WAX (A British Crime Thriller). Ethel Lina White

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      Leonard murmured a languid introduction.

      "Mum-mm Wells. Miss Thompson. Did I mention her to you, Wells? Mr. Wells will find you some odds and ends and explain anything. Don't overdo it to-day."

      There was a moment of stunned silence after the door had closed, while Horatio, in the background, hurriedly smoothed his hair with moistened palms.

      "Didn't you expect me?" asked Sonia.

      "Well, we'd heard a rumour," replied Wells, "but we didn't actually believe in you."

      "Isn't that like my cherished Leonard? By the way, what d'you call him? The 'Chief?'"

      "No. 'Buns.'"

      "Oh...Well, will you call me 'Thompson,' and treat me just like a man? I mean, I don't want to cramp your style, or have preferential treatment."

      In spite of her overture, young Wells already felt the first hint of restriction as he looked at her. She was an attractive young creature, with slanting butterfly brows, generous red lips, and the greyhound build of her generation. She wore the standardised fashion of swagger-coat and small hat, tilted over one eye, but her vivid face saved her from the reproach of mass production.

      Young Wells knew instinctively that she was free from herd instinct. She would lead—and he would follow. She would smash precedent, create chaos, upset routine.

      Perhaps, he heard, too, faintly in the distance, the clang of closing doors, and fought against his fate; for man is, by nature, a free animal and dreads the thought of the inevitable cage.

      But while he regarded her bleakly, he found favour in her eyes. He was rather short and thickset, and she liked his broad shoulders and three-cornered smile.

      "It's the dream of my life to work on a paper," she said. "What are you, by the way?"

      "I'm rather a composite person," Wells told her. "I'm the sub and the sporting editor, and Kathleen, and Uncle Dick."

      "I'll be Kathleen."

      "No you won't. You're too young for the Women's Page. You have no idea of the questions you'll have to answer. I've come to the conclusion women have no refinement."

      "Don't be absurd...Are you all the staff?"

      "No. Lobb's our star turn. He's out now. He covers the water front and I cover the pubs. And here's Horatio."

      Soma's smile made Horatio—who was impressionable—her slave.

      "Are you going to be a journalist, too?" she asked.

      "No, miss. An editor. My mother says there's always plenty of room at the top."

      "You go and tell that to the old man, and study his reaction," advised Wells. Then he glanced at the clock. "Ten to eleven, you young slacker."

      The youth vanished, after another languishing glance at Sonia. She looked around the big untidy room, with the frosted-glass windows, the sun-blistered paint, the ink-stained table, the battered typewriters—and then she sighed.

      "Not a bit like the Pictures?" asked Wells. "One more illusion gone west?"

      "It's very peaceful. But I did think of it like—like you said. You know. Telephones ringing like mad and every one using language. Doesn't a big story ever break?"

      "Oh, yes. Sometimes a woman sets her chimney on fire on her neighbour's washing day."

      "Then—it's not, a real newspaper office?"

      "Yes, it is—if you're a real journalist."

      There was a rasp in young Wells' voice, which Sonia resented in spite of her plea for non-preferential treatment.

      "Well, I've had no experience," she confessed.

      "But you're here. That's your answer."

      There was a brief silence. Then Wells' dog got down from his chair and pointedly laid his head on Soma's knee, after a preliminary sniff. Young Wells took the hint and relented.

      "You shall be Kathleen," he said. "As a matter of fact, a lady has just told Buns that she reads my page to get a good laugh. He had me on the carpet. He's very sensitive over the paper, remember...And you can have the Children's Corner, Film Notes, Poultry World, Gardening—"

      "But I don't know—"

      "Just lift them from any reliable source. Three parts The Gardener, and one part Beverley Nichols is the mixture for our Gardening Column—"

      He broke off at a tinkling sound outside the door.

      "Miss Thompson," he said solemnly, "you are about to share in our great moment, when the whole building vibrates with dynamic life."

      "Oh, do you mean going to press?" asked Sonia eagerly.

      "No."

      "But—it can't be putting the paper to bed?"

      "Where did you learn your weird language? No. Here it is." He flung open the door. "Eleven o'clock cocoa."

      He laughed at Sonia's disappointed face, as Horatio entered with a tray and three steaming cups.

      "It's an inspired idea," he said. "Buns always has it, so we have it too, to keep us from going Red."

      Sonia enjoyed the cocoa-party, even while she dimly resented it. She had pictured her plunge into journalism as a dive into molten emotions, and a frantic race against time, to the stamp of overdriven machines.

      But, even while she sipped her cocoa, while the clock ticked lazily on, a new element was creeping into her life. Young Wells looked at her with fresh interest.

      "I'm wondering why girls leave home," he said presently.

      "Meaning me?" she asked. "Well, you shall have the story of my life, but I warn you it's pathetic...Nobody loves me at home. The only time I was popular with my father was before I was born. I believe he mistook me for a boy. And he's just gone and married a girl who was at school with me."

      "Poor girl," said Wells with feeling. "I bet you gave her hell."

      "You bet I did." Sonia added, "For one ghastly moment, I thought you were going to pity me. Such a lot of men have poor-kidded me since the marriage. And I loathe it."

      "I knew that. Here's Lobb. Trust him to turn up in time for the cocoa. He's a meal hound."

      Sonia looked curiously at the tall gaunt man who had just entered. He was a striking figure for Riverpool, for he wore a cape and slouched black felt hat. Yet, in spite of appearing shabby, unhappy, and ill, his ravaged face held some of the dark broken beauty of a fallen angel.

      "This is our Miss Thompson," said Wells. "She's real."

      Sonia saw the light leap up in Hubert Lobb's sunken eyes, like fire rising through charred ash. He stared at her almost thirstily, as though he were refreshed by her youth.

      "We'd СКАЧАТЬ