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Whistling, I skipped off to get the safe key, imagining a grouchy Mr Ambrose at five in the morning, sitting in the office and twiddling his thumbs with stony ferocity. The image held a great deal of appeal. I found the file in record time, shoved it under the door and went back to my desk to examine his correspondence of the day.
A few advertisement letters from some firm or other quickly landed in the bin, so did several charity requests. I very well remembered his reaction to my letting those pass the first time. Then I fished a familiar pink envelope out of the remaining pile.
What? Another one of those? Yes. The sender read, in curly feminine handwriting: Samantha Genevieve Ambrose. Just like last time. And there was the same coat of arms stamped on the envelope, a lion and a rose, with the rest of the crest, as I now noticed, filled out by stormy waves.
Whoever she was, you had to give the lady her due; she was persistent. But honestly, I wished she wouldn’t be. What should I do with her letter? Mr Ambrose had given the first one back unopened. I presumed that meant he wouldn’t want another. Was I supposed to throw it away? Or was he just returning the first letter unopened out of principle and would relent to whatever the lady was writing?
Somehow I didn’t think so. Mr Ambrose wasn’t the relenting kind. Especially if the message came in a pink, scented envelope.
Still, I couldn’t just destroy the letter. For all I knew, he might want this one, even though he hadn’t wanted the first. I hadn’t forgotten the crest on his watch, exactly like the one on the letter, and was reasonably sure by now that there was some deep connection between the letter-writer and Mr Ambrose.
But what kind of connection? Not knowing drove me insane! And it made it impossible to decide what to do with the cursed pink thing.
Well, what are you waiting for, Lilly? The problem of not knowing what’s in there can be solved easily enough!
Hesitantly, I reached for the envelope.
Should I? I had to admit, I was more than a little curious to read what was inside. Was it from a relative? Or… maybe from his wife?
I swallowed. Up until now I had just assumed he was single, but you never knew. Maybe he was a romantic soul and deeply in love with his wife and was just hiding it very, very, very, very, very well. Maybe… maybe the letters even had something to do with the mysterious stolen file! Oh, the suspense of not knowing was killing me! Literally!
Surely, opening the letter couldn’t really be wrong if it meant saving me from death by acute Nosystic curiositis?
I reached out for the letter opener - but my hand stopped in mid-air.
Mr Ambrose had taken me on. He had given me a job when many others wouldn’t. I was his secretary and should behave like it. A professional wouldn’t pry, and I intended to be a professional. That was the whole idea behind getting a job. Agonizingly slowly, my hand drew back from the letter opener.
Blast! A conscience can be such a nuisance, sometimes!
But the problem of what to do with the letter still remained.
Then I had an idea. I was a secretary, right? My job was filing things. And I still had the key to the safe.
Quickly I got up and searched the shelves until I found an empty file box. I put the letter inside and marched to the safe. Unlocking the safe-room, I entered and stowed the file box in the remotest, darkest corner I could find, where Mr Ambrose himself would hopefully never find it. Then, satisfied with a job well done, I left, closed the safe again and returned to my desk.
Two messages were already waiting for me.
The first read:
Mr Linton,
Where are my letters? I do not pay you to dawdle.
Rikkard Ambrose.
The second read:
Mr Linton,
Perhaps I was not clear enough regarding my intolerance towards dawdling. Where are my letters?
Rikkard Ambrose
Quickly, I looked through the rest of the letters. They all seemed to be strictly business-related, which was sure to be a balm for the soul of Mr Ambrose. No dealing with frightening pink personal letters today!
I scribbled a note, went over to the door, and shoved the letters under the door, together with the safe key and a note which read:
