Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers Page A

carriage and the doll proclaims that the place is taken.”
    “But the cushion would do that without the doll.”
    “Of course it would, but you know how silly people are. They like superfluities. Well, anyway, they–Darling's, I mean–got out an ad. for the rubbish all by their little selves, and were fearfully pleased with it. Wanted us to put it through for them, till Armstrong burst into one of his juicy laughs and made them blush.”
    “What was it?”
    “Picture of a nice girl bending down to put the cushion in the corner of a carriage. And the headline? ' DON'T LET THEM PINCH YOUR SEAT. '”
    “Attaboy!” said Mr. Bredon.

    The new copy-writer was surprisingly industrious that day. He was still in his room, toiling over Sanfect (“Wherever there's Dirt there's Danger!” “The Skeleton in the Water-closet,” “Assassins Lurk in your Scullery!” “Deadlier than Shell-Fire– GERMS !!!”) when Mrs. Crump led in her female army to attack the day's accumulated dirt–armed, one regrets to say, not with Sanfect, but with plain yellow soap and water.
    “Come in, come in!” cried Mr. Bredon, genially, as the good lady paused reverently at his door. “Come and sweep me and my works away with the rest of the rubbish.”
    “Well, I'm sure, sir,” said Mrs. Crump, “I've no need to be disturbing you.”
    “I've finished, really,” said Bredon. “I suppose there's an awful lot of stuff to clear out here every day.”
    “That there is, sir–you'd hardly believe. Paper–well, I'm sure paper must be cheap, the amount they waste. Sackfuls and sackfuls every evening goes out. Of course, it's disposed [Pg 65] of to the mills, but all the same it must be a dreadful expense. And there's boxes and boards and odds and ends–you'd be surprised, the things we picks up. I sometimes think the ladies and gentlemen brings up all their cast-offs on purpose to throw 'em away here.”
    “I shouldn't wonder.”
    “And mostly chucked on the floor,” resumed Mrs. Crump, warming to her theme, “hardly ever in the paper-baskets, though goodness knows they makes 'em big enough.”
    “It must give you a lot of trouble.”
    “Lor', sir, we don't think nothing of it. We just sweeps the lot up and sends the sacks down by the lift. Though sometimes we has a good laugh over the queer things we finds. I usually just give the stuff a look through to make sure there's nothing valuable got dropped by mistake. Once I found two pound-notes on Mr. Ingleby's floor. He's a careless one and no mistake. And not so long ago–the very day poor Mr. Dean had his sad accident, I found a kind of carved stone lying round in the passage–looked as though it might be a charm or a trinket or something of that. But I think it must have tumbled out of the poor gentleman's pocket as he fell, because Mrs. Doolittle said she'd seen it in his room, so I brought it in here, sir, and put it in that there little box.”
    “Is this it?” Bredon fished in his waistcoat pocket and produced the onyx scarab, which he had unaccountably neglected to return to Pamela Dean.
    “That's it, sir. A comical-looking thing, ain't it? Like it might be a beedle or such. It was lying in a dark corner under the iron staircase and at first I thought it was just a pebble like the other one.”
    “What other one?”
    “Well, sir, I found a little round pebble in the very same place only a few days before. I said at the time, 'Well, I said, 'that's a funny thing to find there.' But I reckon that one must have come from Mr. Atkins's room, him having taken his seaside holiday early this year on account of having [Pg 66] been ill, and you know how people do fill up their pockets with sea-shells and pebbles and such.”
    Bredon hunted in his pocket again.
    “Something like that, was it?” He held out a smooth, water-rounded pebble, about the size of his thumb-nail.
    “Very like it, sir. Did that come out of the passage, sir, might I ask?”
    “No–I found that up on the