Sick of Shadows - M. C. Beaton [54]
“What fire? Where?” Berrow looked wildly around. “I don’t have electricity.” People in homes lit by electricity often sat with cushions at the ready to throw at the skirting as the occasional over-powerful surge of electricity caused it to burst into flames.
“My apologies. I was thinking of something else.”
They questioned him further, Berrow growing more and more relaxed when he realized there was to be no mention of that photograph.
But when they had left, he phoned Cyril to tell him of the visit. “I can’t take any more frights like this morning,” he said. “We’ve got to get that negative.”
“He might keep it at his office. I’ve heard there’s only a secretary there.”
“We’ll watch his office.”
“He might see us. I’ll send a servant to let us know. We’ll wait in a coffee shop nearby.”
Ailsa Bridge, Harry secretary, was not her usual placid self because she had run out of gin. While she knew her employer kept drinks in his inner office, she dismissed the idea. That would be stealing. But she began to make mistakes in her typing. She looked longingly at the door of the inner office, where the bottles in the cupboard seemed to be singing a siren song to her.
It was too much. She got to her feet. The telephone rang, making her jump guiltily. It was Harry. “I won’t be back for a couple of hours,” he said. “I don’t have any appointments, do I?”
“Three o’clock is the next one,” said Ailsa.
“Good. I can trust you as usual to take care of anything that arises.”
Ailsa replaced the receiver and stood, lost in thought. If she went out to buy gin, he wouldn’t know. But what if some important case came up and she wasn’t there?
“Just a little fortifier,” she murmured and headed for the inner office. She crouched down by the cupboard. “Whisky, brandy, sherry, but no gin. Blast!”
Whisky would have to do. She extracted the cork with her teeth and took a large swig, feeling the spirit coursing through her veins. And then she heard footsteps on the stairs. She rammed the cork back in the bottle when she heard a man’s voice say, “The place is empty. Let’s get to work before the bastard gets back.”
Ailsa, the prim, spinsterish daughter of missionaries, had been in a lot of difficult situations in Burma. She carefully took the revolver Harry kept in his desk and, holding it behind her thin figure, emerged from the inner office.
Two masked men stood there. The heavy-set one advanced on her. “Sit down and keep your mouth shut,” he growled, “or it will be the worse for you.”
Ailsa produced the revolver from behind her back. “Get out,” she said calmly.
They both stopped short. The other man gave a sniggering laugh. “A little lady like you shouldn’t be playing with guns.”
Ailsa levelled the gun and shot him in the foot. He screamed and fell down. Ailsa picked up the receiver and said, “Police.”
“Let’s get out of here!” screamed the injured one. “I’m dying!”
Helped by his companion, they both stumbled out of the office and down the stairs.
The injured party was Cyril Banks and he had to wait, moaning and crying, while Berrow found a doctor who would keep his mouth shut, knowing that the police would be checking the hospitals. Because he was an inveterate smoker and kept a spare cigarette case inside his elastic-sided boot, his foot was only badly bruised.
After the doctor had left, he and Berrow sat down to think up ways and means of getting that photograph back.
Harry knew who the culprits probably were and told the police. But when they called on Cyril, it was to find he appeared to be walking normally and there was no sign he had been shot. Threatened with everyone from the king to the prime minister, the police backed off with apologies.
When he heard the news, Harry assumed that they had hired a couple of men. “Maybe,” he said to Ailsa, “you