dumped his bicycle in the disused sweet-stall near the stairway leading to the Circle and closed the imitation bronze door upon it. He tugged off his overcoat and hat, releasing an untidy mop of brown hair that had become wiry through the influence of static electricity—then he headed for the manager’s office. But the manager had not yet arrived. The door marked PRIVATE was firmly locked.
With a shrug Allerton turned back to the Circle staircase with its soft, luxurious carpet—then he paused as Nancy Crane came hurrying down with her black silk frock billowing a little from her shapely legs. Allerton admired them silently as she came down to his level.
“Where’s the boss, Nan?” he asked her.
“How should I know if he isn’t there?” Nancy Crane had the oddest way of mixing her words, but she did it so disarmingly that nobody objected. She was small, dainty, with blonde hair and delicately reddened lips. Her very blue eyes made Allerton’s young heart skip a beat every time she looked at him.
“I only asked,” he said defensively.
Nancy felt the golden curls at the back of her head with a slender hand. “Anyhow, is that any way to greet your fiancée?”
“Sorry, Nan.... I’m having a bad evening.”
Nancy’s blue eyes regarded him. He certainly looked morose, more so by reason of his rather high cheekbones, sombre dark eyes, and drooping comers to a large mouth.
“Oh? What’s caused it?” she asked.
“I knocked a man down with my bike. If he reports it, the police will summon me or something. You know how the boss is about things like that. Smears the reputation of the cinema. I might get fired!”
“With labour so short it isn’t plentiful? Not a bit of it! You didn’t give your name to the man you knocked down, did you?”
“No. But I told him my job and where to find me.”
“The things you worry over!” Nancy murmured, inspecting herself in the bevelled mirror embedded in the wall by the staircase. “I wouldn’t!”
Nancy Crane had no need to expect trouble anywhere. She was pretty enough to get whatever she wanted from almost any young man—and what was more, she knew it. But she had plenty of sense as well as above average looks, which was one reason why she looked forward to becoming Allerton’s wife. Better than anybody, except his parents, she knew his worth.
“Tell the boss I was going to ask him about tomorrow’s programme,” Allerton said, starting up the stairs. “It’s Wednesday night, remember, and if the film transport doesn’t come within the next hour, he’ll have to ring the renters.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him,” Nancy promised, and devoted herself to getting her hair to her liking....
* * * *
Within the disciplined quiet of Roseway College for Young Ladies, Miss Maria Black, M.A., the Principal, sat studying the evening paper. Her pupils, had they been able to look over her shoulder, would have been surprised to find the Langhorn Times open at the amusement section.
“Love on the Highway.... Hmmm!”
Maria Black put the paper down and fingered the slender gold watch-chain gleaming against the black satin of her dress. Her strongly cut, expressive face was pensive—yet somehow irritated.
“Just where are all the gangster films these days?” she mused presently. “I could have sworn that Death Strikes Tomorrow was showing at the Langhorn. Maybe I confused it with another cinema. Love on the Highway indeed! Lydia Fane? Never heard of her.... Yet one must do something for a change, and no other cinema seems to have anything appealing.”
She rose and began to pace the warm study slowly. To Maria Black the problem of finding the right picture to visit was just as intricate a business as solving a mystery; and at both she could claim distinction. It annoyed her, though, to find that her love for a crime picture was unrequited this Wednesday night.
Coming to a decision, she pressed the bell-push. By the time the bloodless housemistress, Eunice Tanby, had come into the study, Maria Black was dressed in a severe but smart hat, a heavy camelhair coat, and was putting her umbrella on her arm.
“Ah, Miss Tanby! You will be good enough to take over for a couple of hours. I have decided that I shall relax at the Langhorn Cinema. It’s my last opportunity to see Love on the Highway.”
“Yes, Miss Black,” Tanby assented colourlessly.
“Say it,” Maria invited dryly. “What do I want to see such a picture for? Frankly, I don’t—but one must have a change. And you know my private passion....”
“Yes, Miss Black. Crime—crime films—or just films.”
“A very apt summing up,” Maria approved; then she swept out of her study and up the corridor to the outdoors. In five minutes she boarded the Langhorn bus that rattled its way between Roseway College and Langhorn Square.
The bitter wind was gusting as she descended in the town’s main square. Pushing against it and half closing her eyes against whirling dust, she made her way slowly up the High Street, keeping well within the shelter of the closed shops for protection. She was wondering why she had chosen such a vile night to visit a very mediocre picture.... Then the sound of voices made her glance up. She paused, puzzled for a moment by a dim, unexpected vision in the roadway ahead under a street lamp.
“...I’ve a good mind to tell the police about this!”
“All right, if you want to get awkward about it. You can find me at the Langhorn Cinema. I’m the chief projectionist.”
Maria began walking on again, watching as the distant tangle sorted itself out into two men facing each other—the one big and burly in a light-coloured hat and coat, the other the tall, spare figure of Fred Allerton. Maria knew him well enough by sight and smiled to herself.
“Frederick getting himself into trouble again, apparently,” she murmured. “A good man at his work from what I hear, but just a trifle too impetuous....”
By the time she had moved another five yards the two men had separated—the big man towards the ‘Golden Saddle’ hotel and Fred Allerton into the entranceway of the cinema. As Maria walked up the cinema steps and waited by the glass doors for them to be opened, she saw Allerton in the distance of the foyer beyond talking to Nancy Crane.
“Nasty night, Miss Black,” observed the doorman.
“Decidedly cold,” Maria agreed. “One expects little else in December, however. I notice, my man, that Lydia Fane is billed as the star of this picture tonight. I am a fairly keen—hmm!—film fan, but I do not recall ever having heard of her!”
“Nor me, mum, but the boss says she’s a star and he’s fixed the publicity that way, so there it is. What I’ve seen of the film—nippin’ in between times, as you might say—it’s rank.”
“That’s his polite way of putting it, Miss Black,” Mary Saunders remarked, peering out into the night through her prison bars. “I’d suggest you to go back to the school.”
“Such bad salesmanship!” Maria reproved, smiling. “Never turn patrons away, Mary!”
“But you’re more than a patron, Miss Black: you’re pretty nearly an honoured guest. It’d be a shame to take the money.”
Mary sat down again behind the grille and only her ginger hair was visible. Other people were collecting rapidly now, forming a small queue down the steps. At last Bradshaw received the signal from inside the foyer and threw the doors open wide.
Winter and Maria swept into the foyer together. She stopped at the ordinary booking office with its big sign over the top—STALLS ADMISSION BY BLOCK BOOKING ONLY. Behind the gilded grille sat plump Molly Ibbetson, ponderous but thorough, her shining black hair a curious mixture of waves and curls.
“Evening, Miss