Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘Was that,’ Paul asked bitterly, ‘my imagination, or was that gunfire?’

  Chapter Eight

  They watched the ambulance drive away and then turned to Walter Neider. ‘Don’t you think he should have gone to hospital?’ asked Paul. The wreckage of the car was being towed away by a breakdown lorry. Paul was slightly unnerved by the efficient way a city could erase all traces of attempted murder.

  ‘If Mr Clayton insists on returning home –’ Neider shrugged massively.

  ‘But he was scarcely conscious!’ Paul protested.

  ‘He insisted on returning home.’

  Danny had been grazed on the temple by the bullet and his car had plunged into the side of a bridge. The blood had looked dramatic and Danny had been slumped across the front seats as if he were dead. But then as the small crowd of night people gathered to help and the police were sent for, Danny had begun to groan. He had survived.

  ‘What I’d like to be sure of,’ Paul said thoughtfully, ‘is which side Danny is on.’

  ‘How many sides are there?’ asked Steve.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Neider walked with them back to the hotel. ‘I know something of Mr Clayton’s movements this afternoon,’ he volunteered. ‘He visited the hospital and saw a woman called Freda Sands. But I don’t know what they discussed.’

  ‘Come upstairs and have a drink,’ said Paul. ‘You can tell me about Freda Sands over a large brandy.’

  Neider accepted the brandy, but his knowledge of Freda Sands was limited. He thought she was a celebrity in England, she was obviously rich, and she had been staying in Switzerland since the middle of January.

  ‘At which hotel?’ Paul asked quickly.

  ‘The Piedmont.’

  ‘And where had Carl Milbourne been staying when he was killed?’

  Neider smiled thoughtfully. ‘He stayed at the Piedmont. Is that significant?’

  ‘It could very well be.’

  Paul and Steve slept until half past ten, when they were woken by the shrill ring of the telephone. Paul reached out and answered it without opening his eyes. ‘Ng?’ he grunted. It passed through his mind that he hadn’t had a proper eight hours since Tuesday.

  ‘This is Julia Carrington,’ said the voice at the other end of the line. ‘I’m sorry, did I wake you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘But I suppose half past ten is a rather decadent time to be in bed. How’s Danny?’

  ‘I think he’ll live. He ate a huge breakfast this morning, which indicates something. And he’s terribly grateful that you were on the scene so quickly when that awful incident took place. Goodness knows who would have done such a thing. We seem to be living on the edge of a nightmare.’

  ‘You are,’ Paul said with a glance down at Steve. She burrowed beneath the bedclothes. ‘I’ll expect Danny to tell me a few facts and reasons when I see him next. In the meantime, Julia, you should keep him indoors during the long afternoons.’

  ‘I will,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if he went out and got himself killed.’

  As Paul hung up there was a tap on the door. Room service in the person of a pert brunette appeared with coffee and croissants. ‘Breakfast, darling,’ Paul called sadistically.

  Steve poked her head out from the sheets and glared at the croissants. ‘I’m not hungry.’ She turned over and went back to sleep.

  Paul looked at his watch and wondered what Vince Langham was doing. Had he gone out to interview Julia? The trouble with actresses was that you’re never sure when they’re acting. Paul wasn’t certain whether Julia was being blackmailed, or whether she ever had been. And blackmail indicated a lurid past. He hoped that Walter Neider wouldn’t discover anything too unpleasant about the woman.

  The telephone rang again, and it was Margaret Milbourne sounding as agitated as ever. ‘I have to see you, Mr Temple,’ she announced without any polite preliminaries. ‘It’s vitally important!’

  Paul sighed. ‘I’m in Geneva.’

  ‘So am I. I arrived this morning. Mr Temple, there’s something I must tell you!’

  ‘Do you want to come round here to the hotel?’

  ‘No no, I can’t do that,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m speaking from a restaurant called Chez Maurice. Could you be here in fifteen minutes?’

  ‘No,’ said Paul. ‘I’ll see you there at midday.’

  The Chez Maurice was a fashionable restaurant opposite the Quai des Bergues, although at this time of the year it was crowded with Swiss businessmen and a sprinkling of international diplomats. It was the quiet season, except for bankers. Paul and Steve pushed through its medieval doors as the municipal clock was striking twelve. The atmosphere inside was cosy with panelling and the bustle of waiters.

  ‘Gosh,’ said Steve, breathing deeply, ‘I hadn’t realised how hungry I am.’

  ‘Let’s sit as near to that blazing fire as we can get,’ said Paul.

  ‘What about Margaret Milbourne?’

  ‘Well, I expect she’ll be late. You know what women are like when they need to see someone urgently.’

  ‘I know what women are like,’ said Steve. With a delicate feminine flick she kicked Paul in the ankle.

  He had done Margaret Milbourne an injustice. As he limped across to the table she appeared from the ladies’ cloakroom.

  ‘Mr Temple, I’m so glad you could come. Hello, Mrs Temple. It’s really most awfully kind of you. Yes, I suppose it is lunchtime. I hadn’t thought…’

  She sat distractedly at the table looking younger and more attractive than she had when Paul last saw her. The sable furs and the boots made her look smaller. As she spoke Paul couldn’t help contrasting her with Julia Carrington. The RADA voice and the English understatement, the minimal gestures, indicated a small reserve of strength and privacy.

  ‘How on earth did you know where we were staying?’ Steve had asked. ‘I don’t remember Paul telling you –’

  ‘I knew you were in Geneva, Mrs Temple, so I decided to ring all the main hotels.’ She turned tensely to Paul. ‘Mr Temple, I told you my husband was alive, didn’t I?’

  ‘You said you thought he was alive.’

  ‘Well, I was right,’ she said defiantly. ‘He is. I’ve spoken to him!’

  ‘Are you certain?’ Paul asked in astonishment.

  ‘Absolutely. He telephoned me last night. The phone rang just before dinner and the operator said there was a personal call from Geneva for me.’ Her manner was of a woman vindicated against earth-bound sceptics. ‘It was Carl. He sounded tense and worried, but I couldn’t mistake my husband’s voice.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Steve affirmed. She turned to Paul: ‘No woman could, darling.’

  Paul nodded reluctantly. ‘What did your husband say?’

  ‘He told me to catch a plane and meet him here, at this restaurant at eleven o’clock.’

  Paul looked at the clock above the fireplace. ‘It’s now a quarter past twelve, Mrs Milbourne.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said sadly.

  They ordered their meal and Mrs Milbourne filled in the time with small talk about the fog in London and the last time she had visited Geneva with Carl. But always she came back to the miracle of the telephone call.

  ‘Have you told your brother about the call?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t. He left London by train before the fog lifted. He was off to St Moritz.’

  ‘I thought you might have seen him in Geneva.’

  She looked surprised. ‘But Maurice is nowhere near Geneva.’

  Paul realised that Lonsdale had been as secretive with his sister as he had been with everyone else ‘We met Maurice on the train out here. He said he had some business in Geneva before he moved on to St Moritz.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘He told me…’ She continued eating in silence.

  The regular customers came and went. Paul watched them while Steve concentrated on her food and Margaret Milbourne waited for her h
usband.

  ‘Carl’s not coming, is he?’ she said at last. ‘It’s obvious he isn’t coming or he would have been here –’

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ said the head waiter. ‘Are you Mrs Milbourne?’ He was carrying a telephone in his hand.

  ‘Yes?’ she said tensely.

  ‘You’re wanted on the telephone, madam.’ He bent down and plugged the cable into a socket by the table.

  ‘Who is it calling?’ Paul asked quickly.

  ‘The gentleman didn’t give his name, sir. He is calling from St Moritz.’ The head waiter picked up the receiver and murmured, ‘A call for Mrs Milbourne on this extension, please.’ Then he handed the phone to Margaret.

  ‘Carl, where are you?’ she asked immediately. ‘I’ve been waiting for you!’

  The voice at the other end was explaining that he’d had to go out to St Moritz. Paul leaned forward and tried to hear.

  ‘Carl, what’s this all about? You must tell me!’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear. I was hoping we could meet, that’s why I sent for you. I really did want to see you, Margaret, believe me –’

  ‘I’ll come out to St Moritz,’ she said desperately. ‘I’ll do anything you want, Carl!’

  ‘There’s been a hitch,’ said the voice. ‘You’ll have to go back to London. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.’

  ‘But Carl, you can’t leave me stranded in Switzerland like this! You must tell me –’ Her voice rose hysterically. ‘Carl! Carl, are you there?’ But there was only the dialling tone.

  ‘He’s gone,’ murmured Paul.

  She replaced the receiver. ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked in a whisper. ‘He wants me to go back to London.’ Her shoulders quivered as she struggled with her tears, and then she was crying. ‘He said there had been a hitch.’

  Walter Neider listened unhappily. ‘When Sir Graham Forbes told me you were coming, Temple, I knew there would be trouble. Forbes doesn’t know anybody who lives a simple and uncomplicated life!’ He turned for solace to stare at the lake. ‘I had a small sandwich and a fruit juice for lunch, while you were dining luxuriously at the Chez Maurice! And what happens? You establish that Carl Milbourne is still alive! You should have sent down for a sandwich.’

  ‘Did you trace the call?’ asked Paul Temple.

  ‘The operator in St Moritz had it recorded. But it was made from a public call box.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘I have been through the documents relating to the accident,’ said Neider, ‘and I do not believe what you say makes sense. Nothing links the driver of the car to anybody you have mentioned. The driver is a Zurich banker of the highest respectability. He knows nothing of publishing and has read nothing but balance sheets in years.’

  ‘Possibly not,’ said Paul.

  ‘And another thing, Temple. Where is the motive for this? Why should Carl Milbourne pretend to be dead? Who was the beneficiary under his will?’

  ‘Margaret Milbourne,’ said Paul. ‘He would have made a will, but Margaret Milbourne objected.’

  Neider raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Is she going to St Moritz with you this evening?’

  ‘She keeps changing her mind,’ said Paul. ‘But I think she’ll come with us in the end. We’ll all be in St Moritz at around quarter past one tomorrow.’

  ‘Thirteen seventeen to be exact.’ Neider smiled at the effect of his precision. ‘Don’t be surprised if you bump into two friends of yours. Julia Carrington has a villa near there, a very beautiful villa not far from Pontresina.’

  ‘Have you seen Julia?’

  ‘I drove out to see her first thing this morning. She was making a great fuss of her secretary. She seems to think he’ll be safer in St Moritz, although she wouldn’t say what from.’

  Chapter Nine

  It was a spectacular journey by rail to St Moritz. The tunnels ran straight into the sides of mountains, through the rocks and out across broad plains of snow, across suicidal bridges, and far below them in the distance Swiss villages were clearly, neatly defined. Paul watched the scenery and thought about the ice age. He wondered whether the sun had been so crystalline in those days.

  ‘I’d like to retire to Switzerland,’ said Margaret Milbourne. ‘I suppose that’s one of the drawbacks of being a retired English actress instead of a Hollywood queen. I have to make do with Richmond.’

  ‘Won’t you be running your husband’s publishing firm?’ asked Paul.

  ‘No, because Carl is still –’

  ‘Mrs Milbourne, if Carl is still alive then he obviously doesn’t wish the fact to be known. He’s made perfectly certain that he remains legally dead. I wonder what his reasons are.’ He continued quickly as she tried to protest. ‘No no, listen. Why do you think he wants the world to think that he’s dead? Was he in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She watched the countryside and her expression was of something like despair. ‘Perhaps I don’t care any more.’

  Paul wondered briefly what she meant by that. It was obviously a private conversation she was holding with herself. ‘Wouldn’t he expect you to look after the firm?’ he insisted.

  Her interest in the passing view faltered. ‘I couldn’t,’ she said unhappily. ‘Have you met Ben Sainsbury and Norman Wallace? The well-known pantomime horse. They terrify me. I’ll do the same as Carl did, and let them run the firm. After all, they know the publishing jungle.’

  ‘I thought they were rather a jolly pair,’ Steve said rashly, ‘a double act like Laurel and Hardy.’

  ‘Jolly? They’re much more like Burke and Hare. Norman Wallace is all charm and efficiency, and he alternates with Ben’s bluster and rage, so together they always get their way. You can never win an argument with Ben Sainsbury because next morning when he’s sober he forgets that any argument took place. I used to want Carl to give him the sack, but Carl didn’t dare. He was scared that Ben would go.’

  ‘That’s a thought,’ said Steve, ‘they could set up on their own; Wallace and Sainsbury, the old firm.’

  ‘Good lord no,’ said Paul. ‘Ben wouldn’t set up his own firm. That would make him a capitalist!’

  Margaret Milbourne laughed for the first time in four weeks.

  The train pulled into the station and they went off to the Grison House Hotel. ‘It strikes me,’ Steve said as she began unpacking, ‘that we’re not having much of a holiday. I think I’m going to rebel.’ She left the clothes strewn on the bed and went across to the window.

  ‘What form will the rebellion take?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I’m going skiing!’

  ‘But I have to visit the hat shop –’

  ‘Look at those slopes! See all those dots creeping down into the valley? Whoever visited St Moritz and didn’t go skiing!?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, darling. Why don’t you take Margaret Milbourne with you? I’d rather she wasn’t tagging along with me to the shop. I expect she’d look very glamorous in a hat with a bobble on it.’

  ‘She doesn’t look the skiing type to me,’ Steve said with a laugh.

  ‘Then she can watch.’

  Steve shook her head. ‘I’ll take her off somewhere for a couple of hours, but then you’re coming down those slopes with me. Dammit, what do you think I married you for?’

  ‘Because of my grand slalom?’ asked Paul.

  The hat shop, as it turned out, was a small Swiss equivalent of Fortnum and Mason that sold everything from hats to elephants. Paul amused himself as he went up to the third floor by wondering whether this was where Hannibal had bought his troupe, or whether those particular elephants had been breeding ever since.

  ‘God dammit!’ someone shouted.

  There was a clatter across the store while Paul was passing through the sports section and a pile of skates fell on to a man whose feet were flailing in skis. His head was buried beneath the boxes, but there was no mistaking the scruffy trousers and the American accent muttering ‘Hell’s bells!’ It was Vince
Langham.

  ‘I’m the only man who can break a leg buying a pair of skis,’ he said when Paul had dug him out. ‘I never even mastered the roller skates I had for my eighth birthday.’

  ‘What are you doing in St Moritz?’ Paul asked while he brushed some of the dust from his baggy jacket. ‘Are you following me?’

  ‘If I’m following you I’m the most conspicuous tail in the business,’ he laughed. ‘I thought you were following me.’

  ‘Never.’

  Vince stared at him disbelievingly. ‘Oh well. I’m here because Julia Carrington is in St Moritz. And where Julia goes there go I. Just to save you too much sleuthing.’

  ‘I thought you had an appointment –’

  ‘So did I.’ Vince left the skis in the centre of the floor where he had fallen. ‘That slimy little Machiavelli must have set to work on her as soon as he got back. I’d like to murder Danny Clayton.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘Why not admit the truth, Vince? Julia had never heard of you when I mentioned your phone call. She didn’t even know your name.’

  Vince pushed his unkempt hair back over his collar. ‘Paul, I despair of you. Would I tell a lie? One of the best films Julia made was called The Shadow of Fear. It was a brilliant dramatic performance. Do you remember the film?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Paul. ‘I was young and impressionable –’

  ‘I directed the Goddammed thing!’

  ‘It wasn’t as good as the films you’ve made in Europe.’

  ‘What are you trying to do, prove me a liar?’ he asked wearily. ‘Would that make me a killer or something? Listen, I’m a simple film-maker, I bought a book and now I’m trying to find my leading actress. It’s a hard enough business setting up a film without people solving mysteries all around me.’

  ‘All right,’ Paul said apologetically.

  ‘Who’d be a film director? Do you know, last year I was making a film in the middle east and the Arab-Israeli war broke out again! It’s enough to make a man give up!’

  He went off muttering in search of the novice ski run. The man was a liar; but perhaps it was all in the cause of filmmaking. Paul continued his search for the manager’s office. It was at the rear of the building.