by John Creasey
Copyright & Information
Gideon’s Day
First published in 1955
Copyright: John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1955-2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2011 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
EAN ISBN Edition
0755113985 9780755113989 Print
0755126289 9780755126286 Pdf
0755114000 9780755114009 Mobi
0755126319 9780755126316 Epub
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
About the Author
John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.
Creasy wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:
Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.
Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.
He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.
1. Gideon’s Wrath
The wrath of Gideon was remarkable to see and a majestic thing to hear. Among other things, it transformed Gideon himself. From a massive, slow-moving, pale man with a quiet voice and unassuming, almost modest manner, he became as a raging lion, cheeks reddening and voice bellowing. Such times did not come often; but as Gideon was a Superintendent at New Scotland Yard, whenever it did, it made many people uneasy, and set them searching their consciences for evidence of things undone or badly done. All the sins of omission and commission noticed by Gideon but not used in evidence against his subordinates became vivid in the recollection of the offenders; on any one of these, Gideon might descend. The first cause of the storm often suffered lightly compared with others. One consequence was inescapable: a shaking up. The thin, chill, sardonic reproof of the Assistant Commissioner, the curt disapproval of the Secretary, even the cold or hot wind created by the induction of a new Commissioner, were petty trials compared with the wrath of Gideon, for he was the Yard’s senior Superintendent, and regarded by many as its Grand Old Man.
Yet Gideon was not yet fifty.
On the occasion under discussion the first signs of the wrath to come were visible when Gideon drove too fast into the approaches to the Yard, swinging his new-looking black Wolseley off the Embankment at Flying Squad pace. He squeezed between the A.C.’s Daimler and Mr. Millington’s Riley at fully twenty-five miles an hour, and had only a foot to spare on one side and six inches on the other. He brought the car to a standstill with its bumper a bare inch off the wall, more by luck than judgment.
Quite evidently, this was going to be Gideon’s day.
Five officers, all uniformed, read the signs.
By the time Gideon reached the foot of the stone steps leading to the main hall of the C.I.D. building, the news, in the form of a “get everything under control, G.G.’s on the warpath” warning, was on its way through the Yard, via a one-armed lift attendant, two plain-clothes sergeants and a telephone operator named Veronica (who was engaged to one of the sergeants). It quivered along telephone lines, cut into large offices and small, like a draught of cold wind; it reached the canteen, the divers departments from the laboratory to ballistics, and made the men on radio-control duty much brisker in the Information Room. In fact, by the time Gideon reached his own office, it had reached the ears of the Secretary, that almost anonymous personage who knew practically every-thing that went on.
The Secretary grinned.
Few others found it even slightly amusing, for even at the Yard a completely clear conscience is a rarity. Chief Inspector Lemaitre, who shared Gideon’s office, had two minutes’ notice of the storm. That was time in which to straighten his tie, put on his coat, empty the seven cigarette stubs out of his ashtray and then, for appearances’ sake, pick up two and put them back. He also had time to stack the morning’s reports on Gideon’s desk, under three headings: New Inquiries, Inquiries Proceeding, and Investigation Closed. That done, he trundled back to his own desk, lifted the telephone and called IB Division; he considered it wise to be on the telephone, for that would give him time to judge the likely effect of the tempest on him. Lemaitre was just a year younger than Gideon, a thin, lanky and laconic man, showing to all except Gideon a confidence which suggested that he was sure that he could never be wrong. In fact, he was prone to the mistakes which usually follow overconfidence.
He was holding on for the call when the door opened, banged back against the doorstop, and admitted Gideon. It was rather as if an elephant had changed its slow, stately progress for the furious speed of a gazelle; except that Gideon was not even remotely like a gazelle.
He looked round at Lemaitre, who raised a hand and gave a bright smile; and allowed it to freeze on his lantern cheeks, as if he had received no warning.
Gideon pushed the chair behind his own desk into position, so that it banged against the wall. He dropped into it, and stretched out for the telephone.
He looked across at Lemaitre, his big, grey eyebrows thrust forward, his lined forehead narrowed in a scowl, hooked nose quivering slightly at the nostrils, as if under the influence of an unfamiliar smell. In his big way, Gideon was distinguished looking, with his iron-grey hair, that nose, arched lips, a big, square chin. His looks would have been an asset in almost any profession from the law to politics, and especially in the church; as a detective, they occasionally helped to impress a jury, especially when there were several women on it.
“Give me Foster,” he said into the telephone.
Lemaitre thought of a youngish, up-and-coming detective, spruce looking but unpopular. What had Foster done to cause such a storm as this? Lemaitre speculated hopefully; then his call came through but the man he wanted wasn’t in. That was an advantage after all.
“I’ll call him later,” he said, and rang off. He smiled brightly. “Morning, George.”
Gideon nodded and grunted, but obviously was thinking of the telephone. A faint murmur came from it, and Gideon said: “Come and see me, Foster, at once
.”
He put down the receiver, so heavily that the bell sounded. Then he placed both hands on his desk, fingers spread, and kept them very still as he looked at Lemaitre. The Chief Inspector probably had more experience with Gideon’s wrath than anyone else at the Yard, and was quite sure that the cause of this was really serious. Gideon seldom if ever let himself go so utterly unless he had been given grim cause.
“What’s up, George?” Lemaitre asked.
“Blurry fool,” Gideon said. “Blurry crook, if it comes to that. I haven’t felt as vicious as this for years. You get out, Lem, tell you about it afterward. Get out as soon as he comes in.”
“Okay,” promised Lemaitre.
There was room for nothing else in Gideon’s mind, another ominous sign; and when he talked of a C.I.D. man as a crook, it was more than ominous – it was alarming. Lemaitre felt uneasy for a deeper reason now.
The “blurry” instead of “bloody” meant nothing. When these two men had first met, nearly twenty-five years ago, Gideon had commanded the vocabulary of a trooper who had served his apprenticeship in Covent Garden market. He had always known exactly when to use it, and had first started toning it down precisely twenty years ago this spring.
He’d been a detective sergeant then, with the same promise as young Foster. “Blurry” had been his first substitution, uttered to Lemaitre’s open-mouthed astonishment. Lemaitre, then also a detective sergeant, hadn’t been even slightly nervous of Gideon, although he had willingly conceded him best in most aspects of detective work.
“What’s got into you?” he had asked. “Toothache?”
“Toothache be blowed,” Gideon had said, and grinned fiercely. “Sent young Tom to Sunday School yesterday for the first time. When he came back, Kate and I asked him how he liked it. Know what he said? ‘Bloody good,’ he said, so we weighed into him about wicked words, and know what he said then? He said it was what I’d said after seeing a film the night before. I had, too. From now on, I’ve got to mind my language if I don’t want trouble with Kate. The kid’s too young to start, anyway.”
Lemaitre hadn’t heard Gideon swear for many years.
He’d had good enough reason for watching his language, of course; young Tom had been the first of six, and the youngest child was only eight now. Or was it ten? Lemaitre was not quite sure.
There was a tap at the door. “Come in,” Gideon called, and the door opened and Foster came in smartly. He dressed well, was tall, well built, and had quite a name in amateur Rugby and tennis circles. Age about thirty, Lemaitre thought, and if he didn’t think himself so clever and put on airs, he would be rated high.
Lemaitre stood up.
“Just going along to Records,” he said, “won’t be long.”
Gideon grunted.
Foster said “Good morning, sir” in just about the right tone and manner. He did not look puzzled, apprehensive or guilty. Lemaitre even wondered whether the whisper of the wrath had reached him: he looked almost too bland for that. His dark hair was brushed flat down and straight back from his forehead; his rather bold eyes and nose told the discerning that he would be too interested in Number One. Lemaitre went out, reluctantly, and subdued the temptation to stand at the door and listen. He strolled off toward the canteen for a cup of tea, calling on Records en route in case Gideon telephoned him there. They would say that he’d been and gone. The fact that Lemaitre thought that a necessary precaution was an indication of the awe he felt at times for Gideon.
In the office, the detective sergeant looked down at the Superintendent.
Gideon’s hands were still on the desk, palms downward, skin a leathery-looking brown, fingers and nails big and strong but not at all ugly. The cuffs of a clean white shirt showed. He wore a suit of navy blue and a blue-and-red spotted tie, all of good quality.
His eyes were slaty blue, big, with heavy, sleepy-looking lids – but there was nothing sleepy about them now. He was a man burning with anger. Foster, at first completely at ease, began to look less self-confident. That became worse because he had to stand in front of the desk like a schoolboy before an unpredictable master; after a few seconds he actually moistened his lips and broke the harsh silence.
“You—you sent for me, sir?”
“Yes,” Gideon said very heavily. “I sent for you, Foster. I sent for you to tell you a thing or two.” His voice was deep and rather husky; just now he gave the impression that he was trying not to raise it. “I sent for you to tell you that you’re a living disgrace to the C.I.D. and the Metropolitan Police Force generally. In all my years on the Force I’ve met some fools and a few knaves, and here and there a rat, and you’re one of the big rats. I ought to put you on a charge right away and make sure it sticks, and I’m not sure that I won’t. We make mistakes here at the Yard, and occasionally let a rogue in, but you’re the first of your kind I’ve come across, and I’d like to break your neck.”
All Foster’s blandness had vanished. His thick, full lips were red and wet, where he kept licking them His cheeks had no colour left, and his almost black eyes couldn’t keep steady. When Gideon stopped talking, Foster gulped, tried to find words, but couldn’t. Gideon sat there, motionless, damning, as if challenging him to say a word in his defence.
Foster gulped again and eased his collar.
“I—I think you ought to be—to be very careful about talking that way,” he said thinly. “You’ve no right to—”
“I’ve sent Chief Inspector Lemaitre out of the office,” Gideon cut across the protest abruptly, “so we can have this interview between ourselves, without witnesses. But I can get all the witnesses I want to prove that you’re a skunk. Only ‘skunk’ isn’t the best word. You’re a renegade and you’re a traitor, and if you were in the army you’d be shot and I’d be glad to pull the trigger.”
Now Foster went red.
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
“At the moment, to Detective Sergeant Eric Foster, of the Criminal Investigation Department,” Gideon growled, “but you won’t be able to call yourself that for long.”
Foster still tried bluster.
“What’s this all about? What are you accusing me of doing?”
“If you want it in simple words, I’m accusing you, as an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, of accepting bribes and so deliberately failing to carry out your duty. I know who’s been paying you and I know why, and I’ve a pretty good idea how much money you’ve had over the past three months. Like to know how I know?” The big hands didn’t move, the gaze of the slaty blue eyes didn’t falter. “Because an honest crook told me. He said that he didn’t mind cracking a crib or doing a smash-and-grab job, but when it came to feeding dope to kids in their teens, he drew a line – and he thought I ought to, too.”
Foster exclaimed: “He’s lying! There was no dope-”
He broke off, and all his colour died away, leaving only his shiny dark eyes.
Gideon said heavily: “That’s right, say that you didn’t know that they were selling reefers, or that one of them had a hypo and was selling shots of the muck for a guinea a time. Say you thought it was just a question of selling intoxicating liquor after hours – how much better policeman are you for that? You’ve got a job to do, and if you’d kept your eyes open you would have known what was going on. Even I can’t believe that you knew about the dope. You—”
“Of course I didn’t,” Foster put in quickly. “I—I didn’t know about selling drink after hours, either.”
Gideon shook his head, slowly, deliberately, massively.
“Foster,” he said, “you haven’t even the sense not to lie about it. I suppose you’ve got to lie. It’s the only way you might be able to save your skin. So you’ll try.” Much of the power had gone from Gideon’s voice, as if what had happened had exhausted him. “And Chang will lie, too, because if he admitted it, he knows his club would be closed up and he wouldn’t be allowed to open up again in London. I don’t doubt that you’re p
aid off in a dark corner, that no one sees you meet and no one else knows anything about it – or so you think. Or you thought.” The sneer was devastating, “Well, now you know better. Now you know you can’t get away with accepting bribes. From this day on, you’ll know what it’s like to realize that thanks to you, some kids have become cocaine addicts, and that it’s ruined their whole lives.”
Foster said between clenched teeth: “If kids want dope they’ll find a way of getting it. And whoever told you that I’ve been taking bribes is a liar. You say you got a squeak – I want to know who from.” He paused. “I know the kind who squeal about things like that. I know the kind who squeal to you, too.” Foster’s sneer rivalled Gideon’s; in fact, it was uglier. “Old lags, blackguards who ought to be inside and would be if you did your job properly, but you let them keep out, so that you can get them to squeal on others. Think I don’t know? Think I don’t know that the name of Gideon stinks in the West End?”
When he stopped, it was almost fearfully, as if suddenly afraid that he had gone too far. But Gideon did not move; just looked at him as he might at something unclean. Foster ran his tongue along his lips.
“I—I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean that. It’s been a bit of a shock. I withdraw that remark, sir. But I assure you, you’ve been misinformed. I give you my word, Chang hasn’t bribed me. I—er—I’ve been a bit too friendly with him, perhaps, but I think he’s a decent chap at heart, and—”
“You’d better go, before I break your neck,” Gideon said. “I don’t think you’re worth hanging for. As from this moment, you’re relieved of all duties. You can protest to the Secretary or the Assistant Commissioner, but it won’t make any difference. Stay in London, because we might want to see you at short notice.”
