Read Online Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers - Free Book Online Page A

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 [Pg 52] 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 [Pg 53] 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?”
    “Damned if I know. Why?”
    “Headline for Sanfect. Could I say, at a guess, ninety million? It sounds a good round number. 'Ninety Million Open Doors by which Germs can Enter–Lock Those Doors with Sanfect.' Sounds convincing, don't you think? Here's another: 'Would you Leave your Child in a Den of Lions?' That ought to get the mothers.”
    “It'd make a good sketch–Hullo! here comes the storm and no mistake.”
    A flash of lightning and a tremendous crack of thunder broke without warning directly over their heads.
    “I expected it,” said Bredon. “That's why I did my roof-walk.”
    “How do you mean, that's why?”
    “I was on the look-out for it,” explained Bredon. “Well, it's here. Phew! that was a good one. I do adore thunder-storms. By the way, what has Willis got up against me?”
    Ingleby frowned and