1951 - But a Short Time to Live

by James Hadley Chase

  "A hundred pounds? But that's chicken feed, kid. If you want to go big, you've got to think big. Now, come on! Make it two-fifty, and have a splash. Damn it! The camera will cost sixty; even if we're lucky to find one."

  "The camera's not going to cost us a penny," Harry said firmly. "We'll use the Leica we're using now. All we want is a good enlarger for thirty pounds, and the lights won't cost us much more than twenty. We can use this office for the studio. The alterations will cost about another twenty. That'll leave us thirty pounds for art paper, frames, mounts and running expenses."

  Mooney sat down heavily. He had the look of a man who has found a snake in his bed.

  "A pretty narrow margin, kid," he said, pushing his hat to the back of his head and scratching his forehead. "What's that about using my office for the studio?"

  "Where else can it go?" Harry asked, sitting on the edge of the desk. He had spent a sleepless night planning the studio, and had kept Ron awake until the small hours, arguing whether or not to sink his capital in Mooney's business. Ron had been against the idea, but Harry, thinking of Clair, had finally talked him into agreeing. "Doris wants the back room for developing and finishing. I'll have to help her and I'll need a desk in there. We want the outer office as a waiting room and to make appointments. We'll have to put up a partition to make a dressing room. This will have to do for the studio. It's only just right for size as it is."

  "What do I do then? Sit in the street?" Mooney asked, blankly.

  "Well, I thought you'd be in the outer office, making appointments and persuading the customers to have a whole plate instead of a half plate, and getting out the accounts."

  "Why, damn it! That's Doris's job!"

  "Doris is going to be busy. If she isn't, then she'll have to go. We haven't any room for seat warmers, Mr. Mooney."

  "What's that?" Mooney demanded, sitting bolt upright. "Are you calling me a seat warmer?"

  Harry grinned at him.

  "I'm just saying that everyone will have to pull their weight That's all."

  "That's all, eh?" Mooney said bitterly. "Now look here, before you start giving orders let's see the colour of your money. You're not a partner yet, you know."

  "I'm buying the equipment," Harry said quietly. "And I shall pay the bills for the alterations. It's not going to be a question of seeing my money, but seeing the results of my money. Of course, if you don't want to go ahead on those terms, then we won't say anything more about it. I'm still not at all convinced it will work."

  Mooney opened and shut his mouth, then pulled at his long thin nose and scratched his forehead.

  He realised he had caught a Tartar, and there was not much he could do about it "We'll have to have some working capital, Harry," he said, keeping his voice mild with an effort "I haven't enough to pay the wages on Friday."

  "I'll pay them," Harry said. "It's agreed I take fifty per cent of the profit, and you pay me five per cent on my capital?"

  This was too much for Mooney.

  "Hey! Wait a minute!" he exclaimed, starting out of his chair. "Those were my terms if you put up three hundred, hut I'll be damned if you stick me like that if you're only putting up a paltry hundred I'

  "It's not the case of sticking you," Harry said. "It's business. If two partners go into business together, both of them usually put up an equal share of capital. I could ask for seventy-five per cent of the profits as I'm putting in all the new capital."

  Mooney clutched at his hat with both hands and wrenched it off his head.

  "You — you young robber!" he bawled. "What about the goodwill and the lease? What about the blasted furniture and the cameras? They're worth hundreds!"

  "Well, all right, Mr. Mooney, but I thought you said just now you couldn't pay the wages?"

  Mooney flung his hat on the floor and kicked it.

  "It's that girl!" he cried, thumping the desk. "She's put you up to this! I can smell it a mile off. Before you met her you were a nice, decent kid, now you're nothing but a man-eating shark!"

  "She doesn't know anything about it," Harry said, and grinned. "The fact is I'm sick of being short of money. I want to get married."

  Mooney retrieved his hat and began to brush it sadly.

  "I knew it! Getting married, eh? Well, it's your funeral. But it's a nice thing I have to be your pall— bearer. Okay, kid, the floor's all yours. I'll accept your terms and I'll get out of the office. I'm too old and worn out to fight you, Harry. I don't mind telling you I'm hurt. I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd be kicked around by you. Never. You've taken advantage of an old, broken man."

  "Even that little act won't persuade me to change my mind," Harry said quietly. "It's pure corn, and you know it."

  Mooney gaped at him, struggled with his feelings, and then grinned.

  "Well, damn it," he said, "I wouldn't have believed it possible. Say, let's meet this girl of yours. If she can do this to you, maybe she can do something for me."

  "I tell you she doesn't know a thing about it," Harry said, sliding off the desk. "Well, if you agree, I thought we might go along to a solicitor's, and get it fixed up; then I'll get the equipment. If we work fast we might make a start in a couple of days."

  "Solicitors?" Mooney repeated, his eyes growing round. "We don't want to waste money on solicitors' fees, kid. You and me can trust each other, can't we?"

  "If we're going to do this properly, we must have it down in black and white. It's not that I don't trust you, and I hope you trust me, but I want a partnership deed, and I intend to have one."

  Mooney put on his hat and got slowly to his feet.

  "I don't know what's got into you. What have you been doing over the week-end?"

  "Oh, nothing special," Harry said. "Shall we go?"

  Mooney put on his coat.

  "Perhaps I'd better persuade some thug to knock me over the head," he said gloomily. "It might do me a bit of good." He brightened up suddenly. "How about lending me a quid, kid? Now we're partners we ought to help each other. I'm a little short right now."

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Mooney," Harry said, "But I'm short too. I have a lot to do with my money."

  Mooney shook his fist at the ceiling. "Women!" he exploded. "It's always the same! When a mug gets mixed up with a woman, he's ruined, and everyone suffers. Come on then, feed me to your sharks," and he stamped out of the office.

  chapter thirteen

  Tired but satisfied, Harry returned to Lannock Street a few minutes after seven o'clock. He was not so triumphant as he might have been as Clair had told him she was working that evening and couldn't see him. She seemed to be in a hurry to get off, and the telephone conversation which Harry had hoped would be a long one was all too short. But at least she had promised to see him the next day, and had invited him to her flat

  As he groped his way up the dark stairs and through the inevitable smell of boiling cod, he hoped Ron would be in. The new partnership called for a mild celebration.

  Ron was in, but was preparing to go out. He was putting on his trench coat as Harry entered the room.

  "Are you going out?" Harry asked, disappointed.

  “Hallo," Ron said, turning. "Yes, I'm just off. How did you get on?"

  "It's all fixed," Harry said, sitting on the arm of a chair. "Mooney and Ricks: a sign writer's putting the name on the shop front now."

  "Good show," Ron said, smiling. "I bet old Mooney's feeling a bit depressed. Did you make him toe the line?"

  "Had my way in everything. I say, must you go out? I thought we might celebrate."

  "Celebrate with your girlfriend or is she going out too?"

  "She's working."

  "She keeps odd hours. I didn't think models worked as late as this. Well, I'm sorry. I'm meeting a man who I hope will give me some information. But I don't have to meet him until nine. Why not come over to the local and have supper with me?"

  This suited Harry, and together they went down the stairs and into the street. As they walked to the pub at the co
mer, he told Ron how he had negotiated the partnership.

  "I've been rushing about like a lunatic ever since. It's all going fine. I've found a grand enlarger, and I managed to pick up a small fighting unit that'll give me the results I want. Mooney and I have been fixing up the studio. Now he's recovered from the shock, he's almost as keen as I am."

  They pushed into the crowded pub and struggled towards the snack bar. There were fewer people in there, and they managed to find two stools at the far end of the counter.

  "I must say this girl's made you pull up your socks," Ron said as he sat down. "I was getting worried about you, Harry. You seemed to be in a rut."

  "I was. You see, Ron, I hope to marry her. I just had to do something about earning more money. I can't marry her unless I can give her the things she's used to."

  "That's the wrong way to begin a marriage," Ron said, shaking his head. "If two people love each other —"

  "Oh, I know," Harry broke in, frowning. "But that's not the way it's done these days."

  Ron began to argue, then changed his mind.

  "Have it your own way, Harry," he said. "But watch out."

  He rapped on the counter to attract the barman's attention and ordered a plate of corned beef and pickles.

  "What are you having?"

  Harry said he would have the same, and ordered two pints of beer.

  "Well, here's luck," Ron said, when the beer arrived. "Here's to Mooney and Ricks: may they make a fortune!"

  "What are you doing tonight?" Harry asked as they began their meal. "Did you say you were working?"

  "That's right. I think I'm on to something interesting: something that'll make a good article for my series," Ron said with his mouth full. "I don't suppose you know, but there's a gang working the West End, picking pockets. It's been at it now for the past year, and the police haven't been able to catch any of them. Believe it or not, twenty to thirty people lose something of value every night in the West End. No one quite knows how the system works. I was talking to your pal Inspector Parkins about it, and he thinks they work in pairs. His idea is that girls are doing the actual stealing, and pass the stuff to an accomplice. Several girls have been taken to the police station and charged by men who have picked them up, but the missing articles are never found on them, and of course the charge doesn't stick.”

  "I've been nosing around for some time trying to get the inside dope on this gang, and I think I've found a chap who's willing to talk. I'm meeting him tonight at the Red Circle cafe in Athens Street.”

  But Harry was too preoccupied with his partnership plans to be interested in pickpockets, and he didn't pay much attention to what Ron was saying. At the back of his mind he was wondering if he should tell Clair what he had done or whether to wait and see if the partnership proved successful or not He decided to wait

  After they had finished their meal they parted, Ron going off to the West End, and Harry reluctantly returning to Lannock Street.

  He spent an hour or so making rough sketches of the studio, plotting his lights, marking on the sketch plan where he would need new switches and plugs. He would get an electrician to tackle the job first thing in the morning. If only he could persuade some famous actress to sit for him, he thought, as he undressed; someone like Anna Neagle or Gertrude Lawrence. With a photograph like that in the window he was sure business would roll in.

  As he lay in bed, racking his brains how to solve this problem, it suddenly occurred to him that a portrait of Clair might do as well. He knew just how he would fight her, and could see the effect in his mind as clearly as if he had already taken the photograph. He decided he would talk to her about it the next night

  With so much on his mind he didn't get off to sleep until past midnight, and then it seemed to him he had slept only for a few minutes when he woke with a start at the sound of someone knocking at the door.

  Sleepily he groped for the light switch and turned it on. He looked at his watch: it was after half past one. The double knock sounded again, and then the door opened.

  Harry scrambled out of bed and grabbed up his dressing gown as Mrs. Westerham, also in a dressing gown, looking very odd with two plaits hanging over her shoulders, and her eyes big and alarmed, entered the room. Behind her loomed a man in a trench coat and homburg hat.

  "What's up?" Harry asked, startled, then he recognized Inspector Parkins, and his heart gave a lurch of alarm.

  "Right-ho," Parkins said to Mrs. Westerham. "You get back to bed. Sorry to have disturbed you. And sorry to have disturbed you too, Mr. Ricks."

  Harry sat on the edge of his bed, gaping at Parkins as he gently but firmly shepherded Mrs. Westerham from the room.

  "Well, young man," Parkins said, coming over and standing before Harry. "I have a bit of bad news for you. Your friend Ronald Fisher's had an accident."

  "Ron?" Harry exclaimed, starting up. "What's happened?"

  Parkins pulled up a chair and sat down, facing Harry.

  "Same thing that happened to you. We picked him up in Dean Street about an hour ago. He's been bashed across the head with a bicycle chain."

  There was a long silence. Parkins sat still, watching Harry, his big, fleshy face expressionless.

  "Is he badly hurt?" Harry asked at last.

  " 'Fraid he is. You remember I told you one of these days this basher would hit someone with a thin skull — well, he's done it."

  Harry looked at the inspector in horror.

  "He's — he's not dead, is he?"

  "No, he's not dead, but he's in a very bad shape. I've just come from the hospital. He's as bad as he can be."

  "Can I see him?"

  "Oh, no. I don't think anyone will be able to see him for a long time. The end of the chain caught him at the back of his neck. The damage may result in paralysis. It's too early to say yet, but if he lives it looks as if he mightn't be much use for years."

  Harry sat still. He felt sick.

  "I didn't appreciate him," he thought. "He and I have been around together for years. We've had good times together, but we did take each other for granted. And now — well, I shall miss him. It's going to be awfully flat and dull without him. Poor devil! And it might have happened to me! That swine I To have done that to Ron. But, why? Why did he do it?"

  "Has he any relations?" Parkins asked, breaking into Harry's thoughts. "I came here because this address was in his wallet, but if he has a wife or relations I'll have to send someone to break the news."

  "He has a wife," Harry said. "Perhaps I'd better see her."

  "Just as you like. She'll have to be told. I'll send an officer if you'd prefer it."

  Harry shook his head.

  "No, I'd better go. I expect I'll find the address somewhere amongst his papers. Then his editor will have to be told. The paper ought to do something for him."

  "Well, all right, now that's settled, let's have a little talk," Parkins said. "It looks as if the chap who hit you, hit your friend. Any idea why?"

  "No. I was wondering myself."

  "What was Fisher doing in Soho at twelve o'clock at night?"

  "I can tell you that. He was after information. He said he was meeting a man who could tell him something about this pickpocket gang."

  "That's right." Parkins looked interested. "I was talking to him last week about the business. He wanted to do an article about it, and came to me for information but I hadn't much to give him except the bare facts. Who was this fellow he was meeting?"

  "He didn't say."

  "Well, where was he meeting him?"

  "Some cafe in Soho. He did mention the name, but I — I can't remember it. You see, I wasn't really interested, and I didn't listen very attentively. It was a cafe in Athens Street I think he said."

  "You must remember," Parkins said curtly. "Now look here, Rides, you haven't been too helpful about this business nor about your own accident. You haven't told me all you know. Someone did object to being photographed that night, didn't they?"

  "Well, y
es," Harry said, changing colour. "But he had nothing to do with this business."

  "How do you know?"

  "I know who he is. He's an advertising man."

  "What's his name?"

  "Robert Brady," Harry said sullenly, wondering if Clair would be furious with him for giving her boss's name to the police.

  "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  Harry hesitated, then said, "Well, he was with a girl I know. I didn't want her dragged into it.”

  "Who's she?"

  "My fiancée. I'm sorry, but I'm not giving you her name. She has nothing to do with this business; nor has Brady."

  "Your fiancée, eh?" Parkins gave him a long, searching stare. "You know Brady?"

  "I don't exactly know him. He's my fiancée’s agent. He doesn't like his photograph taken."

  To Harry's relief, Parkins seemed to lose interest in Brady.

  "Let's get back to the cafe," he said, resting his big hands on his knees. "I want the name of it. Now come on; think."

  Harry thought, but couldn't remember what Ron had told him.

  "I'm sorry, but it's no use. It's gone out of my mind."

  Parkins looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past two.

  "All right. Suppose you hop into your clothes and come to Athens Street," he said. "We'll walk down both sides of the street and see if you spot the place. I have a car outside. We'll be there in twenty minutes."

  "What, now?"

  "Yes, now," Parkins said curtly.

  "Well, all right," Harry said, and began to dress hurriedly.

  Parkins lit a cigarette and rested back in the chair.

  "Fisher was a good lad. He came to me for help a number of times, and I liked him. I'm willing to bet he found out something about this gang, and they've silenced him. The Doc says he may not recover consciousness for weeks, so it's no use waiting for his statement I'll have to move fast if I'm going to catch this chap."

  "Do you think the fella who hit me has anything to do with the gang?" Harry asked, struggling into his coat.

  "I should say he's one of the ring leaders. That's why I'm anxious to find out why he stole that roll of film off you. I think it's likely you took one of the gang's photographs. Maybe they were working in the background, and you didn't see them. It was something like that. Are you ready?"