The Black Stallion Mystery (16 page)

“A big order,” Henry said. He didn’t like the contemptuous, half-pitying look she had for him. “I’ve found a horse either has it or doesn’t have it. A good trainer simply tries to get the best out of him.”

She stamped a small foot on the floor to add emphasis to her words. “
You
race your horses on flat tracks with well rounded turns!” she said in a loud, clear voice. “Only great trainers and great horses know what it is to race over rough, uneven ground where jumps are hard and landings harder. Those are the kind of horses my father raised!”

Henry’s face was flaming red and he didn’t try to keep the anger out of his voice. “There are easier ways to ruin a horse than to rip its muscles and split its bones by racin’ over that kind of going!”

Alec stepped between them, sorry for Tabari because he realized more than Henry how much she had adored her father. It was her deep grief for his loss that made her say things she didn’t really mean. Actually, Abu Ishak had been more interested in speed than jumping ability—and Tabari knew that as well as he did.

The door to the room opened and Abd-al-Rahman walked in followed by Angel González. Tabari glanced swiftly at her husband and the somber, grief-stricken look disappeared from her eyes. In its place appeared a radiance that filled the room. She laughed lightly and clapped her hands with all the gaiety of a little girl.
With easy grace she moved toward her husband saying, “I’m glad your work is done for now my evening begins.”

Abd-al-Rahman put his arm around her but his gaze remained on Alec and Henry. González said jokingly, “You have only one rival, Tabari, and that is Ziyadah.”

She pouted coquettishly. “I know,” she said sweetly, “and isn’t it silly to be jealous of a ghost?”

Henry told Alec, “I want to get out of here.”

As they excused themselves and moved toward the door Abd-al-Rahman said quietly, “I would like my keys, please.”

Alec turned quickly, fearful for his horse’s safety.

The Sheikh laughed loudly. “Oh, you may keep the one to
his
stall,” he said with sarcasm. “It is only the other keys that I need.”

When Alec followed Henry from the room he was conscious of Tabari’s perfume. He thought of the mares waiting for her in the corner of the field and of her being content only to watch them.

“Have a good night,” Abd-al-Rahman called as they shut the door.

Much later Alec stood by his bedroom window. It was partly open and there was a hint of rain in the cold night air.

From somewhere behind him Henry said, “You ought to go to bed.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m waiting for tomorrow.”

“So am I,” Alec said.

“I’m not closin’ my eyes until you do.”

“He’s got the house bolted front and back. I couldn’t get out if I wanted to—which I don’t,” Alec added hastily.

“Then what’re you starin’ into the night for?”

“I’m looking at the gardens. They’re pretty all lighted up as they are. If he lets us go, we won’t be seeing them any more.”

“Humph!” snorted Henry.

Alec shrugged his shoulders. Henry needn’t be suspicious. What reason would he have for trying to leave this house and trailing Ziyadah? Especially since everybody knew they were leaving tomorrow. It would be too dangerous. If Henry was right, someone was just waiting for a last chance at him and his horse. It was far better and safer to stay indoors.

Turning away from the window, he found Henry standing at the fireplace. Red-and-orange flames licked greedily at the big logs, casting ragged shadows in the semi-darkened room. “Go to bed,” Alec repeated. “You’re beat.”

Henry didn’t answer and Alec turned back to the window. He liked the coldness of the night air. He even wished it would rain so he could feel it on his face. Like Henry, he was mixed up and a little scared. They hadn’t found what they’d come after but he was glad to be leaving. He stared into the darkness without actually seeing anything.

Were they prisoners in this fortress or would Abd-al-Rahman let them go tomorrow as he’d promised? Only morning would provide the answer, for that was when González was prepared to leave.

Suddenly he felt a horrible net of gloom descend
upon him. He tried to shake it off by concentrating on the play of the fountains below. It didn’t help. He found himself listening for strange sounds in the night and occasionally he would start at the sudden crackling of wood in the fire. He looked down into the darkness of the courtyard. There was a sheer drop of three high stories, making him feel more than ever like a prisoner.

A long while later he turned away from the window. Henry was asleep in a chair beside the fire. “I’m going to Abd-al-Rahman,” he said aloud, as if doing so made it easier for him to leave the room. “I can’t let him think of me as a coward. I couldn’t live with myself if I did. I want to tell him where Ziyadah went. He can follow the trail himself. I don’t want Ziyadah. I’ve got the Black. All I want is to keep him.”

Henry snored in reply.

Leaving the room, Alec walked down the long gallery until he came to Abd-al-Rahman’s bedroom. He knocked on the door. There was no answer. For a moment he stood there undecided, then he turned the knob. The door was unlocked and the room empty. A small fire burned in the fireplace, casting its flickering light upon the elaborately carved wardrobe cabinet in the corner of the room. The door to Tabari’s adjoining bedroom was open but there was no light or sound from within. Abd-al-Rahman was perhaps still downstairs with his wife and González.

A few minutes later Alec looked into the great living room and saw Tabari and Angel González sitting before the fire. They didn’t see him and he closed the door again, deciding to go to the strange, bare room in which he’d found Abd-al-Rahman once before. As he
passed through the silent corridors and halls he was aware only of the loud creaking made by his own hurried steps. When he came to the room he sought he knocked softly upon the door.

There was no answer and he entered, surprised at finding the door unlocked and the room empty. A dim light shone from the small desk lamp. Alec decided this must mean that Abd-al-Rahman would return at any moment, so he sat down on one of the hard, straight-backed chairs and waited.

The room was damp and cold. Alec looked at the empty fireplace, recalling vividly the big logs burning everywhere else. The old wire screen was rusty, as was the gate. Evidently there hadn’t been a fire there in many years.

Outside he could hear someone locking up the house. He couldn’t be mistaken because the great bolts and chains made a lot of noise. A chill ran through him and he rose from the chair, stamping his feet as if to warm them. What was the matter with him anyway?

He recalled how the dust and closeness of this small room had almost stifled him on his first visit. Now he was terribly cold. The night and the dampness accounted for it, he told himself. He reached for a book on the desk and blew the dust from it. It was printed in English so he decided to pass a few minutes reading it.

The book was about the Bedouin and his horse, written by an authority on desert tribes. Most of the history Alec had read before so he skipped lightly that section. As he went on, he moved the desk lamp closer so he might have more light. He concentrated on the text in front of him:
“The pure Arabian horse has been so
intensely inbred through centuries that very often he is not a prolific breeding animal.”

Alec looked up from the book, staring ahead in the dim light from the lamp. Might this not be true of Ziyadah? Was it possible that Abd-al-Rahman wanted the Black because he was Ziyadah’s fastest son and a
proven
sire? Were all the pieces of this crazy jigsaw puzzle falling into place at last?

Alec read further:
“Black Arabians have always been rare and sheikhs want them for their exclusive use if they are fortunate enough to breed one or steal one.”

Ziyadah was a chestnut, according to Tabari, his coat of burnished copper “so highly polished that it reflected the sun’s rays,” she had said. The Black was coal-black, as black as tar, as black as night itself. Was this another jigsaw piece falling into place? Did Abd-al-Rahman want the Black for himself?

The room seemed much warmer. Or was it only the dim light from the lamp that made him think so? Alec’s eyelids felt very heavy and he blinked his eyes in order to stay awake.

Just one more page, he promised himself, then if the Sheikh hadn’t returned he’d go. It said here … but he’d known … he’d known this part all along … 
“Through their long history Bedouins have treated choice foals like their own children, often taking them into their tents to sleep and becoming an integral part of their household. Such a relationship has made the Arabian horse the most intelligent …”
Alec’s eyes blinked sleepily,
“… of its race. It will come at call. It will fight in defense of its master. It will …”

The boy’s head nodded and his eyes closed. A moment later he was fast asleep.

It was the sound of a rising wind that awakened him. Still half asleep he listened to its lonely wail and then he remembered where he was. How did the wind get into this small closed room? He looked at the narrow stained-glass windows which flanked the fireplace. They were tightly shut. The fireplace. Of course! The huge chimney was filled with the night wind.

He wondered what time it was and how long he’d slept. The open book lay before him and he was about to close it and leave the room when he remembered the strange dream he’d been having.

It was of an old Arab chieftain and his most prized stallion. The horse, like Ziyadah, was a golden chestnut and he slept on a great white fur rug at the foot of the chieftain’s bed
.

Alec half-smiled at his mental picture of the old man and his horse, and shut the book. Then it occurred to him that his dream might not have been so ridiculous after all. A rich Arab sheikh might easily keep his horse in such luxury, close to him, for fear of his being stolen.

Alec’s hand brushed against his nose as he returned the book to its proper place. He stood up. The odor of the liniment he’d used on the Black was in the room. It was faint but his sense of smell was keen and there was no mistake about it. He raised his hands, sniffing them, and smelled only bath soap. Then he sniffed his clothes, thinking he might have spilled some of the liquid on them. No, they were free of the odor. He sat down again, trying to shrug off his interest in the faint odor of the liniment. After all, what difference did it make where it came from or for what reason? It wasn’t from the Black, who was locked safely in his stall. Any number of horses
might have it on their legs.
But why did he smell it here in this room?

He remembered what he’d read of the close relationship between the Arab and his horse—and he recalled his dream.

He got to his feet, believing his thoughts to be even more fantastic than his dream had been. And yet … Was it the flickering light that accounted for his sudden dizziness? Or was it because of what he was going to do?

He walked across the room slowly and quietly and stopped in front of the huge fireplace. He smelled rust from the screen and gate, the dampness of the stone. Stronger than ever, too, was the odor of the liniment. It seemed to be coming from the chimney. Could it be coming from
below?
But was it so strange to keep a horse hidden in a fortress-like pile of ancient stone such as this? Couldn’t it be expected of old Barjas ben Ishak that he would have built secret stalls in his cellars in order to insure the safety of his prized horses? And might not Ziyadah have as much use for the leg liniment as the Black after last night’s chase?

Alec left the room. No noise now, he warned himself. There was only a dim light burning in the long gallery, and when he reached a window from where he could see the lighted stableyard clock he discovered it was after three o’clock. He’d slept much longer than he’d realized. But it was just as well, he told himself, for there was less chance of waking anyone now.

He went from hall to hall, softly turning knobs and listening for the faintest of sounds. But the house was very still with only an occasional crackle and pop from a dying fire. Despite his stealth Alec hurried for he intended to cover a lot of ground. He didn’t waste any time going upstairs but searched the bottom floor for doors and stairways that would take him to the cellars. He was certain the area below would be immense, for the main floor, reached by the two flights of outside steps, was more than fifty feet above the ground.

Toward the back of the house he found what he was after. Sliding back the bolts of a door off the
kitchen, he stopped before a steep stairway. For a moment he hesitated, thinking he could smell danger in the intense blackness of the passageway. But although there was a clammy, musty odor about the place he could not smell the liniment.

He would not have gone down if he hadn’t found the light switch. It meant that kitchen help used these stairs. There was nothing to fear but his own uneasiness. He shut the door before flicking on the switch. The lights were not as bright as he would have liked but he had no trouble finding his way. He sniffed the air constantly for the sharp, familiar odor of the liniment but smelled only the clamminess of old earth.

When he came to the bottom of the steps he stopped, his eyes moving slowly over cases of stored furniture.

After all, this was just another ancient home in the mountains, he told himself reassuringly. There were many of them in Europe, just as old and just as big. He listened to a distant hum. It was only a dynamo, supplying electricity. There was the sound of a pump, too, hoisting water five stories high and probably to the stables as well.

Then why did he start at the slightest noise?
Was it because he felt he was being watched?
But that, too, was silly. There was no one down here but himself.

The cellar was a maze of intricate passageways where anyone could have been hidden. On either side of the long corridors were barrel-shaped vaults which in their day could have been used to stable horses but now held old furniture and pictures, stoves and fixtures of all kinds including bathtubs and kitchen sinks.
There was nothing to get excited about at all, nothing to fear.