The porter stopped so quickly that the case struck his knee.
"My receipt," I said from the landing. "I was told you had it."
He looked up the service stair. One hand stayed on the rail; the other held a leather case with several paper packets showing above the flap. I had expected a man going somewhere with one sheet of paper. There seemed to be half an office in there.
"From the travel desk, my lord?"
"Yes."
He started back up. I went down two steps to meet him, then realized there wasn't room for us to pass or for him to open the case. We stood looking at each other until he backed down to the wider landing below.
This morning I had sent the applicant's copy from the supply office to the travel desk. I wanted to know whether I would need it when the road allowance was drawn. The answer had been no: keep the itemized receipt, present the allowance authorization when the booking was ready. Useful, straightforward information. By the time I arrived to collect the paper, it had been sent somewhere else.
The clerk had pointed me toward the service stair.
"It should have come back to me," I said.
The porter rested the case on a ledge, keeping one arm through its strap. He opened the flap and took out a packet. Then another. His thumb left a crease in the corner of the second, and he tried to smooth it before I could see.
"I haven't delivered any of the upper-floor returns yet."
"Then it will still be there."
He nodded and kept looking. Each packet had a destination on the back. He put them against the wall in order, with his elbow barring the narrow strip where I might have helped. I stood on the other side of the ledge and let my breathing settle. Coming down the stairs hadn't seemed like exertion until I stopped.
He found my copy near the bottom.
I knew it by the first stroke of the signature, the one I had begun with the wrong hand. Under it were the two linen rolls, the plain salve and the work gloves, all as carefully entered as before.
"This one."
The porter turned it over. Above the travel clerk's reply, in my own handwriting, I had written: Return: supply office.
I stared at the words.
When I'd written the routing note, I had looked at the heading on the receipt. That was where it had come from. Apparently that had been sufficient reason to send it back there.
"I was taking the returns down with the office packet," he said.
"Yes. I see."
"I can fetch it back once it's entered, if—"
"You don't have to deliver it. It's mine."
His hand stayed on the paper.
Somewhere below us, a door opened onto the yard. A man called a question up the stair. The porter leaned over the rail and called back that he was still on the upper delivery. Then he looked at me, waiting.
"What?" I asked.
"Would you mark that you've taken it, my lord? Otherwise they'll ask me where the return is."
I had been about to walk away with it and leave the same problem in a different place.
There was a writing shelf on the landing, just wide enough for a book, with a pen hanging from a loop above the ink. I put the receipt on it. The porter moved the other packets into his case while I tried to pull off the right glove.
It was the soft pair, with the linen loose underneath. I could have carried a light cup in it. Getting hold of a pen was another matter. I eased the cuff over the heel of my hand, stopped before tugging the finger and worked the leather forward a little at a time.
"I can bring another copy up after the next round," the porter said.
He was looking at the stair, not at my hand.
"You don't need another copy."
"No, my lord."
I crossed out the return destination and wrote that I had taken the receipt back. Then I initialed the correction. My writing crowded the clerk's answer, but there was enough room to leave it legible.
"That was my direction," I said, tapping the crossed-out words. "You followed it."
The porter bent to read the alteration. He took a folded route sheet from the case and made a small mark beside one of its entries, using the same pen after I had put it down.
"Do they need to see this?" I asked.
"I've marked the handover."
He fitted the packets back beneath the flap. From the yard, the man called again, less patiently this time.
"A moment," I said.
The porter's hands stopped on the fastening.
I had meant to ask which way I should take to avoid climbing the whole stair again. Instead I looked past him at the door below, where the other man had appeared with a wooden tally in his hand.
"You have somewhere else to be?"
"The lower stores. My relief is waiting to leave."
I could have asked for an escort. I could have sent him back up with the receipt while I went another way. His hand was already around the case strap, and neither would get me back to my room much sooner.
"Go on."
He waited long enough to make sure I had finished, then went down. I heard him answer the man in the doorway. There was no explanation of me, only the number of packets still to deliver.
I folded the receipt with its correction inward and put it inside my coat. The glove was still in my left hand. I rested it on the ledge while I drew it on, then returned the pen to its loop.
By the time I turned toward the lower door, the two men were gone. I tried the handle and found the yard latch had been fastened from the other side.
The upper stairs were clear. I went back the way I had come, slowly enough that I didn't need to stop on the next landing.