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pages carefully. Without looking up, he gave a curt shake of the head when the maitre
d'hotel offered him the menu.
Pissaro picked his teeth until a mound of ice cream arrived, and then he bent his head
again and started spooning the ice cream rapidly up into his small mouth.
Through his glasses, Bond examined the two men and wondered about them. What
did these people amount to? Bond remembered cold, dedicated, chess-playing
Russians; brilliant, neurotic Germans; silent, deadly, anonymous men from Cen tral
Europe; the people in his own Service the double-firsts, the gay soldiers of fortune,
the men who counted life well lost for a thousand a' year. Compared with such men,
Bond decided, these people were just teenage pillow-fantasies.
The results went, up for the third race, and now there was only half an hour to go
before The Perpetuities. Bond put down his glasses and picked up his programme,
waiting for the big board on the other side of the track to start flickering as the money
went on the tote and the odds began to move.
He took a final look at the details. 'Second Day. August 4,' said the programme. 'The
Perpetuities Stakes. $25,000 added. 52nd Running. For Three-Year-Olds. By
subscription of $50 each, to accompany the nomination. Starters to pay $250
additional. With the $25,000 added of which $5000 to second, $2500 to third and $1250
to fourth. A trophy to be presented to the owner of the winner. One Mile and a Quarter.'
And then the list of twelve horses with owners, trainers and jockeys and the Morning
Line forecast of the odds.
The joint favourites, Noi, Mr C. V. Whitney's Come Again, and No3, Mr William
Woodward's Pray Action, were both forecast at six to four on. Mr P. Pissaro's Shy
Smile, trainer R. Budd, jockey T. Bell, was forecast at 15 to i, the bottom horse in the
betting. His number was 10.
Bond turned his glasses on the restaurant enclosure. The two men had gone. Bond's
eyes followed on across the track to where the lights were flashing on the big board.
The favourite was now No3, at 2 to i on. Come Again had gone out to evens. Shy Smile
was quoted at 20 to i, but he went down to :8s as Bond watched the board.
Another quarter of an hour to go. Bond sat back and lit a cigarette, go:ng over again
in his mind what Leiter had told him, wondering if it was going to work.
Leiter had tracked the jockey down to his rooming house and had flashed his private
detective's licence at him. And then he had quite calmly blackmailed him into throwing
the race. If Shy Smile won, Leiter would go to the Stewards, expose the ringer, and
Tingaling Bell would never ride again. But there was one chance for the jockey to save
himself. If he took it,
Leiter promised to say nothing about the ringer. Shy Smile must win the race but be
disqualified. This could be achieved if, in the final sprint, the jockey interfered with the
running of the horse closest to him so that it could be shown that he had prevented this
other horse from being the winner. Then there would be an objection, which had to be
upheld. It would be easy for Bell, at the last corner before the run in, to do this in such a
way that he could argue to his employers that it had just been a bit of over-keen riding,
that another horse had crowded him over to the left, that his horse had stumbled. There
48
was no conceivable reason why he should not wish to win (Pissaro had promised him
an extra $1000 if he did) and it was just one of those strokes of bad luck that happen in
racing. And Leiter would now give Tingaling $1000 and there would be another
$200o"for him if he did what he was told.
And Bell had bought it. Without any hesitation. And he had asked for the $2000 to be
passed to him after the day's racing in the Acme Mud and Sulphur Baths where he
went every evening to take a mud bath to keep his weight down. Six o'clock. And Leiter
had promised that this would be done. And Bond now had the $2000 in his pocket and
he had reluctantly agreed to help Leiter out by going to the Acme Baths to make the
pay-off if Shy Smile failed to win the race.
Would it work?
Bond picked up his glasses and swept them round the course. He noted the four thick
posts at the quarter miles that held the automatic cameras that recorded the whole race
and whose film was available to the Stewards within minutes of each finish. It was this
last one near the winning post whose eye would see and record all that happened at
the final bend. Bond felt a tingle of excitement. Five minutes to go and the starting-gate
was being pulled into position a hundred yards up to his left. Once round the course,
plus an extra furlong, and the winning post was just below him. He put his glasses on
the big board. No change in the favourites or in Shy Smile's price. And now here came
the horses, cantering easily down to the start. First came Noi, Come Again, the second
favourite. A big black horse carrying the light blue and brown colours of the Whitney
Stable. And there was a cheer for the favourite, Pray Action, a fast-looking grey
carrying the Woodward white with red spots of the famous Belair Stud, and, at the tail of
the field, there was the big chestnut with the blaze face and four white stockings, and
the pale-faced jockey wearing a jacket of lavender silk with a big black diamond on
chest and back.
The horse moved so well that Bond glanced across at the board and was not
surprised to see his price come quickly back to 173, then i6s. Bond went on watching [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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