“Say,” Terry said, glancing, “Billy tells me that you spent all day yesterday remembering about Disney’s ‘Fantasia’. Is he crazy, or are you?”
Sid grinned. “Maybe both of us are. I mentioned it, but I certainly didn’t talk about it all day. Billy’s simply trying to sound impressive. He remembered about ‘Fantasia’, whereas I couldn’t.”
“Remembered about it?” Terry frowned. “Why the hell should he want to do that? Anyway, he wasn’t with us when we ran that film.”
Sid reflected. There was the tendency for the situation to get out of hand if he was not careful. What he did not tell, Billy certainly would. Have to forestall him—
“The whole thing came up,” Sid said, because I happened to remember a film which had a lot of designs in it.” He knew it was most unlikely that Terry had the slightest idea that there were designs in the dust on top of the Circle still-case. “So I asked Billy if he could remember what film it might have been. Hence—Fantasia.”
They had reached the stalls doorway before Terry asked another question.
“What should you want to remember about designs for?”
“Oh, just an idea.” Sid gave a shrug. “I’ve a private ambition to become a cartoonist.”
Terry had not the chance to comment on this for at that moment Turner appeared in his office doorway. He signalled briefly.
“Sid—just a moment.”
“Coming, sir.” Sid went across the intervening space with his clumsy, loping walk. Terry stopped at the foot of the stairs and waited.
A thought clouded his mind. Surely Turner was not going to tackle Sid about the damaged film? Sid, a technician, would start to think things. Terry had gambled on the quite logical possibility that, as chief, only he would be the one to be told that the film had been damaged. It was his responsibility entirely; nothing to do with the second projectionist—even less so since he had not run that particular machine.
Terry felt his brow becoming moist. He lighted a cigarette to steady his nerves.
Yet, in truth, nothing very startling was transpiring inside the manager’s office. Turner turned to his desk as Sid followed him in. He picked up a slide in a cardboard carton.
“Take this toothpaste advert, Sid, and—Excuse me.”
Turner picked up the telephone as it rang noisily. Sid waited idly, not particularly interested in the conversation the manager was having with a local Councillor friend. His eyes travelled absently to the desk, and finally to a letter on the blotter. The letter was face up. Sid was not curious. He read the letter because there wasn’t anything better to do at the moment.
Zenith Film Distributors.
Wardour Street, London.
August 26th 1957
M. Turner Esq.,
Cosy Cinema,
High Street, Bartonwick.
Dear Sir,
We respectfully beg to draw your attention to the fact that the film Fitzpatrick Travelogue, on hire to you for the latter half of last week, is badly damaged. The sound track is so scratched from beginning to end of the film that it will be impossible for us to offer it on hire elsewhere. Since your logbook, signed by the chief projectionist, declares that the film was in perfect order when received, we must ask you to accept liability.
Trusting to hear from you at your early convenience, and with regrets,
Yours faithfully,
Per Pro Z.P.D./JK
Sid read the letter through again with growing incredulity—then he switched his attention back to Turner as he put the phone down, on its cradle.
“Now, where was I?” Turner asked. “Oh, yes—about this slide. It’s for toothpaste, and will replace the one you have now. Run this until the last day of December. No longer. You’re in charge of the slides so it’s your responsibility.”
“Right, sir,” Sid promised, and picking up the slide he left the office. The contents of that letter on the desk were still vivid in his mind. The sound track of the Fitzpatrick Travelogue scratched from end to end—
“What did he want?” Terry asked, at the foot of the stairs. “He kept you long enough, didn’t he?”
“Only this slide.” Sid held it up in the carton. “He had to answer the phone to Johnson—that pot-bellied Councillor who always gets in without paying.”
“Oh!” Terry stubbed out his cigarette and put the remaining stub in his cigarette case. “That all?”
“Sure. What else did you expect?”
Terry did not answer and Sid waited to see if Terry said anything about the Travelogue film. Or had he even been told yet? Sid had no idea. Certainly Terry did not make any remark about it—and yet, since Turner did not call him at all, it seemed that he had been told. Why should he want to keep the news of a damaged film all to himself? Usually he broadcast all complaints about films, if only to lessen the blow for himself.
“We’d better get upstairs,” Terry said, and Sid gave a nod.
So things went on until at last Sid could stand the suspense no longer. He asked a direct question whilst he and Terry were lounging on the ‘bridge’ enjoying a mid-morning cigarette.
“Seen the boss today, Terry?”
Terry knew he had to answer the question truthfully. Helen Prescott had seen him leaving the manager’s office, so no evasion was possible.
“Sure I’ve seen him, to fix up next week’s programme. Just after you’d gone backstage. Why?”
“I just wondered if you thought he looked worried.”
“Not more so than usual. Why?”
“Oh—nothing.”
The subject dropped. Sid was satisfied, but Terry was not.
He failed to see the reason for the question anyway. Sid, for his part, was quite sure that Terry could never have seen Turner and not have been told about the ruined film. So Terry was keeping the news to himself...but for why? As he stood and mused Sid felt passingly grateful for the fact that thoughts cannot be read. Then at length he looked at his watch.
“Hour to go,” he announced. “I think I’ll get some more work done on that still-frame. Unless you need me?”
“No, I don’t need you. Go ahead.”
With a nod Sid want up the four iron steps and vanished in the projection room. There was the thud of the spring door as he departed. Terry remained where he was, disturbing thoughts drifting across his mind.
In the meantime, Sid got the ladder from the orchestra pit and carried it up to the Circle. When he reached the top of the still-frame he considered the pattern in the dust.... It was there unchanged, just as it had been the day before. And since then there had been two performances, so certainly nothing contained in their sound had been strong enough to produce vibration.
For a while Sid stood and looked at the designing, then with his hand he obliterated it and smeared the dust in all directions. If Terry ever came to look up here he would never know whence had come the urge to learn more about Walt Disney’s Fantasia.
Slowly, as he worked on the frame, Sid began his mental processes again.... For instance, why had Terry snatched at that film? Why?
Sid stopped screwing and cast his mind tack. His big face took on an expression of wonder, hardening into grim lines. What about Helen Prescott? Now he came to think of it he had remarked that Helen was seated down there, and not Vera. After that Terry had suddenly and mysteriously panicked, even to the extent of lacerating his fingers in the projector. Terry liked Helen a good deal: everybody was aware of it. He had hated Vera Holdsworth. Everybody was aware of that, too.
“No!” Sid whispered, struggling again with the sinister thought at the back of his mind. “No! It’s too fantastic!”
His mind travelled further. For two nights Terry had stayed behind at the cinema, ostensibly to repair his machine. If he had repaired it, why had the film been ruined? And further, if the film had sounded perfect in the hall—as it had, or there would have been complaints from Turner—it could not possibly have been ruined afterwards except by deliberate intent!
Sid
knew perfectly well that once a film gets below the sound gate it has only a pair of twin nylon rollers and a sprocket drum to traverse before winding itself on the take-up spool. No possible mechanical defect could make it run so that its sound track would become badly scratched—and there was even less chance of it with a projectionist who took such a pride in his job as Terry.
Billy had had no accidents when stripping the film off. He was not to blame. The defect had been made. It was deliberate. Why? Sid stood motionless on top of the ladder.
In that moment he was convinced of another fact. Vera had not died because the globe had accidentally dropped. She had died because Terry had arranged it!
Sid got down from the ladder, lighted one of his Turkish cigarettes, and then stood thinking harder than he had ever done in his life before. Though there was no longer any doubt in his mind but what Terry had created the tragedy, the motive for it seemed infinitely remote.
Sid knew Terry intimately. In a projection room, perhaps more than any other business, the closeness of association bares every facet of a man’s character. Terry was a clever electrician, an ingenious thinker, but prone to sudden moments of wildness when his worse side became revealed. He had had a bad time of it with Vera, certainly, but had it been bad enough for him to think of...murder?
“It hardly seems possible,” Sid muttered. He shook his head slowly. “It just doesn’t...unless....”
He became silent, looking at the Turkish cigarette smouldering between his fingers. It brought back memories of another Turkish cigarette, which had been in the manager’s office after the burglary. Terry had not admitted that he had smoked it until he had been forced—and as far as Sid knew there was no guarantee that even then Terry had made any effort to clear him. It had been a strange act—and certainly not one of a friend.
£205 had been stolen. Terry had lost £200 at the races. The police were presumably still investigating and had not arrived at any decision....
Gradually, Sid worked his way back to the death of Vera. Normally, there was no motive strong enough to warrant murder by accident; but were the conditions normal? Vera had been with Terry at the races. There now loomed the definite possibility that Terry might—for all his denials—have been the thief. And if by some strange chance Vera had known of that fact....
“It’s possible,” Sid breathed, “that Vera might have said something at home. I’d better go and have a word with her folks at lunchtime—and find out how the funeral went on, too. I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I do!”
* * * * * * *
When Sid returned upstairs he tried not to give the slightest hint of the disturbing thoughts passing through his mind. He found Terry idling about the projection room, and Billy was in the non-sync department, polishing slides with a duster, to which he added a trace of spit as required.
“Still-frame finished?” Terry inquired.
Sid mused for a moment, then: “Tell me something, Terry. Did you ever get this machine right? You stayed behind for a couple of nights to fix it. I’ve been meaning to ask you what you accomplished...,” and Sid nodded to the machine against which he was leaning.
“It’s all right now,” Terry answered, his voice level.
Sid looked at the machine critically, opened the small, square door of the sound-gate, and contemplated the mechanism in the cavity beyond.
“It ran all right yesterday,” Sid remarked. “But Billy was asking about it and it occurred to me that—”
“What the devil’s it got to do with Billy?” Terry snapped.
Billy poked his untidy head round the adjoining steel wall of the non-sync room,
“Who’s taking my name in vain?” he demanded. “I work around here, remember. No harm in my asking about that old cement mixer, was there?”
“Of course there wasn’t,” Sid answered him. “Shows you’ve got an interest in your job, anyway....” Sid’s gaze strayed back to Terry—a steady, analytical stare. “You don’t have to jump on the kid like that, Terry. He only wanted to know if the machine was okay, same as I want to know now. We have to run it when you’re not here, remember.”
Terry forced a grin even though the glint of suspicion remained in his eyes.
“Take-up trouble, that’s all,” he said. “I fixed it. I put a new chain wheel on the spindle. There’ll be no more trouble.”
Sid nodded. “Fair enough.”
He dropped the subject, but Terry continued to look at him.
Sid had asked perfectly normal questions, as one projectionist to another. There was no conceivable reason, Terry told himself, why Sid should read anything else into the matter.
“Blimey, it’s three minutes to twelve!” Billy gasped suddenly. Time we shoved off for dinner. I’m as empty as a barrel.”
“Your head or your stomach?” Sid asked him—then he followed the youth downstairs to the winding-room for his jacket.
Terry joined them in a moment or two. He did not speak. He was busy with his own thoughts, and since Sid had also plenty on his mind he did not attempt conversation either. Sid left the building by way of the fire escape, with the talkative Billy for company.
Sid did not go straight home. Instead he detoured to the Holdsworth house in Malvern Road. Mrs. Holdsworth, a big, raw-boned woman with high cheekbones, opened the door.
“Oh, hello Sid!” She jerked her big, greying head. “Come in.”
Sid followed her into the untidy living room. Mrs. Holdsworth was in the midst of laying lunch.
“Well, what’s wrong?” she asked briefly. “I don’t think much of the time you’ve picked, either. I’ve work to do getting dinner ready.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” Sid murmured, and he followed her into the back kitchen whilst she hovered over the gas stove. “I have one or two questions to ask—about Vera.”
Mrs. Holdsworth’s hard, severe face glanced towards him.
“About Vera, eh? Doesn’t seem you’ve shown much interest in her memory since she was killed. You didn’t even come to the funeral this morning.”
“Only because I didn’t want to see her buried. I couldn’t have stood it.... I suppose everything went off according to plan?”
“Good as you could expect. Not many mourners. Our family hasn’t got many friends. Vera hadn’t many, either.... Took about an hour, then I came back. My old man went straight on to work afterwards.”
“I see.” Sid found the matter-of-fact, even callous, way in which Mrs. Holdsworth referred to the funeral of her daughter decidedly disturbing.
“Well, Sid, what do you want, anyway?” This came after a long interval whilst Mrs. Holdsworth prodded the potatoes in a pan.
“I happen to be interested in one or two things,” Sid said. “Can you remember if Vera went back to the cinema at all any night last week? After the show was over?”
Mrs. Holdsworth reflected and then went back into the living room. Sid followed her dutifully.
“Sit down.” She jabbed a finger towards a bentwood chair. “Since you’ve got this far, I suppose it can’t do any harm for you to know the rest.”
“Rest?” Sid repeated.
“Yes. Now Vera’s dead it can’t make any difference far as I can see.”
Sid sat down and stared at her, trying to fathom things out.
Mrs. Holdsworth gave one big, self-piteous sniff and then went on:
“I know what you’re thinking, Sid—that Vera pinched that two hundred quid from the cinema.”
“I—er—” Sid stopped, not really quite sure what he was thinking. The notion of Vera being the thief had never occurred to him.
“I think she did,” Mrs. Holdsworth, said slowly, staring through the window on to the unglamorous back yard. “I know she’s dead, and I know she was my daughter, but she was deceitful! Yes, deceitful! I’d be a fool if I didn’t admit it. I found her out many a time, right from being a little girl. I had no time for her, and that’s plain speaking. Different with her father: she
could do no wrong in his eyes. She was like her old man was Vera; not to be trusted.”
Sid had heard hints about Vera’s home life before and drawn his own conclusions—but he had never heard things stated so baldly as this. He sat waiting, pondering, his eyes on Mrs. Holdsworth’s harsh features.
“A week ago tonight—last Wednesday—she went back to the cinema after the night show,” Mrs. Holdsworth continued. “Said she’d forgotten her cigarettes and wanted them urgent. We thought nothing of it. I don’t smoke and neither does the old man—but he drinks like the devil to make up for it. Anyway, nothing would satisfy Vera but that she go and get them. It was after midnight when she got back. We asked her why she’d been so long and she said it was none of our business.”
“Then?” Sid asked, thinking.
“Next thing that happened we read in the paper about the burglary at the Cosy. Two hundred of the best stolen. I tackled Vera about it and she begged me and her father not to say that she had been back to the cinema for cigarettes. Naturally, we thought things but we promised to keep quiet. You don’t give away your own flesh and blood in a crisis....”
Mrs. Holdsworth took her gaze from the yard and rested her elbow on the table edge.
“Yesterday,” she finished, setting her mouth, “we got a letter from the Apex Furriers in Balton Street. It seems they’d seen in the paper about the accident which killed Vera and they wanted to know what was to be done about a fur coat she’d ordered for the winter, and for which she’d paid one hundred and fifty pounds. Amongst the things in her handbag were fifty pounds in notes, too. There was only one answer to that, Sid. She stole the money from the cinema.”
Sid stroked his eyebrow and said nothing.
“I’m telling you, Sid, because it can’t make any difference now. But it’s as plain as can be. She had a passkey to the cinema. She must have had it all weighed up.”
“Circumstantially it does look like it,” Sid admitted.
“Eh?” The hard grey eyes studied him. “Circumstantially? Facts are facts, aren’t they?”
“Oh, sure they are—but if Vera meant to rob the cinema I can’t see why she told you she was going back there. It doesn’t seem logical, somehow.”
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