOR six days now Lord Brancaster had lain in one of the lofty old bed-chambers of the ancient house of Falconhurst. He had not regained consciousness for a moment since the day of the accident. Despite the words of censure the Marquis of Beverley had spoken of the Earl of Bran- caster there was nothing for him to do now save to try to efface them in every possible way. Beverley had done more than the situation demanded. It was as if the injury which had fallen upon the Earl had wiped out all the past and had brought to the old racing nobleman a renewed consciousness of the brotherhood of man. The most noted phy- sicians and surgeons of London had been 83 THE WHIP summoned by him, and Sir Andrew Beck, whose very retaining cast a distinction upon any family able to induce the great surgeon to visit them, was even now in consultation with some half dozen of the kingdom's greatest surgical experts. There was a question as to whether they would try an operation in the hope of relieving the pres- sure upon the patient's brain, but the consen- sus of opinion was against it. The chamber in which Brancaster lay had been the abode of more than one fugitive nobleman in the days of the Commonwealth, which had followed the ascendency of the Puritans after the execution of Charles I, and there was a well-authenticated legend that "Bonnie Prince Charlie" himself had once been sheltered there when there was a price upon his head. But certainly never before had the old apartment occupied by the unconscious Branfaster had a more lovely aspect. There 84 THE TIME were flowers everywhere, but not in the pro- fusion that would have meant annoyance to the ill man had he been conscious of them. There were lilies of the valley in the old stone vase, built into the ancient, disused fireplace. Their white loveliness was ac- centuated by the long trailing vines that formed their background. For Lady Di- ana had seen to the comfort and decoration of the apartment of the man she was sure could not be entirely bad. The accident to this young man in the prime of his life had done much to soften her pride of the very young, and she realized that her judgment was harsh. In these days she accepted nearly every- thing without question. When the woman she had seen with Brancaster, on the day he was known to her merely as the artist, called at Falconhurst and asked to be allowed to sit by the side of the unconscious man, the girl had led her without question to the bed- 85 THE WHIP chamber, though her grandfather had sub- sequently seen that a footman performed that office. Lady Diana had not inquired as to the woman visitor anything more than her name. The "Mrs. D'Aquila" she had re- ceived told her nothing, and she did not ask other information as to the dark, foreign appearing woman who seemed to take Bran- caster's injury so deeply to heart. There was within Lady Diana a deep spiritual sense. She felt that the stricken Earl might die, indeed she had heard it so whispered, though the Marquis tried to spare her such thoughts as these. She felt in her pure consciousness of small sin that if he died without receiving benefit of the Church of England, or of any clergyman, there would be a cloud upon both his chances in a world which might understand him better, and upon her own conscience as well. She could not forget those murmured 86 THE TIME words as the car shot by her, and that waving of the hand. Surely "that within us which makes for righteousness" could not ignore such a spirit. His was a rare soul, which must have its chance in that void into which hourly it seemed about to escape. So she had dispatched a note to the vicar, innocently unmindful of the fact that "Sporting J-ack" Thorpe rode far better to hounds than he did to grace, and that even then he was taking the cure for gout far from the village, the great name of which was Beverley. To-day, just as the sun was about to set, she was waiting on the terrace of the Italian Garden for the appearance of Thorpe in answer to her summons. As she walked to and fro along the terrace, with many glances down the little path known to her friends who did not wish to drive a mile along the road before they reached the castle she was joined by her cousin, Captain Greville Sar- 87 THE WHIP toris. The captain was, as usual, "devilishly hard up," as he was wont to put it, and he was trying to evolve a way to make a "kill- ing." As Sartoris descended the terrace steps Lady Diana stood looking earnestly in the direction of the village. "No sign of anyone coming," the Captain remarked. "They must have got my note at the vicarage!" Lady Diana said with anxiety, as she turned appealingly to her cousin. "Would your parson come this way by the private gate?" "Oh! yes, Greville all our friends near the village do, if they don't want to drive a mile up the Front Avenue." Sartoris shrugged his shoulders. "P'raps the old chap ain't well. Didn't we hear he'd a touch of gout?" "Yes, yes, and he wrote he was going to Harrogate for a cure, but not until next 88 THE TIME week, I think." It was clear that Lady Di- ana was greatly alarmed over the condition of the injured man. "Is there really much for a parson to do here, Di? Poor Brancaster has never been conscious since the smash." Captain Sar- toris regarded his pretty cousin closely and a slight irritation upset for the moment the man's accustomed sang froid. "Nearly six days hanging between life and death and now at any minute he may " The girl stopped abruptly, unable or unwilling to speak the dreaded word. "At any minute, my dear Di, he's just as likely to wake up. When he does, believe me he won't ask for a parson. He'll ask for the lady who is sitting by him now." And there was just a trace of unpleasantness in the Captain's low laugh. "Mrs. D'Aquila? . . . She seems very devoted to him, Greville," Lady Diana said slowly. 89 THE WHIP "Comes over from the Rievers three times a day!" There was a certain innuendo in Capt. Sartoris' remark. "She was staying there I suppose with er with " "With a tame chaperone, Di she does everything quite correctly." It was quite evident that Greville found something par- ticularly amusing in Lord Brancaster's mys- terious visitor. "I ought to be sorry she looks so anxious and troubled." Lady Diana turned a wor- ried face toward her jaunty cousin. "Hem. No doubt she is," the Captain answered drily. "Greville! . . . Who is Mrs. D'Aquila?" the girl asked him point-blank. Sartoris looked at her quizzically as he slowly exhaled the smoke from his cigarette before replying. "She has been tried a flyer the Two Thou- sand's a certainty." There was one moment while Sartoris was giving this piece of stable information when Lambert, the Whip's trainer, had much dif- ficulty in remembering that he was an image of wax. He moved suddenly and had great trouble in not leaving his perch and giv- 244 LOCKED IN ing Sartoris the threshing he knew he de- served. But he believed that, since they were now on the subject of his beloved horse, patience would be vastly rewarded. Mrs. D'Aquila had not seemed startled at what Sartoris had said. "That doesn't sound bad," she said. "If one had a bit on, at say, twenty "No chance," the Captain interrupted. "Di must have told Brancaster, for he caught Kelly, the big book-maker, half drunk and off his guard and rushed him with three big bets. If the Whip wins, he'll win a fortune." "Brancaster," she exclaimed in a voice of gloom, now thoroughly aroused. "Yes, he'll have lots of money to fight you with. If the horse gets beat he'll be nearly broke." For a moment Mrs. D'Aquila was in deep thought. "Horses do get beat sometimes," she said. 245 THE WHIR "Yes," said Sartoris equally gloomy. "That's what Kel what a chap I know said. When Klarikoff was favorite for the Leger he got burnt in his box." "In his stable?" she asked. "No, horse-box on the railway," he re- turned. "I wonder how it was done," she said in a tone that might have stood for the sug- gestion of an evil deed, so sinister it was. Sartoris shrugged his shoulders. "Accident," he said in his thin voice. "I'd give something for another." "You would?" she asked in a peculiar tone. "Yes," he said frankly. "I've had a plunge on something else. I want to see the Whip beaten. I must see her beaten. That's why I told you. You've got quick wits" "The jockey," she suggested. "Honest idiot." 246 LOCKED IN "The stable?" "Guarded like the Sultan's harem! Bev- erley's pet fad." "Yes, the train's the place," she said mu- singly? getting to her feet. Puzzled, Sartoris also arose. "How? His lad and probably his clown of a trainer, Lambert, will travel with him in the box," he said. "When does he travel?" she asked. "To-morrow. They'll stop the evening train to Grantham by signal at Falconhurst, tack the box on behind, and slip it at Men- field, where the down express will pick it up" "Slip it " she said, while her thoughts were busy on some sudden problem. "Yes," he explained. "It's what they al- ways do, don't you know, pull a string thing that undoes the coupling and the horse- box slows down and stops at the Junction while the train runs through " 247 THE WHIP "Has has it ever gone wrong?" she asked in a way to arouse his suspicions. "What?" "The slip business. What would happen if the horse-box were slipped too soon say Falconhurst tunnel and left standing on the line?" "The next train would see the red tail- light and stop," he said. There was a world of potential tragedy in the woman's voice, as with the smile of a destiny of evil she went on : "But in the dark it will be dark if someone had dropped off the tail-light be- fore the next train could stop?" "The box would be smashed," he said in a dazed fashion. "And the horse?" She paused for a full moment. Then she went on : "The train does not run fast through the tunnel. IVe been there dozens of times. 248 LOCKED IN I've seen guards do the thing it's easy enough to swing from carriage to carriage along the foot plate to drop off the red tail-light to pull the slip and let the next train" With her hands brought violently to- gether she let inference finish her sentence for her. "Whom could one trust?" demanded Sar- toris suddenly. "When I've work to do," she said, "I only trust myself." "But, you couldn't " he began. "No, but you could easily if you were on the train," she said, "if you joined it further north and none knew it you could do it if you want it done so badly and you have the pluck " She was interrupted by the ringing of the bell which gave notice that the hydraulic door would close shortly. 249 THE WHIP "Ah, the door!" she exclaimed. Then in a low, but strong tone she went on: "What's going to happen? Is the Whip going to win or will there be an acci- dent?" They left quickly then, as they did not wish to run any risk of being locked in when there was work to do, as she had phrased it. For a full half minute Lambert stared after them, then he leaned over the jury-box and shook his fist in the direction of the re- treating pair. "No there won't, my pretty lady," he said, aloud, the solitude and the company of the waxen images inclining him to hear the sound of his own voice. "There'll be no accident. Why? Because that clown of a trainer Lambert will stop it because he'll send his horse safe to the post first and he'll talk to you after tell you what he heard tell you to your face what you are " 250 LOCKED IN The second bell rang and immediately without waiting to allow any who might be in the Chamber of Horrors to get out, the unseen attendant on another floor pulled a lever and the door closed with a hard bang. Lambert was locked within the Chamber of Horrors, with no way of escape until Mon- day morning. "Here, stop that!" he roared, as he got down from the jury-box and tried to open the door, "I tell you there's someone inside open the door at once don't play the con- founded fool I tell you it's most important let me out let me out " But he could not move the door. Then he put his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Help, help, help!" All of the lights except a few near the ceiling were switched out, adding to the ter- ror of the trainer's situation. "Don't do that don't do that!" he fairly howled. "Stop it don't leave me here in 251 THE WHIP the dark I shall go mad alone here in the dark with these alone for a day and a night and another night till Monday while" Into his frenzied mind there came thoughts of the Whip. At the picture of his beloved and first member of the Beverley string lying upon some railroad track dying, his terror increased as he cried: "They are smashing my horse they'll smash the Whip while I'm locked up here they shan't let me out I say let me out" The manifold tortures of the situation were too much for the trainer and he sank down, sobbing and screaming while even the lights in the ceiling faded away. 252 CHAPTER XVII MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS MRS. BEAMISH was decidedly uneasy as she sat in the morning room at Falconhurst, on the evening of the day following that on which Tom Lambert had been locked into the Chamber of Horrors. Lord Beverley had been furious when Lambert failed to appear, and Lady Di was even then at the station to see the Whip put safely into the horse-box for the trip to Newmarket. The Marquis paced up and down the room fretting and fuming. "You may say what you like, Betty," he said to Mrs. Beamish, "I say that it's noth- ing short of disgraceful. Here's Lambert knows perfectly well that the Whip starts for Newmarket to-night by the seven-thirty and that he's got to travel with her and 253 THE WHIP not only is there not a sign of the man, but not a word from him!" "Perhaps he thought it didn't matter," Mrs. Beamish volunteered. "Didn't matter! Betty! You're not gen- erally a fool. I beg you won't talk like one. Didn't matter! With a mare that no one can manage but him and Di and her jockey!" The Marquis looked at his com- panion with amazement. "I suppose he thought the jockey could go with her!" "Of course he can and of course he will," he said. "I've arranged for that but if Harry Anson goes to Newmarket to- night Tom Lambert'll go for good to- morrow morning." "Perhaps he may be coming by the train that gets in from town at seven-twenty," she suggested. "And perhaps he mayn't Betty! You'll drive me mad with your perhapses and sup- 254 MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS poses. The seven-twenty is always late I Lambert ought to have been here this morn- ing. Why isn't he? Answer me that! Why isn't he?" he demanded, striking the table in his excitement. "How should I know! Unless he may have been been detained," she said guiltily. "Detained! Where? Couldn't he wire? Isn't there the telephone? The man's not a fool!" "I'm not so sure of that!" Mrs Beamish commented. "But I am. I wish I were as sure that he isn't the other extreme a rogue." Lord Beverley was in an exceedingly pessi- mistic frame of mind. "Tom Lambert a rogue! No! what- ever he is, but he's not that!" Mrs. Beam- ish exclaimed. She was indignant in spite of herself. "You seem to be very sure of what he is 255 THE WHIP and what he isn't, Betty. But let me tell you, that for a long time past stable secrets have been leaking out in a most inexplica- ble way. Now, Lambert is just the man who could have given them away, and I'm beginning to believe he's just the man who did." There was almost conviction in the Marquis's words. Mrs. Beamish sprang to her feet hotly. "And I'll swear I mean I'll pledge my word, he didn't. What! Tom Lambert do a dirty trick! Tom Lambert betray anybody's trust he'd sooner die; he's got his little faults, but an honester man doesn't breathe. Why I remember years ago, when he was quite a lad " and she stopped suddenly. "I daresay," replied Beverley with irony. "I don't want to hear what happened years ago I'm thinking of to-night! I'm think- ing of the fact that Di's gone to see the Whip off by the seven-thirty that it only 256 MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS wants ten minutes and that Lambert's not here! What have you got to say to that?" "No doubt there's a reason there's some explanation." "Then give it to me!" he demanded grimly. "I can't," she told him, while to herself she said, with woman's perversity, "I won't!" "Why not, if you hold the key!" "Hold the key!" she protested. "Of his conduct," said her relative snap- pishly. "Hold a brief for him if you like it better." "He he may have met with an acci- dent," she said lamely. "Let's hope so. Bless me, I don't mean that! But I do mean it'll have to be a bad one to make me condone his absence. I don't want any more words, Betty. Tom Lambert's been in my stables now for nearly thirty years, but so surely as he doesn't 257 travel with the Whip to-night so surely I'll sack him to-morrow." And Lord Bev- erly stalked out of the room. "Sack him! Sack Tom Lambert!" Mrs. Beamish exclaimed to herself involuntarily. "Oh, no! I didn't bargain for that!" She hurried to the door. "Lord Beverley!" she called, and then she stopped. "No! I daren't tell him while he's like that," she told herself. "Supposing I were to try to get Lambert let out! What's the good? It's too late now the mischief's done and to-morrow morning won't make it any worse. No ! there he is and there he'll stay, till the doors open on Monday morning. But I can't let him lose his place and if I told Beverley now a bull of Bashan 'Id be a babe-in-arms to him." And then, with a sudden inspiration "I know! I'll write to him a letter he can get to-morrow morning and I'll keep out of his way all day." She sat down at 258 MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS the writing table. "That's it!" She took up a pen and began to write "Dear Lord Beverley : Poor as my opin- ion of Tom Lambert is " (Looking up at clock) "Five and twenty past seven! Ten o'clock last night!" (counting on her fin- gers) "ten to ten's twelve and ten to half past seven's another nine twenty-one hours and a half alone in the Chamber of Horrors!" And then, hardening her heart she added, "Well, serves him right!" "Poor as my opinion of Tom Lambert is, I cannot allow you to think " she wrote, and then she stopped. "Poor wretch! how hungry he must be! and thirsty And a good lesson for him ! Let him dream of his Myrtle!" She proceeded with her letter "To think that his absence is due to de- sign on his part I know where he is " She stopped again and reaching for the tele- 259 THE WHIP phone book, opened it, and searched the pages for a moment. "Tussaud Madam and Sons Limited 56 Paddington," she said. "That's it!" And then she slammed the book shut. "No, I won't!" she exclaimed and wrote again "The fact is that he went to Madam Tus- saua" s last night (more fool he!) and (Poor Tom! wonder if he's got any cigars with him!" she finished, questioning herself, and forgetting the letter entirely.) Then, with a sudden inspiration, she seized the telephone instrument, and taking up the receiver, called : "Hullo! are you there? Yes Trunk call, please. Get me 56 Paddington 5 6 yes, that's right! Sunday evening, you can put me through quickly? You can. Thanks." Mrs. Beamish resumed her writing. "After all," she said to herself, "I don't see 260 MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS why I need give myself away so much," and she ran her pen through the lines that she had written, and began afresh. "I have reason to believe that he went with some of the others to Madame Tus- saud's last night and I think it quite pos- sible that he may have stayed too late and got locked in. And after twenty-four soli- tary hours confinement in the Chamber of Horrors, I do think he's been punished sufficiently for his carelessness and other things!" she added, for her benefit only. The telephone bell rang insistently, and she answered at once. "Hullo 1 What! Through already! Thanks! Hullo! Who's that? Are you Madame Tussaud's? Who's speaking? The night watchman? Oh! Have you got the keys You have . . . I er I think that by some accident, a gentleman got locked in last night when the place was 261 THE WHIP closed: into the Chamber of Horrors. Yes!" She listened a moment to some message. "Yes, do, please," she continued, after a pause, "and when you've got him ask him to speak to Mrs. Beamish on the 'phone. B E A M I S H! Thank youl I'll hold the line No. Don't ring us off another three minutes!" "Yes (Why do they man or woman telephone exchanges with congenital idiots!)" She turned again to her letter. "Think he's been punished sufficiently, and though of course he ought not to have got locked in or to have been there at all I do hope you'll forgive him for my sake. Whatever am I writing! for my sake in- deed! For Myrtle Anson's! and it'd be no more than he deserves if I were to tell Bev- erley all about it but I won't I'll hold it over him!" 262 MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS She was still holding the receiver to her ear, and in reply to the operator's customary question she said snappishly: "Finished? Good heavens, no! I told you another three minutes they're fetching somebody. No! I haven't finished what? You cut me off if you dare! Sorry to keep you from your novel, but you'll have to finish the chapter when I'm done and eh? On again?" and then she recognized Lambert's voice. "Ah, Lambert," she exclaimed, over the wire, "they've got you out, eh? Tired of being a wax work?" But the trainer paid no attention to the jibing quality of her tones and plunged in- to a recital of what he had heard while he posed as Dr. Crippen. "It's not true," she exclaimed over the wire. "You're inventing it to get at me! Tom Lambert, will you swear it is true?" Lord Beverley entered during her con- 263 THE WHIP eluding words, and she explained rapidly to him. "What cock and bull story's this?" he de- manded. But after another short talk with Lam- bert she continued to Beverley: "It's true! He says he overheard a plot to kill the Whip. They mean to uncouple the horse-box at Menfield Junction just the other side of the tunnel and leave it where the down express'll run into it and smash the whole thing up." Lord Beverley now talked with Lambert in his turn. "If this story of yours is true, whose plot is it?" he asked. "What! Captain Sartoris! Greville! Are you mad or drunk, sir, to make such an accusation! You'll take your oath upon it? Going by the same train as the Whip prevent the horse's starting at any cost. Yes, I'll do that." He snapped up the receiver, when they 264 MRS. BEAMISH RELENTS heard the whistle of the train as it left Fal- conhurst station. "You can't There goes the train," lamented Mrs. Beamish. "Too late!" exclaimed Beverley. "I wouldn't have that horse hurt for three times what she stands to win. Good heavens, Betty. Harry Anson and the others we must save them." But Mrs. Beamish was already on her agitated but rapid way to the door. "And we will," she cried. "It is my do- ing! My stupid jealousy has led to it all. It's my duty to put things straight, and I'm going to do it!" "How?" demanded the Marquis. "Give me the big motor and a couple of men," she said, "and I'll race the train and get to the tunnel first." 265 CHAPTER XVIII THE WRECK THE station employes at Falconhurst station had rather hurriedly prepared the horse- box for the reception of Lord Beverley's pride, for they were anxious to see the car attached to the train which, having arrived ahead of its time, was being held, for they knew that once through the tunnel the down express would be only three minutes behind them. They had set the red tail-light and arranged the slip cord which would release the coupler when it was pulled, and now they were waiting for the Whip to be led aboard. Lady Diana and Harry Anson were stand- ing at the intelligent animal's head while the girl said her good-bys to the racer she 266 THE WRECK loved and upon whose successful perform- ance at Newmarket depended so much. "Good-by," she whispered to the horse softly, "you're to run your first great race. Win it. Win it! For you're carrying my heart!" It seemed almost as though the Whip un- derstood, for with her muzzle she caressed the hand of the girl. Then Lady Diana turned to the jockey. "Good-by, Harry," she said; "go and win for the honor of the stable for the honor of our colors and for me God bless you both, and good luck!" And then she stood aside. Rapidly Harry and the porters led the Whip into the car which had already been bedded down. Then while Harry waved his hand and Lady Diana and the others on the plat- form responded, the train, which had backed down, bore off the car and its own load of passengers. 267 THE WHIP Harry, who knew that the succeeding days would be of great activity, went to bed in his bunk in the compartment in one end of the little odd English horse-box, while the train attained a high rate of speed and en- tered Falconhurst tunnel. He promised himself that he would keep one eye on the horse, even while the train was in motion and but little danger was to be apprehended from those to whose inter- est it might be to try and harm the Whip. But he soon dozed. They were in the tunnel when Captain Sartoris opened a door of a carriage which he had quite to himself. He had joined the train further to the north of Falconhurst and none of the Falconhurst people had known that he was aboard. Now in the blackness of the tunnel he crept along the footplate which ran just below the side doors and which in the past had given opportunity for many a crime. 268 THE WRECK While the passengers were absolutely un- conscious of his lurching progress past them he crept along the train, clinging and sway- ing. In this fashion he passed by the door of a compartment in which the morose Ver- ner Haslam was thinking of him at that very moment and lamenting to himself weakly that he had been drawn into a path whose issue he could not see. Perhaps the presence of the man, who had become in a sense his master, was real- ized subconsciously by the clergyman, for at the moment that Sartoris passed by his compartment the shoulders of the substitute vicar were drawn up into a shrug and shud- der. But to his conscious mind there came no warning. Sartoris, while not a crack, was never- theless something of an athlete, and the passage on the footplate gave him no par- ticular concern, once he had accustomed himself to the swaying and the exact 269 THE WHIP counterpoise it was necessary to impart to his own body. Now he stood at the very end of the foot- plate which was on the carriage next the horse-box. Soon he had passed to the end of the horse-box. Quickly he raised the tail-light and swung it in a circle for a few seconds. He wished to hurl it in such a way that the flame would surely be extinguished, as he wanted no warning to be given to the train behind which was to complete his project. He realized that if he merely dropped the lantern to the line, there was a bare possi- bility that it would continue to burn. His semi-circular swings were justified a moment later, when he flung the lamp to the ground, for there was a sudden impact, and then no light showed. With one foot resting upon the carriage and one upon the horse-box, he pulled the 270 THE WRECK slip cord and had the instant pleasure of seeing the horse-box and its freight drop be- hind. The Whip would not run. The race would be lost. He would be saved from Kelly's clutches. Brancaster would be im- poverished and the marriage of Lady Diana and Brancaster put far off. Quietly he slipped along the footplate and regained his own carriage and compart- ment without his absence having been noted. With a speed that gradually fell away the horse-box, with the Whip inside and Harry fast asleep, rumbled through the tun- nel and came to a stop on the main line, directly in the path of the first train which should come along, near Menfield Junction. The whistle and the sounds of the rapid approach through the tunnel of the down express came very plainly through the dark- ness, just as a motor containing two men and Mrs. Beamish dashed around a bend in the 271 THE WHIP road and came to a palpitating, panting stop near the horse-box, and at one side of the line. Mrs. Beamish and her two escorts from the establishment below stairs at Falcon- hurst darted across the line and pounded upon the door of the horse-box as the train in the tunnel moved nearer and nearer. Finally Harry put his head out of the window and the frenzied voice of Mrs. Beamish came to him: "Quick, Harry, the down express's on you. You're cut off and the Whip and you'll be killed!" she shouted above the roar of the on- coming train. Harry cast one glance behind him, saw the rushing express and then threw down the sidedoor of the horse-box. The Whip was led across the line and to safety under the very glare of the headlight of the express. Not a second after this the engine of the onrushing train plowed into 272 THE WRECK the car just left by Harry and the Whip and was derailed, while the engine driver fell badly hurt to the ground. The light impediment of the horse-box served to derail several of the carriages be- hind which had been traveling at high speed, and a number of passengers were hurled out, or thrown violently against par- titions and other immovable objects within the train. Amid escaping steam and a fire, which had started among the wreckage, the work of succor was begun. Among those who labored none worked with greater courage than the Rev. Verner Haslam. His train had been stopped after the crash, and had backed down to render aid. It was he who crawled among the splintered, burning mass on the line to bring out many of the children who had been in the express. 273 CHAPTER XIX AT NEWMARKET ON the day after the wreck and the day be- fore the great race the Whip made her triumphal entry into Newmarket. The march toward what all in the Beverley sta- bles felt to be victory ended for the day when the racer was escorted by touts, racing men, tipsters and youngsters into the yard of the Rutland Arms Hotel, with several policemen to keep the crowd at a safe dis- tance from the pride of Beverley. Lady Diana and Mrs. Beamish had ar- rived at Newmarket in a motor-car and were already at the inn when the mare was led into the yard, accompanied by Lam- bert and Harry Anson, as well as a small army of attendants. As soon as the Whip 274 AT NEWMARKET was halted inside the ivy-covered enclosure, Lady Diana could not resist welcoming the beautiful mare with an enthusiastic kiss on her soft nose. "You darling!" the girl cried. "And looking more beautiful than ever isn't she, Betty? I hope she's none the worse for her fright last night, Tom?" "Lord! no, my Lady! Playful as a lamb she is, biting and lashing out at everybody as comes within a mile of her," answered Lambert, with pardonable pride. Mrs. Beamish, too, patted the Whip's neck. "Pretty dear! let's hope she'll give a good account of them as tried to do for her, when I come across 'em," Tom told her, and the honest fellow rested a loving hand on the mare's back. "There take her to her box, Tom," Lady Diana directed, "the old Beverley box that has seen so many a winner go forth 275 THE WHIP from it to carry the Beverley colors first past the post." Her eyes sparkled as she saw again the throngs of eager people madly cheering her grandfather's victories. "And it'll see another to-morrow, my lady for it's never sheltered a better horse than the Whip no, not though the stable door's that thick with our plates as you can scarcely see the wood between 'em!" The trainer spoke with the assurance of one who knew. He had not spent almost thirty years with the Beverley horses without be- ing confident by this time of his own judg- ment. "But there's room for one more plate, Lambert," Mrs. Beamish said with notice- able cordiality, "and we'll nail it there to- morrow, won't we, Di?" she appealed. "That we will!" Lady Diana rejoined. "Ever since the Fifth Harry gave it us, our crest has been 'The Whip,' our motto ' 276 AT NEWMARKET way for me!' and to-morrow we'll take our way to triumph. Yes. 'The Whip's' the sign that England rules the sea, and 'The Whip' shall be the sign of victory for Bev- erley by land!" There was a cheer from all the bystanders, as Lady Diana, making a sign to Harry Anson to follow with his charge, led the way to the paddock, leaving Mrs. Beam- ish and Lambert behind her, alone in the courtyard. "And how may you be feeling, Mrs. B mish?" Tom inquired, not quite certain of his reception. Mrs. Beamish showed some signs of emo- tion. "I'll not disguise from you, Lambert, that I'm not feeling quite myself," she answered. "Ha! Feeling more like your old self and and less like your new eh? less like the Hon. Mrs. Beamish and more like Betty 277 THE WHIP Dawkins eh? more like the jackdaw and less like the peacock's feathers, eh?" Tom was resolved not to be too kind. "Peacock's feathers, indeed!" she ex- claimed indignantly. "Yes . . . Gold 'andbags and watches and lace 'ankerchiefs, and such like." Here he burst into a loud guffaw. "Lor! that young woman she did take you on proper!" he jeered, recalling Mrs. Beamish's adven- ture in the Chamber of Horrors. "Yes! and you looked on and let her. Tom Lambert, I'll never forgive you!" "Come, I like that! Who had me locked up in the Chamber of Horrors?" he re- torted. "It was your doing!" Mrs. Beamish told him, vindictively. "When a man associates with murderers, he must expect to be locked up. Why did you hide?" Tom smiled broadly, knowing that he had the situation well in hand. 278 AT NEWMARKET "Because you've got a suspicious mind," he explained. "Because you've got a guilty one," she corrected. Lambert saw that the lady was a bit more difficult than he had believed and he straightway lost his assurance. "Stop that, Betty! It ain't a thing for joking," he said with feeling. And as the Whip's jockey reappeared in the courtyard Tom turned to him and called, "Harry, my lad, come here, and if you can, just you speak up what you've got to say." Harry Anson approached Mrs. Beamish with his cap in his hand. "I I want to thank you, ma'am, for what you did last night for saving my life," he said choking and embarrassed. "Yes, ma'am, it was so," he continued, as Mrs. Beamish started to protest. "If it hadn't been for you, my sister'd ha' been left alone in the world along in her trouble." 279 THE WHIP "Trouble ?" Mrs. Beamish inquired, not understanding. Harry's emotion almost got the better of him. "Yes, ma'am, wrong there has been and shame but it wasn't from him it come" and the boy pointed to Lambert "but from the same hand as tried to wreck the Whip last night." "From Captain Sartoris!" Mrs. Beamish cried, a great light breaking over her at last. "Yes, that's him! . . . Him as wanted me to pull that mare him as would have ruined me as he'd ruined her my sister!" The poor boy nearly broke down as he told his great trouble. The good woman put her hand tenderly on Harry's shoulder, and in a most motherly way she comforted him as best she could. "My boy, my boy " she said, "I'm sorry, very sorry if there is anything I can do 280 AT NEWMARKET if presently Myrtle can have a new start in a new land " "Oh, ma'am! if it only could be!" the lad cried impetuously, hope springing anew within him. "It shall be," she assured him. "I know I can promise as much as that for Lord Bev- erley." "Thank you, ma'am, from my heart and hers." And Harry's eyes filled in his com- plete thankfulness. "There, there, that'll do, my lad! You go and look after your 'oss," Lambert said, with clumsy kindness. As Harry hurried away the trainer turned his shining face to Mrs. Beamish. "And now, Betty what have you got to say?" he asked. "Sorry, Tom, with all my heart. I take it back." "Now you see what comes along o' sus- picion and jealousy," he chided her. 281 THE WHIP "Well, you needn't triumph over me," she protested. "I'm not a-triumphing over you, Betty only a-telling of you for your good, that there train accident all lies at your door!" "My door!" "And the door of the Chamber of Horrors, what you left locked on me for four-and-twenty hours. If you had not been jealous and followed me to Tussaud's "You wouldn't have hidden among the murderers and we should never have known of the plot at all," she interrupted. "Well, I never!" Lambert was surprised into exclaiming. Mrs. Beamish's nimble wits were too much for him. "No, you never would!" she hastened to follow up her advantage. "And the Whip with Harry and the lad would have been smashed up, as well as the others." "Trust a woman to turn a story round her 282 AT NEWMARKET own way and " Tom fumed and sput- tered. "Look!" she suddenly said, pointing to the patch of street visible through the en- trance. "Captain Sartoris!" Lambert exclaimed. "Yes. Now if you want someone to talk to and tell off talk to him! and when you've done that, you can come and talk to me you'll find me," she ordered, conscious of her woman's mastery. "Where?" asked Tom. "Where you ought to be and never are with your horse!" And there was a wicked gleam of triumph in Mrs. Beam- ish's eye. 283 CHAPTER XX MRS. D'AQUILA'S INSPIRATION "AH, Lambert, the Whip arrived?" Sar- toris's manner was assured and easy. Lambert looked him directly in the eye. "Yes, she has," he sputtered, "and she's going to arrive to-morrow, too, you infernal scoundrel! Don't talk to me don't you dare to show your ugly nose near my horse or I'll pull it for you." The Captain's smile was contemptuous. "My good idiot you are very drunk," he said. "No, I'm not," disclaimed the trainer. "Then what the deuce do you mean by " "I mean," said Lambert, sternly, "that I was at Madame 'Toosoo's' on Saturday night, Captain Sartoris, close to your el- 284 MRS. D'AQUILA'S INSPIRATION bow, at your back, and I heard every; blooming word you said." Mrs. D'Aquila had followed Sartoris in- to the yard and she heard Lambert's last words. "Dear me, who is this creature?" she 'drawled, surveying the horseman through her glasses. "You'll jolly soon know to-morrow," the outraged and angry trainer said, "when you're both in the dock, madam, and you hear what I've sworn that you wanted it so badly that you had the pluck but there wasn't an accident " And Lambert, who knew that if he re- mained longer in the yard he couldn't keep from thrashing Sartoris, left abruptly. The Captain was slightly taken aback. "Did you hear that?" he asked the woman. "Your own words. The beast must have been there really hidden we never saw him and he heard everything." 285 THE WHIP "What does it matter?" returned the steadier nerved woman. "He's no wit- ness. And it's one oath against two. 1 shall swear that I was never there in mj life." "Is it worth the trouble?" "My dear Greville " "You've forgotten the accident." "I've not. I always thought it possible," she said. "I didn't," he returned sharply. "I thought that when the horse-box stopped on the line, the lad, the trainer, whoever it was could get out go for help at any rate jump out when they heard the next train coming. I never thought of a dozen poor devils torn and cut and thrown about smashed 1" "All third-class passengers," the woman answered with a shrug. "Dreadful things are always happening to people of that sort." 286 MRS. D'AQUILA'S INSPIRATION "Quite so," returned Sartoris, "but you mustn't kill 'em for all that. I only thought I was going to do for the horse. What's the punishment for manslaughter?" Mrs. D'Aquila laughed outright. "Fiddlesticks," she commented. "They can't prove anything. Where's your mo- tive?" "I'll tell you," he said. "The truth will come out if any of these people die. It was my work. I tried to kill my cousin's horse. Kelly, the bookmaker, has laid thousands against it. In Kelly's pocket is a bill of mine with Di's name upon it. She did not put it there. If the Whip does not win that bill comes back to me. There's my motive. If the Whip wins he'll give the bill to Di." For the moment she abandoned her de- fense of him to him. "And if you have any sense," she said, 287 THE WHIP "you'll be in Paris to-night clear away by to-morrow " "That won't prevent the horse from win- ning," he said, "won't stop Kelly. The minute Beverley sees that bill the chain's complete. I shall stand proved a criminal a train wrecker nearly a murderer. I shan't hesitate." "Don't be absurd," she advised. "I'm not," he answered sullenly. "Do you think I'd pass the rest of my life broke? Begging hunted no, thanks. I've had my time not half a bad time. It must end some day, and I shan't hesitate." Sartoris had drawn a revolver and was looking at it. "What's that?" she asked. "That," he smiled bitterly. "That's Harry Anson's revolver. He left it in my rooms. Poetic justice if I used it. I'm afraid, Nora, the chain's too strong. There's no way out." 288 MRS. D'AQUILA'S INSPIRATION She looked at the weapon in his hand and then at him quickly. "Yes, there is," she exclaimed suddenly, "and almost a certainty. That thing made me think of it. You told me Harry Anson came to your chambers and threatened you. If I were you I should go in fear of my life." "I!" "And I should swear it forcibly," she went on, "before the nearest magistrate in London, and come down to-morrow with detectives and arrest him on the course, just before the race." "They'd get another jockey." "To ride the Whip? You know that's impossible!" Sartoris took a deep breath of relief. "That's true!" he exclaimed. "Very well," she said enthusiastically. "No race is over until it's lost. Here is your chance. Almost a certainty. Take it and win!" 289 THE WHIP "By Heaven, I will," he said fervently. "Then put that thing away," she said, in- dicating the revolver. "Don't lose a minute! I'll walk with you to the station. Go up to town at once and do your work. We'll see 'Brancaster broken and beaten yet." 290 CHAPTER XXI THE TRUTH AT LAST As Sartoris and Mrs. D'Aquila strolled off together toward the station, Mrs. Beamish and Tom Lambert watched them from the yard of the inn, which they had entered soon after the others left it. "There they go. A pretty pair of beau- ties. They ought to marry each other," said poor Tom, who had marrying on the brain whenever he found himself alone with his Betty. "If you'd seen them stand there, as bold as brass," he went on, "and swear me out as if I'd dreamed everything I heard them say." "Quite sure you didn't, Tom?" she asked tartly. "Just as sure as I am that I didn't dream 291 THE WHIP that I saw that young woman filch from you everything you had with you," he said. Then his mind wandered into another channel as he thought of a day years ago. "Remember, Betty," he said, "what a day we had haymaking in Farmer Marsh's meadow? You wore a little lilac sunbon- net and looked a daisy, and no sweeter daisy doesn't blow " "Oh, Tom," she said, trying to stop him. "Remember, Betty," he continued, "after supper you and me went for a walk along Miller's lane. Wasn't the honeysuckle sweet, Betty?" Old memories were stirring in her, too. "It was, Tom," she said. "Ah ! there's no place like a hedge for honeysuckle." "Remember, Betty, you wanted a bunch and I climbed up to get it for you?" She sighed. "And tore your hands with a great bram- THE TRUTH AT LAST ble your little hand and I tied it up for you with my handkerchief." "And while you were doing it I " He finished his sentence with an expres- sive pantomime of kissing. "Don't, Tom," she begged, as old mem- ories seemed about to make her give to Tom his long deferred "Yes." "I can't help it, Betty," he said. Now once more Betty called upon the volume which had prevented her many times from forgetting that she belonged by marriage to the almost princely house of Beverley, and so could not marry one be- neath her in station. "Save me, Burke," she said. "Beverley, Geoffrey, Vandeleur, Delacroix, George, Jocelyn,' " She was repeating the titles and names of the Marquis of Beverley as they appeared in "Burke's Peerage," that she might conquer her passion for Tom Lambert. 293 THE WHIP "I'm going," she lamented, and then con- tinued to quote : " 'Tenth Marquis of K. G., K. C. B.;K. C, S. I. "' But Lambert overcame the last obstacle in his path of love, seized her, drew her to him, and kissed her, just as he should have done long ago. And to his wonder she re- turned his caress. "Oh! Tom I mean Mr. Lambert what have you done?" she cried. Then both of them became aware of the presence in the yard of Lady Diana. The girl was laughing at them. "I've compromised you in public and now you'll have to marry me," said Lam- bert with a laugh. "Do you know, Betty, I really think you will," put in Lady Diana as Lambert and Mrs. Beamish retreated into another corner of the yard. But Lady Diana had scant time to give 294 THE TRUTH AT LAST to their affairs, for a moment later Lord Brancaster appeared. He had received a letter from the girl telling him how the Rev. Vrner Haslam had been taken to Falconhurst after the wreck, and how unnerved he had seemed. He had really appeared on the point of tell- ing something to Lady Diana, but the next morning had left Falconhurst without a word. Lady Diana had added in the letter that Lord Beverley had applied for warrants for Sartoris and Mrs. D'Aquila on the strength of an affidavit made by Tom Lambert. Brancaster had rushed to Newmarket the moment he received the letter. The young people were commiserating with each other on the flight of Haslam, when that individual entered the stable yard. He was pale and agitated and even trembling as he approached. 295 THE WHIP "Ah, Mr. Haslam," said Lady Diana, "I was just talking of you. Why did you run away from us so suddenly at Falconhurst?" "I was afraid " began Haslam, and then stopped. "Of what?" she asked gently. "What I had done," he said. "You should have been proud. It was splendid work. You saved all those chil- dren. You crawled into the wreckage when others feared to do so." "And can't save myself my soul my life," he said in a seeming agony. "Come come where is the danger?" asked the young girl. A terror almost such as might come to one demented at imaginary perils crossed the pallid face of the man in clerical garb. "Sartoris Greville Sartoris," he said, "the devil loose at my throat next save me" 296 THE TRUTH AT LAST "Mr. Haslam, you are in no danger here," Brancaster said, reassuringly. "Why not? Does he stop at anything?" went on the frightened clergyman. "What do you mean?" demanded the young Earl, now determined that the scene should end or that the cleric should explain himself. "That I am a coward," said Haslam. "Fear sealed my lips. Fear opens them." There was a murmur of astonishment from Brancaster and Lady Diana, and then the pale clergyman hurried on: "That was his work wasn't it? You told me the accident?" Tom Lambert had left Betty's side and was now openly listening to Haslam. "I know it was his work, sir," interrupted Lambert. "I heard it planned between him and Mrs. D'Aquila." The vicar was looking straight before 297 THE WHIP him. In the vacancy he seemed to see hor- rible sights, hear terrifying sounds. "Murder 1" he muttered. "A dozen lives a hundred what did he care? He would have taken them to gain his end. Would he stop at mine?" "Why should he want ?" Brancaster be- gan. "My silence forever! The silence of the grave," said the clergyman almost beside himself in his cowardly passion. "Because I helped his villainy he drove me to it by fear. Then held me dumb by fear. Now I have seen his work, his plan complete reckless remorseless the crash the torn bodies on the line I've seen the fire- heard the children scream what is my life to him? Save me I Save me, if you will. Put prison walls between us. There I can- atone repent." "Of what?" asked the young Earl, going 298 THE TRUTH AT LAST closer to Haslam and looking at him pecul- iarly. Haslam raised his head, looked directly at the questioner, and then at Lady Diana. "The lie that wrecked your lives," he said. After a pause he went on: "There was a marriage. That is true.'* "Between me and Mrs. D'Aquila?" de- manded Brancaster. "Between the woman and one who took your place," confessed the weakling. "Who was it?" came from Brancaster. "Sartoris," said Haslam. "I did the rest," he added in a trembling, low voice, "wrote it in the book lies! Swore to it, after lies ! Fear drove me as it drives me now! Rank fear, fear for my body greater for my soul pity I confess forgive and save me." "Mr. Haslam," said the generous hearted 299 THE WHIP Lady Diana, "you shall be safe with us. Stay with us until the truth is clear and proved." And in his agony of soul, the Rev. Ver- ner Haslam joined the hands of Lady Diana and Brancaster, and held them both in his. 300 CHAPTER XXII THE WHIP WINS IT was only a few moments before the great Two Thousand Guinea Race. In the paddock the f rierids of Falconhurst were listening to the self-congratulations of Lord Beverley that in spite of all that had been done to prevent the Whip's starting, everything was now in readiness. Harry Anson had been weighed in and the Whip herself was pawing the turf wait- ing for the race to be called and for Harry to spring into the saddle. In anticipation of the effect the confes- sion of Haslam would have upon the Mar- quis of Beverley, Lady Diana and the Earl of Brancaster were openly strolling together about the paddock, confident and hopeful 301 THE WHIP too that the big race would give Brancaster a war fund against his enemies. In the press in the paddock Captain Sar- toris, followed at a little distance by two alert-featured but unfashionably garbed men, met Mrs. D'Aquila. Their greetings were cordial and happy, "It's all right," Sartoris told the woman, joyously. "You're a clever woman, Nora. The magistrate was a dear old person most obliging issued a warrant at once said he would lock him up, too, if he could not find good bail of course he will, and then re- lease him to-morrow." "I don't particularly care if they bail him to-morrow, as long as you take him to-day," she said. "That's sure enough," answered the Cap- tain confidently. "The detective-inspector and another chap came down with me. Luckily they don't know Anson by sight, so 302 THE WHIP WINS I have come to look for him, and I shall find him at exactly the right moment." Kelly, the "King of the Ring," came up to Sartoris at this moment and with him stepped aside. "Anything to tell me?" he asked in a low tone. "Only that you can give me the bill if you like," the other responded. Kelly appeared pleased. "You've done your best to earn it," he said, "but the job isn't finished, you know." "It will be very soon," put in the Cap- tain quickly. "I told you what I meant to do the men are here." "Then hurry up, my lad," the bookmaker told him. "They will be mounted in a minute. Time's short and remember, if the Whip loses, the bill and the money's yours, but if the Whip wins it goes to Lady Di. You know what's at stake on the race." 303 THE WHIP The loud call of the clerk of the course for the entrants to take their places sounded throughout the paddock. Harry Anson and Tom Lambert ap- peared leading the Whip. "We've just saddled, my Lady," Lam- bert said to Lord Beverley's granddaughter. "There goes the bell! Anything to tell Harry?" Lady Diana caressed the Whip while she answered : "Only this everything that wickedness could do has been done to stop our horse, but she is safe. Now, for the honor of the colors, go and ride your best." With his hand on the jockey's shoulder, the young Earl added to the spurring speech of Lady Diana: "For you're carrying hearts and hopes to- day as well as fortunes. All England will cheer you when you win, Harry, and I shall 304 THE WHIP WINS be the first to shake you by the hand. In a few minutes it will all be over." "Yes, my lord, all over and " began Harry. But Sartoris had pointed to the jockey and the two sharp-faced men had left the Cap- tain and were now at Harry's side. "Is your name Harry Anson?" de- manded the first of these. "Yes," said the jockey, one foot in the stirrup. The man held out to him a revolver. "Is that your revolver? Your name's scratched on it," he said. "My revolver? Yes," said Anson, won- deringly. "Found in the rooms of Captain Sartoris ) "I- ' Harry paused, while the detective said brisk.ly "I'm sorry, but I must arrest you on a 305 THE WHIP charge of having threatened the life of Cap- tain Sartoris at his chambers in the Albany on Saturday night. Whatever you say may be used against you." "And I'll answer the charge," retorted Harry. "Let the whole world know the truth, after the race." "No, you must come now," said the detec- tive. "Before the race?" asked the agonized Harry. "At once," he was told. Lord Brancaster moved closely up to the two detectives. "I am Lord Brancaster," he said. "I will go bail for anything you like only let the lad ride. Hang it, officers, you are Eng- lishmen ! You are sportsmen ! Give us fair play! I'll stake my honor the lad's inno- cent I'll stake my honor he shall answer to the charge. You don't know what this race means to all of us. Let him ride." 306 THE WHIP WINS "I'm very sorry, my lord," the detective answered. "Give you my word, my lord, I'd like to, but I can't. We must do our duty." And over the protests of Brancaster, Lord Beverley and Lord Clanmore of the Jockey Club, the detectives put heavy hands upon the shoulders of Anson. Clanmore, who had an official position at the track in addition to being a steward, tried to step into the breach. "But, hang it, Beverley," he said, "we won't stand by and see it done. I'm here Denham's here we're stewards, and if there is another lad about who can ride the weight give him the colors. We will waive the weighing out. He shall mount at once." The parties to the controversy were now surrounded by an eager, excited crowd, many of whose members had bet heavily on the Whip and were interested for that and 30? THE WHIP other reasons of pure sportsmanship to see the pride of the Beverley stables start. Lady Diana pressed herself forward. "Anyone we name, Lord Clanmore?" she asked. "Anyone, Lady Di," he responded, gal- lantly. "Rules be hanged at a time like this ! The Jockey Club does what it likes." At this staunch speech the crowd cheered. "Very well, then," said Lady Diana, her little fists clenched. "Please remember only two people can manage our horse. With a strange lad she's no use. You want to see fair play to see the public, who have backed us, have an honest run for their money. There's only one way. You promise whoever I name you'll let ride?" "Yes," returned Clanmore and Denham, the two stewards. "I name myself," she exclaimed. Denham and Clanmore both protested 308 THE WHIP WINS that it was impossible, that it was unsafe, that it had never been done. "A girl has never ridden a race," ended Clanmore. "Then let her now," the girl persisted. In their chivalric mood Clanmore and Denham might have consented to anything, but Kelly put a stop to this emotional turn of affairs and recalled to both Brancaster and Lady Diana the solid basis on which they had hoped to set their fortunes. "And if she does ride," he shouted, "the ring won't pay. It isn't racing." For a moment it seemed as though this ultimatum of the ring had indeed ended the whole matter, but Brancaster turned to the crowd of racing enthusiasts. "Then I will tell you what is racing," he shouted in his turn. "You, all of you who have backed the horse I will tell you what is racing what is honesty what is sport, 309 THE WHIP fair play. Will you stand by and see your- selves robbed?" The crowd was catching fire at his in- vective. There were cries of "No, no, no!" "I have given my honor," he went on still in his strong voice, "that the police shall take the lad the minute he's past the post, but they say 'No.' What do you say? There's your jockey and there's your horse. Let the lad go. Will you lose your money, or will you follow me?" And the young Earl hurled himself upon the nearer of the two detectives. He had nearly freed Anson when the mob realized what he was doing. In an instant they were about the two detectives. Despite the assist- ance of Kelly given to the representatives of the law, they were hustled from the pad- 'dock, while the jockey was fairly hurled upon the Whip. The moment he felt the nervous horse- 310 THE WHIP WINS flesh between his knees he was off upon the course almost automatically. At a signal from Lord Clanmore, who realized the necessity of haste, the starting signal was given and they were off. Now it seemed as though the events of the few minutes preceding the actual race had done their work with Anson. He was alive to his fingertips and never did his work better. The Whip, too, had profited by the long delay. Her nerves had been stretched to the breaking point, and she found the greatest relief in furious action just as her rider did. It was with difficulty that Harry pre- vented his mount from taking the lead at the first moment the race began, but when they were in sight of the post he had passed' all save the leader. Then, without using spur or whip, he simply shook out his reins. In her wonderful stride the Whip passed 3" THE WHIP the leader and, half a length ahead of her, reached the post. Into the paddock rode Anson, the victor, on the Whip. The jockey's face was white, and he was trembling violently. The race had told far more on him than on the splen- did Whip, whose respiration was still even and regular, though, of course, considerably quickened. The center of a cheering knot, Lady Diana and Brancaster pressed toward the mare, their arms around each other and their dignity as peer and marquis's heir com- pletely gone for the moment. Somehow the story of their romance and of what they had at stake on the race had got about, and their sympathetic friends were ready to weep or laugh with them or do both in turn. The two detectives met Lord Beverley near the Whip. The one in authority had an open telegram in his hand. His whole 312 THE WHIP WINS demeanor showed that there was now no in- tention upon his part of arresting the jockey. "My lord," he said very humbly to Bev- erley, "we've just had a wire from Scotland Yard. The warrant on your application has been issued." Beverley turned sternly upon his cousin, Captain Sartoris, and Mrs. D'Aquila where they stood in a corner of the paddock. "Then don't let them slip away," he said. "Arrest them at once." The detectives seized Sartoris and Mrs. D'Aquila and moved out of the paddock. Then unmindful of all the crowd, Bran- caster again put his arms about Lady Diana. "Now what's this?" demanded the Mar- quis of Beverley. Lady Diana raised her blue eyes to her grandfather. "Well, I'll tell you all about it," she said, beginning a quick recital. "Once there was 31.3 THE WHIP a fine young man who was foolishly called by his people, who didn't know him, the Wicked Earl, but" THE END ROMANCE A Novel by ACTON DAVIES From Edward Sheldon's Play Fully Illustrated Filled to overflowing with the Emotional Glamor of Love, " Romance" is the Ro- mance of a Famous Grand Opera Singer and a Young Clergyman. Despite their different callings they are drawn together by a profound and sincere love. But the woman has drained the cup of life so deeply that her marriage to the Minister is imposs- ible. In the hour of trial she rises to sub- lime heights of self-denial, proving herself stronger than the man. "Scores a sensational hit." N. Y. Evening Sun. Price SO Cents; Postage 12 Cents The Macaulay Company, Publishers 15 West 38th Street New York Four Literary Sensations THE SECRET OF THE NIGHT By Gaston Leroun Author of "THE MYSTERY OF THE YELLOW ROOM," etc. Another thrilling mystery story in which the famous French detective hero, Joseph Rouletabille, makes his appearance before the public again. This character has won a place in the hearts of novel readers as no other detective has since the creation of Sherlock Holmes. GUARDIAN ANGELS By Marcel Prevost Member of the Academic Franchise, Officer of the Legion of Honor, Author of "SIMPLY WOMEN," etc. Every married woman ought to read this novel, if only to be forewarned against a danger that may one day in- vade her own home. It is a story of the double life led by the governesses of many young girls, showing the dangers of such companionships. WHOSO FINDETH A WIFE Being an Answer to Hall Caine's "The Woman Thou Gavest Me." By J. Wesley Putnam This modern romance constitutes an argument against the tendency to exalt what is termed "natural law" over God's law. The so-called "unwritten law" has kept the rope from the neck of more than one murderer, and the wolf from the door of more than one novelist; but there are those who persistently believe that the laws of the Bible are the underlying basis of the social structure. THE NIGHT OF TEMPTATION By Victoria Cross Author of "LIFE'S SHOP WINDOW," "FIVE NIGHTS," etc. This book takes for its keynote the self-sacrifice of woman in love. The heroine gives herself to a man for his own sake, for the happiness she can give him. He is her hero, her god, and she declines to marry him until she is satisfied that he cannot live without her. Price, $1.25 net per copy; postage, 12 cents The Macaulay Company, Publishers 15 West 38th Street New York Three Great Novels BASED ON FAMOUS PLAYS TO-DAY By George Broadhurst and Abraham S. Schomer Price, $1.25 net; Postage 12 Cents If you want real human interest, real heart throbs, be sure to read *' TO-DAY." If you loved your wife and she committed the greatest wrong, would you forgive her ? If your wife associated with a woman of bad influence and you found it out, what would you do ? Get your answer in the sensational novel hit of the year. AT BAY, by George Scarborough Price, $1.25 net; Postage 12 cents Who was cne culprit ? Who killed Lawyer Flagg ? The police accused a prominent society girl, and Aline Graham herself thought she was guilty. This remarkable detective story unravels the mystery in a series of thrilling scenes. THE FAMILY CUPBOARD By Owen Davis Price $1.25 net; Postage 12 cents Sometimes a respectable father revolts from the bondage im- posed upon him by an extravagant wife and family. Charles Nelson needed affection. Lacking it at home, he sought it elsewhere, thereby stumbling into a most amazing entanglement. The Macaulay Company, Publishers 15 West 38th Street New York A 000114929 3