LITMIR.BIZ

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they came into the Circle, Nancy detached herself and pointed to the front row where the man in grey sat. Lincross, coming up behind, looked too. His flat mouth set tightly.

      “Come,” Maria murmured, and went forward slowly, then when she reached Row A, she stood aside as Lincross went along past the seats, put a hand under the man’s jaw and tilted his face upwards. There was no longer any room for doubt: Nancy Crane had not exaggerated.

      “Definitely dead,” Maria commented, from the row behind, and she released the man’s pulse. “Apparently shot in the head from a distance, which at least excludes his neighbours in the audience.”

      “Why...a distance?” Lincross asked, complete bewilderment at the situation registered on his face.

      “No powder marks, no tattooing, no scorching. So evidently this is not a suicide, Mr. Lincross, nor a murder by a neighbour close at hand.... However, my theories don’t signify. You must send for the police and leave this man exactly as he is.”

      Lincross nodded, his childlike blue eyes still reflecting amazement that such a thing had happened in his cinema; then he forced himself to deal with the situation and headed towards the Circle exit. Maria Black looked back at the dead man thoughtfully, glanced about and above her, then she too climbed steadily up to the exit. Nancy Crane was standing there, moving uncertainly from one dainty foot to the other.

      “What—what am I supposed to do, sir?” she asked Lincross, as he came past. “Shall I cover the seats or...?”

      “Certainly not! Have a bit of sense, girl! Find those usherettes still in the cinema and tell them to come into the foyer. And the cashiers. The police will be here shortly.”

      “If I’m home not so early I’m likely to get into trouble,” Nancy objected.

      “Can’t be helped.” Lincross continued down the stairs. Just as he passed the projection-room’s main doorway, Fred Allerton opened it and came into view with a transit case on his shoulder. Within it Love on the Highway was packed in its humidor tins ready for the collection by the film transport at midnight.

      Behind Allerton came Alcot, then Peter Canfield.

      “Just a minute, you three....” Lincross turned to them. “You can’t leave yet. A man has been shot dead. We found him in the Circle. I’m sending for the police. It’s the man you spoke to, Fred.”

      There was a grim silence for a moment and every spark of colour went out of Allerton’s cheeks. Lincross nodded towards the foyer and went on his way.

      “And a dead man queers my supper,” growled Alcot.

      “Not just dead, Dick—murdered,” Allerton said pointedly.

      “Either way it has nothing to do with us,” Alcot insisted.

      “But we stay just the same—because the boss says so,” Peter Canfield observed, locking the projection-room door and handing Allerton the key. They went down the stairs into the foyer. Behind them, her face pensive, came Maria Black. Then Nancy Crane came down to her side.

      “‘I suppose, Miss Black, this is right up your street? Everybody round here knows you’re a detective—not official though. You got a lot of publicity when you solved how that girl who came to your school was hanged. Remember?”

      “You’d better find the usherettes,” Maria murmured. “Join me afterwards.”

      Nancy nodded and hurried ahead. Once in the foyer Maria picked a plush armchair for herself and settled in it calmly. Presently Nancy came back, her work of rounding-up completed.

      She settled in the chair close to Maria and looked at her earnestly. “It must be exciting to be a detective, Miss Black!”

      “It has its moments, Nancy,” Maria admitted. “However, don’t forget that I am a Headmistress. Criminology is merely a hobby. In any case I cannot upset police procedure.... Yet,” she finished, smiling inscrutably, “here am I sitting here, when I could be on my way home if I chose. As a member of the audience and seated behind the dead man, I am not at all suspect. It is a fact that a criminal puzzle draws me irresistibly, Nancy.”

      The girl nodded and looked about her as the staff began to assemble in the foyer. Fred Allerton, Alcot, and Peter Canfield kept in a tight little group by the pay-box. Violet Thompson and Sheila Brant, the two Stalls usherettes, fully dressed in overcoats and with scarves wrapped over their heads, hesitated by the exit doorway. Bradshaw the doorman was upstairs as yet, changing into his ordinary clothes.... Mary Saunders was touching up her auburn hair before the mirror near the Circle stairway. Molly Ibbetson was seated on a distant chair, swinging her short chubby legs and adjusting the bandeau round her ebon hair.

      From her position at the far end of the foyer Maria Black could study each one of them under the bright lights—and she did, quite impartially, as though surveying a class of girls at Roseway...then she glanced round as Lincross came hurrying out of his office, beads of perspiration on top of his bald head.

      From the centre of the foyer he looked round on the assembly.

      “I’ve phoned Inspector Morgan,” he announced. “He’ll be here soon—and until then I’m afraid you will have to stay. Except you, Miss Black. There is no reason why....”

      “I am here from choice, Mr. Lincross,” Maria smiled. “I know Inspector Morgan very well—a most worthy representative of the local constabulary. I’ll be quite interested to see what he does.”

      Lincross shrugged, then he glanced towards the stairs as Bradshaw came down them in mackintosh and cap. “Afraid you can’t leave, Bradshaw,” Lincross said.

      “I know,” Bradshaw grunted. “And this means I’ll be late for my goodnight drink.... Rotten do, I call it “

      He sat down in a chair and lighted a cigarette. Sensing he was conspicuous standing in the centre of the assembly, Lincross too found a seat. The uneasy silence that enfolds employer and employee when circumstances bring them into close proximity dropped....

      At ten-fifteen by the foyer clock, ten minutes after Lincross’s phone call, there came the noise of a car stopping near the outside entrance. A few seconds the glass doors swung apart to admit the persevering Inspector Morgan and Sergeant Claythorne of the local constabulary.

      Morgan was of medium height, but packed as solidly as a West Highland bull; and he was very nearly as pugnacious. His eyebrows were the most obvious thing about him—black, astonishingly bushy, overhanging eyes of sapphire blue. A short nose and a prominent chin completed a face that typified dogged persistency rather than actual keenness. From under the edges of his official cap hair peeped in close-cropped bristles

      Sergeant Claythome was very different—tall and twenty-six, with the delicate complexion of a girl. His height and by no means dull intellect were the sole qualifications that had shoe-horned him into the local force. Maria Black could still recall the day when he had been a highly sensitive schoolboy.

      “Evening, sir....” Morgan directed his attention to Lincross after his gaze had encompassed the assembly; then he glanced for the second time towards the figure in a distant comer and added with emphasis, “And good evening, Miss Black!”

      Maria nodded imperceptibly and Morgan cleared his throat.

      “Sergeant, you’d better wait outside the front doors there.”

      “Right, sir.”

      The doors opened and shut behind Claythorne’s lanky figure; then Morgan tugged out a notebook from the breast pocket of his uniform and looked at Lincross.

      “Man dead in the Circle, you said? Where is he?”

      “Still in the Circle,” Maria remarked dryly, getting to her feet.

      “I meant, has he been moved?” Morgan’s voice was bitter.

      “No, Inspector—he’s just where he was,” Lincross answered.

      Morgan

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