Выбрать главу

“Oh, the Pet’s tongue runs on ball-bearings,” said Miss Rossiter. “And talk of being a nosey-parker!”

“They all are,” replied Miss Parton. “But I say, do you know what I did yesterday? It was dreadful. Bredon came in and asked for Mr. Hankin’s carbons. I was in an awful rush with some of old Copley’s muck-he always wants everything done in five minutes-and I said, ‘Help yourself.’ Well, what do you think? Ten minutes afterwards I went to look for something on the shelf and I found he’d gone off with Mr. Hankin’s private letter-file. He must have been blind, because it’s marked PRIVATE in red letters an inch high. Of course Hankie’d be in an awful bait if he knew. So I hared off to Bredon and there he was, calmly reading Hankie’s private letters, if you please! ‘You’ve got the wrong file, Mr. Bredon,’ I said. And he wasn’t a bit ashamed. He just handed it back with a grin and said, ‘I was beginning to think I might have. It’s very interesting to see what salary everybody gets.’ And, my dear, he was reading Hankie’s departmental list. And I said, ‘Oh, Mr. Bredon, you oughtn’t to be reading that. It’s frightfully confidential.’ And he said, ‘Is it?’ He seemed quite surprised.”

“Silly ass!” said Miss Rossiter. “I hope you told him to keep it to himself. They are all so sensitive about their salaries. I’m sure I don’t know why. But they’re all dying to find out what the others get and terrified to death anybody should find out what they get themselves. If Bredon goes round shooting his mouth off, he’ll stir up some awful trouble.”

“I warned him,” said Miss Parton, “and he seemed to think it was awfully funny and asked how long it would take him to reach Dean’s salary.”

“Let’s see, how much was Dean getting?”

“Six,” replied Miss Parton, “and not worth much more in my opinion. The department will be better-tempered without him, I must say. He did rile ’em sometimes.”

“If you ask me,” said Miss Rossiter, “I don’t think this business of mixing the University people with the other sort works very well. With the Oxford and Cambridge lot it’s all give-and-take and bad language, but the others don’t seem to fit in with it. They always think they’re being sneered at.”

“It’s Ingleby upsets them. He never takes anything seriously.”

“None of them do,” said Miss Rossiter, putting an unerring and experienced finger on the point of friction. “It’s all a game to them, and with Copley and Willis it’s all deadly serious. When Willis starts on metaphysics, Ingleby recites limericks. Personally, I’m broad-minded. I rather like it. And I will say the Varsity crowd don’t quarrel like the rest of them. If Dean hadn’t fallen downstairs, there’d have been a good old bust-up between him and Willis.”

“I never could understand what that was all about,” observed Miss Parton, thoughtfully stirring her coffee.

“I believe there was a girl in it,” said Miss Rossiter. “Willis used to go about with Dean quite a lot at the week-end, and then it all stopped suddenly. They had an awful row one day last March. Miss Meteyard heard them going at it hammer and tongs in Dean’s room.”

“Did she hear what the fuss was?”

“No. Being Miss Meteyard, she first pounded on the partition and then went in and told them to shut up. She’s no use for people’s private feelings. Funny woman. Well, I suppose we’d better push off home, or we shan’t be fit for anything in the morning. It was quite a good show, wasn’t it? Where’s the check? You had two cakes more than me. Yours is one-and-a-penny and mine’s ninepence. If I give you a bob and you give me twopence and the waitress twopence and settle up at the desk, we shall be all square.”

The two girls left the Corner House by the Coventry Street entrance, and turned to the right and crossed the Piccadilly merry-go-round to the Tube entrance. As they regained the pavement, Miss Rossiter clutched Miss Parton by the arm:

“Look! the Pet! got up regardless!”

“Go on!” retorted Miss Parton. “It isn’t the Pet. Yes, it is! Look at the evening cloak and the gardenia, and, my dear, the monocle!”

Unaware of this commentary, the gentleman in question was strolling negligently towards them, smoking a cigarette. As he came abreast of them, Miss Rossiter broke into a cheerful grin and said, “Hullo!”

The man raised his hat mechanically and shook his head. His face was a well-bred blank. Miss Rossiter’s cheeks became flooded with a fiery crimson.

“It isn’t him. How awful!”

“He took you for a tart,” said Miss Parton, with some confusion and perhaps a little satisfaction.

“It’s an extraordinary thing,” muttered Miss Rossiter, vexed. “I could have sworn-”

“He’s not a bit like him, really, when you see him close to,” said Miss Parton, wise after the event. “I told you it wasn’t him.”

“You said it was him.” Miss Rossiter glanced back over her shoulder, and was in time to see a curious little incident.

A limousine car came rolling gently along from the direction of Leicester Square and drew up close to the kerb, opposite the entrance to the Criterion Bar. The man in dress-clothes stepped up to it and addressed a few words to the occupant, flinging his cigarette away as he did so, and laying one hand on the handle of the door, as though about to enter the car. Before he could do so, two men emerged suddenly and silently from a shop-entrance. One of them spoke to the chauffeur; the other put his hand on the gentleman’s elegant arm. A brief sentence or two were exchanged; then the one man got up beside the chauffeur while the second man opened the door of the car. The man in dress clothes got in, the other man followed, and the whole party drove off. The whole thing was so quickly done that almost before Miss Parton could turn round in answer to Miss Rossiter’s exclamation, it was all over.

“An arrest!” breathed Miss Rossiter, her eyes shining. “Those two were detectives. I wonder what our friend in the monocle’s been doing.”

Miss Parton was thrilled.

“And we actually spoke to him and thought it was Bredon.”

“I spoke to him,” corrected Miss Rossiter. It was all very well for Miss Parton to claim the credit, but only a few minutes back she had rather pointedly dissociated herself from the indiscretion and she could not be allowed to have it both ways.

“You did, then,” agreed Miss Parton. “I’m surprised at you, Rossie, trying to get off with a smart crook. Anyhow, if Bredon doesn’t turn up tomorrow, we’ll know it was him after all.”

***

But it could hardly have been Mr. Bredon, for he was in his place the next morning just as usual. Miss Rossiter asked him if he had a double.

“Not that I know of,” said Mr. Bredon. “One of my cousins is a bit like me.”

Miss Rossiter related the incident, with slight modifications. On consideration, she thought it better not to mention that she had been mistaken for a lady of easy virtue.

“Oh, I don’t think that would be my cousin,” replied Mr. Bredon. “He’s a frightfully proper person. Well known at Buckingham Palace, and all that.”

“Go on,” said Miss Rossiter.

“I’m the black sheep of the family,” said Mr. Bredon. “He never even sees me in the street. It must have been some one quite different.”

“Is your cousin called Bredon, too?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Bredon.

Chapter III. Inquisitive Interviews of a New Copy-Writer

Mr. Bredon had been a week with Pym’s Publicity, and had learnt a number of things. He learned the average number of words that can be crammed into four inches of copy; that Mr. Armstrong’s fancy could be caught by an elaborately-drawn lay-out, whereas Mr. Hankin looked on art-work as waste of a copy-writer’s time; that the word “pure” was dangerous, because, if lightly used, it laid the client open to prosecution by the Government inspectors, whereas the words “highest quality,”