"What a stroke of luck!" he exclaimed. "In that case, I need not detain you now. But I'll contrive to see you on the course, and then I think it will be our turn."
Copley did not appear to be so busy as he had professed when he dismissed Fielden so unceremoniously. He lighted a fresh cigar and sat down moodily over a mass of accounts. He pushed these aside presently, and took up a copy of the _Sportsman_, which he proceeded to read with a perplexed frown on his moody face.
"I cannot for the life of me understand it," he muttered. "The trial was fair and square, and I see no reason why the boy's information was not to be relied upon. But that colt is more firmly established in the betting than ever. I can't recollect anything like it. It seemed a dead sure thing to lay that money against the horse. And, yet, though I laid over ten thousand pounds against him, in this morning's paper he is at a shorter price than before. Well, if the public like to be such fools, it's their look-out, not mine. Still, it's unpleasant. I wonder if Foster has learnt anything this morning."
Foster came in a moment or two later. His usual smile had deserted him, and he looked troubled and anxious.
"I wanted to see you," said Copley. "I can't for the life of me understand this betting. Here's the Blenheim colt backed for a ton of money again. Why, in the face of the commission we have put on the market, he ought to be fairly knocked out."
"Oh, I've seen it," Foster replied. "I've sent for the boy. I wonder if that young rascal played us false. But, no, I don't think he would dare do that. Besides, he stands to win a pot of money himself. At any rate, I have sent for him, and if there was anything about the trial that was not fair we shall know it in half an hour."
For the next hour or so the two conspirators sat discussing the matter. Then there came to them a diminutive youth, shrunken and clean-shaven, with the air of one who has passed all his life in the atmosphere of a stable. His little wizened face was white with agitation, and he stood, with his eyes cast to the ground, waiting for Copley to speak.
"I don't know, sir," the boy said humbly. "I don't know how it was done. Ah, that there Raffle is a deep 'un. I made sure as the trial the other morning was all open and above board, and now I find as how it wasn't the Blenheim colt we saw at all. It is no use asking me to explain, gentlemen, and it is no use bullying me, for the more you do that the more muddled I get. It is only a word or two I 'eard between Raffle and the 'ead lad that put me on the scent. We've got two or three 'osses in the stable as like the Blenheim colt as two peas. They are nearly all the same blood, you know. What old Raffle is a-driving at, I dunno. But it looks as if one colt was changed for another at the last moment, and nobody would have been any the wiser if I hadn't 'eard that little conversation this blessed morning."