“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 switchboard 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.”
Mr. Pym put his head into Miss Hartley's room.
“I'll take that call in here,” he said, briefly.
They sat mute till the call came through. Mr. Pym asked for Chief-Inspector Parker.
“There is a man here on my staff, calling himself–”
The conversation was a brief one. Mr. Pym handed the receiver to Wimsey.
“They want to speak to you.”
“Hullo, Charles! That you? Have you established my credit? All right
....
No, no trouble, only Mr. Pym feels he ought to know what it's all about
....
Shall I tell him
?...
Not wise
?...
Honestly, Charles, I don't think he's our man
....
Well, that's a different question
....
The Chief-Inspector wants to know whether you can hold your tongue, Mr. Pym.”
“I only wish to God everybody could hold his tongue,” groaned Mr. Pym.
Wimsey passed on the reply. “I think I'll risk it, Charles. If anybody is going to be slugged in the dark after this, it won't be you, and I can look after myself.”
He rang off and turned to Mr. Pym.
“Here's the brutal fact,” he said. “Somebody's running an enormous dope-traffic from this office. Who is there that has far more money than he ought to have, Mr. Pym? We're looking for a very rich man. Can you help us?”
But Mr. Pym was past helping anybody. He was chalk-white.
“Dope? From this office? What on earth will our clients say? How shall I face the Board? The publicity
....
”
“Pym's Publicity,” said Lord Wimsey, and laughed.
LACHRYMOSE OUTBURST OF A NOBLEMAN'S NEPHEW
T
hat week passed quietly. On Tuesday, Mr. Jollop passed, quite amiably, another of the new “Quotations” series for Nutrax “–And Kissed Again with Tears” (“But Tears, and Fallings-Out, however poetical, are nearly always a sign of Nerve-Strain”); on Wednesday, Green Pastures Margarine was Reduced in Price though Improved in Quality (“It might seem impossible to improve on Perfection, but we have done it!”); Sopo adopted a new advertising figure (“Let Susan Sopo do the Dirty Work”); Tomboy Toffee finished up its Cricket Campaign with a huge display containing the portraits of a complete Eleven of Famous Cricketers all eating Tomboy; five people went on holiday; Mr. Prout created a sensation by coming to the office in a black shirt; Miss Rossiter lost a handbag containing her bonus money and recovered it from the Lost Property Office, and a flea was found in the ladies' cloak-room, causing dire upheaval, some ill-founded accusations and much heart-burning. In the typists' room, the subject of the flea almost ousted for the moment the juicier and more speculative topic of Mr. Tallboy's visitor. For, whether by the indiscretion of Tompkin or of the boy at the desk, or of some other person (though not of Mr. Ingleby or Mr. Bredon, who surely knew better) the tale had somehow seeped through.
“And how he does it on his salary I don't know,” observed Miss Parton. “I do think it's a shame. His wife's a
[Pg 278]
nice little woman. You remember, we met her last year at the Garden Party.”
“Men are all alike,” said Miss Rossiter, scornfully. “Even your Mr. Tallboy. I told you, Parton, that I didn't think old Copley was so much to blame as you thought in that other business, and now, perhaps, you'll believe me. What I say is, if a man does one ungentlemanly thing, he'll do another. And as for doing it on his salary, how about that fifty pounds in an envelope? It's pretty obvious where
that
went to.”
“It's always obvious where money goes to,” said Miss Meteyard, sardonically. “The point is, where does it come from?”
“That's what Mr. Dean used to say,” said Miss Rossiter. “You remember how he used to chip Mr. Tallboy about his stockbrokers?”
“The famous firm of Smith,” said Mr. Garrett. “Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith & Smith Unlimited.”
“Money-lenders, if you ask me,” said Miss Rossiter. “Are you going to the cricket-match, Miss Meteyard? In
my
opinion, Mr. Tallboy ought to resign and leave somebody else to captain it. You can't wonder that people aren't keen to play under him, with all these stories going about. Don't you feel the same, Mr. Bredon?”
“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Bredon. “Provided the man can captain, I don't care a bit if he has as many wives as Solomon, and is a forger and swindler into the bargain. What's it matter?”
“It would matter to me,” said Miss Rossiter.
“How feminine she is,” said Mr. Bredon, plaintively, to the world at large. “She
will
let the personal element come into business.”
“I dare say,” said Miss Rossiter, “but you bet, if Hankie or Pymmy knew, there'd soon be an end of Mr. Tallboy.”
“Directors are the last people to hear anything about the staff. Otherwise,” said Miss Meteyard, “they wouldn't be able to stand on their hind legs at the Staff Dinner and
[Pg 279]
shoot off the speeches about co-operation, and all being one happy family.”
“Family quarrels, family quarrels.” Mr. Ingleby waved his hand. “Little children, love one another and don't be such little nosey-parkers. What's Hecuba's bank-balance to you, or yours to Hecuba?”
“Bank-balance? Oh, you mean Mr. Tallboy's. Well,
I
don't know anything, except what little Dean used to say.”
“And how did Dean know so much about it?”
“He was in Mr. Tallboy's office for a few weeks. Learning the work of other departments, they call it. I expect you'll be pushed round the office before long, Mr. Bredon. You'll have to mind your P's and Q's in the Printing. Mr. Thrale's a perfect tartar. Won't even allow you to slip out for coffee.”
“I shall have to come to you for it.”
“They won't let Mr. Bredon out of this department for a bit,” said Miss Meteyard. “They're all up in the air about his Whifflets stunt. Everybody always hoped Dean would do better somewhere else. He was like a favourite book–you liked him so well that you were always yearning to lend him to somebody else.”
“What a savage woman you are,” observed Ingleby, coolly amused. “It's that kind of remark that gets the university woman a bad name.” He glanced at Willis, who said:
“It isn't the savagery. It's the fact that there's no animosity behind it. You are all like that.”
“You agree with Shaw–whenever you beat your child, be sure that you do it in anger.”
“Shaw's Irish,” said Bredon. “Willis has put his finger on the real offensiveness of the educated Englishman–that he will not even trouble to be angry.”
“That's right,” said Willis. “It's that awful, bleak, blank–” he waved his hands helplessly–“the façade.”
“Meaning Bredon's face?” suggested Ingleby, mischievously.
“Icily regular, splendidly null,” said Bredon, squinting into Miss Rossiter's mirror. “Strange, to think that a whole
[Pg 280]
Whifflets campaign seethes and burgeons behind this solid ivory brow.”
“Mixed metaphor,” said Miss Meteyard. “Pots seethe, plants burgeon.”
“Of course; it is a flower of rhetoric culled from the kitchen-garden.”
“It's no use, Miss Meteyard,” said Ingleby, “you might as well argue with an eel.”
“Talking of eels,” said Miss Meteyard, abandoning the position, “what's the matter with Miss Hartley?”
“The hipless wonder? Why?”
“She came up the other day to inform the world that the police were coming to arrest somebody.”
“What?” said Willis.
“You mean, whom?”
“Whom, then?”
“Bredon.”
“Mr. Bredon?” said Miss Parton. “What next, I wonder.”
“You mean, what for? Why don't you people say what you do mean?”
Miss Rossiter turned on her chair and gazed at Mr. Bredon's gently twitching mouth.
“That's funny,” she said. “Do you know, Mr. Bredon, we never told you, but Parton and I thought we saw you actually being arrested one evening, in Piccadilly Circus.”
“Did you?”
“It wasn't you, of course.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it wasn't. Still, cheer up–it may happen yet. Only I suppose Pymmy doesn't keep his millions in the office safe.”
“Nor yet in registered envelopes,” said Miss Meteyard, casually.
“Don't say they're after our Mr. Copley!”
“I hope not. Bread-and-skilly wouldn't suit him at all.”
“But what was Bredon being arrested for?”
“Loitering, perhaps,” said a mild voice in the doorway. Mr. Hankin poked his head round the corner and smiled sarcastically. “I am sorry to interrupt you, but if Mr.
[Pg 281]
Bredon could favour me with his attention for a moment on the subject of Twentyman's Teas–”