Tammy’s Reviews > Murder Must Advertise > Status Update

Once she found a two-pound note on Ingleby’s floor. She also found the onyx scarab at the foot of the stairs when Dean fell. The odd thing is that it was in the same spot as a pebble she found in the same spot a few days earlier. He shows her a pebble to see if it’s the same. It is! He found it on the roof where the boys exercise. They can only do it at half-past eight for twenty minutes.

People think of illustrations not words when it comes to advertising. Clients com up with the wackiest ideas for products and ad campaigns. It sometimes makes them laugh at the silliness. BD works in his office with zeal and is interrupted by the cleaning lady. They start talking about things that people throw out. She says they go through the trash which is paper because someone might toss out something important.

Willis threatens to go to the party and BD is all smiles. He does ask where Willis was when VD fell down the stairs: the lavatory. At the office, more gossip and innuendo concerning the recipient of a letter from Tallboy whom they allege to have a harem. He calls them buttinskis because it’s a business contact. It’s an occupational hazard because copy-writers always ask personal questions to capture attention.

Busted! She leaves so they catch a cab back to work. BD acts like he didn’t realize they had once been friends. Willis warns BD not to get Pamela mixed up in his sordid affairs. BD asks if he will get his neck broken like Dean’s? Willis gives a veiled threat so BD asks what business it is of his. BD points out that Willis makes a poor detective and tells him about their dinner plans and invites Willis.

He sees BD handing her a small object. He can’t hear because the waiter asks a questions about his order. He’s frustrated by people who block his view as well as the monstrous portions and the chatty waiter. The couple clears out and he hears Pamela talking about a fancy dress and slipping in. He uses a newspaper as cover but cannot hear more than that. As she and BD leaves, BD pops his head over the paper. LOL

Willis decides to follow them (more gossip for the secretary) so he gets in the cab behind their cab and says, “Follow them.” The only thing he heard while tailing them was that she was surprised to get BD’s letter. There’s a reference to an Edgar Wallace detective novel (Sayers did not care for him). The chase was lacklaster. He takes a table next to theirs but he cannot here them because of the crowd.

Pamela sees people she knows and sees people she does not know: an opportunity for Sayers to describe how characters look. When she and Willis see each other there is a brief glance and immediate coolness. The secretary notes it. DB arrives and tells her she should not have come. Then he says something to Willis. Ouch. He tells her that he works out of her brother’s office and he has things for her. They go to lunch.

Dr. M talks a lot about how in the early 1900s doctors and nurses relied on cocaine to keep up with their hectic workload. They were in major denial about the harm and addictiveness. In 1910, 5,000 Americans died of cocaine abuse. Freud used and prescribed it until one of his patients died. There was a mention of the bright young things in the conversation. That lot guzzled alcohol; some abused drugs.

DB turns down a non-alcholic tonic; Ingleby gives the most subversive MAHA quote of the book, going well with my anti-UPC mood right now. Then he goes to the awful things we do to skin, and it turns out now that a little dirt memes the immune system. Are the lightning flash and thunder crash a warning about fooling with Mother Nature? He thinks Willis knows something and asks more questions about him and Dean.