Maurice Procter - Two men in twenty

'What about the man who sold it?'

'He wears those thick pebble glasses. When he gave me my change he held his money two inches from his nose.'

Dorrie was somewhat mollified by hearing that the clock would be put in the cellar. But she said with a sigh: 'I won't be happy till I get back to my own home.'

Cain gave her a hug. 'That won't be long, dearie,' he said. 'When we've done a few more jobs here we'll break up and go into retirement. Maybe if we make enough we'll retire altogether and buy a nice country pub.'

She sniffed. He had sometimes mentioned retirement before, always when they had been doing well. And always he had kept on doing well until the game had ended in his forced retirement-to Pentonville or Dartmoor or some similar establishment.

'You can snort,' he said. 'I'm not going to land up in the nick this time. I've got a good lot of boys and I've got 'em well in hand. And I'm taking every care. It could be we will make enough to retire altogether.'

Dorrie had heard that one before, too. They had always been good lots of boys. 'Just you mind you don't pick up no more wallets,' she said, but when she said it she was out of his reach and on her way to the kitchen. It was the end of the talk. No other comment was made because Cain looked angry enough to hit somebody.

In that household it was the two women, with their feminine ideas of the decent running of a house, who most frequently had cause for irritation. The man Husker never had a bath. He slept with his bedroom window closed, and in the mornings his room stank. Flo, the bedmaker, refused to make his bed and clean his room. That did not worry Husker. He was quite content to pig it in an unmade bed in a frowsty room. The room became a permanent offence to the women. Dorrie often made it known, to anybody who might be listening, that the very thought of that room gave her the horrors.

Husker had the table manners of a starving dog. Jolly was better, but he had habits at table which Dorrie could not bear. 'He makes me cringe,' she declared. Jolly always mixed salt and pepper into a heap on the edge of his plate, then spread it over his food with his knife. He would eat his meat first, then mix all his vegetables thoroughly as if he were mixing a small quantity of cement, adding gravy at intervals to make the mess moist enough for his taste, but not too sloppy to stay on his knife when he ate it. 'I used to mix bully and biscuit with hot water like this, in the trenches,' he would remark. 'Man, it fills yer.'

Cain ate as Dorrie had trained him. Coggan and France were inconspicuous eaters, with no noticeable bad manners. But only France ever had the grace to make a complimentary remark about the food, and this he did quietly, because the others might not understand.

Dorrie was pleased by these little attentions. Flo was aware of that pleasure. In sympathy, or in mischief, or because she liked him, she often served France with the most of the best. Both Cain and Husker had jealous appetites and sharp eyes at table. And Cain was watchful apart from the matter of food. There was grumbling. France had to tell Flo that really he did not need so much to eat. Husker overheard the remark and sneered. He and France looked at each other with hostility bare in their eyes. Husker obviously thought that France was a lah-di-dah, which he was not. France made it clear that he thought of Husker as a graceless lout, which he was.

No member of the group made amorous advances, not even in the form of joking remarks, to either Dorrie or Flo. Dorrie was regarded as a waste of time to a philanderer, and Flo was so narrowly watched by her brother-in-law that she also was considered inaccessible. It was assumed that Cain did not want the girl to become involved with a crook. No doubt he had better things in mind for her. The contradictory facts of this were not at first apparent. Cain's wife's sister was too good to associate with thieves, and yet Cain's wife had married one. On the other hand Cain's wife was a reluctant thief, while the girl Flo was a daring and expert shoplifter. She was forbidden to practise that craft in these days of affluence, but she was more effective and enthusiastic than her sister when called upon to reconnoitre with a view to robbery. She was more interested in the takings after a crime, and jubilant when she received her share.

But action, and the division of spoils, seemed to be the only things which brought Flo to life. At other times she went through the day with a sort of breezy stolidity. Her work was not easy; cleaning the bedrooms, helping in the kitchen, serving at table, running errands. She made no complaints, except an occasional sardonic word about some extra duty. As a home help, she seemed too good to be true. It was hard for others to decide whether she was a born drudge or whether she was bored to insensibility by life at Grange Gardens, and waiting more or less patiently for a change.

To Ned France she was an enigma: so attractive, and yet so seemingly passive. Once or twice he caught her watching him in narrow-eyed appraisal, much in the manner of a woman experienced in affairs. At other times she seemed to be younger than her age. But always she gave the impression of being able to look after herself. One day she entered the front room, which was the men's common room, after she had been out for some cigarettes for Cain. As she handed over the cigarettes he tried to catch her fingers, but she avoided his grip with casual adroitness. The observant France thought it was typical of her. She would be able to get out of difficult situations coolly and with apparent ease.

France would have thought no more of the cigarette incident, but he saw the way Cain stared after Flo as she left the room. The unguarded glance told him much. But he did not attach too much importance to it. There were lots of men, good men some of them, who had a secret fancy for the wife's sister.

But in the matter of discipline Cain showed that he had no favourites. The day after the cigarette incident Flo went out to look round the shops, and returned wearing a fur stole. In the kitchen Dorrie admired the fur, and Cain listened indulgently. The London embargo on new clothes was not applied in Granchester.

'How much, dearie?' Dorrie asked.

'Only twenty quid,' Flo replied airily.

Dorrie's eyes narrowed. 'You told me yesterday-' she said, and stopped suddenly.

Cain looked up, alert and suspicious. 'She told you what yesterday?' he demanded. 'Did she tell you she hadn't any cash in hand?'

'I called at the bank this afternoon,' Flo said quickly.

'Ah. What time?'

'Just before three.'

Cain rose. He reached, and took Flo's handbag from her. He opened it and emptied its contents on the kitchen table.

'No pass book, no cheque book,' he said. 'Why don't you own up and tell me you hooked that fur?'

'Well, nobody saw me. I just pulled the tag off and walked out wearing it.'

Cain's hand came up, and he slapped the girl so hard across the mouth that she fell to the floor. She sat up, but did not rise to her feet. Her expression was unfathomable as she looked at Cain.

'For the sake of a bit of bloody fur you might have ruined us all,' he thundered. 'How do you know you weren't followed out of the shop? How do you know some cute store detective didn't take your picture before he set somebody on to follow you? They have all sorts of moves these days. God dammit, we might have the coppers here any minute. Give me that fur.'

He stooped and snatched the stole from Flo's shoulder. He turned to the big old kitchen stove, and opened the fire door. A low fire was burning. He stuffed the stole into the fire, and pushed it further in with the short rake which was kept beside the stove. He closed the fire door, and still holding the rake he turned to Flo.