But my office, particularly when compared with the sort of office I could expect at Tiffield Products, was one of the reasons for my not having definitely refused the offer. I looked at it with distaste. I had been palmed off with the most cramped and ill-ventilated room in the whole office block. And the title on the door hadn’t rated a carpet on the floor but worn coconut matting and a scratched oak desk with drawers that always stuck.

I looked at Hilda, my secretary, with rather less distaste. She was a small round girl in her early twenties with a small round face and a great deal of fuzzy ginger hair. She’d never repre­sented any temptation to me but she was unfailingly cheerful, had some notion how to spell and, most important of all, knew all the office scandal.

“Hello there,” I said. “What’s new?”

“Those estimates,” she said.

I took the folder out of the In tray. There was at least four hours’ work there; I put my hand to my head.

“Won’t they wait?”

“Mr. Rabin wants them for three o’clock. And you’ve an ap­pointment with Mr. Smithers at half past three.”

“He’s at Wakefield,” I said. “I’ll never make it.”

“I’ll put it back half an hour,” she said. She rummaged in her handbag and passed me a bottle of aspirin. “I’ll get you some tea.” She lifted the phone.

When she’d ordered the tea she gave me a long appraising look, sighed, and returned to her typing.

“All right,” I said. “I admit it. I’m a little frayed round the edges.”

She giggled. “Mr. Hethersett thought you might be.”

“What did he want?”

She puffed out her cheeks and assumed a gruff voice. “Hello, my poppet. Ai just wondered if Ai could have a little word with Mr. Lampton. . . . I told him you weren’t in yet, and he grinned and said he wasn’t really surprised, and went along to Mr. Middridge’s office.”

I took the cup of tea from the office boy.

“He told me he was seeing Mr. Brown.”

“He didn’t,” she said.

I swallowed four aspirins and washed them down with a mouth­ful of tea.

“You don’t seem to like Mr. Hethersett,” I said.

She pretended to retch.

“He’s slimy,” she said. “He’s one of those men who seem to have an extra hand and you’re never quite sure where it is . . .”

“He’s none the worse for watching,” I said. I yawned. “Oh God, I hate this time of year. I’d do with my holiday right now . . .”

“You’re going to Cornwall, aren’t you?”

“We’ve got a cottage.”

I unfastened the folder of estimates, then glanced impatiently at the copy of my report in the Out tray. I reached out for it.