My Heart Laid Bare Read Online Free PDF Page A

side, dropping back to third place, to fourth, to fifth, weaving across the track . . .
    The race is half run, the race is three-quarters run, chestnut-red Xalapa in the lead, Glengarry a half length behind, then silky black Midnight Sun, long-legged deep-chested Midnight Sun, the white bandages on his legs flying . . . now past the starting post, now past the cheering spectators in the grandstand, Midnight Sun with a warhorse’s powerful stride . . . and then, suddenly, is it possible? . . . suddenly it seems that Xalapa has stumbled . . . yet keeps running . . . momentum keeps him running though he is clearly injured . . . while Glengarry pounds past, Midnight Sun pounds past, Parmelee hunched low over his neck, whip and spurs in use, Parmelee making his move, looping wide on the outside to avoid the falling Xalapa; to pass Glengarry, to break in a wild burst of speed away from Glengarry, to cross the finish line in the first position by a length and a half.
    Midnight Sun, Glengarry, Sweet Thing . . .
    (STONE STREET, IN the home stretch, weaves drunkenly into Meteor’s path, the two horses collide, Shep Tatlock—drugged, drunk, sick?—to be banned from the turf for the rest of his life—tumbles from the saddle onto the track and lies insensible.
    And what of the chestnut-red beauty Xalapa?—the crowd stands silent, stunned, as an announcement is made that he snapped his left foreleg above the ankle; as the horse ambulance picks him up from the track, to take him around to the dump behind the stables, where, in as brief a time as it takes to record the melancholy fact, he is destroyed—by a single bullet between the eyes.)
6.
    We have won! We have won! We have won!
    Where so many thousands of persons are dazed with sorrow, it is unseemly to show rapturous delight; where sentiment runs so powerfully in one direction, only the ill-bred would gloat.
    Being extremely well-bred, therefore, Edgar Warwick and his sister Seraphina keep their gleeful smiles to themselves; but cannot help tugging like children at Washburn Frelicht’s arm, and whispering again and again, and yet again—
    Why, we have won!
    Frelicht smiles his composed smile, Frelicht dabs lightly at his forehead with a fresh handkerchief, Frelicht says quietly: Of course.
7.
    The talk for weeks, for months, will be of Midnight Sun and that wild, wild ride.
    The talk will be of the beautiful Xalapa who (it was afterward reported) had had a hairline crack in his left forefoot, detected but not taken seriously by his owner.
    The talk will be of the disgraced Shep Tatlock, thirty-two years old, banned from American racing for life: drunk on the track (it was charged against him), or drugged (as he himself claimed) against his knowledge.
    And the talk—for months, for years—will be of the mysterious gambler “A. Washburn Frelicht” who won for himself and his clients a record$400,000 on 11 May 1909; and then, on the very night of the Derby victory, while celebrating in a private dining room in the Chautauqua Arms . . .
8.
    The robber was a young black man.
    The robber was a young black man wearing a black domino mask and carrying a long-barreled pistol.
    The robber entered the room silently by way of a balcony and French doors opened to the night air.
    A sudden leap and there he was, a few yards from the table where Frelicht and the Warwicks were seated . . . slightly bent at the knees, dark skin exuding moisture, eyes showing rims of white inside the black mask: Gentlemen and lady, thank you please, you will remain where you are please, you, lady, and you, sirs, your money please, thank you for your kindness please: a low soft mocking voice, an accent suggestive of the West Indies: Only do not distress me, gentlemen and dear lady!
    A slender young black man, pistol raised calmly aloft, aimed at Dr. Frelicht’s chest. He knew precisely why he had come, knew what the sweet-scented rosewood box contained, betrayed no