He looked about the crowded room at fifty or sixty faces, but could not find the man he had come to see: the ‘accidental’ meeting had been arranged by telephone. He had no doubt that his informant, a man named Charlie Blake, knew what he was talking about. And tonight he was to pass on the names of the people planning the doping of Derby runners.
Charlie wasn’t among the crowd, now clapping and cheering as the pianist took first a bow and then a drink from a pewter tankard on top of the old, burl walnut piano. People were calling out:
“Give us another, Tommy!”
“How about a bit of pop, for a change?”
“Never heard of the Beatles, Tommy?”
“Give us ‘My Old Dutch’,” one old woman called. “Me and me old china’s bin married fifty years.”
“You never got married in your life!” another oldish woman yelled, and the resultant roar of laughter was almost deafening. A man’s voice sounded above the din.
“Her six kids’ve got something to complain about, then!”
There was another eruption of laughter, everyone joining in. The-potmen moved about, carrying trays crammed with glasses and tankards, showing unbelievable balance and dexterity. The bar itself was so crowded that Lemaitre was pressed hard against a corner. He lit cigarette after cigarette from the previous butt and kept glancing at the door, ostensibly on the look-out for his wife. But Charlie Blake did not come.
An hour earlier, Charlie Blake had left his tiny house in Whitechapel and started out for the Old Steps.
He was a man in his middle fifties, not unlike Lemaitre to look at, but smaller and more dapper, with thick hair, dyed jet-black, and slightly fuller in the face. A card-player of remarkable skill, he crossed the Atlantic two or three times each year, playing cards and making nearly enough money to live by. He made still more by picking up racing information and passing it on. He knew better than most people how much loose talk there was in the big smoking-rooms of the transatlantic liners, especially at the end of an evening of heavy drinking, and he made full use of this.
He was in many ways a nice little man. His wife was fond of him, although she entertained lovers quite shamelessly whenever Charlie was away. She kept his small but pleasantly-appointed house in good order, and fed him well. He was generous with the children of his neighbours -he himself was childless — and he greatly enjoyed walking.
On this hot summer night, he was dressed as coolly as anyone in London, wearing a beige-coloured linen jacket and tropical-weight trousers, with openwork brown-and-white shoes. Now and again he eased his collar: the heat always gave him a rash on the neck and he used a special ointment to soothe the irritation; but in such heat as this, the collar seemed to stick to the ointment. He walked quite briskly and it did not enter his mind that he was in any kind of danger.
Still less did the possibility of danger occur to him when he saw a taxi driven by an acquaintance pull up.
“Want a lift, Charlie?”
“I’m okay,” he said cheerfully. “My plates of meat are good for a lot of miles, yet!” He looked down at his<brown-and-white shoes.
“Give yourself a rest,” urged the driver. “Hop in!”
He was at the kerbside, and it was very hot and although he would never have admitted it, Charlie’s feet were not as comfortable as usual. And free rides did not come every day. So he opened the door and got in — and stumbled over the leg of a man sitting tucked away in the corner behind the door.
“What the hell . . . I” he began, but before he could go on the man hit him a vicious blow on the side of the head.
He gasped and flopped down. In a flash, his assailant had his right arm twisted behind him in a hammer-lock, forcing him into a curious, half-kneeling, half-crouching position.
Charlie, sweating freely, tried to turn his head, but he could not see his captor’s face.
“What — what’s going on?” he squeaked.
‘‘Just answer a few questions, Charlie,” the man said.
“Who — who are you?”
“Never mind who I am. What have you been telling the cops?”
“I-I never tell the cops anything, I-God! Don’t!” The man had twisted his arm so hard that it felt as if it would snap.
“You’ve been talking to Lemaitre,” the man stated, flatly.
Charlie was so astonished that he did not even deny it.
“What was it about, Charlie?” The calm voice was very insistent.
“It-it wasn’t anything, I-don’t do that!” he shrieked. “You’ll break my arm!”
“That isn’t all I’ll break if you don’t tell me the truth!” threatened the man in the corner. “What did you tell Lemaitre about?”
“It-it wasn’t—” Charlie gasped again and then almost screamed, the pain was great. “It was only a joke! I told him some Derby horses were going to be fixed-it was only a joke!”
“That’s one of the best jokes you’ve ever told,” the man said, and for the first time he sounded deadly. “What exactly did you tell him?”
“It was a joke! I never told him anything!”
“Who told you about the doping?” The tormentor demanded.
“I — I heard a coupla chaps talking on the QE 2. You know, the new Cunarder. But it was only a joke, I tell you!”
“Charlie,” said the other, “you’ve been nosing around one of Jackie Spratt’s shops for two days, picking up a lot of information about things you shouldn’t know about. Who’s going to dope the horses?”
“I-I don’t know, I tell you! I don’t know!”
“So why are you going to the Old Steps tonight? To see Lemaitre?”
“No! Oh, God, no!”
The taxi was bumping along a cobbled road, which told Charlie that they were among the docks and warehouses, probably near the Old Steps. Now and again another car passed, but there was little sound; few people came along here in the evening. The rumble of the bumping drowned other sounds and in any case Charlie Blake was in such a state of mortal terror that the words he uttered were little more than hoarse whispers. But there was a tiny segment of his mind not frozen by the terror, and all his thoughts passed through this.
Who had told this man? Who was he? Why had they been watching him? How did he know about Lemaitre?
“Come on,” the man snapped. “Let’s have it! Who’s going to dope the horses?”
Charlie was gasping.
Then, with his other hand, the man in the corner gripped his vitals and squeezed, bringing a terrible pain. The sweat on Charlie’s forehead rolled down; into his eyes, his mouth, under his chin, and the pain spread all over his body, making anguish in his thighs, his legs, his stomach, his shoulders.
“Tell me what you know!” the man rasped.
“Let go!” Charlie choked out the words. “Let go! I’ll tell you! It-it’s Jackie Spratt’s, the whole company -they’ve got a fix ready-they can make a million. But I wasn’t going to tell Lemaitre! I was just going to make a packet for myself-Lemaitre’s a joke. Oh, God,” he pleaded. “Let me go!”
The man released him, and he doubled up on the floor.
As he did so, the driver turned in his seat and spoke through the glass partition.
“He’s there.”
‘He’ meant Lemaitre; ‘there’ meant the Old Steps.
“Sure?”
“I saw him go in.”
“Okay,” said the man in the corner. “You know what to do.”
“Sure, I know. Don’t do anything in my cab, though.”
“Nothing that will show,” the other promised.
Charlie was now leaning against the edge of the seat for support. His expression was one of piteous entreaty as for the first time, he saw the face of the man who was tormenting him. It was a hard, handsome face, with deep-set eyes, a deep groove between the heavy black brows and a deep cleft in the chin. In new and abject terror, he realised that it was John Spratt, one of the three brothers who owned the vast betting-shop network that was Jackie Spratt’s Limited.