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PROLOGUE
The afternoon of the 9th of September was exactly like any other aftemoon. None of those who were to be concemed in the events of that day could lay claim to having had a premonition of disaster. (With the exception, that is, of Mrs. Packer of 47, Wilbraham Crescent, who specialised in premonitions, and who always described at great length afterwards the peculiar forebodings and tremors that had beset her. But Mrs. Packer at No. 47, was so far away from No. 19, and so Mttle concerned with the happenings there, that it seemed unnecessary for her to have had a premonition at all.)
At the Cavendish Secretarial and Typewriting Bureau, j^i' Principal, Miss K. Martindale, September 9th had been a dull f day, a day of routine. The telephone rang, typewriters clicked, fe the pressure of business was average, neither above nor below p its usual volume. None of it was particularly interesting. Up | till 2.35, September 9th might have been a day like any other 1 day. '
At 2.35 Miss Martindale's buzzer went, and Edna Brent in the outer office answered it in her usual breathy and slightly '!I nasal voice, as she mancEuvred a toffee along the line of her I jaw. h
"Yes, Miss Martindale?" f.
" Now, Edna—^that is not the way I've told you to speak ?V; when answering the telephone. Enunciate clearly, and keep f your breath behind your tone." ;;
"Sorry, Miss Martindale."
" That's better. You can do it when you try. Send Sheila ' Webb in to me." 4
" She's not back from lunch yet. Miss Martindale." !
" Ah." Miss Martindale's eye consulted the clock on her ^ desk. 2.36. Exactly six minutes late. Sheila Webb had been ifi getting slack lately. "Send her in when she comes." '
"Yes, Miss Martindale."
Edna restored the toffee to the centre of her tongue and, sucking pleasurably, resumed her typing of Naked Love by Armand Levine. Its painstaking eroticism left her uninterested
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