Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of it to do at the time. I’d tried to drum up business a few weeks earlier by placing an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, but Ernie had been furious with me for doing so. Which made no sense, since the ad had worked. Why, even Mrs. Persephone Chalmers had hired him as a result of that ad, darn it. Hmm. Maybe the ad hadn’t been such a great idea, after all. At any rate, Ernie was out gallivanting with a client, and I was left with nothing to do. Although the advertisement had helped secure a few new paying customers, it hadn’t garnered us enough work to keep me busy eight hours a day, five days a week. Therefore, I dusted off my desk and polished the brass plaque declaring my name to be Miss Allcutt, and washed the windows using my very own packet of Bon Ami. I’d bought the Bon Ami because Mrs. Biddle, Chloe’s housekeeper, used it at Chloe’s house. Then, although they didn’t really need it, I straightened and dusted the pictures on the wall—pictures I’d added to the formerly colorless office myself, I might add—and repositioned the rug I’d also bought.
