The Dust and the Heat

by Michael Gilbert

  “That was six months ago. They’ve been spending an awful lot of money lately. Developing this new line of theirs. It’s all under security hatches at the moment, but Wilfred says it’s good.”

  “It had better be,” said Naumann. “The amount of money they’re laying out on advertising it. I was given the figure in confidence. It seemed incredibly high to me.”

  “The mistake a lot of people make,” said Feinberg. “The Americans in particular, if I may say so – is in thinking of advertising as a science. Market research and computers and all that tarradiddle. It isn’t a science and it never will be. It’s an art.”

  “The chef apologizes, sir. He made a mistake over your order.”

  “He’d better not try it on again.”

  “When Pedersen mentioned Nortex,” said Crake, “it rang a bell and I got Rowland to dig round. It took some doing because the sort of information we wanted isn’t on the public files, but I knew Nortex went off the rails five years ago and had to get in outside money. There’s a first debenture on their property. The Bank hold that, but it’s limited to twenty thousand pounds. The real money’s on second debenture. That’s held by a nominee Company.”

  “Let me guess,” said Mallinson. “The real holders are Lathams.”

  “Bang on the arse.”

  “And you think they’ve induced Nortex to lend their name to Quinns and that the real booker of the advertising space on July 1st and 2nd is our old friend, Oliver Nugent, who plans to spring a big surprise on us by launching Tendresse three days before we launch Lucille?”

  Since this was exactly what Crake had thought, he contented himself with looking sour and saying, “It’s just the sort of bloody trick he would pull, isn’t it?”

  “Right up his street,” agreed Mallinson. “Only in this case it’s going to hurt him more than it hurts us. If he does come out next Thursday and Friday with a lot of corny advertisements chock full of duchesses and such, it’s exactly the curtain-raiser we want for our campaign, telling girls not to be so damned silly. That’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t matter if he comes out before us or after. If we come out first we scoop the pool. If he comes out first he looks silly.”

  “You could be right,” said Crake. “There isn’t a lot we can do about it anyway. We can’t bring our stuff forward because we couldn’t get the space now, and we can’t put it off without losing a hell of a lot of money. I wonder–”

  “What’s up now?”

  “You don’t suppose it’s a double bluff? Do you think Nugent guessed we’d find out about Nortex and be so scared of his coming out first that we’d try to bring ours forward at the last moment and get into a hell of a mess doing it?”

  Mallinson thought about it. He said, “I don’t say he couldn’t have worked it out that way. It’s the way he plays bridge. But it’d mean that he knew an awful lot about our plans. Not just generally, but in detail. By the way, you warned Pedersen about that tea-man of his, didn’t you?”

  “He sacked him on the spot. The chap was very upset. He’s suing him for wrongful dismissal.”

  “The best of British luck to him. But my point is, Nugent would have to know a lot more than a casual spy like that could possibly tell him. He’d have to be right in the middle of our plans.”

  “We’re probably getting jumpy for nothing,” agreed Crake. “The only thing is, we’ve got more money sunk in it now than I’d care to see go down the plughole.”

  When Crake had gone Mallinson said, “You’re very quiet, Jennie. Don’t tell me you’re getting worried too. That really would upset me.”

  “I’ve got a feeling,” said Jennie.

  Mallinson came over and perched on the corner of her desk. He said, “When my secretary has a feeling, I insist on sharing it.”

  “I’ve got a feeling you’re underrating this man Nugent altogether.”

  “He’s demoralized Crake. For heaven’s sake don’t let him start demoralizing you. Do you realize, Jennie, that you’re the girl Lucille is aimed at? Not the Rolls-Royce, Berkley Buttery set with long white fingers and pointed finger nails, who’ve never done an honest day’s work in their lives, but girls like you.” He picked up her left hand and laid it in his “–with stubby fingers and short nails and an honest, down-to-earth approach to life.” He closed his fingers lightly over hers and said, “If we’ve got you, we’ve got the lot.”

  “Hares,” said Oliver from the depths of his armchair by the fire.

  “Wassat?” said Philippa sleepily. She was coiled up on the sofa, her head on the crutch between the arm and the back.

  Oliver waited until the clock on the mantelshelf had tinkled out midnight, then he said, “Rabbits” and “Didn’t you know it was lucky to say ‘Hares’ the very last thing in one month and ‘Rabbits’ the first thing in the next one? And by God, we’re going to need all the luck we can get this July.”

  Philippa said, “I hate all this waiting. I haven’t got the temperament for it.”

  “Waiting’s finished.”

  “Not quite,” said Philippa. “Nearly a fortnight to go. We don’t come out till the 12th.”

  “We’re coming out tomorrow.”

  Philippa slowly uncoiled and looked at him.

  “Are you serious?”

  “As a judge. Odd, when you come to think of it. You say ‘Sober as a judge’ and ‘Drunk as a lord’, so how would you describe a Law Lord?”

  “Stop fluffing,” said Philippa. “What advertisements have we got coming out tomorrow?”

  “National coverage. Booked for us by the kindness of Nortex and Lathams. Good, rousing stuff.”

  “Then what about all our space on the 12th? Has that been cancelled?”

  “Certainly not. We’re using that for Tendresse as planned, only we’ve got a new line of approach. We’ve changed the emphasis a bit. We’re abandoning duchesses and going for the girl next door.”

  Philippa was bolt upright by now staring at him. Oliver had not stirred. He was lying back in his chair, hands folded on his lap, legs spread, as relaxed as a discarded puppet. If she had known him longer she would have recognized the ringside pose. He was at battle stations.

  “Do you mean you’re using both slots for Tendresse?”

  “That would be excessive,” said Oliver. “And in advertising, as in bombing, you must avoid saturation. A little in the right place is the ticket. The advertising splurge which comes out tomorrow and Friday could most fittingly be described as counter-battery work. We’re firing a few rounds to knock out their guns before they can shoot back at us.”

  A thought struck her.

  “Who arranged it? I can’t remember any letters about it.”

  “There weren’t any. It was all done on the telephone.”

  The blood mounted slowly in Philippa’s face then ebbed, leaving her white with a burning patch in the middle of each cheek.

  She said, at last, in a voice which she scarcely recognized as her own, “Why did you do that?”

  “It seemed a sensible precaution since I knew you were working for Mallinsons.”

  “How long have you known?”

  Oliver got up and came across. Philippa wondered if he was going to hit her. She would have been happier if he had. Instead he bypassed her, went to the desk and took out an envelope. From it he extracted a handful of photographs, selected one and gave it to her.

  She examined it curiously. It was certainly her. She was leaning forward looking almost straight into the camera with a polite half-smile on her face.

  “What is it? When was it taken?”

  “Some months ago I advertised for a secretary. Remember? We reckoned the opposition wouldn’t pass up a chance like that. I had a candid camera behind the reception desk and we photographed all the applicants. I gave the post to the first girl who looked possible. My God, I got more than I bargained for there.” He laughed.

  Philippa said, “I see. And then you just waited for one of the others to turn up somewhere in your life.�
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  “It was nicely done. That drunk car scene. If I hadn’t known it was you I’d have fallen for it every time.”

  She said, “What are you going to do? Have me covered with paint and thrown in the canal.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Oliver. “You have been a comfort to me,” he eyed her speculatively, “in so many ways, that I really feel that I am in your debt.”

  Philippa said nothing. She had got over the first shock and didn’t know whether she was going to laugh or cry. The uncertainty made speech risky.

  “As long as they had you planted in my office,” said Oliver, “I felt comfortably certain that they wouldn’t try anything else. It was useful too. If I had any particular little titbit of false information to pass back, such as the start day for our advertising campaign, I could do it through you. I take it, by the way, that you did telephone Mallinson from Lyon? Maître Philippon’s young man says you made a long-distance call that morning. He was able to find out that it was a London call, but not the number.”

  “Then all that about the German hating you was made up?”

  “I only wish it was. That branch of the opposition is real enough. They’re the ones who fixed my car.”

  Philippa said quickly, “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Of course you didn’t. You didn’t know we were going back to that hotel until I told you. And it was you who pointed out to me that there was something screwy about the petrol tank when we stopped for lunch. It crossed my mind for a moment that that might be some sort of elaborate double-bluff but I dismissed the idea. I knew you well enough by then to realize that you’re a simple girl at heart.”

  “Gloat away,” said Philippa. “I can’t stop you.”

  Oliver sat down on the arm of the sofa. “I’m not gloating,” he said. “There are no morals in business, and damn few rules. It’s not a game. It’s a way of life. The stronger go up, the weaker go down. You did what you had to do and did it very nicely. The only reason I’m telling you all this is because there’s going to be a hell of a row, starting tomorrow. There’s going to be a lot of dirty in-fighting and people are going to get hurt. There’s no real reason you should be one of them.”

  He got up and went back to the desk.

  “That’s why I’d like you to have this.” He dropped a long envelope on to the sofa beside her. “It’s got enough in it for you to stand yourself a month in France. You’ve got friends there. I should lie low till the dust settles.”

  Philippa said, “You – you’re quite impossible.”

  She made the mistake of trying to laugh, and the tears came coursing down her cheeks in a steady stream.

  Mr and Mrs Pedersen lived at Epsom, five minutes’ walk from the station and the shops, and the first caller at their house every morning was the paper boy who delivered one copy of each of the nine ranking national dailies. Mr Pedersen liked to skim through the advertisement sections over breakfast and peruse them more thoroughly during his train journey up to town.

  That Thursday morning he had finished a slice of toast, had drunk a first cup of coffee, and was starting a second as he turned his attention to the pile of newspapers.

  Normally this process was accompanied by a cheerful commentary, touching on the successes of his own firm, the inadequacy of his rivals, and the scandalous advertising rates charged by newspapers which artfully inflated their net circulation figures in order to raise those rates even further.

  It suddenly occurred to Mrs Pedersen, who was attending to the wants of their daughter, Violet, in her high chair in the corner, that something out of the ordinary was happening.

  Her husband was racing through paper after paper, tearing them open, glancing at them and throwing them aside. His face was white.

  She said, “What is it? What’s up?”

  Mr Pedersen said nothing. He had finished with the last of the papers and was glaring at it as if it had insulted him personally.

  Then he jumped to his feet and bolted for the door.

  Mrs Pedersen said, “Your coffee–”

  She heard the front door slam.

  Mr Pedersen ran down the front path. Halfway down it he tripped over Violet’s doll’s pram and relieved his feelings by kicking it into the rockery.

  Back in the breakfast room, Mrs Pedersen was looking through the pile of crumpled papers. She knew enough about her husband’s business to confine her search to the areas in which the advertisements of Pedersens’ more important clients appeared. If there had been the most terrible mix-up, these important and expensive places might be filled with “stand-in” advertising, repeats of old advertisements kept ready for such a contingency. Everything seemed to be in order. The new Glubbo cartoon series was running nicely. Brekkibrix was offering children numbered components to build their own motor cycles. Mastodon underwear had launched their new (“natural-scented”) mini-briefs. All seemed well.

  The only new advertisements, occupying the “spread” position in six of the papers, were not, so far as Mrs Pedersen could see, anything to do with her husband’s firm at all. They were drawing the attention of housewives to the merits of a new lavatory cleaner named Loo-seal.

  “FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT” said the headline. What did THEY think when they came to your house and had occasion to visit the smallest room. Loo-seal. The miracle cleanser etc. etc.

  The second said: THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR, and enquired, Are you in good odour with your neighbours?

  And the third asked: ARE YOU A GERM-DROPPER?

  We tend to think of germs as unpleasant things which other people pass on to us. Might the boot be on the other foot? If you feel any doubts about it, have your lavatory pan regularly sealed with Loo-seal, the miracle cleanser.

  Mrs Pedersen thought the advertisements rather effective. She particularly admired the way in which the headlines were set out. It was a bold and distinctive type, much used by her husband’s firm. She made a note to order a large economy-size tin of Loo-seal herself.

  “It’s an outrage,” said Pedersen.

  “Is there no way we can stop it?” asked Mallinson.

  “I’ve already spoken to our lawyer. He doesn’t think so. To get an injunction we should have to show some cause of action. Breach of copyright or plagiarism or something like that.”

  “Well?”

  “The trouble is,” said Pedersen unhappily, “that they can hardly be accused of plagiarising our advertisements when theirs came out first.”

  “Do you think the Advertising Council might be asked to intervene?”

  “Stop blatting,” said Mr Crake. In a crisis his language, never delicate, deteriorated alarmingly. “You’re pissing against the wind. You haven’t got a chance in hell of getting an injunction, and if the Advertising Council did do anything, which I doubt, it’d be five years too late. Face facts.”

  “We’ve got till Monday,” said Mallinson. “It’d be a rush job but if you put every man on to it do you think we could get out an entirely new line in advertisements?”

  “I expect they could,” said Mr Crake, “and it’d be as much use as a bull’s udder. You haven’t grasped the problem. What you’ve got to change is the name and that’s already printed on fifty thousand labels, on fifty thousand bottles, sitting in five hundred chemists’ shops waiting to go on the shelves on Monday morning. How long do you think it’s going to take to get them back, steam off the labels, get new labels and new containers and new handouts printed? Monday morning? Don’t make me laugh, it’s bad for my ulcers.”

  “A month to do the job at all,” said Pedersen, “but that would bring us out at just the wrong time – a fortnight after Quinns and looking like a carbon copy of them. If we’ve got to postpone, better make it six months until the steam has gone out of their effort, and do the job properly.”

  “I suppose we’ve got to change the name?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Crake. “Unless you want everyone to think that Lucille, which we’ve put more m
oney into promoting than I care to think about right now, is the name of something you use to clean the lavatory pan. If you bring the stuff out now you’ll have stockbrokers’ clerks cutting out the adverts and sticking them up side by side in the House.”

  “We’ve got to change the name,” agreed Pedersen.

  He, like Mr Crake, was watching Mallinson. The decision had to come from him. His face was white and he was biting at his top lip and he seemed to be having trouble with his breathing.

  “If he had a gun in his hand and Nugent came through that door,” thought Pedersen, “he’d shoot him and glad to do it. It’s not just the money. It’s pride. He’s raw.”

  Mallinson sat down in his chair, stretched his legs in front of him and went through the motions of relaxing. He even managed to laugh.

  Pedersen thought he had never heard a sound with less mirth in it.

  “It’s a game,” said Mallinson. “We’ve got to remember that. Just a game. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” said Pedersen.

  “It’s the only way. The first thing I want to find out is which member of our team has been letting us down. Because until we attend to that little matter, we’re not going to make much progress in any other direction.”

  “That girl we planted on him?” said Crake.

  “Impossible. She knew nothing about our advertising. And the one date she gave us, in fact, was right.”

  Pedersen said slowly, “I’m afraid there’s really not much doubt about it, is there? We’ve been sold a pup. To use a gambling expression, we’ve had a card forced on us.”

  “Wibberley?”

  “I underrated that young man. He had me fooled all along the line. I thought he really was angry with Bargulder. Of course, the whole thing was a put-up job. Bargulder pretended to sack him, knowing we’d snap him up. He comes along with a lot of so-called Tendresse advertisements – we shall never see them in print – and gets all our stuff from us, and hands it to Quinns on a plate. That’s the only possible way they could have done it. Whoever pulled this job didn’t only know date and timings, they knew the actual wording and layout of our advertisements.”