Pattern of Murder

by John Russell Fearn

  “Supposing I did think that?” Sid asked. “What do you think I could do about it? The police are handling the business, aren’t they? How much more could I do?”

  “You might have an angle.”

  “If you didn’t commit the burglary why are you worrying?” Sid gave one of his direct looks. Then he added, “Look here, if you’ve done nothing wrong at any time what makes you jump to the conclusion that I’m spying on you, and trying to find things out, as you call it. You wouldn’t give a hoot if your conscience were clear.”

  “Are you insinuating that it isn’t?” Terry snapped.

  “I’m no psychoanalyst,” Sid shrugged. “Think it out far yourself.”

  Terry breathed hard, then he made a tremendous effort. “I—I suppose I’m acting like an idiot,” he muttered. “Can’t entirely help it, though.”

  There were sounds of clumsy feet on the iron fire escape outside to the accompaniment of the latest rock ’n’ roll tune, atrociously rendered. In a moment or two Billy came blundering into the winding room by the emergency doorway, a broad grin on his hastily washed face.

  “Hiya, killers,” he greeted. “Smashing day to take a girl out to the swimming pool. Maybe I will tomorrow.”

  Terry and Sid both stood gazing at him, trying to reconcile the utter inconsequence of his thoughts. When neither of them spoke Billy drew his head into his jacket collar. As there was still no comment he looked at himself curiously.

  “Smatter?” he asked. “My slip showing?”

  Terry roused himself. “Go and get laced up,” he ordered. “In case you don’t know it you’re five minutes late.”

  “Couldn’t help it. Irish stew weighs heavy in this weather. Took me all my time to paddle my bike—I’ll catch up.”

  Whistling shrilly, Billy pulled two reels out of the bin, shouldered them, and then went clattering up the steps to the projection room. Without a word to Terry, Sid followed suit. Billy turned a puzzled face as Sid came in.

  “Say, apeman, what’s the matter with Terry?”

  “No idea,” Sid answered, and set about the task of threading his own machine.

  “If you ask me, he’s had the brush off,” Billy decided. “Some girl—perhaps Helen Prescott—doesn’t think much of his sunburned dial when she gets close to it. I know I don’t.”

  “Will you stop nattering?” Sid pleaded wearily.

  “Okay,” Billy agreed, beaming. “I was only trying to make the joint a little less like the morgue.... Oh, you tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road, and I’ll be in the Cosy before you—”

  “For heavens’ sake stop that unholy row!”

  Billy did not. He went on singing lustily in a curious vascillating tenor-baritone.

  “For trouble it is there, and there’ll be many films on fire, in the bonny, bonny box of Terry Lomond....”

  Sid pressed finger and thumb to his eyes and sighed. He quelled a desire to throw Billy out neck and crop. After all, that would hardly be fair. He knew nothing of what was going on—or of what had been going on. He was simply a happy teenager and therefore a natural-born nuisance. He went on singing lustily until Terry arrived and gave him a sour look.

  Instant silence.

  Sid did not speak for the rest of the afternoon—unless it was to make some reference to the running of the show. Most of the time he was making up his mind what he was going to do. Tomorrow, Friday, would be Billy’s day off. That would mean, for Sid, that there would be ample opportunity to explore the winding room whilst there on the pretext of rewinding film as it came from the machines. Terry, forced to remain in the projection room, would run the show and would be unable to interfere.

  * * * * * * *

  After the matinee, Helen Prescott purposely delayed herself in the staff room. Stealthy trips to the half-way on the Circle staircase, a few yards from the staff room door; assured her that Terry was hanging about in the foyer, no doubt waiting for her— Until at last he grew tired of his vigil and departed, presumably to the café across the road. Helen went swiftly down the stairs and was heading towards the stalls entrance doors—intent on escaping by an emergency exit—when Turner came out of his office. His soft hat was tilted at an angle and he was in the act of drawing on washleather gloves.

  “Why, Helen! Are you only just going?”

  Helen stopped, hesitated, and than turned. Her pretty face had a rather uneasy smile.

  “Yes, Mr. Turner. I—er—I was delayed. A little trouble with my uniform.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mean Terry Lomond?”

  Turner came towards the girl, smiling. Helen found herself thinking what a placid face he had, how tastefully he dressed without overdoing it. No sudden flarings in his manner, either—no sharp glances of suspicion. He, for his part, was merely observing details that he had seen many times already—the dark blue eyes, delicately pink cheeks, and wealth of glossy black hair. Out of uniform and in her fancy summer frock, Helen cut a highly delectable figure.

  “Terry?” Helen repeated, and then dropped her eyes before Turner’s steady gaze.

  “Yes—Terry. You’ve been out with him quite a lot recently, haven’t you? I’ve been noticing, and I’m wondering what happened to stop you going out with him today.”

  “Oh, we...just disagreed about something.”

  “And now what? Are you escaping to a café for tea?”

  “No; I’m going home this time. Mother’s expecting me.”

  “Mmm, I see.” Turner reflected. “Well, I’m sure there’s no need for you to leave the building like a fugitive—and that is obviously what you intend to do. I’ll walk with you as far as the corner of the road—unless you’ll change your mind and have tea with me? I’m going to the Silver Grill.... I’ve asked you lots of times, Helen; you know that.”

  “I know, Mr. Turner, but—”

  “I’ve taken the liberty of calling you Helen outside business hours,” Turner said. “I think we’d escape a lot of formality if you called me Mark. In fact I’d really appreciate it if you would.”

  Helen laughed slightly. “It sounds dreadfully out of place, somehow.”

  “Not really. Suppose I explain it to you? Shall we go? We may be late back otherwise.”

  Turner switched off the lights, took Helen’s arm, and they went out together through the main front doors. Helen glanced across the road and wondered if, from the rear of the café, Terry were watching the proceedings.

  “You see, Helen,” Turner explained, in his unhurried voice, “the cinema imposes certain restrictions upon me. I have to assume an air of authority, otherwise there would be chaos. I even have to be terribly formal towards you, so the others won’t think there is any favouritism, which would automatically make your life unbearable.... But none of that stops me falling in love with you.”

  “Falling—in love with me?” Helen repeated.

  “Certainly! I fell in love with you the day you came to ask for the job of usherette. Why shouldn’t I? I’m still quite a young man, and even cinema managers are capable of human emotions. As to the rest of the details—I’m just over thirty, and you’re twenty-six. I know you are,” Turner added, “because your union card says so!”

  Helen half laughed, then she gave a rather bewildered glance.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” Turner went on. “I am the owner, manager, and employer—and you’re the employee. Well, what of it? I could cite many instances where the manager married his secretary, so the cinema owner marrying the usherette mightn’t be unique. I’m in love with you—completely. What more do we want?”

  “Our positions are—different,”’ Helen said, not at all sure if that was the right remark to make.

  “I’m lucky, that’s all—and you’re not quite so lucky,” Turner replied. “My father, a brewer in a big way of business, left me a large sum when he died. I was interested in films, so in spite of television competition I bought the Cosy. Commercially, I have been successful in this little to
wn because I own the only picture house and there’s but little, if any, competition from the big houses a few miles away. In spite of all this I’m not particularly happy, though. I have nobody with whom to share my good fortune. My mother died some years ago, and all I’ve got is a housekeeper. Stated simply, Helen, I’m looking for a wife—and I hope I’ve found her.”

  They walked on for a while in silence.

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t quite know what to say,” Helen confessed. “You’ve always been terribly nice to me, but I never realized— I sort of thought, when you came out of your shell, that you did it to stop me going about with Terry Lomond.”

  “You’re too nice a girl for Terry Lomond,” Turner said.

  They came to a stop. They had reached the end of the road in which Helen’s home stood.

  “’Bye for now, Helen,” Turner said. “I’m only too sorry you can’t come and have tea with me. Whenever you do decide to do so I’m ready.”

  He shook hands, and then went on his way.

  Helen looked after him thoughtfully, and then finished the short journey to her home. That evening, when she returned to the cinema, she found Terry waiting for her in the foyer. He eyed, her as she came towards him from the big front doors.

  “The horse lost,” he said briefly. “Thought you’d like to know—unless you’ve forgotten we ever backed the infernal nag?”

  “As a matter of fact, I had,” Helen confessed. “Well, that’s that, isn’t it?”

  “As far as the horse is concerned, yes—but what I want to know is: what about us?”

  Helen remained silent. Terry’s eyes still fixed her. Then he said deliberately,

  “I saw you leave this teatime with Turner, you know.”

  “No law against it,” Helen replied, colouring a little.

  “True, but at least let’s come to an understanding. I know I behaved pretty unreasonably at dinnertime, and I notice you’ve avoided me since. I can only say that I’m sorry.”

  Helen shook her head slowly. “It’s no use, Terry. I don’t think we fit into each other’s ways, somehow. Let’s leave it at that and try and remain just good friends.”

  “So our over-dressed boss got away with it in the finish, did he?” Terry asked sourly. “And some damned fools say that money isn’t everything!”

  “It isn’t a case of money—”

  “Oh, shut up!” Terry stalked away across the foyer. Helen watched him go, then she turned as the front doors opened to admit the impeccable Mark Turner himself.

  * * * * * * *

  The following day, once the matinee began, Sid put his pre-arranged plan into action. Upon each occasion that he had to come down to the winding room with the film he made a search of the cupboards under the bench wherein were stacked all the spare parts liable to be needed for breakdowns in the projection equipment.

  He took careful note of what there was, wrote down each item in his pocket book, and then returned upstairs to do his turn at a machine. In this manner, throughout the afternoon, he gathered a complete list of everything. In the evening, he went on to the next phase—checking the items besides those listed in the ‘Spare Equipment’ log book, all of which items had been initialled by Turner upon their arrival.

  Time and again Sid came across blanks in his checking. By the time the last reel of the evening was on the machine he knew just how far short the spare equipment list was. Alone at his machine, Terry working down below, he studied the items which were missing and put the approximate price against each one.

  “Three pairs of girder skates,” he muttered. “Six sets of idler bearings, half a dozen amplifier valves, three sets of lenses and condensers....”

  One after another the items followed. Sid’s face was grim by the time he had finished adding up the list and approximate value.

  “Four hundred quid’s worth of stuff at least!” he told himself. “This explains much! No wonder he didn’t want any inquiry into his activities.”

  He put his notebook back in his pocket—and only just in time for Terry came into the box again and, without a word, lounged through it and to the fire escape.

  “I don’t expect to be lucky enough to fit every confounded piece into place,” Sid muttered to himself. “But I am sure that he took care of Vera by bringing a houselight down on her head. Somehow that vibration occurred during Fitzpatrick’s Travelogue. I wonder what there was about that film that could do that?”

  He thought back over it in every particular but could recall no startling reason why it had produced the effect it had.... One thing was clear. There was nothing to be gained by guessing. The only possible way in which he could even hope to get anywhere near the answer was by examining the Fitzpatriok film for himself.

  How? Without letting Terry know? And the film now back with the London renters? By this time it might have been destroyed, considering the atrocious condition it had been in.

  “Only one thing for it,” Sid decided to himself. “It’ll be my day off on Monday. I’m going to pay a flying visit to Wardour Street in London and see what I can do.”

  He straightened up on the final fade out of the feature picture and called to Terry. Terry came in and brought the houselights into being as the National Anthem played. A thud, and the snap of the arc shutter. The show was over for the night and the air of the box was blue with carbon fumes with their curious sickly sweet odour.

  “Another day shot to pieces,” Sid commented, and pulled the lever which dropped the safety shutters over the portholes. “The nights are drawing in, too,” he added, glancing through the still open fire escape doorway to where the darkness had settled thickly.

  “You getting poetic, or what?” Terry asked him cynically, emerging from the non-sync room where the play-out record was transmitting ‘Colonel Bogey.’

  Sid folded his arms and leaned against the switch boxes.

  “I’m trying to make things a bit more amiable around here,” he explained. “You may get some fun out of walking in and out of here like an undertaker, but I don’t.”

  Terry reflected moodily. Sid watched him. He was quite prepared to be pleasant, even though he knew what he did. It would be superficial geniality, though, disguising the quest on which he was engaged.

  “I’m a bit off colour,” Terry lied finally, switching off the amplifiers as the record came to an end. “Not bodily—just mentally. Helen’s given me the air completely. It happened yesterday tea time.”

  “There’s no reason why you should take it out of me, is there?” Sid demanded. “Or have you still got the crazy idea that I’m spying on you, or something?”

  “I was wrong there,” Terry sighed. “Sorry....”

  Sid looked at his watch. “I think we’d both better be getting home. Maybe a night’s sleep will help the pair of us to think a bit differently.”

  “Maybe you’re right at that.”

  As far as Sid was concerned, sleep only deepened his resolve to go the limit in discovering everything he could about Terry’s strange actions prior to the death of Vera—but he took good care, the following day, to behave as though he had not a care in the world.

  Saturday and Sunday would, in fact, have been tedious had not the new houselight fixtures arrived. By working mornings and staying after the night performance, Terry and Sid took down the old, clumsy fixtures and installed the new ones—each with a 300-watt lamp and a big vellum shade. Just after midnight on the Sunday the job was done.

  Sid was up early on the Monday morning and took the 7:52 train to London, arriving in the capital at ten to nine. At ten o’clock he was in the manager’s office at the Zenith Film Distributors.

  The manager, a short, keen-featured man with rimless eyeglasses and a bald head, surveyed the big, quietly dressed young man who was shown into the office. Then he got up with outstretched hand.

  “Good, morning, Mr.—er—I didn’t quite get what name my clerk said.”

  “Elbridge—Sidney Elbridge. I’m the second projection
ist at the Cosy Cinema in Bartonwick”

  “Cosy Cinema? Oh? Well, sit down, won’t you?”

  Sid nodded and accepted the cigarette offered him. The manager sat back in his chair.

  “Cosy Cinema,” he repeated., musing. “I seem to have heard of that somewhere.”

  “Very probably,” Sid agreed. “We ruined a Fitzpatrick film and you, with justification, made a row about it. That’s why I’m here, as a matter of fact.”

  “Of course!” The manager’s eyes lighted. “A ruined sound track, wasn’t it? Yes, I remember.” He turned to the desk-phone and pressed a switch. “Miss Carlton, bring me the file for the Cosy Cinema, Bartonwick, will you please?”

  “Right away, Mr. Bennet.”

  “Why,” Bennet asked, switching off, “have you come here in person about it, Mr. Elbridge?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact—”

  Sid paused, not because he had no answer ready but the secretary had come in with the file. The manager glanced through the correspondence after the girl had gone out again.

  “I really don’t see...,” he said finally, puzzled. “Mr. Turner, your manager, has accepted full liability for the film and has agreed to pay our account of fifty-two pounds, the cost of a new copy. What more is there to say?”

  “I want to borrow the Travelogue film, if I may, and find out why it was ruined,” Sid explained calmly.

  “But you know what the damage was. It was the sound track.”

  “Yes, but I can’t see how it could possibly have happened on the machines we’ve got. Nor has the trouble happened before—or since. Don’t you see that if there is some defect in the machine we’ve got to find it, otherwise—without warning—the fault may come up again and we might really ruin a valuable copy of some kind, not knowing a thing about it until the film has been run. Rewind boys are not over careful in examining the condition of a sound track. In, fact they don’t even look at it unless they’re told to.”