Cold, Lone and Still

She accepted a drink in her usual graceful way and the only further reference she made to the unfortunate laundry list was to tell me to include the loose covers on the two armchairs in the bedroom. She left earlier than usual and, although I saw her home, she did not suggest that I should go in, so I knew that we had not finished with the subject of Elsa and the partnership.

Sally Lestrange turned up at the office two days later. She had made an appointment over the telephone and was received by Elsa and passed on to me. She was a pleasantly direct and business-like young woman and came to the point at once.

‘What are the chances of publication?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to spend a lot of time on something which is never going to see the light of day. I’ve made that clear to Bull.’

‘As I told the man himself, it depends upon the material and upon how it’s handled. You know as much about that sort of thing as I do,’ I said.

‘Yes, but the material itself. I’ve talked to Bull and I can’t believe he’s got much to offer.’

‘Then turn him down.’

‘My grandmother would be disappointed if I did. No, I must carry on, I think. I just wondered what chance the thing might have.’

‘I’ll tell you what chance it could have,’ I said, struck by a sudden inspiration. ‘Make it clinical.’

‘Make it what?’

‘Turn it into a case history. Let Bull tell his story in his own way. Don’t sub-edit. Take him down verbatim if your shorthand will stand the strain of his vowels and elisions and then get Dame Beatrice to write an introduction to the book as a study of the psychology of a hangman’s assistant. Bull will be tremendously flattered and if she will do it we shall achieve publication all right. Some of her views are refreshingly unorthodox and will provoke controversy not only among the cognoscenti, but in the popular press.’

‘A bestseller!’ breathed Miss Lestrange.

‘Don’t count the chickens, of course, but at any rate, if you can get Dame Beatrice to agree, there will be no doubt about publication.’

‘She will agree. She wants to get in on this murder which seems to have happened where Bull lives and works. He tells me that it was this murder which sparked off the idea that he should write his memoirs. One thing does lead to another, doesn’t it?’

She was right enough there. The thing which led to another in my case was the new partnership. My private correspondence, delivered at my flat a couple of days later, included a registered packet which contained the engagement ring I had put on Hera’s finger some months earlier. It was her answer to the appointment of Elsa to our board of directors, as Sandy now grandly termed it.

I was not unduly disturbed. I was sorry that Hera was taking the matter so much to heart, but I had expected a vigorous reaction. It had come, so that was a relief. Besides, I felt that she would have second thoughts when she had had time to cool off. I felt sure that, when she had had a chance to think things over, she would have sense enough to realise that, if we were going to admit anybody to partnership, Elsa was the obvious choice. She had the knowledge and the experience. Besides, not only Sandy and myself, but the rest of the staff got on well with her. She was hardworking and conscientious and, better than that, she had flair, a wonderful way with difficult authors and a grand sense of humour.

I wrote in brief acknowledgement of the registered package and ended the letter ‘Love, C.’ I posted it on my way to the office and told Sandy about it when I got there. He expressed concern, but I said I was sure she would come round when she had thought matters over.

‘She was dead nuts on coming in with us, of course,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we ought to have waited a bit before we co-opted Elsa.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Sandy. ‘We might have lost Elsa if we’d waited much longer.’

That morning Polly brought my coffee.

‘To what are we indebted?’ I asked, as she set down my cup. Usually one of the juniors brought it.

‘That pullover-and-jeans is here again,’ she replied, ‘and Miss Moore has got an author.’ She made it sound as though Elsa was suffering from a sick headache and, knowing some of our authors, I thought it more than likely that this was so. ‘Anyway, it’s you he wants to see,’ Polly went on, ‘so I told him I’d find out. You drink that coffee and let him wait.’

‘You might possibly give him a cup, too. It will help him pass the time,’ I suggested.

‘Do you know what fresh-ground coffee costs these days?’ she asked tartly. ‘Still, all right, if you say so.’

‘It will be a treat for the poor boy,’ I said. ‘Surely your motherly heart goes out to him?’

‘I don’t like young men in horn-rims.’

‘That is mere prejudice.’

‘He dresses like a tramp that’s lost all self-respect, and yet if those horn-rims cost a penny under sixty pounds I should be surprised. It’s what they call inverted snobbery.’

‘He’s a student of geology.’

‘No wonder he looks so grubby.’ She waited while I drank my coffee, then she took away the cup and added, ‘Shall I send him in?’

‘Yes, when he’s finished the coffee you are going to give him. You might add a couple of substantial biscuits. I expect he’s hungry. Boys always are.’

When Trickett came in, he was obviously the bearer of tidings. His thin face was flushed and his spectacles glittered. He reminded me of Gussie Fink-Nottle contemplating a particularly fine collection of newts.

‘I say, you know,’ he said, ‘we’ve had a Visitation, you know.’