"So now
who's the brainy one?"
He skipped into the hotel, while Winter went to the station to make sure
of Siddle's departure and destination. Yes, the chemist had taken a
return ticket to Epsom, where a strip of dank meadow-land on the road to
Esher marks the last resting-place of many of London's epileptics. On
returning to the high-street, Winter lighted a cigar, a somewhat common
occurrence in his everyday life, where-upon Furneaux walked swiftly up
the hill. A farmer, living near the center of the village, owned a rather
showy cob. Winter found the man, and persuaded him to trot the animal to
and fro in front of the hotel. There was a good deal of noise and
hoof-clattering, and people came to their doors to see what was going on.
Obviously, if they were watching the antics of a skittish two-year-old in
the high-street, their eyes were blind to proceedings in the back
premises. Even the postmaster and his daughter were interested onlookers,
and a policeman, who might have put a summary end to the display,
vanished as though by magic.
Luckily, Winter was a good judge of a horse. When the cob was stabled,
and the farmer came to the inn to have a drink, he was forced to admit a
tendency to cow hocks, which, it would seem, is held a fatal blemish in
the Argentine.
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