Jake felt himself go white… he looked round, and, turning, fled. He wanted to be out of this--murder! That’s what it was, murder. He raced round the corner of the street and into the arms of a policeman. Whistles were blowing. Even as he fought to escape, he knew the impossibility of such a hope: policemen were running from everywhere. “All right--I done nothin’… there’s a guy shot round the corner… some feller did it.” Two officers took him to the station, and as a precautionary measure he was searched. In the right hand pocket of his overcoat was found an automatic pistol that had been recently fired. CHAPTER II Mr. J.G. Reeder rang his bell and sighed. He sighed because it was the fourth time he had rung the bell without anything happening. There were moments when he saw himself walking into the next room and addressing Miss Gillette in firm but fatherly tones. He would point out to her the impossible situation which was created when a secretary ignored the summons of her employer; he would insist that she did not bring into the office, or, if she brought, should not in business hours read the tender or exciting fiction which she favoured; he would say, in the same firm and fatherly way, that perhaps it would be better for everybody concerned if she found a new occupation, or a similar occupation in the service of somebody who had less exacting views on the question of duty. But always, when he rose from his chair after ringing four times, determined to settle the matter there and then, he sat down again and rang a fifth time. “Dear, dear!” said Mr. Reeder. “This is very trying.” At that moment Miss Gillette came into the room. She was pretty and slight and small. She had a tip-tilted nose and a faultless complexion, and her dully golden hair was a little untidy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you ring?” Between her fingers she held a long, jade-green cigarette holder. Mr. Reeder had once asked her not to come into his office smoking: she invariably carried her cigarette in her hand nowadays, and he accepted the compromise. “I think I did,” he said gently. “_I_ thought you did.” Mr. Reeder winced as she put her cigarette holder on the mantelpiece, and, pulling a chair forward, sat down at his desk. She carried a book under her arm, and this she opened and laid on the table. “Shoot,” she said, and Mr. Reeder winced again. The trouble about Miss Gillette was her competence. If she had made mistakes and put letters in the wrong envelopes or forgot appointments, Mr. Reeder would have gone away to some foreign land, such as Eastbourne or Brighton, and would have written to her a sad letter of farewell, enclosing a month’s salary in lieu of notice. But she was devastatingly competent: she had built up a structure of indispensability; she had, in the shortest space of time, developed herself into a habit and a fixture. “You mean that I am to proceed?” he asked gravely.