THE CRYSTAL BEADS MURDER (Murder Mystery for Inspector Stoddart). Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ did not wait for any more. She ran lightly up the steps. Her brother hurried after her.

      "I believe one gets a better view from the top of this coach than from the stand," he said unsteadily.

      Anne looked at him with pity, at his flushed face, at his trembling hands.

      "Harold, if you--"

      She had no time for more. Harold sprang on the seat. There was a mighty shout. "They're off! They're off!" Then a groan of disappointment as the horses were recalled. A false start--Battledore had broken the tapes. Bill Turner, his Australian jockey, quieted him down and brought him back to the post.

      "Goldfoot was sweating all over in the paddock just now," young Courtenay announced to nobody in particular. "He was all over the place, too, taking it out of himself. Doesn't stand an earthly against Battledore--he's a real natural stayer--isn't a son of Sardinia, a Derby second and Greenlake the Oaks winner for nothing--"

      His voice was drowned by a great roar as the horses flashed by, Battledore on the outside.

      "Better than too near the rails," Harold consoled himself. "The luck of the draw's been against him, but he doesn't want it. He'll do, he'll do!"

      "Battledore! Battledore!" the crowd exulted.

      But now another name was making itself heard--"Goldfoot! Goldfoot! Come on, Jim!"--"Goldfoot leads--No--Partner's Pride!--No--Battledore!--Battledore!" Harold Courtenay yelled. "Come on, Bill! He's winning, he's winning! Partner's Pride is nothing but a runner-up."

      Followed a moment's tense silence, then a mighty shout: "Goldfoot's won! Well done, Jim Spencer! Well done!"

      Anne dared not look at her brother's face as the numbers went up.

      "Goldfoot first," a voice beside her said. "Proud Boy second, Partner's Pride third. Battledore nowhere."

      Anne heard a faint sound beside her--between a moan and a sob. She turned sharply.

      "Harold!"

      Her brother was leaning back in his seat on the coach. His hands had dropped by his side, his face was ghastly white, even his lips were bloodless.

      Anne touched him. "Harold!"

      He gazed at her with dazed, uncomprehending eyes.

      "Don't look like that!" she said sharply. "Pull yourself together! It will be all right, Harold. I have a savings box, you know. You shall have it all."

      "All!" Harold laughed aloud in a wild, reckless fashion that made his sister wince and draw back hastily. "It means ruin, Anne!" he said hoarsely. "Ruin, irretrievable ruin. That's all!"

      The Dowager Lady Medchester was an old lady who knew her own mind, and was extremely generous in the matter of presenting pieces of it to other people. She and her brother, General Courtenay, were too much alike to get on really well together. Nevertheless, they thoroughly enjoyed a sparring match, and looked forward to their meetings in town and country. The house-party at Holford this year was an extra and both of them were bent on making the most of it.

      This afternoon the old people were out for their daily drive, and in the smallest of the three drawing-rooms Anne Courtenay and her brother Harold stood facing one another, both of them pale and overwrought.

      "Yes, of course we must find the money. My pearls will fetch something, and I can borrow--"

      Anne was anxiously watching her brother's white, drawn face.

      He turned away and stood with his back to her, staring unseeingly out of the window.

      "That isn't the worst. I--I had to have the money, you understand? I was in debt. I put every penny I had on Battledore and--more."

      Anne stared at him, every drop of colour ebbing slowly from her cheeks.

      "What do you mean, Harold? You put more--you are frightening me."

      "Can't you see? I stood to make my fortune out of Battledore. If he'd won I should. I didn't think he could lose, and money of Melton's was passing through my hands. I put it on."

      "Harold!" Anne's brown eyes were wide with horror. "You--you must put it back. I--I will get it somehow."

      "I have put it back. I had to. I don't know whether Melton suspected, but he talked of going through his accounts, and it had to be paid into the bank." The boy's voice broke. "I went to a money-lender and he lent me money on a bill that didn't mature till next May. He wouldn't give it to me at first. I couldn't wait--the money had to be replaced at once. The bill had to be backed--I knew it was no use asking Medchester, and the money-lender wouldn't take Stainer--else Maurice would have got it for me like a shot."

      "I don't like Maurice Stainer," Anne interposed, "or his sister, either. He is no good to you, Harold."

      "Well, anyway, the old shark wouldn't look at him and I couldn't wait--or I should face exposure. I knew I could meet the bill all right if Battledore won. He--the money-lender--suggested I should get Saunderson's name. I knew I couldn't--Saunderson's as close as a Jew, but I had to have the money somehow, and I was mad--mad! I wrote the name."

      The fear in Anne's eyes deepened.

      "You--you forged!"

      A hoarse sob broke in her brother's throat.

      "I should have met it--I swear I should have met it, and it gave me six months to turn round in. But it is too late. He has found out--Saunderson. He has got the bill and he swears he will prosecute. He will not even hear me."

      "But he cannot--cannot prosecute! He is your friend."

      "He will," Harold said hopelessly. "He is a good-for-nothing scoundrel and he will send me to gaol and blacken our name for ever--unless you--"

      "Yes?" Anne's voice was low; she put her hands up to her throat. "I don't know what you mean. Unless what?"

      "Unless you go to him, unless you plead with him." Harold brought the words out as if they were forced from him. "He thinks more of you than anybody."

      Anne threw her head back. In a swift, hot flame the colour rushed over her face and neck and temples.

      "Unless I ask him--that man? Do you know what that means? I--I hate him! I am afraid of him."

      "I know. I hate him. He is a damned brute, but--well, if I blew my brains out it would not save the shame, the disgrace--" Her brother broke off.

      A momentary vision of General Courtenay's fine old face rose before Anne, of his pathetic pride in his dead son's Victoria Cross, in the Courtenay name. A sudden, fierce anger shook her. This careless boy should not cloud the end of that noble life with shame and bitter pain.

      Harold slipped forward against the side of the window-frame.

      "That's the end."

      Anne watched him in unpitying silence. Then old memories came back to her--of their early childhood, of the handsome, gallant father who had been so proud of his little son, of the sweet, gentle mother who had dearly loved them both, but whose favourite had always been Harold. Her heart softened. She looked at СКАЧАТЬ