The Ghost It Was

by Richard Hull

  ‘I expect that that was done by the old owner. The remarks about the hinges which Rushton overheard, do you think that they referred to the way out and not to the hiding place of the jewels?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, or at any rate as much to the one as to the other. Those hinges worked perfectly, and I think that they had been seen to in the last year or so. Gregory would never have taken the trouble to do that. All the same, the contrivance at the top was a very neat piece of work.’

  ‘I fancy that if we knew more about the original story of the two brothers in the sixteenth century, we should find that it was used then, and probably put in then.’

  ‘Very likely. Anyhow, you pushed aside a piece of masonry which served a similar purpose to the piece of wood which Christopher found where the jewels which Rushton was looking for had been — so that we must again thank Christopher. Until that was out of the way, the contrivance jammed, so that from the roof of the tower it could not be worked. But when it had been, you could raise a small section on the top just sufficiently to be able to wriggle out. As the tower leant outwards, it did not weaken the structure, and the hinges, of course, never showed except under the closest examination. Both as you went in and out, it wasn’t necessary to appear more than an inch or two above the normal silhouette of the tower.’

  ‘So that was what was happening when Miss Warrenton thought she saw the tower move?’

  ‘Yes, that piece of observation gave me an idea as to what to look for. Rushton’s hammering put the idea into my head too. I suppose that finding that direct route to the top of the tower would have been almost conclusive, but the fact that I stumbled on to it the very next morning before he had time to get rid of the pole from the crevice in the chimney where it was hidden broke his whole defence down at once.’

  ‘It wasn’t too easy to find, was it?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’ For once Fenby’s small figure and humorous expression showed a trace of legitimate pride.

  ‘Considering how very calmly he took everything before, I thought that he put up a very poor show at the trial. Not a well-conceived crime really, you know.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. But for Miss Warrenton, he might well have got away with it as accident and suicide. Even then the Red Herring would interfere. He might have been trying to get himself hung by the way in which he went on.’

  ‘You ought to call it the case of the Red Herring.’

  ‘And dedicate it to the Victoria and Albert Museum?’

  Murder Isn’t Easy

  Richard Hull

  Chapter One

  There is a limit to the extent to which the folly of any man can be allowed to ruin a business, and beyond that limit Paul Spencer has certainly gone.

  But first I suppose I must explain what our business is, because its very nature makes it peculiarly easy for one man, by pure incompetence and obstinacy, by an absolute refusal to listen to reason, to render entirely useless everything that is done by his colleagues, however well they may work.

  Ours is not an old established business, nor is it commonly classed as one of the learned professions. Nevertheless, for the promotion of trade, nothing is more important. We are in fact Advertising Agents — a profession which many people are apt to look down upon. They fall into the common error of thinking that it is clever to sneer at an advertisement; they consider that the proper thing to do is to laugh at them, and they hint that they themselves could write very much better ones.

  I only wish they would try before they make that sort of statement! They would soon find out that it is not just a trick of style, a parrot-like reproduction of stereotyped phrases, but literary work requiring the most careful thought. Why, in writing an advertisement every comma is important! — and can you say that of a novel?

  Then think of the artistic side of it. Not only have your words to be illustrated — and it is the production department of the agency that produces the idea, though perhaps you may hire someone to do the actual mechanical process of drawing it; in fact we have a man called Thomas permanently employed to do lettering and what we call lay-outs — but you have to consider the kind of type you will use, and the size of the type, to weigh up the pros and cons of which word shall receive the maximum emphasis, of exactly what arrangements and spacing of the words will be most certain to attract the eye of the public, carry conviction, and produce action. Not an easy matter I assure you.

  But before I go on to demonstrate why Paul Spencer must be got rid of, perhaps I had better say something of the history and organisation of NeO-aD (NeO-aD NeVeR NoDs is our slogan). It was originally my idea. I had studied advertising for a long while and I saw just where all the other agencies were wrong. They failed to study the sales problem of the client; their methods were not sufficiently modern, not thoroughly scientific. I had thought, of course, of attaching myself to one of the existing organisations and by exercising my personality, gradually grafting competency on to it, but so far as I could see, in all of them there would be too much deadweight to shift. So, I decided to start my own company.

  That very word “company” was the cause of my first mistake. I thought that it was necessary for a company to have capital, and that was a thing I had not got. Moreover, I thought that there was a great deal to be done by the secretary of a company, and so I got hold of Barraclough. Of course, now I know that capital is really quite unnecessary. You just create some shares and some goodwill to go on the other side of the balance sheet and on you go. You can always borrow money somehow — besides one should never let oneself be kept down by want of cash. As for Barraclough’s duties as secretary of the company, so far as I can make out he fills in one return a year for Somerset House. And for that I have saddled myself with having to give away a third of the profits that I earn!

  Of course, as he is a director of NeO-aD, we do make Barraclough do something. He keeps the accounts for instance and arranges the contracts with the newspapers, what we call “space-buying”, and looks after the general running of the office. Still we could have hired a clerk at two pounds a week to do that.

  Barraclough, then, was my first mistake. My second was Paul Spencer. However well I might be able to design an advertising campaign, there had to be a client for whom to design it. I wanted therefore someone to go and find business. Someone who would get himself known, or rather who could get my work known, who could make people listen to him, in short who was a good salesman of the idea that NeO-aD should be appointed the agents of reputable companies.

  After that all he would have to do would be to get their consent to the plans we proposed and keep in touch with them and keep them happy — take the directors and sales-managers out to lunch occasionally and so on — work which would take time that I should not be able to spare from my productive duties, but which surely was easy for an energetic, blustering type of man with plenty of personality and, of course, a reasonable amount of tact.

  I must admit that Spencer seemed exactly the kind of man for whom I was looking.

  I had known him for some time. He was a good-looking man of a fair type, rather fat perhaps, but that gave him an appearance (entirely erroneous as a matter of fact) of being good-tempered. He seemed to have plenty of life, plenty of bustle. He was, I knew, a little — how shall I put it? — coarse. He would never take ‘No’ for an answer, I was aware, but on the whole that seemed to me to be an advantage rather than the reverse. When once he saw a chance of getting the handling of a campaign into the office, I thought that he would never rest until the order was booked. Strange how when thinking of Spencer one falls into the jargon of salesmanship!

  Up to a point I was right. I must admit that he is energetic, that he quite frequently brings in work. But what I had not realised was his incredible tactlessness. He cannot keep a client. Sooner or later he always goes and quarrels with him — generally sooner. Nor is he in the least persuasive. I supply him with ideas which any client must immediately accept if they were put to him in the right way, and he comes
back not only without having convinced the man, but actually leaving him disgruntled. I have even known Spencer bring back alternative suggestions! And that brings me to another trouble I have with him.

  I thought when we started that our respective spheres were clearly defined. Spencer was to keep his eyes open and find work. I was to do the work, and Barraclough was to make himself useful where he could — I am almost tempted to say, if he could. But I never expected to find Spencer making suggestions as to how a campaign should be prepared, any more than I thought that it would be necessary for me to do the contact work of the agency. Yet from the very first that is exactly what he did. To begin with I listened patiently enough to the amazing nonsense he talked, but after a while this began to pall. Besides one can point out the error in something which is nearly but not quite right, but it is impossible to argue about something which is merely fantastic. I began to find it harder and harder to counter his amateur suggestions for a selling plan, for, remember, he was always very able when it came to an argument. He never really had a case at all, but he always knew how to put it. Nothing would ever convince him that he would do very much better to mind his own business.

  “My dear Latimer,” he said to me the very first time I suggested it to him, “but it is my business.”

  As I write I can still remember vividly the confident tone of his voice. He was, of course, trying to make me lose my temper, that was one of his tricks, and he was very well aware that I hated sentences beginning ‘My dear Latimer’. Besides, he generally used to call me Nicholas in those days; he only used my surname when he wanted to annoy me. However, I was determined to keep calm, and so instead of the direct negative which was the only real answer to the statement, I asked him in what way he thought it was his business.

  “Your share, you know,” I went on, “was, I thought, confined to getting work to do — just that, no more, except taking a third of the profits.”

  I could see that last remark had stung him. He must have known even then that he was not worth to the company what he took out of it.

  He flushed a bit, but a little thing like that would not stop Spencer arguing. He even followed up my point, pretending to misunderstand it.

  “Precisely, and I want to see that third as large as possible. Consequently, it is very much my business to see that when I go to the Flaik-Foam people” (the campaign in question) “I have got something to show them which they are likely to take.”

  “I entirely agree. But what I am trying to suggest — I am afraid I cannot have put it clearly enough — is that it is my business to produce work which they will take; yours merely to go and show it to them.”

  “And you think with that I have only to go in order to conquer?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. There was no need to put it so crudely as that! But that was Paul all over; always trying to put one in the wrong! It was unnecessary to imply that I was conceited. Besides, it was not true.

  Seeing that he had hurt my feelings, Spencer shifted his ground cleverly.

  “Let me try to explain on your own lines. You always tell me — and I quite see your point — that you cannot produce good work unless you are convinced of the merits of the product. You’re always preaching ‘conviction’ to me. Fairly enough, I own. Well, I’m the same. I can no more go and sell that caption ‘One Flaik-Foam Makes the Bath a Joy’ to old Macnair than fly. It’s too long and it’s got too many capitals. You see, I am not convinced. Sorry,” he added carelessly, in a voice that expressed no sorrow at all, “but there it is.”

  I think it is very greatly to my credit that I refrained from striking him there and then. And what was the result of all this obstruction? An absolute impasse! He, if you please, refused categorically to go down to the Flaik-Foam people with what he was pleased to describe as second-class work and I, naturally enough, refused to draw up another campaign to be the butt of his ignorant criticisms until he had at least attempted to sell that one.

  Of course, it would have been taken. I had recommended the use of various of the women’s papers — Woman and Beauty, Wife and Home and Woman’s Journal if I remember right. Besides which there was a rather daring suggestion of the Royal and one or two other magazines; and the copy was some of the most arresting I had ever written. Barraclough had added a few figures and some rather good notes about circulation. He did that sort of thing quite well at times.

  But as Spencer refused to take it along to Macnair, there seemed no chance of its ever being seen. After a fortnight I hit on the bright idea of sending it all by post and explaining that Mr. Spencer very much regretted that he had been unable to bring it down himself as he had been in bed with a cold.

  When it was returned without comment, I was very surprised until I learnt that Spencer had been down the day before my campaign reached them and explained that I had done some work, but that as I (if you please) was not satisfied with what had been produced, he must ask Macnair to wait another week. Of course, Macnair had said that Flaik-Foam must be put on the market at once and he could wait no longer.

  I often see the Flaik-Foam advertisements. They take quite a lot of space in the daily papers — Sketch and Mirror chiefly. Not a bad alternative to the women’s papers, but the ‘copy’ strikes me as very poor. If only Spencer had been more sensible, they might be using our copy instead.

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