The Green Rust, Edgar Wallace [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

not the practice of Punsonby's to give any reason for dispensing with the services of its employees," he said oracularly, "it is sufficient that I should tell you that hitherto you have given every satisfaction, but for reasons which I am not prepared to discuss we must dispense with your services."

Her head was in a whirl. She could not grasp what had happened. For five years she had worked in the happiest circumstances in this great store, where everybody had been kind to her and where her tasks had been congenial. She had never thought of going elsewhere. She regarded herself, as did all the better-class employees, as a fixture.

"Do I understand," she asked, "that I am to leave--at once?"

Mr. White nodded. He pushed the cheque across the table and she took it up and folded it mechanically.

"And you are not going to tell me why?"

Mr. White shook his head.

"Punsonby's do nothing without a good reason," he said solemnly, feeling that whatever happened he must make a good case for Punsonby's, and that whoever was to blame for this unhappy incident it was not an august firm which paid its fourteen per cent. with monotonous regularity. "We lack--ah--definite knowledge to proceed any further in this matter than--in fact, than we have proceeded. Definite knowledge" (the girl was all the more bewildered by his cumbersome diplomacy) "definite knowledge was promised but has not--in fact, has not come to hand. It is all very unpleasant--very unpleasant," and he shook his head.

She bowed and turning, walked quickly from the room, passed to the lobby where her coat was hung, put on her hat and left Punsonby's for ever.

It was when she had reached the street that, with a shock, she remembered Beale's words and she stood stock-still, pinching her lip thoughtfully. Had he known? Why had he come that morning, hours before he was ordinarily visible--if the common gossip of Krooman Mansions be worthy of credence?--and then as though to cap the amazing events of the morning she saw him. He was standing on the corner of the street, leaning on his cane, smoking a long cigarette through a much longer holder, and he seemed wholly absorbed in watching a linesman, perched high above the street, repairing a telegraph wire.

She made a step toward him, but stopped. He was so evidently engrossed in the acrobatics of the honest workman in mid-air that he could not have seen her and she turned swiftly and walked the other way.

She had not reached the end of the block before he was at her side.

"You are going home early, Miss Cresswell," he smiled.

She turned to him.

"Do you know why?" she asked.

"I don't know why--unless----"

"Unless what?"

"Unless you have been discharged," he said coolly.

Her brows knit.

"What do you know about my discharge?" she asked.

"Such things are possible," said Mr. Beale.

"Did you know I was going to be discharged?" she asked again.

He nodded.

"I didn't exactly know you would be discharged this morning, but I had an idea you would be discharged at some time or other. That is why I came with my offer."

"Which, of course, I won't accept," she snapped.

"Which, of course, you have accepted," he said quietly. "Believe me, I know nothing more than that Punsonby's have been prevailed upon to discharge you. What reason induced them to take that step, honestly I don't know."

"But why did you think so?"

He was grave of a sudden.

"I just thought so," he said. "I am not going to be mysterious with you and I can only tell you that I had reasons to believe that some such step would be taken."

She shrugged her shoulders wearily.

"It is quite mysterious enough," she said. "Do you seriously want me to work for you?"

He nodded.

"You didn't tell me your city address."

"That is why I came back," he said.

"Then you knew I was coming out?"

"I knew you would come out some time in the day."

She stared at him.

"Do you mean to tell me that you would have waited all day to give me your address?"

He laughed.

"I only mean this," he replied, "that I should have waited all day."

It was a helpless laugh which echoed his.

"My address is 342 Lothbury," he went on, "342. You may begin work this afternoon and----" He hesitated.

"And?" she repeated.

"And I think it would be wise if you didn't tell your friend, the doctor, that I am employing you."

He was examining his finger-nails attentively as he spoke, and he did not meet her eye.

"There are many reasons," he went on. "In the first place, I have blotted my copy-book, as they say, in Krooman Mansions, and it might not rebound to your credit."

"You should have thought of that before you asked me to come to you," she said.

"I thought of it a great deal," he replied calmly.

There was much in what he said, as the girl recognized. She blamed herself for her hasty promise, but somehow the events of the previous night had placed him on a different footing, had given him a certain indefinable position to which the inebriate Mr. Beale had not aspired.

"I am afraid I am rather bewildered by all the mystery of it," she said, "and I don't think I will come to the office to-day. To-morrow morning, at what hour?"

"Ten o'clock," he said, "I will be there to explain your duties. Your salary will be L5 a week. You will be in charge of the office, to which I very seldom go, by the way, and your work will be preparing statistical returns of the wheat-crops in all the wheat-fields of the world for the last fifty years."

"It sounds thrilling," she said, and a quick smile flashed across his face.

"It is much more thrilling than you imagine," were his parting words.

She reached Krooman Mansions just as the doctor was coming out, and he looked at her in surprise.

"You are back early!"

Should she tell him? There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had been a good friend of hers and she felt sure of his sympathy. It occurred to her at that moment that Mr. Beale had been most unsympathetic, and had not expressed one word of regret.

"Yes, I've been discharged," she exclaimed.

"Discharged? Impossible!"

She nodded.

"To prove that it is possible it has happened," she said cheerfully.

"My dear girl, this is monstrous! What excuse did they give?"

"None." This was said with a lightness of tone which did not reflect the indignation she felt at heart.

"Did they give you no reason?"

"They gave me none. They gave me my month's cheque and just told me to go off, and off I came like the well-disciplined wage-earner I am."

"But it is monstrous," he said indignantly. "I will go and see them. I know one of the heads of the firm--at least, he is a patient of mine."

"You will do nothing of the kind," she replied firmly. "It really doesn't matter."

"What are you going to do? By Jove!" he said suddenly, "what a splendid idea! I want a clinical secretary."

The humour of it got the better of her, and she laughed in his face.

"What is the joke?" he asked.

"Oh, I am so sorry, doctor, but you mustn't think I am ungrateful, but I am beginning to regard myself as one of the plums in the labour market."

"Have you another position?" he asked quickly.

"I have just accepted one," she said, and he did not disguise his disappointment, which might even have been interpreted, were Oliva more conceited, into absolute chagrin.

"You are very quick," said he, and his voice had lost some of its enthusiasm. "What position have you taken?"

"I am going into an office in the city," she said.

"That will be dull. If you have settled it in your mind, of course, I cannot alter your decision, but I would be quite willing to give you L5 or L6 a week, and the work would be very light."

She held out her hand, and there was a twinkle in her eye.

"London is simply filled with people who want to give me L5 a week for work which is very light; really I am awfully grateful to you, doctor."

She felt more cheerful as she mounted the stairs than she thought would have been possible had such a position been forecast and had she to speculate upon the attitude of mind with which she would meet such a misfortune.

Punsonby's, for all the humiliation of her dismissal, seemed fairly unimportant. Some day she would discover the circumstances which had decided the high gods who presided over the ready-made clothing business in their action.

She unlocked the door and passed in, not without a comprehensive and an amused glance which took in the sober front doors of her new employer and her would-be employer.

"Sarah, your luck's in," she said, as she banged the door--Sarah was the approving version of Matilda. "If the wheezy man fires you, be sure there'll be a good angel waiting on the doorstep to offer you L20 a week for 'phoning the office once a day."

It occurred to her that it would be wise to place on record her protest against her summary dismissal, and she went to the little bookshelf-writing-table where she kept her writing-material to indite the epistle whilst she thought of it. It was one of those little fumed-oak contraptions where the desk is formed by a hinged flap which serves when not in use to close the desk.

She pulled out the two little supports, inserted the key in the lock, but it refused to turn, for the simple reason that it was unlocked. She had distinctly remembered that morning locking it after putting away the bill which had arrived with the morning post.

She pulled down the flap slowly and stared in amazement at the little which it hid. Every pigeon-hole had been ransacked and the contents were piled up in a confused heap. The two tiny drawers in which she kept stamps and nibs were out and emptied.


CHAPTER IV

THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE


She made a rapid survey of the documents. They were unimportant, and consisted mainly of letters from the few girl friends she had made during her stay at Punsonby's--old theatre programmes, recipes copied from newspapers and bunches of snapshots taken on her last summer excursion.

She arranged the things in some sort of rough order and made an inspection of her bedroom. Here, too, there was evidence that somebody had been searching the room. The drawers of her dressing-table were open, and though the contents had been little disturbed, it was clear that they had been searched. She made another discovery. The window of the bedroom was open at the bottom. Usually it was open half-way down from the top, and was fastened in that position by a patent catch. This precaution was necessary, because the window looked upon a narrow iron parapet which ran along the building and communicated with the fire-escape. She looked out. Evidently the intruder had both come and gone this way, and as evidently her return had disturbed him in