The Fingerprint

Chapter XXXVI

MISS CUMMINS had always made a point of arriving early at the office. This Tuesday morning just a week after Jonathan Field had come in about the final instructions as to his new will was no exception. She could indeed have been a couple of hours earlier, since she had not slept all night. She had her own key. When she had let herself in, taken off hat, coat, and gloves, and ordered her already tidy hair, she sat down to wait for Jenny Gregg and Florrie Hackett, who would be on time but not before it. Mr. Maudsley would not appear until the half hour had struck, if then, and in his absence Miss Cummins was in charge. She sat down to wait.

The thoughts which had prevented her from sleeping were still agonizingly present. During the night a few hard-won tears had forced themselves beneath her straining eyelids, but now in this desert of ruined hopes they were as dry as if its dust were physical. She had seen the last of Sid Turner. A cold shudder went through her at the thought that she did not even want to see him again. She had ruined herself for him and she didn’t want to see him again. As she sat talking to him in the back of the empty tea-room a number of things had come home to her with dreadful finality. He did not care for her. He had never cared for her. He cared for money, and he cared for Sid Turner. He had used her, and now he would drop her. She thought that he had murdered Jonathan Field.

Florrie and Jenny came in. Jenny had been crying. She was a pretty, fair girl with fluffy hair and a fine skin. She had powdered over the tear marks but they showed. Everything showed when you had a skin as fine as that. She sat down at her desk and began to be busy.

When Mr. Maudsley arrived he went straight to his room. Jenny said in a high, thin voice,

“He’ll ring in a minute, and when I go in he’ll give me the sack.”

Florrie said comfortably,

“Well, suppose he does-there are lots of good jobs to be had.”

Jenny dashed away a tear.

“Not without a reference there aren’t. They’ll want to know what I’ve been doing, won’t they? I’ve been here three years, and they’ll want to know why I’ve left, and when he tells them it was for talking out of turn, who’s going to take me on?” She dragged a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind, only I can’t afford to be out of a job with Mum the way she is. And I swear I never said a word-not to anyone!”

The sound of Mr. Maudsley’s bell came in upon them. Bertha Cummins had been standing by the window with her back to the room. She turned round, saw Florrie Hackett with an arm round Jenny’s shoulders, and spoke.

“I’ll see what Mr. Maudsley wants. I have to see him anyhow.” She went through the connecting door and shut it behind her.

Mr. Maudsley was at his table. He lifted a frowning face and said,

“Oh, it’s you, Miss Cummins. Good-morning. Send Miss Gregg in to me, will you. I suppose she’s here. I’d better see her now and get it over. It’s a most unpleasant business.”

She stood in front of the table, her fingertips touching the edge.

“What makes you so sure that it was Miss Gregg who talked, Mr. Maudsley?”

He looked up at her. He was still frowning.

“Why, the whole thing. She’s just the sort of girl this Sid Turner would try and pick up with-pretty, not too many brains, a bit of the come hither in her eye. She’s been here how long-three years, and there’s been nothing to complain of in the office. Naturally, you would see to that. But I’ve passed her in the street before now, giggling with some young man or other. Then there was the way she took it when I spoke to her about the leakage-burst into tears right away almost before I’d got a word out.”

Bertha Cummins said in a forced flat voice,

“She would be afraid of losing her job. She has an invalid mother to support.”

“Really, Miss Cummins, I think that is beside the point! This office is not a charitable institution. You can’t expect me to overlook a thing of this kind, now can you?”

She said,

“No. But it wasn’t Miss Gregg who talked, Mr. Maudsley. It was I.”

Mr. Maudsley gazed at her in a quite stupefied silence. He had heard what she said, but his mind was refusing to accept it or to deal with it in any way. He looked at her, and became aware of her pallor and of the fixity of her regard. As an alternative to taking in what she had said, he snatched at the idea that she was ill. She never had any colour, and he was used to that, but she now looked-the word that came into his mind was ghastly. He heard himself say,

“Miss Cummins, you are ill.”

She just stood there, her eyes fixed upon his face.

“Oh, no. It wasn’t Miss Gregg who talked. It was I.”

The unbelievable truth began to penetrate his thought.

“Do you know what you are saying?”

“Oh, yes. I told him about the will.”

“I can’t believe it!”

“I told him.”

“What made you do such a thing as that? It wasn’t- money?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no, I thought he-cared for me. He made me think he did. I thought he wanted to know about what went on in the office because he liked to know what I was doing-because he cared. It was the first time anybody had ever cared what I did. I thought he cared. I know now that he only wanted to find out about-the-will-” Her voice got slower and slower and the words just faded away. It was like hearing a gramophone record run down.

Mr. Maudsley did not know when he had been so much shocked. If there was anyone in this world for whose integrity he would have vouched, it was Miss Cummins. He did not know what to say to her. He only knew that he must bring this painful interview to a close. He must have time to adjust himself, to think what must be done next. The thought of Jenny Gregg presented itself, and he snatched at it.

“I had better see Miss Gregg,” he said. “This has been a shock. I must think what I had better say to her. Do you happen to know, is she under the impression that any distinct accusation has been brought?”

“She knows that she was suspected. She has been a good deal distressed.”

Even now he couldn’t break himself of the old habit of consulting her. He said,

“How would it be if I had her and Miss Hackett in together and just told them I was quite satisfied that they are not responsible for the leakage? Then after I have seen them I will ring again for you. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Atkins will be here at eleven about the winding up of that family trust. You were going to let me have a memorandum so that I can give him the whole thing in a nutshell.”

She said, “I’ll see about it,” just as if this was an ordinary day. But as she went out of the room it was in her mind that this might be the last time she would leave it as an employee of the firm. Now that Mr. Maudsley knew she was not to be trusted he would probably want her to leave at once.

Jenny and Florrie went in and he said his piece to them, cutting it as short as he could. They came back with beaming faces, and obviously with no idea that the blame had been transferred.

“I’m sure you must have spoken up for us. You did, didn’t you, Miss Cummins?”

“I did what I could, Jenny.”

Florrie said,

“He was quite different this morning. He said not to think about it any more. Thank you ever so, Miss Cummins!”

She sat at her table, putting the notes about the Atkins family trust in order and waiting for Mr. Maudsley’s bell to ring, doing her accustomed work just as if nothing had happened, and thinking that it was for the last time. After today there would be no more work, and no more money coming in. She hadn’t saved a great deal. There had been what she thought of in her own mind as calls. A helpless younger sister left a widow with four children-she couldn’t say no to Louie. At least she couldn’t go on saying no, and there was no end to the asking.

Mr. Maudsley sat back in his chair and endeavoured to order his thoughts. The sense of shock dominated everything. His mind went back over the twenty-five years during which the plain, shy girl of nineteen had been developing into an invaluable head clerk. During all those years he had never known her to fail in the most conscientious application to her duties. And as to honesty and trustworthiness, he had taken them so completely for granted that he would as soon have thought of questioning his own.

She would, of course, have to go.

His reaction to this was immediate and vehement. She would be quite irreplaceable. Experience recalled the discomforts of her annual holiday, and provided even more vividly and pertinently a recollection of the time she had been laid up for six weeks with a broken leg. He had not been able to put his hand on anything, he had not known where anything was. He had completely forgotten a memorandum which might have made all the difference in the Smithers case. Fortunately, Miss Cummins had come back just in time to enable them to use it. He had never had to remember these things. Miss Cummins remembered them for him. She forgot nothing, overlooked nothing. She was devoted, reliable, indispensable. He had a sudden picture of her standing on the other side of his table, telling him that once in those twenty-five years she had given something away, and waiting for his judgment. He remembered her ghastly look as she waited. And she was waiting still.

Indispensable.

The word pushed through all these thoughts and stood there boldly with its feet planted upon the hard dry ground of common sense.

He stretched out his hand and rang the bell.