“Don’t see what else she could have done. If she hadn’t have come home first we’d have been enquiring after her—so she thought up the only excuse she could. She knew we’d stand by her when the police enquired. And we’d never have really known at all except for her getting killed and the business of the fur coat coming to light. You must have guessed the truth, too, otherwise you wouldn’t have come asking if she ever went back to the cinema. It can’t do any good if you spread the news, Sid. And if you’re the sort of chap I think you are, you won’t.”
“No, I won’t,” Sid promised. He rubbed the back of his neck and then made a rueful admission. “This has come as one mighty big shock to me, Mrs. Holdsworth—no doubt about it. Anyway, thanks for telling me.... Now I’ve got to be going. Time’s getting short.”
* * * * * * *
Sid returned half an hour too early for the evening show, a particular purpose in his mind. He went immediately to No. 1 Machine and, squatting down beside the gear chainwheel—rather like the gearwheel of a bicycle—he studied the wheel’s serial number.
“MCD/456982,” he murmured, writing it down. “Now, let’s see what we get.”
He hurried down to the winding room and from a top shelf took the book in which were entered all alterations or new additions to the projection side of the plant. In no other way was it possible to keep a check on equipment, and each entry was counter-signed by Mark Turner.
Sid’s eyes narrowed as he examined the items under Machine No. 1. Not a single addition had been made to the machine for three years, and the take-up chainwheel had been fitted at that time by Clifford Dixon, the service engineer. The wheel’s number was listed as MCD/456982.
“The dirty liar!” Sid slammed the book savagely and threw it back on the shelf—then he got a hold of his temper quickly. He left the cinema again for he had no wish to be caught here ahead of time. Less than ever did he wish to give grounds for appearing suspicious about anything. Without doubt, Terry had taken too much for granted in saying he had fitted a new chainwheel, or else he had for the moment forgotten that all such new fixtures had to be entered up and counter-signed.
For twenty minutes Sid prowled about in the sunlight of the hot August evening; and then he returned to the cinema at the usual time. He found Terry in about the same mood as earlier, neither unpleasant nor cordial. Plainly he was preoccupied with many things.
Sid went on with his job as usual, talking but little, spending most of his time in deep thought. He still had no idea why it should have been necessary to kill Vera if she had taken the £205. Once the astounding thought occurred to him that maybe Terry had committed the murder to save him—Sid—from marrying a thief. As soon as the idea occurred Sid flatly rejected it. There must have been a very real reason for wanting Vera out of the way. What? The only likely one seemed to be that Terry had stolen the money and.... Perhaps Vera had seen him do it, or had known of it.
Sid’s eyes began to brighten a little. Yes, it was possible! Her own £200 might have another explanation, which, now she was dead, would never be explained. That being so, it could be that she had returned to the cinema, just as she had said, to get her cigarette case—and surprised Terry in the midst of his theft. It was, to Sid, still a highly illogical factor that Vera, intending to rob the cinema, would ever have told her parents that she was going there.
Towards the end of the reel on his machine an idea struck Sid. When he had summoned Terry for the changeover to No. 1 machine he took the film out of his own projector and carried it down to the winding room. Billy, it being the mid-week film stripping night, was busy spinning off films into their transit cases.
“I’ll do this one,” Sid said briefly, dumping the reel on the bench. “Give you a change. Go and thread my machine up, will you?”
“Okay, apeman. Thanks for the break.” And Billy scuttled off up the stone steps.
Sid waited until he heard the spring door of the projection room slam, then he glanced towards the three jackets hanging on the wall pegs. His own jacket, Billy’s—and Terry’s. In one stride he reached Terry’s jacket and felt through the pockets. Normally, it was an act that he would have scorned to do—but things were normal no longer. He had got to know, by any means, foul or fair.
The first thing he encountered was Terry’s wallet in the inside pocket. He tugged it out and examined it quickly, still keeping his ear cocked for the return of Billy down the steps.
There was a union card, some silver, receipts for sub-standard movie projectors, a calendar, a race card—Sid read the calendar’s front earnestly. It conveyed the information on which he had hoped he might alight. On the calendar front it said:
This will be a Lucky Year for
You if You Place Your Bets with
George Naylor. Denham Street,
Bartonwick
Tel: 612
“So that’s his bookie,” Sid breathed, putting the calendar back in the wallet, and the wallet in the jacket. “I never knew, and I daren’t ask him. I don’t even know if he ever paid that two hundred he owed. All Vera told me was that he’d phoned to a bookie but she didn’t know the bookie’s name. George Naylor, eh? Just possible, too, that Naylor had outstanding debts against Terry amounting to two hundred, which made theft the only way out....”
Sid clenched his big fist. “I’ve got to find out by some means if Terry really had justification for stealing two hundred—and if he had, it means that Vera could have caught him at it. Then, rather than have her speak he polished her off!”
Sid turned back to the job of stripping off the reel he had brought down. He was resolved that he would see George Naylor at lunchtime next day—and since George Naylor had never seen Sid before he gave him the bland, welcoming smile he usually reserved for potential clients.
Sid eyed him as he stood at the other side of the desk. His sandy hair was on end, as usual, and there was dogged resolution on his face.
“Well, young man?” Naylor sat back in his swivel chair. “Something I can do for you?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. First, get one thing straight: I’m not here to place a bet.”
“Well, that’s too bad. What do you want? I’m a busy man.”
“Do you know a chap named Terry Lomond?” Sid asked.
“Uh-huh.” Naylor lighted a cigarette and waited.
“He owes you two hundred quid, doesn’t he?”
“Not any more he doesn’t. And what the hell’s it got to do with you?”
“I’m a friend of his.”
“A friend, eh? Well, where’s all this leading? I got paid, and I’m satisfied. Anything more to it?”
“Might be.” Sid was not easy to shake from his purpose. “I’m trying to figure out where he got his two hundred from.... I work with him at the Cosy Cinema.”
Naylor drew at his cigarette. “Look here, young man, it isn’t my custom to give away clients’ business to strangers. You sort of surprised me into saying Lomond had paid up all that was owing.”
“All that was owing?”
“That’s what I said. It sounds as though he can’t have told you much even if you are his friend.” Naylor flicked ash on the floor. “He lost his money. Somebody pinched it. Evidently he didn’t tell you that?”
Sid stood thinking. “No.... No, he didn’t.”
“All right then, he must have borrowed it from somebody.”
“Yes, I suppose he must,” Sid agreed. “All right, thanks for the information. And next time you see Terry you don’t have to tell him I’ve been here. We have to work together and he’d probably raise the roof.”
“I shan’t tell him anything,” Naylor said.
Sid went, absorbed by a new line of thought. The suspicion he had formed that Terry had had a reason for needing £200 had been confirmed. Very best reason in the world! To pay off his bookie. And his wallet, in which the money had presumably been, had been stolen. Yet now it was back in his jacket!
Sid stopped at the end of the cul-
de-sac and rubbed his heavy jaw slowly.
“Yes, but even now...,” he mused. “What would have happened if Terry had not paid up? The bookie couldn’t have done very much. Unlikely that Terry would have lost his job— Why such desperation to get it two hundred at any price, I wonder? Why risk burglary and imprisonment for it when, had the worst happened, he could have pleaded the Gaming Act and escaped?”
Sid’s thoughts slowed down and came to a halt. He had just realized that he was looking straight at Terry himself, with Helen Prescott by his side.
CHAPTER NINE
FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS
“Well!” Helen exclaimed in surprise. “Just look who’s here! If it isn’t our tough second projectionist in person!”
Terry said nothing for a moment. He glanced down the cul-de-sac and then back at Sid’s face. Sid could not help his vague look of consternation. He was never very good at controlling his emotions.
“Making a bet?” Terry asked quietly.
“Bet?” Sid lost his vagueness. “No. Why should I?”
“Deduction,” Terry explained dryly. “You’re not interested in antiques or needlework, and the only other person doing business in this street is a bookie—and you’re coming up the street.”
“I never knew you gambled, Sid,” Helen remarked, in mock reproof. “Mr. Turner will burn up if he ever finds out.”
“Look here, what is this?” Sid demanded, seeking his usual juggernaut way out of a tight corner. “If it comes to that I might as well ask you two what you are doing here. It’s a public street—”
“I’m going to make a bet.” Terry’s voice was cold and level. “I’ve a particular nag I fancy for today’s two-thirty. My bookie is down the street here—or do you know that already?”
“Why should I?” Sid snapped. Then his gaze switched to Helen as she was beginning to look bewildered. “You making a bet too, Helen?”
“Well, I’m risking thirty shillings—providing you don’t mind! Or do you think a woman’s place is in the cinema? Terry and I simply made up our minds to have a bet, so we came along to place it before going to lunch.”
“Oh! Sorry, Helen. I didn’t mean to sound brusque.”
“What’s the idea, Sid?” Terry asked, his voice edged with steel.
“Idea? I don’t—”
“Oh, yes you do! You don’t bet; you’re not the type. You’re spying on me and my affairs, that’s what! Do you take me for a damned fool? You’re not in this street by accident. Ten to one you’ve been to see George Naylor, and I demand to know why!”
“Terry!” Helen gripped his arm. “Hold on a bit!”
“I’ve no reason for pulling my punches!” Terry retorted. “I’ve been suspicious of you for some time, Sid. The things you have been saying; the way you have been acting, the looking at me. What’s it all about? What am I supposed to have done? Now’s as good a time as any to have it out!”
“If you don’t mind I prefer my lunch,” Sid answered, then with a nod to Helen he strode on his way.
Terry wheeled and watched him go, his lips a tight line.
“Terry, for heavens’ sake!” Helen pulled at him urgently. “What on earth did you have to blow up like that for? Why should Sid want to spy on you?”
Terry was silent for a while, inwardly regretting many of the things he had said.
“He just gets me down,” he muttered. “Big, beefy dimwit! He’s had it in for me ever since Vera was killed. Lord knows why! I even think he’s got it in the back of his mind that I was responsible for it somehow.”
“But that’s absurd! And certainly it isn’t anything to get hot and bothered about. If he wants to think such horrible things— Well, let him!”
“Yes....” Terry grinned slowly. “Yes—let him! But I’ll bet anything in the world that he’s been finding things out about me from George Naylor—about me betting, I mean. What puzzles me is how Sid knew Naylor is my bookie. I’ve never mentioned it.”
Since Helen had run out of comments she contented herself with a jerk of her shoulder. Terry took hold of her arm and they began walking down the cul-de-sac in the direction of George Naylor’s office. The look of puzzlement deepened on Helen’s features.
“Terry, why should Sid want to find out about your betting? Especially when he doesn’t have a flutter himself. Anyway, your bookie wouldn’t give anything away, would he?”
“He might. I wouldn’t trust Naylor across the street. I only deal with him at all because he’s handy.”
Helen sighed and shook her head. “It’s all so confusing. None of it seems to make sense.”
Together, she and Terry entered Naylor’s office. He glanced up at them from behind his desk and then gave a nod.
“’Morning, Terry—Miss,” he added, looking at Helen.
“Here’s seven pounds ten shillings,” Terry said, putting the money on the desk. “To win on ‘Echo’ in the two-thirty.”
Naylor took the money and made out a receipt. He was looking puzzled.
“What’s the idea? You usually phone in your bets. Your credit’s okay with me, you know—up to a reasonable point, that is.”
“After the last mess I got into I prefer paying cash on the nail.”
Naylor shrugged. “All right with me. Maybe it is safer than having it pinched—though who’d want to pinch seven pounds only I can’t imagine.”
Helen frowned and Terry gave Naylor a grim look of warning.
The bookmaker remained complacent and perspiring.
“I just passed a pal of mine on the street,” Terry went on. “Sid Elbridge. I have the idea he’s been here. Am I right?”
“Big, hefty chap with sandy hair?”
“‘That’s the man.”
“Yes—he came here.”
“Why?” Terry snapped. “That’s what I want to know. Did he try and find out things about me?”
Naylor smiled amiably. “About you? Of course not! He came to putt ten bob on the three o’clock—and I wouldn’t even tell you that much, only you seem to be a friend of his.”
Terry hovered on a remark, but didn’t say it. Instead he took Helen’s arm.
“Right,” he said, looking at Naylor. “See you later—to collect.”
Out in the street Helen darted a quick glance at Terry’s grim face.
“Terry, it’s no use you looking so savage! You know the truth now. You simply got all steamed up over nothing—and I still can’t see why you had to get so excited anyway.”
“You can’t eh?” Terry’s voice was edgy. “I’ll stake everything I’ve got that that fat old swine was lying. He knows I’d never deal with him again if I thought he’d been talking behind my back.”
Helen laughed shortly. “If you only put six pounds of your money and one pound ten of mine down every time, I shouldn’t think he’d notice your departure.”
“Last time I bet it was two hundred pounds! Don’t start making me out to be a miser. I bet big—when I can, that is.”
Helen said quietly: “You’ve got quite a temper all your own, haven’t you? And not the slightest reason for it, either. Sid places a bet, you jump to conclusions—though I don’t see why—and now there’s no bearing you!”
Terry did not answer. Walking slowly, they presently reached the end of the cul-de-sac.
“Tell me something, Terry— What did Naylor mean by saying it was better to pay up than have your money pinched?” Helen’s face was thoughtfully serious. “Why should it be pinched?”
“For heavens’ sake, Helen, don’t you ever stop asking questions?”
“Not as long as I’m puzzled.”
“There’s nothing to be puzzled about!” Terry spoke deliberately, as though to a none-too-bright child. “Please realize that! If you’re going to make mountains out of molehills I’m sorry I ever took you to that confounded office. I merely thought you might like to see a bookie in his native habitat.”
“It wasn’t very edifying, was it?” Helen smiled rather cynically. “
I’ve got to cut down the street opposite,” she added, “otherwise I’m going to be late for lunch. See you later.”
She was gone before Terry had the chance to speak again. He watched her slender figure darting across the road amidst the traffic. There was no short cut to her home just here, as far as could remember. It began to look as though she had walked out on him.
* * * * * * *
Sid was thoughtful as he ate his lunch. He had the fixed, concentrated look of a man trying to puzzle out a profound riddle.
His mother, who knew his every mood, did not disturb him by asking questions. She assumed it was some technical problem and therefore no concern of hers.
Sid left ten minutes earlier than usual far the cinema, chiefly because he liked to do his thinking in the open air as he walked about. The major point still absorbing him was why Terry had committed burglary when at the worst he could have found a way to wriggle out of the difficulty. There also was the lesser, but still important point of the wallet. If it had been stolen, with money in it, how on earth had Terry ever got it back? And it was Terry’s wallet. Sid knew it well.
When Sid reached the cinema that afternoon he found Terry already there, and in a grim mood. Sid met the cold stare of his eyes as he came into the winding room.
“Cheerful, aren’t you?” Sid remarked shortly, hanging up his jacket.
“I came back early for one reason,” Terry retorted. “So we can have things out before Billy gets here. It’s no business of his.”
Sid thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and lounged across to where Terry was standing with his back to the winding bench.
“All right,” Sid gave a critical look. “So you want to have things out. Where do you start?”
“Did you make a bet with George Naylor today, or didn’t you?”
“What’s it got to do with you?”
“Answer the question, can’t you?”
Sid’s expression changed. Dark anger came into his craggy face. “Am I supposed to be on trial or something? Mind your own damned business!”
“I wish you’d do the same!” Terry blazed. “I believe you went to see Naylor for only one reason—to try and get information from him about me! You think—and always have thought—that I pinched that two hundred and five quid from the boss’s office. You’ve thought so ever since I kept quiet about that Turkish cigarette of yours, just because at that time I hardly knew what to say.”
Pattern of Murder Page 13