Gideon’s Sport Read online

  Then, Roche turned to Juanita.

  She was still fastened at the waist, but her arms were free. Thank God, her arms were free! And he had nothing in his hands now; his knife was deep in Noble’s body. It was impossible to judge what was passing through his mind: whether he realised that he had committed murder and that she had seen the killing. It was impossible to know, from those glittering eyes, whether he was even thinking of her. She was in stark terror, and aware not of pain, but the warmth of oozing blood.

  Then, the door across the room behind Roche was flung back.

  She did not see the policeman, but she heard his voice and was sure he was one.

  “Come on, pack it in! You’ll only make more trouble for yourselves. Don’t —”

  Then he stopped. He must have seen the body on the floor, even if he could not see her there, on the bed. And in that moment, Roche moved — from absolute stillness to galvanic action. But he moved, thank God, away from her. There was a gasp from the policeman as Roche crashed into him bodily. She could not see what happened next; but there was another thud followed by the pounding of footsteps.

  Roche disappeared.

  The policeman, his helmet dangling awry, was leaning against the door, looking away from her, obviously too dazed even to shout. But he turned his head at last towards the inner room and the man on the floor, and for the first time, saw Juanita and the blood which hid so much of her face.

  Gideon was in the back of his own car, being driven by a middle-aged detective-sergeant, when a call came over the radio-telephone fixed beside the driver’s seat, so that it could be picked up quickly from front or back. The familiar: “Information calling Commander Gideon, Information calling Commander Gideon,” came clearly into the car. He picked it up-

  ‘This is Commander Gideon.”

  “There’s a message from AB Division, sir.”

  “I’m in the Division now,” Gideon replied.

  ‘ ”Superintendent Henry is in Highway Lane,” the Information speaker said. “He’ll be glad to see you there, sir-he won’t be at his office.”

  Gideon thought, trouble, and hung up. “Highway Lane,” he ordered, and as the driver murmured acknowledgement, settled back in his seat.

  Highway Lane, he knew, housed the headquarters of the Action Committee. Perhaps he had been too precipitate in thinking ‘trouble’ and perhaps Henry had caught the lot of them together, plotting. He saw the brick wall of Lords and as they passed, heard a flutter of applause. For a boundary? A catch? A wicket some other way?

  As two uniformed policemen, talking together near one gate, noticed his car, recognised him, and promptly drew up almost to attention, Gideon hid a smile. He glanced around as they passed the masses of new apartment-blocks, some of them high-rise; and remembering the one which had collapsed a few months ago, reflected wryly that such disasters seldom seemed to overtake the luxury-blocks built for the very rich. They went through the narrow High Street of Hampstead itself, still called and in a way still in fact a village, and turned into narrow, winding Highway Lane.

  He saw the white ambulance, the crowd, the dozen or more police — and the Black Maria, further along: back doors open, men being hustled in. He thought: Not that girl! Then saw the bearers coming out with the stretcher, and the girl on it. A sheet covered the lower half of her face like a yashmak, leaving her eyes and the top of her head free, and it was bloodstained about where her lips would be. Her eyes were open, but she did not look in any particular direction; just stared towards the clear sky. A youngish man in a smock came out as they pushed the stretcher into the ambulance, and immediately following him came Henry.

  Gideon, by then, was getting out of his car. Henry saw him and raised his arms in a gesture of resignation which filled Gideon with alarm. The young doctor climbed into the ambulance; the stretcher-bearers went to the driving-cabin.

  “How is she?” Gideon demanded.

  “Scarred for life.” Henry almost choked.

  “Scarred?”

  Henry said: “Her face has been cut about. It’ll scar her for life, I tell you!”

  “No other injury?” asked Gideon.

  “No. That is —” Henry was obviously shaken; as obviously, he made an effort to pull himself together. “Cuts on the face and mouth, sir, but no body injuries.”

  “So it could have been worse,” Gideon made himself say.

  “I — I suppose so, sir. The man who slashed her seems to have killed a man. I don’t know the story, yet — probably only Constable Conception can tell it — but we know the name of the killer. And he attacked one of our chaps in his getaway.”

  Gideon hesitated only a few seconds before asking: “Is a general call out?”

  “Yes, with full description. The man we’re after is an Australian named Roche: Roy Roche, one of the ringleaders of the group. He’s twenty-two. Juanita — Detective-Constable Conception — always said he was the most likely to be dangerous. The dead man is another of the leaders — a Kenneth Noble.” Henry was getting back to normal, his voice becoming less strained. “The raid as a whole has been reasonably successful, sir. There were fifteen Committee members named and we’ve caught eleven. Roche we know about. The other three weren’t at home or at their places of business when our men called on them. The eleven we’ve got will be at the station in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Can they all be considered accessories to the murder?” Gideon asked, heavily.

  “It is possible, sir. Certainly any one of them might have been a witness.”

  “And might help you to find Roche.” As he spoke, Gideon was trying to decide the best thing for him to do. The complexion of this case had changed instantly. It was first a murder investigation, only secondly a problem of preventing a violent demonstration.

  He saw two men turn into Highway Lane and recognised them as from Fleet Street; and suddenly he was aware of the urgent need to decide what to tell the Press. Henry saw the men at the same moment, and swore under his breath.

  “Chas, you handle this,” Gideon said. “Treat the men we’ve picked up as possible witnesses to the murder. Don’t work on the demonstration angle, yet. Tell the Press everything, though — why you rounded them up, all you can about the murder. Let them know about Constable Conception’s injuries. Just give them all the information, holding nothing back: let diem decide how to use it. Let them know this is going to be one of the biggest man-hunts ever, too.” The two men were now close, and he added: “No reason why I shouldn’t tell them that.”

  He faced the newspapermen, grimly: “I’m going back to the Yard to start one of the biggest man-hunts in years, gentlemen. A police officer has been savagely attacked, a man whose identity we don’t yet know has been murdered. Superintendent Henry will give you all the information you need.”

  He turned, heard cameras clicking, saw more cars stopping at the far end of Highway Lane and a photographer jump out of one, as he got back into his own. As he was driven off, amid more photograph-taking, he could picture the bright face of Juanita Conception before she had been slashed.

  “I hope to heaven she isn’t badly disfigured,” he said aloud.

  As he was heading back for the heart of London, he passed a shop above which three members of the Action Central Committee were meeting; shaken, not yet fully aware of the size of the disaster.

  One, an Australian from Sydney, was saying: “It doesn’t matter what happened, I tell you! The Cause is more important. Maybe Roy Roche was a murderous bastard, maybe he was only in it for kicks — but I’m not! I’m in it to do a job and that job is to fight every kind of race prejudice, wherever I see it. We don’t have any that matters, in Australia, because we keep out any poor devil who isn’t white-but one day they’ll come in floods. And when they do, we’ll have a hell of a lot of trouble — and I’ll go. straight back home and fight it there.”

  He glared around him.

  “Right now, I’m fighting it here, and what’s happened today doesn’t matter a ligh
t. We go on, mates-we see this thing through!”

  The call came clearly over the court as Barnaby Rudge went to the net and shook hands with his opponent. He was feeling very content and even more confident.

  “Game, set and match to Rudge,” the umpire said, and there was a little flurry of applause. The two players shook hands with the umpire, put on their sweaters, and walked off together, as ball-boys and linesmen strolled off the court, and most of the standing crowd moved away, in quest of tea or ice-cream, or hot-dogs. Barnaby had not once been tempted to use his fireball service — and was particularly pleased, because he had been fairly hard-pressed in the third set and had been sorely tempted. But he had overcome the temptation and won in straight sets.

  He saw Willison in the stands, giving him the thumbs-up sign.

  He saw, too, but did not recognise, Archibald Smith, who had sat with the tall, bony inquiry agent throughout the match.

  “And that’s your world-beater?” Smith sneered, as they drove back to London in his Jaguar.

  “Mr. Smith, I tell you he’s got a service that will blast the best off the court!”

  “He was nearly blasted off the court himself, today! I didn’t see anything special about his service.”

  “He didn’t use it, Mr. Smith.”

  “Now come on! He’s human, isn’t he? He could easily have lost that third set — if he had a killer-service, he’d have used it then. Come off it, Sidey. What’s your game?”

  Sidey looked at the bookmaker sourly.

  He had been both disappointed and surprised, for Smith had promised to double his money if he was satisfied with his information; but no one would have been satisfied on today’s showing. He did not know what to say. He knew Smith had a reputation for being tight-fisted, and it was possible that this was what he was being now — that he was only pretending to disbelieve him, as an excuse to lower the value of the information. Sidey’s indignation at this possibility was deepened by his awareness of the man’s wealth-as epitomised right there, in the big Jaguar, with its telephone built into the dashboard, and even an extension for use from the back seat.

  “I’ve got photos that’ll show you he’s got a fireball service!” he said at last. And when Smith laughed, almost scornfully, he went on in an angry tone: “I tell you, Mr. Smith- if you’ve got any sense, you won’t take any bets on Rudge. You’ll lose every penny. What you ought to do is put a packet on him to win — and put a thou on for me tool”

  “A thousand for you? Have you gone mad?”

  “I’m telling you, and I’ve always been fair to you. Put me on a thou — “

  “How much of your own money are you risking?” demanded Smith.

  “All I can afford.”

  “Don’t hedge! How much?”

  “Two hundred quid,” Sidey answered, sulkily.

  “You haven’t put it on with me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong!” replied Sidey, with more spirit. “I done it at eight different shops, all yours, so’s no one can guess I’ve got inside knowledge. And I wouldn’t risk that amount of money if I wasn’t sure — you ought to know that.”

  “I’ll need a lot more proof,” Smith growled. “But you’ve earned your money; I’ll say that for you. I won’t take Willison’s stake-just in case miracles happen.” He opened his tight-fitting jacket and took out a packet of one-pound notes. “There’s your hundred. And if I were you, I’d keep it in my pocket; I wouldn’t put it on a man or on a horse.”

  He pulled up outside his offices, and a doorman came hurrying. A few minutes later, he had disappeared into the building, the doorman was putting his car away, and Sydney Sidey was walking off, glowering straight ahead at the massed crowds.

  “Mean old flicker!” he muttered. “He’ll put plenty on-just won’t pay me, that’s all. I wonder who else would pay for the info? Old Filby won’t; he’s in Smith’s pocket-he’s no good. I wonder if Jackie Spratt’s —” He continued to wonder about Jackie Spratt’s.

  The three Spratt brothers were at their daily conference, in the Board Room at the top of their building. John was sitting back, smoking a pipe, looking as solid and dependable as a man could. In Mark’s hand was something rather like a small cigar fitted into an amber-coloured mouthpiece, and on the table in front of him was what appeared to be an amber case holding six of the ‘cigars’: an affectation well in keeping with the dapper little man’s appearance.

  He put one to his lips, and pressed a point close to the mouthpiece. A tiny sound followed, and a little spray appeared on the wall opposite him, at least twenty feet away. He laughed.

  “Ill bet no one else ever thought of doping a horse from a distance!” he crowed. “One of these in a hay-box, and we’ll have no problems!”

  “I still don’t quite see how it works,” objected Matthew.

  “You will,” John said, bluffly. “The dope is in a dart-capsule, see? And the capsule breaks on contact with the hay-the slightest touch does it. The dope itself is one of these curare off-shoots: Curol, they call it. Can’t hurt the horses-just relaxes the muscles so they can’t make a hundred per cent effort. It’s a liquid, so it soaks into the hay — stays effective for two or three days — “

  “So it can be traced!” Matthew interrupted, sharply.

  “If it were in the box at the time of the race, yes,” John agreed. “But the horses will be doped several days before. I’ve two feed salesmen fixed to do the job. They’ll be able to get near enough to blow the dope into the hay-boxes — they won’t have to get near enough to be suspicious. And it’s not a normal dope, either. The stewards could run every test in the book and still never get round to Curol. There’s maybe a chance in a thousand of its being discovered, and even then, it wouldn’t involve us. It might involve two gentlemen from the United States, mind you.” He grinned at his brothers. “So it isn’t foolproof! Show me a bet which will win this kind of money which hasn’t got some sort of risk. We live on risks!”

  “I must say I don’t think the risk is very great,” Mark put in, amiably.

  “I suppose it’s all right.” Matthew was grudging. “How much have we got on Road Runner?”

  “Nearly half a million,” John Spratt replied. “At fives.”

  “Bring it up to the level million?” suggested Mark.

  Matthew shrugged.

  “All right,” said John.

  “Can’t we get sixes?” asked Matthew.

  “Fives are bloody good!” John told him, going over to the wall to examine the spot where the liquid had struck. “It’s drying already,” he remarked.

  “Don’t get too near,” warned Matthew, jocularly. “We don’t want you slowed down!”

  And they all laughed.

  Mark and Matthew knew that Blake had been killed to ensure that their secret would not be disclosed. They seldom talked about that, however, even among themselves, except by an occasional oblique reference. Until this moment, nothing had been said, today; but now there was a pause and the other two looked at John. He was frowning, the groove between his brows even deeper than usual.

  “Is everything all right?” Mark asked, with almost feminine insistence.

  “Sure,” John growled. “And what isn’t can soon be put right.” There was another, almost awkward silence, before Matthew, the least imaginative of the trio, forced the issue:

  “What isn’t, brother?”

  “Our Colonel Hood and Thomas Moffat,” John elucidated. “They are the only two who could have given anything away. That’s almost certainly where Charlie Blake got his facts, all right, so I’ve had them checked. And they’re being watched!”

  “Who by?” asked Matthew, in sudden alarm.

  “Police,” answered John, completely unperturbed. “So they’ll have to have a little change of plans.” He gave a comfortable sounding laugh, and went on: “There’s another thing we ought to think about. Archie Smith and that beanpole who works for him were at Wimbledon today, watching one of the players — an Am
erican negro, named Rudge: Barnaby Rudge. And we know this fellow Willison — Rudge’s sponsor — is trying to put a lot of money on him to win.” He flashed the dazzling white smile which was such a part of his spectacular good looks: “He can’t place it. I think we ought to take it.”

  “Why?” demanded Mark Spratt “Are we sure this Rudge isn’t a dark horse?”

  “We’ve got too much on Bob Lavis,” John told him. “We’ve been putting money on him for a long time — we can’t afford to let anyone else win. I’m going to have a little talk with Sidey.”

  Neither of the others demurred.

  “Jackie Spratt’s,” Sydney Sidey was deciding. “They’re the only firm who might cough up. Now I wonder — which of the brothers ought I to talk to?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Proper Devils’

  Gideon reached the Yard a little after five o’clock, in a very dour mood. There was the underlying factor of Kate and there was this shocking attack on the Jamaican girl; quite suddenly, everything else seemed to become unimportant. This was dangerous thinking; he must discipline himself.

  He sensed a difference at the Yard, among the policemen on duty outside, the Flying Squad men and other detectives getting in and out of their cars. It was reflected in a kind of tension: a grimness in manner, appearance, even movement. None of them laughed; none of them even smiled; it was as if these men, all big and tough and hardened to crime and violence, had received a great shock.

  And of course they had.

  This kind of mood spread throughout the Yard whenever a policeman was injured. It was difficult to explain, even to describe; but Gideon had a very strong sense of it as he went in and up the steps. The doorman, usually content to say: “Good-morning”, or “Good-night, sir” ventured: “Shocking thing at Hampstead, sir? Proper devils, these youngsters, these days.”

  The hall constable was perhaps forty-five: not so long ago himself a ‘youngster’.