Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/80

 out his check book. A sudden thought occurred to him. Freddy had been following the races—to the great destruction of his generous quarterly allowance—for many years. Perhaps he would know.

“Freddy?”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Did you ever hear of a racing man by the name of Peter J. Pomeroy?” He asked this nonchalantly, as though it was nothing to him; just something he was idly curious about. He gazed out of the window again at the passing show, pointedly careless about Freddy’s reply.

“Old Pete Pomeroy? You bet I did,” replied Freddy. “One of the finest.” Freddy knew everybody who was anybody on the track—it would have been strange if he did not know Pomeroy.

“Why do you ask, Val, ole kid?”

“Oh, no particular reason, Freddy. What kind was he?”

“Died more than a year ago, I think—saw something about his bally demise in the papers. Awf’ly decent sort, Val—one of those old southern gentlemen. Funny thing about him—used to breed and race, both. Sort of eccentric. Afraid of banks, or something like that; say, that bird used to carry as much as a hundred thousand dollars around with him, sometimes. I’ve seen that much on him more than once. Had all kinds of money and figured it was just as good to him as to a bank—and not half so much of a temptation, I guess. Anyway, everybody knew he never put his money in a bank—funny, he never was held up.

“Queer duck. Had his breeding farm somewhere down in Virginia—near Old Point Comfort, y’know—I think it was a little on the other side of Hampton;