Dorothy Sayers - Murder Must Advertise

“It is my business,” retorted Willis. “It’s every decent man’s business. I heard Miss Dean making an appointment with you,” he went on, angrily.

“What a detective you would make,” said Bredon, admiringly. “But you really ought to take care, when you are shadowing anybody, that they are not sitting opposite a mirror, or anything that will serve as a mirror. There is a picture in front of the table where we were sitting, that reflects half the room. Elementary, my dear Watson. No doubt you will do better with practice. However, there is no secret about the appointment. We are going to a fancy dress affair on Friday. I am meeting Miss Dean for dinner at Boulestin’s at 8 o’clock and we are going on from there. Perhaps you would care to accompany us?”

The policeman dropped his arm, and the taxi lurched forward into Southampton Row.

“You’d better be careful,” growled Willis, “I might take you at your word.”

“I should be charmed, personally,” replied Bredon. “You will decide for yourself whether Miss Dean would or would not be put in an embarrassing position if you joined the party. Well, well, here we are at our little home from home. We must put aside this light badinage and devote ourselves to Sopo and Pompayne and Peabody ’s Piper Parritch. A delightful occupation, though somewhat lacking in incident. But let us not complain. We can’t expect battle, murder and sudden death more than once a week or so. By the way, where were you when Victor Dean fell downstairs?”

“In the lavatory,” said Willis, shortly.

“Were you, indeed?” Bredon looked at him once more attentively. “In the lavatory? You interest me strangely.”

The atmosphere of the copy-department was much less strained by tea-time. Messrs. Brotherhood had been and gone, having seen nothing to shock their sense of propriety; Mr. Jollop, mellowed by his lunch, had passed three large poster designs with almost reckless readiness and was now with Mr. Pym, being almost persuaded to increase his appropriation for the autumn campaign. The suffering Mr. Armstrong, released from attendance on Mr. Jollop, had taken himself away to visit his dentist. Mr. Tallboy, coming in to purchase a stamp from Miss Rossiter for his private correspondence, announced with delight that the Nutrax half-double had gone to the printer’s.

“Is that ‘KITTLE CATTLE’?” asked Ingleby. “You surprise me. I thought we should have trouble with it.”

“I believe we did,” said Tallboy. “Was it Scotch, and would people know what it meant? Would it suggest that we were calling women cows? And wasn’t the sketch a little modernistic? But Armstrong got it shoved through somehow. May I drop this in your ‘Out’ basket, Miss Rossiter?”

“Serpently,” replied the lady, with gracious humour, presenting the basket to receive the latter. “All billy-doos receive our prompt attention and are immediately forwarded to their destination by the quickest and surest route.”

“Let’s see,” said Garrett. “I bet it’s to a lady, and him a married man, too! No, you don’t, Tallboy, you old devil-stand still, will you? Tell us who it is, Miss Rossiter.”

“K. Smith, Esq.,” said Miss Rossiter. “You lose your bet.”

“What a swizz! But I expect it’s all camouflage. I suspect Tallboy of keeping a harem somewhere. You can’t trust these handsome blue-eyed men.”

“Shut up, Garrett. I never,” said Mr. Tallboy, extricating himself from Garrett’s grasp and giving him a playful punch in the wind, “in my life, met with such a bunch of buttinskis as you are in this department. Nothing is sacred to you, not even a man’s business correspondence.”

“How should anything be sacred to an advertiser?” demanded Ingleby, helping himself to four lumps of sugar. “We spend our whole time asking intimate questions of perfect strangers and it naturally blunts our finer feelings. ‘Mother! has your Child Learnt Regular Habits?’ ‘Are you Troubled with Fullness after Eating?’ ‘Are you satisfied about your Drains?’ ‘Are you Sure that your Toilet-Paper is Germ-free?’ ‘Your most Intimate Friends dare not Ask you this question.’ ‘Do you Suffer from Superfluous Hair?’ ‘Do you Like them to Look at your Hands?’ ‘Do you ever ask yourself about Body-Odour?’ ‘If anything Happened to you, would your Loved Ones be Safe?’ ‘Why Spend so much Time in the Kitchen?’ ‘You think that Carpet is Clean-but is it?’ ‘Are you a Martyr to Dandruff?’ Upon my soul, I sometimes wonder why the long-suffering public doesn’t rise up and slay us.”

“They don’t know of our existence,” said Garrett. “They all think advertisements write themselves. When I tell people I’m in advertising, they always ask whether I design posters-they never think about the copy.”

“They think the manufacturer does it himself,” said Ingleby.

“They ought to see some of the suggestions the manufacturer does put up when he tries his hand at it.”

“I wish they could.” Ingleby grinned. “That reminds me. You know that idiotic thing Darling’s put out the other day-the air-cushion for travellers with a doll that fits into the middle and sits up holding an ‘ENGAGED’ label?”

“What for?” asked Bredon.

“Well, the idea is, that you plank the cushion down in the railway carriage and the doll proclaims that the place is taken.”

“But the cushion would do that without the doll.”

“Of course it would, but you know how silly people are. They like superfluities. Well, anyway, they-Darling’s, I mean-got out an ad. for the rubbish all by their little selves, and were fearfully pleased with it. Wanted us to put it through for them, till Armstrong burst into one of his juicy laughs and made them blush.”

“What was it?”

“Picture of a nice girl bending down to put the cushion in the corner of a carriage. And the headline? ‘DONT LET THEM PINCH YOUR SEAT.’”

“Attaboy!” said Mr. Bredon.

The new copy-writer was surprisingly industrious that day. He was still in his room, toiling over Sanfect (“Wherever there’s Dirt there’s Danger!”

“The Skeleton in the Watercloset,”

“Assassins Lurk in your Scullery!”

“Deadlier than Shell-Fire-GERMS!!!”) when Mrs. Crump led in her female army to attack the day’s accumulated dirt-armed, one regrets to say, not with Sanfect, but with plain yellow soap and water.

“Come in, come in!” cried Mr. Bredon, genially, as the good lady paused reverently at his door. “Come and sweep me and my works away with the rest of the rubbish.”

“Well, I’m sure, sir,” said Mrs. Crump, “I’ve no need to be disturbing you.”

“I’ve finished, really,” said Bredon. “I suppose there’s an awful lot of stuff to clear out here every day.”

“That there is, sir-you’d hardly believe. Paper-well, I’m sure paper must be cheap, the amount they waste. Sackfuls and sackfuls every evening goes out. Of course, it’s disposed of to the mills, but all the same it must be a dreadful expense. And there’s boxes and boards and odds and ends-you’d be surprised, the things we picks up. I sometimes think the ladies and gentlemen brings up all their cast-offs on purpose to throw ’em away here.”

“I shouldn’t wonder.”

“And mostly chucked on the floor,” resumed Mrs. Crump, warming to her theme, “hardly ever in the paper-baskets, though goodness knows they make ’em big enough.”

“It must give you a lot of trouble.”

“Lor’, sir, we don’t think nothing of it. We just sweeps the lot up and sends the sacks down by the lift. Though sometimes we has a good laugh over the queer things we finds. I usually just give the stuff a look through to make sure there’s nothing valuable got dropped by mistake. Once I found two pound-notes on Mr. Ingleby’s floor. He’s a careless one and no mistake. And not so long ago-the very day poor Mr. Dean had his sad accident, I found a kind of carved stone lying round in the passage-looked as though it might be a charm or a trinket or something of that. But I think it must have tumbled out of the poor gentleman’s pocket as he fell, because Mrs. Doolittle said she’d seen it in his room, so I brought it in here, sir, and put it in that there little box.”