Towards Zero by Agatha Christie

furnishing of the room was subordinated to it. The effect was terrific and only slightly marred by the unavoidable addition of Lord Cornelly himself, an insignificant and rotund little man completely dwarfed by the desk’s magnificence.
    Into this scene of City splendour there entered a blonde secretary, also in harmony with the luxury furnishings.
    Gliding silently across the floor, she laid a slip of paper before the great man.
    Lord Cornelly peered down at it.
    â€œMacWhirter? MacWhirter? Who’s he? Never heard of him. Has he got an appointment?”
    The blonde secretary indicated that such was the case.
    â€œMacWhirter, eh? Oh! MacWhirter! That fellow! Of course! Send him in. Send him in at once.”
    Lord Cornelly chuckled gleefully. He was in high good-humour.
    Throwing himself back in his chair, he stared up into the dour unsmiling face of the man he had summoned to an interview.
    â€œYou’re MacWhirter, eh? Angus MacWhirter?”
    â€œThat’s my name.”
    MacWhirter spoke stiffly, standing erect and unsmiling.
    â€œYou were with Herbert Clay? That’s right, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes.”
    Lord Cornelly began to chuckle again.
    â€œI know all about you. Clay got his driving licence endorsed, all because you wouldn’t back him up and swear he was going at twenty miles an hour! Livid about it he was!” The chuckle increased. “Told us all about it in the Savoy Grill. ‘That damned pig-headed Scot!’ That’s what he said! Went on and on. D’you know what I was thinking?”
    â€œI’ve not the least idea.”
    MacWhirter’s tone was repressive. Lord Cornelly took no notice. He was enjoying his remembrance of his own reactions.
    â€œI thought to myself: ‘That’s the kind of chap I could do with! Man who can’t be bribed to tell lies.’ You won’t have to tell lies for me. I don’t do my business that way. I go about the world looking for honest men—and there are damned few of them!”
    The little peer cackled with shrill laughter, his shrewd monkeylike face wrinkled with mirth. MacWhirter stood solidly, not amused.
    Lord Cornelly stopped laughing. His face became shrewd, alert.
    â€œIf you want a job MacWhirter, I’ve got one for you.”
    â€œI could do with a job,” said MacWhirter.
    â€œIt’s an important job. It’s a job that can only be given to a man with good qualifications—you’ve got those all right—I’ve been into that—and to a man who can be trusted—absolutely.”
    Lord Cornelly waited. MacWhirter did not speak.
    â€œWell, man, can I depend upon you absolutely?”
    MacWhirter said dryly:
    â€œYou’ll not know that from hearing me answer that of course you can.”
    Lord Cornelly laughed.
    â€œYou’ll do. You’re the man I’ve been looking for. Do you know South America at all?”
    He went into details. Half an hour later MacWhirter stood on the pavement, a man who had landed an interesting and extremely well-paid job—and a job that promised a future.
    Fate, after having frowned, had chosen to smile upon him. But he was in no mood to smile back. There was no exultation in him, though his sense of humour was grimly tickled when he thought back over the interview. There was a stern poetic justice in the fact that it was his former employer’s diatribes against him that had actually got him his present advancement!
    He was a fortunate man, he supposed. Not that he cared! He was willing to address himself to the task of living, not with enthusiasm, not even with pleasure, but in a methodical day after day spirit. Seven months ago, he had attempted to take his own life; chance, and nothing but chance, had intervened, but he was not particularly grateful. True, he felt no present disposition to do away with himself. That phase was over for good. You could not, he admitted, take your life in cold blood.