“That’s it,” said Henry. “I thought her face was familiar. I must have seen it in one of the illustrated papers… What on earth was that?”
“It sounded,” said John, “like a scream, didn’t it?”
III
It is undeniable that the morning had not started well in the partners’ secretaries room.
Though it would have been difficult to have selected three more diverse types than Miss Cornel, Miss Mildmay and Miss Chittering, they usually managed to get along in an easy enough way on a basis of working-day tolerance helped out by the fact that they were all really kept rather busy. It must be remembered that in addition to the normal duties of taking down letters, typing them, engrossing, fair copying, taking telephone calls, heading off awkward clients and trying to arrange definite appointments with the less clear-headed members of the aristocracy, they had also (that nothing might be wanting) to cope with the Horniman cross-filing system.
However, that particular morning was an unhappy one. Anne Mildmay had arrived late. She was flying storm signals and had a look in her eye which would have been recognised at once by anyone who had served in a ship under her father, the celebrated “Conk” Mildmay (the only man who ever told Beatty what he thought of him and got away with both ears).
“Good morning,” said Miss Chittering brightly. “You’ll be qualifying for the D.C.M. if you arrive at this hour.”
“The what?”
“The Don’t Come Monday.”
“Oh.”
Miss Mildmay ripped off the cover of her typewriter, sorted out a sheet of demi, a carbon and a flimsy, stuffed them together and banged them into her machine.
“Well, anyway,” she said. “Old Birley doesn’t chase me round telling me I don’t know my job, and suggesting I find out how to do it from Miss Cornel.” In an incautious moment Miss Chittering had repeated Mr. Birley’s strictures of the day before.
“Well, I’m sure,” she said. “There’s no need to be unpleasant. I was only having a joke.”
“So was I,” said Miss Mildmay.
There was silence for some time after this, broken only by the flagellation of three typewriters.
Miss Chittering, however, was not a person who was able to keep silent for very long. It was perhaps unfortunate that she had to address all her remarks to Anne, since she was still not on speaking terms with Miss Cornel owing to certain heresies on the subject of genuine crocodile dressing-cases.
“Poor Mr. Horniman,” she said. “I think he’s getting thinner every day. Worry, that’s what it is.”
“What’s he got to worry about?” said Anne.
“Well, I expect it’s all the new work—and the responsibility.”
“He gets paid for it.”
“And the hours he works. He’s always here last thing at night.”
“It won’t kill him.” Anne sounded so unnecessarily bitter that Miss Cornel looked up curiously.
“He says the strangest things, too.”
“Like ‘O.B.E., Esquire’,” suggested Miss Cornel unkindly from her corner. Fortunately, before any further hostilities could be provoked, the signal bell gave a buzz. Miss Cornel collected her shorthand notebook and went out.
“Some people,” announced Miss Chittering to no one in particular, “think that because they’ve been here a long time they can say anything they like.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Anne. “How many r’s in referred?”
The typewriters resumed their clatter.
Meanwhile in Bob Horniman’s room he and Miss Cornel were looking rather hopelessly at a large black deed box labelled Ichabod Stokes.
“He can’t have lost the key,” said Miss Cornel. “He kept them all together on one ring. Let me have another look. Consequential, Marquis of Curragh, Lady Burberry, General Pugh—he always kept twelve boxes on this rack and six more under the bookshelf. That’s eighteen.” She counted the keys again. “You’re quite right,” she said. “There are only seventeen keys here. Stokes is missing—”
“First the trustee, then the key,” groaned Bob. “I knew it. I knew it. The next thing we shall find is that half the securities are gone.”
Miss Cornel looked at him sharply. “The securities aren’t kept in here,” she said. “They’re with Sergeant Cockerill in the strong-room. There’s nothing in this box but old files and papers and trust accounts.”
“I know,” said Bob, “but how am I to start checking up the securities unless I can get hold of the last set of trust accounts. Hasn’t Cockerill got a key?”
Miss Cornel thought for a moment. “There was a master-key with each set,” she said. “When your father had these new deed boxes put in, they came in sets. There was a master-key with each one, and it was a good thing there was—they were always losing single keys—not your father, he was very careful, but the others—”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t think Mr. Craine ever keeps his boxes locked at all,” said Bob. “Do you think his master-key would fit this lock?”
“I know it wouldn’t,” said Miss Cornel, “because about five years ago your father lost his master-key, and I remember we had to have another one made. It took months.”
“Well, we don’t want to go through all that if we can help it,” said Bob. “Ask Sergeant Cockerill to come up here for a minute.”
Sergeant Cockerill, summoned from the basement, denied any knowledge of master-keys.
“All the other keys I’ve got,” he said. “Strong-room, lockers, doors. Inside doors and outside doors. But not boxes. The partners look after them.” He spoke rather resentfully.
“I suppose we shall have to get through to the firm that made the boxes,” said Bob. “But, heavens, that’ll take weeks, and goodness knows where Mr. Smallbone will have got to by then.”
“I might be able to get a copy of the trust accounts from the auditors,” suggested Miss Cornel. “We could at least start to check the securities. After all,” she added, with considerable logic but a curious lack of conviction, “what’s all the fuss about, we don’t know that there’s anything wrong with this trust.”
“Excusing me,” said Sergeant Cockerill suddenly. “But do I understand that all you’re wanting is to open this box?”
“That’s right.”
“And it’s important?”
“Well,” said Bob, rather helplessly. “We don’t really know. Until we open the box we can’t tell whether it’s important to open it or not—if you see what I mean.”
“Well, if that’s all,” said the sergeant, “I’ll have her open in half of no time.”
“Don’t tell me,” said Miss Cornel in a thrilled tone of voice, “that you’re a retired burglar. One of those people who open locks with a little bent bit of wire.”
“Never you believe it,” said Sergeant Cockerill. “There’s no lock with a spring inside it worth the name was ever opened with bent wire. That’s a thing you see on the films—it’s not real…” He went away and came back with an ordinary heavy ball and plane hammer.
“Put her up on the window-seat where I can get at her,” he said.
“Let me give you a hand,” said Bob. “It’s mighty heavy—up she comes… Yes, what is it, Miss Bellbas?”
“Could you sign this receipt for Mr. Duxford, sir?”
“In a minute,” said Bob. “Hold her steady.”
Sergeant Cockerill took a careful sight down his hammer, swung it up, and brought it down fair and square on the circular brass lock.
IV
The senses sometimes record events in an illogical order. The first thing that Henry Bohun noticed as he came out of his room was that someone had been sick.