Joe waited until he heard Miss Jameson’s door close again and Lily’s footsteps retreat down the corridor before he picked up the telephone and requested the internal number he had rung before.
‘She’s just left.’
Chapter Thirteen
A murmured question at the other end of the line prompted the response: ‘Oh, yes, I think so. In any case she’ll have to do … no time to look further. She’s the right age — which is to say a year or two younger than our friend. How old is he these days? Twenty-eight?
‘No, she’s not out of the top drawer, I’m afraid. The lowest grade for intake recommended by Sir Nevil — what was it? Upper shop-assistant level? Yes, pitch it there. Is that where you’d find millinery? Hats? But her behaviour’s acceptable. She’ll pass.’
He listened impatiently to a further query and answered briskly: ‘Well of course we have. But none of them has the other qualities we require. My cousin Margery might oblige, if I asked her … though she runs Girl Guides shindigs on Saturday nights, I believe. And I very much doubt she can do the tango.’
He eased the receiver a little way from his ear. ‘Well, there you are then. You’ll have to take what’s on offer. It’s a question of settling for the best balance. I’ve passed them all in review and you’ll have to take my word for it, this is the best we can do. Look — I took the precaution of trailing her before a friend … Lady Dedham … Cassandra. Knowing nothing to the contrary, she took her for one of our upper-class young ladies. In fact, the girl made a very favourable impression. No awkwardness at all, sympathetic and chatty, was the verdict. Cassandra’s asked to see her again — quite unprompted by me. “Someone I can really talk to,” she says. And Cassandra Dedham’s no one’s fool.
‘Accent? Do you know, I hadn’t noticed one,’ Joe lied cheerily. ‘They can always talk to each other in cockney, I suppose … he’s an adept. I’ve heard him at it. And she is a London lass. Though Margery, who seems to have got somewhat fond of the girl, assures me she can, in fact, produce a Mayfair drawl that’s indistinguishable from the real thing. Ghastly, but it might be useful.’
The voice at the other end guffawed and exclaimed: ‘So that was her! Thought it must have been. Did you realize, sir? She rang us up from your office, pretending to be the operator. She got Howard — who’s not the sharpest — and pulled the wool over his eyes. It was a beat or two before he caught on. He thinks he got away with it — played the silly ass and burbled a bit. Told her he was the War Office! That must have shaken her.’
‘Mmm … not so’s you’d notice,’ Joe murmured. ‘I wondered if she’d have the initiative to follow that through. Well, well! I chalk one up to Wentworth. Another one. She seems to be scoring all round the wicket.’