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Sammy Crockett was undergoing a heavy grooming with white embrocation at the hands of Sergeant Kentish when the landlord returned to Hewitt. "Does Danby know you've got him?" he asked. "How did you do it?" "Danby doesn't know yet, and with luck he won't know till he sees Crockett running to-morrow. The man who has sold you is Steggles." "Steggles?" "Steggles it is.
"Certainly," he said, "he hasn't gone back to the house. Here is the double line of tracks, side by side, from the house Steggles' ordinary boots with iron tips, and Crockett's running pumps; thus they came out. Here is Steggles' track in the opposite direction alone, made when he went back for the sweater.
When I'm runnin' a real tryer, I'm generally runnin' something very near a winner, you bet; and this time, mind this time, I'm runnin' the certainest winner I ever run and I don't often make a mistake. You back him." "I shall, if you're as sure as that. But who is he?" "Oh, Crockett's his name Sammy Crockett. He's quite a new lad. I've got young Steggles looking after him sticks to him like wax.
"I expect Sammy'll be there," the landlord said, "with Steggles. I don't hide him too much they'd think I'd got something extra on if I did." In the tap-room sat a lean, wire-drawn-looking youth, with sloping shoulders and a thin face, and by his side was a rather short, thick-set man, who had an odd air, no matter what he did, of proprietorship and surveillance of the lean youth.
In the first place, I knew that people mixed up with shady transactions in professional pedestrianism are not apt to trust one another far they know better. Therefore Steggles wouldn't have had his bribe first.
But, if Steggles was selling us, why couldn't he have drugged the lad? That would have been a deal simpler." "Because Steggles is a good trainer, and has a certain reputation to keep up. It would have done him no good to have had a runner drugged while under his care; certainly it would have cooked his goose with you. It was much the safer thing to connive at kidnapping.
By way of making assurance doubly sure I took a short walk this morning in the character of a deaf gentleman, and got Miss Webb to write me a direction that comprised three of the words on these scraps of paper 'left, 'right, and 'lane'; see, they correspond, the peculiar 'f's, 't's, and all. "Now, I felt perfectly sure that Steggles would go for his pay to-day.
"But the thing that remained was to find Steggles' employer in this business. I was glad to be in when Danby called. He came, of course, to hear if you would blurt out anything, and to learn, if possible, what steps you were taking. He failed.
Martin Hewitt was interested to observe the legend, "H. Danby, Contractor," on a board over a gate in the side wall of the garden behind this house. In five minutes a door in the side gate opened, and the head and shoulders of the red-faced man emerged. Steggles immediately hurried across and disappeared through the gate. This was both interesting and instructive.
Crockett had remarked a chilliness, and asked for a sweater, which Steggles went to fetch. Now, just think. You understand these things. Of course not. He would have taken his man indoors again and let him change there under shelter.
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