Miss Crawley closed the drawer gently and sat back on her heels. Anyone who could have seen her at that moment would have been shocked by the look of savage satisfaction on her normally expressionless face.
“Right, Mr Morgan,” she said. “That fixes yIt was at this precise moment that she heard the sound. Her heart seemed to turn right over. Someone was moving on the floor below.
She switched off her torch and knelt, in the dark, her heart bumping so hard that she felt it must be audible. She said to herself, “Don’t be stupid. You’ve a perfect right to be here. More right than he has, probably.” She felt certain the intruder was a man. She could hear him more clearly now. He was walking along the passage which led to the partners’ rooms.
That gave her a breathing space. She climbed to her feet and made her way out on to the landing, shutting the door gently behind her.
Her heartbeats were steadying now. Curiosity was replacing alarm. Standing at the top of the stairs she could see right down the passage. The man was at the far end of it and seemed to be crouching down. She heard a click. And then the door of the end room, which was Mr Lyon’s office, swung open, letting in a glow of light from the big window at the far end.
So it was a burglar, and he was forcing his way into the senior partner’s room—a room which, as she knew, was always kept locked. A curious burglary. So far as she knew there was nothing of value in the room. She seemed to remember that clocks were often stolen, but Mr Lyon had an electric wall clock. Any money would be in his pocket or at the bank.
Could she telephone the police? In the silence of the office the sound might be heard. The risk was too great.
Miss Crawley came to a decision which combined courage and discretion.
She tiptoed down the stairs and paused to listen. She could hear the sound of one of the filing cabinets in Mr Lyon’s room being opened. Even more curious, but reassuring. The intruder had left the front door unlocked. She opened it quietly and slipped out. Three broad steps led down to the pavement. From there another, narrower, flight served the area in front of the basement rooms. The only lamp in the street was almost directly opposite the steps.
Miss Crawley descended into the basement and concealed herself at a point where she could get a clear view of the intruder as he left.
There were moments during the next interminable hour when she regretted her impulse. Had she known he was going to be so long she could easily have summoned help. She felt cramped and cold, but she stuck to her post.
Eleven was striking from all the City clocks when her patience was rewarded. She heard the front door open and shut. A key grated in the lock, and the intruder came down the steps and walked away up the road.
He was whistling to himself and sounded relaxed and cheerful.
Miss Crawley had no difficulty in recognising him.
From her window in the office, Susan saw the dark blue S-class Mercedes 450 draw up to the curb and stop. The driver, a big, light-haired boy with a solemn Slav face, held the car door open.
She picked up the intercom and said, “I think the boss has arrived.”
She heard Toby make a sound, halfway between a grunt and a gasp, like the noise driven from the body when it plunges into cold water. She opened the door of her own room in time to hear Randall Blackett announce himself to the girl in the outer office, who seemed so overcome that she could do nothing but open and shut her mouth.
Susan emerged and said, “I expect you want Mr Harmond, Mr Blackett. Can I show you the way?”
The man swung round and looked at her. It was a brief but all-inclusive inspection. He said, “You are Mr Harmond’s secretary. We spoke on the telephone yesterday. I recognise your voice.”
“Correct,” said Susan with a smile. “The room’s along here on the left. Although I expect you’ve been here before.”
Blackett did not move. He said, “No. This is my first visit. Might I know your name?”
“It’s French and rather difficult. Perronet-Condé.”
“Acute accent on the
e?”
“Correct.”
“Like the prince of that name in the sixteenth century?”
“Correct.”
Blackett seemed to be tabulating these facts. Then he said, “Lead on.”
Susan walked in front of him to the door of Toby’s room, held it open, saw Toby jump to his feet and shut the door on them, then went back to her own office and sat down.
Impressive. No doubt about that. It was nothing to do with his clothes, which were regulation tycoon. It was the combination of arrogant face, soft voice and controlled, muscular movement. A brigand. Violence, cloaked under the trappings of civilisation. Or was she reading too much into the short encounter? Making the mistake of building a character on the basis of what she knew he had done? Her reading in the library had widened lately. She knew a good deal about the Blackett empire now.
The bell on her desk rang. She picked up her shorthand book and made her way sedately across the passage.
Toby was looking uncomfortable. Blackett was smiling. He said, “I was questioning Mr Harmond about the background of the really remarkable essay which accompanied his half-yearly report.”
The tiger was purring.
“The statistics, which were new to me, of Japanese production and the three-stage method they employ. He seemed doubtful about the origin of these facts. And, indeed, of much else in the essay. Do I gather that you helped him with it?”
“She didn’t help me,” said Toby, red in the face and looking like a schoolboy owning up to a breach of school rules. “She did it all herself.”
“Ah,” said Blackett.
Susan said to Toby, “You rang for me. Did you want me?”
“I wanted you,” said Blackett. “I wanted to congratulate you.”
Susan said, “Thank you.” There seemed to be nothing else. She departed, closing the door softly behind her.
“First,” said Mr Lyon, ticking off the indictments on one podgy finger at a time, “you go out of your way to be rude to one of our oldest and most valued clients.”
“Unwittingly,” said David.
“Possibly. Had it been an isolated instance, I should have taken no notice of it. Secondly, and contrary to my express instructions, you bring drink into the office.”
He waited for David to ask him how he knew, but David seemed disinclined to oblige him. He said, “On doctor’s orders.”
“Indeed. And what is this remarkable complaint that has to be attended to by regular doses of Scotch whisky?”
“Hypothermia.”
“I think you’re making it up.”
“Indeed I am not. The symptoms are very distressing.”
“Might I ask what the symptoms are?”
“A sudden unassuageable thirst.”
Mr Lyon’s face was pink already. It slowly turned to a dark red. “Just like my old schoolmaster,” said David to Gerald afterwards. “When he was making up his mind to whop you and you said to yourself, boyo, one more crack like that and it’s your head under the desk.”
“I suppose you think that’s funny,” said Mr Lyon at last. “I’m afraid I don’t. And now perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain what you were doing in the office at ten o’clock last night?”
“Some work I had to finish.”
“Very creditable. But how, exactly, did you get in?”
“Most keys fit most locks. I happened to have one by me that fitted the office door.”
“And another one that happened to fit the door of my office?”
David looked surprised. He said, “What makes you think that I—”
“It’s no good lying about it. My informant tells me that you not only had the impertinence to break into my room, but that you spent nearly an hour in here. I think I’m entitled to a serious explanation of that, not another of your silly jokes.”
“Well, now,” said David thoughtfully. “I think perhaps you are. To tell you the truth, it was what you might call a matter of insurance.”
“I imagine you’ll condescend to explain in your own good time.”
“I am doing my best,” said David with dignity. “It has not escaped me that I am not the most popular of your employees. I derived from that the further thought that the time might come when you would wish our ways to part.”
“It
has
come.”
“Exactly,” said David, in the tones of one who has scored a valuable debating point. “Exactly. And when that time did come, I wished to be certain that our parting would be without acrimony. In short, that you would give me a glowing testimonial, recommending me to my next employer and a modest sum of money—I had in mind no more than five hundred pounds—to soothe our mutual sorrow at my departure.”
Mr Lyon stared at him for a moment, seeming to sense a threat that had not been uttered. Then he said, “And what makes you think that I should do either of these improbable things?”
“It would be very much in your interests. An Industrial Tribunal can offer me ten times that amount for unfair dismissal.”
“Unfair? You’ve brought it on yourself three times over.”
“I’m entitled, I think, to proper warning. Two warnings at least, I understand. In writing.”
Mr Lyon said, contemptuously, “Try it on, if you like. Tribunals aren’t fools.”
“Indeed not. They have enough sense, I don’t doubt, to understand me when I say that the real reason you are getting rid of me is because I was not prepared to co-operate in some of your more doubtful practices.”
“What are you talking about?”
“As a law-abiding citizen and a taxpayer, it pained me to see the Inland Revenue being defrauded.”
Mr Lyon said, in a choked voice, “Would you kindly explain this nonsense and then get out.”
“For instance, in a letter to our mutual acquaintance, Mr Porteous, on”—David whisked a notebook out of his inner pocket—“on March twentieth last you said, ‘I see no point in going out of your way to draw the attention of the Revenue to that particular payment. If they challenge it, we shall have to deal with it.’ Was that not a little underhand? Then, in another letter, to Mrs Porteous, you said, ‘We may be asked to prove strictly that your husband was employing you as his secretary. I don’t suppose any salary passed, but you should arrange for entries in your bank accounts.’ Was that quite honest?”
The silence that followed was painful.
David said helpfully, “I have copies of these letters. And of several others in which little devices are suggested to our clients.”
“You filthy little blackmailer!” The words were forced out of Mr Lyon’s mouth. They tumbled out, chasing and tripping over each other. “You filthy Welsh spy.”
“Insults are charged at fifty pounds a time,” said David, making a note in his book. “My price has now gone up to six hundred.”
“I didn’t know that”—he was going to say “scum,” but seeing David’s eye on his book he changed his mind at the last moment. “I didn’t know that people like you existed.”
“We learn a new fact every day of our lives, boyo. I am quite prepared to go ahead with this if you wish. I can give you two minutes to make up your mind.”
There was a further bursting silence. Then Mr Lyon said,
“How can I possibly recommend you to one of our clients?”
It was capitulation.
“Six hundred of the best,” David said to Gerald. “A month’s salary in lieu of notice and a glowing reference designed to secure me a post with Rayhome Tours Limited.”
“Wasn’t that the place Moule went to?”
“Was it, indeed? I seem to be following him downhill.”
“You won’t meet him there. I believe he ran into a bit of trouble and got booted out.”
“Poor Moule,” said David. “Perhaps he was one of those people who are destined to descend. Like me.”
“You? You go round asking for trouble.”
“True,” said David with a sigh. “And trouble rarely refuses the invitation. However, we must not be downhearted. I am planning a pluperfect piss-up for tonight. I shall drink mathematically. Seven different drinks at seven different pubs. I shall start at the Coat and Badge, where I may have a further opportunity for being rude to Mr Porteous. I hope you’ll come with me.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Gerald.
“You seem to have made the biggest possible hit with the boss,” said Toby.
Susan said, “Oh?”
“He’s having your paper assessed by his Merchant Bankers. If it stands up, it will mean installing a lot of new machinery here and doubling or trebling the whole output.”
“That’s splendid, isn’t it?”
“Splendid, yes.”
“Then why are you looking like a wet Monday at Clacton?”
“Was I?” said Toby. He tried out a light laugh. It was not a success.
“What’s the catch?”
“The catch is that I’m losing you.”
“I should have thought that was something for you to decide. You hired me. You can fire me.”
“In theory that’s right. But you know how things are here. I’m managing director. But if I step out of line, I’ll be out on my ear tomorrow.”
Susan said, “That’s nonsense. Blackett couldn’t get rid of you just because you refused to sack your secretary.”
“It isn’t a question of sacking. You’re moving up the ladder. Into the next division. You’re to work for Martin Brandreth, at Sayborn Art Printers.”
“You’ve got this all wrong,” said Susan. “You seem to imagine that we’re back in the Middle Ages, when peasants belonged to the lord of the manor and could be shifted around his estates as the fancy took him. Wake up, Rip van Winkle. This is the twentieth century. I work for exactly who I want to work for.”
“Of course,” said Toby. “You’re a free agent. It’s me who’s the peasant.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.”
“You mean, if I didn’t agree to work for Mr Brandreth, Blackett would take it out of you?”
“Without thinking twice about it. I’d be sorry to go. This business was founded by my great-grandfather and built up by my grandfather and father. I’d hate to see it fall to pieces because of me. Of course, I’m just being selfish.”
“You’re not being selfish at all. You’re being rather nice.”
This was a mistake. Toby came round his desk quickly, grabbed Susan and said, “Will you marry me?”