Yours respeckfully
J. POTTS.
“What the devil are you doing there, Joe?”
Ginger, too absorbed in his report to have kept a proper look-out upon Bert, started violently, and thrust the exercise book under his pillow.
“Never you mind,” he said, nervously. “It’s private.”
“Oh, is it?”
Bert flung the bedclothes aside and advanced, a threatening figure.
“Writing poitry?” he demanded, with contempt.
“It’s nothing to do with you,” retorted Ginger. “You leave me be.”
‘“And that there book over,” said Bert.
“No, I won’t.”
“You wont, won’t you?”
“No, I won’t. Get out!”
Ginger clasped the document with agitated hands.
“I’m going to ’ave a look-leggo!”
Ginger was a wiry child for his years and spirited, but his hands were hampered by the book, and the advantages of height, weight, and position were with Bert. The struggle was noisy.
“Let me go, you beastly great bully.”
“I’ll teach you to call names! Cheeky little beast.”
“Ow!” wailed Ginger. “I won’t, I won’t, I tell you! it’s private!”
Whack! wallop!
“Nah then!” said a stately voice, “wot’s all this?”
“Wally, tell Bert to leave me be.”
“He didn’t oughter cheek me. I only wanted ter know wot he was doin’, sittin’ up writin’ poitry w’en he oughter a-bin asleep.”
“It’s private,” persisted Ginger. “Really and truly, it’s frightfully private.”
“Can’t yer leave the kid alone?” said P. C. Potts, magisterially, “makin” all this noise. You’ll wake Dad and then you’ll both get a ’iding. Now both of you ’op back to bed or I’ll ’ave ter take you up for disturbing the peace. And you did oughter be asleep, Joe, and not writing poitry.”
“It ain’t poitry. It’s something I was doing for a gentleman at the office and he said I wasn’t to tell nobody.”
“Well, see here,” said Wally Potts, extending a vast official fist. “You ’and over that there book to me, see? I’ll put it away in my drawer and you can ’ave it again in the morning. And now go to sleep for goodness’ sake, both of yer.”
“You won’t read it, will yer, Wally?”
“All right, I won’t read it if you’re so bloomin’ perticler.”
Ginger, reluctant but confident of Wally’s honour, reluctantly released the exercise-book.
“That’s right,” said Wally. “and if I ’ear any more larkin’ about you’re for it, both of yer. See wot I mean?”
He stalked away, gigantic in his striped pyjamas.
Ginger Joe, rubbing the portions of himself which had suffered in the assault, rolled the bed-clothes about him and took comfort in telling himself a fresh instalment of that nightly narrative of which he was both author and hero.
“Bruised and battered, but unshaken in his courage, the famous detective sank back on his straw pallet in the rat-ridden dungeon. In spite of the pain of his wounds, he was happy, knowing that the precious documents were safe. He laughed to think of the baffled Crime King, gnashing his teeth in his gilded oriental saloon. ‘Foiled yet again, Hawkeye!’ growled the villainous doctor, ‘but it will be my turn next!’ Meanwhile…”
The life of a detective is a hard one.
Chapter VIII. Convulsive Agitation of an Advertising Agency
It was on the Friday of the week in which all these stirring incidents occurred that Pym’s Publicity, Ltd. became convulsed by the Great Nutrax Row, which shook the whole office from the highest to the lowest, turned the peaceful premises into an armed camp and very nearly ruined the Staff Cricket Match against Brotherhood’s, Ltd.
The hardworking and dyspeptic Mr. Copley was the prime mover of all the trouble. Like most fomenters of schism, he acted throughout with the best intentions-and indeed, when one looks back upon the disturbance in the serene perspective of distance and impartiality, it is difficult to see what he could have done, other than what he did. But as Mr. Ingleby observed at the time, “It isn’t what Copley does, it’s the way he does it”; and in the heat and fury of the battle, when the passions of strong men are aroused, judgment easily becomes warped.
The thing started in this way:
At a quarter past six on the Thursday evening, the office was deserted, except for the cleaners and Mr. Copley, who, by an altogether exceptional accident, was left working overtime upon a rush series of cut-price advertisements for Jamboree Jellies. He was getting along nicely, and hoped to be through by half-past six and home in good time for 7.30 supper, when the telephone in the Dispatching rang violently and insistently.
“Dash it!” said Mr. Copley, annoyed by the din, “they ought to know the office is closed. You’d think they expected us to work all night.”
He went on working, trusting that the nuisance would cease of itself. Presently it did cease, and he heard the shrill voice of Mrs. Crump informing the caller that there was nobody in the office. He took a soda-mint tablet. His sentence was shaping itself beautifully. “The authentic flavour of the fresh home-grown orchard fruit-of apricots ripening in the sunny warmth of an old, walled garden…”
“Excuse me, sir.”
Mrs. Crump, shuffling apologetically in her carpet slippers, poked a nervous head round the door.
“What is it now?” said Mr. Copley.
“Oh, if you please, sir, it’s the Morning Star on the telephone very urgent, asking for Mr. Tallboy. I told them they was all gone ’ome, but they says it’s very important, sir, so I thought I’d better ask you.”
“What’s it all about?”
“Somethink about the advertisement for tomorrow morning, sir-somethink’s gone wrong and they say, did it ought to be left out altogether or can we send them somethink else, sir?”
“Oh, well!” said Mr. Copley, resigned, “I suppose I’d better come and speak to them.”
“I dunno whether I done right, sir,” continued Mrs. Crump, anxiously pattering after him, “but I thought, sir, if there is a gentleman in the office I ought to tell him about it, because I didn’t know but what it mightn’t be important-”
“Quite right, Mrs. Crump, quite right,” said Mr. Copley. “I daresay I can settle it.”
He strode competently to the telephone and grasped the receiver.
“Hullo!” he said, petulantly, “Pym’s here. What’s the matter?”
“Oh!” said a voice. “Is that Mr. Tallboy?”
“No. Mr. Tallboy’s gone home. Everybody’s gone home. You ought to know that by this time. What is it?”
“Well,” said the voice, “it’s about that Nutrax half-double for tomorrow’s feature page.”
“What about it? Haven’t you had it?”
(Just like Tallboy, thought Mr. Copley. No organization. You never could trust these younger men.)
“Yes, we’ve got it,” said the voice, doubtfully, “but Mr. Weekes says we can’t put it in. You see-”
“Can’t put it in?”
“No. You see, Mr.-”
“I’m Mr. Copley. It’s not in my department. I really know nothing about it. What’s the matter with it?”
“Well, if you had it there before you, you’d see what I mean. You know the headline-”
“No, I don’t,” snapped Mr. Copley, exasperated. “I tell you it’s not my business and I’ve never seen the thing.”
“Oh!” said the voice, with irritating cheerfulness. “Well, the headline is: ARE YOU TAKING TOO MUCH OUT OF YOURSELF? And, taken in conjunction with the sketch, Mr. Weekes thinks it might lay itself open to an unfortunate interpretation. If you had it there before you, I think you’d see what he means.”