Ladies at the Race Tracks: 1890

1910 Long-Champ lady jocket fancy dress costume. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O577124/long-champ-jockey-colour-lithograph-laviny/

IN SKIRTS AT WINTER RACES.

Women Gamblers Seen at Clifton and Guttenburg Tracks.

Female Sports With Lots of Nerve and Fat Purses.

Winning and Losing as Coolly as Old Rounders.

Do women follow and bet on the Winter as well as the Summer races? To satisfy curiosity on this point an Evening World reporter has made observations at the leading tracks near this city. He has kept his eyes and ears open. One blustering day recently he was startled as a sharp-toned, emphatic sentence fell on his ear.

“— the luck.”

Not from the mouth of a bearded man, but through the cherry red lips of a pretty young woman the three words were hissed. The third race at Clifton had just been run off and a rank outsider had won it. The girl who swore evidently did not have her money on the winner.

The reporter, who sat beside her, inquired sympathetically, “Lose?” to which she sweetly responded:

“Well, I should say so. Every race to-day, and I had a dead straight tip on the winner of this last race. My tout brought it to the house before I was out of bed this morning, but I couldn’t see how he could win and I played the favorite.”

She was interrupted by several women, who clustered around her cackling like a lot of geese. This one had fifty each way, on the winner. That one had backed the winner for a place and was “sorry she didn’t play him straight; she had the tip.” Another wagered two hundred on the day, but hoped to “pull out” (get her money back) on the next race, and so they gabbled on.

The women who play the Winter races at Clifton are a peculiar class. They are Bohemian by nature and natural-born gamblers. No day is cold enough nor stormy enough to keep them away from the races. They have a mania for betting on horses and will go to any extreme to get money with which to gamble. Many of them are respectable married women who are infatuated with the game of chance.

During the Summer the class of women are not so noticeable in the throngs which attend the big meetings at Sheepshead, Monmouth and the Westchester track, but when these meetings are over, and the women who got too the races purely for pleasure stay at home, the chronic female gamblers are left at the Winter races in their glory.

From constant association, they get to know one another quite well, and exchange greetings, when they meet at the track every day, like dear friends, although one of them scarcely knows who or what the other one is, nor where she lives. They don’t care, either. Their sole ambition is to beat the bookmakers, but alas, poor creatures, they generally fail. The old saw that all men are equal on and under the turf, applies to women as well, and any day at Clifton or Guttenburg you may see the housewife sitting beside and talking to the woman who is no stranger in the dives of New York.

The men with whom they mix despise them. They refer to them sneeringly as Amazons, and the appellation is not inappropriate. Many of the women are old, stout, gray-haired and seedy looking. There are “characters” among them who would “bring down the house” in any theatre. One especially is a woman, nearly seventy years old. She dresses in rusty black, and always occupies her own particular seat at both Clifton and Guttenburg. She carries a huge bundle of sporting papers and several “guides to the turf.” She gets to the track as early as possible and settles herself comfortably in her chair. Her face is the color of old parchment and seamed with wrinkles. She wears glasses, an old poke bonnet, a cloak of many colors and big goloshes. Once seated she poses over the day’s programme and selects her winner. By means of her horse books and papers she can follow their record back since the first day they ran, and so judge of their chance to win or lose.

Five minutes before the first race is run off she beckons a messenger-boy and gives him $10 to bet, $5 each way, on her selection. She loses invariably. She is known among the other Amazons as “The Mystery.” She always travels alone, and never speaks to the other women about her. She carries a small black reticule, and this she always has full of money. She has followed the races for years.

A different specimen Is Mrs. __, the relict of a man who made a fabulous fortune in the city by taming birds. He died five years ago. Since then she has played the races persistently.  “It’s the only way I can forget dear George.” she tells her friends.

Her ill luck on the turf is phenomenal. Once, she had $90 placed on four horses out of six in a race, and the two on which she had not a cent came in first and second. She has already squandered a goodly portion of the money which her husband left her. She is a gold mine for the tipsters. She pays them royally for giving her “sure things,” although they seldom or never win.

She scrapes acquaintance with the jockeys, and follows them to the paddock in quest of tips. She travels with two or three women whose husbands are well known gamblers in New York. The gamblers’ wives have true sporting blood. One of them took the jewelled garters off her limbs at Clifton one day, and sold them for $10 with which to make a bet in the last race of the day.

She had lost half a thousand before and put her $10 on a horse at 40 to 1 and won, going home nearly even in the day, but she did not get her garters back. They adorn the walls of a young bachelor’s bedroom.

Some of the women are very lucky and wager hundreds of dollars on a face: but most of them are very unlucky. A pathetic incident was witnessed by The Evening World reporter at Clifton recently. An old dame sat in the front row and saw the horse on which she had her money drop down and break his neck in the track. She sat there as if carved in stone. Her thin, bony hands were tightly clasped: her poke bonnet was tipped awry, and a few stray locks of gray hair streamed out behind. Soon a tear trickled down her wrinkled old cheeks, quickly followed by another and another. They scurried down to her chin, hung there for a moment and then dripped unheeded in her lap. A few of the Amazons about inquired what the trouble was.

“Oh. I have got to stop playing the races until I earn more money,” she said.

“I saved $300 and thought I had a sure system of winning, but my last five dollar note went on that horse, and now I guess I’ll go home.”

There were many expressions of pity as the angular old Amazon gathered up her sporting papers and slowly moved away. She bade the others good-by all around, and like a ghost of misfortune stole out of the grounds.

A hump-backed man…creates unbounded joy in the breast of the Amazon. They think they cannot lose If they can only rub their fingers on the hump. Some of them boldly approach the crippled individual and rub their fingers on his back. Others manoeuvre cunningly to do the same unobserved, To the uninitiated the crowd of women who will follow in the wake of a hunchback seem to be crazy.

They have many other superstitions by which they govern their bets. Some play the jockey’s colors. Other have lucky numbers and play whatever horse is marked with that number.

“Gypsy Extract,” painted on a fence, seen by a woman on her way to Clifton, was taken as a tip from Providence. She played Gypsy, and won. too.

A familiar figure at Clifton and Guttenburg is a big coarse-looking woman, who must weigh at least 300 pounds. She is a winner, and runs several race-horses herself.

One curious feature about the Amazons is their utter indifference to men. They never pay any attention to them unless spoken to or when they ask for tips or a “bet.”

The nerve of these women is sublime. When they go broke before the last race they will not hesitate to “brace” a man for a loan, whether they know him or not.

If a man is pointed out to them as being a big winner, they boldly introduce themselves, and ask for money or tips or both, There is nothing feminine about these women gamblers, except their clothes.

They call the horses “hosses,” and know the jargon peculiar to the racetrack by heart. They cannot control their emotions as well as men, though. When the horses are at the post the Amazons stand up and watch the racers until “they are off,” Then they become excited. The color changes in their faces. They breathe in short, quick gasps. They stand first on one foot, then on the other, continually asking: “Who is ahead?” “Will so-and-so win?” “Oh, dear, my horse is last,” and then, as the horses come down the homestretch, they jump up on their chairs, yelling and screaming at the jockeys,

“Come on there Bergen! Whip the devil! Make him win!” “See Brait coming up!” “Look at Prodigal!” “Heavens! Prodigal has won it, and I have won!” or lost.

Down they sit again then, and make their choice for the next race. Messenger boys, wide-awake looking lads, take their money and place it with the bookmakers, and cash their tickets for them when they win. The boys are generally honest, but once in a while some one of them beats the Amazons. At Brighton, another resort for the Amazons, last summer a boy collected nearly $300 from the women to bet on a race, and thinking he had a sure thing, he bet it all for himself and lost. Then he ran away and the lady gamblers had no redress.

At Clifton and Guttenburg there are as many women as men every day. An old sporting man said to the writer: “A cold day will generally keep 50 per cent. of the men who usually attend the races away, but it will not deter the women from appearing. ”

The World 11 March 1890: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Previously Mrs Daffodil shared a peep into the lives of  Women Gamblers of New York. This is an equally censorious and misogynistic article, the author recoiling in figurative horror because, as all the world knows, gambling—consigned to the same moral abyss as profanity, alcohol, and tobacco—is somehow vastly worse when women do it. There is also a sneer and a nod to the widespread notion that women are rubbish gamblers.

John W. Gates says that not all women, but some of them, are very poor speculators , very poor gamblers, and recalled this incident:

“A young friend of mine has a pretty cousin. He was going to the races the other day, and she called him up on the telephone, and asked him to put $10 on Forest King for her.

‘Very well,’ he said. “I’ll do it if you’ll pay me back,’

‘Of course I’ll pay you back, you horrid thing.’

‘All right,’ said he. ‘You didn’t last time.’

‘Oh. well,’ said she, ‘last time the horse didn’t win. you know.’ ”

The Argonaut [San Francisco, CA] 20 July 1907

Guttenburg (also spelt Guttenberg) Horse Race Track specialised in winter horse racing, according to this very informative article.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Jockey’s Ghost: 1880s

With the event known as the “Run for the Roses” scheduled for to-morrow, Mrs Daffodil yields the floor to that perpetual ray of sunshine over at Haunted Ohio, who shares the thrilling story of

A JOCKEY’S GHOST.

He Re-visits the Stables at the Race Course Where the Man was Killed.

 “A dispatch from Rochester, N.Y., dated August 19^th, to the Indianapolis News says;”

Some years ago, in a running race at Detroit, Danny Mackin, a jockey, was killed by the horse he was riding making a sudden and vicious bolt and hurling his rider to the ground. When the jockey was picked up a stream of blood was running from a hole in his temple down his cheek and neck, A story has been current among jockeys and stablemen ever since Mackin’s death that his ghost walks at night among race-track stables, the quest of the spectre being presumably the horse that killed the jockey. This story has always been believed by stablemen, and if any ever had any doubt of it they are dispelled now, for the ghost itself was seen by at least a dozen of them at the Washington Driving Park stables one night recently.

The midnight watch of stablemen had come on duty, and the men were lounging in front of the stables, when one of them saw a slim figure in white approaching the stables from a clump of trees on the grounds. The man called the attention of his companions to the object. They all saw it clearly as it glided noiselessly towards the stable. When the apparition came full in the light of the large hanging lamp in the front of the stable and revealed the figure, clad in jockey garb and a face as white as the clothes, with a red streak running from the right temple, down the cheek and neck, like a line of blood trickling down, the stablemen were paralysed with fear. The spectre jockey passed into the stable through the open door. The door leading to the stalls where the racers were was closed, but the ghost kept right on, passed through the door as if it had been opened, and disappeared. One of the stablemen recovered himself sufficiently to think that perhaps this might be a clever trick of some one to get at the horses to do them harm, and he hurried forward and opened the door leading to the stalls, with the intention of preventing any such purpose. Two or three of his companions followed him. The apparition was moving slowly along the stall, stopping an instant at each one and then passing on to the next. The horses seemed to be aware of the mysterious presence. They neighed and plunged and stamped in their stalls as the spectre passed along.

The stablemen were again paralysed by this second vision of the jockey ghost, and stood motionless and speechless at the door. The apparition glided to and paused at every stall in the stable, turned its face for a moment toward the three terror-stricken men in the door, and disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. That they had seen the wandering ghost of poor Danny Mackin not one stableman of the midnight watch has the shadow of a doubt.

Oakland [CA] Tribune 17 September 1890: p. 1

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil does not like to spoil a thrilling yarn, but despite the best efforts of some of the finest scholars of the historical paranormal, the strict veracity of this story has not been confirmed. There are many stories of jockeys dying during races, but to date no actual trace of poor Danny Mackin’s existence, let alone death, has come to light. The fact that the horse and the Detroit racing venue are not named and that various syndications of the tale name Rochester Driving Park rather than Washington Driving Park as the location of the ghost’s walk, suggests that this may be a Victorian “urban legend” rather than the exact truth. Alternately, a prankster may have been at work—ghost-impersonators were a perennial nineteenth-century problem. Still, if true, the story begs the question: What revenge was the phantom jockey prepared to take—indeed, what revenge could a disembodied spirit take—upon the horse that killed him?

 

Other supernatural tales of the race-track: The Jockey Wore Crape, and Hunches and Hearses at the Racetrack.

 

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Jockey Wore Crape: 1870

Nimblefoot and jockey, 1870 http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-our-digital-image-pool?keyword=nimblefoot&smt=1

THE DREAM HORSE

(By “Old Ballaratian” in Melbourne “Argus”)

There are more things in heaven and on earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. ..

The present being the second time the Melbourne Cup has been postponed on account of abnormally heavy rain storms, it is not inappropriate to recall the first occasion, upon which it was “held up” for exactly the same reason and also because it is associated with what is probably the most remarkable incident in the annals of horse racing and which is now a tradition of the Australian Turf.

The story which has been often told in an incomplete mangled way, is worth repeating in correct form. Sometime about the middle of September in the year 1870, a party of eight gentlemen were gathered together one evening after dinner in the private parlour of the well-known Balarat hostel “Craig’s Hotel” then presided over by the late veteran sportsman and popular host, Mr Walter Craig. The conversation turned upon racing and the approaching Melbourne Cup, whereupon Mr Craig related to the company a strange dream, which was afterwards to be looked upon in the light of a startling prophecy. Mr Craig said: “1 dreamt I saw a horse ridden by a jockey wearing my colours, but with crape on his left sleeve, come in first in the Melbourne Cup.”

“Billy” Slack, one of the biggest double event “bookies” of his day, who was one of the party, good-naturedly offered to bet Mr Craig £1000 to eight, drinks that a horse named Croydon would not win the forthcoming A.J.C. Metropolitan and that his dream would not come true. The bet was taken and the drinks were consumed in advance.

One morning shortly afterwards Mr Craig remarked to a member of his family: “Nimblefoot will win the Melbourne Cup, but I shall not live to see it.” And that, very night he died.

Croydon won the “Metro;” Nimblefoot won the Melbourne Cup by a short head and the jockey, young Day, wore a crape band upon his left sleeve, out of respect to the late owner of the winner Nimblefoot.

Great was the regret in Ballarat that poor Walter Craig did not live to see his horse triumph. Of course, as Mr Craig had died in the meantime, all bets were off, but an act that will ever redound to the honor of “Billy” Slack the bookmaker, was that he paid in full the late Walter Craig’s widow £1000.

Grey River Argus 25 November 1916: p. 3

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: To-morrow is the day of the American horse-racing contest, The Kentucky Derby, so a supernatural racing story seems to be in order. Mrs Daffodil has written upon another prophetic horse-racing dream in “Dreaming a Derby Winner,”  while that hearse-loving person over at Haunted Ohio has reported on “Hunches and Hearses at the Racetrack.”

 Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

Dreaming a Derby Winner: 1864

Blair Athol, Derby Winner

The Times, in a leading article upon Spiritualism, which appeared some time back, objected, among other reasons, to the unsatisfactory and unreliable character of the messages which imported to come from the spirits. In the writer’s low view of the whole subject, he argued that the spirits never told us anything of practical value. If, he said, the spirits would tell us who was to be the winner of the Derby that would be something valuable and worth knowing.

Though I have heard of many less worldly, but in my estimation much more valuable predictions and premonitions being made by spirits, I had never heard of such a case as the Times required for its satisfaction. We have, however, only to wait patiently, as it would appear, for almost every demand made, even by the most obdurate sceptic, to be realized; and the following fact, which can be satisfactorily proved, may, perhaps, lead to the conversion of the editor of the Times :—

A gentleman, Mr. B , who is a member of a highly respectable mercantile firm in the City, who knows nothing of Spiritualism, and is wholly unacquainted with the mysteries of the turf, dreamt, some time before the last Derby Day, that No. 19 would be the winner. He mentioned it to his partner And several of his immediate friends, and was himself so strongly impressed by the premonition that he was inclined to bet a considerable sum on the faith of this dream, or, as I should call it, spiritual impression. He was restrained, however, by his senior partner, and induced to limit his stake to ten pounds. Enquiries were made as to the name of the horse, but at that time the official list with the numbers of the horses had not been published.

Mr. B commissioned a friend, better acquainted with betting matters, to lay ten pounds on No. 19, whatever horse  it might be, and so earnest was he on the value of his dream that several of his friends were induced to follow his example, even after the list was published, and when it was seen that No. 19 was far from the favourite. It is now matter of sporting history that No. 19, Blair Athol, was the horse that won the Derby. Perhaps the editor of The Times will take the trouble to enquire as to the literal truth of this statement, and, if satisfied of the facts, give publicity to it, and proclaim his conversion forthwith. The Spiritual Magazine, 1864

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Mrs Daffodil, who does not follow the Turf, understands that there is a horse-racing contest  to be run to-day in the States, called the “Kentucky Derby,” modeled, no doubt, on the well-known “Derby Stakes” held annually at Epsom Downs in Surrey.

Mrs Daffodil is sceptical of the claim that Blair Athol (pictured above) was not bruited as potential Derby winner. His potential had been recognized by many in the racing world and bookmakers had paid a stable lad to nobble the poor creature by kicking him. Blair Athol had a successful, if brief career, in 1864, winning the Derby, as well as five other races. He then retired to a successful career at stud. 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

 

The Two-Edged Secret: A Diverting French Tale: 1893

Dolce Far Niente by Auguste Toulmouche, painter of the fashionable French world.

A TWO-EDGED SECRET.

People who Live in Glass Houses should not Hire Detectives.

Breakfast was nearly over, and the Baron and Baronne Silber were chatting as affectionately as lovers. She had just come from her boudoir and he from his racing stables, training-courses, paddocks, etc., at Viroflay. Absorbed all day long in business in Paris, he had fallen into the habit of visiting his stud of evenings, in order to be present at dawn during the speeding of his horses.  

Baron Karl Silber, an Austrian banker and financier, was an unknown nobody ten years before. Now you could not open a morning journal of commerce, sport, or anything else without running across some mention of his business, his races and racers, his balls, or his wife’s beauty.  

Above all, his wife’s beauty, for Silber, who denied himself nothing, had indulged himself at forty in the dangerous luxury of marrying charming Marguerite de Francmont, with whom all Paris had danced during four successive seasons, but whose poverty had reserved her for a marriage of this kind.  

They lived happily enough, and Silber, recognizing his wife’s really uncommon intelligence, did nothing— save in matters of finance — without consulting her with a frank and tender deference.

“Then,” said he presently, rolling a last strawberry in sugar, “Guerin did come?”  

“Yes, last night, just after you had started for Viroflay. I saw him and explained to him fully how you were the victim of indiscretions that brought suspicion upon you. ‘Everything that passes at the stable,’ said I, ‘is reported straightway to the book-makers of the Rue Vivienne. They know in advance what horse will run or be withdrawn; what horse carries the stable’s money or is meant to win; briefly, daily and regularly, we are betrayed by some one. But by whom?  Know this we must, for they are beginning to accuse us of dishonest practices.'”  

“And he said?”  

“Nothing, but asked if you suspected any one of your men?”  

“No special one, by Jove! I simply suspect them all.”  

“Precisely what I told him. Whereupon he took notes and his departure, assuring me that a special agent would be at once put in charge of so delicate a matter. He will report so soon as he discovers anything.”  

“Which will be soon, I hope. You have had no other visitor, my dear?”  

“Not one; I dined alone and spent the evening with mother. But you, Karl, what did you do at Viroflay?”  

“Always the same thing; audited accounts, paid out money, examined the colts, and by three o’clock was out with the trainers speeding the racers. Kronstadt is not doing as well as he should; we shall have a hard pull to keep him in shape for the twenty-fifth. Why, hello! it’s ten o’clock; I must go, it’s time for business.” 

 “But you seem so fatigued, my poor Karl!”  

“Zounds! I ought to be; I was up before the sun.”  

“But need you go to Viroflay so often, Karl?”  

“Every day, if I could, my dear; ‘the eye of the master,’ you know — above all, in the care of race-horses. And I have, praise heaven, an eye that sees clearly.”  

“Undoubtedly, my dear,” Marguerite assented calmly, tracing the table-cloth with the tip of her rosy nail; “but Geurin, I trust, will see clearer still. It is really as amusing as a play to me, dearest, to have anything to do with a detective whom they talk so much of as they talk of this Guerin.”  

Two hours later, Karl Silber, lying back in an easy-chair in his office in the Rue Richelieu, smoked, with half-closed eyes, the purest products of the Havana tobacco-fields. Near him, in a chair no less luxurious and with a weed drawn from the same source between his lips, young De Payzac — with a somewhat doubtful past — lolled and talked with wide open eyes, making the most of his position of intimate friend of so rich and renowned a man as the Baron Silber.  

“The fact is, Baron,” said he, continuing the subject upon which he was launched, “you are, or ought to be, the happiest man in Paris to-day. Just think of it, the pot of money you’ve made at a single stroke — more than I would need to amuse me a whole long year.”  

“One would say that fact annoyed you,” Silber returned, lazily, without stirring himself.  

“Annoyed me? Not the least in the world, baron. I’m too much your friend for that. But when I contrast our two destinies! Why, everything in the world succeeds with you. Your business, look at it; it goes like a conflagration. Your racing, too, which heaven knows why you took it into your head to try; whether your own horses win or lose, it matters not; you find a way to win with the horses of others.”  

“In a word,” Silber interrupted, with some show of temper, “you mean to imply, like the rest, that I purposely allow my own horses to be beaten?”  

Payzac continued with an imperturbable calm and a lightly shrugged shoulder.  

“But all of which is as nothing,” said he, “compared with the fact that not only are you the legitimate possessor of the most beautiful woman in Paris, but you also know one not less lovely who lives in a more mysterious quarter of the city.”  

This time the banker sat erect, as if pulled with a spring, and looked about him uneasily.  

“Payzac,” said he, “s-s-sh! You risk too much at times. You, and you only, are to know that side of my life, a secret that must not be noised abroad.”  

“Of course,” said Payzac, “I know it, for to whom else than me do you owe the acquaintance of the fair and beautiful Wanda?”  

“Also the happiness of being loved for myself alone,” assented Silber, gratefully. “That poor foreign girl, with her sensitive soul — positively, Payzac, she loves me like a faithful dog, though I seek always to treat her like a companion and friend. Nothing so binds women to us as letting them believe they fully share in our lives. The Baronne, for instance, who thinks I tell her everything, because I’ve the air of deciding nothing without consulting her. The result? An occupied mind for her and an affection for me — calm, possibly, but solid and devoted.”  

“Who could doubt it?” cried Payzac, fervently, diligently blowing smoke-rings above his head. “But then, as I said, Baron, everything succeeds with you. Your Viroflay combination is simply a masterpiece; which, by the way, reminds me, Silber, that I’ve a favor to ask of you.” And the needy parasite, judging the ground well prepared, came to the true object of his visit.  

A fortnight later the Baron and Baronne were again finishing breakfast in the little breakfast-room where we met them first, and where, now as then, the Baron had just come in from a night at his stables.  

“Haven’t you lost something, Karl?” demanded the Baronne, suddenly, at the same time drawing from her pocket a railroad pass.  

“Parbleu! yes,” said the Baron, “and a hunt I had for it, too, last night. Where did you find it, love?”  

Before the Baronne could answer, the door opened and a servant entered, hearing a card on a salver.  

“Ah, Guerin!” said Karl. “May he come in here, dearest? A personage so potent should be treated like a family friend.”  

And Madame consenting, the world-famed detective was ushered in. Freshly shaven, sedately dressed, monocle in eye, and portfolio in hand, he looked like the head-clerk of a legal firm, and beamed upon his employers with the satisfied air of a bearer of good news.  

“Well, Monsieur,” said the Baronne, in fine humor herself, “have you discovered anything?”  

“Everything, Madame,” Guerin returned calmly, depositing his portfolio on the table. “A curious story it is, too, and with a woman in it, of course, as I thought from the start.” 

“Perhaps, then,” said the Baron, with a meaning look at his wife, “you would desire, monsieur, to be alone with me a while?” 

But Guerin, priding himself upon his skill as a raconteur, and preferring two auditors to one, made signs that he could gloss over things when necessary, and plunged into his story.  

“The truth is, Baron,” said he, alter a little thought, “we never have had a case that gave us so much trouble as this. Usually we have to trail people who, suspecting nothing, take no precautions. Here, on the contrary, all were under cover. It took us nearly a week to learn that Wilhelm, the book-maker of the Rue Vivienne, had a lady-love, and to find out who she was took us longer still, as Wilhelm visits her very irregularly. She is a foreigner — a Polish girl — who lives a secluded life in a little gem of a house in the vicinity of La Muette .”  

“The vicinity of La Muette!” mechanically repeated the Baron, going red and white by turns; “La Muette! — the little wretch!”  

“Yes,” said Guerin, though not comprehending; “but what will interest you most of all is that Wanda — the Polish girl’s name, you know — on certain evenings receives another visitor, and that he — this visitor — comes from your Viroflay stables. You see the mouse in the cheese, do you not, Baron?” and Guerin smiled significantly.  

“The little wretch!” cried Silber again, starting up in his chair.  

“Exactly,” said Guerin, carelessly; “but you would see more than one of the same kind, Baron, were you a week in my place. Well, it is she — this Wanda — who sells to Wilhelm — for a round sum, of course — the secrets of your stable, by which every one profits but you, baron. Nothing remains to be done, now, but to learn the name of this man who gives this girl the information that she, in turn, imparts to the book-maker.”  

“Ah!” said Silber, with sudden vivacity, “you do not know his name then.”  

“And nothing is done after all, then, monsieur,” chimed in the Baronne, with resentful surprise.  

“On the contrary, everything is done, Madame,” firmly declared Guerin, pouring his demi-tasse of brandy into his coffee-cup and draining it at a gulp; “everything, I repeat, because you do not know my agent, Coutourier. This is the way it happened: you see.” 

“But we don’t — we don’t see, Guerin, or want to see, either!” Silber cried, recklessly. “We see too much already — more than is necessary.”  

“On the contrary, M. Guerin,” Marguerite protested, sweetly, “your story is most interesting; proceed, if you please.”  

“Then, as I said,” continued Guerin, “it happened in this way. They go to bed very early at Viroflay, and, last night — other nights, also — when all were asleep, a man slipped out of there with great precautions, went to the station, took a train for Paris, and reached the La Muette house about eleven P. M. Two hours later he came out again, took a fiacre, and was driven back to Viroflay, where his absence had been noticed by no one.”  

“The name of this man — you do not know it, you say?” demanded the Baronne, becoming thoughtful.  

“Not yet, Madame; but…”  

“Pooh!” said Silber, “it must have been my trainer, Hawkins; he’s a great hand for girls and the only man at Viroflay rich enough to have a nest in the Muette quarter.”  

“And has Hawkins a railroad pass, do you know, Baron — as this man last night had?” Guerin pursued, eagerly.  

“A pass? You are sure he had a pass, Monsieur?” cried Marguerite, considering intently the great red face of her husband, suddenly beaded with perspiration.  

“Absolutely, for Coutourier shadowed him all the way from Viroflay, trying to see his face, which he kept concealed, and heard him tell the Saint Lazare officials that he had somehow misplaced it. With a detail like that to work on, it won’t take long to nab the fellow.”  

“M. Guerin,” interrupted the Baronne with sparkling eyes, “no — go no further. We know all we need to know; we shall do the rest. Decidedly, with your assistance one can learn anything!”  

“It is my trade, Madame,” replied Guerin, modestly; “but if Madame likes and has time to spare, there are other details of this business that it would amuse Madame greatly to hear.”  

“Go on; I am not at all hurried. Give us the details, Monsieur,” and Mme. Silber smiled invitingly, with her eyes fixed always on the Baron’s face with an indefinable gaze. Proud of his success and warmed by his demi-tasse of eau-de-vie, Guerin settled back in his chair and crossed his legs comfortably.  

“Two words, Madame,” said he, “and the milk of the cocoa-nut is yours. That Viroflay personage, first befooled by the book-maker and the book-maker’s lady-love, is a second time befooled by his — would you guess it? — by his wife, who has a lover.”  

Guerin paused for the laugh that did not come.  

Silber and his wife were evidently indisposed to hilarity. White as the cloth her fingers drummed on, the Baronne bit her lips and gazed straight before her, and Karl, with an effort to pull himself together, called tremulously for the brandy.  

“Wanda, I must tell you,” continued Guerin, “for my agent watched her house, too — Wanda, of course, numbers among her other friends a certain M. Rene de Payzac.”  

The Silbers started, each in a different way.  

“De Payzac! He makes three, then!” the Baron gasped out, losing all vestige of self-command.  

“Oh, no, not at least as you mean, Baron. Payzac is merely an old friend of Wanda’s, who limits himself now to replenishing his pockets through his one-time idol. Coutourier overheard them one night in the garden, and learned the whole story. He wanted forty louis, and she wouldn’t give them to him, and he threatened, if she didn’t, to tell her ‘ friend ‘ how she sold to the book-maker the secrets of his stable. ‘Tell him if you dare,’ says she, ‘and I will in turn tell him with whom his wife spends her evenings when they believe him safely engaged with his horses!'”  

Guerin broke off to laugh heartily. But still no one imitated him, and vexed at this lack of interest in his amusing “details,” he rose, took his hat, and began a cool adieu. He was tired of talking thus to the walls.  

“What do we owe you, sir?” said Silber, stiffly. “It is useless to trouble you to call here again. We’ll drop this business where it stands.” 

“A thousand francs, Baron,” replied the chief of the Guerin agency; “but the name of the Viroflay unknown — you still lack that?”  

“We do not need it, sir,” growled Silber; “and a thousand francs, Guerin! You’re wrong; you can’t be serious; you’ll surely make a reduction?”  

Guerin did not at once reply; he was carefully selecting a cigar from the box before him. This done, he raised his eyes, fixed them upon the discomfited couple and read the situation.  

“No,” said he, firmly, “a thousand francs, Baron, just as I said. And if you haven’t the worth of your money at that, you are, indeed, hard to please!”  

Whereupon Guerin, the bill buttoned safe in his pocket, smilingly bowed himself out, leaving the Baron, the Baronne, and, unluckily for himself, De Payzac, who chanced in at the moment, to explain things at their ease.  

Translated for the Argonaut from the French of Leon de Tinseau by E. C.  Waggener.

The Argonaut [San Francisco, CA] 3 July 1893 

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Leon de Tinseau [1844-1921], also known as Count Antoine Joseph Leon Tinseau, was a 19th-century French aristocrat and literary personage, best known for his novels of Parisian manners. Mrs Daffodil thinks that this tale would have furnished a plot tailor-made for one of M. Feydeau’s comic farces.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes