made it clear that you’re a low down heel—”
“Vera means a lot to me, Terry,” Sid cut in, curtly. “I want an apology for what you did to her yesterday, and if I don’t get it I’ll beat you up. You know I can do it, too.”
Terry did know it. Sid was nearly six feet tall and massively built.
“Do that, and you’ll get yourself fired,” Terry replied, his voice brittle. “Or have you forgotten that I’m the deputy manager while the boss is away? Lay a finger on me and out you’ll go—on your ear! I’ll see to that!”
“I’ll risk it.” Sid clenched his big fists. “And what’s more, I think it was a dirty rotten trick to go behind my back on your day off and take Vera to the races. What right had you to go out with her? She’s my girl, and I’m the only one she’ll walk out with—when we get the chance.”
“I didn’t know she was smitten with you until she told me,” Terry responded coldly.
“You ought to be damned well ashamed of yourself!” Sid went on. “Betting two hundred pounds on a horse and then losing it! Why, most of us here—in fact probably all of us—hasn’t even smelled that much money. I know I haven’t. It makes me sore. Here am I, scrimping and scraping to get enough money to put down a deposit on a house, for Vera and me to live in when we get married, and then you chuck it about all roads!”
“What I do with my own money is no concern of yours! And I might add that you’ve kept your attachment to Vera mighty dark, haven’t you?”
“Why not? You don’t think either of us is going to broadcast our private affairs, do you? I wouldn’t be raising this rumpus now except for the way you’ve been carrying on, Terry.”
Terry’s eyes strayed to Helen Prescott. She was watching intently from side-stalls. Naturally she had heard every word and by this time must be thinking many things. Knowing only one side of the argument it could only look to her as if Vera had been slapped in the face for no good reason.
“I’m sorry I hit you, Vera,” Terry said at last, but he did not look at her as he spoke. “I said so at the time. I lost my temper.”
“I’ll say you did!” Vera retorted. “And two hundred quid as well! You ought to be—”
“I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I? Let it go at that!”
Terry swung away, his set face reflecting the bitterness of his emotions.
CHAPTER TWO
ROBBERY
Leaving the stalls, Terry went up the broad, white-rubbered staircase where the cleaning women were busy with buckets, rags, and disinfectants. To their greetings he made no response as they glanced significantly at one another. In a moment or two he had reached the half-turn on the staircase. Here was a polished doorway marked Strictly Private. He opened it, went beyond, and closed it.
He had passed now from the superficial comfort of the cinema into his own little world. Brick walls, defaced with NO SMOKING signs. White, concrete steps rising upwards to twenty feet. Cold air from wide ventilation slats, and a gradually deepening smell of amyl-acetate and half dissipated carbon fumes. At the top of the stone steps he turned sharp left and entered the low-ceilinged winding room. He stood thinking.
“Morning, Terry,” greeted the youth at the winding bench, looking up from inspecting the splice in the film he had just repaired. “Not looking too pleased with yourself. Anything up?”
“Get on with your job and stop asking questions.”
“Okay, okay! You don’t have to get tough about it.”
Billy Trent grandiloquently called himself ‘the third projectionist’. To the staff and trade he was simply a re-wind boy. Just sixteen, he had untidy fair hair and the kind of blue eyes and delicate complexion that any girl would have been proud to possess.
Moodily, Terry departed for the projection room overhead, and presently Sid arrived and began to get busy with the mop. Terry glanced at him, then gazed absently through the porthole of Machine No. 1 into the great, pale-lit void of the cinema.... No sense in keeping up the squabble, he told himself. He, Sid, and Billy were compelled to live their working lives on top of one another.
“I’m sorry, Sid.” Terry turned finally and shrugged. “I’m just that way out this morning. You see, as far as Vera’s concerned, I thought she meant everything she said. I honestly got the shock of my life when I found she’s as good as engaged to you. You might have let me have some hint.”
Sid relaxed. Normally good-natured, he took instant advantage of the break in the storm clouds.
“I couldn’t do that, Terry. We’re not officially engaged. I haven’t the cash yet to buy a ring—but we certainly mean a lot to each other. You can’t blame me for demanding an explanation when she said you’d hit her across the face.”
“No, I suppose not,” Terry admitted. “There’s something I can’t understand, though. What do you see in the girl?”
“You saw enough in her to go out with her, didn’t you? In fact you’ve been out with her quite a lot of times. She told me so.”
“Yes, but...,” Terry mused. “Funny thing, but I never really got to know her until yesterday. I’d always thought of her as a pretty decent girl, though on the lookout for number one just the same. Then yesterday I sort of saw her for the first time. What few virtues she has—and they are few—all seemed to vanish. It was quite a surprise to me.”
“Vera,” Sid said doggedly, “is one of the best! The trouble is that she’s had a poor upbringing, and her home life is nothing to shout about. She’s all right if you understand her—as I do. I’ve made it my business to.”
Terry was silent for a moment, and then he shrugged.
“All right, let’s forget all about it. You can be sure I shan’t bother to go out with her again.... I know I’d better hop down to the boss’s office and see what’s doing. I’d almost forgotten for the moment that I’m his deputy.”
The owner-manager’s office was at the base of the Circle staircase, marked by a shiny door inscribed Private. Terry pulled out the duplicate key that Turner had given him and turned it in the lock. In the office, bright morning sunlight streamed through a window barred on the outside. Burglaries had led the owner-manager to adopt this precaution.
Terry sat down in the swivel chair and pondered. Two hundred pounds! The fracas with Sid had been as nothing compared to this major worry. Absently Terry’s eyes moved to the massive safe by the window. It was an old safe, combination locked, and perched on a brick foundation. Terry pushed a hand slowly through his unruly hair.
“Come in,” he called, at a knock on the door.
Madge Tansley, the head cashier, entered. In one hand she had a steel cash box, and under her arm was a booking plan on a square of boarding. She was tall, dark, and unemotional.
“I want my booking-plan sheet for today,” she said.
Terry eyed her and then went to the cupboard where the booking plans were kept. He handed her a new one.
“I’ll
