CHAPTER THREE

POLICE INVESTIGATION

As Terry had expected, Mrs. Gordon, his landlady, when he met her and her husband at breakfast the following morning, fully believed him when he said he had come in about half past ten the previous night after seeing Helen Prescott home.

No reason why they should not believe him. Though it was not a cast-iron alibi he considered it was perhaps good enough, if one should be needed. He did not even anticipate such an eventuality.

When he had had breakfast he went upstairs for the cash box he had smashed open and, whilst he knew Mr. and Mrs. Gordon were still at breakfast, he lowered the box by a piece of string into the back yard. This done, he left the house in the usual way, looking in on the old couple before he left—if only to reveal that he was not padded out by a large, concealed object.

Satisfied that the morning newspaper and the marmalade would keep the couple absorbed for at least another ten minutes, Terry dodged round to the back of the house, collected the cash box, and with it under his raincoat—which he carried on his arm—he made his way swiftly down the back entry which led to an old building site. Here he polished all fingerprints from the box and then buried it under a pile of brick ends and rubbish. Smiling to himself he continued on way, arriving at the Cosy Cinema about nine o’clock.

That which he had anticipated had happened. He was met in the foyer by an excited doorman, and the staff of girls and cleaners was drifting up and down, talking or crowding about the smashed door of the manager’s office.

“What goes on?” Terry asked in surprise, flattening down his unruly black hair.

“Burglary, that’s what,” the doorman answered, his wind-inflamed eyes unusually bright. “I found it first thing this morning when I got ’ere to open the place up. Lav’try window’s bust in upstairs and the gaffer’s door has bin broken down.”

“Oh?”

Terry allowed urgency into his movements. He hurried over to where the staff was crowding round the smashed door of the office.

“All right, all right, so there’s been a burglary,” he said. “Nothing we can do about it except call the police. Have you done that, Harry?”

The doorman shook his head. “No. I waited to see what you said. Else the gaffer. ’E’ll be back this morning, won’t he?”

“Should be, but we’d better advise the police just the same. They can start looking round— Oh, wait a minute! We’d better be sure first if anything’s been stolen. The safe doesn’t look any different and nothing else seems to have been taken. We’d better wait until Madge Tansley gets here. She’s got the safe combination.”

An air of indecision settled on the group. Terry looked about him.

“We’ll act fast enough when Madge comes,” he said. “In the meantime don’t forget you’ve got work to do— The cleaning goes on even if the place has been rifled.”

Terry caught a look from Vera Holdsworth.... It was cold and cynical. She lighted a cigarette and turned away, duster in hand. Helen Prescott lingered behind for a moment, tightening the scarf about her black hair—then she went on her way.

Terry glanced down the foyer as Sid Eldridge and Billy arrived together. They paused by the doorway, heaved the waiting transit cases on their shoulders, and then continued the journey inwards.

“Rehearsal as usual, Terry?” Sid asked.

“You’d better run it yourselves,” Terry instructed. “Keep a check on it and note the cues, changeovers, and any bad recording. I’m likely to be kept down here. I have to see the boss about a burglary.”

“Burglary!” Billy exclaimed.

“Boss’s office, during the night. Somebody got in through the lavatory window.”

Sid and Billy exchanged wondering looks, then they went on up the staircase. The doorman came back across the foyer, trailing the vacuum suction pipe.

“Not much of a greeting for the gaffer, eh?” he reflected, scratching his chin. Grumbling to himself he went on his way; then Terry turned to Madge Tansley as she came in at the front door.

“Just a minute, Madge...,” Terry motioned her. “There’s been some trouble during the night. You’d better open the safe.”

“Trouble? Safe?” Just for the moment Madge Tansley looked anything but efficient. She seemed positively vacant.

Terry made the facts plain to her and it was sufficient to set her hurrying across the foyer into the manager’s office. She opened the safe from the combination record in her notebook and then started back.

“Good heavens, the cash box has gone!”

“How much was there in it?” Terry demanded.

“About two hundred pounds— Here! Here’s the return sheet.” Madge picked it up from the shelf below. “Exactly two hundred and five pounds and ten shillings.”

“Mmm—that’s bad.” Terry looked suitably troubled.

“But who on Earth could have done it?” the girl demanded. “It’s a combination safe and nobody knows the combination outside the boss and me.”

At her look of growing anxiety Terry patted her arm gently. “Don’t start getting steamed up, Madge! Take it easy.”

Terry stopped and turned as Mark Turner, the owner-manager, suddenly appeared from the foyer. He was a short, impeccably dressed man who gave the impression of being an expert with an electric razor.

“Hallo, Terry—morning, Miss Tansley.” He put his brief case on top of the roll top desk and drew off his wash-leather gloves. “Is there—anything wrong?” he asked, in some curiosity.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid there is.” With perfect calm Terry gave the facts. When be had all the details Turner frowned thoughtfully.

“That makes the fourth burglary we’ve had here,” he said, sighing. “Apparently nothing is safe anymore. All right, I’ll get the police. It’s for them to deal with, not us....”

He picked up the telephone and Terry followed the cashier into the foyer. Thoughtfully, Terry went on his way up the staircase.

“Anything doing?” Helen Prescott asked him, as she dusted. “I mean about the burglary.”

“Police are coming,” Terry answered her. “And the boss is back to look after things.”

Terry went on his way to the winding room, content again in his own mind that his £205 was perfectly safe in his hip pocket. Just the same, when he had put his mackintosh on the peg he did not remove his jacket as be usually did. The tail of it covered his hip pocket, and the bulge therein.

“The thing now,” he murmured, “is to show complete disinterest in the burglary. Never even mention it and pay complete attention to normal work. Right!”

He nodded to himself and went up the steps into the projection room. Sid was in the midst of rehearsal, running No. 2 machine and watching the screen in the cinema. He glanced round as Terry came in. Billy glanced up from lacing film into No. 1.

“Any news, Terry?” the youth asked eagerly. “Have the flat-foots caught anybody yet?”

“They’re not even here yet,” Terry answered. “And anyway, we’ve more important things to do than bother about burglaries. How’s it going, Sid?”

“Oh, not bad. Nice copy. Pretty long programme, though.”

Terry glanced about him. “I’ll go down in the Circle and see how it sounds. You know where I sit. If I’m wanted at all send Billy down.”

Terry departed. In a few moments he was on the front row of the Circle and appeared to be watching the screen and making the usual notes for the programme run. In truth, his thoughts were miles away, debating the £205 and the activities of the police, which would shortly commence.... Before long his expectations were realized. The manager came up into the Circle, looking even shorter than usual beside the tall, powerfully-built Superintendent Standish of the local force, resplendent in his official uniform. Terry knew him well enough; He was hot stuff on fire regulations and had a gift for arriving at moments when films were in places where they shouldn’t be.

“As you can see, Super,” Mark Turner said, “there’s no possible way in which a burglar could have got in up here. That lavatory window is the spot. No doubt of it.”

“Yes, so it seems,” the Superintendent agreed, looking around him. “I just wondered, that’s all. Sometimes an inside job can be faked to look like an outside one— Oh hello, chief! I didn’t notice you sitting there.”

Terry glanced round and smiled. “Good morning, Super. Just in the midst of a rehearsal.”

The manager glanced at the screen. “Better let Sid do it, Terry,” he said. “I want a word with you down in my office. The Superintendent would like to ask you a few questions.”

Terry felt his heart quicken, but he nodded calmly enough and got to his feet.

“Just as you wish, Mr. Turner.”

He followed the small and large figures down the wide staircase, passing Helen Prescott on the way. Though they exchanged glances, Terry hardly noticed her. He was wondering what on earth there could be to talk about. There was no clue he had left, nothing for the police to seize on to—

“Just a check up, chief,” the Super said, when they were in the office with the damaged door pushed to. “I believe you’ve been in charge here during Mr. Turner’s absence?”

“That’s right,” Terry assented.

“And nobody else has ever been in this office without your being aware of it?”

“Why, no.” Terry’s surprise was genuine. “Usherettes have been in, of course, for torches and new batteries—but only when I’ve been here. And yesterday our head cashier came in to—”

“Yes, yes, to put money in the safe,” the Super interrupted. “I’ve already taken a statement from Miss—er—”

“Tansley,” Turner said, leaning against the desk.

“Tansley. That’s it. Anyway,” the Super went on, “there’s another point I want to take up. Namely—this.”

He picked up the ashtray from the small table beside the desk and held it forward. Terry looked at it fixedly...it was the stubbed three-quarter length of an oval Turkish cigarette. He had forgotten all about it until now. It was the one he had extinguished the morning before because he did not care for the exotic tobacco.

“I’ve told the Super there’s only one person around here who smokes that kind of cigarette,” Turner remarked in his quiet voice, his eyes studying Terry’s face. “Sid Eldridge, of course. But the Super wants your verification.”’

Terry found it hard to think straight. This unexpected spanner in the works had thrown things right out of gear.

“Well, chief?” Standish asked. “Does the second projectionist smoke this kind of cigarette, or not?”

“Yes, he does.” Terry gave a reluctant nod. “But surely you are not thinking that he committed this burglary?”

“I’m not thinking anything. I’m just making routine enquiries, that’s all. You say that as far as you know nobody ever came into this office unless you were in it? And that includes Eldridge?”

“Certainly it does. In fact nobody could come in. Outside of Mr. Turner I was the only one with a key.”

“I see. Then you can’t explain how this cigarette got here?”

“No....” Terry was not quite sure, but he fancied he saw suspicion drifting away from him. The Super pondered for a moment or two and then he nodded.

“Very well, chief, that’s all. You might ask your second to come down and have a word with us, will you?”

“And if you don’t mind, I’ll have the office key back,” Turner said, holding out his hand.

Terry unhooked it from his ring and then left the office.

He still could not see how things were going to turn out. He did not in the least like the sudden twist in circumstances. When be got back to the projection room he gave the Superintendent’s order and from Sid received a stare of amazement.

“What does he want me for?” Sid demanded, rubbing his mop of sandy hair.

“I’ve not the vaguest idea, but you’d better go and see. I’ll take over the rehearsal.”

“I’ll tell that uniformed old buzzard a thing or two,” Sid grumbled. “Calling me off like this just when the show’s getting to the interesting part.”

He lumbered out of the projection room and the spring door slammed shut behind him. Terry finished the rehearsal show, with Billy’s assistance, but he had little idea after so many interruptions what it was all about.

He lounged across the box, hands in pockets, and went out on to the fire escape. The sun was bright and warm. Dim, startling thoughts were at the back of his mind. Vera Holdsworth, he felt sure, really did care for Sid. In fact she had admitted it at the racecourse. For another thing, Sid himself had said it was serious enough for him to think about getting an engagement ring. And if Sid ran foul of the police for the burglary, what then?

Would Vera stand by and let him be suspected—even jailed if circumstantial evidence added up to anything—or would she tell what she knew and risk the fact that Terry could not prove she had stolen his £200?

“Blast that Turkish cigarette!” Terry breathed, gripping the iron rail and staring over the agglomeration of back yards.

He turned with a sudden start at the slam of the projection room’s spring door. Sid’s ungainly figure came into view.

“Well?” Terry asked quietly, as Sid came out to him.

“It beats me!” Sid declared, frowning. “I do believe that dimwit of a Super thinks I did it!”

Terry laughed derisively, even though his nerves were taut.

“That’s what I think,” Sid continued. “But—Gosh, but he hasn’t half got it in for me! Seems he’s questioned most of the usherettes and all of them have brought up that business of yesterday morning when we had that row over Vera.”

Terry stared. “But what the devil’s that got to do with. it?”

“Plenty! Remember me saying that you’d no right to toss around two hundred quid whilst I am pinching and scraping to get a house together for Vera and me?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, the Super seems to think—though he didn’t say so openly—that that might be a good reason for me wanting to pinch some cash!”

“Ridiculous!” Terry exclaimed, though his mouth was dry. There seemed to be a whole flock of things he had overlooked which were now popping up and confronting him menacingly.

“Mostly, it’s that cigarette that makes things bad for me,” Sid went on deliberately. “One of my Turkish ones. I didn’t put it there, but the Super says I must have done. He also says I’m tough enough physically to have smashed in the office door. On top of that he says it wouldn’t have been hard for me to get the safe combination from Madge Tansley.”

“But surely you’ve got an alibi for last night?” Terry demanded.

“No, I haven’t.” Sid shook his untidy head worriedly. “That’s the rotten part of it. Before going home last night I went for a walk round to get some of the copper fumes out of my lungs. There is an hour I can’t account for after leaving here. I saw Vera as far as her home and then strolled back to my own place by the longest way round.”

Terry surveyed the wilderness of back yards and the bricks and stones, which he had come to know with intimate detail.

“It’s all circumstantial, Sid,” he said.

“I don’t feel like trusting to that when there’s one person who can clear me. I mean you!” Sid was silent for a moment. “That Turkish fag must be the one I gave you some time ago. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t say so to the Super.”

“Matter of fact, I couldn’t think straight for the moment.”

“Then it’s about time you started remembering, isn’t it?” There was a grimness in Sid’s voice now and a hard glitter in his blue eyes. Terry hesitated for a moment, and then smiled. All of a sudden he wondered why he had been such an idiot. Of course!

If he proved the cigarette was one he had smoked that would lift all suspicion from Sid. Vera would thereby be silenced again because with Sid out of danger she would have no cause to speak.

“I’ll clear it up right away,” Terry said, straightening himself. “Believe me, Sid, I’d have explained sooner only I just didn’t—”

“I know—you didn’t think about it. All right. But for Pete’s sake make them turn the heat off me!”

Terry gave a reassuring smile as he turned to go. “Leave it to me!”

His smile faded, however, as he descended the stairs towards the foyer. He was going to clear Sid because he had to in order to make himself safe. But a larger and more complicated problem loomed: the very one he had hoped to keep hidden—the £200 he had lost on a race bet. He could not think how he had come to overlook the fact that the usherettes would be bound to testify as to the amount involved.

“You didn’t overlook it,” he told himself. “It would never have come up at all but for that Turkish cigarette. That involved Sid. The Super had got to find out if Sid had grounds for wanting to steal two hundred pounds. And now everything’s falling to bits.”

Terry did his best to eradicate the lines of worry from his face as he knocked on the manager’s office door. On being told to come in he found the manager and Superintendent seated in discussion.

“Yes, Terry?” Turner glanced up, his face serious and unsmiling.

“I’ve been thinking,” Terry said, pushing the door to. “I just remembered something about that Turkish cigarette. It was one I smoked myself, then I stubbed it out because I didn’t like it.”

“Oh?” Turner exchanged a glance with the Super. “And when was this, Terry?”

“Yesterday morning, when I was in here. Madge—Miss Tansley—came to put the money in the safe.”

“She doesn’t remember the aroma of a Turkish cigarette,” the Superintendent commented. “I’ve already made sure of that on the chance that it might have belonged to you.”

“She hardly could: I smoked it after she had gone. Sid gave me the cigarette, and as I say I stubbed it out because I didn’t care for the flavour.”

Not a muscle moved on the Super’s big, square-jawed face. His next comment was brief and to the point.

“Been a long time remembering it, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I have,” Terry admitted. “Just got crowded out of my mind with one thing and another.”

The Super reflected, and in spite of himself Terry flinched under the cold, probing eyes.

“Whilst you are here, chief, there’s another matter I’d like to take up with you,” the Super resumed. “From all accounts you did a spot of gambling at the races on Tuesday—to the tune of some two hundred pounds loss. Right?”

Terry felt the screw tightening.

“It’s a mug’s game,” the Super added surprisingly. “And you’re fortunate in that you have so much money to throw about. Who’s your bookie?”

“George Naylor.”

“Naylor, eh? Mmm, I know that gent.”

“I don’t see,” Terry said, making a tremendous effort, “how you can attach the coincidence of my losing two hundred pounds to the money that has been stolen. I know it was the same amount—in fact two hundred and five pounds—because Madge Tansley told me as much. But you don’t think I robbed the safe, surely? I was at home when the burglary must have occurred.”

“Tell me something,” the Super said. “Why are you trying to cover up for Sid Elbridge?”

“But I’m not— If you mean about that cigarette—”

“I do—and though I’m all for loyalty in its proper place, it’s plain crazy when it obstructs the law.”

“Look,” Terry persisted, “you can’t mean that you don’t believe me when I say I smoked that cigarette?”

“I think,” Turner put in quietly, “that you’d better get back upstairs, Terry. Thanks for all you’ve told us.”

Terry went, more bewildered than he had been upon arrival.

He just did not know where he stood. Apparently the police believed that Sid was the culprit—and yet the thing Terry had expected, a direct question as to how he had had £200 with which to bet, had never been asked! Turner alone knew why. He was wary. Long experience as an employer had taught him just how much he could ask and do.

He had no authority for enquiring why an employee had two hundred pounds, even though he could wonder privately about it. It was the Superintendent’s job to tackle a thing like that—but even he was holding off until he had a definite angle to follow up.

When he got back to the projection room Terry found Sid looking at him eagerly.

“Well, what happened? Did you clear me?”

“No. The Super wouldn’t believe me.”

Sid’s impulsive anger gushed to the surface. “I’ve damned well had enough of this! I’m going to—”

“Just a minute!” Terry caught Sid’s powerful arm and made him pause. “It won’t do you any good, Sid. Don’t go off half cocked.”

With an effort Sid calmed down. “Then who do you think did it?” he demanded. “It could only have been somebody with a knowledge of the safe combination, and what outside person could possibly know that?”

“An expert burglar wouldn’t need the combination for an ancient safe like that.” Terry answered. “He could do it by touch. Frankly, I think we’re both in something of a spot. We’d better keep quiet until we see what happens.”