‘Are you all right?’ whimpered Lucas. ‘Den, are you all right? What’s the matter with your –? Oh my God!’
Paul went down to breakfast feeling irritable. He had woken up with the knowledge that something was wrong, and it had taken him several seconds to remember what it was. Then it had dawned on him. As he dressed he peered casually out of the window, pretending not to expect the car to be parked in the mews. It wasn’t.
Steve was already past the porridge and well into the bacon and eggs. Healthy breakfasts were her most serious character defect. She would follow with toast and marmalade. Paul tried not to notice. He went towards the door leading into the garage, but stopped himself. Instead he poured some black coffee.
‘A bath and shave haven’t done you much good,’ said Steve.
‘They wouldn’t help to get the car back,’ he said. ‘The Rolls was stolen last night if you remember.’
‘I know, I’ve been reading about it.’ She tossed the newspaper across to him. ‘You see, they’ve used that old photograph of you looking like a lean and glamorous bloodhound.’
Paul read the item: ‘Mr Temple, usually so self-possessed, was highly irritable when our reporter spoke to him last night about the stolen car. “Don’t ask me what happened”, snapped Britain’s number one Private Eye, “I haven’t a clue.” The police are treating this as a routine case…’ He looked up at the spluttering sound coming from Steve.
‘I never said that,’ he complained. ‘I never said a word about not having a –’
Kate Balfour bustled in from the tiny hall. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Temple, but Inspector Vosper is asking to see you.’
‘Vosper?’ he stared at the housekeeper in disbelief. ‘But Charlie Vosper wouldn’t be on a routine case of –’ He stopped as she gestured that the inspector was standing behind her. ‘Oh well, ask him to come in, will you, Kate?’
Vosper made his way directly to the coffee and sat at the table beside a spare cup. ‘Good morning, Temple. That’s very welcome, yes, I’ll have white with three lumps, please. Good morning, Mrs Temple.’ He was obviously pleased with himself. Either he had bad news for Paul or his retirement was due next week.
‘So what news about my car?’ asked Paul.
‘Ah yes, your car. A sad business when you can’t leave a Rolls Royce parked all evening in a London street, isn’t it?’ His grey eyes glittered maliciously. ‘How many thousand pounds does a car like that cost? Or was that the one you were given as a bribe?’
‘It was offered as an inducement for me to accept a case,’ Paul agreed stiffly. ‘But I paid the price for it when my wife wouldn’t let me return it. My wife enjoys sitting in the back making plans for new ways to furnish it.’
Vosper finished his coffee and then said casually, ‘Well, we found it late last night, but it needs more than new furnishings. I’m afraid there was a very bad accident the other side of Newport Pagnell.’
‘Tell me more,’ Paul said with a glance at Steve.
‘We found it in a ditch beside the M1. The car seems to have left the road, hit an RAC telephone box and then rolled down the bank. The radiator is damaged and the windscreen smashed.’
‘Any trace of the driver?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Vosper. ‘He was still at the wheel, with a bullet through his head. I forgot to mention the mess on the upholstery.’
Steve had risen to her feet. ‘Oh, Paul!’ She turned away and began pouring more coffee. ‘So that’s why you’re here.’
‘Who was the man?’ Paul asked. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Yes, we know him. He was a small-time car thief called Den Roberts. There were fake number plates in the back of the car; I daresay he planned to change them over in Birmingham.’
‘Was Roberts alone in the car?’
‘He was alone when we found him.’
Paul thought for a moment. Roberts may have quarrelled with his accomplice, although it seemed unlikely that anybody would shoot the driver of the car he was travelling in. It was a problem.
‘What’s happened to my car now?’ asked Paul.
‘It’s in the Pentagon Garage at Newport Pagnell. They’ll telephone you when it’s repaired.’ Charlie Vosper raised himself ponderously from the chair, picked up his plain clothes trilby and announced with deliberation that it was all go, wasn’t it? ‘If there’s nothing else, Temple…’
‘I’ll see you out.’
Paul took the inspector into the passage and closed the kitchen door. He glanced up the stairs behind him to the main part of the house, to make sure that Kate Balfour wasn’t listening. ‘Charlie,’ said Paul, ‘there’s just one thing.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘This man Roberts. I wondered – could he have been mistaken for me?’
Vosper was surprised. ‘Well, he wasn’t much like you to look at, but it happened at night. Anybody overtaking the car might have been under the impression…I suppose it’s possible. Do you think it was an attempt on your life, Temple?’
‘No,’ Paul said lightly, ‘I haven’t an enemy in the world. But let me know if there are more developments.’
He watched Inspector Vosper pad away down the cobbled mews and turn into Chester Square. Then Paul went back into the kitchen. He smiled reassuringly at Steve and began pouring more coffee.
‘We’ll have to book up for Geneva or the Highlands of Scotland this morning –’
‘Darling, I suppose it didn’t occur to Inspector Vosper that whoever shot the car thief might have been under the impression they were shooting you?’
‘Good Lord, Steve, whatever put that idea into your head?’
‘Don’t tell me Britain’s number one Private Eye didn’t think of that one,’ she said seriously. ‘It was your car, in the dark, and the number plates hadn’t been changed. Anyone following the car must have thought you were driving it.’
‘You’re being fanciful, darling. I expect you’re worried about travelling by bus for the next week or so.’ The telephone rang at that moment and Paul hoped it would be somebody to take Steve’s mind off the subject.
‘Mr Temple!’ called Kate Balfour. ‘It’s Scott Reed for you!’
‘I’ll take it up in the workroom,’ said Paul.
‘Yes, it was a classic story of its kind – I sat up until three o’clock. Couldn’t put it down. Absolutely riveting, although I still don’t know who committed the murder. Was that intentional?
‘But it will keep me solvent for another year,’ Scott Reed concluded. ‘Might even pay for this academic study of history and the myth of potency which I’ve just published.’
‘What was that about?’ Paul asked politely.
‘I’ve no idea.’
Paul sat in the swivel chair at his desk and swung round with his feet in the air. Scott was a difficult man to keep to the point. And the idea of a scholarly work proving that politicians were national sex symbols seemed absurd.
‘Before you ring off, Scott,’ he interrupted, ‘hang on, I want to ask you about Carl Milbourne. What made you think I’d want to get involved? Is there something mysterious about his death?’
‘Good lord, no,’ Scott said nervously. ‘He was a friend of mine, that’s all, and naturally when his wife told me she needed to talk to a skilled investigator –’
Paul laughed. ‘I don’t believe you, but it doesn’t matter. Steve is dragging me off on holiday at the end of the week. You’re a devious old devil. We’ll see you when we come back.’
He replaced the receiver and swung his chair round to the desk as Kate Balfour tapped on the door. She showed in a dramatically attractive woman. Paul didn’t need telling that this was the ex-actress widow of Carl Milbourne. She was dressed in mauve and she swept in with the distraught air that had thrilled gallery first-nighters in play after play during the post war years. She began pouring out her troubles as Paul was shaking her gloved hand.
‘It’s no use, Mr Temple,’ she said tensely, sitting in the chair which
Paul had indicated and peeling off the gloves, ‘the more I think about it the more certain I am that the dead man we saw that morning was not my husband.’
Paul nodded sympathetically and asked why she hadn’t said so at the time.
‘I was upset. Confused.’ A rapid glance at Paul and then she looked down again at the hands in her lap. ‘I really didn’t know what was happening.’
‘But your brother was with you, Mrs Milbourne, and he also identified the body. Surely he wouldn’t have –’
‘Maurice was upset too,’ she intruded. Her tone suddenly changed. ‘You mean you’ve seen Maurice? You’ve been talking to him?’
‘My wife and I had dinner out last night – at L’Hachoire Restaurant. Your brother was there, and he invited us into his office for a drink.’
‘What did he say about me?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘He said that you were still very upset, Mrs Milbourne, and that you simply refuse to face up to your husband’s death.’ Paul sat on the sofa next to her. ‘I didn’t know your husband well, Mrs Milbourne. I only met him once, and that was several years ago. I don’t believe he was married then.’
‘We were married six years ago.’
‘I remember him as a very charming man. I’m not surprised you find it difficult to imagine a world without him. You must feel very lonely now. I gather you don’t have any children?’
Margaret Milbourne had acted in enough problem dramas to understand the significance of Paul’s question. ‘That’s true. We both wanted children, but it wasn’t to be.’ She sighed. ‘Mr Temple, you might think this business has been too much for me and that I’m perhaps – a little unbalanced. But I assure you –’
‘Don’t worry about what I think, Mrs Milbourne. For the moment let’s concentrate on the facts. What was your husband doing in Geneva?’
She was slightly pained by the efficient manner. ‘Carl went on business, to see Julia Carrington.’
Paul knew the legend of Julia Carrington, the beautiful American actress who had retired after her tenth film and taken her dollars to Switzerland. Scandals still attached to her name as the dream factory hinted at indiscipline on the set and orgies between films.
‘Carl had heard a rumour that she was writing her memoirs,’ explained Margaret Milbourne. ‘He was anxious to find out whether that was true.’
Yes, he would have been, Paul reflected. Julia Carrington’s memoirs would be a scoop for any publisher. A success and sex story with famous names thrown in. Beautiful women, temperamental stars and bankers with several millions of dollars at stake. The only people who could be more interested in them than a publisher would be the famous names, the film company and the bankers.
‘I didn’t want him to go,’ Margaret Milbourne was saying. ‘I had a feeling, I don’t know why. Julia Carrington doesn’t bring other people luck. She has a doomed aura –’
‘Mrs Milbourne, I don’t doubt your sincerity. I don’t doubt that you really believe that your husband is still alive. But feelings and aura and the word of a medium are not evidence.’
She smiled ironically. ‘I have evidence.’ She took a piece of paper from her handbag and passed it across to Paul. ‘Is this evidence enough for you, Mr Temple?’
When she and her brother had returned from Switzerland after the accident Mrs Milbourne had found a parcel waiting at her home. It was addressed to Carl Milbourne from a shop in St Moritz. It contained the hat which Milbourne had been wearing when he left.
‘Your husband’s hat?’ Paul repeated.
‘Carl had a weakness for buying hats, he was constantly buying them. His dress sense was something I never quite adjusted to, even after six years of marriage. I knew at once what had happened. Carl had bought a new hat in St Moritz, and he had asked the shop to post his old one home.’
‘But obviously,’ Paul murmured, ‘this must have happened before the accident.’
She raised an imperious hand. ‘I’m coming to that, Mr Temple. You see, the hat was no use to me and I gave it away. I gave it to the gardener, as a matter of fact. And the day before yesterday he came to see me. He had found this piece of paper in the brim of the hat.’
Paul examined the paper. It was a note, dated January the sixth. ‘Please don’t worry,’ it read. ‘Have seen Randolph and everything will be all right. Will contact you later.’ Paul looked enquiringly at Mrs Milbourne.
‘January the sixth, Mr Temple, was two days after the accident.’
He nodded. ‘Are you sure this is your husband’s handwriting?’
‘Positive.’
‘So who do you suppose was killed by that car, Mrs Milbourne?’
‘I haven’t the remotest idea.’
Paul sighed. ‘And I suppose you don’t know anyone called Randolph. All we know is that whoever this note was addressed to it was never sent, otherwise it wouldn’t have been in your husband’s hat.’
‘You’re the private investigator, Mr Temple.’
Paul winced. She made him sound like a man in a raincoat spying on adulterers. One of these days, when he was grey and sporting a beard, he would call himself a criminologist. ‘What did you want me to do, Mrs Milbourne?’
‘I’d like you and Mrs Temple to come out with me to Switzerland.’ She continued in a puzzled tone, ‘I’d like to know what Carl was doing in St Moritz. He didn’t tell me he was going there, and he hates winter sports.’
They were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. ‘Excuse me,’ murmured Paul. He picked up the receiver.
‘Is that Paul Temple?’ asked the anxious voice. ‘Darling, you won’t remember me –’
‘Dolly! Of course I remember you. How’s the dancing now? Are you working again?’ He shrugged apologetically at Mrs Milbourne. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?’
‘I’d like to talk to you, Mr Temple, darling. It’s terribly important.’
‘Of course. Why don’t you come round –?’
‘No no,’ the voice said anxiously, ‘I’d sooner meet you somewhere else. In the open somewhere, the park or somewhere like that.’
‘The Zoo?’
‘That’s a wonderful idea! Just the place! I’ll be inside the main gate in about forty minutes. See you then, darling.’
Paul replaced the receiver and turned back to Mrs Milbourne. ‘I’m sorry, an old friend of mine seems to be in trouble.’
‘That’s all right, Mr Temple,’ she said. ‘I rather think we’ve finished, haven’t we? I’ll arrange the flight –’
‘There is one more thing. A personal question. Did you and your husband quarrel before he left for Geneva?’
She laughed dismissively. ‘Actually, yes we did. I suppose Maurice told you?’ She rose to her feet and began putting on her gloves. ‘There was only one subject we ever quarrelled about, but unfortunately it happened to crop up just before he left. Carl was anxious to avoid paying death duties. He always took it for granted that he would go first, and…’ Her voice quickened dramatically. ‘He just would insist on talking about death. I hated the subject, simply hated it, Mr Temple. I used to tell him, “You’re only forty-eight!” But he would insist on discussing it.’
‘He talked about death and estate duties the night before he left for Geneva?’ Paul asked thoughtfully.
‘Yes, he did.’
Chapter Two
Paul Temple paid off his taxi outside the main entrance to the London Zoological Gardens. It was an exhilarating January morning with a low sun filtering through the clouds. Paul went in and bought a bag of peanuts for the monkeys; they deserved a treat in this temperature, although they looked perfectly cheerful.
The last time Paul had seen Dolly Brazier she had been in the dock for her part in a drugs scandal. He had known her for many years. She had played the part of a pop singer in a stage thriller he had written. The play had been a disaster, because the director had cut out most of the clues and all the explanations, but Dolly had remained his friend. A few ye
ars later when she was arrested Paul had persuaded Arnold Waldron to defend her, and Arnold had got her off with a twelve months’ suspended sentence.
There was no sign of her yet, so Paul found a telephone kiosk and put through a call to the Pentagon Garage in Newport Pagnell. The drive across London with a talkative cockney taxi driver had convinced Paul that he needed the Rolls.
The news was unpromising. His car had been returned to the factory for a new radiator, a new windscreen and some panel beating. The cheerful indifference of the mechanic was tiresome, especially when he concluded that it would be about ten days before the work was completed. Paul hung up and went back to feed the monkeys.
‘Hello, Paul! Here I am, darling!’
Dolly Brazier ran up through the west tunnel waving her handbag. She was a vivacious little red-head with a black maxi coat billowing to reveal the shapely legs of a chorus girl. She embraced him and left a smear of lipstick on his cheek.
‘Nice to see you again,’ said Paul. ‘Although you don’t look worried out of your mind to me.’ She had that kind of face. ‘Where are you working these days?’
‘Oh, I’ve done all sorts of things since the summer season in Scarborough last year.’ She laughed and took his arm. ‘I even did secretarial work, until they discovered that I couldn’t spell.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ said Paul. ‘Where are you working now?’
She tried to sound casual. ‘I’m – you know, I’m a night club hostess. It’s work, isn’t it?’
‘Where?’
‘Oh, in Soho.’ She took a peanut and threw it to a weary orang-utan. ‘Shall we go across to the cafe by the penguin pool? I’m dying for a coffee.’
They walked across the gardens, past the screeching gibbons, the lions and the love-lorn panda, until they reached the refreshment stall. Paul bought two coffees and a packet of chocolate biscuits for Dolly.
Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery Page 2