Original Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Let’s hope that it’s the last.”

3
    In the outer office Mandy and Miss Blackett sat each at her word processor, each typing, eyes fixed on the screen. Neither spoke. At first Mandy’s fingers had refused to work, trembling uncertainly over the keys as if the letters had been inexplicably transposed and the whole keyboard had become a meaningless jumble of symbols. But she clasped her hands tightly in her lap for half a minute and by an effort of will brought the shaking under control, and when she actually began typing the familiar skill took over and all was well. From time to time she glanced quickly at Miss Blackett. The woman was obviously deeply shocked. The large face with its marsupial cheeks and small, rather obstinate mouth, was so white that Mandy feared that at any moment she would slump forward over the keyboard in a faint.
    It was over half an hour since Miss Etienne and her brother had left. Within ten minutes of closing the door Miss Etienne had put her head round it and had said: “I’ve asked Mrs. Demery to bring you some tea. It’s been a shock for both of you.”
    The tea had come within minutes, carried in by a red-haired woman in a flowered apron who had put down the tray on top of a filing cabinet with the words: “I’m not supposed to talk so I won’t. No harm in telling you, though, that the police have just arrived. That’s quick work. No doubt they’ll be wanting tea now.” She had then disappeared, as if aware that there was more excitement to be had outside the room than in.
    Miss Blackett’s office was an ill-proportioned room, too narrow for its height, the discordancy emphasized by the splendid marble fireplace with its formal patterned frieze, the heavy mantelshelf supported by the heads of two sphinxes. The partition, wooden for the bottom three feet with paned glass above, cut across one of the narrow arched windows as well as bisecting a lozenge-shaped decoration on the ceiling. Mandy thought that if the large room had had to be divided, it could have been done with more sensitivity to the architecture, not to mention Miss Blackett’s convenience. This way it gave the impression that she was grudged even enough space in which to work.
    Another but different oddity was the long snake in striped green velvet curled between the handles of the two top drawers of the steel filing cabinets. Its bright button eyes were crowned with a minute top hat and its forked tongue in red flannel hung from a soft open mouth lined with what looked like pink silk. Mandy had seen similar snakes before; her gran had had one. They were intended to be laid along the bottom of doors to exclude draughts, or wound round the handles to keep the door ajar. But it was a ridiculous object, a kind of kid’s toy, and hardly one she had expected to see in Innocent House. She would have liked to have asked Miss Blackett about it but Miss Etienne had told them not to talk and Miss Blackett was obviously interpreting this as prohibiting all speech except about work.
    The minutes passed silently. Mandy would shortly be at the end of her tape. Then Miss Blackett, looking up, said: “You can stop that now. I’ll give you some dictation. Miss Etienne wanted me to test your shorthand.”
    She took one of the firm’s catalogues from her desk drawer, handed Mandy a notebook, moved her chair beside her and began reading in a low voice, hardly moving her almost bloodless lips. Mandy’s fingers automatically formed the familiar hieroglyphics but her mind took in few of the details of the forthcoming non-fiction list. From time to time Miss Blackett’s voice faltered and Mandy knew that she too was listening to the sounds outside. After the initial sinister silence, they could now hear footsteps, half-imagined whispering, and then louder footfalls echoing on the marble and confident masculine voices.
    Miss Blackett, her eyes on the door, said tonelessly: “Perhaps you’d read it back now?”
    Mandy read back her