“That just shows you,” began Mr. Copley.
“And fortunately she’d seen you at my desk. Otherwise, I suppose I should never have heard anything more about my money.”
“You’ve no right to say that.”
“I’ve a damn sight more right to say it than you had to steal the money.”
“Are you calling me a thief?”
“Yes, I am.”
“And I call you a scoundrel,” gasped Mr. Copley, beside himself, “an insolent scoundrel. And I say that if you came by the money honestly, which I doubt, sir, which I very much doubt-”
Mr. Bredon poked his long nose round the door.
“I say,” he bleated anxiously, “sorry to butt in, and all that, but Hankie’s compliments and he says, would you mind talking a little more quietly? He’s got Mr. Simon Brotherhood next door.”
A pause followed, in which both parties realized the thinness of the beaverboard partition between Mr. Hankin’s room and Mr. Copley’s. Then Mr. Tallboy thrust the recovered envelope into his pocket.
“All right, Copley,” he said. “I shan’t forget your kind interference.” He bounced out.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” moaned Mr. Copley, clasping his head in his hands.
“Is anything up?” queried Mr. Bredon.
“Please go away,” pleaded Mr. Copley, “I’m feeling horribly ill.”
Mr. Bredon withdrew on catlike feet. His inquisitive face beamed with mischief. He pursued Mr. Tallboy into the Dispatching, and found him earnestly talking to Mrs. Johnson.
“I say, Tallboy,” said Mr. Bredon, “what’s wrong with Copley? He looks jolly fed-up. Have you been twisting his tail?”
“It’s no affair of yours, anyway,” retorted Mr. Tallboy, sullenly. “All right, Mrs. J., I’ll see Mrs. Crump and put it right with her.”
“I hope you will, Mr. Tallboy. And another time, if you have any valuables, I should be obliged if you would bring them to me and let me put them in the safe downstairs. These upsets are not pleasant, and Mr. Pym would be greatly annoyed if he knew about it.”
Mr. Tallboy fled for the lift without vouchsafing any reply.
“Atmosphere seems a bit hectic this morning, Mrs. Johnson,” observed Mr. Bredon, seating himself on the edge of the good lady’s desk. “Even the presiding genius of the Dispatching looks a trifle ruffled. But a righteous indignation becomes you. Gives sparkle to the eyes and a clear rosiness to the complexion.”
“Now that’ll do, Mr. Bredon. What will my boys think if they hear you making fun of me? Really, though, some of these people are too trying. But I must stand up for my women, Mr. Bredon, and for my boys. There isn’t one of them that I wouldn’t trust, and it isn’t right to bring accusations with nothing to support them.”
“It’s simply foul,” agreed Mr. Bredon. “Who’s been bringing accusations?”
“Well, I don’t know if I ought to tell tales out of school,” said Mrs. Johnson, “but it’s really only justice to poor Mrs. Crump to say-”
Naturally, in five minutes’ time, the insinuating Mr. Bredon was in possession of the whole story.
“But you needn’t go and spread it all round the office,” said Mrs. Johnson.
“Of course I needn’t,” said Mr. Bredon. “Hullo! is that the lad with our coffee?”
He sprang alertly from his perch and hastened into the typists’ room, where Miss Parton was detailing to a prick-eared audience the more juicy details of the morning’s scene with Mr. Armstrong.
“That’s nothing,” announced Mr. Bredon. “You haven’t heard the latest development.”
“Oh, what is it?” cried Miss Rossiter.
“I’ve promised not to tell,” said Mr. Bredon.
“Shame, shame!”
“At least, I didn’t exactly promise. I was asked not to.”
“Is it about Mr. Tallboy’s money?”
“You do know, then? What a disappointment!”
“I know that poor little Mrs. Crump was crying this morning because Mr. Tallboy had accused her of taking some money out of his desk.”
“Well, if you know that,” said Mr. Bredon artlessly, “in justice to Mrs. Crump-”
His tongue wagged busily.
“Well, I think it’s too bad of Mr. Tallboy,” said Miss Rossiter. “He’s always being rude to poor old Copley. It’s a shame. And it’s rotten to accuse the charwomen.”
“Yes, it is,” agreed Miss Parton, “but I’ve no patience with that Copley creature. He’s a tiresome old sneak. He went and told Hankie once that he’d seen me at the dog-races with a gentleman friend. As if it was any business of his what a girl does out of business hours. He’s too nosey by half. Just because anybody’s a mere typist it doesn’t mean one’s a heathen slave. Oh! here’s Mr. Ingleby. Coffee, Mr. Ingleby? I say, have you heard about old Copley pinching Mr. Tallboy’s fifty quid?”
“You don’t say so,” exclaimed Mr. Ingleby, shooting a miscellaneous collection of oddments out of the waste-paper basket as a preliminary to up-turning it and sitting upon it. “Tell me quickly. Golly! what a day we’re having!”
“Well,” said Miss Rossiter, lusciously taking up the tale, “somebody sent Mr. Tallboy fifty pounds in a registered envelope-”
“What’s all this?” interrupted Miss Meteyard, arriving with some sheets of copy in one hand and a bag of bulls’ eyes in the other. “Here are some lollipops for my little ones. Now let’s hear it all from the beginning. I only wish people would send me fifty poundses in registered envelopes. Who was the benefactor?”
“I don’t know. Do you know, Mr. Bredon?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. But it was all in currency notes, which is suspicious, for a start.”
“And he brought them to the office, meaning to take them to the Bank.”
“But he was busy,” chimed in Miss Parton, “and forgot all about them.”
“Catch me forgetting about fifty pounds,” said Miss Parton’s bosom-friend from the Printing.
“Oh, we’re only poor hardworking typists. Fifty pounds or so is nothing to Mr. Tallboy, obviously. He put them in his desk-”
“Why not in his pocket?”
“Because he was working in his shirt-sleeves, and didn’t like to leave all that wealth hanging on a coat-peg-”
“Yes; well, he forgot them at the lunch-hour. And in the afternoon, he found that the blockmaker had done something silly with the Nutrax block-”
“Was that what delayed it?” inquired Mr. Bredon.
“Yes, that was it. And, I say, I’ve found out something else. Mr. Drew-”
“Who’s Mr. Drew?”
“That stout man from the Cormorant Press. He said to Mr. Tallboy he thought the headline was a bit hot. And Mr. Tallboy said he had a nasty mind and anyhow, everybody had passed it and it was too late to alter it then-”
“Jiminy!” said Mr. Garrett, suddenly bursting into speech, “it’s a good thing Copley didn’t get hold of that. He’d have rubbed it in, all right. I must say, I think Tallboy ought to have done something about it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Wedderburn. Drew asked him about it this morning. Said he noticed they’d thought better of it after all.”
“Well, get on with the story.”
“By the time Mr. Tallboy had had the block put right, the Bank was shut. So he forgot about it again, and went off, leaving the fifty quid in his desk.”
“Does he often do that sort of thing?”
“Goodness knows. And old Copley was working late on his jellies-”
Clack, clack, clack. The story lost nothing in the telling.
“-poor old Mrs. Crump was weeping like a sponge-”
“-Mrs. Johnson was in such a bait-”
“-making a most awful row. Mr. Bredon heard them. What did he call him, Mr. Bredon?”
“-accused him of stealing the money-”
“-thief and scoundrel-”
“-what Mr. Brotherhood must have thought-”
“-give them the sack, I shouldn’t wonder-”
“-my dear, the thrills we get in this place!”