Send for Paul Temple

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First published in Great Britain by

LONG 1938

Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1938

All rights reserved

Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008125523

Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780008125530

Version: 2015-06-01

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

CHAPTER I: Conference at Scotland Yard

CHAPTER II: Paul Temple

CHAPTER III: Death of a Detective

CHAPTER IV: Again the Green Finger

CHAPTER V: Room 7

CHAPTER VI: The Knave of Diamonds

CHAPTER VII: The Shaping of a Mystery

CHAPTER VIII: A Message From Scotland Yard!

CHAPTER IX: Smash-and-Grab!

CHAPTER X: Comparing Notes

CHAPTER XI: Murder at Scotland Yard

CHAPTER XII: The Plan

CHAPTER XIII: A Present From the Knave!

CHAPTER XIV: Behind the Scenes

CHAPTER XV: The Wristlet Watch

CHAPTER XVI: Going Down!

CHAPTER XVII: The Secret of the Lift

CHAPTER XVIII: The Commissioner’s Orders

CHAPTER XIX: Steve Vanishes!

CHAPTER XX: At the Inn

CHAPTER XXI: The First Penguin

CHAPTER XXII: Ludmilla

CHAPTER XXIII: A Surprise for Temple

CHAPTER XXIV: Recovery and Escape

CHAPTER XXV: Amelia Victoria Bellman

CHAPTER XXVI: Horace and the Bridge

CHAPTER XXVII: Conspiracy

CHAPTER XXVIII: The Message

CHAPTER XXIX: The Meeting Is Adjourned

CHAPTER XXX: Even If It’s the Commissioner!

CHAPTER XXXI: Enter the Knave!

CHAPTER XXXII: And Exit the Knave!

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

CHAPTER I

Conference at Scotland Yard

‘Superintendent Harvey and Inspector Dale, sir!’

‘All right, Sergeant, you can go. Let me have the map some time before noon.’

Sir Graham Forbes, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, stood up to greet the new arrivals. He was a tall man with iron-grey hair and a sparse figure. Even the black coat and striped trousers, which gave him the appearance of a City stockbroker, could not conceal that his early career had been spent with the Army. He contrasted strangely with the two men who now came into his office at Scotland Yard.

Dale was a man of medium height and build who always seemed unhappy and helpless without his bowler hat, and the umbrella which nobody ever remembered seeing unfurled.

The superintendent was a full head taller. He was a man of mighty frame whose bronzed face might have made the casual stranger mistake him for the more successful type of farmer. But he possessed a fund of wisdom and mellow humour, coupled with an astuteness that he would reveal in some urbane remark, that few farmers possessed.

Superintendent Harvey and Chief Inspector Dale had been placed in charge of the mysterious robberies, the size and scope of which had literally staggered the country. It was now their unpleasant task to give the Commissioner an account of yet another mysterious robbery which had occurred in Birmingham only a few hours before.

‘It’s the same gang, sir!’ Chief Inspector Dale was saying. He spoke quietly, but the calm, clear note of efficiency sounded in his voice. ‘There’s no question of it. £8,000 worth of diamonds.’

The Commissioner looked worried. Monocle in hand, he strode backwards and forwards across the heavily carpeted room.

‘The night watchman is dead, sir!’ Superintendent Harvey added.

‘Dead?’ There was no mistaking the surprise in Sir Graham’s’ voice.

‘Yes.’

‘The poor devil was chloroformed,’ Dale explained. ‘I don’t think they meant to kill him. According to the doctor, he was gassed during the War, and his lungs were pretty groggy.’

The news had not put Sir Graham in the best of tempers. ‘This is bad, Dale!’ he said irritably. ‘Bad!’ he repeated with emphasis.

‘He was a new man,’ said Harvey. ‘He’d only been with Stirling’s a month or so.’

‘Did you check up on him?’

‘Yes. His name was Rogers. “Lefty” Rogers. He was working at Stirling’s under the name of Dixon.’

The hint in the superintendent’s words, and the inflexion of his voice was not lost on the Commissioner.

‘Had he a record?’ he asked.

‘He’d a record all right! Everything from petty larceny to blackmail,’ Chief Inspector Dale informed him.

The Commissioner grunted.

‘Inspector Merritt was already on the job when we arrived, sir,’ said Harvey.

‘Inspector Merritt? Oh, yes.’ The Commissioner paused. ‘Who discovered the robbery in the first place?’

‘One of the constables on night duty,’ answered Inspector Dale. ‘A man called Finley. He noticed the side door had been forced open. At least, that’s his story!’ he added, with a queer note in his voice.

‘You don’t believe him?’

‘No,’ Dale replied decisively. ‘I think he was in the habit of having a chat with Rogers, or Dixon—whichever you like to call him. In fact, he almost admitted as much. The night watchman used to make coffee, and I rather think P.C. Finley has—er—a liking for coffee.’

The Commissioner appeared to think over the significance of what Dale had told him. ‘Do you think he knew Dixon was an ex-convict?’ he asked at last.

Dale hesitated a fraction before he answered. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘This is the fourth robbery in two months, Dale!’ the Commissioner said impatiently, and took a cigarette from the small ivory box on his desk.

‘There wasn’t a mark on the safe,’ Inspector Dale said quietly. ‘If it hadn’t been for the other robberies, I’d have sworn this was an inside job.’

‘What did Merritt have to say?’ asked Forbes.

Dale seemed amused. ‘He’s in a complete daze, poor devil. He’d got some fancy sort of theory about a huge criminal organization. I think Inspector Merritt has a rather theatrical imagination!’ he added, with a smile which had some slight measure of contempt behind it.

‘You don’t think we’re up against a criminal organization, then?’ the Commissioner asked.

‘Good heavens, no! Criminal organizations are all very well between the pages of a novel, sir, but when it comes to real life, well, they just don’t exist!’

Sir Graham Forbes grunted. ‘Is that your opinion too, Harvey?’ he asked, turning to where Harvey was sitting on the other side of his desk.

‘To be perfectly honest, Sir Graham, I’m rather inclined to agree with Merritt.’ Dale looked at him with obvious surprise, but Harvey continued: ‘At first I thought we were up against the usual crowd who were having an uncanny run of good luck,’ he said, ‘but now I’m rather inclined to think otherwise. You see, in the first place, there are certain aspects of this business which, to my way of thinking, indicate the existence of a really super mind. A man with an unusual flair for criminal organization. I know it sounds fantastic, and all that, sir! I feel rather reluctant to believe it myself, but we must face the facts, and the facts are pretty grim!’

He paused, but Sir Graham nodded, as a sign for him to continue.

‘First there was the case of Smithson’s of Gloucester. £17,000 worth of stuff. Then there was the Leicester business, £9,000 worth. Then there was the Derby affair, £4,000. And mark you, we had the Derby shop covered. We were, in fact, prepared for the raid. But that didn’t stop it from happening. Then, on top of everything else, there’s this affair in Birmingham, £8,000 worth of diamonds.

‘No, Sir Graham, if we were up against the usual crowd, Benny Lever, “Dopey” Crowman, “Spilly” Stetson, we’d have had ’em under lock and key ages ago. I firmly believe, Sir Graham, that we are up against one of the greatest criminal organizations in Europe!’

Harvey had been carried away by his rising excitement as he recalled the details of the mysterious robberies. Sir Graham had been listening intently, making an occasional note on a pad on his desk. A slight smile of amusement on Dale’s face had given place to the utmost seriousness as Harvey continued with his dramatic recital.

‘Where was the night watchman when this fellow—er— Finley, discovered him?’ the Commissioner asked at last.

‘In his usual spot, sir,’ Dale answered. ‘He had a tiny office at the back of the shop.’

‘I suppose you questioned Finley?’

‘Good Lord, yes, sir!’ replied Harvey emphatically. ‘I was with him almost an hour.’

‘Did you see the night watchman, Dale, before he died?’

‘No, sir, but Harvey did.’

‘Well, Harvey?’

‘He was pretty groggy when I saw him,’ the Superintendent said. ‘The doctor wouldn’t let me stay above a couple of minutes.’

‘Did he say anything?’

‘Yes,’ said Harvey quietly, ‘as a matter of fact, he did.’

Superintendent Harvey spoke strangely, and both the Commissioner and Chief Inspector Dale directed puzzled looks at him.

‘Well, what did he say?’ the Commissioner demanded.

‘It was just as I was on the verge of leaving.… He turned over on his side and mumbled a few words. They sounded almost incoherent at the time. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until a minute or so later that I realized what he’d said—’

As he broke off, the Commissioner became more and more impatient.

‘Well, what did he say, Harvey?’

Quietly the superintendent replied. ‘He said: “The Green Finger”!’

‘The Green Finger…’ said Dale.

‘Yes.’

‘But—but that doesn’t make sense.’

‘Just a minute, Dale,’ said the Commissioner, deep in thought. ‘You remember that man we fished out of the river about a month ago. We thought he might have had something to do with that job at Leicester. I think you found his print on part of—’

Dale interrupted him. ‘Oh, yes! “Snipey” Jackson. I was with Lawrence at the time we found him. The poor devil was floating down the river like an empty sack.’ He paused, then suddenly exclaimed: ‘I say…don’t you remember? Don’t you remember what he said just before he died? I’m sure I’m right! Why—’

‘He said, “The Green Finger”!’ The Commissioner spoke slowly, emphasizing each syllable.

‘Yes,’ repeated Dale, ‘“The Green Finger”.’

‘The—the same as the night watchman,’ added Harvey. ‘But—what is this Green Finger? What does it mean?’

‘That, my dear Superintendent,’ replied the Commissioner with dry humour, ‘is one of the many things we are here to find out.’

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that “Snipey” Jackson was tied up with that Leicester job,’ said Dale. ‘Henderson found two of his fingerprints on one of the show-cases.’

‘Yes,’ replied Sir Graham. ‘I reckon that was the reason why you and Lawrence had the pleasure of fishing him out of the Thames. The people we are up against know how to deal with incompetence; that’s one thing I’ll say for them!’

‘Sir Graham,’ asked Dale slowly, ‘do you believe the same as Harvey and Inspector Merritt, that we are up against a definite criminal organization?’

Sir Graham got up and walked to the fireplace. There he stood with his back to the glowing flames while Dale and Harvey swung round in their chairs until they faced him again. For some time he said nothing. Then at last, he seemed to have made up his mind.

‘Yes, I do, Dale!’ he said quietly.

‘I suppose you’ve seen the newspapers, Sir Graham?’ It was Harvey who asked the question.

A faint flush spread over the Commissioner’s cheeks. The subject seemed to irritate him. ‘Yes!’ he snapped impatiently. ‘Yes, I’ve seen them. “Send for Paul Temple”! “Why doesn’t Scotland Yard send for Paul Temple?” They even had placards out about the fellow. The Press have been very irritating over this affair. Very irritating!’

‘Paul Temple,’ said Dale thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t he the novelist chap who helped us over the Tenworthy murder?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he caught old Tenworthy!’ Dale went on. ‘I’ll say that for him.’ Suddenly he turned towards the superintendent. ‘He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he, Harvey?’

‘I know him,’ said Harvey.

‘Temple is just an ordinary amateur criminologist,’ said Sir Graham Forbes, with a vast amount of scorn in his voice. ‘He had a great deal of luck over the Tenworthy affair and a great deal of excellent publicity for his novels.’

Superintendent Harvey was inclined to doubt this. ‘I don’t think Paul Temple exactly courted publicity, Sir Graham,’ he said quietly.

‘Don’t be a fool, Harvey, of course he did! All these amateurs thrive on publicity!’

‘Well, you must admit, Sir Graham,’ laughed Dale, ‘we were a little relieved to see the last of the illusive Mr. Tenworthy!’

‘Yes!’ exclaimed Sir Graham. ‘And just at the moment, I should be considerably relieved to hear the last of Mr. Paul Temple. Ever since this confounded business started, people have been bombarding us with letters— “Send for Paul Temple!”’ His tones, impatient and bitter to start with, had gradually worked up into a fury. But he was prevented from going any further. As he finished his sentence, the door opened and Sergeant Leopold, his personal attendant, appeared. The Commissioner looked round, angry at being disturbed.

‘What is it, sergeant?’ he asked.

‘The map, sir,’ Sergeant Leopold replied. ‘Remember you asked me to—’

‘Oh, yes,’ the Commissioner interrupted him.

‘Put it on the desk, sergeant.’

Sergeant Leopold cleared a space on the fully loaded desk, and left the room. Instead of continuing his heated discussion the Commissioner opened the map and spread it flat over the top of his desk.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said, as the two officers stood up and bent over it. ‘This is a map covering the exact area in which, so far, the criminals have confined their activities.’ He pointed to the circles, and other marks, which had been neatly inscribed in the Map Room at Scotland Yard. ‘You will see the towns which have already been affected. Gloucester, Leicester, Derby, and Birmingham.’ He pointed to each of the four places in turn. ‘The map, as you see, starts at Nottingham and comes as far south as Gloucester…covering, in fact, the entire Midlands.’

The Commissioner stood back from the table. He flourished his hand with all the emphasis he might have used in addressing a large and important gathering.

‘Gentlemen, somewhere in that area are the headquarters of the greatest criminal organization in Europe. That organization must be smashed!’

CHAPTER II

Paul Temple

The press of the country had seized on the idea of a mysterious gang holding the Midlands in its grasp, and were making the most of it. Both Spanish and Chinese War news had begun to grow wearisome. Moreover, news editors found it both difficult and tedious to try to follow the latest moves. Only an occasional heavy bombardment, the capture of a big city, or the sinking of a British ship could now be sure of reaching the front pages.

The mere killing of hundreds of men a day had long ceased to be news. There had not even been a really good murder story for months, and editors were falling back on such hardy annuals as Gretna Green and the ‘cat’ for their very large and strident headlines.

Then suddenly, out of the blue, the ‘Midland Mysteries’ arrived. The circulations of the evening papers immediately reached heights no national or international crisis could produce. Special investigators made their special investigations and produced lengthy summaries of what they had not been able to find out. Articles appeared by well-known psychologists, judges, the Chairman of the Howard League for Penal Reform, and Mr. George Bernard Shaw.

Every newspaper produced different theories and suggested different methods of apprehending the criminals. One ran a competition for readers’ solutions. It was won by Mr. Ronald Garth, a Battersea bricklayer, who was convinced, in no very certain grammar or spelling, that the crimes were a put-up job and part of a new attempt to foster interest in A.R.P. He received a cheque for 10s. 6d.

On one point, however, all the newspapers were agreed. The urgent necessity of sending for Mr. Paul Temple. ‘Send for Paul Temple’ became almost a national slogan.

His name appeared on almost every poster in the city. His photograph was blazoned from the fronts of buses.

Scotland Yard remained quiet and merely writhed in exquisite agony. They did not enjoy the ‘Send for Paul Temple’ campaign. Nor did they enjoy reading the letters which reached them by the hundred every day instructing them, in the public’s interest, to—Send for Paul Temple!

All this publicity, however, was not without its value, for booksellers very quickly reported high sales for Paul Temple’s detective stories, and one of the more lurid of Sunday newspapers, hoping to scoop the rest, commissioned an article by Mr. Temple on the growing rat menace in Britain and paid him the record sum of £1,000 for it. Unhappily for them, on the day it appeared, another equally lurid Sunday newspaper published an article by Mr. Temple on the growing spy menace in Britain, which he had written five years before and for which he received £4 14s. 6d. after his agent, overjoyed at selling the ancient manuscript, had deducted his usual 25 per cent commission.

It had taken Paul Temple six years to rise from the dark obscurity of an unknown author to the limelight of a popular novelist. On coming down from Oxford he applied for a newspaper job and eventually became a reporter on one of the great London dailies. After twelve months of writing everything from gossip paragraphs to sports reports he became interested in criminology, and eventually started to specialise in ‘crime’ stories.

While still in Fleet Street, he tried his hand at the drama, and in 1929 his play, Dance, Little Lady, was produced at the Ambassadors Theatre. It ran for seven performances. In a fit of irritation, caused through the unexpected failure of his play, Paul Temple started his first thriller.

Death In The Theatre! appeared early the following year. It achieved a phenomenal success, and Paul Temple promptly left Fleet Street.

Oddly enough, Temple very quickly acquired a reputation as a criminologist. From time to time he had been asked by popular papers to investigate some sensational crime on their behalf. Thus, although it is not generally known, it was Paul Temple who was really responsible for the arrest of such notorious criminals as Toni Silepi, Guy Grinzman, and Tessa Jute.

On the subject of the present crimes, however, Paul Temple refused to be drawn. To the reporters who called to see him, he was invariably out of town. No telephone number or address could possibly be given. He was thought to be travelling in the Ukraine.

Several energetic reporters, however, went so far as to set up camp stools outside the big block of service flats in Golder’s Green where he stayed when in London. The only vacant flat in the building had already been engaged on a year’s lease at a rental of £460 (inclusive) by the Queen Newspaper Syndicate of America!

Meanwhile other reporters and photographers patrolled the grounds of Bramley Lodge, Paul Temple’s country house not far from Evesham.

Bramley Lodge was an extensive old Elizabethan house which Paul Temple had secured at a very low figure owing to its poor condition. He had managed to have it partially rebuilt without completely ruining the beautiful façade, the old oak beams and other ancient features of the building. In addition, central heating had been installed, tennis courts laid, and a rather delightful rockery planned. Altogether, Paul Temple had contrived to make Bramley Lodge a very comfortable place.

All these alterations had done nothing to spoil it, and Paul Temple was often asked by artist friends (and strangers) as well as photographers, for permission to make some permanent record of the lovely old mansion. Only to Surrealists did he refuse.

The house was set in the middle of a large park with a drive fringed by luxurious old beech trees to the main Warwick Road below. About the exact size of his grounds, Temple felt rather dubious. He had bought a half-inch Ordnance Survey map only a few weeks before and by dint of laborious calculation and lengthy use of compasses and dividers, discovered that he possessed eighty-five acres of very pleasant land. But his confidence in his own mathematical knowledge was not exactly great. (‘When I was at Rugby, my marks for mathematics used to be 8 per cent with the most monotonous regularity,’ he used to tell his friends.) He had not yet remembered to pass the problem on to more mathematically minded friends and as in addition, all the papers concerning the estate were ‘locked away somewhere’, he had only very vague ideas about his own property.

On the Monday, two days after the conference at Scotland Yard, Dr. Milton and his niece, Diana Thornley, neighbours of the novelist, had succeeded in penetrating the cordon of newspapermen and were now sitting in the comfortable drawing-room of Bramley Lodge.