The Tinman's Farewell

It struck Algy that Archer often acted as if life was not worth living. He told Algy how he saw her everywhere he looked; in the playful face of their daughter at bath-time or peering through the crowd of backslappers after a race: by the end of each day his head was reeling and the headaches were relentless. He believed he was slowly going insane. Too many things had a habit of going wrong. Just like this race. Algy could hear Blackwell chuckle. 'I do believe you're not going to collect. The Tinman's beat. Charlie's got him. Doesn't always pay to be one of the lucky few on the receiving end of Archer's tips, eh?' 'Smart arse!' was the best riposte Algy could find as the emptiness of defeat began sweeping through him. Archer was feeling the same. He had detected the one sound no jockey liked to hear: the 'hiss-hiss-hiss' of breath whistling through the bared teeth of a jockey working hard to galvanize his mount. What was Charlie Wood playing at? Horse-races came no humbler than the Ditton Selling Plate for two-year-olds, contested by a motley collection of first-season youngsters considered so unpromising that the winner would be offered for sale. There were eleven runners but only two possible winners. One was Lal Brough, the favourite ridden by Charlie Wood, and the other was Diavolo. Archer had told Algy that Diavolo was a stone-cold certainty. 'Charlie!' the champion growled, as he drove Diavolo up to Lal Brough's quarters. 'Take a pull!' Wood continued exhorting the leader. Archer caught sight of the winning post, panic shot down his right arm and fired it back and forth, each vicious stroke of the whip lashing Diavolo closer to the point of exhaustion. Yet only when he heard the wheeze of surrender and felt Diavolo stagger did Archer drop his hands. Wood's victory on the favourite came as no surprise to most people at Sandown but Archer was not one of them. He had not just hoped to win this insignificant contest, or even merely expected to win it. He believed he was meant to win it. In fact, he had put £5,000 on it - more than enough to buy ten Diavolos - because he was badly in need of a big win. The new season of 1886 had not gone well. Despite riding fees, prize money and presents from grateful owners and gamblers pushing his annual income well beyond that earned by the Prime Minister, he was crippled with debt, besieged by creditors ranging from the builders and outfitters of Falmouth House to his bookmaker. What alarmed him most was the nagging thought that he had lost his once infallible racing judgement: his betting book for the current season, no more than three months old, was already showing a five-figure loss equal to the construction costs of a small warship. Diavolo's defeat would begin financing another. Algy's loss was a trifling £500, irritating but bearable. He soon caught up with the exhausted Diavolo and made eye contact with its jockey. Archer's eyes were blank. Algy shrugged. Diavolo's owner received an equally swift touch of the cap from Archer before the jockey headed for the sanctuary of the weighing room. By now his dark features were more saturnine than ever. He supppressed the urge to put a fist or boot through the nearest door and confined himself to slinging his saddle in the direction of his long-serving valet, William Bartholomew. The object he wanted to hit was not yet present. 'Solomon, that twister Charlie Wood's done for me.' The valet continued about his business. The wisdom of the biblical king that had won Bartholomew his weighing room alias ensured he knew better than to pass comment. Archer glared round the room, a fuse looking for a match. Conversations ceased abruptly and heads buried themselves deeper in copies of today's Sportsman. His silver-blue eyes were his most eloquent form of expression and right this minute they spoke unequivocally. He was incandescent. His redundant black cap sailed across the room.