when all the scientists of the world get together to fight the problem. It seems to me that we are unprotected against naked cosmic power, and no science of our devising can master it. All we can do is try and protect ourselves, hang on to a battered shell of the world in the hope that we may survive.”
Ken was silent. For a long time he looked at the bench without seeing it.
“I shall not tell Thayleen,” he said at last.
“I shouldn’t. Let her enjoy what’s left of her life.”
“But not to be able to plan for the future! To know that one cannot see beyond a few months—! I just can’t grasp it!”
“It takes time,” Drew admitted. “But there it is.”
Ken did not afterwards remember shaking hands or saying goodbye. He came out into the calm summer evening and contemplated it. Deep down, he wondered if for once in his brilliant career Anton Drew had not made a mistake.
CHAPTER TWO
It was about the time that Ken left the Bland Edifice that Mortimer Bland himself was enjoying an agreeable evening amidst the soft lights and sweet music of the Heart Throb Café. It was situated in the centre of London’s sprawling huddle of buildings—exclusively extravagant, hiding many a dubious tête-à-tête, its staff trained unswervingly to admit the fact that the customer is always right.
Mortimer Bland, one of the city’s wealthiest industrialists, was a frequent visitor. So was Milly Morton, the unusually lovely blonde who invariably accompanied him. What Bland liked about Milly, apart from her curves, was the fact that his money could not only buy for her whatever she wished, but could also buy from her whatever he wished. Which to his commercial mind seemed a fair exchange.
They sat now in an alcove, their table hidden—as were the other tables—from the rest of the café. The champagne was just right; so was the meal. Mortimer Bland was glowing like a well-fed bulldog and not looking unlike one, either. Money, hearty eating, and lack of exercise had given him a beefy face and bulgy grey eyes, but it had not yet greyed the black hair swept back from his forehead.
At sixty he was as strong as an ox, and proud of it. Milly was quite thirty-five years younger, but this fact did not bother her in the least when weighed against the advantages of being one of Bland’s most favoured girlfriends.
“I think,” Milly said, as she set down her champagne glass, “that I’m going to ask you to do me a favour, Mort.”
Bland grinned and revealed yellow teeth. “How much?”
Milly laughed, and it made her more beautiful. Bland liked her even white teeth, and the way in which the concealed lighting caught the waves in her honey-coloured hair.
“It isn’t money,” Milly said. “I want a job.”
“What!” Bland stared at her. “You, a musical comedy star, wanting a job?”
“My contract’s run out, and nobody wants to renew it. I’m one of those girls who spend as they go and now I— Well, I have to stay alive, haven’t I?”
Bland set his jaw. “Nobody can kick you around like that, Milly! I’ll get you into a new production if I have to buy up a chain of theatres to do it—”
“But I’m getting tired of the stage,” Milly interrupted. “And it’s time I planned for the future.”
“In what way?”
“I suppose we could get married, couldn’t we? Or is that too prosaic? Besides, we wouldn’t be such good friends if we married. I couldn’t stand being your wife and shut up in that big house of yours.”
“Then we’ll not even consider it,” Bland said, who had no intention of marrying his latest infatuation.
“So,” Milly said, smiling again, “I’d like some kind of position in your organisation. There must be room for a little girl like me, surely?”
Bland never mixed business with pleasure. “Afraid not, my dear. My business is scientific, and what do you know about science?”
“But surely everybody doesn’t have to be a scientist, down to the office boy? What about the clerical side? I can’t type or use a computer, but I’d soon learn.”
Bland poured out more champagne whilst he considered; then he asked a question, “Why this decision to get into my organisation?”
Milly raised and lowered a semi-bare shoulder. “Just the way it is. I’d feel safer with you at the head of things.”
“You’d find me very different in business.”
“Not so different, Mort. You’d be nice to me. If you weren’t, it might cause an awful lot of trouble.”
“In what way?”
“Well.…” Milly inspected her immaculate nails. “We have had moments that wouldn’t sound so good in print, haven’t we? And you have written me letters. The dirt rakers are just waiting to throw mud at a famous personality like you, Mort.”
“Polite blackmail, eh?” Bland’s steel-trap mouth set hard for a moment, then he relaxed. “And how damned right you are! I don’t blame you, Milly, because not being a saint myself, I can see how you look at it. All right—what sort of a job do you want in my organisation?”
“Personal secretary.”
“Can’t be done, my dear. Miss Hawkins has been with me for twenty-five years.”
“Then it’s time she went. I’ve seen the old hag. I should think she frightens away more business than she brings.”
“She’s indispensable,” Bland temporized.
“Nobody’s that. Get rid of her.”
Milly finished her champagne and looked at Bland steadily with her sapphire blue eyes. Her smile had gone. Her red lips were set in a firm line. Her beautiful face was like marble.
“All right,” Bland said, shrugging. “I’ll manage something.”
“Good!” Milly smiled again. “You see, Mort, our association works both ways. I’ve given you plenty up to now, and naturally there are other rewards I want besides the presents you give me. Not marriage or anything dull like that—just a comfortable job with a good salary of, say.…” She paused, and then named a high figure.
Bland jumped visibly. “What!”
“To commence with,” Milly amended. “A personal secretary has a lot of responsibility.”
“But it’s preposterous! Miss Hawkins doesn’t get anything like that.”
“Look at Miss Hawkins—then at me,” Milly suggested. “I’ll add glamour to the place.”
Bland was silent. His reputation must be kept undefiled at all costs: so much depended on it. He spent a few seconds cursing himself for a fool for not having been more careful in his lighter moments.
He
