The Loss of the Jane Vosper Read Online Free PDF Page B

slightly startling designs and lighted from unexpected places by glowing tubes. The floors were of rubber, coloured in the shapes conventionally assigned to lightning, though admittedly lightning in rather solid flashes. The four lifts had grilles of bronze, and fascinating little lights popped in and out as the cages rose and fell.
    The fourth floor housed a firm whose plate read ‘The Land & Sea Insurance Co., Ltd.’ with below it the word ‘Enquiries’ and the representation of a hand pointing towards three o’clock.
    The office in which the three men sat talking was at the end of the main corridor. It was the private room of the manager, Arnold Jeffrey, and he was discussing business with Wallace Crewe, his accountant, and Wilfred Leatherhead, his chief clerk.
    For a private office, the room was large and ornate, providing ocular demonstration to the caller of the stability and prosperity of the company. It contained a large flat-topped desk, at which Mr Jeffrey was now seated, and two leather-covered armchairs, containing respectively his two assistants. All this furniture rested on a very thick, brightly coloured carpet, which also bore a table with glass top and curved steel legs, a file case, a wastepaper basket, and a nest of sectional bookcases, mostly containing books on law and insurance.
    Jeffrey was a big man of about fifty, with a heavy jaw, thin, closely compressed lips, wide awake eyes, and a slightly unpleasant expression. He was an able manager, and if he was not greatly liked in a personal capacity he was respected as a sound businessman and an efficient chief.
    Crewe and Leatherhead, except that one was tall and thin and the other small and stout, were alike in that they were typical heads of departments in a business of the kind. Both were good men – if they weren’t they wouldn’t have remained long under Jeffrey’s management, but neither was outstanding, and for the same reason.
    They were discussing a message which had been received a short time previously from the Weaver Bannister Engineering Company Limited, of Watford, a firm with whom they had recently done business. That their information was serious was evident from the expression of all three. Indeed they looked as if they had just received the news of a disaster.
    ‘A hundred and five thousand, wasn’t it?’ Jeffrey was saying, and there was something approaching horror in his tones.
    ‘Yes,’ answered the chief clerk with equal emotion, glancing at a paper he held. ‘There were 350 sets and they were covered at £300 apiece: makes £105,000.’
    For a moment there was silence, a brooding silence, and then Jeffrey spoke again with vicious emphasis. ‘ Damned ill-luck its coming just now,’ he declared. ‘We were badly enough hit by that Chelsea fire, and to have to pay out another hundred thousand on the top of that, as well as having had a bad year generally, is something that won’t bear thinking about.’
    ‘It’s very unfortunate,’ Crewe answered somewhat inadequately, while Leatherhead murmured agreement.
    ‘I’ve rung up the chairman,’ went on Jeffrey. ‘I did it first thing when I got the message. He said he’d come across at once.’
    ‘He’ll be pretty badly hit,’ the accountant considered. ‘Last time he was speaking to me he wasn’t too happy about our position. This’ll about put the lid on it.’
    ‘Yes, he was talking to me, too,’ Leatherhead added. ‘He was worried about the dividend. Said there never had been such a year of losses since the company was formed.’
    ‘I don’t know how we’re going to meet another hundred thousand without something unpleasant happening, and that’s a fact,’ Jeffrey declared unhappily, and was going on to develop his theme when there was a knock at one of the two doors and a pretty girl looked in. ‘Mr Brangstrode’s here, Mr Jeffrey,’ she said.
    ‘Show him in,’ Jeffrey answered, while the other two got up from their chairs.
    The young woman