Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery

by Francis Durbridge

  Paul stepped into the road and waved down a taxi.

  Chapter Three

  Margaret Milbourne said good evening to the commissionaire as he held open the door. It was ten past six, an appropriate ten minutes late. She didn’t approve of punctuality, it cheapened one so, however anxious she was to meet this mysterious Danny what’s-his-name. As she walked through the foyer she glanced at the wall mirror and lifted her head a shade higher. It was important to look serene in the midst of tragedy.

  Danny Clayton, that was his name. He had sounded young and American on the telephone, and he had some information about her husband. She pushed through the swing doors to the cocktail bar. A smattering of customers, a desultory air of opulence, and a forlorn man playing muzack at the piano. She thought it should be possible to recognise Danny Clayton by instinct – he would be the slim, hawk nosed youth who was watching the other customers with something like amused contempt.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ asked the barman.

  ‘Not for the moment, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m meeting a Mr Clayton. I believe he’s staying here.’

  He was the slim, hawk nosed youth. He ordered drinks and guided Margaret across to a corner seat. His absentminded good manners unnerved her slightly. He said it was good of her to spare the time, but he spoke with such casual insincerity that she couldn’t think how to reply.

  ‘Who are you exactly?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m Danny Clayton, I’m thirty years old, I was born in New York, I work for Julia Carrington, and I wanted to see you about your husband.’

  Was that supposed to be funny or downright rude? ‘Julia Carrington?’ she repeated, clutching at the familiar name and hoping to slow him down.

  ‘I’m Julia’s confidential secretary,’ he said with a laugh, ‘among other things. I’m also her business adviser, whipping boy and general yes-man. Julia has given me the sack five times and I’ve walked out on her more often than I care to remember. She’s a bitch, Mrs Milbourne, but luckily for me a very generous bitch.’

  His dress was very English, modern English, thought Margaret, but young people’s styles were so confusing these days. She looked at his long hair (she would have called it a page boy cut) and his shirt with matching tie. ‘What has all this to do with my husband, Mr Clayton?’

  ‘He came to see Julia just before the accident.’

  ‘I know. That’s why he went to Switzerland in the first place, to see your Miss Carrington.’

  ‘Right, only he didn’t see her.’ Danny Clayton laughed apologetically. ‘He saw me instead.’

  ‘I wish you’d get to the point,’ she said distractedly. Her serenity was slipping away and she could do nothing about it. ‘What did you want to tell me about my husband?’

  ‘Mrs Milbourne, I have one or two photographs in my wallet.’ He produced his wallet and drew out the photographs like a conjuror. ‘I’d like you to take a look at these.’

  The photographs were of her husband, wearing a strange new hat in St Moritz. The photographer’s name and date stamp were on the back – they were taken on January the sixth.

  ‘Can I have another martini?’ she asked.

  Clayton crooked his finger at a passing waiter.

  ‘What was Carl doing in St Moritz? And if he wasn’t killed in that car accident why did he let me think that he had been?’ She was almost in tears. But Clayton’s reply brought her back to crude reality.

  ‘I can answer those questions, Mrs Milbourne. I can answer any questions you care to ask me about your husband, but I’m afraid this is going to cost you a lot of money.’

  She felt as if he had kicked her in the stomach. ‘You mean this is blackmail?’

  Paul Temple was on the telephone when Mrs Milbourne was shown into the workroom. It was nine o’clock and he had been listening patiently to Scott Reed for half an hour. ‘Yes, Scott, I always talk to journalists about avenging angels coming in to restore normality. That’s right, a sudden melodramatic action disrupts the community, but it can be put right by logical thinking and an eye for the shady butler.’ Scott had remembered the highbrow interview and he didn’t want Paul to be too casually modest.

  ‘Don’t forget to mention your theories on the identity of Jack the Ripper,’ said Scott. ‘She’ll have heard of Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘I forget what my last theory was.’

  He let Scott prattle on while Steve was looking after Mrs Milbourne. They seemed to be discussing Steve’s afternoon at Scotland Yard looking through the ‘mug book’ to identify Mr Pentagon Garage. Mrs Milbourne appeared none too reassured to hear of the exploding car and the fate of Dolly Brazier.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Dolly Brazier?’ Paul asked when eventually he had disposed of his publisher.

  ‘No, but of course it’s a scandal when a young girl can’t –’

  ‘Quite. Does the name Freda Sands mean anything to you?’

  Mrs Milbourne looked startled. ‘Yes, of course. She’s a great friend of my brother’s.’

  ‘Did your husband know her?’

  ‘Yes, quite well,’ she said distractedly. ‘Miss Sands often supplied him with typists and office staff.’

  Steve had noticed the edge to Margaret’s voice. ‘Is she a friend of yours, Mrs Milbourne?’

  ‘No. I should imagine that most of Freda’s friends are men, preferably men who can put business her way. That’s how she’s done so well, of course.’

  There was a pause. Paul wondered why Mrs Milbourne had come to see him. She didn’t seem anxious to come to the point.

  ‘I always had the impression she had her eye on Carl,’ she was saying. ‘Carl used to laugh at me for suggesting such a thing, but you know how it is, Mrs Temple. A woman can have an intuition about these things.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Steve said with a laugh.

  How would she know anything of the kind, Paul wondered. ‘Brandy?’ he asked. ‘Then you can tell me why you’ve arrived with such an appearance of urgency. Has something happened?’

  Margaret Milbourne hesitated, glanced at herself in the mirror as if she were making an entrance, then launched into an account of her meeting with Danny Clayton. ‘I felt as if he’d kicked me in the stomach,’ she said indignantly.

  An inelegant phrase, but Paul listened with fascination. This was a development he would not have expected. Even allowing for the dramatic embellishments which an actress would hardly resist (making Clayton speak and look like a B picture heavy) it seemed as if a serious attempt had been made at blackmail.

  ‘He demanded five thousand pounds,’ she said.

  ‘But what exactly for?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I suppose he’ll tell me tomorrow. I’m supposed to visit him at eleven o’clock with five thousand pounds in used notes.’

  ‘At the New Wilton Hotel?’

  ‘No no, somewhere out in Berkshire.’ She rummaged in her handbag until she found a used envelope with the address scribbled on the back. ‘The Three Star Hotel, Bray-on-Thames.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘It’s near Maidenhead.’

  Paul knew one man in London who had worked in Hollywood. When Mrs Milbourne had left he telephoned Vince Langham.

  Actually Vince was the most important film director he knew. The film he had made of a Paul Temple novel many years ago was his least claim to fame, if only because he had just arrived in England in flight from McCarthy and had directed it under another name. But the film had been staggering, pulling Paul’s story apart and turning it into a statement about man’s barbarity to man. There had been a lot of symbolism, youths on motorbikes in an English village, phallic church spires and bells ringing ecstatically as the heroine was ravaged on Hallow’en. It had been the beginning of a new career for Vince, and the start of highbrow attention for Paul.

  ‘He’s directing a musical,’ said Vince’s wife. ‘You’ll find him at Victoria coach station.’

  An army of film extras was piling into coaches – cut �
� piling out again, piling in, while cameramen and technicians and all those people with no ostensible job to do milled about among the confusion. Perched high above the scene with a megaphone was Vince Langham, the director. He required seven takes of the extras piling into the coach, and then the arc lamps and the cameras had to be moved to another part of the action. Vince Langham’s perch was lowered to the ground.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ bellowed Langham’s assistant through a megaphone, ‘everybody back in twenty minutes!’

  Vince was a rugged man in his mid-fifties with unkempt hair straggling over the collar of his overcoat. Before he had become a director he had acted in several cowboy films and he still looked uncomfortable in modern dress.

  ‘Good lord, Paul Temple,’ he called as he jumped to the floor. ‘Come and have coffee with me.’ He led Paul to a mobile dressing room which he was using beneath the departures board. ‘We’ve been four months on this epic and we’re off the floor tonight, spot on schedule. Just re-shooting some of the crowd scenes.’

  He talked for a while about the film, made the routine complaints about his bitch of a leading lady, and then asked what Paul was doing out at this time of night.

  ‘I came here to ask about Julia Carrington,’ said Paul. ‘Last time I saw you I remember you were going to Switzerland to see her.’

  ‘That’s right. I had a wonderful vehicle for Julia, and I hoped I could lure her out of retirement.’ He laughed. ‘But I came up against some secretary of hers, and the little bastard advised her against playing the part.’

  ‘Not a certain Mr Clayton, by any chance?’ murmured Paul.

  He looked surprised. ‘That’s right, Danny Clayton. Do you know him?’

  ‘No,’ said Paul, ‘but I’ve heard a few things.’

  Vince Langham needed no prompting to talk about Danny Clayton. ‘A real young man on the make, all nerve and no talent,’ was his opinion. ‘But he seems to have sold his act to poor Julia. She thinks he’s the original boy wonder.’

  ‘Is he simply her secretary –?’

  ‘He’s every damn thing in her life. Even does her thinking for her.’ Langham added brandy to his coffee and offered the flask to Paul. ‘Do you know, this was a wonderful vehicle for Julia, absolutely made for her. I’d found this novel called Too Young to Die and it had everything. The very first scene –’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve read it,’ Paul said thoughtfully, ‘although it sounds familiar. Who wrote it?’

  Vince hesitated. ‘A guy called Randolph. Richard Randolph. I’ve never met him, but I expect he’ll be on all the television chat shows next month when it’s published.’

  ‘Who,’ Paul asked thoughtfully, ‘is the publisher?’

  ‘God knows, I can never remember names.’ Vince waved aside the irrelevance. ‘I obtained a copy from a friend of mine who saw it in typescript. She recognised it as a vehicle for Julia Carrington.’ He sighed. ‘And she was right, by God.’

  ‘Who was this friend of yours?’

  ‘A woman called Freda Sands. Her agency typed the novel, that was how she came to read it. She’s a very remarkable woman –’

  ‘So I’ve been hearing.’

  ‘You seem to have been hearing a lot. What’s happening, Temple? I know it’s a bit unethical to get hold of a typescript before the publisher, but it goes on all the time. No need for an investigation. Some of the biggest film deals in movie history have been fixed that way.’

  Somebody banged on the dressing room door. ‘Everyone back in their place,’ the assistant was shouting. ‘Everyone on set!’

  Vince grinned. ‘I seem to be needed. Are you going to stay and watch, Paul?’

  ‘No, I have to be up early in the morning. If you’d had a full orchestra out there in the coach bays it might have been different,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Your wife said this was a musical. But I’m going out to Bray-on-Thames first thing to see a man called Danny Clayton.’

  ‘If you catch him with his back turned,’ Vince said wryly, ‘give him a kick in the pants from me.’

  Chapter Four

  The Three Star Hotel at Bray was on a bend in the river. Paul Temple stood watching the swans drift upstream; they bobbed gracefully as a motor launch swept past and caught them in its wash. It was a tranquil, cold morning and the sounds of traffic seemed very remote. Paul watched a fisherman along the bank wind in a roach that must have weighed at least seven pounds, then he turned and went through the glass doors into the bar.

  ‘I’m meeting a Mr Danny Clayton,’ he said to the landlord. ‘He was going to be here at eleven o’clock.’

  The American gentleman?’ he said abruptly. ‘He’s left.’

  The landlord was a veteran of the Battle of Britain. He stared at Paul. ‘You’re not Mr Temple?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul, ‘my name’s Temple.’

  ‘Mr Clayton said you’d be calling. He left a note for you.’ The landlord retrieved a note from beside the till. ‘Mr Clayton had a reservation here, but he called in this morning and cancelled it. Probably found out that we don’t sell Coca-Cola.’

  Paul unfolded the message feeling that somebody had outsmarted him. He was being manipulated. Nobody except Margaret Milbourne had known he would be coming…

  Dear Mr Temple, the message read, If you are interested in what happened to Carl Milbourne I suggest that you meet me at Peter’s Folly, which is a houseboat near Salter’s End. I shall refuse to see you if you are accompanied by anyone. Danny Clayton.

  The landlord was peering over his shoulder. ‘Salter’s End is about half a mile down stream, Mr Temple. Can’t miss it. Dozens of houseboats.’

  ‘Who lives on Peter’s Folly?’

  ‘Chap called Peter, Peter Fletcher. He’s an artist, so I suppose he can afford a few follies.’ The landlord made it clear that Fletcher was a charlatan. ‘Not that he’ll be on the houseboat this morning. He has a flat in London.’

  ‘You’ve been very helpful.’ Paul smiled and tried to sound casual. ‘I wonder whether you’d do me a favour? If I’m not back here in one hour could you telephone Inspector Jenkins of Bray CID?’

  The landlord nodded. ‘I wondered whether you were the Paul Temple. Well, you can rely on me, sir.’

  Paul set off along the tow-path with only the lapping of the water and occasional fields of cows as company. A harsh breeze was cutting across the flat Berkshire countryside. He shivered, increased his pace, and tried to pretend that this would purge those centrally-heated weeks in London.

  Yet he wondered what he was doing out here. Pursuing a blackmailer, perhaps, or trying to find a neurotic woman’s husband. But the only way to find Carl Milbourne was to go to Switzerland and look into the accident, or try to discover who would benefit from his supposed death. Chasing after Danny Clayton wasn’t the most direct lead in that direction. Although staying in England did make some sense: somebody had been playing games in England: shooting up the Rolls, trying to blow up Steve, beating up Dolly Brazier. I’m here, Paul thought to himself, because I’m angry about those games.

  He followed the bend of the river and came to the small inlet called Bidford Creek which was crowded with houseboats. They looked drab and deserted at this time of year. The only sign of life was at the far end where three police cars stood by the dirt path and blue uniforms were hurrying down to Peter’s Folly.

  ‘Sorry to stop you, sir,’ said a constable as Paul hurried round the inlet. ‘Would you mind telling me where you’re going?’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Paul demanded.

  The constable blocked the tow-path. ‘I’d be glad if you’d answer my question, sir.’

  ‘I was looking for a houseboat called Peter’s Folly, but it looks as though your people have found it first.’

  The dapper figure of Inspector Jenkins came towards them. ‘Hello, Temple,’ he called officiously. ‘I hope you’re going to turn round and go straight back in the direction you came from? I couldn’t bear another case in which my men do all the wo
rk while you prowl about behind my back being brilliant. Why not pop across the county border into Buckinghamshire?’

  Paul chuckled as if the inspector were joking. ‘That was five years ago, Emlyn. It’s time you had another success in your career.’

  ‘Another success? What do you want me to do, find your stolen car?’ The quip kept him amused while they watched the ambulance bump noisily along the dirt path and stop by the houseboat. ‘I cut out the press report on your car. It’s pinned on the notice board in my office and whenever I’m feeling depressed I go and read it.’

  The two old friends wandered across to the ambulance while Paul explained his reason for being there. They watched a stretcher swathed in blankets carried ashore.

  ‘What’s happened, Emlyn? Has there been an accident?’

  ‘Not an accident,’ said the inspector. ‘Murder.’

  ‘I’ve been having one of those weeks,’ murmured Paul. ‘Do you know the name of the victim?’

  ‘Peter Fletcher, of course. It’s his bloody houseboat, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Paul agreed, ‘it’s his houseboat. But I didn’t necessarily expect it to be his body. The murderer is very wasteful.’

  The inspector climbed into the ambulance and leaned over the stretcher. ‘It’s Peter Fletcher all right,’ he said bitterly. ‘We know him in these parts.’ He flipped back the blanket and looked at the face. Somebody had closed the dead man’s eyes, but the expression of pain and surprise remained fixed.

  ‘What does the murderer waste?’ asked Jenkins as he led the way up the gangplank and on to the boat. ‘You said he was wasteful.’

  ‘He wastes human life,’ Paul said thoughtfully. ‘And motor cars. He seems to be flailing about like a destructive child, without a sufficient motive. I call that wasteful.’

  Jenkins grunted to himself. ‘You can explain yourself later, when there’s more time for philosophical discussion.’ He lowered himself through the hatch into the living quarters of the boat.