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Chapter One
It was Miss Somers’s turn to make the tea. Miss Somers was the newest
and the most inefficient1 of the typists. She was no longer young and had a
mild worried face like a sheep. The kettle was not quite boiling when Miss
Somers poured the water onto the tea, but poor Miss Somers was never
quite sure when a kettle was boiling. It was one of the many worries that
She poured out the tea and took the cups round with a couple of limp,
sweet biscuits in each saucer.
been with Consolidated4 Investments Trust for sixteen years, said sharply:
went pink and she said, “Oh dear, I did think it was boiling this time.”
Miss Griffith thought to herself: “She’ll last for another month, perhaps,
just while we’re so busy … But really! The mess the silly idiot made of that
ways so stupid over the tea. If it weren’t so difficult to get hold of any intel-
ligent typists—and the biscuit tin lid wasn’t shut tightly last time, either.
Really—”
Like so many of Miss Griffith’s indignant inner communings the sen-
tence went unfinished.
At that moment Miss Grosvenor sailed in to make Mr. Fortescue’s sacred
tea. Mr. Fortescue had different tea, and different china and special bis-
cuits. Only the kettle and the water from the cloakroom tap were the
same. But on this occasion, being Mr. Fortescue’s tea, the water boiled.
Miss Grosvenor saw to that.
very best and most expensive black-market nylons.
one a word or a glance. The typists might have been so many blackbeetles.
Miss Grosvenor was Mr. Fortescue’s own special personal secretary; un-
was not true. Mr. Fortescue had recently married a second wife, both
Miss Grosvenor was to Mr. Fortescue just a necessary part of the office dé-
Miss Grosvenor sailed back with the tray held out in front of her like a
ritual offering. Through the inner office and through the waiting room,
where the more important clients were allowed to sit, and through her
own anteroom, and finally with a light tap on the door she entered the
holy of holies, Mr. Fortescue’s office.
were dotted expensive oriental rugs. It was delicately panelled in pale
wood and there were some enormous stuffed chairs upholstered in pale
room, sat Mr. Fortescue himself.
Mr. Fortescue was less impressive than he should have been to match
the room, but he did his best. He was a large flabby man with a gleaming
bald head. It was his affectation to wear loosely cut country tweeds in his
city office. He was frowning down at some papers on his desk when Miss
the desk at his elbow, she murmured in a low impersonal17 voice, “Your tea,
Mr. Fortescue,” and withdrew.
Seated at her own desk again Miss Grosvenor proceeded with the busi-
ness in hand. She made two telephone calls, corrected some letters that
were lying there typed ready for Mr. Fortescue to sign and took one in-
coming call.
Fortescue is in conference.”
As she laid down the receiver she glanced at the clock. It was ten
minutes past eleven.
It was just then that an unusual sound penetrated20 through the almost
venor, startled for a moment into complete immobility, rose uncertainly to
she moved towards Mr. Fortescue’s door in her usual statuesque fashion,
tapped and entered.
What she saw upset her poise still further. Her employer behind his
desk seemed contorted with agony. His convulsive movements were
alarming to watch.
Miss Grosvenor said, “Oh dear, Mr. Fortescue, are you ill?” and was im-
that Mr. Fortescue was very seriously ill. Even as she came up to him, his
body was convulsed in a painful spasmodic movement.
“Tea—what the hell—you put in the tea—get help—quick get a doctor—”
Miss Grosvenor fled from the room. She was no longer the supercilious29
blonde secretary—she was a thoroughly30 frightened woman who had lost
her head.
She came running into the typists’ office crying out:
“Mr. Fortescue’s having a fit—he’s dying—we must get a doctor—he
looks awful—I’m sure he’s dying.”
Miss Bell, the youngest typist, said, “If it’s epilepsy we ought to put a
Nobody had a cork.
Miss Somers said, “At his age it’s probably apoplexy.”
Miss Griffith said, “We must get a doctor—at once.”
years of service it had never been necessary to call a doctor to the city of-
fice. There was her own doctor but that was at Streatham Hill. Where was
there a doctor near here?
Nobody knew. Miss Bell seized a telephone directory and began looking
up Doctors under D. But it was not a classified directory and doctors were
not automatically listed like taxi ranks. Someone suggested a hospital—
but which hospital? “It has to be the right hospital,” Miss Somers insisted,
“or else they won’t come. Because of the National Health, I mean. It’s got
to be in the area.”
Someone suggested 999 but Miss Griffith was shocked at that and said it
would mean the police and that would never do. For citizens of a country
which enjoyed the benefits of Medical Service for all, a group of quite
reasonably intelligent women showed incredible ignorance of correct pro-
cedure. Miss Bell started looking up Ambulances under A. Miss Griffith
said, “There’s his own doctor—he must have a doctor.” Someone rushed
for the private address book. Miss Griffith instructed the office boy to go
out and find a doctor—somehow, anywhere. In the private address book,
Miss Griffith found Sir Edwin Sandeman with an address in Harley Street.
noticeably less Mayfair than usual, “I made the tea just as usual—really I
did—there couldn’t have been anything wrong in it.”
“Wrong in it?” Miss Griffith paused, her hand on the dial of the tele-
phone. “Why do you say that?”
“He said it—Mr. Fortescue—he said it was the tea—”
Miss Bell, young and hopeful, said: “We ought to give him some mustard
and water—now. Isn’t there any mustard in the office?”
There was no mustard in the office.
Some short while later Dr. Isaacs of Bethnal Green, and Sir Edwin San-
deman met in the elevator just as two different ambulances drew up in
front of the building. The telephone and the office boy had done their
work.
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