“How often have I got to tell you blasted incompetents,” he demanded amiably, “that those initials are on the copy for the purpose of identifying the writer? If you think my initials are DB you're either blind or potty.”
“Who is DB anyway?”
“New fellow, Bredon.”
“Where is he?”
Mr. Ingleby jerked his thumb in the direction of the next room.
“Empty,” announced Mr. Tallboy, after a brief excursion.
“Well, have a look for him,” suggested Ingleby.
“Yes, but look here,” said Mr. Tallboy, persuasively, “I only want a suggestion. What the devil are the Studio to do with this? Do you mean to say Hankin passed that headline?”
“Presumably,” said Ingleby.
“Well, how does he or Bredon or anybody suppose we're going to get it illustrated? Has the client seen it? They'll never stand for it. What's the point in laying it out? I can't think how Hankin came to pass it.”
Ingleby stretched his hand out again.
“Brief, bright and brotherly,” he observed. “What's the matter with it?”
The headline was:
––!
IF LIFE'S A BLANK
TAKE NUTRAX
“And in any case,” grumbled Tallboy, “the Morning Star won't take it. They won't put in anything that looks like bad language.”
“Your look-out,” said Ingleby. “Why not ask 'em?”
Tallboy muttered something impolite.
“Anyway, if Hankin's passed it, it'll have to be laid out, I suppose,” said Ingleby. “Surely the Studio–oh! hullo! here's your man. You'd better worry him. Bredon!”
“That's me!” said Mr. Bredon. “All present and correct!”
“Where've you been hiding from Tallboy? You knew he was on your tail.”
“I've been on the roof,” admitted Bredon, apologetically. “Cooler and all that. What's the matter. What have I done?”
“Well, this headline of yours, Mr. Bredon. How do you expect them to illustrate it?”
“I don't know. I left it to their ingenuity. I always believe in leaving scope to other people's imagination.”
“How on earth are they to draw a blank?”
“Let 'em take a ticket in the Irish Sweep. That'll larn 'em,” said Ingleby.
“I should think it would be rather like a muchness,” suggested Bredon. “Lewis Carroll, you know. Did you ever see a drawing of a muchness?”
“Oh, don't fool,” growled Tallboy. “We've got to do something with it. Do you really think it's a good headline, Mr. Bredon?”
“It's the best I've written yet,” said Bredon enthusiastically, “except that beauty Hankie wouldn't pass. Can't they draw a man looking blank? Or just a man with a blank face, like those 'Are these missing features yours?' advertisements?”
“Oh, I suppose they could,” admitted Tallboy, discontentedly. “I'll put it up to them anyhow. Thanks,” he added, belatedly, and bounced out.
“Cross, isn't he?” said Ingleby. “It's this frightful heat. Whatever made you go up on the roof? It must be like a gridiron.”
“So it is, but I thought I'd just try it. As a matter of fact, I was chucking pennies over the parapet to that brass band. I got the bombardon twice. The penny goes down with a tremendous whack, you know, and they look up all over the place to see where it comes from and you dodge down behind the parapet. It's a tremendous high parapet, isn't it? I suppose they wanted to make the building look even higher than it is. It's the highest in the street in any case. You do get a good view from up there. 'Earth hath not anything to show more fair.' It's going to rain like billy-ho in about two ticks. See how black it's come over.”
“You seem to have come over pretty black, if it comes to that,” remarked Ingleby. “Look at the seat of your trousers.”
“You do want a lot,” complained Bredon, twisting his spine alarmingly. “It is a bit sooty up there. I was sitting on the skylight.”
“You look as if you'd been shinning up a pipe.”
“Well, I did shin down a pipe. Only one pipe–rather a nice pipe. It took my fancy.”
“You're loopy,” said Ingleby, “doing acrobatics on dirty pipes in this heat. Whatever made you?”
“I dropped something,” said Mr. Bredon, plaintively. “It went down on to the glass roof of the wash-place. I nearly put my foot through. Wouldn't old Smayle have been surprised if I'd tumbled into the wash-basin on top of him? And then I found I needn't have gone down the pipe after all; I came back by the staircase–the roof-door was open on both floors.”
“They generally keep them open in hot weather,” said Ingleby.
“I wish I'd known. I say, I could do with a drink.”
“All right, have a glass of Sparkling Pompayne.”
“What's that?”
“One of Brotherhood's non-alcoholic refreshers,” grinned Ingleby. “Made from finest Devon apples, with the crisp, cool sparkle of champagne. Definitely anti-rheumatic and non-intoxicant. Doctors recommend it.”
Bredon shuddered.
“I think this is an awfully immoral job of ours. I do, really. Think how we spoil the digestions of the public.”
“Ah, yes–but think how earnestly we strive to put them right again. We undermine 'em with one hand and build 'em up with the other. The vitamins we destroy in the canning, we restore in Revito, the roughage we remove from Peabody's Piper Parritch we make up into a package and market as Bunbury's Breakfast Bran; the stomachs we ruin with Pompayne, we re-line with Peplets to aid digestion. And by forcing the damn-fool public to pay twice over–once to have its food emasculated and once to have the vitality put back again, we keep the wheels of commerce turning and give employment to thousands–including you and me.”
“This wonderful world!” Bredon sighed ecstatically. “How many pores should you say there were in the human skin, Ingleby?”
“Damned if I know. Why?”
“Headline for Sanfect. Could I say, at a guess, ninety million? It sounds a good round number. 'Ninety Million Open Doors by which Germs can Enter–Lock Those Doors with Sanfect.' Sounds convincing, don't you think? Here's another: 'Would you Leave your Child in a Den of Lions?' That ought to get the mothers.”
“It'd make a good sketch–Hullo! here comes the storm and no mistake.”
A flash of lightning and a tremendous crack of thunder broke without warning directly over their heads.
“I expected it,” said Bredon. “That's why I did my roof-walk.”
“How do you mean, that's why?”
“I was on the look-out for it,” explained Bredon. “Well, it's here. Phew! that was a good one. I do adore thunder-storms. By the way, what has Willis got up against me?”
Ingleby frowned and hesitated.
“He seems to think I'm not nice to know,” explained Bredon.
“Well–I warned you not to talk to him about Victor Dean. He seems to have got it into his head you were a friend of his, or something.”
“But what was wrong with Victor Dean?”
“He kept bad company. Why are you so keen to know about Dean, anyway?”
“Well, I suppose I'm naturally inquisitive. I always like to know about people. About the office-boys, for instance. They do physical jerks on the roof, don't they? Is that the only time they're allowed on the roof?”
“They'd better not let the Sergeant catch 'em up there in office-hours. Why?”
“I just wondered. They're a mischievous lot, I expect; boys always are. I like 'em. What's the name of the red-headed one? He looks a snappy lad.”
“That's Joe–they call him Ginger, of course. What's he been doing?”
“Oh, nothing. I suppose you get a lot of cats prowling about this place.”
“Cats? I've never seen any cats. Except that I believe there's a cat that lives in the canteen, but she doesn't seem to come up here. What do you want a cat for?”
“I don't–anyway, there must be dozens of sparrows, mustn't t
here?”
Ingleby began to think that the heat had affected Bredon's brain. His reply was drowned in a tremendous crash of thunder. A silence followed, in which the street noises came thinly up from without; then heavy drops began to spit upon the panes. Ingleby got up and shut the window.
The rain came down like rods and roared upon the roof. In the lead gutters it danced and romped, rushing in small swift rivers into the hoppers. Mr. Prout, emerging from his room in a hurry, received a deluge of water down his neck from the roof and yelled for a boy to run along and shut the skylights. The oppression of heat and misery lifted from the office like a cast-off eiderdown. Standing at the window of his own room, Bredon watched the hurrying foot-passengers six stories below, open their umbrellas to the deluge, or, caught defenceless, scurry into shop doorways. Down below, in the Conference Room, Mr. Jollop suddenly smiled and passed six lay-outs and a three-colour folder, and consented to the omission of the Fifty-six Free Chiming Clocks from the current week's half-double. Harry, the lift-man, ushering a dripping young woman into the shelter of the cage, expressed sympathy with her plight, and offered her a wipe-down with a duster. The young woman smiled at him, assured him that she was quite all right and asked if she could see Mr. Bredon. Harry handed her on to Tompkin, the reception clerk, who said he would send up, and what was her name, please?
“Miss Dean–Miss Pamela Dean–on private business.”
The clerk became full of sympathetic interest.
“Our Mr. Dean's sister, miss?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, yes, miss. A dreadful sad thing about Mr. Dean, miss. We were all very sorry to lose him like that. If you'll just take a seat, miss, I'll tell Mr. Bredon you're here.”
Pamela Dean sat down and looked about her. The reception-hall was on the lower floor of the agency and contained nothing but the clerk's semi-circular desk, two hard chairs, a hard settle and a clock. It occupied the space which, on the upper floor, was taken up by the Dispatching, and just outside the door was the lift and the main staircase, which wound round the lift-shaft and went the whole way to the roof, though the lift itself went no further than the top floor. The clock pointed to 12.45, and already a stream of employees was passing through the hall, or clattering down from the floor above for a wash and brush-up before going out to lunch. A message from Mr. Bredon arrived to say that he would be down in a moment, and Pamela Dean entertained herself by watching the various members of the staff as they passed. A brisk, neat young man, with an immaculate head of wavy brown hair, a minute dark moustache and very white teeth (Mr. Smayle, had she known it, group-manager for Dairyfields, Ltd.); a large, bald man with a reddish, clean-shaven face and a masonic emblem (Mr. Harris of the Outdoor Publicity); a man of thirty-five, with rather sulky good looks and restless light eyes (Mr. Tallboy, brooding on the iniquities of Messrs. Toule & Jollop); a thin, prim, elderly man (Mr. Daniels); a plump little man with a good-natured grin and fair hair, chatting to a square-jawed, snub-nosed red-head (Mr. Cole, group-manager for Harrogate Bros. of soap fame, and Mr. Prout, the photographer); a handsome, worried, grey-haired man in the forties, accompanying a prosperous baldpate in an overcoat (Mr. Armstrong escorting Mr. Jollop away to a mollifying and expensive lunch); an untidy, saturnine person with both hands in his trousers-pockets (Mr. Ingleby); a thin, predatory man with a stoop and jaundiced eyeballs (Mr. Copley, wondering whether his lunch was going to agree with him); then a lean, fair-haired, anxious-looking youth, who, at sight of her, stopped dead in his tracks, flushed, and then passed on. This was Mr. Willis; Miss Dean gave him a glance and a cool nod, which was as coolly returned. Tompkin, the reception clerk, who missed nothing, saw the start, the flush, the glance and the nods and mentally added another item to his fund of useful knowledge. Then came a slim man of forty or so, with a long nose and straw-coloured hair, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a pair of well-cut grey trousers which seemed to have received recent ill-treatment; he came up to Pamela and said, more as a statement than as a question:
“Miss Dean.”
“Mr. Bredon?”
“Yes.”
“You ought not to have come here,” said Mr. Bredon, shaking his head reproachfully, “it's a little indiscreet, you know. However–hullo, Willis, want me?”
It was evidently not Mr. Willis' lucky day. He had conquered his nervous agitation and turned back with the obvious intention of addressing Pamela, just in time to find Bredon in possession. He replied, “Oh, no, not at all”–with such patent sincerity that Tompkin made another ecstatic mental note, and was, indeed, forced to dive hurriedly behind his counter to conceal his radiant face. Bredon grinned amiably and Willis, after a moment's hesitation, fled through the doorway.
“I'm sorry,” said Miss Dean. “I didn't know–”
“Never mind,” said Bredon, and then, in a louder tone: “You've come for those things of your brother's, haven't you? I've got them here; I'm working in his room, don't you know. I say, er, how about, er, coming out and honouring me by taking in a spot of lunch with me, what?”
Miss Dean agreed; Bredon fetched his hat and they passed out.
“Ho!” said Tompkin in confidence to himself. “Ho! what's the game, I wonder? She's a smart jane all right, all right. Given the youngster a chuck and now she's out after the new bloke, I shouldn't be surprised. And I don't know as I blame her.”
Mr. Bredon and Miss Dean went sedately down together in silence, affording no pasture for the intelligent ears of Harry the lift-man, but as they emerged into Southampton Row, the girl turned to her companion:
“I was rather surprised when I got your letter....”
Mr. Willis, lurking in the doorway of a neighbouring tobacconist's shop, heard the words and scowled. Then, pulling his hat over his eyebrows and buttoning his mackintosh closely about him, he set out in pursuit. They walked through the lessening rain to the nearest cab-rank and engaged a taxi. Mr. Willis, cunningly waiting till they were well started, engaged the next.
“Follow that taxi,” he said, exactly like somebody out of a book. And the driver, nonchalant as though he had stepped from the pages of Edgar Wallace, replied, “Right you are, sir,” and slipped in his clutch.
The chase offered no excitement, ending up in the tamest possible manner at Simpson's in the Strand. Mr. Willis paid off his taxi, and climbed, in the wake of the couple, to that upper room where ladies are graciously permitted to be entertained. The quarry found a table near the window; Mr. Willis, ignoring the efforts of a waiter to pilot him to a quiet corner, squeezed in at the table next to them, where a man and woman, who obviously wanted to lunch alone, made way for him indignantly. Even so, he was not very well placed, for, though he could see Bredon and the girl, they had their backs to him, and their conversation was perfectly inaudible.
“Plenty of room at the next table, sir,” suggested the waiter.
“I'm all right here,” replied Willis, irritably. His neighbour glared, and the waiter, with a glance as much as to say, 'Loopy–but what can a man do?' presented the bill of fare. Willis vaguely ordered saddle of mutton and red-currant jelly with potatoes and gazed at Bredon's slim back.
“....very nice today, sir.”
“What?”
“The cauliflower, sir–very nice today.”
“Anything you like.”
The little black hat and the sleek yellow poll seemed very close together. Bredon had taken some small object out of his pocket and was showing it to the girl. A ring? Willis strained his eyes–
“What will you drink, sir?”
“Lager,” said Willis, at random.
“Pilsener, sir, or Barclay's London Lager?”
“Oh, Pilsener.”
“Light or dark, sir?”
“Light–dark–no, I mean light.”
“Large light Pilsener, sir?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Tankard, sir?”
“Yes, no–damn it! Bring it in anything that's got a hole in the top.” There seemed no end
to the questions that could be asked about beer. The girl had taken the object, and was doing something with it. What? For heaven's sake, what?
“Roast or new potatoes, sir?”
“New.” The man had gone, thank goodness. Bredon was holding Pamela Dean's hand–no, he was turning over the object that lay on her palm. The woman opposite Willis was stretching across for the sugar-basin–her head obstructed his view–deliberately, as it seemed to him. She moved back. Bredon was still examining the object–
A large dinner-wagon, laden with steaming joints under great silver covers was beside him. A lid was lifted–the odour of roast mutton smote him in the face.
“A little more fat, sir? You like it underdone?”
Great God! What monster helpings they gave one at this place! What sickening stuff mutton was! How vile were these round yellow balls of potato that the man kept heaping on his plate! What disgusting stuff cauliflower could be–a curdle of cabbage! Willis, picking with nauseated reluctance at the finest roast saddle in London, felt his stomach cold and heavy, his feet a-twitch.
The hateful meal dragged on. The indignant couple finished their gooseberry pie and went their affronted way without waiting for coffee. Now Willis could see better. The other two were laughing now and talking eagerly. In a sudden lull a few words of Pamela's floated clearly back to him: “It's to be fancy dress, so you'll slip in all right.” Then she dropped her voice again.
“Will you take any more mutton, sir?”
Try as he would, Willis could catch nothing more. He sat on in Simpson's until Bredon, glancing at his watch, appeared to remind himself and his companion that advertising copy-writers must work sometimes. Willis was ready for them. His bill was paid. He had only to shelter behind the newspaper he had brought in with him until they had passed him and then–what? Follow them out? Pursue them again in a taxi, wondering all the time how closely they were clasped together, what they were saying to one another, what appointments they were making, what new devilment there was still in store for Pamela, now that Victor Dean was out of the way, and what he would or could do next to make the world safe for her to live in?