John Creasey - Gideon’s Sport

It would have been easy to say: “You should have thought of this before.” Instead, Gideon said: “We’ll get it back, but we’ll need your help.”

“I’ll do anything — anything I can!”

Gideon looked at Hobbs, and asked: “Is Mr. Charlesworth in, do you know?”

“Yes.”

“Take Mr. Beckett along to him, and make sure Mr. Charlesworth has all the assistance he needs.”

“I will,” said Hobbs.

“I’m sorry — bothering you, sir,” Beckett muttered. “But I knew you would do all you could — I knew you would! I’ve -I’ve a cousin on the Force, sir, and he -he absolutely swears by you. You will get the stuff back, won’t you?”

“I’ll be greatly surprised if we don’t, and very soon,” Gideon assured him. He glanced at Hobbs and motioned slightly towards the communicating door, and Hobbs nodded almost imperceptibly in return: he would be straight back as soon as he had finished with Beckett.

As he strode back into his own office, Gideon wondered how it was possible that a man who knew so much about heroin could contemplate making money by selling it illegally, and wondered why Beckett’s attitude had changed so much? He was suddenly and much more vividly aware of just what a danger the stolen stuff represented.

Two pounds of it! And a tenth of a grain could make an addict-half a grain a week keep him happy, by rotting his body and his mind. Gideon was suddenly possessed of the same sense of urgency as Beckett had shown.

Who had the stuff now?

“How much have you got?” a man demanded.

“Enough,” said the sharp-featured chemist’s assistant who had stolen the heroin from Beckett.

“Can you keep up a supply?”

“I can keep it up. Can you keep paying?”

“I can pay.”

“Who are your customers?” demanded the assistant.

‘‘You’d certainly like to know!”

“I want to be sure I get my money. Who are they, Jenks? I don’t want to know their names — I just want to know how well they’ll pay.”

The man named Jenks — thin, middle-aged, with a strangely pale complexion and a slight cast in one of his almost colourless grey eyes — put a hand to his pocket and brought out a bulging wallet. He took out a wad of notes and thrust them into the young chemist’s hands.

“There’s plenty more,” he said flatly. “Plenty more! I’ve got a market in a school — a private school. Don’t worry about your money. What they can’t find themselves, their wealthy families will pay. No one wants scandal, do they?”

Very slowly and deliberately, the young chemist counted the money — in all, nineteen ten pound notes — nodded, and turned away.

CHAPTER NINE

Chance in a Life Time

Chief Inspector William Bligh was in the strong-room at Madderton’s Bank when he had the recall message: “Report to the Deputy Commander at once.”

The moment he read it, Bligh’s heart dropped like a stone. He had been called out early and assigned to this investigation, and his first thought had been that the great men were giving him another chance: Madderton’s, one of the few remaining private banks with its headquarters in the West End, was an influential one. The raid was bound to get a lot of publicity and if he could pull off a quick result, that could only benefit him.

Bligh was moody, these days; not far from being depressed -partly because he did not like being alone so much. He missed his wife much more than he would have imagined: had he known exactly how he would feel, he would probably not have agreed to a divorce so quickly. He now believed that his marriage had not been on the rocks, but merely, going through the doldrums, and he would have given a lot to know how she was getting on with her new husband. The second reason was the frequency with which, these days, cases he was investigating went sour on him. Every man at the Yard had bad patches; but this had lasted for nearly two years, and of late he had been given few assignments of any consequence.

Madderton’s had seemed his great chance. Moreover, within ten minutes of reaching the bank, which was near Piccadilly, off St. James’s Palace, he had been fairly sure who had committed the raid. Dynamite, the way furniture was piled up as a protection against flying debris, entrance forced by use of a key probably supplied by a watchman — it was a classic Chipper Lee job. Bligh had been so elated that he had nearly telephoned a report right away. Then, caution had stepped in. Supposing there were only similarities, and he was wrong? It would be much wiser to check, so there could be no possibility of mistake.

His eyes had glowed with sudden excitement. Supposing he could pick Chipper Lee up and charge him, before reporting? A quick, slick job on a prestige case was exactly what he needed. But before he could put this in hand, a director of the bank had arrived. Next had come a representative from the Bank of England, since much of the stolen currency was in United States dollars and German and Swiss francs.

He had delayed action until he had the total amount fairly fully assessed; it would be in the region of half a million pounds. Then, just when he was about to put out a call for Lee, he had been asked to go and see the Chairman of Madderton’s at his Hampstead Heath home. That had been too good a chance to miss.

Coming back, he had passed Lords cricket ground and wondered fleetingly whether he would have a chance to see the coming match against the South Africans. Then, as he was about to re-enter the bank’s strong-room, he had been called to the telephone.

“Report to the Deputy Commander at once.”

He could not imagine why, unless he was to be taken off this particular assignment. If that were so, it would be given to one of the Superintendents who specialised in currency thefts and smuggling, so it wouldn’t matter what he put in his reports: the new man would make the arrest. And it was Chipper Lee. What a damned fool he had been, not to go straight ahead!

There had been several newspapermen at the bank when he had left.

“Anything for us, Chief Inspector?” they chorused.

“No-sorry.” No, there would be an official hand-out, soon . . .

At the Yard, he pulled up too sharply and nearly scraped another car, the door of which was opening. A Superintendent, long-legged Gordon, looked at him sourly.

“In a hurry, Bligh?”

“Sorry,” muttered Bligh. And thought, despairingly: “Nothing goes right. Nothing ever goes right, these days!”

He went up in the lift and along to Hobbs’ office, reminding himself that if he showed any resentment at all it would only do harm. Hobbs always put him a little on edge, anyway. He would have to be bright, brisk and formal. He tapped, and went in — to see Hobbs at a telephone. Oh, God. Should he have waited? But Hobbs waved him to a chair. He sat deliberately well back in it, determined not to show the slightest sign of nervousness, a big, ruddy-faced, dark-haired man who, in spite of his inner feelings, had a look of aggressiveness about him — a go-getter of a man.

Hobbs was saying: “Yes, pick him up . . . What’s his name? . . . Corby? . . . Yes, pick him up as soon as you can.” He replaced one receiver, lifted another, said to Bligh: “I won’t be a moment,” then spoke into the telephone: “Fingerprints found at the chemist’s shop are those of a man named Corby, whom we’ve had in twice for drug distribution . . . Yes, I’ve given instructions . . . Yes . . . Yes, in five or ten minutes — will that be all right? Thank you, sir.” He rang off, looked at Bligh blankly for a moment as if wondering why he was there: his mind obviously still on something else.

Bligh was thinking: “He’s just talked to Gideon, and something’s going to blow in five or ten minutes. Not me, I hope.”