Swing, Brother, Swing. Ngaio Marsh

       CHAPTER 2 The Persons Assemble

      At precisely 11 o’clock in the morning GPF walked in at a side door of the Harmony offices in 5 Materfamilias Lane, EC2. He went at once to his own room. PRIVATE GPF was written in white letters on the door. He unwound the scarf with which he was careful to protect his nose and mouth from the fog, and hung it, together with his felt hat and overcoat, on a peg behind his desk. He then assumed a green eyeshade and shot a bolt in his door. By so doing he caused a notice, ENGAGED, to appear on the outside.

      His gas fire was burning brightly and the tin saucer of water set before it to humidify the air, sent up a little drift of steam. The window was blanketed outside by fog. It was as if a yellow curtain had been hung on the wrong side of the glass. The footsteps of passers-by sounded close and dead and one could hear the muffled coughs and shut-in voices of people in a narrow street on a foggy morning. GPF rubbed his hands together, hummed a lively air, seated himself at his desk and switched on his green-shaded lamp. ‘Cosy,’ he thought. The light glinted on his dark glasses, which he took off and replaced with reading spectacles.

      ‘One, two. Button your boot,’ sang GPF in a shrill falsetto and pulled a wire basket of unopened letters towards him. ‘Three four, knock on the gate,’ he sang facetiously and slit open the top letter. A postal order for five shillings fell out on the desk.

      ‘Dear GPF (he read), – I feel I simply must write and thank you for your lush Private Chat letter – which I may as well confess has rocked me to my foundations. You couldn’t be more right to call yourself Guide, Philosopher and Friend, honestly you couldn’t. I’ve thought so much about what you’ve told me and I can’t help wondering what you’re like. To look at and listen to, I mean. I think your voice must be rather deep (‘Oh, Crumbs!’ GPF murmured), and I’m sure you are tall. I wish –’

      He skipped restlessly through the next two pages and arrived at the peroration: ‘I’ve tried madly to follow your advice but my young man really is! I can’t help thinking that it would be immensely energizing to talk to you. I mean really talk. But I suppose that’s hopelessly out of bounds, so I’m having another five bob’s worth of Private Chat.’ GPF followed the large flamboyant script and dropped the pages, one by one, into a second wire basket. Here at last, was the end. ‘I suppose he would be madly jealous if he knew I had written to you like this but I just felt I had to.

       ‘Yours gratefully,

       “TOOTS”’

      GPF reached for his pad of copy paper, gazed for a moment in a benign, absent manner at the fog-blinded window and then fell to. He wrote with great fluency, sighing and muttering under his breath.

      ‘Of course I am happy,’ he began, ‘to think that I have helped.’ The phrases ran out from his pencil ‘– you must think of GPF as a friendly ghost – write again if you will – more than usually interested – best of luck and my blessing –’ When it was finished he pinned the postal note to the top sheet and dropped the whole in a further basket which bore the legend ‘Personal Chat’.

      The next letter was written in a firm hand on good notepaper. GPF contemplated it with his head on one side, whistling between his teeth.

      ‘The writer (it said) is fifty years old and has recently consented to rejoin her husband who is fifty-one. He is eccentric to the verge of lunacy but, it is understood, not actually certifiable. A domestic crisis has arisen in which he refuses to take the one course compatible with his responsibilities as a stepfather. In a word, my daughter contemplates a marriage that from every point of view, but that of unbridled infatuation, is disastrous. If further details are required I am prepared to supply them, but the enclosed cuttings from newspapers covering a period of sixteen years will, I believe, speak for themselves. I do not wish this communication to be published, but enclose a five shilling postal order which I understand will cover a letter of personal advice.

       ‘I am, etc.,

       ‘CECILE DE FOUTEAUX PASTERN AND BAGOTT’

      GPF dropped the letter deliberately and turned over the sheaf of paper clippings. ‘PEER SUED FOR KIDNAPPING STEPDAUGHTER,’ he read. ‘PEER PRACTISES NUDISM.’ ‘SCENE IN MAYFAIR COURTROOM.’ ‘LORD PASTERN AGAIN.’ LADY PASTERN AND BAGOTT SEEKS DIVORCE.’ ‘PEER PREACHES FREE LOVE.’ ‘REBUKE FROM JUDGE.’ ‘LORD PASTERN NOW GOES YOGI.’ ‘“BOOGIE-WOOGIE PEER.”’ ‘INFINITE VARIETY.’

      GPF glanced through the letterpress beneath these headlines, made a small impatient sound and began to write very rapidly indeed. He was still at this employment when, glancing up at the blinded window, he saw, as if on a half-developed negative, a shoulder emerge through the fog. A face peered, a hand was pressed against the glass and then closed to tap twice. GPF unlocked his door and returned to his desk. A moment later the visitor came coughing down the passage. ‘Entrezl’ called GPF modishly and his visitor walked into the room.

      ‘Sorry to harry you,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d be in this morning. It’s the monthly subscription to that relief fund. Your signature to the cheque.’

      GPF swivelled round in his chair and held out Lady Pastern’s letter. His visitor took it, whistled, read it through and burst out laughing. ‘Well!’ he said. ‘Well, honestly.’

      ‘Press cuttings,’ said GPF and handed them to him.

      ‘She must be in a fizz! That it should come to this!’

      ‘Damned if I know why you say that.’

      ‘I’m sorry. Of course there’s no reason, but … How have you replied?’

      ‘A stinger.’

      ‘May I see it?’

      ‘By all means. There it is. Give me the cheque.’

      The visitor lent over the desk, at the same time reading the copy-sheets and groping in his breast pocket for his wallet. He found a cheque and, still reading, laid it on the desk. Once he looked up quickly as if to speak but GPF was bent over the cheque so he finished the letter.

      ‘Strong,’ he said.

      ‘Here’s the cheque,’ said GPF.

      ‘Thank you.’ He glanced at it. The signature