Secret of the Stallion (17 page)

Lisa tugged at the rope; Sterling followed. She and Pip led him out of the stable as fast as they could go. Enrico followed, running.

The fire was hot behind them, now burning completely out of control and spreading almost as fast as they could run.

In seconds, Lisa, Enrico, Sterling, and Pip were in the glorious freedom of the cool night air, safe from harm. Lisa unhitched the lasso from Sterling’s neck and let him run free in the paddock. She slid down off Pip’s smooth back and turned him out with his friends. Enrico took Lisa’s hand and led her to the paddock fence. They climbed up, perching on the top rail to watch the flurry of activity around them.

Lisa was surprised to see all that was happening. She and Enrico had been so engrossed in freeing the horses that they’d been unaware of the arrival of the fire brigade and a hundred well-dressed volunteers from the costume ball.

Carole and Stevie found Lisa and Enrico and joined them on the fence. Together they watched. It was too late to save the stables. In a minute, the tent collapsed. But because Lisa and Enrico had been there and others had come quickly, not one horse was hurt. The fire brigade
was able to contain the fire so that it never even reached the tack tents beyond the stable.

When the last flame was doused, Stevie said a most Stevie-like thing.

“I’m starved.”

Lisa looked at her watch. It was five minutes to midnight. Almost time for the sumptuous buffet. She had just enough energy to race her friends back to the ballroom. The fact that Enrico held her hand all the way helped a lot.

T
HE BALLROOM WAS
abuzz with talk about the fire, the fire brigade, and the miraculous facts that every horse was safe and the tack tent was untouched, thanks to the swift report of the fire.

As The Saddle Club, plus Tessa and Enrico, made their way to the buffet table, they heard snippets of the conversations.

“Can you believe it?”

“Some kids, I think …”

“That’s what the fire marshal said …”

“An American girl it was …”

“… three Americans.”

“And an Italian boy,” Lisa said, wanting to be sure that Enrico got credit.

She would have stopped to explain more thoroughly, but the delightful scents wafting toward her from the buffet table were too inviting. It was filled to capacity with the most delicious assortment of foods. There were trays of meats, vegetables, breads, and salads. It was hard to decide where to begin.

Stevie picked up a plate. She wondered if she could get everything onto one plate or if she should take two to begin with.

“Excuse me, miss,” one of the caterers said politely. Stevie looked up at him. “There’s a special buffet for the young riders.”

He pointed. There, to the left, was a huge table filled with food specially prepared for the Pony Clubbers. Stevie blinked, wondering if she was seeing correctly.

“Pizza!” Lisa said, daring to utter the word first. Resignedly, the group headed for their own table and took a selection of the food.

A few minutes later, they were sitting in a circle, joined by the other young riders. Everybody at the dance had helped in one way or another to save the horses and put out the fire, but The Saddle Club and Enrico had been at the heart of it. The other kids wanted to know what had happened.

Carole told about Stevie’s running for help. Stevie told about Carole’s miraculously hearing Lisa’s cries. Lisa told about Enrico’s stamping out the fire. Enrico told about Lisa’s saving Sterling.

“You what?” Stevie asked.

“I lassoed him, just like John Brightstar taught me.”

“And you got him on the first try?” Carole asked.

“Yes, I did,” Lisa said. “I’ve never done that before and I’ve been thinking about why it was I did it this time.”

“And?” Stevie prompted.

“I think it was because I had to. There was no time left. If I hadn’t roped him on my first try, he would have died in the fire. I knew it. So I did it.”

“There you are, Lisa!” Nigel Hawthorne came over to the young riders. “I’ve been looking all over for you because I’ve just heard what you did for me.”

“For Sterling, too,” Carole said.

“For Sterling, definitely,” Nigel said. “I can’t believe how you managed to save the poor creature.”

“I couldn’t leave him,” said Lisa. “You would have done exactly the same thing. Anybody would.”

“Except maybe Lord Yaxley,” said Nigel. “He’s probably annoyed to know that Sterling was saved from near certain death. Just this morning, he was telling me that the horse was worth more to him dead than alive.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Lisa blurted out, setting her pizza down. “Why, that horse is so strong and so brave. All it took was just one little tug at his—what did Yaxley say to you?”

Nigel was a little surprised by the U-turn Lisa had made in her ranting, but he obliged her by repeating Yaxley’s
remark. “He told me the horse was worth more dead than alive. But surely you don’t—”

Some things were becoming clear to Lisa, and at just that instant she saw something that made everything clear as crystal. A couple she’d never seen before walked past where the kids were sitting. The woman was helping the man because he was limping, favoring a leg that had probably got hurt while trying to rescue a horse.

“Oh, no,” said Lisa.

“What is it?” Nigel asked, concerned by the look on Lisa’s face.

“You said Yaxley left at noon, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. He told me he couldn’t bear to watch any more of the cross-country competition and he was taking the noon plane back to London.”

“But he didn’t go back to London then,” said Lisa.

“Of course he did,” Nigel said.

“No. Seeing that man limp by just now made me remember that I saw Yaxley in a pub downtown this evening. He was having a beer with a man we’ve seen before. A man with a limp.”

“Who?” Nigel asked.

“Him again?” said Stevie.

“
Who?
” Nigel repeated.

“The man with the limp,” Carole explained. “We saw him hanging around the stables a couple of times. He was just sort of lurking. I didn’t know he was a friend of Lord Yaxley’s, though.”

“Don’t you see? ‘Friend’ isn’t the right word,” said Lisa. “What if he’s not a friend and not a horse show fan? What if Yaxley hired him to start that fire? Both Enrico and I noticed that the fire definitely began right next to Sterling’s stall. What if it wasn’t just a coincidence? What if the fire was
started
—”

Stevie got the picture and finished drawing it. “—by a suspicious-looking man who’s been lurking around the stables and hanging out and drinking beer with Yaxley. What if Yaxley just
said
he was going to London to establish an alibi because he’d already told Nigel the horse was worth more dead than alive?”

“Wow,” said Carole. “How could anyone be willing to kill a horse?”

“He wasn’t just willing to kill
one
horse,” Enrico reminded the girls. “He only
wanted
to kill one, but he was
willing
to kill a stableful!”

“What do you think, Nigel?” Lisa asked.

“I think I’d better talk to the police,” he said.

July 21               
Cummington Castle

“W
HAT
’
S THAT BRIGHT
light?” Stevie demanded, shading her eyes with her sheet.

“I’m afraid it’s Mother Nature telling us that it’s morning,”
Lisa said. She sat up in bed. “It can’t be, though. It feels as though I just went to sleep twenty minutes ago.”

“Shhhh,” Stevie said. “If you keep on talking, you might wake me up.”

“Stadium jumping!” Carole announced, sitting bolt upright.

“Wha?” Tessa asked sleepily.

“It’s the last day of the competition. That means stadium jumping. Come on, we don’t want to miss a minute of it.” She glanced at her watch. “Hurry,” she urged her friends.

“Hurry” was not in their vocabulary that morning. They had all been up until well past midnight. In fact, The Saddle Club had been at the police lineup for the man with the limp at two in the morning!

Lisa swung her feet out over the edge of her bed and prepared to stand up. “I still can’t believe how quickly things happened last night,” she said.

“Well, they did after you put everything together and told Nigel what had happened,” Tessa said. “You’ll go down in the annals of time as one of the world’s great detectives.”

“In this case, I think it would have been better if she’d figured it out before the plot got so thick,” said Carole. “It was great to save all the horses. I just wish they hadn’t been endangered in the first place.”

Stevie sat up. “I’m awake,” she announced. “But I’m not sure I’m happy about it.”

“Welcome to the group,” said Carole. She tossed Stevie’s grooming clothes at her. “There’s work to do.”

They talked as they dressed. It gave them a chance to go over the night’s events one more time.

“The police never would have found that guy if he hadn’t been at the train station at one o’clock in the morning, waiting for the express train to London,” said Lisa, tugging on her T-shirt.

“I still don’t understand why he didn’t drive,” said Carole as she ran a comb through her hair.

“Oh, that’s easy,” said Tessa. “It’s because he knew the train was faster. These old country roads are curvy and slow around the hills. The train goes right through them and is very direct. Feldman wanted to get to London before Yaxley listened to a radio and learned that all the horses had escaped alive. He had to collect the other half of his fee before Yaxley knew he hadn’t earned it.”

“Thank heavens he
didn’t
earn it,” Carole said. “All those beautiful horses!”

“Who’s ready for breakfast?” Stevie asked.

“I am,” Lisa declared. “Unless, of course, it’s pizza.”

Lisa wasn’t prepared for what happened when they appeared at breakfast. There was a buzz of conversation in the dining room. Everybody was looking at The Saddle Club. (Stevie, Lisa, and Carole had unanimously agreed that Tessa should join, and she’d accepted their invitation immediately, so she was part of it now, too.)

“Everybody’s looking at us,” Lisa said.

“Everybody’s trying to figure out which one of us is
you
,” Stevie told her. “You’re a hero, don’t you know?”

“I don’t feel like one,” Lisa said. “I just think I did what I was supposed to do.”