Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER ONE
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
