It was Miss Somers's turn to make the tea. Miss Somers was the newest and the most inefficient of the typists. She was no longer young and had a mild worried face like a sheep. The kettle was not quite boiling when Miss Somers poured the water on to the tea, but poor Miss Somers was never quite sure when a kettle was boiling. It was one of the many worries that afflicted her in life.

She poured out the tea and took the cups round with a couple of limp, sweet biscuits in each saucer.

Miss Griffith, the efficient head typist, a grey-haired martinet who had been with Consolidated Investments Trust for sixteen years, said sharply: "Water not boiling again, Somers!" and Miss Somers's worried meek face went pink and she said, "Oh dear, I did think it was boiling this time."

Miss Griffith thought to herself. "She'll last for another month, perhaps, just while we're so busy… But really! The mess the silly idiot made of that letter to Eastern Developments – a perfectly straightforward job, and always so stupid over the tea. If it weren't so difficult to get hold of any intelligent typists – and the biscuit tin lid wasn't shut tightly last time, either. Really –"

Like so many of Miss Griffith's indignant inner communings the sentence went unfinished.

At that moment Miss Grosvenor sailed in to make Mr Fortescue's sacred tea. Mr Fortescue had different tea, and different china and special biscuits. Only the kettle and the water from the cloakroom tap were the same. But on this occasion, being Mr Fortescue's tea, the water boiled. Miss Grosvenor saw to that.

Miss Grosvenor was an incredibly glamorous blonde. She wore an expensively cut little black suit and her shapely legs were encased in the very best and most expensive blackmarket nylons.