Murder Must Advertise (7 page)

“Now,” said Mr. Pym, passing his tongue rapidly across his lips and seeming to pull himself together to face a disagreeable interview. “What have you got to tell me?”

Mr. Bredon, very much at his ease, leaned across with his elbows on the Managing Director's desk, and spoke for some considerable time in a low tone, while Mr. Pym's cheek grew paler and paler.

REMARKABLE ACROBATICS OF A HARLEQUIN

I
t has already been hinted that Tuesday was a day of general mortification in Pym's copy-department. The trouble was caused by Messrs. Toule & Jollop, proprietors of Nutrax, Maltogene, and Jollop's Concentrated Lactobeef Tablets for Travellers. Unlike the majority of clients who, though all tiresome in their degree, exercised their tiresomeness by post from a reasonable distance and at reasonable intervals, Messrs. Toule & Jollop descended upon Pym's every Tuesday for a weekly conference. While there, they reviewed the advertising for the coming week, rescinding the decisions taken at the previous week's conference, springing new schemes unexpectedly upon Mr. Pym and Mr. Armstrong, keeping those two important men shut up in the Conference Room for hours on end, to the interruption of office-business, and generally making nuisances of themselves. One of the items discussed at this weekly séance was the Nutrax 11-inch double for Friday's
Morning Star
, which occupied an important position in that leading news-organ on the top right-hand corner of the Home page, next to the special Friday feature. It subsequently occupied other positions in other journals, of course, but Friday's
Morning Star
was the real matter of importance.

The usual procedure in respect of this exasperating advertisement was as follows. Every three months or so, Mr. Hankin sent out an S O S to the copy-department to the effect that more Nutrax copy was urgently required. By the united ingenuity of the department, about twenty pieces of
[Pg 47]
copy were forthwith produced and submitted to Mr. Hankin. Under his severely critical blue-pencil, these were reduced to twelve or so, which went to the Studio to be laid out and furnished with illustrative sketches. They were then sent or handed to Messrs. Toule & Jollop, who fretfully rejected all but half-a-dozen, and weakened and ruined the remainder by foolish alterations and additions. The copy-department was then scourged into producing another twenty efforts, of which, after a similar process of elimination and amendment, a further half-dozen contrived to survive criticism, thus furnishing the necessary twelve half-doubles for the ensuing three months. The department breathed again, momentarily, and the dozen lay-outs were stamped in purple ink “Passed by Client,” and a note was made of the proposed order of their appearance.

On Monday of each week, Mr. Tallboy, group-manager for Nutrax, squared his shoulders and settled down to the task of getting Friday's half-double safely into the
Morning Star
. He looked out the copy for the week and sent round to collect the finished sketch from the Studio. If the finished sketch was really finished (which seldom happened), he sent it down to the block-makers, together with the copy and a carefully drawn lay-out. The block-makers, grumbling that they never were allowed proper time for the job, made a line-block of the sketch. The thing then passed to the printers, who set up the headlines and copy in type, added a name-block of the wrong size, locked the result up in a forme, pulled a proof and returned the result to Mr. Tallboy, pointing out in a querulous note that it came out half an inch too long. Mr. Tallboy corrected the misprints, damned their eyes for using the wrong name-block, made it clear to them that they had set the headlines in the wrong fount, cut the proof to pieces, pasted it up again into the correct size and returned it. By this time it was usually 11 o'clock on Tuesday morning, and Mr. Toule or Mr. Jollop, or both of them, were closeted in the Conference Room with Mr. Pym and Mr. Armstrong, calling loudly and repeatedly for their 11-inch double. As soon as the new
[Pg 48]
proof arrived from the printer's, Mr. Tallboy sent it down to the Conference Room by a boy, and escaped, if he could, for his elevenses. Mr. Toule or Mr. Jollop then pointed out to Mr. Pym and Mr. Armstrong a great number of weaknesses in both sketch and copy. Mr. Pym and Mr. Armstrong, sycophantically concurring in everything the client said, confessed themselves at a loss and invited suggestions from Mr. Toule (or Mr. Jollop). The latter, being, as most clients are, better at destructive than constructive criticism, cudgelled his brains into stupor, and thus reduced himself to a condition of utter blankness, upon which the persuasiveness of Mr. Pym and Mr. Armstrong could work with hypnotic effect. After half an hour of skilled treatment, Mr. Jollop (or Mr. Toule) found himself returning with a sense of relief and refreshment to the rejected lay-out. He then discovered that it was really almost exactly what he required. It only needed the alteration of a sentence and the introduction of a panel about gift-coupons. Mr. Armstrong then sent the lay-out up again to Mr. Tallboy, with a request that he would effect these necessary alterations. Mr. Tallboy, realizing with delight that these involved nothing more drastic than the making of a new lay-out and the complete re-writing of the copy, sought out the copy-writer whose initials appeared on the original type-script, instructing him to cut out three lines and incorporate the client's improvements, while he himself laid the advertisement out afresh.

When all this had been done, the copy was returned to the printer to be re-set, the forme was sent to the block-makers, a complete block was made of the whole advertisement, and a fresh proof was returned. If, by any lucky chance, there turned out to be no defects in the block, the stereotypers got to work and made a sufficient number of stereos to be sent out to the other papers carrying the Nutrax advertising, with a proof to accompany each. On Thursday afternoon, the stereos were distributed by the despatching department to the London papers by hand, and to the provincial papers by post and train, and if nothing
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went wrong with these arrangements, the advertisement duly appeared in Friday's
Morning Star
and in other papers on the dates provided for. So long and arduous a history it is, that lies behind those exhortations to “Nourish your Nerves with Nutrax,” which smite the reader in the eye as he opens his
Morning Star
in the train between Gidea Park and Liverpool Street.

On this particular Tuesday, exasperation was intensified. To begin with, the weather was exceptionally close, with a thunderstorm impending, and the top floor of Pym's Publicity was like a slow oven beneath the broad lead roof and the great glass skylights. Secondly, a visit was expected from two directors of Brotherhoods, Ltd., that extremely old-fashioned and religiously-minded firm who manufacture boiled sweets and non-alcoholic liquors. A warning had been sent round that all female members of the staff must refrain from smoking, and that any proofs of beer or whisky advertising must be carefully concealed from sight. The former restriction bore hardly upon Miss Meteyard and the copy-department typists, whose cigarettes were, if not encouraged, at least winked at in the ordinary way by the management. Miss Parton had been further upset by a mild suggestion from Mr. Hankin that she was showing rather more arm and neck than the directors of Brotherhoods, Ltd., would think seemly; out of sheer perversity, she had covered the offending flesh with a heavy sweater, and was ostentatiously stewing and grumbling and snapping the head off every one who approached her. Mr. Jollop, who was, if anything, slightly more captious than Mr. Toule, had arrived particularly early for the weekly Nutrax conference, and had distinguished himself by firmly killing no less than three advertisements which Mr. Toule had previously passed. This meant that Mr. Hankin had been obliged to send out his S O S nearly a month earlier than usual. Mr. Armstrong had toothache, and had been exceptionally short with Miss Rossiter, and something had gone wrong with Miss Rossiter's type-writer, so that its spacing was completely unreliable.
[Pg 50]

To Mr. Ingleby, perspiring over his guard-books, entered the detested form of Mr. Tallboy, a sheet of paper in his hand.

“Is this your copy?”

Mr. Ingleby stretched out a languid hand, took the paper, glanced at it and returned it.

“How often have I got to tell you blasted incompetents,” he demanded amiably, “that those initials are on the copy for the purpose of identifying the writer? If you think my initials are DB you're either blind or potty.”

“Who is DB anyway?”

“New fellow, Bredon.”

“Where is he?”

Mr. Ingleby jerked his thumb in the direction of the next room.

“Empty,” announced Mr. Tallboy, after a brief excursion.

“Well, have a look for him,” suggested Ingleby.

“Yes, but look here,” said Mr. Tallboy, persuasively, “I only want a suggestion. What the devil are the Studio to do with this? Do you mean to say Hankin passed that headline?”

“Presumably,” said Ingleby.

“Well, how does he or Bredon or anybody suppose we're going to get it illustrated? Has the client seen it? They'll never stand for it. What's the point in laying it out? I can't think how Hankin came to pass it.”

Ingleby stretched his hand out again.

“Brief, bright and brotherly,” he observed. “What's the matter with it?”

The headline was:

“And in any case,” grumbled Tallboy, “the
Morning Star
won't take it. They won't put in anything that looks like bad language.”
[Pg 51]

“Your look-out,” said Ingleby. “Why not ask 'em?”

Tallboy muttered something impolite.

“Anyway, if Hankin's passed it, it'll have to be laid out, I suppose,” said Ingleby. “Surely the Studio–oh! hullo! here's your man. You'd better worry him. Bredon!”

“That's me!” said Mr. Bredon. “All present and correct!”

“Where've you been hiding from Tallboy? You knew he was on your tail.”

“I've been on the roof,” admitted Bredon, apologetically. “Cooler and all that. What's the matter. What have I done?”

“Well, this headline of yours, Mr. Bredon. How do you expect them to illustrate it?”

“I don't know. I left it to their ingenuity. I always believe in leaving scope to other people's imagination.”

“How on earth are they to draw a blank?”

“Let 'em take a ticket in the Irish Sweep. That'll larn 'em,” said Ingleby.

“I should think it would be rather like a muchness,” suggested Bredon. “Lewis Carroll, you know. Did you ever see a drawing of a muchness?”

“Oh, don't fool,” growled Tallboy. “We've got to do something with it. Do you really think it's a good headline, Mr. Bredon?”

“It's the best I've written yet,” said Bredon enthusiastically, “except that beauty Hankie wouldn't pass. Can't they draw a man looking blank? Or just a man with a blank face, like those 'Are these missing features yours?' advertisements?”

“Oh, I suppose they
could
,” admitted Tallboy, discontentedly. “I'll put it up to them anyhow. Thanks,” he added, belatedly, and bounced out.

“Cross, isn't he?” said Ingleby. “It's this frightful heat. Whatever made you go up on the roof? It must be like a gridiron.”

“So it is, but I thought I'd just try it. As a matter of fact, I was chucking pennies over the parapet to that brass band. I got the bombardon twice. The penny goes down with a tremendous whack, you know, and they look up all over
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the place to see where it comes from and you dodge down behind the parapet. It's a tremendous high parapet, isn't it? I suppose they wanted to make the building look even higher than it is. It's the highest in the street in any case. You do get a good view from up there. 'Earth hath not anything to show more fair.' It's going to rain like billy-ho in about two ticks. See how black it's come over.”

“You seem to have come over pretty black, if it comes to that,” remarked Ingleby. “Look at the seat of your trousers.”

“You do want a lot,” complained Bredon, twisting his spine alarmingly. “It is a bit sooty up there. I was sitting on the skylight.”

“You look as if you'd been shinning up a pipe.”

“Well, I did shin down a pipe. Only one pipe–rather a nice pipe. It took my fancy.”

“You're loopy,” said Ingleby, “doing acrobatics on dirty pipes in this heat. Whatever made you?”

“I dropped something,” said Mr. Bredon, plaintively. “It went down on to the glass roof of the wash-place. I nearly put my foot through. Wouldn't old Smayle have been surprised if I'd tumbled into the wash-basin on top of him? And then I found I needn't have gone down the pipe after all; I came back by the staircase–the roof-door was open on both floors.”

“They generally keep them open in hot weather,” said Ingleby.

“I wish I'd known. I say, I could do with a drink.”

“All right, have a glass of Sparkling Pompayne.”

“What's that?”

“One of Brotherhood's non-alcoholic refreshers,” grinned Ingleby. “Made from finest Devon apples, with the crisp, cool sparkle of champagne. Definitely anti-rheumatic and non-intoxicant. Doctors recommend it.”

Bredon shuddered.

“I think this is an awfully immoral job of ours. I do, really. Think how we spoil the digestions of the public.”

“Ah, yes–but think how earnestly we strive to put them
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right again. We undermine 'em with one hand and build 'em up with the other. The vitamins we destroy in the canning, we restore in Revito, the roughage we remove from Peabody's Piper Parritch we make up into a package and market as Bunbury's Breakfast Bran; the stomachs we ruin with Pompayne, we re-line with Peplets to aid digestion. And by forcing the damn-fool public to pay twice over–once to have its food emasculated and once to have the vitality put back again, we keep the wheels of commerce turning and give employment to thousands–including you and me.”

“This wonderful world!” Bredon sighed ecstatically. “How many pores should you say there were in the human skin, Ingleby?”