Miss Murchison promised to observe these instructions, and, a taxi coming up at the moment, Wimsey put her into it and sped her to her destination.

CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Norman Urquhart glanced at the clock, which stood at 4.15, and called through the open door:

‘Are those affidavits nearly ready, Miss Murchison?”

“I am just on the last page, Mr. Urquhart.”

“Bring them in as soon as you’ve finished. They ought to go round to Hanson’s tonight.”

“Yes, Mr. Urquhart.” Miss Murchison galloped noisily over the keys, slamming the shift-lever over with unnecessary violence and causing Mr. Pond once more to regret the intrusion of female clerks. She completed her page, ornamented the foot of it with a rattling row of fancy lines and dots, threw over the release, spun the roller, twitching the foolscap sheets from under it in vicious haste, flung the carbons into the basket, shuffled the copies into order, slapped them vigorously on all four edges to bring them into symmetry, and bounced with them into the inner office.

“I haven’t had time to read them through,” she announced.

“Very well,” said Mr. Urquhart.

Miss Murchison retired, shutting the door after her. She gathered her belongings together, took out a hand-mirror and unashamedly powdered her rather large nose, stuffed a handful of odds-and-ends into a bulging hand-bag, pushed some papers under her typewriter cover ready for the next day, jerked her hat from the peg and crammed it on her head, tucking wisps of hair underneath it with vigorous and impatient fingers.

Mr. Urquhart’s bell rang – twice.

“Oh, bother!” said Miss Murchison with heightened colour.

She snatched the hat off again, and answered the summons.

“Miss Murchison,” said Mr. Urquhart, with an expression of considerable annoyance, “do you know that you have left out a whole paragraph on the first page of this?”

Miss Murchison flushed still more deeply.

“Oh, have I? I’m very sorry.”

Mr. Urquhart held up a document resembling in bulk that famous one of which it was said that there was not truth enough in the world to fill so long an affidavit.

“It is very annoying,” he said. “It is the longest and most important of the three, and is urgently required first thing tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t think how I could have made such a silly mistake,” muttered Mss Murchison. “I will stay on this evening and re-type it.”

“I’m afraid you will have to. It is unfortunate, as I shall not be able to look through myself, but there is nothing else to be done. Please check it carefully this time, and see that Hanson’s have it before ten o’clock tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mr. Urquhart. I will be extremely careful. I am very sorry indeed. I will make sure that it is quite correct and take it round myself.”

“Very well, that will do,” said Mr. Urquhart. “Don’t let it happen again.”

Miss Murchison picked up the papers and came out, looking flustered. She dragged the cover off the typewriter with much sound and fury, jerked out the desk drawers till they slammed against the drawer-stops, shook the top-sheet, carbons and flimsies together as a terrier shakes a rat, and attacked the machine tempestuously.

Mr. Pond, who had just locked his desk, and was winding a silk scarf about his throat, looked at her in mild astonishment.

“Have you some more typing to do tonight, Miss Murchison?”

“Got to do the whole bally thing again,” said Miss Murchison. “Left out a paragraph on page one – it would be page one, of course – and he wants the tripe round at Hanson’s by 10 o’clock.”

Mr. Pond groaned slightly and shook his head.

“Those machines make you careless,” he reproved her. “In the old days, clerks thought twice about making foolish mistakes, when it meant copying the whole document out again by hand.”

“Glad I didn’t live then,” said Miss Murchison, shortly. “One might as well have been a galley-slave.”

“And we didn’t knock off at half-past four, either,” said Mr. Pond. “We worked in those days.”

“You may have worked longer,” said Miss Murchison, “but you didn’t get through as much in the time.”

“We worked accurately and neatly,” said Mr. Pond, with emphasis, as Miss Murchison irritably disentangled two keys which had jammed together under her hasty touch.

Mr. Urquhart’s door opened and the retort on the typist’s lips was silenced. He said good-night and went out. Mr. Pond followed him.

“I suppose you will have finished before the cleaner goes, Miss Murchison,” he said. “If not, please remember to extinguish the light and to hand the key to Mrs. Hodges in the basement.”

“Yes, Mr. Pond. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

His steps pattered through the entrance, sounded again loudly as he passed the window, and died away in the direction of Brownlow Street. Miss Murchison continued typing till she calculated that he was safely on the tube at Chancery Lane. Then she rose, with a quick glance round her and approached a higher tier of shelves, stacked with black deed-boxes, each of which bore the name of a client in bold white letters.

wrayburn was there, all right, but had mysteriously shifted its place. This in itself was unaccountable. She clearly remembered having replaced it, just before Christmas, on top of the pile mortimer – scroggins – lord coote – dolby bros. and wingfield; and here it was, on the day after Boxing Day, at the bottom of a pile, heaped over and kept down by bodgers – sir j. penkridge – flatsby & coaten – trubody ltd. and universal bone trust. Somebody had been springcleaning, apparently, over the holidays, and Miss Murchison thought it improbable that it was Mrs. Hodges.

It was tiresome, because all the shelves were full, and it would be necessary to lift down all the boxes and stand them somewhere before she could get out wrayburn. And Mrs. Hodges would be in soon, and though Mrs. Hodges didn’t really matter, it might look odd…

Miss Murchison pulled the chair from her desk (for the shelf was rather high) and, standing on it, lifted down universal bone trust. It was heavyish, and the chair (which was-of the revolving kind, and not the modern type with one spindly leg and a stiffly sprung back, which butts you in the lower spine and keeps you up to your job) wobbled unsteadily, as she carefully lowered the box and balanced it on the narrow top of the cupboard. She reached up again and took down trubody ltd., and placed it on bone trust. She reached up for the third time and seized flatsby & coaten. As she stooped with it a step sounded in the doorway and an astonished voice said behind her:

“Are you looking for something, Miss Murchison?”

Miss Murchison started so violently that the treacherous chair swung through a quarter-turn, nearly shooting her into Mr. Pond’s arms. She came down awkwardly, still clasping the black deed-box.

“How you startled me, Mr. Pond! I thought you had gone.”

“So I had,” said Mr. Pond, “but when I got to the Underground I found I had left a little parcel behind me. So tiresome – I had to come back for it. Have you seen it anywhere? A little round jar, done up in brown paper.”

Miss Murchison set flatsby & coaten on the seat of the chair and gazed about her.

“It doesn’t seem to be in my desk,” said Mr. Pond. “Dear, dear, I shall be so late. And I can’t go without it, because it’s wanted for dinner – in fact, it’s a little jar of caviare. We have guests tonight. Now, where can I have put it?”

“Perhaps you put it down when you washed your hands,” suggested Miss Murchison, helpfully.

“Well now, perhaps I did.” Mr. Pond fussed out and she heard the door of the little lavabo in the passage open with a loud creak. It suddenly occurred to her that she had left her handbag open on her desk. Suppose the skeleton keys were visible. She darted towards the bag, just as Mr. Pond returned in triumph.