The two directors plunged into a maze of facts and figures. Mr. Bredon’s attention wandered.
“Printing costs… see that they have a sufficient distribution… bonus to the tobacconists… free displays… tackle the hotels first… news-value… get the Morning Star to give it a show… no, I know, but there’s the Boost Britain side of it… I can wangle Jenks… reduce overheads by… call it £200 a day… Puffin’s aeroplanes must be costing them that… front page splash and five free coupons… well, that’s a matter of detail…”
“In any case, we’ve got to do something.” Mr. Armstrong emerged from the argument with a slightly flushed face. “It’s no use telling people that the cost of the advertising has to come out of the quality of the goods. They don’t care. All they want is something for nothing. Pay? Yes, of course they pay in the end, but somebody’s got to pay. You can’t fight free gifts with solemn assertions about Value. Besides, if Whifflets lose their market they’ll soon lose their quality too-or what are we here for?”
“You needn’t tell me that, Armstrong,” said Mr. Pym. “Whether people like it or not, the fact remains that unless you continually increase sales you must either lose money or cut down quality. I hope we’ve learnt that by this time.”
“What happens,” asked Mr. Bredon, “when you’ve increased sales to saturation point?”
“You mustn’t ask those questions, Bredon,” said Mr. Armstrong, amused.
“No, but really. Suppose you push up the smoking of every man and woman in the Empire till they must either stop or die of nicotine poisoning?”
“We’re a long way off that,” replied Mr. Pym, seriously. “And that reminds me. This scheme should carry a strong appeal to women. ‘Give your children that seaside holiday by smoking Whifflets.’ That sort of thing. We want to get women down to serious smoking. Too many of them play about with it. Take them off scented stuff and put them on to the straightforward Virginia cigarette-”
“The gasper, in fact.”
“Whifflets,” said Mr. Pym. “You can smoke a lot more of them in the day without killing yourself. And they’re cheaper. If we increase women’s smokes by 500 per cent-there’s plenty of room for it-”
Mr. Bredon’s attention wandered again.
“-all right, date the coupons. Let them run for three months only. That will give us plenty of duds to play with. And they’ll have to see that their stockists are kept up to date with fresh goods. By the way, that makes a selling point-”
Mr. Bredon fell into a dream.
“-but you must have a good press campaign as well. Posters are good and cheap, but if you really want to tell people something, you’ve got to have a press campaign. Not a big one, necessarily, after the first big bang. But a good, short, snappy reminder week by week-”
“Very well, Mr. Bredon.” The creator of the Whifflet scheme came out of his doze with a start. “We’ll put this up to Whifflets. Will you see if you can get out some copy? And you’d better put a few other people on to it as well, Armstrong. Ingleby-it’s rather his line. And Miss Meteyard. We want to get something out by the end of the week. Tell Mr. Barrow to put everything else aside and rough out some really striking displays.” Mr. Pym gave the signal of dismissal, and then, as a thought struck him, called Bredon back.
“I want a word with you, Bredon. I’d almost forgotten what you were really here for. Has any progress been made in that matter?”
“Yes.” The Whifflets campaign receded from Lord Peter Wimsey, dying along the distance of his mind. “In fact, the investigation is turning out to be of so much importance that I don’t quite know how I can take even you into my confidence.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Mr. Pym. “I am employing you-”
“No. There’s no question of employment. I’m afraid it’s a police job.”
The shadows of disquiet gathered and deepened in Mr. Pym’s eyes.
“Do you mean that those earlier suspicions you mentioned to me were actually justified?”
“Oh, yes. But it’s a bigger thing than that.”
“I don’t want any scandal.”
“Possibly not. But I don’t quite see how it’s to be avoided, if the thing comes to trial.”
“Look here, Bredon,” said Mr. Pym, “I don’t like your behaviour. I put you in here as my private inquiry agent. I admit that you have made yourself very useful in other capacities, but you are not indispensable. If you insist on going beyond your authority-”
“You can sack me. Of course. But would that be wise?”
Mr. Pym mopped his forehead.
“Can you tell me this,” he inquired anxiously, after a silence in which he seemed to be digesting the meaning of his employee’s question. “Do your suspicions point to any particular person? Is it possible to remove that person promptly from our staff? You see my point. If, before this scandal breaks-whatever it is-and I really think I ought to be told-but so long as we can say that the person is no longer on the staff, it makes a difference. The firm’s name might even be kept out of it-mightn’t it? The good name of Pym’s means a great deal to me, Mr. Bredon-”
“I can’t tell you,” said Wimsey; “a few days ago, I thought I knew, but just lately, other facts have come to my knowledge which suggest that the man I originally suspected may not be the right one. And until I know definitely, I can’t do or say anything. At the moment it might be anybody. It might even be yourself.”
“This is outrageous,” cried Mr. Pym. “You can take your money and go.”
Wimsey shook his head.
“If you get rid of me, the police will probably want to put somebody in my place.”
“If I had the police here,” retorted Mr. Pym, “I should at least know where I was. I know nothing about you, except that Mrs. Arbuthnot recommended you. I never cared for the idea of a private detective, though I certainly thought at first that you were of a somewhat superior type to the usual inquiry agent. But insolence I cannot and will not put up with. I shall communicate at once with Scotland Yard, and they will, I imagine, require you to state plainly what you imagine yourself to have discovered.
“They know it.”
“Do they? You do not seem to be a model of discretion, Mr. Bredon.” He pressed his buzzer. “Miss Hartley, will you please get Scotland Yard on the ’phone, and ask them to send up a reliable detective.”
“Very well, Mr. Pym.”
Miss Hartley danced away. This was meat and drink. She had always said there was something funny about Mr. Bredon, and now he had been caught. Pinching the cash, perhaps. She dialled the switch-board and asked for Whitehall 1212.
“Just one moment,” said Wimsey, when the door had closed upon her. “If you really want Scotland Yard tell her to ask for Chief-Inspector Parker and say that Lord Peter Wimsey would like to speak to him. Then he’ll know what it’s about.”
“You are-? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it might raise difficulties about the salary and prove embarrassing. I took the job on because I thought advertising might be rather good fun. So it is,” added Wimsey, pleasantly, “so it is.”