mystery of it," she said, "and I don't think I will come to the office to-day. To-morrow morning, at what hour?"
"Ten o'clock," he said, "I will be there to explain your duties. Your salary will be £5 a week. You will be in charge of the office, to which I very seldom go, by the way, and your work will be preparing statistical returns of the wheat-crops in all the wheat-fields of the world for the last fifty years."
"It sounds thrilling," she said, and a quick smile flashed across his face.
"It is much more thrilling than you imagine," were his parting words.
She reached Krooman Mansions just as the doctor was coming out, and he looked at her in surprise.
"You are back early!"
Should she tell him? There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had been a good friend of hers and she felt sure of his sympathy. It occurred to her at that moment that Mr. Beale had been most unsympathetic, and had not expressed one word of regret.
"Yes, I've been discharged," she exclaimed.
"Discharged? Impossible!"
She nodded.
"To prove that it is possible it has happened," she said cheerfully.
"My dear girl, this is monstrous! What excuse did they give?"
"None." This was said with a lightness of tone which did not reflect the indignation she felt at heart.
"Did they give you no reason?"
"They gave me none. They gave me my month's cheque and just told me to go off, and off I came like the well-disciplined wage-earner I am."
"But it is monstrous," he said indignantly. "I will go and see them. I know one of the heads of the firm—at least, he is a patient of mine."
"You will do nothing of the kind," she replied firmly. "It really doesn't matter."
"What are you going to do? By Jove!" he said suddenly, "what a splendid idea! I want a clinical secretary."
The humour of it got the better of her, and she laughed in his face.
"What is the joke?" he asked.
"Oh, I am so sorry, doctor, but you mustn't think I am ungrateful, but I am beginning to regard myself as one of the plums in the labour market."
"Have you another position?" he asked quickly.
"I have just accepted one," she said, and he did not disguise his disappointment, which might even have been interpreted, were Oliva more conceited, into absolute chagrin.
"You are very quick," said he, and his voice had lost some of its enthusiasm. "What position have you taken?"
"I am going into an office in the city," she said.
"That will be dull. If you have settled it in your mind, of course, I cannot alter your decision, but I would be quite willing to give you £5 or £6 a week, and the work would be very light."
She held out her hand, and there was a twinkle in her eye.
"London is simply filled with people who want to give me £5 a week for work which is very light; really I am awfully grateful to you, doctor."
She felt more cheerful as she mounted the stairs than she thought would have been possible had such a position been forecast and had she to speculate upon the attitude of mind with which she would meet such a misfortune.
Punsonby's, for all the humiliation of her dismissal, seemed fairly unimportant. Some day she would discover the circumstances which had decided the high gods who presided over the ready-made clothing business in their action.
She unlocked the door and passed in, not without a comprehensive and an amused glance which took in the sober front doors of her new employer and her would-be employer.
"Sarah, your luck's in," she said, as she banged the door—Sarah was the approving version of Matilda. "If the wheezy man fires you, be sure there'll be a good angel waiting on the doorstep to offer you £20 a week for 'phoning the office once a day."
It occurred to her that it would be wise to place on record her protest against her summary dismissal, and she went to the little bookshelf-writing-table where she kept her writing-material to indite the epistle whilst she thought of it. It was one of those little fumed-oak contraptions where the desk is formed by a hinged flap which serves when not in use to close the desk.
She pulled out the two little supports, inserted the key in the lock, but it refused to turn, for the simple reason that it was unlocked. She had distinctly remembered that morning locking it after putting away the bill which had arrived with the morning post.
She pulled down the flap slowly and stared in amazement at the little which it hid. Every pigeon-hole had been ransacked and the contents were piled up in a confused heap. The two tiny drawers in which she kept stamps and nibs were out and emptied.
CHAPTER IV
THE LETTERS THAT WERE NOT THERE
She made a rapid survey of the documents. They were unimportant, and consisted mainly of letters from the few girl friends she had made during her stay at Punsonby's—old theatre programmes, recipes copied from newspapers and bunches of snapshots taken on her last summer excursion.
She arranged the things in some sort of rough order and made an inspection of her bedroom. Here, too, there was evidence that somebody had been searching the room. The drawers of her dressing-table were open, and though the contents had been little disturbed, it was clear that they had been searched. She made another discovery. The window of the bedroom was open at the bottom. Usually it was open half-way down from the top, and was fastened in that position by a patent catch. This precaution was necessary, because the window looked upon a narrow iron parapet which ran along the building and communicated with the fire-escape. She looked out. Evidently the intruder had both come and gone this way, and as evidently her return had disturbed him in his inspection, for it was hardly likely he would leave her papers and bureau in that state of confusion.
She made a brief inspection of the drawers in the dressing-table, and so far as she could see nothing was missing. She went back to the writing-bureau, mechanically put away the papers, little memorandum-books and letters which had been dragged from their pigeon-holes, then resting her elbow on the desk she sat, chin in hand, her pretty forehead wrinkled in a frown, recalling the events of the morning.
Who had searched her desk? What did they hope to discover? She had no illusions that this was the work of a common thief. There was something behind all this, something sinister and terrifying.
What association had the search with her summary dismissal and what did the pompous Mr. White mean when he talked about definite knowledge? Definite knowledge of what? She gave it up with a shrug. She was not as much alarmed as disturbed. Life was grating a little, and she resented this departure from the smooth course which it had hitherto run. She resented the intrusion of Mr. Beale, who was drunk one moment and sober the next, who had offices in the city which he did not visit and who took such an inordinate interest in her affairs, and she resented him all the more because, in some indefinable way, he had shaken her faith—no, not shaken her faith, that was too strong a term—he had pared the mild romance which Dr. van Heerden's friendship represented.
She got up from the table and paced the room, planning her day. She would go out to lunch and indulge in the dissipation of a matinee. Perhaps she would stay out to dinner and come back—she shivered unconsciously and looked round the room. Somehow she did not look forward to an evening spent alone in her flat.
"Matilda, you're getting maudlin," she said, "you are getting romantic, too. You are reading too many sensational novels and seeing too many sensational films."
She walked briskly into her bedroom, unhooked a suit from the wardrobe and laid it on the bed.
At that moment there came a knock at the door. She put down the clothes-brush which was in her hand, walked out into the hall, opened the door and stepped back. Three men stood in the passage without. Two were strangers with that curious official look which the plain-clothes policeman can never wholly eradicate from his bearing. The third was Mr. White, more