Delphine Doerflinger pushed herself up straight in the chair and stretched her back. She was about to call for some tea when the phone on her desk rang. She picked up the receiver before the second ring sounded.

‘Is it done?’ she asked. There was a short pause before the woman’s face lit up like a bonfire. ‘What do you mean he hasn’t delivered the papers? What’s keeping him?’ There was another short silence. ‘You told me he would sign them overnight and now this?’ she hissed. ‘Find him!’

She slammed down the phone and leaned her elbows on the desk, massaging her temples. Her mind was swimming and she had a horrible feeling this was not going to end well.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Enter!’ she boomed.

The door opened and a man poked his head in.

Delphine eyed him warily. ‘I hope you have good news for me.’

‘Not exactly, Frau Doerflinger,’ the man replied, dropping his gaze. He scooted into the room, closing the door behind him.

‘Your partner tells me that the papers have not yet been returned. What are you doing here?’

The man’s bald head glistened with perspiration. ‘It seems the Baron … left for Zermatt this morning.’

‘What?’ Delphine screeched. ‘He cannot leave!’

‘Frau Doerflinger, please, try to calm yourself.’ The man couldn’t help noticing the throbbing vein that had popped out of her neck.

‘You have no idea what this deal means to me.’ Her breathing became laboured and she seemed to be swallowing air.

‘We do not know for sure that the deal is dead,’ the man said. He hurriedly poured a glass of water and passed it to her.

Frau Doerflinger gulped it down. ‘Dead,’ she muttered over and over. ‘It’s not just the deal that is dead.’

There was another knock at the door. The man’s partner entered the room holding an envelope.

‘Ah, good, you have it,’ the taller man said, breathing a sigh of relief.

His partner grimaced and shook his head.

Delphine stood up and raced towards him. She snatched the envelope from his hand and tore it open. Instead of a signed contract, she pulled out a handwritten note. As her eyes scanned the page, she collapsed into a nearby armchair.

‘What does it say, Frau?’ the taller man asked tentatively.

‘He says he would rather go bankrupt than borrow money from two shysters such as yourselves,’ she said, her eyes wild.

‘But he wasn’t borrowing the money from us,’ the short man said. ‘He was borrowing it from you.’

‘He didn’t know that, did he?’ Frau Doerflinger scrunched the page into a ball and threw it at him.

Both men shook their heads. ‘N-no, of course not,’ the taller man stammered. ‘He thought we were a reputable loan company.’

‘Something must have tipped him off,’ the woman said. ‘Get out, the pair of you. Consider yourselves terminated, just as I will be.’

‘But, Frau, he is desperate,’ the shorter man pleaded. ‘He will have to sell sooner or later.’

‘You will stay away from the Baron. I should have known that if I wanted this job done properly I would have to do it myself. Get out! NOW!’ she howled.

The men scurried from the room. The shorter of the two bumped into the coffee table on the way and let out a yowl of pain.

Delphine slumped into the chair and looked at the crumpled note. ‘Idiots,’ she whispered.