'As a matter of fact,' I said slowly, 'I would much rather have stayed away and not said it. I won't tell you any more, if you don't want to hear it.' I rubbed my fingers over my forehead from sheer lack of inner energy, and Charles half made, and then stopped himself making, a protective gesture of support.
Sir Thomas looked at Charles and then at me, and whatever he saw was enough to calm him from incredulity to puzzlement.
'All right,' he said soberly, 'we'll listen.'
The others all looked as if they didn't want to, but if the Senior Steward was willing, it was enough. I said, with deep weariness and no satisfaction, 'To understand the why part, it's necessary to look at what's been happening during the past months. During the time Chico and I have been doing… what we have. As you yourself said, Sir Thomas, we've been successful. Lucky… tackling pretty easy problems… but mostly sorting them out. To the extent that a few villains have tried to stop us dead as soon as we've appeared on the skyline.'
The disbelief still showed like snow in July, but at least they seemed to understand that too much success invited retaliation. The uncomfortable shiftings in the chairs grew gradually still.
'We've been prepared for it, more or less,' I said. 'In some cases it's even been useful, because it's shown us we're nearing the sensitive spot… But what we usually get is a couple of rent-a-thug bullies in or out of funny masks, giving us a warning bash or two and telling us to lay off. Which advice,' I added wryly, 'we have never taken.'
They had all begun looking at me again, even if sideways.
'So then people begin to stop thinking of me as jockey, and gradually see that what Chico and I are doing isn't really the joke it seemed at first. And we get what you might call the Jockey Club Seal of Approval, and all of a sudden, to the really big crooks, we appear as a continuing, permanent menace.'
'Do you have proof of that, Sid?' Sir Thomas said.
Proof… Short of getting Trevor Deansgate in there to repeat his threat before witnesses, I had no proof, I said, 'I've had threats… only threats, before this.'
A pause. No one said anything, so I went on. 'I understand on good authority,' I said, with faint amusement, 'that there would be some reluctance to solve things by actually killing us, as people who had won money in the past on my winners would rise up in wrath and grass on the murderers.'
Some tentative half-smiles amid general dislike of such melodrama.
'Anyway, such a murder would tend to bring in its trail precisely the investigation it was designed to prevent.'
They were happier with that.
'So the next best thing is an ultimate deterrent. One that would so sicken Chico and me that we'd go and sell brushes instead. Something to stop us investigating anything else, ever again.'
It seemed all of a sudden as if they did understand what I was saying. The earlier, serious attention came right back. I thought it might be safe to mention Lucas again, and when I did there was none of the former vigorous reaction.
'If you could just imagine for a moment that there is someone in the Security Service who can be bribed, and that it is the Director himself, would you, if you were Lucas, be entirely pleased to see an independent investigator making progress in what had been exclusively your territory? Would you, if you were such a man, be pleased to see Sid Halley right here in the Jockey Club being congratulated by the Senior Steward and being given carte blanche to operate wherever he liked throughout racing?'
They stared.
'Would you, perhaps, be afraid that one of these days Sid Halley would stumble across something you couldn't afford for him to find out? And might you not, at that point, decide to remove the danger of it once and for all? Like putting weedkiller on a nettle, before it stings you.'
Charles cleared his throat. 'A pre-emptive strike,' he said smoothly, 'might appeal to a retired Commander.'
They remembered he had been an Admiral, and looked thoughtful. 'Lucas is only a man,' I said. The title of Director of Security sounds pretty grand, but the Security Service isn't that big, is it? I mean, there are only about thirty people in it full time, aren't there, over the whole country?'
They nodded. 'I don't suppose the pay is a fortune. One hears about bent policemen from time to time, who've taken bribes from crooks. Well… Lucas is constantly in contact with people who might say, for instance, how about a quiet thousand in readies, Commander, to smother my little bit of trouble?'
The faces were shocked.
'It does happen, you know,' I said mildly. 'Backhanders are a flourishing industry. I agree that you wouldn't want the head of racing security to be shutting his eyes to skulduggery, but it's more a breach of trust than anything aggressively wicked.' What he'd done to Chico and me was indeed aggressively wicked, but that wasn't the point I wanted to make.
'What I'm saying,' I said, 'is that in the wider context of the everyday immoral world, Lucas's dishonesty is no great shakes.'
They looked doubtful, but that was better than negative shakes of the head. If they could be persuaded to think of Lucas as a smallish scale sinner they would believe more easily that he'd done what he had. 'If you start from the idea of a deterrent,' I said. 'You see everything from the other side.' I stopped. The inner exhaustion didn't. I'd like to sleep for a week, I thought.
'Go on, Sid.'
'Well…" I sighed. 'Lucas had to take the slight risk of pointing me at something he was involved in, because he needed a background he could control. He must have been badly shocked when Lord Friarly said he'd asked me to look into those syndicates, but if he had already toyed with the idea of getting rid of me, I'd guess he saw at that point how to do it.'
One or two of the heads nodded sharply in comprehension.
'Lucas must have been sure that a little surface digging wouldn't get me anywhere near him – which it didn't – but he minimised the risk by specifically directing my attention to Eddy Keith. It was safe to set me investigating Eddy's involvement with the shady side of the syndicates, because of course he wasn't involved. I could look for ever, and find nothing.' I paused. 'I don't think I was supposed to have much time to find out anything at all. I think that catching us took much longer than was intended in the original plan.'
Catching us… catching me. They'd have taken me alone, but both had been better for them… and far worse for me…
'Took much longer? How do you mean?' Sir Thomas said.
Concentrate, I thought. Get on with it.
'From Lucas's point of view, I was very slow,' I said. 'I was working on the Gleaner thing, and I didn't do anything at all about the syndicates for a week after he asked me. Then directly I'd been told about Peter Rammileese and Mason, and could have been expected to go down to Tunbridge Wells, I went away somewhere else entirely, for another week; during which time Lucas rang Chico four times to ask him where I was.'
Silent attention, as before. 'When I came back, I'd lost the notes, so I did them again in Lucas's office, and I told him Chico and I would go down to Peter Rammileese's place the following day, Saturday. I think it's likely that if we had done so the… er… deterring… would have been done then, but in fact we went the same afternoon that I'd been talking to Lucas, on the Friday, and Peter Rammileese wasn't there.'
Weren't they all thirsty, I wondered? Where was the coffee? My mouth was dry, and a good deal of me hurt.
'It was on that Friday morning that I asked Lucas to write to Henry Thrace. I also asked him- entreated him, really- not to mention my name at all in connection with Gleaner, as it might get me killed.'
A lot of frowns awaited an explanation.