DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER BY IAN FLEMING

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 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.

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