Pattern of Murder

by John Russell Fearn

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

  1,000-Year Voyage: A Science Fiction Novel

  Black Maria, M.A.: A Classic Crime Novel

  The Crimson Rambler: A Crime Novel

  Don’t Touch Me: A Crime Novel

  Dynasty of the Small: Classic Science Fiction Stories

  The Empty Coffins: A Mystery of Horror

  The Fourth Door: A Mystery Novel

  From Afar: A Science Fiction Mystery

  The G-Bomb: A Science Fiction Novel

  Here and Now: A Science Fiction Novel

  Into the Unknown: A Science Fiction Tale

  The Man from Hell: Classic Science Fiction Stories

  The Man Who Was Not: A Crime Novel

  One Way Out: A Crime Novel (with Philip Harbottle)

  Pattern of Murder: A Classic Crime Novel

  Reflected Glory: A Dr. Castle Classic Crime Novel

  Robbery Without Violence: Two Science Fiction Crime Stories

  Shattering Glass: A Crime Novel

  The Silvered Cage: A Scientific Murder Mystery

  Slaves of Ijax: A Science Fiction Novel

  The Space Warp: A Science Fiction Novel

  The Time Trap: A Science Fiction Novel

  Vision Sinister: A Scientific Detective Thriller

  What Happened to Hammond? A Scientific Mystery

  Within That Room!: A Classic Crime Novel

  PATTERN OF MURDER

  JOHN RUSSELL FEARN

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 2006 by Philip Harbottle

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  For Val and Joe Armstrong

  CHAPTER ONE

  BAD DAY AT THE RACES

  IT was Tuesday afternoon at the Bartonwick Racecourse. For a brief time Vera Holdsworth was released from the dark abyss of the Cosy Cinema in the town’s main street, where she worked as a head usherette.

  “I have the feeling,” said the young man accompanying her, “that I’m going to be lucky today. Not beginner’s luck, either! Just to counter any wrong impressions you may have got, I might as well tell you that I’ve other interests besides running those blasted films in the Cosy Cinema.”

  Vera glanced at him quickly. The statement had come as something of a surprise to her. She had always thought of Terry Lomond as a quiet worker with few ambitions outside of his job as chief projectionist.

  “You mean you bet a lot, Terry?” she asked.

  “Of course I do! I’m not the kind of dope who sits around waiting for pennies from heaven. Since, however, I’m nailed down in the projection room most of my life I do my betting over the phone.”

  “So that’s how you make your money! I’ve often noticed that you don’t seem to be very short.”

  Terry Lomond smiled.

  “When do you start betting—or whatever it is?” Vera asked, as with Terry she made her way through the moving crowds and the late August sunshine.

  “Soon. Keep going.”

  “All right. Give me a cig, will you? I’m dying for one.”

  Terry complied and the girl inhaled deeply after he had lighted it for her. Then she went on again. She did not argue about his directions. He had a determined way with him. Though he was invariably genial, it was somehow superficial: it never seemed to truly mirror the man. Certainly, Terry’s face was not that of a genuinely cordial person. It was cast in a strong, cynical mould, with sharply defined mouth and jaw. The long nose and grey-blue eyes lent him qualities that made him quite handsome. The worst feature was his hair—black and unruly, sticking out in bangs and tufts. It was the penalty for working most of his life in the midst of electrical static.

  With Vera Holdsworth, Nature had been even less generous. What attractiveness she possessed lay in the subtle grace of her figure, becomingly revealed in the summer frock she was wearing. Otherwise, she was plain ordinary. Her nose was short, her chin self-indulgent—yet her clear blue eyes and carefully applied makeup did a great deal to balance Nature’s omissions.... Vera was the kind of girl who, given a decent chance, might have amounted to something. As it was, her virtues—which she only used when it suited her—were constantly overshadowed by her background. Her home life had never contributed anything towards developing the better side of her character.

  “Just why haven’t we been here before and had fun?” Vera looked about her interestedly. “That’s what I want to know. You’ve been holding out on me, Terry!”

  He looked at her with cynical amusement. “Do it well, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Do it well? What in the world do you mean?”

  “Why not be yourself?” Terry suggested. “You don’t have to come the nice little girl stuff with me, you know. I’m no angel. If I were I wouldn’t want you for a companion.... And it cuts both ways,” he added. “You wouldn’t have picked me for a boy friend had you thought me a saint.”

  “Well, I....” Vera hesitated and fumbled in her mind. “I’m no prude, if that’s what you mean. Not like Helen Prescott, for instance, with her frightfully honourable ideas.”

  Terry was silent. A grim look had crossed his handsome face for a moment, then it faded just as quickly. He had a profound inner liking for Helen Prescott, another of the Cosy Cinema’s usherettes—but somehow that pretty young lady always seemed to keep him at arm’s length ever since she had started work at the cinema in 1952. Even now, five years later, his charm had still completely failed to impress her. And the cinema staff knew it, even to the extent of making sarcastic comment. Terry knew she had no other knowledge of him except that he was a quiet, steady worker, respectful to his employer and always a gentleman as far as the opposite sex was concerned.

  “We’ll leave Helen out of this,” Terry said presently, thinking.

  Vera plumed smoke through her nostrils. “All right with me, I’m sure. I’ve no time for her anyway, particularly as I seem to understand you a good deal better than she does.”

  “Which is why you fixed your day off to coincide with mine?” Terry questioned dryly.

  “Well—er—” Vera hesitated. “Could be.”

  Again Terry was silent. He was finding it quite agreeable to discover, after all the rebuffs he had received from Helen Prescott, that at least one girl had gone out of her way to seek his company. Not that he had any real regard for Vera Holdsworth, but at least she was attractively female and therefore better than nothing at all. Since he would have the task of settling down one day he might as well get started.

  “I wish I had a fur coat,” Vera said unexpectedly—and Terry gave her a startled glance.

  “What! On a day like this? It must be nearly eighty—”

  “Not for today: I’m thinking about the winter. I get the most frightful colds leaving that hot cinema and charging out into the frost. One day it’ll be pneumonia. Besides,” Vera added wistfully, “I am the head usherette, after all.”

  Terry seemed about to comment, and then he stopped. Vera looked surprised for a moment, than she understood the reason as the voices of two men, walking by, drifted clearly.

  “...not a chance of it losing, Bob. Got it from the owner himself. ‘Pirate’s Cutlass’!”

  “Three-thirty, did you say?”

  “Put your shirt on it. Forty to one, and....”

  Terry looked at the girl. She raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

  “Would that be manna from heaven?” Terry asked finally.

  “I don’t know about heaven: more like the horse’s mouth!”

  “It’s started something, anyway.... Let’s see....” Terry studied his race card and then moved across to the bookies’ stands. He came back presently to where the girl wa
s standing. “Forty to one,” he confirmed. “Rank outsider.”

  He stood biting his lip and considering the dust, trying to make up his mind.

  “I’ve got a quid I might risk,” Vera said, thinking—then she became aware of Terry’s scornful glance.

  “Never mind your quid! I’m going to play this hunch. I often do that and keep my fingers crossed. That chap did say to put your shirt on it. Here—take a look!”

  Terry fumbled inside his hip pocket and brought out his wallet. The girl stared blankly at the bulge inside it. It was stuffed with treasury notes.

  “For the love of Mike, Terry, how much money have you there?”

  “Not so loud!” Terry cautioned, glancing about him. “There are all kinds of wide boys around.... There are two hundred pounds,” he told her. “I’ve made it buying and selling sub-standard movie equipment. It’s quite a racket with some projectionists. You want a fur coat, and there’s a special projector I’m itching to buy. If I put this lot on the nag’s nose and it comes off we’ll both be satisfied—and have a lot to spare.”

  “Yes, but.... It’s an awful lot of money.”

  “I’m going to risk it, anyway. Now, where’s the phone?”

  “Phone?” Vera repeated. “What about these bookies?”

  “Not for me, sweetheart. I’ve got my own bookie, as I told you. I don’t have to pay him on the nail since I run an account. With these blokes I’d have to pay on the spot. As long as I have cover for my bet I’m safe. Right! Two hundred to win on ‘Pirate’s Cutlass’. Come with me.”

  He grabbed Vera’s arm and hurried through the crowd. Within five minutes he had made his phone call to his own bookmaker. He came out of the telephone kiosk with a satisfied grin.

  “Well, it’s all done!” he announced. “Now let’s see what happens. The race is due after the next one.”

  Vera walked beside him slowly, lighting another cigarette as she went.

  “You’ve taken a frightful chance, Terry,” she said. “If it doesn’t come off you’ll—”

  “That’s my worry, isn’t it? Life’s not worth living without taking a risk!”

  The girl looked at him quickly, then away again.

  “In a way,” he said, as they moved through the throngs, “I suppose we sort of became engaged today. Funny, really! I never knew you felt that way about me—and to think I’ve wasted all that time on Helen and never been given any encouragement. You must have some sort of regard for me or you wouldn’t have altered your day off to fit in with mine. If I’ve seemed a bit—well, distant, it was only because I didn’t realize how things stood between us.”

  Vera did not say anything until they reached a position where they could clearly see the course. Then she made a remark in a low voice.

  “Don’t take too much for granted, Terry.”

  “Eh?” Quick surprise was in his eyes. “Oh, you mean about the race? Oh, you don’t have to worry. It’s in the bag.”

  “I’m not talking about the race: I’m talking about us. I don’t really feel that way about you. I just enjoy your company, that’s all. As usual, you’re trying to make the grade single handed without giving anybody else a chance to speak.”

  “You mean....” Terry stopped and gave the girl a hard, searching look—but before he could say anything further the 3:30 had commenced and his attention, along with Vera’s, was centred exclusively on the track.

  In tense silence they watched the race begin: than their excitement got the better of them and they started yelling at the top of their voices and beating the rail in front of them. But gradually the tempo of their eagerness slowed down, and it seemed to Terry that the bottom dropped out of the world when ‘Pirate’s Cutlass’ finished second by a short head.

  “That,” Vera muttered, looking under her eyes, “is that....” She flirted her cigarette end over the rail. “Maybe the nag was half starved, or something. Or the tipster could have been a liar.”

  For several moments Terry did not speak. Ha stood and stared at the track, then as the girl nudged him he came back to awareness.

  “We’d better be moving, hadn’t we?” she asked. “Or are you going to stare at the track all day?”

  Terry still said nothing, but as the girl shrugged and moved on he turned to follow her. In time they came to the grass banks near the gates. Terry sat down and gazed in front of him. Vera coiled up beside him and waited. The silence positively hurt.

  “Was I nuts, or what?” Terry demanded suddenly, thumping his forehead. “Two hundred quid to win—all gone with the wind! Why in hell didn’t I back it for a place as well?”

  “You laid the bet,” Vera sighed. “I didn’t even hear what you said to the bookie. Don’t even know who he is, or anything about him. It’s all your doing.”

  Terry gave her a look of disgust and then lay on his side with his back to her. He chewed a wisp of grass for several minutes. Then he sat up and said loudly,

  “I wouldn’t have bet at all if it hadn’t been for your damned fur coat!”

  Vera opened her mouth in blank amazement. Then her blue eyes slitted.

  “Hey now, just a minute! Don’t start blaming me! What about that substandard projector you’re itching to get? You intended to bet, for coat or otherwise, after you’d had that hot tip!”

  Terry spat the grass out of his mouth and looked at Vera moodily. When he spoke he had changed the subject.

  “Look, Vera, what did you mean about not ‘feeling that way’ about me?”

  Vera took an enamalled case out of her handbag and lighted another cigarette. She lay back on her elbows and surveyed him, the smoke drifting into her eyes.

  “I meant what I said, that’s all. I can’t help it if you jump to conclusions, can I?”

  “I’m not taking that for an answer!” Terry’s blue-grey eyes were bright and accusing. “For the last eight weeks we’ve been out together every Tuesday—and you arranged it. You fixed your day off to coincide with mine. What conclusion am I supposed to draw from that except that you wanted to be with me?”

  “I did want to be with you, but it doesn’t have to go any further than that, does it? You take too much for granted, and always have!” Vera changed suddenly to the defensive. “In our sort of job there isn’t much opportunity to make friends outside the cinema staff. I don’t want to spend my time with one of the girls who might be off on the same day I am. No darned fun in that. I can’t spend the time with Sid because when you are away he has to be in charge of the box. So what else was there for it but for me to cotton on to you?”

  “Sid?” Terry repeated, wondering. Sidney Elbridge was the second projectionist. “What’s he got to do with it? You don’t mean that you and Sid are—?”

  “Not exactly. We’re just friendly.”

  “Then why don’t you take Monday off when he does?”

  “I tried to, but the boss wouldn’t hear of it. He said it would leave us short staffed.”

  How much truth there was in this Terry did not know. The loss of two hundred pounds had, for the moment, dulled his power to think straight.

  “What it boils down to,” he said slowly, “is that you’re a cheap little two-timer! First you have me on a string, and then Sid. What are you out for? The best catch?”

  Vera set her mouth and nipped the glowing end from her cigarette.

  “What the hell sort of talk do you call that, Terry? I didn’t make you lose your two hundred pounds, did I?”

  “I think you did! All that talk about a fur coat started it. You tagged on to me because you noticed I don’t seem to be short of money. You even admitted the fact! You’ve been thinking you could do better by hanging on to me instead of Sid, who’s got nothing beyond his wages because he hasn’t the brains to try and make money.”

  Vera flared. “Rot!”

  Terry’s right hand flashed up and struck hard across the girl’s face. He just couldn’t help himself. It made her head jerk. Her fingers quivered up to her cheek. Terry sat looking
at her, feeling as though it had been another person who’d struck the blow.

  “I’m...sorry,” he muttered.

  Vera got to her feet without a word, picking up her handbag. She started walking away. Terry lay where he was, watching her go and thinking what a perfect figure she had. Then she became part of the crowd and was gone.... Terry sighed and reflected. He was wondering now if he regretted the thing he had done. It had been impulse—hot tempered impulse.

  “Sucker,” he muttered finally. “Sucker! That’s what you are! Anyway, Vera’s pretty low class. I wouldn’t have bothered with her at all if Helen hadn’t given me the air. Wonder why Helen doesn’t give me a break? I don’t look so bad, and my intentions are straight....”

  His thoughts clouded. Perhaps—the manager? Mark Turner, the owner-manager of the Cosy Cinema, was only thirty-two years of age, quiet mannered and worth a good deal of money by inheritance. He seemed to have a profound interest in Helen’s welfare.

  “That’s it,” Terry growled. “She’s out for bigger fish. I can’t blame her, I suppose— Anyway, what I’ve got to do is hand over two hundred of the best for this day’s work, and the sooner the better. George Naylor doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Gloomily, he thrust his hand inside his hip pocket. Almost immediately he became rigid and felt his scalp crawling. There was only the flatness of his pocket and no sign of the bulging wallet. He jumped to his feet and began a frantic searching through his suit. The answer remained the same. The wallet had gone.

  In his desperation his thoughts flashed to Vera. Had she taken it? He shook his head stubbornly. No; she might be a two-face, but there was no reason to suppose she was a thief. Still, she had wanted a fur coat— No! Terry set his jaw. There was only one right answer. He must have flashed the notes more ostentatiously than he had intended and some light fingered gentleman had relieved him of the lot, including wallet.... His money, union card, odds and ends of all sorts, had gone.

  Now what? In a little cul-de-sac off the high street George Naylor was expecting £200. When paid on the nail he was genial enough. He even smiled when he paid out. He would not smile when he saw £200 was likely to be owing indefinitely.