Mr. Pym mopped his forehead.

“Can you tell me this,” he inquired anxiously, after a silence in which he seemed to be digesting the meaning of his employee’s question. “Do your suspicions point to any particular person? Is it possible to remove that person promptly from our staff? You see my point. If, before this scandal breaks-whatever it is-and I really think I ought to be told-but so long as we can say that the person is no longer on the staff, it makes a difference. The firm’s name might even be kept out of it-mightn’t it? The good name of Pym’s means a great deal to me, Mr. Bredon-”

“I can’t tell you,” said Wimsey; “a few days ago, I thought I knew, but just lately, other facts have come to my knowledge which suggest that the man I originally suspected may not be the right one. And until I know definitely, I can’t do or say anything. At the moment it might be anybody. It might even be yourself.”

“This is outrageous,” cried Mr. Pym. “You can take your money and go.”

Wimsey shook his head.

“If you get rid of me, the police will probably want to put somebody in my place.”

“If I had the police here,” retorted Mr. Pym, “I should at least know where I was. I know nothing about you, except that Mrs. Arbuthnot recommended you. I never cared for the idea of a private detective, though I certainly thought at first that you were of a somewhat superior type to the usual inquiry agent. But insolence I cannot and will not put up with. I shall communicate at once with Scotland Yard, and they will, I imagine, require you to state plainly what you imagine yourself to have discovered.

“They know it.”

“Do they? You do not seem to be a model of discretion, Mr. Bredon.” He pressed his buzzer. “Miss Hartley, will you please get Scotland Yard on the ’phone, and ask them to send up a reliable detective.”

“Very well, Mr. Pym.”

Miss Hartley danced away. This was meat and drink. She had always said there was something funny about Mr. Bredon, and now he had been caught. Pinching the cash, perhaps. She dialled the switch-board and asked for Whitehall 1212.

“Just one moment,” said Wimsey, when the door had closed upon her. “If you really want Scotland Yard tell her to ask for Chief-Inspector Parker and say that Lord Peter Wimsey would like to speak to him. Then he’ll know what it’s about.”

“You are-? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it might raise difficulties about the salary and prove embarrassing. I took the job on because I thought advertising might be rather good fun. So it is,” added Wimsey, pleasantly, “so it is.”

Mr. Pym put his head into Miss Hartley’s room.

“I’ll take that call in here,” he said, briefly.

They sat mute till the call came through. Mr. Pym asked for Chief-Inspector Parker.

“There is a man here on my staff, calling himself-”

The conversation was a brief one. Mr. Pym handed the receiver to Wimsey.

“They want to speak to you.”

“Hullo, Charles! That you? Have you established my credit? All right… No, no trouble, only Mr. Pym feels he ought to know what it’s all about… Shall I tell him?… Not wise?… Honestly, Charles, I don’t think he’s our man… Well, that’s a different question… The Chief-Inspector wants to know whether you can hold your tongue, Mr. Pym.”

“I only wish to God everybody could hold his tongue,” groaned Mr. Pym.

Wimsey passed on the reply. “I think I’ll risk it, Charles. If anybody is going to be slugged in the dark after this, it won’t be you, and I can look after myself.”

He rang off and turned to Mr. Pym.

“Here’s the brutal fact,” he said. “Somebody’s running an enormous dope-traffic from this office. Who is there that has far more money than he ought to have, Mr. Pym? We’re looking for a very rich man. Can you help us?”

But Mr. Pym was past helping anybody. He was chalk-white.

“Dope? From this office? What on earth will our clients say? How shall I face the Board? The publicity…”

“Pym’s Publicity,” said Lord Wimsey, and laughed.

That week passed quietly. On Tuesday, Mr. Jollop passed, quite amiably, another of the new “Quotations” series for Nutrax “-And Kissed Again with Tears” (“But Tears, and Fallings-Out, however poetical, are nearly always a sign of Nerve-Strain”); on Wednesday, Green Pastures Margarine was Reduced in Price though Improved in Quality (“It might seem impossible to improve on Perfection but we have done it!”); Sopo adopted a new advertising figure (“Let Susan Sopo do the Dirty Work”); Tomboy Toffee finished up its Cricket Campaign with a huge display containing the portraits of a complete Eleven of Famous Cricketers all eating Tomboy; five people went on holiday; Mr. Prout created a sensation by coming to the office in a black shirt; Miss Rossiter lost a handbag containing her bonus money and recovered it from the Lost Property Office, and a flea was found in the ladies’ cloak-room, causing dire upheaval, some ill-founded accusations and much heart-burning. In the typists’ room, the subject of the flea almost ousted for the moment the juicier and more speculative topic of Mr. Tallboy’s visitor. For, whether by the indiscretion of Tompkin or of the boy at the desk, or of some other person (though not of Mr. Ingleby or Mr. Bredon, who surely knew better), the tale had somehow seeped through.

“And how he does it on his salary I don’t know,” observed Miss Parton. “I do think it’s a shame. His wife’s a nice little woman. You remember, we met her last year at the Garden Party.”

“Men are all alike,” said Miss Rossiter, scornfully. “Even your Mr. Tallboy. I told you, Parton, that I didn’t think old Copley was so much to blame as you thought in that other business, and now perhaps, you’ll believe me. What I say is, if a man does one ungentlemanly thing, he’ll do another. And as for doing it on his salary, how about that fifty pounds in an envelope? It’s pretty obvious where that went to.”

“It’s always obvious where money goes to,” said Miss Mete-yard, sardonically. “The point is, where does it come from?”

“That’s what Mr. Dean used to say,” said Miss Rossiter. “You remember how he used to chip Mr. Tallboy about his stockbrokers?”

“The famous firm of Smith,” said Mr. Garrett. “Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith & Smith Unlimited.”

“Money-lenders, if you ask me” said Miss Rossiter. “Are you going to the cricket-match, Miss Meteyard? In my opinion, Mr. Tallboy ought to resign and leave somebody else to captain it. You can’t wonder that people aren’t keen to play under him, with all these stories going about. Don’t you feel the same, Mr. Bredon?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Mr. Bredon. “Provided the man can captain, I don’t care a bit if he has as many wives as Solomon, and is a forger and swindler into the bargain. What’s it matter?”

“It would matter to me,” said Miss Rossiter.

“How feminine she is,” said Mr. Bredon, plaintively, to the world at large. “She will let the personal element come into business.”

“I dare say,” said Miss Rossiter, “but you bet, if Hankie or Pymmy knew, there’d soon be an end of Mr. Tallboy.”

“Directors are the last people to hear anything about the staff. Otherwise,” said Miss Meteyard, “they wouldn’t be able to stand on their hind legs at the Staff Dinner and shoot off the speeches about cooperation, and all being one happy family.”

“Family quarrels, family quarrels.” Mr. Ingleby waved his hand. “Little children, love one another and don’t be such little nosey-parkers. What’s Hecuba’s bank-balance to you, or yours to Hecuba?”

“Bank-balance? Oh, you mean Mr. Tallboy’s. Well, I don’t know anything, except what little Dean used to say.”

“And how did Dean know so much about it?”

“He was in Mr. Tallboy’s office for a few weeks. Learning the work of other departments, they call it. I expect you’ll be pushed round the office before long, Mr. Bredon. You’ll have to mind your Ps and Q’s in the Printing. Mr. Thrale’s a perfect tartar. Won’t even allow you to slip out for coffee.”