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.
“Hell!” Terry muttered. “I’ve as much chance of getting two hundred in a hurry as flying to the moon!”
Various lines of action weaved through his mind. He thought first of Mark Turner. He was a friendly soul and he might advance £200, but he would want to know for why. He would not approve of his chief projectionist gambling to the extent of £200 a time. It would be tantamount to asking for the sack. Besides, Turner was away this week on a trade-show routine. No chance of contacting him. Terry himself was deputy-manager for the time being.
Terry’s speculations switched to Dick Whiteley, the second-hand dealer in a sub-standard movie equipment with whom he did a good share of business. That gaunt-faced, tight-lipped gentleman would not be likely to advance a penny, unless somehow the heat could be turned on him.
Moneylenders?
“No!” Terry said flatly. “Only one thing for it. Have to make a clean breast of it to Naylor, and see what he says.”
His mind made up he left the racecourse as quickly as possible and a bus took him into the town—the small but thriving town of Bartonwick. Half a mile down the main street Terry alighted and hurried off down a side road. Here was a huddle of houses and three shops. Two of the shops dealt in antiques and the third in needlework. At the far end of the cul-de-sac was a Dickensian-looking house transformed into a far more commercial purpose. A brass plate said:
George Naylor—Turf Accountant.
Terry entered the front door of the house-cum-office, went through the short hall, and into the back room. George Naylor was sprawled in the swivel chair at his littered desk. He was big, and fat, and sweaty black hair lay plastered on his round head to conceal the bald spots. He peered up at Terry through fleshy bags of eyes.
“Hello, Terry. That’s what I like to see—a prompt payer. Looks as if you took a caning with ‘Pirate’s Cutlass,’ too. Short head! Too bad!”
“Yes, a short head,” Terry agreed. “Which means I owe you two hundred.”
“According to my reckoning, yes.”
Silence. George Naylor lighted a cigarette and blew out the match with an emphatic puff of breath.
“Matter of fact,” Terry said, “I’ve come to ask a favour.”
George Naylor did not speak, or move. He lay like a mass of rubber in his swivel chair, waiting.
“I’ve been robbed,” Terry added. “My wallet was pinched while I was at the racecourse.”
“Was it now?” George Naylor shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You should be more careful, shouldn’t you? I’m surprised at you, the fly boy!”
“I’m trying to tell you, George, that I can’t pay up at the moment.”
Naylor knocked the ash from his cigarette and then leaned flabby forearms on the desk. He peered up at Terry intently.
“Look, Terry, business is business. I don’t know what crackpot notion prompted you to put two hundred on that nag—and to win too! But when you come here without the two hundred to settle up you’re playing with dynamite. Fact remains, I want the money! I’m not insisting on it right now: two hundred takes a bit of getting, I know. We’ll have to come to some sort of arrangement. Instalments, eh?”
“Even that’s going to be difficult.”
“I’m being as fair as I can afford to be. I’ve my own interests to think of. If you can’t stand the loss of two hundred quid you shouldn’t have bet that much, that’s all. That’s commonsense.”
“I tell you it was a genuine bet! I had the money then. It was stolen from me afterwards.”
George Naylor heaved out of his chair and drew hard at his cigarette.
“It’s up to you, Terry. Instalments are the only way out. Let’s say four instalments of fifty pounds each—and I’m being generous at that. Let’s see now—today’s Tuesday. I’ll give you ’til a week next Saturday to get the first instalment. That’s fair enough, isn’t it? Sixteen whole days in which you can turn round.”
“And suppose I don’t succeed?” Terry asked. “I can plead the Gaming Act, you know, by which all contracts ‘whether by parole or in writing, by way of gaming or wagering, shall be null and void’.”
“Gaming Act 1845, replaced by a tougher one in 1892.” Naylor gave a grim look. “Don’t try the Smart Alec routine with me, Terry!”
“You can’t make me pay! That’s the main point!”
“I can make you smart, though, and by God I will if it becomes necessary. And I don’t think you’d publicly declare anything about being nixed up with the Gaming Act, either. If I don’t get that money I’ll do other things.”
“Such as?” Terry demanded.
“Well, for one thing you have a manager who’d cut your throat if he knew you’d been gambling—which is one reason