John Creasey - Gideon’s Sport

JOHN CREASEY

Gideon’s Sport

Copyright Note

This e-book was made by papachanjo , but was not scanned by me. Thanks to the original uploader.

I am trying to create at least an ample collection of all the John Creasey books which are in the excess of 500 novels. Having read and possess just a meager 10 of his books does not qualify me to be a fan but the 10 I read were enough for me to rake up some effort to scan and create these e-books.

If you happen to have any John Creasey book and would like to add to the free online collection which I’m hoping to bring together, you can do the following:

Scan the book in greyscale

Save as djvu - use the free DJVU SOLO software to compress the images

Send it to my e-mail: papachanjo@rocketmail.com

I’ll do the rest and will add a note of credit in the finished document.

from back cover

‘The finest of all Scotland Yard Series’ — New York Times

It is June, London basks in the sun, Londoners and visitors look forward to the great sporting events of the summer. But each presents Scotland Yard with its own particular challenge.

The Derby — will there be an attempt to ‘fix’ the greatest race of the year?

Lords — will the appearance of the South African team trigger off political demonstrations?

Wimbledon — will something happen to prevent a young American negro from battling through to the top?

Headaches for Commander George Gideon, problems that he must cope with. And what of his own private problems: Has he been too much of a cop and not enough of a husband and father? And has he walked too long beside a crooked path to trust a granger’s smile?

‘Mr. Marric — weaves a continuous exiting narrative which gives the impression of perfect authenticity’

Sunday Times

I am most grateful to Major A. D. Mills, Secretary and Treasurer of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, who not only showed me round the famous “Wimbledon”, but also read the manuscript of this book and put me right on many details.

John Creasey

Note: This book was already in proof form when threats were made to ‘demonstrate’ during the M.C.C.’s 1970 Test Matches against South Africa. I should hate anyone to think that anything in this book is either cause or effect!

Table of Contents

Copyright Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER ONE

Hot Day

George Gideon, Commander of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police in London, pushed back the chair in his .office overlooking the River Thames, wiped his neck and dabbed his forehead with a big handkerchief, and stepped to the window. It was one of those windless, airless days, outside as well as in, when no window seemed large enough and certainly none opened half as far as it should. A very big man, massive of neck and shoulder, with a belly like a board and a torso of exceptional thickness and strength, he felt the heat more than most, and was as exasperated by it as anyone. Yet as he stood at the window and looked across the bright, sunlit surface of the water, his mood mellowed.

What a wonderful place London was!

The moment a heat-wave “struck, the city became through its river a home of pageantry. Launches, offering trips as far up as Hampton Court and Richmond and way down beyond London Bridge, looked as if their owners had been furiously busy overnight, dabbing bright paint and hanging gay little flags. Launches, sculls, rowing-boats, even two or three colourful sails, changed the workaday river to a pleasure playground for tens of thousands: every boat in sight was crammed. The little flags fluttering in the boat-made breeze above the great stretch of water gave an illusion of coolness.

This weather had lasted, now, for five days and it was still only May: that alone would be memorable, in London. In recent years, even June had seldom flamed and temperatures had regularly fallen lower and rain more heavily than either ever should.

London in the summer had its special problems, too, and the police as well as criminals known, unknown, or in the making, old lags and first offenders, were all affected. For the moment, Gideon was not thinking of those problems. But there was a file on his desk marked Outdoor Events, June and he had already glanced through it and would again before discussing it next morning with officers of the C.I.D. as well as other branches, mostly from the Civil Department. As tomorrow was the first of June, this session was at least a week late, largely because all departments had been forced to concentrate, in mid-May, on a state visit.

Now, he was thinking just of his beloved London.

A telephone rang-one which came through the Yard’s switchboard. He turned reluctantly, to pick it up. His movements were slow and deliberate, distinctly affected by the heat.

“Gideon.”

“Mr. Lemaitre would like a word with you, sir.”

“Put him through,” said Gideon.

His reaction to a call from Lemaitre, now the Superintendent in charge of one of the East End divisions. — perhaps London’s toughest — was different from his reaction to a call from any other officer. Lemaitre had once shared this room; acting as his deputy, sitting at a desk now pushed into a corner and used for files and a set of Police Gazettes from the first number, in 1786, when it had been called Hue and Cry. And whatever his shortcomings, which most certainly existed, Lemaitre was a warm personality; shrewd and loyal almost to a fault. There were times when Gideon missed him, and this was one of those times,

“George?”

“What is it, Lem?”

“Gotta bitta news for you,” stated Lemaitre, in happy certainty.

“I hope its good,” said Gideon, cautiously.

“Good — and hot!” Lemaitre assured him. “George, there’s going to be wholesale doping of Derby runners. And I mean wholesale!” He laughed on a raucous note. “Be really something, wouldn’t it, if one, two and three were all disqualified?”

Two things were already ringing warning bells in Gideon’s mind. One, that Lemaitre was almost excited, which probably meant that he had only just heard this ‘news’ and hadn’t checked it yet. Two, that any such widespread doping was highly improbable.

“It certainly would be a sensation,” he conceded. “Might just as well not run the race at all.” He was already checking tie actual date. At one time, the Derby had been run on the first Wednesday in June, come what may; now, it varied from — year to year. Ah, there it was: Saturday, June 23rd, just over three weeks ahead. “Where’d you hear the rumour?” he asked.

“A runner for Jackie Spratt’s. No need to worry, George, it’s hot. He was coming over from New York on the QE 2 — landed two days ago. He picked it up on board. All absolutely certain, corroborated, the McCoy! I’m seeing the runner myself, tonight.”

“Where?”

“The Old Steps, Limehouse.”

Gideon was tempted to utter a word of warning, but checked himself. There were a lot of things that senior C.I.D. men would be wiser not to do, but the urge to be en the look-out for a job to handle oneself was sometimes irresistible. He had learned this to his cost, and Lemaitre wasn’t a young beginner: he knew what he was doing.

“Get chapter and verse, Lem,” he allowed himself to urge.

“Trust me!” said Lemaitre, with almost cocky confidence. “Like me to come along and report, in the morning?”

“Check with me first,” Gideon told him. “I’d like to see you but there may be too many briefings. Call about ten o’clock.”

“Right. Oh, by the way, George — what day was summer last year?”

Gideon put down the receiver, pretending not to hear. He felt a flash of exasperation; that kind of facetious humour was Lemaitre’s speciality and, in the right mood, it could be funny, but Gideon wasn’t in the right mood. He had just been glowing at the thought of London’s loveliness; just been recalling the glorious summers of his boyhood. He smiled wryly to himself. Did one always remember the good and forget the bad, in one’s past?

The question answered itself even as he asked it, bringing to mind in successive flashbacks two schoolday incidents. One, an occasion when he had been caned and humiliated for writing ‘dirty’ words on a wash-room door — and two of the words he had never even heard of! He had been absolutely guilt-free. The boy who had been guilty had let him suffer the punishment; and afterwards, in the playground, he had jeered: “Bloody fool, that’s what you are! If you knew it was me, why the hell didn’t you say so?”

To this day, in such a mood as he was now, the old injustice still had the power to hurt; well, perhaps not really hurt, but certainly it still brought a feeling of heavy-hearted-ness, a sense of dismay at the existence of unrightable wrongs.

The other memory, something quite different, was of the one and only time he had been selected to play for the school First Eleven — and the cricket match had been rained off. He had never forgotten how unutterably miserable he had been. Such things had at least enabled him to share the hurts and disappointments and frustrations of his children, but he could still feel some of that old, aching awareness that he had been robbed of a chance which had never come again.

Suddenly, he gave a snort of laughter.

“What the devil am I sentimentalising about?” he demanded, of the empty office. “I ought to be checking Lem’s story!” He sat down at his desk again, and made a note about Jackie Spratt’s runner and the doping of Derby horses.

Jackie Spratt’s was the name of a large book-making firm, started by a long-dead father and now operated by three brothers. Each of the brothers was a public school product; each in his own way was clever. The firm had become a vast concern, with hundreds of betting shops throughout the country, but its headquarters were still in the East End.

Gideon, who was not a gambling man but would have an occasional flutter, had no strong opinions on the rights and wrongs of betting; his job was to maintain the law. Since the new Gaming Act, with licensed betting-shops everywhere, there had been few problems with street runners, but many more — and usually serious — problems with the smart new casinos, while the slot machines, too, had their ‘protectors’ and their rackets.

These were general issues, but Jackie Spratt’s was a problem on its own. There was no proof but good reason to believe that the three brothers were behind a great deal of fixing’ and corruption, particularly involving horse-racing and boxing. No doping case had ever been traced back to them; no boxer who had thrown a fight led back to them. Yet everybody “knew’ the truth. They were a parasitic growth on the body of sport.

One day, Gideon and the Yard persuaded themselves, Jackie Spratt’s would go too far-and it was conceivable mat day would come with this year’s Derby. Lemaitre, however, was notably possessed of a facile optimism which discouraged Gideon from setting too much store by such a hope. For the moment, he pushed it to the back of his mind.

He looked through the file, with great deliberation. Even sitting there, he was perspiring. The day was not only airless but very humid. His handkerchief became a damp ball; fee could almost have wrung it out. Tossing it aside, he shrugged himself out of his jacket-a medium-weight one •which felt winter-heavy at this temperature.