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Cleverly, however, he avoided being pocketed, as those ahead of and beside him tried to close in and make him pull up.

Around they went until the horses looked to the naked eye like toys strung on wires. Only the tension of the crowd made one feel that this was no play; it was deadly serious sport. On they sped, watched in a lull of deathly stillness. Surely, I felt, this was indeed a great sight–this acid test of the nerves of men and animals pitted against one another.

They were coming into the stretch now!

Suddenly, it seemed that, by some telepathic connection, both the horse and the rider caught the electric tension which swayed us in the club-house enclosure.

I myself was carried away by the frenzied spirit of the race. Broadhurst was leaning forward, oblivious of everything else in the world, straining his eyes through a field-glass. Murchie was watching the race with a supercilious air, which I knew was clearly assumed.

On they came!

I could not help wondering whether McGee had not really planned to throw the race. Would he, perhaps at the last moment, lose his nerve?

Lady Lee suddenly shot through the field. A mighty shout rose from the entire grandstand.

It was over in a matter of seconds. She had finished first by a half-length! She had won the classic and the rich stakes.

Pandemonium seemed to reign in the club-house inclosure. Broadhurst slapped Murchie over the back with a blow of congratulation that almost felled him. As for McGee, they nearly carried him off the field on their shoulders. Only Kennedy seemed to be calm. The race had been won–but had the problem been solved?

Broadhurst seemed to have forgotten all about his previous appeal to Kennedy in the unexpected joy of winning.

We paused awhile to watch the frantic crowd, and once, I recall, I caught sight of a stunning, dark-haired woman grasping Murchie’s both hands in an ecstasy of joy. Instantly I recognized Amelie Guernsey.

As Kennedy and I motored back to the city alone, he was silent most of the way. Only once did he make a remark.

“The Belmore Inn,” he said, as we passed a rather cheap road-house some distance from the track. “That’s where I heard one of the rubbers say the former Mrs. Murchie was living.”

That night, Craig plunged back again into work in the laboratory, and I, having nothing else to do, wrote a feature story of the great race for the Star.

Kennedy made up for the rest he had lost and the strain of the day by a long sleep; but early in the morning the telephone bell rang insistently. Kennedy bounded out of bed to answer it.

I could gather nothing from the monosyllables which he uttered, except that the matter under discussion was profoundly serious. Finally, he jammed down the receiver.

“Good God, Walter,” he exclaimed, “Murchie’s been murdered!”