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Page 6
"Hunter waited until his fellow-grooms had returned,
when he sent a message to the trainer and told him
what had occurred. Straker was excited at hearing the
account, although he does not seem to have quite
realized its true significance. It left him, however,
vaguely uneasy, and Mrs. Straker, waking at one in the
morning, found that he was dressing. In reply to her
inquiries, he said that he could not sleep on account
of his anxiety about the horses, and that he intended
to walk down to the stables to see that all was well.
She begged him to remain at home, as she could hear
the rain pattering against the window, but in spite of
her entreaties he pulled on his large mackintosh and
left the house.
"Mrs. Straker awoke at seven in the morning, to find
that her husband had not yet returned. She dressed
herself hastily, called the maid, and set off for the
stables. The door was open; inside, huddled together
upon a chair, Hunter was sunk in a state of absolute
stupor, the favorite's stall was empty, and there were
no signs of his trainer.
"The two lads who slept in the chaff-cutting loft
above the harness-room were quickly aroused. They had
heard nothing during the night, for they are both
sound sleepers. Hunter was obviously under the
influence of some powerful drug, and as no sense could
be got out of him, he was left to sleep it off while
the two lads and the two women ran out in search of
the absentees. They still had hopes that the trainer
had for some reason taken out the horse for early
exercise, but on ascending the knoll near the house,
from which all the neighboring moors were visible,
they not only could see no signs of the missing
favorite, but they perceived something which warned
them that they were in the presence of a tragedy.
"About a quarter of a mile from the stables John
Straker's overcoat was flapping from a furze-bush.
Immediately beyond there was a bowl-shaped depression
in the moor, and at the bottom of this was found the
dead body of the unfortunate trainer. His head had
been shattered by a savage blow from some heavy
weapon, and he was wounded on the thigh, where there
was a long, clean cut, inflicted evidently by some
very sharp instrument. It was clear, however, that
Straker had defended himself vigorously against his
assailants, for in his right hand he held a small
knife, which was clotted with blood up to the handle,
while in his left he clasped a red and black silk
cravat, which was recognized by the maid as having
been worn on the preceding evening by the stranger who
had visited the stables. Hunter, on recovering from
his stupor, was also quite positive as to the
ownership of the cravat. He was equally certain that
the same stranger had, while standing at the window,
drugged his curried mutton, and so deprived the
stables of their watchman. As to the missing horse,
there were abundant proofs in the mud which lay at the
bottom of the fatal hollow that he had been there at
the time of the struggle. But from that morning he
has disappeared, and although a large reward has been
offered, and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are on the
alert, no news has come of him. Finally, an analysis
has shown that the remains of his supper left by the
stable-lad contain an appreciable quantity of powdered
opium, while the people at the house partook of the
same dish on the same night without any ill effect.
"Those are the main facts of the case, stripped of all
surmise, and stated as baldly as possible. I shall
now recapitulate what the police have done in the
matter.
"Inspector Gregory, to whom the case has been
committed, is an extremely competent officer. Were he
but gifted with imagination he might rise to great
heights in his profession. On his arrival he promptly
found and arrested the man upon whom suspicion
naturally rested. There was little difficulty in
finding him, for he inhabited one of those villas
which I have mentioned. His name, it appears, was
Fitzroy Simpson. He was a man of excellent birth and
education, who had squandered a fortune upon the turf,
and who lived now by doing a little quiet and genteel
book-making in the sporting clubs of London. An
examination of his betting-book shows that bets to the
amount of five thousand pounds had been registered by
him against the favorite. On being arrested he
volunteered that statement that he had come down to
Dartmoor in the hope of getting some information about
the King's Pyland horses, and also about Desborough,
the second favorite, which was in charge of Silas
Brown at the Mapleton stables. He did not attempt to
deny that he had acted as described upon the evening
before, but declared that he had no sinister designs,
and had simply wished to obtain first-hand
information. When confronted with his cravat, he
turned very pale, and was utterly unable to account
for its presence in the hand of the murdered man. His
wet clothing showed that he had been out in the storm
of the night before, and his stick, which was a
Penang-lawyer weighted with lead, was just such a
weapon as might, by repeated blows, have inflicted the
terrible injuries to which the trainer had succumbed.
On the other hand, there was no wound upon his person,
while the state of Straker's knife would show that one
at least of his assailants must bear his mark upon
him. There you have it all in a nutshell, Watson, and
if you can give me any light I shall be infinitely
obliged to you."
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