He took up his hat and swaggered from the room, leaving Phillips apparently very well pleased. "Our case is complete," he said. "The rest is in your hands." CHAPTER XXXV A POISONOUS ATMOSPHERE It is impossible for a man to change the habits of a lifetime, especially when he has reached the age to which Sir George Haredale had attained. He tried hard to justify himself in his present embroilment. He juggled with his conscience, but the ways of the transgressor are hard, and the master of Haredale Park was having anything but a good time. He knew that he was doing wrong, that he was about to commit something in the shape of a crime. When a man has pledged himself to this kind of thing, it is marvellous how circumstances combine to help him. On the face of it things were not going well. The victory of the Blenheim colt in the Champion Stakes was a blow to him. He had expected the colt to lose, thereby giving him occasion to scratch it. If this had turned out as he had expected, he would have been the object of popular sympathy and his reputation as a sportsman and an honourable man would have been enhanced. But to his surprise and vexation, the colt had proved his sterling worth and within the last few hours the public had established him more firmly than ever in the betting. There was always the chance, of course, that the race would leave its mark on the colt and that some ill effects might supervene, in which case the original programme could be carried out without exciting the suspicions of the many-headed. This was precisely what did happen. Three days later Mallow came into his employer's study with a long face and the information that the colt's lack of condition was rather more manifest than before. For once in a way Mallow was not polite and forgot the respect due to his master. "It's just as I told you, Sir George," he exclaimed. "The colt's been ruined. I don't say it isn't possible to get him fit in time for the Derby, because he's a wonder. But if you had tried to ruin the horse you couldn't have gone about it in a better way. I can almost cry when I think of it." "You are forgetting yourself, Mallow," Sir George said. "Oh, maybe I am, sir, maybe I am. I have been dealing with fools and knaves all my lifetime, and I ought to be accustomed to them by now. I feel as if I had been a party to cutting that colt's throat. You don't deserve to have a horse like that in your stable; you don't deserve to win another race as long as you live."