Smallbone Deceased

“You haven’t had to live with him yet,” said John. “If you had you wouldn’t be so tolerant. To start with, as you have appreciated, he is a line-shooter. There are line-shooters and line-shooters. Eric is the line-shooter. He is the man about whom the phrase was invented. He literally never stops shooting lines. Of course,” John grinned, “it’s a profession which is not devoid of danger. Sometimes it plunges him into deep waters. There was the time when he took the Town and Country Planning Act under his wing—you remember that it was rather the fashion in early ’48. He read a couple of very simple articles about it, and of course took the next opportunity of cornering an inoffensive stranger at lunch and giving him a dissertation on some of the finer points of the Act. Sheer bad luck that he should have happened to have picked on Megarry.”

“Oh, no!”

“Even funnier, in a quiet way, was the time when he took up golf—a chap must take exercise, you know, keeps a fellow fit, you know. One meets a lot of interesting chaps at the club too, doesn’t one? I think his handicap at this time was about thirty-six with the wind behind him… Well, who should he pick on to give a little lecture to on the mysteries of the game but La Cornel. Thanks to Providence I was in here when he started. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. She took it without batting an eyelid. ‘Yes, Mr. Duxford. No, Mr. Duxford. How interesting, Mr. Duxford. Now what was it you said you called that club with the curly end, Mr. Duxford?’ It was terrific… When she’d gone out I told him the joke.”

Seeing Henry looking a bit blank he added: “Didn’t you know? She’s terrifically hot. She reached the last four in the Women’s Open. She’d have gone to America with the British Women’s Team before the war if Abel hadn’t been stingy about letting her have the time off—”

“That’s it,” said Henry. “I thought her face was familiar. I must have seen it in one of the illustrated papers… What on earth was that?”

“It sounded,” said John, “like a scream, didn’t it?”

III

It is undeniable that the morning had not started well in the partners’ secretaries room.

Though it would have been difficult to have selected three more diverse types than Miss Cornel, Miss Mildmay and Miss Chittering, they usually managed to get along in an easy enough way on a basis of working-day tolerance helped out by the fact that they were all really kept rather busy. It must be remembered that in addition to the normal duties of taking down letters, typing them, engrossing, fair copying, taking telephone calls, heading off awkward clients and trying to arrange definite appointments with the less clear-headed members of the aristocracy, they had also (that nothing might be wanting) to cope with the Horniman cross-filing system.

However, that particular morning was an unhappy one. Anne Mildmay had arrived late. She was flying storm signals and had a look in her eye which would have been recognised at once by anyone who had served in a ship under her father, the celebrated “Conk” Mildmay (the only man who ever told Beatty what he thought of him and got away with both ears).

“Good morning,” said Miss Chittering brightly. “You’ll be qualifying for the D.C.M. if you arrive at this hour.”

“The what?”

“The Don’t Come Monday.”

“Oh.”

Miss Mildmay ripped off the cover of her typewriter, sorted out a sheet of demi, a carbon and a flimsy, stuffed them together and banged them into her machine.

“Well, anyway,” she said. “Old Birley doesn’t chase me round telling me I don’t know my job, and suggesting I find out how to do it from Miss Cornel.” In an incautious moment Miss Chittering had repeated Mr. Birley’s strictures of the day before.

“Well, I’m sure,” she said. “There’s no need to be unpleasant. I was only having a joke.”

“So was I,” said Miss Mildmay.

There was silence for some time after this, broken only by the flagellation of three typewriters.

Miss Chittering, however, was not a person who was able to keep silent for very long. It was perhaps unfortunate that she had to address all her remarks to Anne, since she was still not on speaking terms with Miss Cornel owing to certain heresies on the subject of genuine crocodile dressing-cases.

“Poor Mr. Horniman,” she said. “I think he’s getting thinner every day. Worry, that’s what it is.”

“What’s he got to worry about?” said Anne.

“Well, I expect it’s all the new work—and the responsibility.”

“He gets paid for it.”

“And the hours he works. He’s always here last thing at night.”

“It won’t kill him.” Anne sounded so unnecessarily bitter that Miss Cornel looked up curiously.

“He says the strangest things, too.”

“Like ‘O.B.E., Esquire’,” suggested Miss Cornel unkindly from her corner. Fortunately, before any further hostilities could be provoked, the signal bell gave a buzz. Miss Cornel collected her shorthand notebook and went out.