“It is very annoying,” he said. “It is the longest and most important of the three, and is urgently required first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t think how I could have made such a silly mistake,” muttered Mss Murchison. “I will stay on this evening and re-type it.”
“I’m afraid you will have to. It is unfortunate, as I shall not be able to look through myself, but there is nothing else to be done. Please check it carefully this time, and see that Hanson’s have it before ten o’clock tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mr. Urquhart. I will be extremely careful. I am very sorry indeed. I will make sure that it is quite correct and take it round myself.”
“Very well, that will do,” said Mr. Urquhart. “Don’t let it happen again.”
Miss Murchison picked up the papers and came out, looking flustered. She dragged the cover off the typewriter with much sound and fury, jerked out the desk drawers till they slammed against the drawer-stops, shook the top-sheet, carbons and flimsies together as a terrier shakes a rat, and attacked the machine tempestuously.
Mr. Pond, who had just locked his desk, and was winding a silk scarf about his throat, looked at her in mild astonishment.
“Have you some more typing to do tonight, Miss Murchison?”
“Got to do the whole bally thing again,” said Miss Murchison. “Left out a paragraph on page one – it would be page one, of course – and he wants the tripe round at Hanson’s by 10 o’clock.”
Mr. Pond groaned slightly and shook his head.
“Those machines make you careless,” he reproved her. “In the old days, clerks thought twice about making foolish mistakes, when it meant copying the whole document out again by hand.”
“Glad I didn’t live then,” said Miss Murchison, shortly. “One might as well have been a galley-slave.”
“And we didn’t knock off at half-past four, either,” said Mr. Pond. “We worked in those days.”
“You may have worked longer,” said Miss Murchison, “but you didn’t get through as much in the time.”
“We worked accurately and neatly,” said Mr. Pond, with emphasis, as Miss Murchison irritably disentangled two keys which had jammed together under her hasty touch.
Mr. Urquhart’s door opened and the retort on the typist’s lips was silenced. He said good-night and went out. Mr. Pond followed him.
“I suppose you will have finished before the cleaner goes, Miss Murchison,” he said. “If not, please remember to extinguish the light and to hand the key to Mrs. Hodges in the basement.”
“Yes, Mr. Pond. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
His steps pattered through the entrance, sounded again loudly as he passed the window, and died away in the direction of Brownlow Street. Miss Murchison continued typing till she calculated that he was safely on the tube at Chancery Lane. Then she rose, with a quick glance round her and approached a higher tier of shelves, stacked with black deed-boxes, each of which bore the name of a client in bold white letters.
wrayburn was there, all right, but had mysteriously shifted its place. This in itself was unaccountable. She clearly remembered having replaced it, just before Christmas, on top of the pile mortimer – scroggins – lord coote – dolby bros. and wingfield; and here it was, on the day after Boxing Day, at the bottom of a pile, heaped over and kept down by bodgers – sir j. penkridge – flatsby & coaten – trubody ltd. and universal bone trust. Somebody had been springcleaning, apparently, over the holidays, and Miss Murchison thought it improbable that it was Mrs. Hodges.
It was tiresome, because all the shelves were full, and it would be necessary to lift down all the boxes and stand them somewhere before she could get out wrayburn. And Mrs. Hodges would be in soon, and though Mrs. Hodges didn’t really matter, it might look odd…
Miss Murchison pulled the chair from her desk (for the shelf was rather high) and, standing on it, lifted down universal bone trust. It was heavyish, and the chair (which was-of the revolving kind, and not the modern type with one spindly leg and a stiffly sprung back, which butts you in the lower spine and keeps you up to your job) wobbled unsteadily, as she carefully lowered the box and balanced it on the narrow top of the cupboard. She reached up again and took down trubody ltd., and placed it on bone trust. She reached up for the third time and seized flatsby & coaten. As she stooped with it a step sounded in the doorway and an astonished voice said behind her:
“Are you looking for something, Miss Murchison?”
Miss Murchison started so violently that the treacherous chair swung through a quarter-turn, nearly shooting her into Mr. Pond’s arms. She came down awkwardly, still clasping the black deed-box.
“How you startled me, Mr. Pond! I thought you had gone.”
“So I had,” said Mr. Pond, “but when I got to the Underground I found I had left a little parcel behind me. So tiresome – I had to come back for it. Have you seen it anywhere? A little round jar, done up in brown paper.”
Miss Murchison set flatsby & coaten on the seat of the chair and gazed about her.
“It doesn’t seem to be in my desk,” said Mr. Pond. “Dear, dear, I shall be so late. And I can’t go without it, because it’s wanted for dinner – in fact, it’s a little jar of caviare. We have guests tonight. Now, where can I have put it?”
“Perhaps you put it down when you washed your hands,” suggested Miss Murchison, helpfully.
“Well now, perhaps I did.” Mr. Pond fussed out and she heard the door of the little lavabo in the passage open with a loud creak. It suddenly occurred to her that she had left her handbag open on her desk. Suppose the skeleton keys were visible. She darted towards the bag, just as Mr. Pond returned in triumph.
“Much obliged to you for your suggestion, Miss Murchison. It was there all the time. Mrs. Pond would have been so much upset. Well, good-night again.” he turned towards the door. “Oh, by the way, were you looking for something?”
“I was looking for a mouse,” replied Miss Murchison with a nervous giggle. “I was just sitting working when I saw it run along the top of the cupboard and – er-up the wall behind those boxes.”
“Dirty little beasts,” said Mr. Pond, “The place is overrun with them. I have often said we ought to have a cat here. No hope of catching it now, though. You’re not afraid of mice apparently?”
“No,” said Miss Murchison, holding her eyes, by a strenuous physical effort, on Mr. Pond’s face. If the skeleton keys were – as it seemed to her they must be – indecently exposing their spidery anatomy on her desk, it would be madness to look in that direction. “No – in your days I suppose all women were afraid of mice.”
“Yes, they were,” admitted Mr. Pond, “but then, of course, their garments were longer.”
“Rotten for them,“ said Murchison.
“They were very graceful in appearance,” said Mr. Pond. “Allow me to assist you in replacing those boxes.”
“You will miss your train,” said Miss Murchison.
“I have missed it already,” replied Mr. Pond, glancing at his watch. “I shall have to take the 5.30.” He politely picked up flatsby & coaten and climbed perilously with it in his hands to the unsteady seat of the rotatory chair.
“It’s extremely kind of you,” said Miss Murchison, watching him as he restored it to its place.
“Not at all. If you would kindly hand me up the others -”
Miss Murchison handed him trubody ltd., and universal bone trust.
“There!” said Mr. Pond, completing the pile and dusting his hands. “Now let us hope the mouse has gone for good. I will speak to Mrs. Hodges about procuring a suitable kitten.”
“That would be a very good idea,” said Miss Murchison. ”Goodnight, Mr. Pond.”
“Good-night, Miss Murchison.”
His footsteps pattered down the passage, sounded again more loudly beneath the window and for the second time died away in the direction of Brownlow Street.