Masters said, “You’re not — I hope.”
“Courtesy visit?”
“Hardly. I try not to waste my own time, even if I’m not so particular about other people’s.”
“Blunt, but honest,” said Hunt. He sat back and blew smoke into the air where it hung in a flat-based cloud a foot above his head. Masters sauntered over to the window and opened it. Then he began to fill his pipe.
Hunt said, “Sorry. We’re hothouse plants here. I take it you haven’t called to discuss the mystique of copywriting?”
“I might touch on it. But to begin with, how well did you know Mr Huth?”
“I didn’t know him. I hardly ever saw him unless I happened to be visiting the tenth and wanted a widdle. He and I used to meet in the stalls, as it were, more often than anywhere else.”
“Did he talk?”
“Banalities mostly. He complimented me once or twice on ads he knew I’d done. Nothing more. I never attended a conference or had an interview with him.”
“What did you think of him?”
Hunt interlaced his fingers behind his head and leaned back, elbows wide, showing the damp sweat marks in the armpits of his shirt. He rolled the cigar in his lips, and without taking it out, said, “Hard to say. I think on the whole I liked him. As much as one can like a bastard who’s so remote he’s harder to get at than the moon. A.A. fancied himself as an adman, you know. Lots of managing directors do. It’s funny how everybody can write better copy than those employed to do it. They never think they’d make a better rep than the chap on the territory, or a better research chemist than the one already in the lab. But ads!” He sat up and leaned across the desk so that the edge made a deep cut across his bulging stomach. “All they think about is impact. Show a picture of a beauty queen in a bath, bending over to look for the soap, and you get immediate impact. But it won’t sell medicines. Not one reader in a million would be able to tear his eyes away from the picture to look at the product name.”
“Is that what Mr Huth wanted you to do?”
“Oddly enough, he didn’t. Give the devil his due, he took a great deal of care to analyse our work. He could see what we’re trying to do because, strange as it may seem, we don’t just play it off the cuff. We work to a marketing plan. A.A. criticized from time to time, but by and large he was as fair-minded as you could hope for in any boss who thinks he could do your job better himself.”
“If Mr Huth had no direct personal contact with his staff, didn’t you find communications inside the Company difficult?”
“The ivory tower complex always does make difficulties. But, at least, with A.A. you did know you could never get near him even if you went after him with a fighting patrol, so you didn’t waste time eating your heart out for a chance to have your say.”
“Somebody got near him. He was murdered.”
“I don’t know how they did it. As far as the likes of me were concerned he was inaccessible. If he took an interest in his senior staff he never showed it openly.”
Masters tapped out his pipe. “What do you suppose the reaction of an employee would be if he knew that Mr Huth had called for his personal file?”
“If it was me, I should reach for my hat. A.A. wouldn’t show interest in any but a director’s file unless there was something mighty serious afoot. And anything mighty serious means the boot in this Company.”
“People are often fired?”
“Not often. But there have been a few sudden disappearances among the upper crust from time to time. Nobody has ever heard whether they’ve gone of their own free will, or whether the old dodge of giving them three months to find another job has been pulled. I think the latter, mostly.”
“Three months sounds like generous notice.”
Hunt said soberly, “For a man who has made a porridge, perhaps. But it’s not quite so generous if you’ve pulled your weight, worked your way up, and then disagreed with the chairman over some small point. When you’ve got to get one in a hurry, senior jobs just don’t seem to be there.”
Masters said, “Mr Huth called for your personal file a week ago.”
“Did he? Now I know why you’re here. Oh, lord, what’s gone wrong now? To the best of my knowledge I haven’t put up a black unless …”
“Unless what?”
“I’d been doing a bit of thinking about our methods of approach to doctors — in ads, of course — and I came up with a few very revolutionary ideas. Like a fool I put them on paper and gave them to the Publicity Director. A.A. probably got hold of them and decided that they — and I — were useless.”
“You didn’t hear from him?”
“Not a dicky bird. I wonder where I stand now?”
“Stop worrying. I’ve seen a note he made. He approved of your ideas.”
Hunt sat back and grinned. “You wouldn’t be fooling a chap?”
“Despite appearances, this is a serious investigation.”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t put it past your lot to lie like Ananias if you thought it might help you.”
Masters didn’t reply. He frowned, still remembering the half-lie he’d told Mrs Huth. Hunt misconstrued what he saw. “Sorry,” he said. “You must be on the up and up. If it were the other way round, I’d have been out on my ear by now.”
Masters silently thanked Hunt’s particular brand of logic and said, “Are you absolutely sure that if Mr Huth was not satisfied with an employee he would react very quickly?”
“As sure as I am of anything. If A.A. thought a chap unsuitable, one word to his hatchet man, Torr, would ensure the execution took place there and then. Sentence first, verdict afterwards. Torr is descended from a long line of unusually common hangmen. I know a few who have disappeared inside an hour, with a month’s salary in lieu, and with cards and superannuation settlement to be sent on by post, later.”
Masters was thinking this didn’t square with the image he had of Huth, but Hunt appeared to be telling the truth, at least as far as he could see it. He had just come to the conclusion that Hunt was probably confusing the actions of Huth with those of Torr when the copywriter bounced up out of his chair and asked quickly, “Here, you weren’t thinking that because A.A. had asked for my file I murdered him, were you?”
“Not yet.”
“Thank the lord for that. But it’s what you came for, isn’t it?”
“To look you over. And for other things. We try to be very thorough, and I personally find that a bit of friendliness often pays off. When people realize I’m not too much of an old bastard they chat me up.”
“And give themselves away. I know. What were the other things you came for?”
“Do you make a cure for migraine?”
Hunt stared in surprise. “By Jove, you go off on some funny tacks. A cure for migraine? Hardly. If we could find a cure we’d all be able to retire next week. What we have is a treatment for migraine which in a lot of cases eases the pain and cuts it short. Sometimes it even stops an attack, if the sufferer is lucky. It’s an ergotamine preparation, no better and no worse than half a dozen others on the market, generally speaking, but it suits some patients better than anything else. That’s the point with drugs that are alike. They all have their adherents, so you can’t stop making any of them.”
“But I suppose your job is to make doctors think yours is the best?”
“That’s putting it crudely.”
“What about the employees in Barugt House who suffer from migraine? Do they use it?”
“I shouldn’t think so. A prophet is not without honour, etcetera, and it’s well known that everybody who suffers from migraine has his own favourite method of dealing with it. So have doctors. Injections, analgesics, ergot-amines, darkened rooms … you pays your money and you takes your choice.”
“Do you suffer from it?”
“No, thank you. But there must be at least a dozen who do. And they’re proud of it.”
Masters said, “Now who’s lying?”
Hunt leaned f
orward earnestly. “It’s true. I assure you it is. Listen. A week or two ago we started a special campaign to push Vasocon — that’s our product — and as we’d not mentioned it to doctors for a couple of years, we decided the reps should have a brush-up course on it before they went out to talk about it. We take these things quite seriously here, and reps are trained pretty carefully, not only in our own products, but in all-round medicine. The course opened with a general lecture on migraine, given by a hospital consultant — a top man. Now when we start a campaign like this we coordinate all our forms of promotion to make sure everybody’s got the party line and tells the same story as appears in the ads. So for this lecture we invited everybody who gets in touch with doctors — Publicity, Field Force, Pharmacy, Marketing, Research, Trials and lots of other odd bods who creep out of the woodwork at times like this — to attend. It was a jolly good lecture, professional and unbiased. Not in our favour just because we were paying the piper. Anyhow, after it was over people were hanging about in the training room, drinking coffee, and one thing stood out a mile. All the migraine sufferers had got together in a bunch to compare symptoms and their own particular forms of treatment. They were actually bumming their chats about how often they got attacks, what the first signs were, when it was most likely to happen and so on. They went at it twenty to the dozen, trying to outdo each other with lurid details. The rest of us looked on flabbergasted.”
Masters said, “Most people enjoy talking about their operations, but that’s not to say they enjoy undergoing butchery.”
Hunt spread his hands. “Exactly the view I’d have taken before that meeting. But I was so curious I got hold of the consultant and asked him to listen in. You know what he did? He laughed — at my surprise — and then told me that migraine is nothing more than a defence mechanism in people who can’t accept responsibility. He said it’s a well-known medical fact that if you can persuade a migraine sufferer to swop to a less exacting job the attacks often diminish, or stop altogether. He recommends it to his own patients and lots of those who have accepted are grateful for the advice.”
“Is that everything he said?”
“No. He was on his hobby-horse, and went on for some time. Whittling it down to basics, he said that migraine sufferers use their attacks to curry sympathy. They can pass jobs on to soft-hearted people who are always willing to help out somebody in trouble.”
“He meant that without the escape provided by migraine they would be unable to cope with a demanding world?”
“That’s it exactly. But all sufferers aren’t using it as an escape. There are some really genuine cases. Some even get migraine in the stomach.”
Masters said, “Pull the other one. It’s got bells on.”
“It’s true. I can show you references in medical textbooks if you’ve got the time.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Was Mr Huth at the lecture?”
“No. But I should think he gave the lecturer lunch.”
“Dr Mouncer? Mr Dieppe? Miss Blake? Miss Chambers?”
“All there.” He thought for a second. “You’ve met Vera Chambers, have you? Not bad, is she? I’m interested in that quarter myself, but I’m a bit doubtful. Some say she’s a bit too full of fun, if you know what I mean.”
Masters said, “I don’t know much about her, but I got the impression that she’s just clean good fun. You’ll always get some people misinterpreting people like Miss Chambers. It’s usually wishful thinking or failure. So follow your own instincts, and you won’t go far wrong.” He got to his feet. “Thank you, Mr Hunt. I’ve enjoyed the chat.”
“So’ve I. Any time you want the lowdown on anything or anybody in Barugt, get in touch. I’m always at the same address. And thanks for the advice. It sounds good.”
*
While Masters had been talking to Hunt, Green and Brant had been occupied in tracing the history of the tin of Metathiazanone. When he left Masters, Green had been thinking of nothing but getting even with Torr. Before he reached the lifts he began to wonder how on earth he was to set about the job.
“Where are we going?” asked Brant.
“Don’t rush me. I’ll have to think this out.”
Brant said, “We can’t go straight to Torr himself, that’s for sure. He’d say he knew nothing about it; and because of that master key we can’t prove he put it there.”
“What about dabs on the tin?”
“Plenty, but whose are they? We haven’t got Torr’s yet, and you know the Chief won’t let us take anybody’s prints without he gives the word first. I could get them easy enough — on the sly — but what good would it be? The Chief would rumble it if we made use of them, and you know how dead nuts he is on everything being done as he says.”
“You’re as bad as he is. Just because a defence counsel shot him to bits for taking dabs on the sly once before!”
“He says it opens up pitfalls in court.”
“Pitfalls my fat aunt!”
“So you want me to get Torr’s prints?”
“Forget it. Hasn’t this wigwam got a general office?”
Brant said, “So far we’ve only been interested in specialist departments in this place, but there must be a central office to do the ordinary chores of the Company”
Green pushed the lift button. “We’ll ask Mablethorpe. Commissionaires know everything, and I’ve taken rather a shine to this one.”
“I know. I saw you grin when he didn’t knuckle under to the Chief yesterday Me, I thought the Chief was good not to lose his temper. V.I.P. lifts! What the hell next?”
“Watch your step,” growled Green.
The lift stopped at the ground floor. Mablethorpe took off his glasses and put down the racing paper he was reading.
“General office? We don’t have one by that name, but there’s a big department called Business Services on the seventh. It deals with reps and sends out samples and has a typing pool. It does all the odd jobs that crop up.”
“That’s what I want. Who’s the boss?”
“Ask for Mr. Reculver. He’s the manager. He’s been with the Company a long time. His office is a glass one, at the end of the floor away from the lifts, so’s he can keep an eye on all the girls he’s got working for him.”
Mablethorpe was right. Reculver had been a long time with the Company and he let Green and Brant know it as soon as they found him. For several minutes he deplored modern youth, modern management techniques, the shortcomings of every department but his own, and topped it all off with a list of jobs which were not rightly his to do, but which were, nevertheless, shunted onto him.
While Reculver talked, Green summed him up as being almost sixty He was a large man, tall and fat, with a full head of white wavy hair and already, so early in the day, a white stubble. Green thought he must use an electric shaver when he really needed a razor to carry him through the day. In other respects, however, Reculver was well turned out. He wore a plain green tie with a grey-green two-piece, well pressed, but with trousers slightly too wide for current fashion because the taper from so wide a waist would have been too much for a tailor to cut without achieving the effect of a pyramid standing on its apex. His semi-stiff white cuffs were spotless and his loose collar had short points held by a plain gold pin.
Green explained their presence. “I’ve been told that if we want to know anything about this Company we should come to you.”
Reculver puffed his cheeks. “Quite right. I deal with everybody, and everybody deals with me. I’ve been everything in Barugt from technical representative — in the days when we really were representatives — up to my present job which they had to give me because they knew there was nobody else who had such an overall knowledge of the Company.”
Green suffered in silence. He knew people who talk too much always say more than they mean to. He comforted himself with this useful thought. At last he was able to interrupt. “What I want you to do is to tell me about the drugs people can get hold of in Barugt House.”
Reculver was another cigar smoker. Green had expected him to be. His type always followed the lead of the big boss. He offered them round and gave them lights from a chromium table lighter in the shape of a polar bear eighteen inches high. The desk was cluttered with such objets d’art. Green was fascinated by a pair of spherical glass paper-weights enclosing pictures made from coloured sands. An elaborate glass and silver ink-stand, a rotating ashtray, a twelve-sided desk tidy in moroccan leather and a turn-on perpetual calendar completed the collection. Green thought Reculver was playing at being the complete businessman, or that he might have a family completely devoid of imagination when it came to buying Christmas presents. To Green it was highly suspect.
He said: “Suppose you or somebody else about your level in management wanted a large amount of one of your drugs for his own use, how would he go about getting it?”
Reculver blew out his cheeks. “Go to the Company shop. It’s on the first floor and opens at lunchtime every day. You can get ordinary packs free, but a large amount — that’s different. What do you mean by a large amount?”
Green didn’t tell him. Instead he asked, “Are the drugs you give away dangerous?”
Reculver was at his most pompous. “All drugs are dangerous. You can only get the simple family remedies at the shop.”
“What about the real drugs?”
“Definitely not available.”
“So what would you do if you wanted some of them?”
“I never have, so I haven’t thought about it. You’d have to resort to what is known as a fiddle. But as fiddling seems to be a common pastime these days, I’ve no doubt it can be, and is, done. Not from my store, of course. I take good care of that.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Where could they be fiddled from?”
Masters and Green Series Box Set Page 9