“Yes, a particular kind of blue—a sort of slatey-blue—Jeekes showed me one as a guide. Well, these letters were to be handed to Mr. Parrish unopened.”
Robin had stood up.
“That’s odd,” he said, diving in his pocket.
“I say, hold on a bit,” protested the boy, “this is really rather important what I am telling you. I’ll never finish if you keep on interrupting.”
“Sorry, Bruce,” said Robin, and sat down again.
But he began to play restlessly with his cigarette case which he had drawn from his pocket.
“Well, of course,” Bruce resumed, “I wasn’t much of a private secretary really, and one day I forgot all about this injunction. Some days old H.P. got as many as three hundred letters. I was alone at Harkings with him, I remember, Jeekes was up at Sheffield and the other secretaries were away ill or something, and in the rush of dealing with this enormous mail I slit one of these blue envelopes open with the rest. I discovered what I had done only after I had got all the letters sorted out, this one with the rest. So I went straight to old H.P. and told him. By Jove!”
“What happened?” said Robin.
“He got into the most paralytic rage,” said Bruce. “I have never seen a man in such an absolute frenzy of passion. He went right off the hooks, just like that! He fairly put the wind up me. For a minute I thought he was going to kill me. He snatched the letter out of my hand, called me every name under the sun, and finally shouted: ‘You’re fired, d’ye hear? I won’t employ men who disobey my orders! Get out of this before I do you a mischief! I went straight off. And I never saw him again ...”
Robin Greve looked very serious. But his face displayed no emotion as he asked: