Cleek: the Man of the Forty FacesHanshew, Thomas W.
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Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces
Hanshew, Thomas W.
Cleek, Hamilton (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Detective and mystery stories; Police -- Great Britain -- Fiction
Onwards they flew, horses and riders, the whole pounding, mixing,
ever-changing mass of them; jackets and caps of every hue flashing here
and there--now in a huddled mass, now with this one in the lead, and
again with that: a vast, ever-moving, ever-altering kaleidoscope that
was, presently, hidden entirely from the main mass of the onlookers, by
the surging crowd, the mass of drags and carriages of all sorts in the
huge square of the central enclosure, and most of all by the people who
stood up on seats and wheels and even the tops of the vehicles. Then,
for a little time, the roars came from a distance only--from those in
the enclosure who alone could see--then neared and neared and grew in
volume, as the unseen racers pounded onward and came pelting up the long
stretch toward Tattenham Corner. And by and bye they swung into view
again--still a huddled mass, still so closely packed together that the
positions of the individual horses was a matter of uncertainty--but
always the roaring sound went on and always it came nearer and nearer,
until a thousand voices took it up at the foot of the grand stand, and
other thousands bellowed it up and up from tier to tier to the very
roof.
For, of a sudden, that blaze of caps and jackets, that huddle of horses
red and horses grey, horses black and horses roan, piebald, white--every
colour that a horse may be--had come at last to Tattenham Corner and
burst into the full view of everybody. Yet, as they came, a black mare,
hugging the railed enclosure on the inner side of the sweep, arrowed
forward with a sudden spurt, came like a rocket to the fore, and all the
earth and all the sky seemed to ring with the cry: "Wilding! Wilding!
Black Riot leads! Black Riot leads!"
She did--and kept it to the end!
In half a minute her number was up, yelling thousands were tumbling out
upon the field to cheer her, to cheer her rider, to cheer her proud
owner when he came out to lead her to the paddock and the weighing room,
and to feel in that moment the proudest and the happiest man in England;
and of those, not the least excited and delighted was Cleek.
Carried away by enthusiasm, he had risen again in his seat and, with his
hat held aloft upon a walking stick, was waving and stamping and
shouting enthusiastically: "Black Riot wins! Black Riot! Black Riot!
Bully boy! Bully boy!"
And so he was still shouting when he felt a hand touch him, and looking
round saw Mr. Narkom.
"Ripping, wasn't it, old chap?" said the superintendent. "No wonder you
are excited, considering what interest you have. Been looking for you,
my dear fellow. Knew of course, from your telling me, that you would be
here to-day, but shouldn't have been able to identify you but for the
presence of young Dollops here. I say: you're not going to stop now that
the great race is over, are you? The rest won't amount to anything."
"No, I shall not stop," said Cleek. "Why? Do you want me?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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