Murder Must Advertise

Chapter III. Inquisitive Interviews of a New Copy-Writer

Mr. Bredon had been a week with Pym’s Publicity, and had learnt a number of things. He learned the average number of words that can be crammed into four inches of copy; that Mr. Armstrong’s fancy could be caught by an elaborately-drawn lay-out, whereas Mr. Hankin looked on art-work as waste of a copy-writer’s time; that the word “pure” was dangerous, because, if lightly used, it laid the client open to prosecution by the Government inspectors, whereas the words “highest quality,”

“finest ingredients,”

“packed under the best conditions” had no legal meaning, and were therefore safe; that the expression “giving work to umpteen thousand British employees in our model works at so-and-so” was not by any means the same thing as “British made throughout”; that the north of England liked its butter and margarine salted, whereas the south preferred it fresh; that the Morning Star would not accept any advertisements containing the word “cure,” though there was no objection to such expressions as “relieve” or “ameliorate,” and that, further, any commodity that professed to “cure” anything might find itself compelled to register as a patent medicine and use an expensive stamp; that the most convincing copy was always written with the tongue in the cheek, a genuine conviction of the commodity’s worth producing-for some reason-poverty and flatness of style; that if, by the most farfetched stretch of ingenuity, an indecent meaning could be read into a headline, that was the meaning that the great British Public would infallibly read into it; that the great aim and object of the studio artist was to crowd the copy out of the advertisement and that, conversely, the copy-writer was a designing villain whose ambition was to cram the space with verbiage and leave no room for the sketch; that the lay-out man, a meek ass between two burdens, spent a miserable life trying to reconcile these opposing parties; and further, that all departments alike united in hatred of the client, who persisted in spoiling good lay-outs by cluttering them up with coupons, free-gift offers, lists of local agents and realistic portraits of hideous and uninteresting cartons, to the detriment of his own interests and the annoyance of everybody concerned.

He also learned to find his way without assistance over the two floors occupied by the agency, and even up on to the roof, where the messenger boys did their daily physical jerks under the eye of the Sergeant, and whence a fine view of London might be obtained on a clear day. He became acquainted with a number of the group-managers, and was sometimes even able to remember off-hand which clients’ accounts were in the control of which manager, while with most of the members of his own department he found himself established on a footing of friendly intimacy. There were the two copy-chiefs, Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Hankin, each brilliant in his own way and each with his own personal fads. Mr. Hankin, for example, would never accept a headline containing the word “magnificent”; Mr. Armstrong disliked any lay-out which involved the picture of a judge or a Jew, and was rendered so acutely wretched when the proprietors of “Whifflets” put out a new brand of smoke called “Good Judge” Mixture that he was obliged to hand the whole account over, lock, stock and barrel, to Mr. Hankin. Mr. Copley, an elderly, serious-minded man, who had entered the advertising profession before the modern craze set in for public-school-and-University-trained copy-writers, was remarkable for a tendency to dyspepsia and a perfectly miraculous knack of writing appetizing copy for tinned and packeted foodstuffs. Anything that came out of a tin or a packet was poison to him, and his diet consisted of under-cooked beef-steak, fruit and whole-meal bread. The only copy he really enjoyed writing was that for Bunbury’s Whole-Meal Flour, and he was perennially depressed when his careful eulogiums, packed with useful medical detail, were scrapped in favour of some lightheaded foolishness of Ingleby’s, on the story that Bunbury’s Whole-Meal Flour took the Ache out of Baking. But on Sardines and Tinned Salmon he was unapproachable.

Ingleby specialized in snobbish copy about Twentyman’s Teas (“preferred by Fashion’s Favourites”), Whifflets (“in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, in the Royal Yacht Club at Cowes, you find the discriminating men who smoke Whifflets”) and Parley’s Footwear (“Whether it’s a big shoot or a Hunt Ball, Parley puts you on a sound footing”). He lived in Bloomsbury, was communistic in a literary way, and dressed almost exclusively in pullovers and grey flannels. He was completely and precociously disillusioned and one of the most promising copywriters Pym’s had ever fathered. When released from Whifflets and fashionable footwear, he could be amusing on almost any subject, and had a turn for “clever” copy, wherever cleverness was not out of place.

Miss Meteyard, with a somewhat similar mental makeup, could write about practically anything except women’s goods, which were more competently dealt with by Mr. Willis or Mr. Garrett, the former of whom in particular, could handle corsets and face-cream with a peculiar plaintive charm which made him more than worth his salary.

The copy department on the whole worked happily together, writing each other’s headlines in a helpful spirit and invading each other’s rooms at all hours of the day. The only two men with whom Bredon was unable to establish genial relations were Mr. Copley, who held aloof from everybody, and Mr. Willis, who treated him with a reserve for which he was unable to account. Otherwise he found the department a curiously friendly place.

And it talked. Bredon had never in his life encountered a set of people with such active tongues and so much apparent leisure for gossip. It was a miracle that any work ever got done, though somehow it did. He was reminded of his Oxford days, when essays mysteriously wrote themselves in the intervals of club-meetings and outdoor sports, and when most of the people who took firsts boasted of never having worked more than three hours of any day. The atmosphere suited him well enough. He was a bonhomous soul, with the insatiable curiosity of a baby elephant, and nothing pleased him better than to be interrupted in his encomiums of Sopo (“makes Monday, Fun-day”) or the Whoosh Vacuum-cleaner (“one Whoosh and it’s clean”) by a fellow-member of the department, fed-up with advertising and spoiling for a chat.

“Hullo!” said Miss Meteyard one morning. She had dropped in to consult Bredon about googlies-the proprietors of Tomboy Toffee having embarked upon a series of cricket advertisements which, starting respectively from “Lumme, what a Lob!” or “Yah! that’s a Yorker!” led up by devious routes to the merits of Toffee-and had now reached the point when “Gosh! it’s a Googly” had to be tackled. Bredon had demonstrated googlies with pencil and paper, and also in the corridor with a small round tin of Good Judge tobacco (whereby he had nearly caught Mr. Armstrong on the side of the head), and had further discussed the relative merits of “Gosh” and “Golly” in the headline; but Miss Meteyard showed no symptoms of departing. She had sat down at Bredon’s table and was drawing caricatures, in which she displayed some skill, and was rummaging in the pencil-tray for an india-rubber when she remarked, as above mentioned, “Hullo!”

“What?”

“That’s little Dean’s scarab. It ought to have been sent back to his sister.”

“Oh, that! Yes, I knew that was there, but I didn’t know whom it belonged to. It’s not a bad thing. It’s real onyx, though of course it’s not Egyptian and it’s not even very old.”

“Probably not, but Dean adored it. He thought it was a sure-fire mascot. He always had it in his waistcoat pocket or sitting in front of him while he worked. If he’d had it on him that day, he wouldn’t have tumbled downstairs-at least, that’s what he’d have said himself.”

Bredon poised the beetle on the palm of his hand. It was as big as a man’s thumb-nail, heavy and shallowly carved, smooth except for a slight chip at one side.

“What sort of chap was Dean?”

“Well. De mortuis, and all that, but I wasn’t exactly keen on him. I thought he was rather an unwholesome little beast.”

“What way?”

“For one thing, I didn’t like the people he went about with.”

Bredon twitched an interrogative eyebrow.

“No,” said Miss Meteyard, “I don’t mean what you mean. At least, I mean, I can’t tell you about that. But he used to tag round with that de Momerie crowd. Thought it was smart, I suppose. Luckily, he missed the famous night when that Punter-Smith girl did away with herself. Pym’s would never have held its head up again if one of its staff had been involved in a notorious case. Pym’s is particular.”

“How old did you say this blighter was?”

“Oh, twenty-six or -seven, I should think.”

“How did he come to be here?”

“Usual thing. Needed cash, I suppose. Had to have some sort of job. You can’t lead a gay life on nothing, and he wasn’t anybody, you know. His father was a bank-manager, or something, deceased, so I suppose young Victor had to push out and earn his keep. He knew how to look after himself all right.”

“Then how did he get in with that lot?”

Miss Meteyard grinned at him.

“Somebody picked him up, I should think. He had a certain kind of good looks. There is a nostalgie de la banlieue as well as de la boue. And you’re pulling my leg, Mr. Death Bredon, because you know that as well as I do.”

“Is that a compliment to my sagacity or a reflection on my virtue?”

“How you came here is a good deal more interesting than how Victor Dean came here. They start new copy-writers without experience at four quid a week-about enough to pay for a pair of your shoes.”

“Ah!” said Bredon, “how deceptive appearances can be! But it is evident, dear lady, that you do not do your shopping in the true West End. You belong to the section of society that pays for what it buys. I revere, but do not imitate you. Unhappily, there are certain commodities which cannot be obtained without cash. Railway fares, for example, or petrol. But I am glad you approve of my shoes. They are supplied by Rudge in the Arcade and, unlike Parley’s Fashion Footwear, are actually of the kind that is to be seen in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot and wherever discriminating men congregate. They have a ladies’ department, and if you will mention my name-”

“I begin to see why you chose advertising as a source of supply.” The look of doubt left Miss Meteyard’s angular face, and was replaced by a faintly derisive expression. “Well, I suppose I’d better get back to Tomboy Toffee. Thanks for your dope about googlies.”

Bredon shook his head mournfully as the door closed after her. “Careless,” he muttered. “Nearly gave the game away. Oh, well, I suppose I’d better do some work and look as genuine as possible.”

He pulled towards him a guard-book pasted up with pulls of Nutrax advertising and studied its pages thoughtfully. He was not left long in peace, however, for after a couple of minutes Ingleby slouched in, a foul pipe at full blast and his hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets.

“I say, is Brewer here?”

“Don’t know him. But,” added Bredon, waving his hand negligently, “you have my permission to search. The priest’s hole and the concealed staircase are at your service.”

Ingleby rooted in the bookcase in vain.

“Somebody’s bagged him. Anyway, how do you spell Chrononhotonthologos?”

“Oh! I can do that. And Aldiborontophoscophornio, too. Crossword? Torquemada?”

“No, headline for Good Judges. Isn’t it hot? And now I suppose we’re going to have a week’s dust and hammering.”

“Why?”

“The fiat has gone forth. The iron staircase is condemned.”

“Who by?”

‘The Board.”

“Oh, rot! they mustn’t do that.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Admission of liability, isn’t it?”

“Time, too.”

“Well, I suppose it is.”

“You look quite startled. I was beginning to think you had some sort of personal feeling in the matter.”

“Good lord, no, why should I? Just a matter of principle. Except that the staircase does seem to have had its uses in eliminating the unfit. I gather that the late Victor Dean was not universally beloved.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I never saw much harm in him, except that he wasn’t exactly pukka and hadn’t quite imbibed the Pym spirit, as you may say. Of course the Meteyard woman loathed him.”

“Why?”

“Oh! she’s a decent sort of female, but makes no allowances. My motto is, live and let live, but protect your own interests. How are you getting on with Nutrax?”

“Haven’t touched it yet. I’ve been trying to get out a name for Twentyman’s shilling tea. As far as I can make Hankin out, it has no qualities except cheapness to recommend it, and is chiefly made of odds and ends of other teas. The name must suggest solid worth and respectability.”

“Why not call it ‘Domestic Blend’? Nothing could sound more reliable and obviously nothing could suggest so much dreary economy.”

“Good idea. I’ll put it up to him.” Bredon yawned. “I’ve had too much lunch. I don’t think anybody ought to have to work at half-past two in the afternoon. It’s unnatural.”

“Everything’s unnatural in this job. Oh, my God! Here’s somebody with something on a tray! Go away! go a-way!”

“I’m sorry,” said Miss Parton, brightly, entering with six saucers filled with a grey and steaming mess. “But Mr. Hankin says, will you please taste these samples of porridge and report upon them?”

“My dear girl, look at the time!”

“Yes, I know, it’s awful, isn’t it? They’re numbered A, B and C, and here’s the questionnaire paper, and if you’ll let me have the spoons back I’ll get them washed for Mr. Copley.”

“I shall be sick,” moaned Ingleby. “Who’s this? Peabody ’s?”

“Yes-they’re putting out a tinned porridge, ‘Piper Parritch.’ No boiling, no stirring-only heat the tin. Look for the Piper on the label.”

“Look here,” said Ingleby, “run away and try it on Mr. McAllister.”

“I did, but his report isn’t printable. There’s sugar and salt and a jug of milk.”

“What we suffer in the service of the public!” Ingleby attacked the mess with a disgusted sniff and a languid spoon. Bredon solemnly rolled the portions upon his tongue, and detained Miss Parton.

“Here, take this down while it’s fresh in my mind. Vintage A: Fine, full-bodied, sweet nutty flavour, fully matured; a grand masculine porridge. Vintage B: extra-sec, refined, delicate character, requiring only-”

Miss Parton emitted a delighted giggle, and Ingleby, who hated gigglers, fled.

“Tell me, timeless houri,” demanded Mr. Bredon, “what was wrong with my lamented predecessor? Why did Miss Meteyard hate him and why does Ingleby praise him with faint damns?”

This was no problem to Miss Parton.

“Why, because he didn’t play fair. He was always snooping round other people’s rooms, picking up their ideas and showing them up as his own. And if anybody gave him a headline and Mr. Armstrong or Mr. Hankin liked it, he never said whose it was.”

This explanation seemed to interest Bredon. He trotted down the passage and thrust his head round Garrett’s door. Garrett was stolidly making out his porridge report, and looked up with a grunt.

“I hope I’m not interrupting you at one of those moments of ecstasy,” bleated Bredon, “but I wanted to ask you something. I mean to say, it’s just a question of etiquette, don’t you know, and what’s done, so to speak. I mean, look here! You see, Hankie-pankie told me to get out a list of names for a shilling tea and I got out some awful rotten ones, and then Ingleby came in and I said, ‘What would you call this tea?’ just like that, and he said, ‘Call it Domestic Blend,’ and I said, ‘What ho! that absolutely whangs the nail over the crumpet.’ Because it struck me, really, as being the caterpillar’s boots.”

“Well, what about it?”

“Well, just now I was chatting to Miss Parton about that fellow Dean, the one who fell downstairs you know, and why one or two people here didn’t seem to be fearfully keen on him, and she said, it was because he got ideas out of other people and showed them up with his own stuff. And what I wanted to know was, isn’t it done to ask people? Ingleby didn’t say anything, but of course, if I’ve made a floater-”

“Well, it’s like this,” said Garrett. “There’s a sort of unwritten law-at our end of the corridor, anyway. You take any help you can get and show it up with your initials on it, but if Armstrong or whoever it is simply goes all out on it and starts throwing bouquets about, you’re rather expected to murmur that it was the other bird’s suggestion really, and you thought rather well of it yourself.”

“Oh, I see. Oh, thanks frightfully. And if, on the other hand, he goes right up in the air and says it’s the damn-silliest thing he’s seen since 1919, you stand the racket, I suppose.”

“Naturally. If it’s as silly as that you ought to have known better than to put it up to him anyway.”

“Oh, yes.”

“The trouble with Dean was that he first of all snitched people’s ideas without telling them, and then didn’t give them the credit for it with Hankin. But, I say, I wouldn’t go asking Copley or Willis for too much assistance if I were you. They weren’t brought up to the idea of lending round their lecture notes. They’ve a sort of board-school idea that everybody ought to paddle his own canoe.”

Bredon thanked Garrett again.

“And if I were you,” continued Garrett, “I wouldn’t mention Dean to Willis at all. There’s some kind of feeling-I don’t know quite what. Anyway, I just thought I’d warn you.”

Bredon thanked him with almost passionate gratitude.

“It’s so easy to put your foot in it in a new place, isn’t it? I’m really most frightfully obliged to you.”

Clearly Mr. Bredon was a man of no sensibility, for half an hour later he was in Willis’s room, and had introduced the subject of the late Victor Dean. The result was an unequivocal request that Mr. Bredon would mind his own business. Mr. Willis did not wish to discuss Mr. Dean at all. In addition to this, Bredon became aware that Willis was suffering from an acute and painful embarrassment, almost as though the conversation had taken some indecent turn. He was puzzled, but persisted. Willis, after sitting for some moments in gloomy silence, fidgeting with a pencil, at last looked up.

“If you’re on Dean’s game,” he said, “you’d better clear out. I’m not interested.”

He might not be, but Bredon was. His long nose twitched with curiosity.

“What game? I didn’t know Dean. Never heard of him till I came here. What’s the row?”

“If you didn’t know Dean, why bring him up? He went about with a gang of people I didn’t care about, that’s all, and from the look of you, I should have said you belonged to the same bright crowd.”

“The de Momerie crowd?”

“It’s not much use your pretending you don’t know all about it, is it?” said Willis, with a sneer.

“Ingleby told me Dean was a hanger-on of that particular bunch of Bright Young People,” replied Bredon, mildly. “But I’ve never met any of them. They’d think me terribly ancient. They would, really. Besides, I don’t think they’re nice to know. Some of them are really naughty. Did Mr. Pym know that Dean was a Bright Young Thing?”

“I shouldn’t think so, or he’d have buzzed him out double quick. What business is Dean of yours, anyway?”

“Absolutely none. I just wondered about him, that’s all. He seems to have been a sort of misfit here. Not quite imbued with the Pym spirit, if you see what I mean.”

“No, he wasn’t. And if you take my advice, you’ll leave Dean and his precious friends alone, or you won’t make yourself too popular. The best thing Dean ever did in his life was to fall down that staircase.”

“Nothing in life became him like the leaving it? But it seems a bit harsh, all the same. Somebody must have loved him. ‘For he must be somebody’s son,’ as the dear old song says. Hadn’t he any family? There is a sister, at least, isn’t there?”

“Why the devil do you want to know about his sister?”

“I don’t. I just asked, that’s all. Well, I’d better tootle off, I suppose. I’ve enjoyed this little talk.”

Willis scowled at his retreating form, and Mr. Bredon went away to get his information elsewhere. As usual, the typists’ room was well informed.

“Only the sister,” said Miss Parton. “She’s something to do with Silkanette Hosiery. She and Victor ran a little flat together. Smart as paint, but rather silly, I thought, the only time I saw her. I’ve an idea our Mr. Willis was a bit smitten in that direction at one time, but it didn’t seem to come to anything.”

“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Bredon, much enlightened.

He went back to his own room and the guard-books. But his attention wandered. He paced about, sat down, got up, stared out of the window, came back to the desk. Then, from a drawer, he pulled out a sheet of paper. It bore a list of dates in the previous year, and to each date was appended a letter of the alphabet, thus:

Jan. 7 G

“ 14 O?

“ 21 A

“ 28 P

Feb. 5 G

There were other papers in the desk in the same handwriting-presumably Victor Dean’s-but this list seemed to interest Mr. Bredon unaccountably. He examined it with an attention that one would have thought it scarcely deserved, and finally folded it carefully away in his pocketbook.

“Who dragged whom, how many times, at the wheels of what, round the walls of where?” demanded Mr. Bredon of the world at large. Then he laughed. “Probably some sublime scheme for selling Sopo to sapheads,” he remarked, and this time set himself soberly to work upon his guard-books.

Mr. Pym, the presiding genius of Pym’s Publicity, Ltd., usually allowed a week or so to elapse before interviewing new members of his staff. His theory was that it was useless to lecture people about their work till they had acquired some idea of what the work actually was. He was a conscientious man, and was particularly careful to keep before his mind the necessity for establishing a friendly personal relation with every man, woman and child in his employment, from the heads of departments down to the messenger-boys and, not being gifted with any spontaneous ease and charm of social intercourse, had worked out a rigid formula for dealing with this necessity. At the end of a week or so, he sent for any newly-joined recruits, interrogated them about their work and interests, and delivered his famous sermon on Service in Advertising. If they survived this frightful ordeal, under which nervous young typists had been known to collapse and give notice, they were put on the list for the monthly tea-party. This took place in the Little Conference Room. Twenty persons, selected from all ranks and departments, congregated under Mr. Pym’s official eye to consume the usual office tea, supplemented by ham sandwiches from the canteen, and cake supplied at cost by Dairyfields, Ltd., and entertained one another for an exact hour. This function was supposed to promote inter-departmental cordiality, and by its means the entire staff, including the Outside Publicity, passed under scrutiny once in every six months. In addition to these delights there were, for department and group managers, informal dinners at Mr. Pym’s private residence, where six victims were turned off at a time, the proceedings being hilariously concluded by the formation of two bridge-tables, presided over by Mr. and Mrs. Pym respectively. For the group-secretaries, junior copywriters and junior artists, invitations were issued to an At Home twice a year, with a band and dancing till 10 o’clock; the seniors were expected to attend these and exercise the functions of stewards. For the clerks and typists, there was the Typists’ Garden-Party, with tennis and badminton; and for the office-boys, there was the Office-Boys’ Christmas Treat. In May of every year there was the Grand Annual Dinner and Dance for the whole staff, at which the amount of the staff bonus was announced for the year, and the health of Mr. Pym was drunk amid expressions of enthusiastic loyalty.

In accordance with the first item on this onerous programme, Mr. Bredon was summoned to the Presence within ten days of his first appearance at Pym’s.

“Well, Mr. Bredon,” said Mr. Pym, switching on an automatic smile and switching it off again with nervous abruptness, “and how are you getting on?”

“Oh, pretty well, thank you, sir.”

“Find the work hard?”

“It is a little difficult,” admitted Bredon, “till you get the hang of it, so to speak. A bit bewildering, if you know what I mean.”

“Quite so, quite so,” said Mr. Pym. “Do you get on all right with Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Hankin?”

Mr. Bredon said he found them very kind and helpful.

“They give me very good accounts of you,” said Mr. Pym. “They seem to think you will make a good copy-writer.” He smiled again and Bredon grinned back impudently.

“That’s just as well, under the circumstances, isn’t it?”

Mr. Pym rose suddenly to his feet and threw open the door which separated his room from his secretary’s cubicle.

“Miss Hartley, do you mind going along to Mr. Vickers and asking him to look up the detailed appropriation for Darling’s and let me have it? You might wait and bring it back with you.”

Miss Hartley, realizing that she was to be deprived of hearing Mr. Pym’s discourse on Service in Advertising, which-owing to the thinness of the wooden partition and the resonant quality of Mr. Pym’s voice-was exceedingly familiar to her, rose and departed obediently. This meant that she would be able to have a nice chat with Miss Rossiter and Miss Parton while Mr. Vickers was getting his papers together. And she would not hurry herself, either. Miss Rossiter had hinted that Mr. Willis had hinted all kinds of frightful possibilities about Mr. Bredon, and she wanted to know what was up.

“Now,” said Mr. Pym, passing his tongue rapidly across his lips and seeming to pull himself together to face a disagreeable interview. “What have you got to tell me?”

Mr. Bredon, very much at his ease, leaned across with his elbows on the Managing Director’s desk, and spoke for some considerable time in a low tone, while Mr. Pym’s cheek grew paler and paler.