Crime at Tattenham Corner Read Online Free Page A

wishing I had done the same,” another voice chimed in, “but I thought there’s many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip, and so I waited until this morning, and now I’ll only get starting price, and they’re saying it will be odds on. So ’tain’t any good backing Perlyon for a place as I had reckoned on doing. ’Tis sure to be place betting.”
    â€œAy, ay,” the first speaker assented. “I had a tip for Perlyon myself, but –”
    The voices died away in the distance. As Sophie Burslem lay for a moment perfectly still on her pillow, two tears welled up in her eyes and rolled miserably down her cheeks. Peep o’ Day! Peep o’ Day! Those poor men had put their savings on Peep o’ Day. And now Peep o’ Day would never win the Derby!
    A minute more and there came the sound for which she had been waiting – a tap at the door. She pulled the lever that raised the latch and her maid came in with her tea. She set it on the table beside the bed.
    â€œIt’s a lovely morning, my lady. And Sir John was saying yesterday that fine weather was all that Peep o’ Day wanted. He likes to hear his hoofs rattle, Sir John said. And if it had been heavy going it would have been all against him.”
    â€œYes,” said Sophie Burslem faintly.
    She was stretching herself lazily while from beneath her half-closed eyelids her eyes were keenly watching every moment of the maid’s. Had she not been called a good amateur actress in the days that were gone? She would have to act today if she had never acted in her life before.
    â€œI have put all my savings on Peep o’ Day,” the maid went on. “My young man, he has done the same. We shall have something to talk about tonight, I expect, my lady.”
    Beneath the silken counterpane Sophie Burslem’s hands were twisting themselves together in an agony. Then came another of the sounds she was dreading. In the adjoining room some one was moving about opening and shutting drawers; then came silence; then a loud knocking at the door of her room. She made herself speak quietly:
    â€œWhat is that, Forbes? Just see, will you?” Then she waited again in that blank, awful expectancy. There was a murmured colloquy at the door; strain her ears as she might she could only catch a word or two.
    At last Forbes came back. “It is James, my lady; he wants to know if you can tell him where Sir John is?”
    â€œSir John! I don’t know. Has he gone out?”
    â€œI suppose so, my lady. Somebody wants to see him on important business, and he is not in his room. They are saying he has not slept there, my lady.”
    â€œWhat?” Sophie Burslem raised herself on one elbow. Then she laughed. “Nonsense! Really for a moment you quite frightened me, Forbes. I expect Sir John has gone out to put a little more on Peep o’ Day. He went over to Oxley last night, you know. Mr. Harker said he had never had a colt he felt so confident about. He is a beauty, Forbes!”
    â€œYes, my lady.” 
    But the maid still hesitated. Was she really watching her furtively, Sophie wondered, or was it just her own fancy? Was she always going to be fanciful now?
    â€œJames says – please what is he to say to the man on the phone, my lady? He has rung up twice before this morning, James says, and it’s from Scotland Yard, my lady.”
    â€œScotland Yard!” For one moment Sophie Burslem’s heart seemed to stop beating; then went on again with great suffocating throbs. This time she was sure that her laugh did her credit. So had she laughed on the stage in the old days at Elmhurst. “Poor Forbes! You really look quite frightened. Don’t you know that detectives are down at Oxley watching Peep o’ Day? It is something to do with that, of course. But why is James up here? Where is Ellerby?”
    â€œI don’t know, my lady. He went out ever so early this morning;