Another attendant was attacked the next night in a garage on the Great West Road by the same man, and forty-five pounds were taken.
Then, as abruptly as they had begun, the garage robberies ceased.
George, with a net gain of nearly a hundred pounds, decided for the time being, not to tempt Providence further.
He had told no one what he had done; but Cora, reading of the robberies, knowing that the man who had been responsible for them was big and had carried a Luger, looked at George questioningly.
She was uneasy about George. Since the night she and the other two had laughed at him there had come over him a subtle change. He was hard now, and his temper inclined to fly up. There was a cold, bitter, brooding look in his eyes that Cora didn’t like.
He had left Eva’s flat before anyone was up on the morning following the scene with the Mickey Mouse costume. Cora, awakening to find him gone, hoped that she had seen the last of him, but he returned in the afternoon just as she was going out.
She was wearing a silk frock, silk stockings and high- heeled shoes borrowed from Little Ernie’s Wardrobe. Little Ernie and Eva had gone off to the dog-racing at Wembley, and she was alone in the flat.
George came in and stood looking at her, the brooding expression in his eyes.
“What do you want?” she snapped, uneasy, and wondering why he had come back.
“Here,” he said, thrusting an envelope at her, “buy yourself some clothes.”