When Susan arrived at the office of Sayborn Art Printers at nine o’clock on the Monday after her Salisbury visit, it seemed to her that there was an unusual air of activity in the place. Martin Brandreth, who was not normally on view until ten o’clock, had evidently arrived early for once, and she could hear his voice from the inner office. He was delivering a harangue.
Presently the door opened, and the red-haired Simon appeared. His face was whiter than usual, and he seemed to be walking in his sleep. The bell on Susan’s desk rang, and she picked up her shorthand notebook and went in.
Brandreth was standing with his back to the window, looking pleased with himself. He said, “Apparently we shan’t be having any more trouble with young Mr Simon Wales. Which is a good thing, because we shall be working against time for the next few weeks. I spent most of Sunday with Blackett. It appears that Merry and Merry have been getting their skates on. It’s going to be a close finish. They’re planning to put forward the opening of the Peppo campaign by four days, which gives us four days less to produce the goods.”
“I’m sure we’ll manage it,” said Susan.
“We shall have to reorganise the whole of the printing schedule. I’ve called a meeting of the department heads for eleven o’clock. We’ll draw up a co-ordinated programme for each of the machines. It’ll mean overtime working, and we shall have to agree on special rates for that. I’ll have a word with Lambie as soon as we’ve got the outline arrangements sorted out. Ready?”
He started dictating. Susan admired the clarity of his thoughts and the precision of his language. No doubt this was what working under Blackett’s whip did for you.
It was a busy morning. At half past one the pace slackened sufficiently for her to be able to think about getting something to eat.
The normal lunch break was at one o’clock. She was surprised to find one of the girls still at her desk in the outer office. As Susan appeared she got up and said, hesitantly, “If you’re going out to lunch, would you mind very much if I came with you?”
“Of course not,” said Susan. The girl was called Eileen, and she knew her vaguely. She had once caught her reading Lyne on economic fallacies, and suspected her of going to night classes.
They fought their way into an overcrowded restaurant in the High Street and were lucky enough to find two stools round the far end of the lunch counter, where their nearest neighbour was a stout man who was ingesting oxtail soup into a cavity under a walrus moustache.
Under cover of the noise he was making, Eileen said, “I didn’t know who to talk to about it, but I had to talk to someone.”
“Try me,” said Susan agreeably.
“It’s about Simon. We’re—well, we’re not exactly. But you know what I mean.”
“An unofficial arrangement.”
“That’s right. Well, it was what happened on Saturday. He was going to the dogs.” Eileen smiled and suddenly looked less intellectual but a lot more attractive. “I mean the races. The afternoon programme at Dagenham. I don’t really care for that sort of thing, so we arranged we’d meet at my place for a concert we were going to that evening. He didn’t turn up. He’s usually very conscientious about things like that. I telephoned his house. He lives with his mother. He hadn’t come home. She was terribly worried, and we wondered if we ought to tell the police, only it sounded so silly. Well, anyway, we thought we’d wait. I telephoned about an hour later, and his mother said, yes, he’d come home, but wasn’t at all well. He was in bed. So I said, fine, I’m glad he’s back. I’ll look him up tomorrow. She didn’t seem keen on the idea at all. She said, leave him till Monday. So I said, all right, I’d do that. And this morning—well you saw him. He’s not himself at all. But when I asked him about it, he said I wasn’t to ask questions. Just like that. Don’t ask questions. He needs help. I’m sure of it. But I can’t help him unless I can find out what it’s all about. I wondered if you—it’s a lot to ask, I know.”
Susan said, “All I really know—and that’s no secret—is that he was refusing to operate his machine without an assistant and now he’s changed his mind, much to Mr Brandreth’s relief.”
“But what made him change his mind? Something happened to him on Saturday afternoon. I’m sure of it.”
“Dog tracks are rough places. Suppose he got involved in some sort of trouble. He looked to me as if he might be suffering from delayed shock.”
“Is that something he ought to see a doctor about?”
“I shouldn’t think so. Time’s the best cure. Look, why don’t you give him a day or two, and he’ll probably be himself again.”
But not quite himself, thought Susan. Someone who’s been badly frightened never quite gets over it. There’s a lesion, deep down. Like a scar which gives you a twinge in the cold weather.
“I would like to find out what happened. I really would.”
Susan said, “If I were you, I’d leave it alone. I mean that.”
“If you think that would be best.”
She seemed relieved that someone else had made the decision. They walked back to the office together. The first thing Susan noticed was the dark blue S-class Mercedes 450 which was sneering at the other cars in the car park. The next was the large, light-haired boy in the driving seat who caught her eye and winked at her.
Susan went inside thoughtfully and sat down behind her desk. She could hear the voices from the private office. Presently the door opened, and Blackett came out, followed by Brandreth. She thought that Blackett was going to ignore her, but he swung round at the last moment, came back and stood in front of her desk, balancing forward on both feet like a swimmer on the edge of the high board.
He said, “Mr Brandreth will have told you that we’re in for a race.”
“Golden Apple versus Peppo.”
“Right. And it’s going to be a closer thing than I thought. Merry’s have cut another three days out of their printing schedule. What would you suggest we do about that?”
He seemed to be asking her opinion seriously, so she thought about it. She said. “There’s not much slack in our new schedule. If the bus and Underground posters are the important thing, we could get them out first and fast. It would mean all-night working, but it could be done.”
“There’s an alternative. We might buy up Merry and Merry.”
“Suppose they aren’t for sale?”
“Most things are for sale if you offer the right price. I’m going to see my accountants about it now. Talking of which, I understand we have something in common.”
“Oh?”
“I qualified as an accountant in 1950. When did you take your finals?”
Susan nearly said, “How did you know that?” but realised it would be stupid and said, “Three years ago.”
“But never practised?”
“I thought I’d have a shot at a business career first.”
“Very sensible. I thought I’d have a shot at it, too. I’ve been shooting ever since.”
Brandreth was fidgeting, but Blackett showed no signs of wanting to depart. He said, “Accountancy training is like legal training. Once you’ve been through it, it conditions your thinking. I knew you were an accountant as soon as I read that report you did for young Harmond. It stood out a mile.”
He swung round and stalked out. Brandreth trotted after him. When they reached the car park, the chauffeur already had the door open. Blackett waved to Brandreth to get in beside him.
He said, “If you employ that girl as a shorthand typist you’ll be wasting her. She’s got an organisational brain.”
“I’d realised that. I think she’ll be very useful.”
“You can keep her as long as you use her properly. No longer.”
“It’s a mystery to me why she’s in the job at all. She must be around thirty. With a brain like hers and her looks, I’d have thought she’d have been married long ago.”
“Any sign of a boyfriend?”
“She did mention once—I can’t remember quite how it came up—that she had a Welsh ex-boyfriend.”
“You’re sure she said “ex?”
“Yes. And said it pretty firmly.”
“That’s the snag about having all the talents. You have to find someone to match up to you. It isn’t always possible.”
This seemed to be the end of the conversation. Brandreth got out, and the car drove off.
“I told you at the time he was no good,” said Miss Crawley triumphantly. “I saw him coming out of this public house with a common girl on his arm. He was drunk. He was always drunk.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Gerald Hopkirk. He was tired of Miss Crawley and wanted to get on with his work.
“It passes my comprehension why Mr Lyon gave him a reference, as well as all that money.”
“How did you know what he gave him?”
“I knew because Mr Morgan told me. With a nasty smirk. I said, if I’d been Mr Lyon—if I’d found you nosing round among my private papers—I’d have booted you straight out. What would our clients have said if they’d known that he was snooping into their private affairs? What would Mr Blackett have said if he’d known you’d caught him looking into his files?”
“What indeed?” said Blackett.
The Sergeant had opened the door for him, and he was halfway into the room. Miss Crawley gave a squeak of agitation, and Gerald jumped to his feet.
“I understand that Lyon is still not back from his lunch.” Blackett looked pointedly at his wristwatch as he said this. “Perhaps I could explain to you a simple matter that I wanted looked into, and you could pass it on to him. The matter is urgent, or I wouldn’t have bothered you.”
“Of course,” said Gerald, Miss Crawley fluttered out, followed by the Sergeant. “I’m sure Mr Lyon won’t be long. But please sit down.”
“And who was the unsatisfactory character you had to get rid of?”
“A chap called Morgan. He wasn’t a bad sort, really. But he didn’t quite fit into an accountant’s office.”
“I think I remember seeing him. A Welshman, medium height, thick-set.”
“That’s him.”
“And which of my files was he interested in?”
Gerald remembered, with a feeling of relief, that it had been an innocuous collection of PAYE returns. He said, “I think it was a genuine mistake. He was looking for another file and happened to notice his own initials on this one.” Gerald picked the file out of the open drawer beside him and put it on the desk. “You see. D.R.M. It wasn’t really his initials, of course. They belonged to another chap who used to work here. Dennis Moule.”
“I remember him well,” said Blackett. “He was Julius Mantegna’s number-one boy. What happened to him?”
“I’m afraid he went downhill a bit.”
“And Morgan’s going downhill after him? This office must have a demoralising effect on its assistants. Hullo! You’ve still got that.”
It was the newspaper cutting, stapled on to the inside cover of the file. Blackett read it through carefully, his face quite expressionless. Gerald had never been entirely at ease with Blackett. He gave off the disturbing radiation of power and money, but there was more to it than that. He had known other rich and powerful men and had been quite easy in their company. He was relieved when Sam Lyon came bustling in. Blackett said, “I gather you’ve been having a good lunch.”
“A boring lunch, followed by an equally boring meeting,” said Lyon. “Shall we go along to my room?”
Blackett took a last look at the file on the desk, as though he was committing something to memory, and then said, “Let’s do that.”
It was nearly an hour later when Blackett left the office. He said to the chauffeur, who was holding the door open, “I want you to do something for me, Harald. Find our friend, Mr Trombo. He should be in his shop at this hour. Tell him I’ll expect a call at five o’clock exactly. A public box, the usual procedure. You can take the car. I’ll go on by taxi.”
When Harald had driven off, Blackett stood for a moment, unmoving. Miss Crawley, from her upper window, thought, “What a terrible man. Doesn’t he look splendid. An emperor.” She followed him with her eyes as he moved off down the street.
At the nearest telephone kiosk, Blackett dialled a number and spoke briefly. He said, “David Rhys Morgan. He used to work for my accountants, Martindale, Mantegna and Lyon. When they sacked him he got a job with Rayhome Tours. I want you to find out all about him. No action, just information. Where he lives. Girlfriends, present and past. Other connections. Right?”
“Right,” said the voice at the other end.