‘Later this afternoon I am holding an informal sort of Press conference at which I shall be going over some of the ground we have covered during our chat.’
The Commissioner poured himself out some more tea, found it was nearly cold, and pressed the bell to order some fresh tea to be made.
‘Well, Sir Graham,’ Temple now replied, ‘I don’t profess to be able to work miracles. By profession, I’m a writer – but, well, I must confess I’m very intrigued by certain aspects of this affair.’
‘Then we can—’
‘You can count on me to give you every assistance in my power, Sir Graham. That I promise you.’
‘Thank you, Temple,’ replied the Commissioner. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’
As he spoke the door opened, and Chief Inspector Dale walked in. As soon as he saw the visitors, he hesitated.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, sir,’ he apologized. ‘I thought you—’
The Commissioner cut him short. ‘Come in, Dale. Come in. You know Paul Temple, I believe?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ he replied.
They shook hands and the Commissioner introduced him to Steve Trent.
‘I thought perhaps you’d like to know that Inspector Merritt has arrived, sir,’ Dale reported, ‘with that man—er—Tyler, Skid Tyler.’
‘Oh, yes. When I ring, show them in here,’ Sir Graham replied.
‘Very good, sir.’
The Commissioner was not quite certain that Skid Tyler should be brought in before Miss Trent, nor whether even Miss Trent would care to hear his story. But she was now closely involved in the whole business, he reflected, and she might as well see this through.
‘Would you like to stay while we question this man?’ he asked her, after Dale had departed.
Steve was a reporter. And as a reporter, she had had to deal with situations that were far more gruesome than this might be.
‘Yes, yes, I would rather!’ she replied eagerly.
‘Good. I should sit over there in the corner, Miss Trent. You’ll be out of the way there.’
Then he walked over to his desk and pressed one of the bell buttons. His personal attendant, Sergeant Leopold, opened the door.
‘You rang, sir?’
‘Yes. Tell Inspector Dale, Inspector Merritt, and that man— er—Skid Tyler, to come in here.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant departed.
Meanwhile the Commissioner rearranged the chairs and waited for the three men to come in.
Presently the door opened again, and Tyler appeared, followed by Merritt and Dale.
‘Sit down, Tyler,’ said the Commissioner. ‘No, over there,’ he added, pointing to a chair near the fireplace facing his own chair.
‘What is it you want?’ Tyler started protesting, before the others had even found time to sit down. ‘What the ’ell is the idea draggin’ me along ’ere – anybody would think I was a blarsted criminal!’
‘Be quiet!’ said Chief Inspector Dale sharply.
‘That’s all right, Dale,’ said Sir Graham. ‘Now listen, Tyler. We’re going to ask you a few questions, and if you’ve got any sense, you’ll tell us the truth.’ He looked round at the little gathering who were now waiting to hear what Tyler would have to say.
‘What were you doing in Evesham at the beginning of this week?’
Skid Tyler did not look even surprised. ‘Evesham?’ he retorted impudently. ‘Never been near the place!’
The Commissioner was not so easily put off. ‘My dear fellow, don’t for heaven’s sake adopt that attitude. Inspector Merritt saw you there, didn’t you, Merritt?’
‘That’s right,’ agreed the inspector. ‘Outside “The Little General” about three o’clock in the afternoon.’
‘What would I be doin’ outside a pub at three o’clock in the afternoon,’ said Skid sarcastically. ‘Now I ask you?’
Temple drew his chair forward. ‘Who said “The Little General” was a—public house?’ he asked.
‘Who said so?’ replied Skid, ‘why…why—’ Then suddenly he realized how neatly he had trapped himself. ‘What the ’ell is all this about anyway?’ he demanded angrily. ‘You’ve got nothing on me. You can’t—’ He paused, realizing that he was making a very bad matter a great deal worse.
‘Last week, my dear fellow,’ resumed Temple in very calm tones that only served to infuriate Skid and make him splutter with rage and indignation, ‘with the aid of a two-ton lorry, you accidentally smashed your way into a very select little dress shop. By a strange coincidence, the shop next door happened to be a jeweller’s. By an even stranger coincidence, it happened to be robbed at precisely the same moment that you decided to make a closer inspection of Madame Isabel’s really remarkable exhibition of spring underwear.’
‘What are you getting at?’ Skid shouted.
‘I’ll tell you what I’m getting at, Skid,’ Temple replied. ‘But first of all, tell me, are you fond of children?’
‘Children!’ repeated the bewildered Skid.
‘Ah, but then you must be,’ continued Temple; ‘I was forgetting.’
Skid felt he was being baited. Temple’s smooth words were beyond his comprehension. At last, he burst out. ‘What the ’ell ’as children got to do with all this?’
‘My dear Skid, you surprise me! Don’t you realize you’re holding the baby? And, by Timothy, what a baby!’
‘Holding the…’ Skid did not know what to make of this. An angry policeman he could cope with. But this smooth, calm, deliberate manner of Temple’s was something new to him. ‘Say, listen,’ he started, ‘if you’re trying to be funny, then—’
‘Trying to be funny?’ interrupted Temple. ‘My dear Skid, I’m an amateur humorist compared with the crowd you’ve been mixing with.’
‘What—do—you mean?’
‘What do I mean?’ Temple began to laugh. Even the three policemen looked at him with slight bewilderment.
‘Oh! Oh! Our old friend Skid drives the lorry! Our old friend Skid smashes into the dress shop! Our old friend Skid gets arrested! Our old friend Skid visits Scotland Yard! Our old…’
‘Shut up! Shut yer blarsted mouth!’
‘My dear Skid,’ said Temple quietly, ‘don’t be a damned fool! Why should you take the “rap”? Why should you—’
‘I’m not talking!’ Skid was almost hysterical. ‘I’m not a squealer! I—I know what’s good for me!’
More and more did Skid Tyler feel that he was being driven into a corner by his pitiless foe. More and more he realized that, all unwittingly, he had been giving away precious information, and that he had made it perfectly clear that he was closely involved in the Leamington jewel robbery.
‘You’ll talk,’ said Temple in a determined voice. ‘And you’ll talk fast. What were you doing at Evesham? What where you doing near “The Little General” inn?’
‘I tell you I’ve never been near the blarsted place!’
‘Skid, listen.… This isn’t a one-sided little affair like share- pushing. This is big stuff. This is Crime with a capital C. And you’re in it. In it up to the neck!’ Gradually Paul Temple’s voice had reached a climax. ‘Now talk!’ he said softly.
Skid looked up at his merciless antagonist, towering above him. The room was in absolute silence. All felt the tension in the air. Its utter heaviness. At any moment now might come the blinding flash and the deafening roar of thunder.
Skid looked from one face to the other. He saw no pity. Gradually he was yielding. Temple saw it.
So did Forbes, Dale, and Merritt. Still they said nothing.
Finally he broke down.
‘All right…all right—’ he moaned. ‘I’ll talk…but first I want…a drink. I’m …I’m all…all shot to pieces.’
It was true. Skid had turned a deathly pale. He was trembling violently from head to foot. With his final decision, it amounted almost to a mental breakdown. Skid was suddenly, utterly, exhausted.
Sir Graham Forbes had got up. ‘All right, I
’ll get you some brandy,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some in the cupboard.’ He walked over to the cupboard in the corner of the room near where Steve Trent was sitting.
‘Excuse me, Miss Trent,’ he said. She pushed her chair out of his way. Sir Graham opened the cupboard door and took out a bottle of brandy. As he proceeded to open it, Paul Temple said: ‘Skid, what is “The Green Finger”?’
‘It’s…the organization…that’s been responsible for the jewel robberies.’ Skid was now almost incoherent. ‘The chief of the gang is known as…as the Knave of Diamonds.’
Steve Trent looked up. ‘Max Lorraine!’ she said softly.
‘Have you ever met this person who—’
‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone! For God’s sake, leave me alone!’ Skid’s voice had reached a definite hysterical pitch. He leaped up and made for the door, as if in a despairing effort to flee from his persecutors. Firm hands pulled him back into the chair again.
Forbes walked up to him with a glass of brandy in his hand.
‘Here – drink this!’ he said, giving him the glass.
Skid Tyler seized the glass and gulped its contents down in one draught. The pallor left his cheeks. The strong spirit seemed to bring back life and strength to him. He settled back in his chair.
Paul Temple leaned forward and spoke gently, earnestly.
‘Now, Skid, listen,’ he said. ‘This is important. Have you ever—’
Skid’s face was undergoing curious changes, and Temple paused.
‘Have you ever—’
Temple stopped. Skid’s face had turned a deathly pale and he was sitting back in his chair as though utterly exhausted by long physical and mental effort.
‘Skid!’ The others crowded round Skid, staring at him in horror. Steve Trent had rushed up. She felt Skid Tyler’s forehead with her right hand.
‘Skid! SKID!’ shouted Temple.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked the Commissioner, with astonishment and horror in his voice.
‘Look at him!’ answered Temple. ‘Skid!’ he shouted again. ‘Skid! SKID!’
Forbes knelt down by his side. He put his arm round the ex-convict. Dale had taken his wrist and was feeling his pulse. Paul Temple himself had fallen on his knees in front of Skid Tyler’s chair. He was holding him by the knees and gazing up into his face.
It was an extraordinary scene.
‘What is it?’ asked Chief Inspector Dale. ‘He looks so—’ his voice tailed off into nothingness.
Suddenly Inspector Merritt spoke. ‘Pass me that glass, Sir Graham!’
The Commissioner looked curiously at him.
‘The glass, but…Good God!’ he suddenly ejaculated. ‘You don’t mean—’
He stopped as Temple rose to his feet. Dale released the man’s wrist; then he, too, stood up. The four men stood there in silence, amazement and horror on their faces.
‘He’s dead!’ Paul Temple made the announcement quietly. Again that heavy, lasting silence.
‘Dead!’ Steve repeated, in what was almost a cry of terror.
‘Yes, he’s dead all right,’ said Dale presently. ‘What’s in the glass, Merritt?’
Inspector Merritt had been standing a little away from the others, carefully examining the glass from which Skid Tyler had drunk.
‘Enough poison to kill a regiment,’ he announced sombrely.
‘But—but that’s impossible,’ the Commissioner stuttered. ‘Why it—it was a new bottle. I…I—’
Suddenly the door opened. Sergeant Leopold appeared.
‘A lady to see you, sir, by the name of—’
‘I can’t see anyone,’ interrupted Sir Graham irritably. ‘Tell her I’m out. Tell her to—’
‘Oh, just a minute, Sergeant,’ interposed Paul Temple smoothly. He, alone, seemed to have preserved his normal composure. A caller, and a woman at that, who had succeeded in getting herself announced to the Commissioner, interested him. Especially at this particular moment. ‘Who is the lady?’ he asked.
‘It’s a Miss Parchment, sir,’ said the sergeant quietly. ‘A Miss Amelia Victoria Parchment.’
CHAPTER XII
The Plan
For the moment the dead body of Skid Tyler was forgotten. Temple alone seemed to take this extraordinarily timed visit completely for granted.
As Sir Graham Forbes remained staring at Sergeant Leopold as if he were some new species of monster, Temple took it upon himself to issue instructions.
‘Ask her to wait a few minutes.’
‘Very good, sir,’ the sergeant answered, after a pause that was barely perceptible.
‘Where’s the bottle, Sir Graham?’ asked Chief Inspector Dale suddenly.
The Commissioner walked over to a filing cabinet against the wall by the window where he had placed the bottle. The corkscrew and the cork itself were lying near it.
‘It’s…here—’ he managed to say. The Commissioner, normally the most alert and ready of men, now appeared completely baffled.
‘I can’t understand it,’ he went on. ‘The bottle’s a new one.… I bought it myself only two days ago.’
Chief Inspector Dale took the bottle and examined it closely. He turned it from side to side, scrutinized the neck, and finally peered intently at the opening, and cork. At last he looked up.
‘The stopper doesn’t seem to have been tampered with as far as I can see,’ he said. Then again he carried on with his scrutiny. ‘Just a minute!’ Dale hesitated. ‘I’m not so sure.’ From the Commissioner’s desk he took a powerful magnifying glass.
‘Someone must have tampered with it!’ exclaimed Inspector Merritt. ‘Why—’
‘Then the poison must have been meant for you, Sir Graham,’ said Paul Temple quietly; ‘and not for Tyler.’
The Commissioner blinked at him. ‘Yes—it—er—looks very much like it,’ he said.
Meanwhile the body of Skid Tyler was still lying sprawled out unnaturally on the armchair. They had all been too busy with the strange mystery of his death even to think of moving the body.
‘I think we’d better get him into the other room, sir,’ Inspector Merritt said, indicating the body with a wave of his hand. ‘Then Doctor Parkes can have a look at him.’
‘Yes…Yes—er—by all means,’ agreed the Commissioner. He was still very flustered. Completely gone was all pretence of the usual calm, collected man of affairs. Many Press reporters would have given a great deal to have seen him in this state.
‘Oh, and take this bottle,’ he added to Merritt. ‘See that Mollinson gets to work on it.’
Andrew Arthur Mollinson was the research man. After a careful examination of the bottle, during which he was apt to use apparatus of every kind varying from powerful microscopes to ultra violet rays, he would in all probability be able to give an accurate picture of the history of the bottle immediately preceding the strange murder.
The Commissioner pressed a bell to summon Sergeant Leopold again. With the latter’s help, Dale and Merritt picked up the inert mass which had been Skid Tyler and struggled towards the door.
‘You might tell the doctor I’d like a word with him,’ said the Commissioner, as they were going out.
Slowly, down the corridor, they carried him. Finally laying his body flat on a couch so that Dr. Parkes could make his examination before rigor mortis set in.
‘Terrible business!’ Sir Graham remarked to Paul Temple, as soon as the door had closed. ‘I can’t possibly understand how—’ Suddenly he remembered that a ‘mere wisp of a girl’, as he regarded her, had been present right through this gruesome scene, and he turned to Steve Trent with a great measure of fatherly solicitude in his voice.
‘I say, I hope it hasn’t shaken you up, Miss Trent?’
‘No, I’m all right, Sir Graham,’ Steve replied. She had faced similar and even worse ordeals before, and she was comparatively hardened to such sights. ‘But I’m afraid I shall have to be going,’ she continued. ‘I have an appointment at four o’clock and I—’
>
‘Yes, of course,’ interrupted the Commissioner. ‘Of course.’
Steve Trent knew she had a story any newspaper man would willingly have given a year of his life to possess. There was only one thing to do, and that was to get to the office as fast as the first taxi would take her.
It seemed a pity to leave, but then everything of importance had already happened. In very little over an hour’s time, Sir Graham Forbes would be reading her account in The Evening Post, ‘and she thrilled in anticipation’.
First she talked over the question of the story with the Commissioner and with Temple. Sir Graham gave her full permission to report the events of the afternoon exclusively for The Evening Post, but she must use her discretion in its presentation. Her own part, her eyewitness account, she could give. But she must not, at any cost, stress the sensational side of the mystery.
They were vague instructions. But Steve Trent understood only too well the mood the Commissioner was in, and she did not care to alienate his sympathies. He had also promised her further information if she telephoned or called later in the afternoon, and it was very much to her advantage not to antagonize him.
The murder of Skid Tyler had engrossed her thoughts to such an extent that she had almost forgotten she was a reporter. But now, Steve began to tremble with excitement as the immense value of her ‘news story’ began to sink in to her consciousness.
She bade the Commissioner goodbye and thanked him. But her thoughts were elsewhere. Already she was struggling with her ‘intro’—the first few lines of the report that she felt sure would cause a sensation in Fleet Street. She arranged to meet Paul Temple at the office in about an hour’s time, after her fierce tearing rush was over. Then she said au revoir to him, and was sprinting downstairs to the main door. The ‘story’ was about to ‘break’. As Steve hurriedly looked round for a telephone box, she could literally have shouted with excitement. At the same time, she was running through the whole scene again in her mind, ready to write up her account of it.
She turned round the corner and ran as fast as she could into Westminster Bridge Station. Luckily one of the booths was vacant. In a flash she was inside and dialling her office.
Paul Temple 3-Book Collection Page 10