The Penny Falls – Bentley 23

[For back story go here: Story so far at 27 July 2020 and more recent Bentley posts.]

[Relevant back story also in embedded links.]

Bentley sauntered among the slot machines. There was something reassuring about the noises around him, the chimes of winning, the promises of riches and the increasing bizarreness of prizes  being shoved perilously closer to edges of the penny-falls machines. Long gone were the days when you’d just get a pile of coppers for your reward, indeed in some of these machines it appeared that the world had gone past giving winners a fist-full of bank notes, nowadays there were mobile phones and top of the range electrical gadgetry, the likes of which frequently just meant winning an empty box and having to take it to the cashier to get it redeemed properly. Putting the real stuff under glass was asking for trouble, or more specifically asking for a couple of fleet-footed youngsters armed with a lump hammer and hessian sacks.

Maybe that’s what was happening at the shop, mused Bentley. The woman was never going to show him the good stuff, never consider letting him in on the secret behind their ring emporium because he just didn’t look threatening enough. He didn’t look like he meant business. He was just wearing a bobble hat for god’s sake, a bobble hat at the tail end of summer. Way too suspicious and obviously selected to detract from his appearance. He might as well have gone in with a sign round his neck stating he was after information. He might as well have told it straight from the start. There again, he thought, at least no one recognised me.

He was pretty sure the shop he’d been in had been owned by M.C. Jaguar and had been the original one where the ring for Shiela had come from. It was true he had no conclusive evidence, but there again there was nothing to say it wasn’t. No other shop looked like it and the frontage he was sure was the same – different colour and decor of course, but that was just a question of time.

He wondered whether he should go back to the small shopping area again and do a more meticulous search. Failing that he could argue what he'd already done amounted to a recce and now he would go back with a clear purpose and lots of great questions. If he could think of any. He was about to turn back to do this when two things happened, one of which Bentley was aware, the other of which he was not.

First, a sudden cheer erupted from a machine a few metres away from Bentley. It appeared that someone – Bentley couldn't see who – had just won big on one of the penny-falls machine. A small group – family or at least in a bubble argued Bentley – congratulated and back slapped happily. What Bentley failed to notice was that at the same time as this occurred he received a small nudge in his back causing him to step slightly forward towards the nearest penny-falls machine. He looked down at the interior of the machine and there, teetering on the brink of falling to be his prize was an open ring case complete with showy looking diamond or maybe diamanté ring. There was an inscription on the inside of the box: M.C.J.

Propelled by instinct Bentley cashed up a good five pounds worth of two-pence pieces and hustled back to his special machine. At first he just hammered the coins into the slot as if there were no tomorrow and this had limited impact. Rethinking his strategy he started to time the pushes and gradually the ring case was shoved closer to the goal.

Bentley was now spitting encouragement at the case through gritted teeth with every new shove. He was aware that he shouldn't attract interested onlookers – this had to be his prize alone – and he scampered back to the cash machine for a refill of copper coins as inconspicuously as possible.

Special prize tickets screwed merrily out of the machine, encouraging Bentley to push more on more cash forward, but the ring was all the incentive he needed. And just when Bentley was ready to call the whole thing a con and call the authorities over a fixed machine, the ring did the decent thing and took the plunge into Bentley's possession. Not really caring for the gem, he snapped the box shut and found an address and phone number on the back. It was the shop he'd been to – he was sure of that – and now he had evidence.

As he left the arcade Bentley decided at last he was making progress. If not then maybe he was dreaming or just going insane.

Because he was thinking of these things and concentrating on his next step he failed to notice that the arcade was now owned by one Jeremy Knowles AKA the King of Holes.