FRANCIS DURBRIDGE
Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

Hodder & Stoughton 1957

Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1957

All rights reserved

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Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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: 9780008252908

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008252915

Version: 2017-06-29

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

By the Same Author

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

Chapter One

At about ten-thirty on a Thursday evening in early May a prowl car of the Oxford Constabulary was patrolling the Chipping Norton road a few miles outside the city. There had been complaints of wild driving on this fast section during the lurid period immediately after the closing of the pubs.

Sergeant Long turned his Austin a few hundred yards past the Welsh Harp and began to motor decorously back towards Oxford. Only a few weeks earlier the landlord of the Welsh Harp had been warned for serving customers after the prescribed hour. He had made sure of emptying his premises in good time that night. The parking space out in front was already empty, and through the uncurtained windows the two policemen could see the proprietor and his barmaid as they moved among the deserted tables collecting the empties.

‘Not much doing tonight,’ Long remarked to the constable at his side.

‘Pay day tomorrow,’ Benson answered briefly. He was a man of deep thoughts and few words; he spoke in a curiously oblique way which implied more than he actually said.

Three miles further on, a signpost with the words Lay-by swam up into the headlights. As they passed the bay at the side of the road Benson screwed up his eyes to note the number of the solitary saloon car parked there.

‘4006 JDR.’

He repeated the number aloud and switched on the light which illuminated his message pad.

‘Same number, all right.’

Long had already applied the brakes. Both men had memorised the number as belonging to one of the cars stolen in Oxford that evening. He put the Austin into reverse and with one arm laid along the back of Benson’s seat, manœuvred the police car back into the lay-by. Before he had stopped with his bumpers almost touching those of the stolen car Benson was out on the roadway.

The now abandoned saloon was a black Jaguar Mark VII. It was complete and undamaged. Benson opened the door, felt for the light switch and turned on the side-lights. Immediately he did so the interior light came on. Benson sniffed. His sensitive non-smoker’s nostrils had detected a whiff of woman’s perfume. He noted the ignition key still in the slot, the neatly folded travelling rug that lay undisturbed on the seat beside the driver.

‘What’s up?’ Long called from the police car. ‘No ignition key, I suppose.’

‘Key’s there, all right.’

To Benson’s tidy mind something about the situation did not make sense. Cars were frequently ‘borrowed’ by young men who could find no other way of arranging an hour’s privacy with their girl friends. But if that were the case it was unlikely that the rug would have preserved its immaculate neatness. And how had the pair gone home? Surely they would not drive out of Oxford for the mere pleasure of walking back again. There were no houses close by to which they could have gone. A thought struck Benson and he checked the petrol gauge. The tank was still half full.

For no particular reason he walked slowly round the Mark VII. It happened that at this moment a pair of sports cars came racing up the road at full-speed – an Austin-Healey pursued by a Triumph. For a few seconds their brilliant lights floodlit the rear of the Jaguar and in that time Benson’s eye was caught by a minute triangle of green at the edge of the luggage compartment lid. It was dark again before he could grip the chromium handle and open the lid. Instantly an automatic light came on inside the compartment, and at the same time the scent of perfume became stronger. The light illuminated the body of a young woman lying huddled on the corrugated rubber flooring. She was dressed as if she had changed to go out for the evening – a green ballet length dress, small handbag, necklace and bracelet to match, court shoes. Round her neck was a colourful silk scarf picturing well-known views of Paris. Benson, though he had never been there, recognised the base of the Eiffel Tower, the pillars of the Madeleine and the façade of the Opera. This scarf, instead of being folded casually round the girl’s throat, had been knotted with savage tightness at the back of her neck. One look at her face was enough to show Benson that she had been strangled.

Carefully he closed the lid of the boot and walked to Sergeant Long’s window.

‘You and I aren’t going to get much sleep tonight, Sergeant.’

Steve Temple stood in front of the fireplace in her new drawing-room and tried to see it with the eyes of someone coming in for the first time. Did it look too much of a mixture? She and Paul had tried very hard to avoid the impersonal effect of a room which had been ‘done’ by one of the fashionable interior decorators. Since it was they themselves who were going to live in the flat they had decided to decorate and furnish it according to their own personal tastes. If George II had to rub shoulders with Louis XIV, then that was just too bad.

It was barely a week since the Temples had moved into the Eaton Square flat. For months before that they had been brooding over wallpapers and pastel shades, selecting carpets and the additional pieces of furniture needed for the more spacious rooms of their new residence. Yet when the carpets had been laid and each article had been moved into its predestined position everything seemed just a little uneasy. Gradually, during the past week, the correct place for every chair, table or cabinet had revealed itself to them. The flat was at last beginning to look like a home, but the result was that both Temple and Steve had itching fingers. They could not leave things alone. Now, before she could check herself, Steve moved impulsively to transfer a bowl of flowers from the top of a tallboy to a low occasional table.

She was studying the effect with her head on one side when Temple’s key sounded in the door of the flat. She heard it open and then close again with the comforting thud of a mass of mahogany going into place in an eighteen-inch wall. Temple’s footsteps crossed the parquet floor of the hall without pausing and she visualised him throwing his hat onto the hall table as he passed.

As soon as he entered the room she could tell by the expression on his face that the meeting with his agent had turned out successfully. But she knew him too well to expect him to burst out with the news immediately.

‘Hello, Steve.’

He stopped, smiling at her, thinking how well the setting suited her. She had been created to stand against an Adam fireplace under a high ceiling, surrounded by the most skilful achievements of craftsmanship. Almost immediately his eye moved to the Queen Anne card-table standing now between the two tall windows. Steve had moved it there since he had gone out that morning. She studied his face anxiously.

‘How do you think it looks in that position?’

Temple came into the middle of the room, eyeing the table judiciously.

‘That’s the right spot for it. Now that it’s there I can’t imagine why we wanted to put it anywhere else.’

‘I keep moving things and then putting them back again. Paul, do you think there’ll ever come a time when we can say it’s done? Sometimes I wonder if we’ve got the fidgets about the flat.’

Temple nodded towards the empty space above the fireplace.

‘When we find the right picture for that spot we’ll draw the deadline, shall we? Make a rule that we shan’t move anything for a month.’

‘Good idea. Now then. What are you going to have to drink?’

Steve walked to the huge bow-fronted corner cupboard and opened it with a flourish. Inside a light went on and revealed two well-stocked shelves of bottles. Temple stopped with his lighter halfway to his cigarette.

‘By Timothy! There’s enough booze to sink a battleship.’

‘I stocked up this morning. We shall need all this sooner or later and it looks rather gay, doesn’t it? Liqueurs, port and brandy on that shelf, bits and pieces for cocktails down here. What’ll you have?’

‘I’ll have gin and Cinzano, with a strong dash of Angostura bitters.’

While Steve was mixing the drinks, Temple glanced at the paper which Steve had thrown on the sofa. It was open at the page on which the Tyler murder was reported. She handed him his glass, chilled by a marble-sized lump of ice from the baby refrigerator built into the back of the cupboard. Temple met her eyes as he sipped it, toasting her silently.

‘It’s wonderful to be able to get back home so quickly. I was with Watson only a quarter of an hour ago. If we were still living at the old place I’d have probably lunched in town.’

‘How did you get on with Watson?’

Steve tried to make the question sound casual, though she knew that Temple was holding something up his sleeve.

‘How would you like a trip to Paris?’

‘Paul! Do you really mean that?’

‘I do. I’ve sold the film rights on my last book to an American company. They want me to go over to Paris the week after next and meet one of their producers – a chap called Pasterwake.’

‘Darling, how marvellous! I shall be able to buy some new clothes. I haven’t a stitch to my back.’

Steve parked her drink down on the mantelpiece and put her arms round his neck.

‘If you haven’t a stitch to your back,’ Temple retorted, ‘why did you insist on a built-in hanging cupboard running the whole length of your bedroom wall?’

‘Fashions change, darling. Hadn’t you heard about Balmain’s exciting New Line?’

‘And hadn’t you heard about the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s boring old line?’

‘We’ll get around that. This man Pasterwake will be reeking with dollars. You can ask him to give you an advance on the film rights. What day shall we go? We’ll fly, of course. Can we stay at the Pompadour again? I love being near the Champs-Élysées.’

As she talked Steve disengaged herself from Temple and with apparent casualness picked up the paper from the sofa, folded it and pushed it in amongst the other periodicals in the magazine rack. Temple watched her with amusement. He could see perfectly clearly what was going on in her mind.

‘You needn’t bother, Steve. I’ve seen it already.’

‘Seen what, darling—?’

‘The report of the Tyler murder.’

‘The Tyler murder? What’s that?’

Steve knew he had seen through her, but for the sake of appearances she kept up the deception a little longer.

He took the paper out of the rack, found the passage and read it aloud:

‘“Police are still baffled by the case which has already become known as the Tyler Mystery. Blonde, pretty Betty Tyler, aged 24, was found strangled in a stolen car on the outskirts of Oxford the night before last by a police patrol car. Betty worked at the Oxford salon of Mariano, fashionable Mayfair beauty culturist, whence she had recently been transferred from London—”’

‘That’s the Courier,’ interrupted Steve. ‘Have you seen the Echo?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Let me read it to you: “Scotland Yard has been called in by the Chief Constable of Oxford. Interviewed today at the Yard, Sir Graham Forbes denied a report that approaches had been made to Paul Temple, the well-known novelist and criminologist. Knowledgeable observers, however, reaffirm that this case sets precisely the kind of problem in which Temple has so often assisted the police in the past”.’

Temple’s eyes were thoughtful for a moment. Then he knocked his drink back and carried the empty glass to the corner cupboard.

‘That’s just journalistic patter. I’ve no intention of becoming involved in the Tyler affair. We’ve enough on our hands as it is, Steve.’

‘That’s exactly what I think. When I read about this, I felt certain that Sir Graham would ask your help.’

‘So you hid the paper. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice?’

‘Not really.’ Steve grimaced at him impishly. ‘But I don’t want to miss out on that Paris trip.’

‘You won’t. The Tyler case is not going to upset our plans.’

‘I wish I could feel certain about that.’ Steve’s expression had become moody. She fiddled absent-mindedly with the flowers she had arranged in the bowl. ‘I have the funniest feeling that it’s going to upset our plans very much.’

‘You and your intuition! How often does it really mean anything?’

Steve straightened up with a frown of mock sternness.

‘More often than you’re prepared to admit, Mr T.’

The following Wednesday was the first day of summer; not the calendar summer, but the true summer, whose coming is like a thief in the night – no man can foretell it. Temple was glad that his business took him along New Bond Street. The thoroughfare was crisp and gay in the warm morning sunshine. The slow-moving cars sparkled and after a chilly spring every woman worth her salt had come forth in a new summer creation. Even Mayfair Man had reduced his habitual vigilance against the climate. Umbrellas had been left at home and though the bowler could not be discarded without affronting protocol, it was being carried in the hand rather than upon the head. Temple himself had greeted the coming of summer by purchasing half a dozen bow ties at Maddingly’s and had changed into one at the shop.

He called at Justerini and Brooks and over a glass of Conquistador sherry discussed with his wine merchant the vintages which he was going to lay down at the Eaton Square flat. His way back to Berkeley Square, where he had parked the Frazer Nash, took him past Anderson’s Art Gallery. His thoughts were on burgundy and château-bottled clarets and he was almost past the window when he stopped. His eye had been arrested by a splash of Mediterranean colour. He went back slowly and stood studying the picture in the window with half-closed eyes. Though it was the only painting in the window it was displayed rather artificially on an easel and the drapings behind it were distracting. Temple could not easily visualise it on his own drawing-room wall.

On an impulse he walked into the shop. The moment he crossed the threshold he entered a world of decorous coolness and silence. The light in here was subdued after the sunshine outside and his feet were cushioned by a thick carpet of a discreet buff shade. There were pictures everywhere, mostly modern. His eye was attacked by stark Gauginesque jibes at the female form and vivid fantasias on oriental or hispanic landscapes.

‘Good morning, sir.’

The voice might have come from a radio set. It was musical and carefully modulated. Its tone managed to suggest that the speaker was prepared to proffer the courtesy title of Sir to his customers but they must not infer thereby that he was in any sense inferior to them socially. The voice had come from behind Temple. He turned round.

The young man was quite as tall as Temple and met his scrutiny unblinkingly. He wore a very well-tailored suit of dark grey flannel with a horizontal stripe which Temple found a shade too bold. His shirt was of cream silk and the cuffs emerged just the correct distance from his coat sleeve. When he put a hand up to brush back a straying curl from his brow a set of gold cuff-links was displayed, stamped with some unchallengeable crest.

‘Can I show you something, sir?’

‘Yes. I’m interested in that picture you have in the window.’

‘Oh yes? The Kappel study of Port Manech.’

‘I thought it might be a Raoul Dufy.’

‘It’s very much the same style,’ the young man looked at Temple with a little more interest. ‘You like it?’

‘That’s rather hard to say. As a picture I like it very much, but I’m wondering how it will look on the wall of my drawing-room.’

‘That’s easily settled.’ The salesman had evidently decided from the cut of Temple’s jib that he was a customer and not merely a sightseer. ‘We can send it round and you can try it. If you don’t like the picture you have only to notify us and it will be taken away again. No obligation to you at all.’

Seeing that the suggestion did not please Temple as much as most customers, he added: ‘Alternatively I can have it hung in our display-room right away.’

‘I think that’s a better idea.’

The young man spoke the name Tripp on a register only a little above his speaking voice and an old character in a baize apron appeared from the back of the shop.

‘Tripp, will you bring the Kappel that’s in the window into the display-room. If you’ll come this way, sir.’

He led Temple to a three-sided space at the back of the shop. One wall consisted of a number of hinged panels so that the approximate colour of any room could be provided as a background to the picture displayed.

‘What colour is your drawing-room, sir?’

‘Well,’ Temple hesitated, ‘I suppose you’d call it duck-egg blue.’

‘Something like – that?’

‘Near enough.’

The young man offered Temple a cigarette while Tripp laboured by with the picture and hung it on the wall, slightly skew-whiff. Temple refused, but he noted that the cigarette-case was gold and the lighter with which the salesman lit his own Benson and Hedges belonged to the same set.

‘I like it,’ Temple said as soon as he saw the picture on the wall. ‘I can see what’s wrong now. It’s the frame. It would clash with the furniture. Our stuff is mostly antique.’

The other man’s eyebrows rose just a fraction, but he gave no other sign of his opinion of people who mingled modern art with antique furniture. He was too good a salesman. Temple interpreted his expression correctly but ignored it.

‘I’d prefer a slightly more ornate frame. And I think a little depth in the frame would give a more three-dimensional effect to the picture.’

‘Certainly we can change the frame, sir.’ The salesman nodded to the waiting Tripp and led Temple to another section of the shop. After some consideration he selected a grey frame flecked with gilt which gave the stippled effect he was after.

‘It will take a day or two to make the frame, you understand, sir. May we send it to you?’

‘If you would. What’s the price of the picture, by the way?’

‘Forty guineas, sir. We’ll send you the account in due course – and the name and address?’

‘Temple.’

‘Paul Temple?’ The young man glanced quickly up from the pad on which he was writing.

‘That’s right,’ Temple answered with a smile. ‘The address is 127a, Eaton Square.’

‘127a, Eaton Square.’

‘You’ve no idea what day it will be coming?’

‘I can’t say exactly, Mr Temple, but it should be early next week. Say Monday or Tuesday.’

‘The sooner the better.’

The young man had produced his wallet. He selected a visiting card from one of the pockets and handed it to Temple.

‘Just in case there’s any query.’

Temple glanced at the card. It bore the name Stephen Brooks, written clearly in a Sweet Roman Hand, which he took to be a reproduction of the young man’s own calligraphy. He picked up his hat from the table.

‘Thank you for your help, Mr Brooks.’

‘Not at all, sir. I hope I may have the pleasure again some day.’

Even at the time Temple was puzzled by the peculiar emphasis which he placed on these words.

Temple drove himself home, his thoughts so occupied with his purchase that he did not pay any particular attention to the black Humber parked a little way down the street from his own entrance. He let himself into the flat, but before he could burst into the drawing-room, Charlie, the Temples’ cook, butler, handyman and watchdog, emerged from the door leading to his own quarters.

‘Hold it, Mr T.’

Charlie’s voice was hushed and conspiratorial. Temple tried to hide the annoyance he always felt when addressed by initial. The thirty-year-old Cockney was a faithful and irreplaceable servant but his familiarity sometimes bordered on insolence.

‘What is it, Charlie?’

‘I’ve a message for you. It’s from Mrs T.’

‘From Mrs Temple? Has she gone out?’

‘No. She’s in there.’ Charlie ignored the reproof implied in Temple’s correction and stabbed a finger towards the closed drawing-room door. ‘But Sir Graham Forbes and that Inspector Vosper are here. She told me to warn you so as you could start thinking up your defence.’

Temple smiled to himself as he laid a hand on the door knob. There was no need for Steve to worry. He had a good idea what had brought Sir Graham to the flat but he was as determined as she was not to be diverted from that trip to Paris. The knob turned under his hand as someone opened the door from inside. It was Steve. During the moment while the door screened them she shook one finger at him in a gesture of warning.

‘Ah, there you are at last, darling,’ she said loudly. ‘Look who’s come to visit us.’

Sir Graham was facing the wall at the far side of the room, scrutinising the picture hung there through a monocle which he used like a magnifying glass. Detective Inspector Vosper had declined to remove his overcoat. As Temple entered he rose to his feet and nodded but left all the talking to his superior.

‘Temple,’ boomed Sir Graham in the vibrant voice which in days long past he had developed in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. ‘Good to see you again. I was telling Steve: I like the way you’ve done this place up. It’s honest. Reflects your personalities. None of this nonsense – the Louis XIV salon, the Marie Antoinette boudoir. What wonderfully proportioned rooms these old houses have! I was just trying to figure out this painting. Looks like one of those Venetian fellows. It’s original, of course.’

The picture that had attracted Forbes’ attention was a modest canvas about eighteen inches by twelve. It represented a wild, prophetic head with flaming cheeks and turbulent red hair.

‘As a matter of fact you’ve put your finger on the gem of the bunch. That’s a Tiepolo. John the Baptist.’

‘Is it, indeed?’ Sir Graham turned on his heel to quiz the picture again. ‘I thought he confined himself to painting ceilings. Trompe l’oeil and that sort of thing.’

‘By no means. He’s not so well known for his portraits but there are plenty of them.’

Temple tried to dismiss the subject by his casual tone. He caught Steve’s eye.

‘I was just telling Sir Graham about our plans to visit Paris, darling.’ Steve spoke pointedly and Temple spotted Vosper’s sudden embarrassed glance at Sir Graham. ‘What’ll you drink, Paul?’

‘Same as usual; Steve has looked after you, Sir Graham – Inspector?’

The two men lifted their still well-filled glasses to show that Steve had not failed to offer them hospitality. With a twinkle in his eye Temple watched Sir Graham move round the back of the sofa until he occupied the commanding position in front of the fireplace. It was the stance he habitually took up when he was about to broach some difficult business.

Forbes was an old friend of the Temples. He was a splendid example of an Englishman who has been shaped by the successive processes of school, university, military service and public office. At the age of sixty he was as fully in possession of his faculties as ever and had behind him a lifetime of rich experience. He was still handsome enough to attract the glances of women and when men saw him they were reminded of the Older Man who figures in advertisements for gentlemen’s clothing – broad shoulders, bristling grey moustache, bushy eyebrows and a certain aura of unshakable confidence and authority.

‘Well, Sir Graham, what brings you here? Did you and Vosper forsake the Yard to admire our pictures?’

‘Well,’ admitted Sir Graham, rocking his weight slightly to and fro and studying the liquid in his glass. ‘Not entirely, I must admit. Have you heard anything lately of a character called Harry Shelford?’

‘Harry Shelford?’

Temple repeated the name thoughtfully as he accepted the cocktail glass Steve handed him. He remembered Harry Shelford distinctly. He was a likeable bad-lot who had been mixed up in a fraud case some four years earlier. Temple had become involved in the investigations and was partly responsible for his being sentenced to two years in gaol. On his release Harry Shelford’s first action had been to call on Temple and ask him for the loan of four hundred pounds; he intended, he said, to give up crime, go back to his old job. His idea was to open up a chemist’s business in South Africa. Temple was so surprised – and amused – by the request that he lent Harry the money. Twelve months later, to his astonishment, he received repayment in full.

‘No, I haven’t heard anything from him – or about him – for over a year now. Why are you interested in him?’

‘So far as you know he hasn’t returned to this country?’

Temple shook his head.

‘If he had done so I’m sure he would have got in touch with me – if only for another loan!’

‘Mmm.’

Sir Graham glanced towards Vosper and finished his whisky. Steve moved forward to replenish it but he said: ‘No more for me, thank you, Steve,’ and held on to the empty glass.

‘Do you know anything about this Tyler affair?’

Steve looked at him sharply and then turned to study Temple’s expression as he answered.

‘I’ve read the headlines,’ he said casually. ‘That’s about all.’

‘It’s an interesting problem,’ Sir Graham continued in his most beguiling tone. ‘Just your cup of tea, in fact.’

‘I don’t want to get involved, Sir Graham. Steve and I are pretty busy at the moment. We’ve had quite a time settling into the flat and now there’s this trip to Paris.’

‘Suppose Harry Shelford is mixed up in the case – would you change your mind?’

‘What makes you think he is?’ Temple put the question warily. He had a soft spot for Harry.

Sir Graham looked down at Vosper and nodded. The Inspector opened the notebook he had been holding ready in his hand and balanced it on his knee. He eyed Temple sternly and cleared his throat. Sir Graham sank back into a chair, and Steve, passing close behind Temple’s back as he sat balanced on the arm of a couch, murmured: ‘Here we go again.’

‘Betty Tyler was an employee at the Mayfair salon de coiffure’ – Vosper pronounced the word as in Saloon Bar and with evident distaste – ‘of a hairdresser of Spanish nationality who is known by the name of Mariano. I understand that he’s quite the rage among the fashionable set now. This Tyler girl was extremely attractive and she became friendly with a Mr George Westeral – in fact she was soon engaged to him.’

‘Westeral?’ Temple cut in. ‘I seem to know that name.’

‘The Honourable George Westeral,’ Sir Graham confirmed and Temple nodded. Westeral was one of the most eligible bachelors in London – wealthy, intelligent and good-looking. Temple associated him with photographs in the Tatler of society people attending race meetings.

‘That must have put a few debutantes’ noses out of joint!’

‘It did,’ Sir Graham chuckled. ‘But his family didn’t raise any objections. You must have read about it in the papers. They made quite a story about the engagement. However, I mustn’t poach on Vosper’s preserves.’

The Inspector took a moment to pick up the thread of his tale after this interruption. He shot Sir Graham a slightly petulant glance before continuing.

‘Well, the engagement did not last long. It was broken off suddenly and no reason was given. Mister Westeral told reporters that he and the girl had simply failed to hit it off but there was a general feeling that more lay behind it than that. The girl was very upset about it. I questioned her employer – this Mariano fellow.’ Again Vosper’s nose wrinkled slightly as he pronounced the foreign name. ‘She asked him if she could be transferred to the new branch he was opening in Oxford. Mariano agreed. He gave her a few days off to find digs and she began work again the following week.’

Vosper licked a forefinger and turned over a page of his notebook. Steve, watching her husband’s face, had noted the two horizontal lines which always appeared between his brows when his interest was captured by a problem.

‘On Thursday of last week, Westeral travelled to Oxford for the purpose of seeing Betty Tyler. He took her out to lunch—’

‘Early closing day in Oxford,’ Temple observed. Vosper looked up sharply, caught off balance for just a moment. Then he smiled, like a batsman who spots a googly and plays it back to the bowler.

‘Not at Mister Mariano’s. The girl was back at work the same afternoon. But that night she was found by a police patrol in an abandoned car on the outskirts of Oxford – the Chipping Norton road to be precise. The car was a Jaguar which had been reported missing by its owner, an Oxford accountant named Gerald Walters. He had been at a late business conference and came out to find the car gone.’

‘She had been strangled and her body placed in the capacious luggage boot,’ supplied Temple. ‘That much I do know.’

‘Yes. Strangled with her own scarf.’

‘That’s established, is it?’

‘Quite definitely. It was a silk scarf of French manufacture printed with pictures of well-known monuments in Paris.’

‘“Strangling were surer, but this is quainter”,’ quoted Temple.

‘What’s that?’

‘Nothing. Go on with the story.’

‘Naturally we checked up on Westeral. He claimed he knew nothing about it. He returned to London on the 3.24 from Oxford and went straight to his club, where he stayed till late that evening.’ Vosper saw Temple’s eye stray and knew that he was thinking in terms of Bradshaw. ‘It’s all right, Mr Temple, there is a 3.24 from Oxford. And several people saw Westeral on that train. We checked at his club too and he definitely stayed there till close on midnight. He’s telling the truth all right.’

‘Did he tell you why he went to Oxford in the first place?’

‘Yes. I asked him that. He admitted that he went with the intention of persuading the girl to patch things up with him. He also admitted that he failed to do so.’

The telephone bell had been ringing in the hall for several minutes. Now Charlie put his head round the door and looked at Temple enquiringly.

‘I’m out, Charlie. Ask them to leave a number and I’ll call back later. Go on, Inspector, sorry about the interruption.’

Sir Graham, who was almost as accurate as Steve in assessing Temple’s reactions, thought to himself: ‘He’s hooked all right.’

‘I made exhaustive enquiries in Oxford,’ Vosper went on. ‘My best informant by a long way was a girl called Jill Graves, who also worked at Mariano’s salon in Oxford. The girl Tyler, she told me, seemed very depressed after her lunch date with Westeral. She also told me that during the afternoon she answered the telephone. The caller asked to speak to Betty Tyler and gave his name as Harry. She heard the girl arrange to meet this mysterious Harry that evening. Neither Jill Graves nor anyone else could throw any light on the identity of “Harry”. So far as is known she had never received a telephone call from him before.’

The introduction of the name ‘Harry’ was a cue for Vosper to pause and stare at Temple. Temple stared back. During the short silence they could all hear the clatter of knives and plates as Charlie laid the table for lunch in the adjoining dining-room. Steve began to hum gently. Only Temple realised the significance of the tune she had hit on: ‘I love Paris—’ He gave her an appreciative smile and helped himself to a cigarette from the box on the coffee table.

‘Why should you assume that this unknown Harry has anything to do with my old friend Shelford? It’s a common enough name.’

The question was directed at Sir Graham and it was he who answered.

‘When Betty Tyler’s digs in Oxford were searched a piece of paper was found in the handbag she had been carrying during the day – just a small piece of paper such as you might tear out of a pocket notebook. It had the name Harry Shelford on it and the numerals 930.’

‘I still don’t believe that Harry would have anything to do with murder. He’s a thorough-going rascal, we know that. But he’s not a dangerous criminal. He is the last type to commit murder.’

‘I agree,’ Sir Graham said peaceably. ‘But obviously that is a line of investigation which we cannot afford to neglect. That brings me to the real reason for our visit.’

He stood up and once again took over the centre of the hearth rug. Vosper snapped the band of his notebook and stowed it away in some secret part of his clothing.

‘Harry Shelford has a sister – a married sister called Mrs Draper – who runs an extremely popular hotel called The Dutch Treat at Sonning.’

‘I’ve heard of it. The food is reputed to be really good.’

‘Now, what I came to ask you was this: would you drive down to Sonning, talk to Mrs Draper, find out where her brother is exactly and what he’s up to?’

‘She’ll talk to you,’ Vosper put in with sad conviction. ‘If I approached her it would have to be on an official basis. She might take offence and refuse to help me at all. At the best she would be unlikely to say anything which might be detrimental to her brother.’

‘She knows you helped Harry when he was released. It will seem natural for you to inquire how he’s getting on.’ Sir Graham turned from Temple to Steve. She was watching the exchange with a mischievous smile on her dark, attractive face. ‘Surely you and your husband could drive down to Sonning for lunch one day, Steve. It would help us out.’

Temple relaxed. For Steve’s sake he had been prepared to refuse. Now that the question had been put to her direct he would take his cue from her answer. She looked quizzically up at Sir Graham.

‘We’re not doing anything special tomorrow, Paul. It would be rather fun to sample the cooking at The Dutch Treat and see if it’s as good as everyone makes out.’

Chapter Two

‘What do you know about this Mariano, Steve?’

Temple called through into the bedroom from his dressing-room. He and Steve had been to the theatre and then dined with some friends in Soho. They had refused an invitation to go on to a night club. Temple did not want to blunt his wits or palate on the eve of the outing to Sonning.

‘I’ve never been to him myself. I prefer to stick to my Doris. But I believe he’s really brilliant. Several of my friends have started going to him lately. He must be making a packet out of it. He’s opened several branches in provincial towns.’

‘What sort of person is he himself?’

‘Definitely rather glamorous, darling.’

‘Amorous?’

‘Gerlamorous,’ Steve sang. ‘It’s not very polite to shout at ladies from other rooms.’

Temple undid his tie and walked to the threshold between the two rooms. His own dressing-room was square, utilitarian and exclusively mahogany. It was rather like the captain’s cabin in a small naval vessel. After its dark severity the bedroom made his senses reel. He had given Steve a free hand with it. The carpet was a deep wine colour and all the furniture was white. Over the bed was suspended a kind of panoply, bordered with stiff nylon frills. Temple always felt a little like Don Juan when he invaded this essentially feminine domain.

Steve was sitting before her triple mirrors, sheathed in silk, combing her hair.

‘In what way glamorous?’ Temple asked suspiciously.

Steve stopped combing and gazed at her reflection.

‘Well, he’s handsome – and foreign, of course. Rather an actor, by all I can gather. I mean, he knows how to put himself across.’

‘Put himself across?’

‘Yes, darling. Hairdressing is an art – at least ladies’ hairdressing is. Mariano acts the part of an artist. But he’s a very shrewd business man at the same time.’

‘How long has he been operating this racket?’

‘I don’t know exactly. He’s only been fashionable since the war, but Mrs Tenby-Whiteside was boasting to me the other day that she patronised him over twenty years ago. So he must have come to England in the early ’thirties some time.’

‘Not very shrewd of Mrs T-W.’

‘What wasn’t?’

‘Giving her age away like that.’

‘We all give away something sometimes, darling,’ Steve said.

The silence which the Temples normally observed until they had finished breakfast was broken the following morning when Temple put the paper down beside his plate with an exclamation of annoyance.

‘What’s the matter, Paul?’

‘These confounded gossip writers. If they can’t mind their own business, they might at least try to get their facts right. The cheek of this: “Sir Graham Forbes paid a flying visit to the new home of the Paul Temples in Eaton Square yesterday morning. The conversation turned on the Tyler mystery which has been causing heads to throb in Scotland Yard this past week. This confirms the rumour we reported the day before yesterday that Sir Graham had decided to consult Paul Temple on the Tyler case.”’

‘They really are the limit.’

Temple pushed his chair back.

‘Aren’t you going to have your second cup of coffee, darling?’

‘Pour it out for me. I’ll take it into the study. I have a lot of work to get through before we start for Sonning. You’ll be ready at a quarter to twelve, won’t you?’

Thanks to his dictaphone Temple managed to shift most of his correspondence before he was interrupted by Charlie rapping on his study door. By the clock on his desk – a birthday present from Steve – it was still only a quarter to eleven. Charlie was in shirt sleeves and braces, a garb strictly banned by Temple, and he was wearing a shabby apron.

‘A gentleman to see you, Mr Temple.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Name of Books, Brooks or Broke – something like that.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘I showed him into the drawing-room.’

‘Did you answer the door like that?’

‘Well, I have to do housemaid’s work, see, so naturally I dress like a housemaid.’

‘Since when have housemaids taken to wearing braces?’

Charlie was still trying to think up some unprintable reply when Temple closed the door of the drawing-room behind him. He had been puzzled for a moment by the name but as soon as he saw his visitor he connected it with the young man who had sold him the picture the previous day.

He was standing in the middle of the room with a large rectangular parcel balanced against his right hip. Temple greeted him and nodded towards the parcel.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve brought my picture already.’

Brooks smiled rather self-consciously.

‘We managed to push it through more quickly than I anticipated. Shall I unwrap it for you?’

‘Yes, please do. I’ll ring for someone to take the mess away.’

Brooks produced a manicure set from his pocket and snipped the string with the scissors. Meanwhile Temple had been clearing the oddments from the mantelpiece. He turned his back on Brooks as the wrapping paper rustled.

‘Would you mind putting it on the mantelpiece for me? Then I can get a proper first impression.’

‘Not at all.’ Temple heard Brooks cross the room and place the picture in its place.

‘There we are.’

Charlie entered the room and found Temple in the act of turning. His eyes went past his master to the object on the mantelpiece, and he uttered a simple word:

‘Cor.’

‘Ah, that’s better,’ Temple exclaimed. ‘I really do like it now. What do you think?’

Brooks pursed his lips, studying the picture as if he’d never seen it before.

‘Yes, I must admit I do. When you said you were going to hang it among antiques I wondered. But it doesn’t really clash.’

‘Why should it? Charlie, cart that paper away and ask Mrs Temple if she’d join us.’

Rattling the paper as loudly as he could to illustrate his disapproval of Temple’s purchase, Charlie made a slow exit.

Steve was as delighted with the picture as Temple, but that did not prevent her from paying more than usual attention to Brooks. He had seemed to come to life on Steve’s arrival as if he had suddenly found a friend in a foreign country. It was obvious that he was at his best with women – preferably young and attractive ones – and equally obvious that they were attracted by him.

‘Haven’t you offered Mr Brooks a drink, darling?’

The reproof in Steve’s voice was evident, but Brooks was already holding up his hand.

‘It’s a little too early for me, if you don’t mind. Besides, I must be getting back to the shop.’

Temple was ready to move towards the door but Brooks seemed to be searching for some excuse to stay a little longer. There was that awkward pause which host and hostess feel offers guests a good opportunity to take their leave and which they so often fail to take.

‘I wonder if it would interest you,’ Brooks said hesitatingly – ‘there’s an exhibition of Kappel’s work on in Paris at the moment. I read in the paper that you were going there next week.’

‘That’s right,’ Temple nodded. ‘We must try and get to see it.’

To his annoyance, Steve made a remark which threatened to start the conversation off on a new tack.

‘Do you know Paris well, Mr Brooks?’

‘Yes, I do. I have to go there quite a lot in connection with pictures we buy and sell. As a matter of fact my brother lives there. He’s at the British Embassy. I was wondering—’ Brooks’ face had gone a little redder and he was registering almost boyish embarrassment. ‘I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you. You see, my brother’s birthday is just two days after you arrive in Paris. Would you think it awful cheek if I asked you to take over a present I’ve bought for him? It’s a box of some special Havana cigars which he can only get here in London. There won’t be any duty to pay because I’ll open the box and take one out.’

Temple was surprised at this request from a comparative stranger, but Steve seemed to find it quite natural.

‘We can do that, can’t we, Paul?’

‘Yes, of course, though in fact the customs—’

‘That’s very kind of you. I’ll drop them in a day or two before you leave. I only wish I could take them myself. Paris is marvellous at this time of year. Do you stay anywhere special?’

‘We usually go to the Hotel Pompadour,’ said Steve.

‘The Pompadour? Then you’ll be quite close to the Kappel exhibition; it’s in the Rue Royale.’

Temple at last managed to shepherd the talkative Brooks out of the flat. He went back to the drawing-room to find Steve at the window, waiting to watch their visitor as he went along the street.

‘Something peculiar about that chap. You and he seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.’

‘Does that make him peculiar? I liked him but I felt that we weren’t seeing the real person. All that surface charm seemed switched on for your benefit.’

‘For my benefit? Come on, Steve, you under-rate yourself. Now, we’ll have to get a move on if we’re to be at Sonning in time. We’ll hang that picture when we get home this evening.’

They were lucky with traffic and it was still only half-past twelve when the two-seater Frazer Nash passed the 30 limit sign on the far side of Maidenhead and Temple brought the speedometer needle up to 80, an easy cruising speed for the car.

‘I’m going to be ready for this lunch,’ Steve said, looking up at the blue sky. ‘I wonder if we can eat outside.’

The fine weather had continued and the trees lining the side of the road were a fresh, rich green. The hum of the tyres and the gentle swish of wind over the streamlined body were not enough to prevent conversation.

‘I wonder if you’ll get anything of interest out of Mrs Draper.’

‘I don’t expect to,’ Temple answered, his eye on the driving mirror. ‘I’m convinced that Harry Shelford had nothing to do with the Tyler business. I’m only doing this to make Sir Graham happy.’

‘Don’t you think that the coincidence of this mysterious Harry who telephoned and Harry Shelford’s name on the paper found in Betty Tyler’s handbag is too strong to be – well, just coincidence?’

‘Coincidences happen in everyday life which no one would accept in fiction. What does this ass think he’s trying to do?’

A white sports car Triumph had been catching up on the Frazer Nash for some miles and was now sitting on their tail about a hundred yards behind. Temple had waved the driver on but he had taken no notice. He was alone in the car and had lowered the windscreen flat onto the bonnet. His cap was pulled down over his face and he wore a fearsome pair of goggles. Temple was used to being challenged to a race by foolhardy owners of sports cars but he invariably declined, though he knew that the Frazer Nash was capable of showing a clean pair of heels to most of them.

He slowed to about sixty and at last the Triumph accelerated and went past them with a vulgar blare from its exhaust. The driver did not even glance at them. He then played that most infuriating of tricks: began to motor at a speed just slower than Temple’s usual gait. The noise of his exhaust drowned conversation. Temple made up his mind to give the Frazer Nash the gun and leave the Triumph behind.

The road ahead was a fast straight stretch divided into three lanes. About four hundred yards away a car was stopped on the left-hand side. A little beyond it, coming towards them, was a massive Marston Valley brick lorry. Temple decided to bide his time, but at that moment the driver of the Triumph put out a gloved hand and gave the slowing down signal. Just as he came up to the parked car he waved the Frazer Nash on. Temple assumed that he intended to brake sharply and pull in behind the stationary car. The brick lorry was just coming level with it, but the centre lane was clear.

The Frazer Nash surged quickly from forty to sixty miles an hour as Temple pulled out to pass. It occurred to him that the Triumph was going to have to brake very sharply to avoid hitting the stationary car. Just at the last moment the goggled driver put his hand out and edged the Triumph on to the centre lane. Temple found himself being forced out towards the oncoming bonnet of the brick lorry, now only thirty yards distant, his only way through blocked.

There was no time to sound a horn or curse. The lesser of two evils was to shunt the Triumph but even that would mean an impact of fifty miles an hour and Steve’s forehead was terribly close to the dashboard.

The man at the wheel of the brick lorry, with the vigilance typical of British transport drivers, applied his vacuum brakes and stopped the vehicle in its own length. Temple swerved sharply to the right, aiming the Frazer Nash across the front of the brick lorry. Nothing but a machine developed in trials and racing would have accepted the brutal change of direction; tyres shrieked but the car remained on four wheels. She missed the lorry by two feet, rushed on to the grass verge and passed between two trees. Still miraculously in control, Temple put her through an open gate into a grass field beyond. The car skidded on the soft surface and ended up facing the gate through which it had come. Temple had kept his engine running. He selected bottom gear and drove back on to the grass verge.

‘Sorry, Steve. It was the only way out.’

Steve produced a compact and began to powder her nose with slightly trembling hands. Temple switched off his engine and took a deep breath before he stepped out of the car. The lorry driver had driven another hundred yards up the road and was climbing down from his cab. The white Triumph, now moving very fast, was just disappearing round a distant bend.

Temple went to meet the lorry driver as he walked towards them.

‘Your missus all right, mate?’

‘Yes, thanks. I’d like to thank you for keeping your brakes in good order and using them so promptly. It saved our lives.’

The driver scratched the back of his head and stared down the road.

‘Didn’t even stop, the—. Pity we couldn’t get his number.’

Temple offered his cigarette-case to the driver without answering. He had made a mental note of the Triumph’s registration number when it first passed him. He intended to write it down in his diary before he rejoined Steve.

‘Police ought to do something about them sort of drivers,’ the lorry man went on. ‘If he’d been trying to do it deliberate he couldn’t have put you in a worse spot.’

Out of respect for Steve’s nerves, Temple drove slowly the rest of the way to Sonning. Neither of them spoke a word until they had turned off the main road and were idling down the minor road that led to the village. Then Steve turned to examine Temple’s profile.

‘Paul. That was a deliberate attempt to kill us.’

Temple was ready for the remark. He took his eye off the road for long enough to give Steve a reassuring smile.

‘I don’t think so, Steve. Probably some idiot who doesn’t know his car. Too many of these fast machines get into the hands of people who can’t control them.’

‘I thought he controlled his rather skilfully,’ Steve remarked drily. ‘His timing was absolutely perfect.’

The Dutch Treat stood on the river bank just beyond the Sonning bridge. On a well-kept lawn between the verandah and the water were placed a number of gaily painted tables and chairs, shaded by striped Continental style sun-shades tipped at rakish angles. Temple parked the car, then Steve and he went into the building by the hotel entrance. Steve said she wanted to fix her hair, and while she went off to the Ladies’ Room Temple waited in the foyer.

He caught the eye of the reception clerk and went over to speak to him.

‘Mrs Draper owns this place now, doesn’t she?’

‘That is so, sir.’

The clerk, hardly glancing at him, answered in the impersonal manner of his kind.

‘Can you tell me where I would find her?’

‘Perhaps I can help you, sir?’

‘I’m afraid not. This is a personal matter.’

‘Mrs Draper is not in the hotel, sir. She will not be returning till after lunch.’

‘Well, we are lunching here, so it doesn’t matter very much. When she returns will you tell her that Mr Temple would like to have a word with her?’

‘Very good, sir.’

Temple was amused to note that as he turned away the clerk returned not to his register of guests but to study a copy of the Sporting Life. The reference book which he pulled down from a shelf was not a Bradshaw but Ruff’s Guide to the Turf.

There was still no sign of Steve. Temple noticed a public call box at the end of the foyer. It was unoccupied. He went over to it slowly, closed the door on himself and asked for Vosper’s number at Scotland Yard. The Inspector had gone home to lunch, but his assistant was there. Temple gave him the number of the offending Triumph and suggested he should check up on it. He was about to open the door and step out, when he hesitated. A man, emerging from the passage which led to the dining room, had entered the foyer at the same moment as Steve reappeared. He was only a few yards from Temple’s call box. When he looked towards Steve he stopped dead, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face. He turned on his heel and went quickly back the way he had come. As he passed, Temple made a note of his features. He was aged about forty-seven or -eight, athletically built, though rather on the short side, clean shaven and well dressed in a tweedy kind of way. Steve had not noticed him and he had certainly not spotted Temple in the gloom of the call box.

Temple claimed Steve and together they went through to the dining room. For the summer season the dining room had been extended on to the verandah and boxes of flowers on stands lined the glass walls. The whole effect was very French. It remained to be seen, Temple thought, whether the cooking came up to the same standard.

A maître d’hôtel, poised before a desk bearing the list of table reservations, waylaid them as they entered.

‘Name, sir?’

‘Temple. I telephoned last night.’

‘Ah, Mr Paul Temple, isn’t it? I have a nice table for you, sir.’

After an appreciative glance at Steve in her neat suit and flame-coloured shirt and shoes, the maître d’hôtel, walking with unction and brandishing his pencil as if it were a conductor’s baton, led them to a table flanked by tumbling geraniums. At a twitch of his fingers, a pair of waiters materialised from the carpet and set in front of Steve and Temple a couple of menus as big as railway posters.

When they had given their order Steve folded her hands and looked around her with appreciation.

‘It’s rather nice to be alive, isn’t it? We so very nearly weren’t. You can’t fool me, you know. I saw you coming out of that call box.’

Temple sipped his Tio Pepe and concentrated on Steve. A quick glance round the room had shown him that the startled man he had seen in the foyer was not here. Several faces had turned towards him with recognition, but there was no one he knew.

‘Perhaps it did look rather like a deliberate attempt—’

‘Looked like! If you hadn’t spotted that gap in the wall we’d have been finished. Was it anyone you’d seen before?’

Temple shook his head.

‘Even if it had been I wouldn’t have recognised him with all that stuff on his face.’

‘But why pick on us?’

‘The only reason I can think of is that someone is under the impression that I am investigating the Tyler case. Though why that should justify my execution I fail to see.’

At that moment the service squad arrived with the eats and drinks for the Temples’ first course. During the next hour they were far too preoccupied with the pleasures of living to worry about their escape from death. Mrs Draper’s imported chef was a genius and Temple rejoiced to have found for once an establishment which did not grudge the few shillings needed to supply the kitchen with adequate wine for the sauces.

After the meal, at the maître d’hotel’s suggestion, they took their coffee in a pleasant sun lounge built out over the water. They were still there, fingering liqueur glasses, when Mrs Draper came up and introduced herself.

Lucille Draper was a striking woman. She looked a good deal less than her forty-odd years; only a certain severity of expression, reflected in the cut of her black suit, showed that she had seen some of the darker side of life. She had accepted her widowhood as a challenge and had put all the money left by her husband into The Dutch Treat. She seemed to have an exceptional gift for business and in a very few years she had turned the hotel into one of the most popular out-of-town rendezvous.

She had heard a great deal about Temple from her brother and her pleasure at meeting him and Steve appeared quite genuine. She accepted Temple’s invitation to join them for a few minutes, but refused a liqueur or coffee. She seemed to sense that there was more than affability in his request to speak to her. Temple was perfectly frank with her. After complimenting her on the cuisine and service he came to the point.

‘What I really wanted to ask you, Mrs Draper, was whether you could give me any news of Harry?’

Temple purposely kept his eyes on his liqueur glass as he asked the question. He knew he could rely on Steve to watch her reaction.

Mrs Draper answered without the slightest hesitation: ‘It’s funny you should ask me that. I had a letter from Harry only two days ago. He’s doing wonderfully well out there.’

She leaned towards Temple and gave him the full benefit of very blue eyes.

‘I shall always be so grateful to you for helping Harry in the way you did. Giving him that money was the most generous—’

‘I didn’t give it to him,’ Temple said uncomfortably. ‘It was only a loan – which he repaid in full.’

Lucille Draper, with a gesture which appeared sincere and impulsive, laid a hand on his arm. Her nails were deep scarlet and several diamonds glistened on her fingers.

‘But it was the gesture that counted! He felt that someone really had faith in him.’

Temple tried unsuccessfully to imagine the hard-bitten Harry Shelford voicing any such sentiment. He tried to steer the conversation back on to course.

‘He wrote you from Cape Town?’

‘Yes. Of course he travels a lot – searching out really good second-hand cars, you know. He takes care not to sell anything shoddy.’

‘Forgive my interrupting, Mrs Draper. Has Harry ever talked of coming back to England?’

Mrs Draper’s pretty mouth remained open for a few moments to express her amazement. Then she gave a tinkle of laughter.

‘That’s the last thing he would do. Why should he come back to England when he’s making a fortune out there? And an honest one, too. Harry’s going straight now, Mr Temple, I can assure you of that. He wouldn’t let you down; not after what you did for him.’

Just for a moment Temple believed he detected real sincerity in her voice. He did not try to question her any further. After a few moments of small talk during which she turned rather ostentatiously to Steve, as if inviting her to join a private conversation, she claimed pressure of business and rose.

When she had disappeared into the hotel proper, Temple turned to Steve with a smile. She was looking daggers.

‘Well?’

‘Bogus, from the peroxide down.’

‘I’m not worried about whether she bleaches her hair or not. Am I mistaken, or was she covering something up?’

Steve grinned at a private thought.

‘I was watching her when you first asked her about Harry. She was ready for the question and waiting for it.’

‘I thought she was a shade too glib. Of course it’s difficult not having met her before. Some women are always like that with men, but she seemed somehow strained, brittle—’

‘I know what you mean. She’s worried about something. Do you know why she refused coffee?’

‘No.’

‘Because her hands weren’t steady. And she didn’t dare to look my way till the interrogation was over. She knew another woman would see through her.’

The Temples were loth to leave the pleasant lazy atmosphere of Sonning on a warm May day. It was four thirty before they arrived back in Eaton Square.

Charlie had left a note propped on the hall table: ‘See me soon as you come in’.

Steve picked it up and threw Temple a despairing look. Charlie answered the drawing-room bell promptly.

‘There was a telephone call for you about an hour ago. From Guildford. It was a girl – she seemed young, anyway – called Jane Dallas. She wanted to speak to you personally. Sounded pretty desperate, she did.’

‘What did she want to speak to me about?’

‘She wouldn’t say. She closed up when I told her you weren’t available.’

‘Jane Dallas. She didn’t mind giving her name, then?’

‘Well,’ Charlie’s face was disfigured by a self-satisfied smirk. ‘She thought I was you, see? When I answered the phone I said “Eaton double two, double four – who’s calling please?” She says, very quick like, “Oh, Mr Temple, my name is Jane Dallas. I have some very urgent—” Then I thought I’d better stop her before she spilled the beans.’

Charlie gave such a vivid imitation of Temple’s voice and that of the unknown Jane Dallas that he and Steve had to smile.

‘All right, Charlie. Thanks.’

Temple frowned thoughtfully at Steve as the door closed on Charlie.

‘Guildford? We don’t know anyone called Jane Dallas.’

‘Perhaps it’s someone else who wants you to take cigars to her brother in Paris,’ Steve suggested lightly.

‘Then she’s going to be unlucky. Now, I’d better telephone Sir Graham. He’ll be disappointed that we’ve nothing more definite for him.’

Temple sat down beside the telephone table. He was about to lift the receiver when the bell began to ring. He picked it up and repeated his number.

The operator said, ‘Go ahead, Guildford.’

It was a girl’s voice, faint and distorted by interference on the line, but unmistakably frightened.

‘This is Temple speaking.’

‘Oh, Mr Temple. I read in the papers that you are investigating the Tyler mystery. I have some very important information. I’ve got to see you immediately.’

Jane Dallas sounded a very excitable young lady. There was a touch of hysteria in her voice.

Temple said: ‘The papers are misinformed. It’s not true that I’m investigating the Tyler mystery. Your proper course is to take this information to the police.’

‘I can’t do that, Mr Temple. I’ve got to see you. It’s impossible to explain on the telephone. Oh, can’t you understand?’

The voice was becoming more and more overwrought.

‘I’m afraid I can’t come down to Guildford, Miss Dallas—’

‘You must,’ the girl insisted. Then as if she felt the old tag would clinch matters: ‘It’s a matter of life and death. I’m at 17 Charlotte Street. I’ll expect you at nine o’clock tonight.’

Before Temple had time to object there came a click and the line was dead.

‘That,’ he told Steve, ‘was Jane Dallas.’

‘So I guessed. I could hear most of it from here. She didn’t sound to me as if she was putting on an act.’

‘You mean you think I should have agreed to see her? What are the police for if not to deal with cases like this?’

‘She may have vital information and yet be frightened, for no valid and sensible reason, of going to the police. I felt rather sorry for her.’

This time it was Temple himself who began to whistle: ‘I love Paris—’. Steve remained serious.

‘You say you’re not investigating the Tyler mystery but this morning someone tried to kill us on the Bath Road.’

Temple sat motionless for a moment, then slapped his knee and stood up.

‘All right. This evening we’ll call on Miss Jane Dallas of 17 Charlotte Street. I’ll tell Charlie we want an early dinner.’

Chapter Three

A thunderstorm passed across the Southern Counties that evening, bringing darkness on a little earlier than usual. The rain, while it lasted, was very heavy. Temple was forced to slow down at several points outside Guildford where the water had collected in hollows in the road.

He drove directly to the Police Station and left Steve sitting in the car outside whilst he went to inquire the whereabouts of Charlotte Street. He was out within three minutes.

‘I think we’ll walk,’ he said, and opened the door on Steve’s side for her. ‘The place is only ten minutes away and it’s not nine yet. I don’t want to attract attention by driving the car up to her door.’

Guildford’s steep, narrow main street was still glistening wet. The lights from those shops whose owners considered that their window display justified keeping the illuminations on till midnight sent squiggles of orange, red and green across the roadway. Temple felt Steve’s arm pulling on his as they passed a window where some new silk materials were displayed, draped round bogusly bosomed dummies. A little later she did stop dead, her arm hooked firmly in his elbow.

‘Paul, look!’

They were opposite a brand new shop on one of the most prominent street corners in Guildford. The window display was highly imaginative and for a moment Temple was at a loss to tell what kind of merchandise this establishment was offering. The theme of the display was Mediterranean travel and night life in the gayer Riviera resorts. There were travel posters from Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Yugoslavia, photographs of the Casino at San Remo, the Negresco in Cannes, and some unidentified night-spot in Barcelona. In the middle of all this colour and gaiety was the marble bust of a very beautiful, very twentieth-century woman.

Temple followed Steve’s eyes to the sign painted in flowing letters above the window. ‘Mariano. Coiffeur de Dames.’

‘He gets around,’ Temple murmured.

Steve was enthusiastic about Mariano’s window display.

‘It’s rather dashing, don’t you think, darling? Better than that dreadful wax image with some dead person’s hair planted on it like a wig.’

In fact, Temple noticed, most of the people who emerged now that the rain was over, paused to inspect the gay posters and photographs.

A few hundred yards later they turned into Charlotte Street and crossed over to be on the right side for the odd numbers. The houses here were strictly uniform – arched porches flanked by bow windows and separated from the pavement by sad little patches of downtrodden grass. There was a light on in the hall of number 17 and the black figures stood out clearly on the crescent-shaped glass above the doorway. Temple followed Steve up the three steps and pushed the bell.

The door was opened by a plump and elderly lady who wiped her hands on her apron as she answered Temple’s inquiry. Her name, they learned later, was Mrs Hobson.

‘Is Miss Dallas in?’

‘No.’

‘This is the house, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but she’s not in.’

‘Did she leave any message for me? My name’s Temple.’

‘No. She said nothing to me.’

Mrs Hobson had begun to close the door. She regarded Temple and Steve with suspicion, as if they spelt trouble.

‘That’s odd,’ he persisted. ‘I had an appointment to meet her here at nine o’clock. Has she not been in this evening at all?’

The woman shrugged as if to imply that the movements of her lodgers were no concern of hers.

‘She may have come in and gone out again while I was out feeding my budgies. As often as not she only comes back for long enough to change her shoes or dress before hurrying off to the pictures or the Palais.’

‘Are you sure she’s not in her room now?’

‘You seem very inclined to doubt my word—’ Mrs Hobson was working herself up into a huff over Temple’s insistence.

He said politely: ‘I’ve come all the way from London to see her, so naturally I don’t want to miss her.’

‘From London, are you? Well, I can always tell whether Jane is in or not by her wireless. It switches on from the door as you go in and she’s never in that room without it’s on. I don’t complain because I think she feels the loneliness.’

‘Well, thank you very much, Mrs – er?’

‘Hobson’s my name.’

‘Mrs Hobson. Perhaps we can call back a little later?’

‘Yes. I’ll tell her as soon as she comes in.’

Temple was just turning away to go down the steps when a thought struck him.

‘By the way, Mrs Hobson, where does Miss Dallas work?’

Being called by her name seemed to make all the difference to the landlady. A little primness crept into her pronunciation but she answered more readily.

‘She’s employed at one of those hairdressing saloons. It’s a new place – I can’t remember the name just at the moment.’

‘Is it Mariano’s?’

‘That’s it. I knew it was some French name.’

Steve and Temple walked slowly back towards the main street, watching for any girl coming the opposite way who might be Jane Dallas.

‘Is this coincidence again?’ Steve asked, though she already knew the answer.

‘It can’t be. This girl mentioned the Tyler mystery on the telephone. Perhaps she too was transferred from the London branch and knew Betty Tyler when they were there together.’

‘But Betty Tyler was murdered after she left London.’

‘We don’t know that this “Harry” business didn’t begin when she was still there. I have a feeling that Jane Dallas is going to help us quite a lot.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Ten past nine. I wonder how long we should give it?’

‘Another twenty minutes,’ Steve suggested. ‘Let’s go into this hotel and have a drink. I’m rather cold after that drive.’

Temple was very much on edge and hardly gave Steve time to enjoy her brandy. They were back at the door of number 17 before the clocks started striking the half-hour.

‘She’s not back yet,’ Mrs Hobson assured them. ‘I left my kitchen door open so that I’d hear the front door and no one’s come in.’

‘Mrs Hobson, I wonder if you’d just try her room – in case her radio has gone wrong or something.’

‘Well—’ Mrs Hobson surveyed Steve doubtfully and then opened the door wider. ‘Since you’ve come all the way from London.’

They stood in the narrow hall while Mrs Hobson toiled up the worn green staircarpet to the first floor. The Monarch of the Glen stared aloofly over their heads and a faint odour of primeval cabbage leaked out from the kitchen. In a minute or two Mrs Hobson came back down the stairs, walking sideways and holding on to the banisters.

‘There’s no answer,’ she said. ‘But it’s a funny thing, her door’s locked. She never locks it when she goes out—’

Temple was already moving towards the staircase.

‘Will you show me where her room is, please?’

‘Why!’ Mrs Hobson put out a podgy hand to restrain him. ‘I’ll ask you to remember whose house you’re in.’

‘This is urgent,’ Temple snapped. ‘That girl may be in danger. Now, which is her room?’

Before the expression in his eyes, Mrs Hobson capitulated.

‘It’s the door facing you at the end of the passage.’

Jane Dallas’s door was indeed locked. Temple banged on it and called loudly. Inside there was complete silence. Behind him he could hear Steve talking soothingly to the landlady, who was horrified at the sight of a Man on her first floor landing. He stood back a few feet, raised his right leg and kicked his heel against the door just below the lock. With a splintering sound the door shuddered open. The room in front of him was in darkness. He could see his own shadow, stretched to a grotesque length in the rectangle of light cast by the lamp on the landing.

With his left hand he felt for the light switch and snapped it on. He heard Steve coming along the passage behind him. Over his shoulder he said:

‘Don’t come any further, Steve. Try and get Mrs Hobson downstairs.’

Steve had worked with Temple too often to ignore that tone of voice. Without question she turned away. Temple went into the room and with the toe of his foot pushed the door until it was almost shut. Then he stood his ground and devoted a couple of minutes to what the police call ‘giving your eyes a chance’.

The room was a small bed-sitter. It was badly proportioned and too high for its size. The wallpaper and furnishings supplied by Mrs Hobson were ugly and shabby but here and there a few defiant gestures showed where Jane Dallas had tried to create a gayer, more feminine atmosphere. A flower-patterned curtain hung across one corner, obscuring the wash-stand, there was a vase of daffodils on the mantelshelf and a framed colour photo of Capri above it. The divan bed was covered with a striped blanket of many colours which might have come from North Africa, Persia or Birmingham.

The room was scrupulously tidy. Temple guessed that Jane Dallas had not had time to change her dress that evening.

She lay sprawled across the divan bed as if she had been flung there by violent hands. Her face was turned upwards towards the light and it was not possible to tell now whether she had been plain or pretty. Without moving from where he stood Temple was able to recognise the handiwork of a strangler. Though it was practically uncreased he never doubted that the girl had been killed with the silk picture scarf which lay near her on the divan. It had fallen in such a way that he could pick out on its shiny surface the Place de la Concorde, a portion of the Palais de Chaillot and Notre Dame de Paris.

Behind him a voice, growing rapidly in volume, announced: ‘And now, in answer to many requests, Al Jacobs will sing that popular number “Lonely is the Night”.’ An unseen multitude applauded and the brass section of an orchestra went into the key of E minor.

Temple calculated that Jane Dallas’s radio took just about two minutes to warm up. He hooked his toe round the door again to pull it open, and went downstairs to telephone the police.

‘I wish to God we could get a drink,’ Sir Graham grumbled, scowling round the dark empty lounge of the Black Lion. Some time earlier the waiter had politely pointed out that unless they were residents they could not be served with alcoholic refreshment. As a great favour he had brought them lukewarm liquid in a coffee jug; it tasted as if it had been distilled from acorns. Their still half-full cups stood on the table round which Steve, Forbes and Temple were sitting on cold, slippery leather chairs.

‘Well,’ Temple reminded him. ‘It’s your people who enforce the laws.’

‘They’d better not try and turn me out,’ the older man said in his bass-drum voice. ‘As a bona fide traveller I’m entitled to call for glasses of water till the cows come home.’

It had taken Sir Graham exactly one hour from Temple’s phone call to pick up Vosper and bring him down to Guildford. The Inspector had joined the Guildford C.I.D. men at 17 Charlotte Street; Forbes and the Temples cast themselves upon the mercy of the Black Lion. While they waited for Vosper to bring back the latest information Temple briefed Sir Graham about the visit to Sonning, Jane Dallas’s telephone call and his macabre discovery at Charlotte Street.

‘She was killed, of course, to prevent her giving you this information, whatever it was.’

Sir Graham picked up his coffee cup, examined its contents and then decided against drinking any more. Temple did not feel that any comment was required from him.

‘What I don’t understand,’ Forbes went on, ‘is why this strangler should leave his visiting card each time.’

‘The picture scarf of Paris? It didn’t really tell us any more than we knew already. The link between Jane Dallas and Betty Tyler was established. We cannot assume, though, that Jane Dallas was killed because she knew something which pointed to the identity of the other girl’s murderer. She may have been killed for the same reason as Betty Tyler.’

‘That reason being?’

‘Sir Graham, when we know that we’ll be within sight of our murderer.’

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