“Order it,” Terry answered briefly.
He turned to the staircase. Helen Prescott was coming down it backwards, dusting the gilded balustrade supports as she came.
Terry went slowly down the stairs until he was level with her.
“Hallo, Helen,” he said quietly.
She turned from her job of dusting to look at him. “Oh, hello, Terry. Anything I can do?”
“Do? Not particularly. Why?”
“Well, since you’re the deputy manager you can give orders.”
“Oh, forget that! If there’s anything at all I do want, it is to explain something to you.”
Helen inspected her duster and then raised her eyes. “It wouldn’t be about Vera, would it? You hitting her?”
“You don’t have to put it that way,” Terry protested.
“In that case,” Helen said, “why should you want to explain it all over again? You did that pretty effectively earlier on, didn’t you?”
“That’s just the point; I did not. That wasn’t the whole story by a long shot, Helen. I want you in particular to know that the whole thing was a ghastly mistake. I found that Vera had been leading me up the garden and it made me see red. I’d hit her before I knew it.”
“What about it?” Helen asked coolly. “Why justify yourself to me?”
“Because.... Because I really am concerned as to what you think about me. You’ve known for months that I’m fond of you. I’ve tried in every possible way to show you as much—what bit of time we’ve had to see each other. Why can’t you break down and give me a bit of encouragement?”
“I just don’t know,” Helen admitted frankly. “Can’t be because you’re repulsive. You’re not that.”
“Then why don’t you give me a chance?” Terry insisted.
“Mmm, maybe I will,” Helen reflected. “All right, I’ll wait for you after the show tonight.”
“Do that!” Terry’s face brightened. “I’ll be a bit late because it’s film stripping night and the programme has to be put ready to go back. Always the same on Wednesday night with the half weekly change. Anyway, I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes behind.”
“’Struth, ain’t love grand?” the doorman asked, as he prowled from stalls to foyer. “Nice legs you’ve got, lass,” he added approvingly, peering up the staircase.
“Oh, go and shout your prices!” Helen called after him.
“You’d better take care he doesn’t hit you as hard as be did me, Helen,” added another voice.
Helen and Terry looked across the foyer. Vera Holdsworth had been standing behind a fall-length cutout of Rock Hudson, as he would appear in a forthcoming feature. Presumably Vera had been dusting the cutout. Certainly she must have heard everything.
“Depends if I deserve hitting, doesn’t it?” Helen asked pointedly.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Terry muttered.
He went on his way and then up the second flight of steps, which led to the Circle. He wanted the chance to think by himself, and this seemed as good a place as any. But he was not alone, after all. Against the left hand wall, perched on a ladder, was Sid. He was working on a high wooden structure in-banded as a still picture frame.
Ignoring him, Terry sat down on the second seat of Row A.
“Two hundred pounds,” he muttered to himself. “There’s only one way in which that can vanish without implicating me, and that’s by a faked burglary. We’ve been burgled twice before—the lavatory window each time. Can’t use the office window now those bars are there. I’ve a passkey to the building, which makes the thing dead easy. Mmm...anyway, the boss can afford it and I’ve got to tip up to Naylor or I’ll be in a spot—”
Violent hammering made him jump. Sid was at work. The still frame was one of the manager’s ideas. For two reasons it had to be perched above the head of anybody passing it. Stills had a habit of vanishing if they were within reach, and the law demanded a certain head clearance. Electrical work was not Sid’s only accomplishment. He was a passably good joiner, too....
* * * * * * *
Sid made a point of catching up with Vera Holdsworth when she left the cinema for lunch. She did not reveal any particular surprise as his fast running footsteps caught up with hers.
“Well, did I do it right?” he questioned.
“Oh you mean about Terry?” Vera glanced at his big, eager face. “Yes, I suppose so, but I’d have liked something a bit more—er—persuasive. You know! A fellow who hits a girl across the face wants more than just a ticking off. I’ll bet you’re as thick with him now as you ever were.”
“Well—yes,” Sid admitted uncomfortably. “But look, Vera, it isn’t because I think any the less about you. You don’t know how it is in the projection room. You’re on top of each other and you’ve got to maintain a certain air of peace.”
They both walked on in silence for a while as Vera appeared to be thinking matters over. Then she said slowly,
“You think I’m vindictive, Sid, don’t you?”
“No,” Sid answered simply. “I can quite understand how you feel. If I were a girl and had suffered the same sort of insult I think I’d be every bit as sore. Just the same, I’d be much happier if you didn’t go out with Terry again.”
“You needn’t worry. I won’t—under any circumstances!”
Silence again. They had reached the road where the girl’s home stood before Sid spoke again.
“Listen, Vera, you know how I feel about you,” he said seriously. “Why can’t we take a risk and get tied up? I mean—I’ll try and get another job somewhere with better pay. As a chief. I’m experienced enough.”
Vera reflected. “I don’t like taking a risk of that sort, Sid. Not as far as marriage is concerned. There’s no guarantee that you’d ever get a better job, and if you didn’t what sort of pinching and scraping would we have to endure? Start trying to find something, by all means—then let’s talk again. Safest, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so,” Sid sighed. “I feel now, more than ever, that we ought to get married, if only to protect you. Things would be different with me as your husband.... And it’s me you should have, you know, he added urgently. “I’m about the only one who really understands you.”
* * * * * * *
Terry was fairly cheerful during the matinee, and by the time the night performance began he was apparently his old, carefree self. Neither Sid nor Billy had any more complaints to register against him. They even found they could joke with him without him taking offence. What neither of them knew was that his cheerfulness was occasioned by the fact that his plan was complete. He knew how be was going to get the £200 from the safe. So simple, too....
Terry had just finished lacing up his machine with film. As a matter of habit he gazed through the porthole on to the Circle. It was filling rapidly.
“Pretty as a picture, isn’t she?” Sid asked in admiration.
“Pretty?” Terry repeated, frowning. “Who?”
“Vera, of course. Or shouldn’t I bring up the subject?”
Terry did not answer. He could see Vera clearly enough. The auditorium was brightly lighted now with six three-hundred watt lamps, three on each side of the ceiling. Each lamp was inside a massive heavy opal globe fitting. Terry did not like those globes. They had tremendous weight. More than once he had had the uneasy fear that one of them might come down one day.
Down in the Circle, Vera was in charge of tickets, and she was not exerting herself either. She rarely did. Now she had become the head usherette—mainly because the preceding usherette had departed to get married—she seemed to think she could be as lazy as she wished. She merely indicated the seats to the patrons and left it at that. In the quiet spells she sat on the spring tip-up seat fixed to the panelling at the side of the staircase. From this position she could see people approaching up the second half of the stairs. The tip-up seat was there by law, conforming to the regulation that no usherette must stand above a certain length of time. But for the ha
ndrail, which came just about the middle of her back, Vera would no doubt have lolled comfortably. As it was she had to sit erect, whether she liked it or not.
“You can have her,” Terry said at length, shrugging.
Sid gave him a look and then walked into the tiny adjoining steel-lined room where lay the turntables and slide lantern. In a moment or two a Sousa march was rattling noisily from the monitor-speaker in the projection room ceiling. The reverberation of the bass notes in the cinema itself struck against the glass of the portholes and made it quiver slightly. Sound vibrations were always strongest at this point in the building, coming in a straight line from the huge speakers at the back of the screen.
Terry glanced at the electric clock in the cinema. It was 7:10. He lounged across to the sound equipment and examined it perfunctorily. Everything was in order for the show. The triple button marked ‘Non-sync—Projector—Output’ was in the correct first position. The second position was for film sound, and the third for microphone announcements made from the box over the public address system. It was not often used. The last time had been when Johnny Brown had got lost and Turner had been asked to locate him in the cinema.
“Two hundred pounds....” Terry’s thoughts reverted to it as he mused. He smiled to himself.
For ten minutes longer he waited, then he walked down the projection room to an open doorway and went out on to the exterior grating platform where the fire escape began its final descent. It was a habit of his to check that the escape was always in order.
“Twenty-five past,” Sid sang out, changing a record.
Terry climbed back to the projection room again and concentrated his mind on the job. He pressed the switches that flooded the proscenium curtains with multicolour. The Circle was more or less full now.
As usual Vera Holdsworth was on the tip-up seat, her back against the handrail, her head lolling slightly forward and her face turned towards the curtains. In the lap of her uniform lay the gleaming length of her torch.
The fingers of the electric clock had moved on to 7:30. Terry pressed the button that opened the curtains, turned the dimmer control, which brought the glow of the houselights down to extinction, and then started up his machine. The news began. At this moment he felt, as always, that he had just started a journey. The responsibility for perfection of presentation lay with him.
This evening his interest in his work kept wandering. He wanted the show over and done with, so that he could hurry on with his plan. Mechanically, he ran his machine and, without a hitch, the show finished at its scheduled time of 9:50.
Terry did not waste a moment. He had Helen to meet, and then a job to do. He only stayed in the projection room long enough to make sure the fireproof shutters were down, then he hurried into the winding room. Whistling piercingly, Billy had flung the last film can into its transit case and Sid was scrambling into his dirty old mackintosh.
“Okay?” Terry asked, putting on his suit jacket.
“Except for the apeman,” Billy replied.
Sid glared ferociously and then straddled a heavy transit case. He heaved it up on to his broad shoulder. All three went down the stone stairs one after the other and emerged into the wet, steamy humidity of the cinema proper.
“See you tomorrow, Terry,” Sid called back, from lower down the staircase.
“Fair enough, Sid. Good night.”
Terry deliberately lagged behind. He saw Sid plant the transit case near the front door, take the news-can from Billy, and then check up the transport logbook and put it down on the larger case. This done, Billy departed, just missing a well-aimed kick at his rear. Sid hung about until Vera came hurrying down the staircase from the staff room.
“What about tonight’s cash, Terry?” Madge Tansley called. “Shall I put it in the safe?”
“Er—” Terry demurred, anxious to be on his way. “How much is there?”
“About eighty-two pounds with advance bookings.”
“Lock it in your cash desk for tonight. I’m in a hurry.”
Madge nodded, did as ordered, and then departed.
“So ends our day,” murmured Helen Prescott, coming into view drawing on her gloves. “Ready, Terry?”
“Sure thing. Let’s go.”
They crossed the foyer. Terry switched off the lights and then the main switch. He held the front doors open for the girl to pass. He locked them securely on the outside and he and Helen went down the steps into the cool dark of the summer night. There were still quite a few people strolling about.
“Terry,” Helen said seriously, “I wouldn’t be playing fair if I didn’t warn you that this isn’t going to get us anywhere. You’d rather have me frank about it, wouldn’t you?
Terry glanced at her. “I maintain that you can’t be frank about it when you’ve never even talked to me for above five minutes at a time. We’ve known each other for years, but for some reason you’ve always gone out of your way to turn the power off just when we’re getting warmed up. I don’t see any earthly reason why we can’t make a go of it.”
“That’s one trouble with you, Terry: you see things too much from your own viewpoint. Don’t get sore at me for telling you, will you? I don’t know whether you do it intentionally or whether you’ve never realized it. I don’t think you do it with your own sex: certainly I’ve never heard the boys complain in that respect. But all the girls think you’re too possessive.”
“And Vera Holdsworth in particular thinks so, I suppose?”
“All of them! It never seems to occur to you that us girls might have notions of our own. For instance—you can’t see why you and I shouldn’t make a go of it. Doesn’t it occur to you that I might see why we can’t?”
“Just can’t be a reason,” Terry said calmly. “I know all about you, and there’s no apparently logical reason for you turning me down.”
Helen came a stop as they reached the end of the road in which her home stood. She looked at him seriously in the glow of the street lamp.
“Honestly, Terry, you do take too much for granted. I’m glad to have had this chance to talk to you if only to try and show you that you’re a bighead. I like you, and I think you’re a good chap to work with, but because I believe in being honest about my emotions I’m telling you that we’ll not get anywhere together.”
“I suppose,” Terry said slowly, “that this is a polite way of telling me that there’s another chap somewhere?”
Helen hesitated. “Well, not necessarily.”
“What about the boss? Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you are his favourite usherette.”
Helen laughed shortly. “You don’t ever give a girl a fair chance, do you? Flare up at the slightest provocation! I’m not surprised that Vera got swiped for something you didn’t quite like.... Anyway, thanks for seeing me home. See you tomorrow.”
Terry tightened his lips, swung on his heel, and departed up the street. After a while he stopped under a lamp and checked his watch. He had half an hour to kill before he put his plan into action. By then it would be completely dark. He began walking back down the high street, thinking as he went....
He continued wandering for thirty minutes and by this time had come back to the cinema again. A brief glance up and down the street satisfied him that it was deserted. Quickly he drew out his keys, opened the doors, and glided into the foyer. He locked the doors again behind him.
With complete familiarity he walked swiftly through the dark, warm expanse until he reached the manager’s door. Here he again fumbled with his keys. By touch he selected the one he wanted. Next he tugged a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket—with which he normally did most of his electrical work—and snapped them on his hands.
Opening the door gently he glided into the office and went over to the cupboard where the spare torches were kept. He found one and switched it on. Masking the glow with his hand he left the office and sped swiftly up the Circle staircase to a lavatory. With a strong thrust of his hand he pushed the double-sashe
d window outwards. The single clamp across both frames gave way at the screws, just as he had expected it would. The frame needed new timber, really.
The job done, Terry tugged out his penknife and made scratches on the window frame, such as boots might make; then he returned downstairs again to the manager’s office. Propping up the torch and covering its glow with a sheet of pink blotting paper, he set to work on the oak door, deliberately chipping and scraping at the woodwork round the area of the lock. With his pocket screwdriver he loosened the screws on the lock clamp, closed the door, then hurled himself at it from the outside. The door smashed open, tearing the clamp half off in the process.
“So far, so good,” Terry murmured, glancing at his watch.
It was 11:15. He had to finish off as quickly as possible. Around midnight the transport men would arrive to take away the used films and deliver a new programme. As a rule they never went much beyond the front doors—they had a key to the building and were entirely trustworthy—but Terry did not intend to be anywhere in the building when they came, if he could help it.
He almost closed the door and went over to the safe, pulling out the note he had made of the combination. His rubber-gloved fingers caressed the knob gently. 5-R, 6-L, 2-R, 7-L. And at last a click. He pulled the heavy door open and smiled at the cash box perched on the top shelf where Madge Tansley had placed it. It was locked, of course, but it would not be so for long once Terry got it to his rooms—
A sound!
Terry jerked up his head, his pulses racing. It was a key in the front door lock! The transport men must have come long before time. Well, nothing to worry about. They would never come this far into the building: they had no need to.
Terry snapped out the torch and pushed the cash box into his jacket as best he could, working the lowest button into its hole. He got up, glided to the slightly open door, and listened.... Queer. No sound of transit cases being dumped on the floor. No sounds at all, in fact.
Then he heard footsteps, so faint they were hardly audible on the strip of pile carpet, which ran down the centre of the foyer. A ghostly figure passed the dim crack of the door and went towards the staircase. Terry opened the door further and, in his endeavours to lean out, he forgot the cash box under his jacket. Its weight made it slide down. He made a frantic grab at it in the dark, missed, and it thudded to the rubberoid at his feet.
Pattern of Murder Page 3
