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‘What can I do? It’s not as though he wants to see them. I stuff them in the lowest drawer of my desk. It’s full to the brim already. I wonder how I’m going to fit this one in.’
‘Well, in case you need space, I still have one or two free corners in my drawers.’
‘Thanks.’ I was about to reach out for the doorknob and follow Mr Ambrose into the office, when I hesitated. ‘You don’t happen to have any idea whom they’re from, do you?’
‘What?’ Mr Stone popped a breath mint into his mouth and reached for a pile of documents on his desk. ‘The pink letters?’
‘Yes. Does he have a wife? A friend overseas with a strange predilection for pink? A mistress whose services he didn’t pay for because she didn’t perform to his satisfaction?’
Mr Stone coughed and, wi
th a ping, the breath mint ricocheted off his paperweight and disappeared somewhere in the labyrinth of papers on his desk.
‘Err…um…well, Mr Linton, I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Mr Ambrose. Though I’m sure that all of Mr Ambrose’s connections are perfectly respectable and proper.’
‘Are you? Well, good for you.’
Tucking the stack of envelopes under my arm, I followed my perfectly respectable and proper employer into his office, where he was busy studying the plans for a new, improved steam engine his men had managed to steal from the offices of his main rival, Lord Dalgliesh, only a few days ago.
‘Ah, Mr Linton, there you are. What have you got there?’
‘Letters, Sir.’ Hurriedly, I covered the pink one with my arm. ‘Nothing to be worried about. I’ll sort through them later.’
‘Acceptable.’ Reaching over, Mr Ambrose pulled a bell pull and, a few moments later, a panting messenger boy appeared at the door.
‘Send this down to Mr Maddison in the technical department.’
‘Yes, Sir, Mr Ambrose, Sir!’
‘Tell him the valves still need a little bit of work, but otherwise, the prototype seems sufficient.’
‘Yes! Right away, Sir!’
And he was off.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘So, you are involving the young and innocent in your nefarious deals now?’
Mr Ambrose took a seat behind his desk and fixed me with his cool gaze over steepled fingers. ‘I do not know what you mean, Mr Linton.’
I closed the door behind me. ‘Don’t play the innocent with me! I’m your personal secretary. Your closest confidante. I always know what you are really up to.’
‘Oh, really?’ Behind his desk, Mr Ambrose cocked his head. ‘Then pray, enlighten me, what was I doing at the wedding ceremony? Why was I wasting my time on a German princeling with too big a head and too small a moustache?’
I opened my mouth - and closed it again.
‘All right,’ I admitted grudgingly. ‘Maybe I don’t always know what you’re up to.’
‘Indeed you don’t.’
‘So tell me!’ I took a step forward. ‘What was that all about? You…’ I hardly managed to bring the word over my lips, the idea was so outlandish! ‘You…smiled.’
‘Indeed. I am reliably informed that contortion of facial musculature is customary at nuptials.’
‘It is customary in everyday life, too. But that didn’t mean you saw fit to make use of it.’
‘True.’
‘And you gave three thousand pounds to charity!’
