Paul Temple 3-Book Collection

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought I heard something.’

  Both strained to catch the noise. It was the horn of a car that Dr. Milton had heard. They heard it again, closer at hand. At last they could hear the engine of the car, then the tyres over the gravel outside. Finally it came to a stop. Doors were opened and closed.

  ‘I hope to God it’s the Chief,’ breathed Diana.

  Suddenly the door was flung open. With a look of horror, Dr. Milton recognized Paul Temple. His name escaped Dr. Milton’s tongue as involuntarily as it did venomously.

  ‘Yes, my dear Milton,’ said Temple smoothly. ‘You must forgive me for once again interrupting, but—’

  Suddenly he felt Steve pulling at his sleeve. ‘Paul!’ she burst out. ‘Where’s Miss Parchment?’

  ‘She left about an hour ago,’ said Diana quickly.

  ‘Why?’ asked Temple. ‘Why did she leave?’

  There was a pause. Paul Temple looked from one to the other. Dr. Milton averted his eyes but Diana caught and held his squarely.

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s a good job you don’t feel like talking,’ Temple said at last. There was something in his voice, not threatening, but perfectly calm and composed, that alarmed the doctor.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Just gag you, my friend,’ was the answer. ‘We don’t want you to be unnecessarily noisy when our distinguished guest arrives. You attend to the girl, Steve,’ he said, pulling a large silk handkerchief out of his pocket, and handing it to her.

  ‘Who’s…who’s coming here?’ asked Diana sharply.

  ‘A friend of yours, Miss Thornley,’ Temple answered smoothly, at the same time forcing another handkerchief deep into Dr. Milton’s mouth. ‘A very close friend, if I’m not mistaken!’

  ‘Not…not…Max!’ she shouted. ‘No! No!’ She was still protesting when Steve rammed the handkerchief into her mouth so that only muffled protests could issue forth. Then Temple walked quickly over to the light switch and plunged the room into darkness.

  ‘And now we wait!’ he said slowly, softly, ominously.

  ‘Paul.’ Steve Trent was excited, but she kept her voice lowered. ‘Is he really coming here?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, Steve.’

  ‘You’re not certain?’

  ‘One can never be too certain of people, least of all, people like Max Lorraine.’

  ‘But, Paul, why should he come here?’

  ‘Because I’ve laid a trap, Steve.’ Paul Temple spoke quietly, but already there was a note of triumph in his voice. ‘A rather neat little trap, with—’ He hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’ Steve asked.

  ‘Listen!’ said Temple suddenly.

  Both strained their ears, as Dr. Milton and Diana had done a little while before. It was a car. A few seconds later, they heard it stop outside the inn.

  ‘Paul!’ whispered Steve with obvious excitement. ‘He’s here!’

  She moved up close to him and put her arm through his. As she did so she felt the cold steel of an automatic held ready for action.

  ‘By Timothy, yes,’ he replied. ‘Now Steve,’ he said, gently disengaging her arm, ‘stand by the light. When I give the signal, switch it on.’

  ‘Yes…yes, all right.’

  She walked over to the switch while Temple took up his position immediately facing the door.

  The footsteps outside came nearer, then entered the inn. At last, the door slowly opened.

  ‘Ludmilla!’ they heard a voice say softly. ‘Ludmilla!’

  ‘Lights, Steve!’ exclaimed Paul Temple sharply. ‘Drop that gun!’ he ordered immediately afterwards.

  At the same moment the lights went on and Steve Trent gasped. She was facing Chief Inspector Dale.

  ‘Oh, Paul!’ she exclaimed with amazement. ‘It’s Inspector Dale.’

  ‘Yes, Chief Inspector Dale,’ said Paul Temple quietly. ‘Alias Max Lorraine, alias – The Knave of Diamonds!’

  ‘Temple, are you mad?’ asked the inspector sharply. ‘What the devil does this mean?’

  ‘Briefly, my dear Lorraine,’ he replied, ‘it means, exit the Knave! Steve,’ he added briskly, ‘ungag the girl.’

  ‘Ludmilla!’ exclaimed Dale, turning towards Diana. ‘Why did you send that note?’

  ‘Note?’ echoed Diana, when Steve had removed the handkerchief. ‘Which note?’

  ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, the truth dawning on him. ‘You don’t mean…Temple!’ he suddenly burst out.

  ‘Yes, I sent the note…my method of delivering it was a little unconventional, I admit. But it seems to have answered its purpose,’ added Temple grimly.

  ‘You damned fool, Max!’ Milton shouted with fury. ‘You’ve played straight into his hands. Why—’

  The door opened again, and he broke off. This time the visitors must have been even less welcome to the doctor. Sergeant Morrison led the way into the room, followed closely by Inspector Merritt. Behind them came Sir Graham Forbes and Police Constable Miller.

  In the eyes of Inspector Merritt and Sergeant Morrison, there shone a light of triumph. Nevertheless, their expressions were as grave as the Commissioner’s. Sir Graham Forbes seemed to be labouring under a heavy shock.

  As Merritt explained later, they had been lying by the roadside, screened by some dense bushes, watching the inn, their surprise at the suddenness of events only exceeded by their amazement as Chief Inspector Dale arrived.

  ‘So you’ve got Milton and—’ Sir Graham found it difficult even to utter the name of his Chief Inspector. ‘…and Dale,’ he said at last.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Temple gravely. Only too well did he realize the seriousness of the issue, of the evidence he had collected, together with the final proof of the identity of Chief Inspector Dale with the nebulous figure of Max Lorraine.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you, Temple,’ went on the Commissioner in the same serious tones, ‘that Merritt and I were staggered when the sergeant gave us your note, why—’

  ‘Yes, I expect you were, Sir Graham,’ Paul Temple replied.

  The men turned round to survey the bound forms of Diana and Dr. Milton. Fear, even terror, could be seen deep in the doctor’s eyes, but Diana looked calmer. She might have been some distinguished actress taking part in a play. Even her dress and stockings were comparatively unruffled.

  ‘Have you searched him?’ asked Inspector Merritt, turning to Temple.

  ‘Not yet, Charles.’

  ‘Then we’ll wait till we get him back to the station.’

  ‘Take Milton and the girl to the car, Sergeant,’ the Commissioner ordered.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sergeant Morrison replied. ‘Come along, Miller, give me a hand.… You untie the girl.’

  He had gone over to Dr. Milton’s chair and was examining the knots. Then he took out a huge jack-knife from his pocket and opened it. He proceeded to cut through the cords until at last Milton was able to stretch his arms and legs. While he was doing this, Miller was busy releasing the girl. Her wrists showed deep purple marks where the string had cut into them. But she made a little gesture of satisfaction when she stretched out her legs to examine her stockings and noticed that the silk had stood up to the very severe test and remained unladdered.

  Both the doctor and Diana wearily stretched their cramped limbs. After a little pause Milton turned to Inspector Dale.

  ‘Well,’ he said, as he uttered a deep sigh of resignation, ‘they say, give a man plenty of rope and he’ll hang himself. And you’ve certainly made a good job of it, Max!’

  Dale ignored him. As completely as he ignored everyone else in the room. In his downfall a strange dignity had come to him.

  ‘Come along, you!’ said Sergeant Morrison abruptly, taking the doctor by the arm. He led the way to the door.

  Suddenly Milton halted. ‘Goodbye, Mr. Temple,’ he said. ‘This time, I’m afraid, we shan’t meet again!’

  He smiled, then turned round again and allowed himself to b
e led out to the waiting car.

  ‘Bring the girl, Miller,’ added the sergeant over his shoulder as he was leaving the room.

  The constable walked across the room and took Diana by the arm. For the first time she was face to face with Max Lorraine. She trembled slightly as she looked at him, but her features were still calm.

  ‘So…it’s goodbye, Max,’ she said, in what was little more than a whisper.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered softly. ‘Yes, it’s goodbye. But—’ He paused. ‘Remember what I always said, Ludmilla. They won’t take me!’

  ‘Come along, miss,’ said Police Constable Miller, with a self-conscious glance towards the Commissioner.

  Diana drew back for an instant, desperately anxious not to be separated from the man at whom she was now gazing with the most intense devotion. Then she allowed herself to be piloted towards the door and out of the room to the waiting car. As she left, a little of Dale’s moral resistance appeared to evaporate.

  It was Inspector Merritt who broke the silence into which they had fallen.

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly given us enough to think about, Dale,’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Graham, ‘but thank heaven we had the common sense to follow Miss Trent’s advice and “Send for Paul Temple”!’

  Inspector Merritt had been feeling in his pocket. ‘I think we’ll have the bracelets on, sir,’ he said determinedly. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

  As he spoke he pulled the handcuffs from a capacious pocket and slipped them over the wrists Dale held out to him.

  ‘Well,’ said Dale quietly, ‘I’ve had a good run for my money. And I’m not grumbling. It’s a pity you caught me on a cheap trick, Temple, but—I guess that’s how things turn out sometimes.’

  ‘Dale,’ said the Commissioner, ‘what happened that time when Skid Tyler was poisoned?’

  A smile came to Dale’s face. ‘The poison wasn’t meant for Tyler. I can assure you of that, Sir Graham.’

  ‘Then it must have been meant for me!’ replied the Commissioner, looking very grave.

  Dale commenced to laugh. It was a long, slow, mirthless laugh, that made Steve shudder.

  ‘I’ll take him to the car, sir,’ said Merritt slowly.

  The Commissioner showed his relief at the suggestion, and Inspector Merritt put a hand through Dale’s arm and quietly and very firmly led him out of the room.

  ‘You look a little surprised, Miss Trent,’ commented Sir Graham, as soon as they had departed.

  ‘Well, I am rather,’ she answered, in a bewildered voice. ‘I can’t quite see what’s happened.’

  ‘Then I should “Send for Paul Temple”!’ he smiled, obviously amused at his own jest. A different atmosphere had come to the room now that Dale had departed.

  The Commissioner looked a little anxiously at his watch. ‘You have your car here, Temple?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sir Graham.’

  The Commissioner muttered a string of apologies, buttoned up his heavy overcoat, took his hat and gloves from the chair on which he had flung them down a little earlier, and left. Paul Temple and Steve Trent were alone together.

  CHAPTER XXXII

  And Exit the Knave!

  ‘Paul,’ Steve Trent turned a puzzled little face up at the novelist, ‘why did the Knave come here? Did you know it was Dale? And why …?’

  ‘One question at a time, Steve!’ said Temple severely, but with his eyes nevertheless twinkling with humour. They were no longer in the room which had seen the inglorious end to the career of the Knave of Diamonds, and his fellow conspirators. Steve wanted to escape from it, and together they had set out on a little tour of exploration. They had come to a room which had once been some sort of lounge, and which appeared far more inviting to them both.

  Neither of them felt tired, although it was now well past midnight. Both felt disinclined to leave ‘The First Penguin’ even in spite of the greater hospitality offered by Bramley Lodge. They sat down on a large and moderately comfortable settee that the room boasted. Temple produced a hip flask which, with remarkable foresight, he had filled with some of his famed cherry brandy.

  It made them both feel considerably better after the wearying events of the evening.

  ‘I’d had my suspicions about Dale for quite a little while,’ he said at length, ‘and when I got back to Bramley Lodge and found that he’d been there all night and had had ample opportunity of using the telephone, I was almost certain.’

  ‘But he wasn’t the only person at Bramley Lodge.’

  ‘No. There was Sir Graham and Merritt. Sir Graham, of course, was really quite out of the question, although even with Sir Graham I found myself occasionally, well, wondering. I think it was those Russian cigarettes he smoked.’

  ‘But there was Merritt!’ said Steve, almost sharply.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered thoughtfully, ‘and, quite frankly, he rather worried me. You see, Merritt was in Sir Graham’s office the day Skid Tyler was murdered. Merritt knew that you were Louise Harvey…and he turned up tonight at “The Little General” when the inn was raided.’

  Steve Trent nodded assent. She really was damnably attractive, reflected Temple, as he looked at her appraisingly. And she had stuck all these appalling adventures with singular grit.

  ‘And there was one other point, too,’ he went on. ‘Merritt, apparently, according to Pryce, had used the telephone when Dale and Sir Graham had returned to “The Little General”. This seemed to fit perfectly, but still, somehow or other, I didn’t think Merritt was our man.’

  ‘But,’ asked Steve, with a little hesitation, ‘when did Dale phone?’

  ‘After Sir Graham and Merritt returned to Bramley Lodge from the inn, two of them went down to Ashdown House. Unfortunately, Pryce wasn’t sure which two. We know now, of course, that it must have been Merritt and Sir Graham. It was then that Dale took the opportunity of ringing through here…to see if Milton and the gang had got clear with the Malvern diamonds.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Steve Trent, with even more than typical journalistic curiosity and perseverance, ‘but I still don’t see how you managed to trick Dale into—’

  ‘I’m coming to that, Steve,’ he answered. ‘When I got back to the house and discovered that Sir Graham, Merritt, and Dale were in the drawing-room, I decided to find out, once and for all, who was the Knave. I scribbled a short note which said, Temple caught. First Penguin awaiting instructions. Malvern pigeons despatched. Ludmilla. This I pitched through the drawing-room window. Now the note would, I felt sure, read like utter nonsense to everyone in that room, except, of course, Max Lorraine. And Lorraine would, I felt confident, immediately assume that I had been caught and that Milton and Ludmilla, alias Diana Thornley, were waiting for him at “The First Penguin”.’

  He paused.

  ‘I see,’ said Steve, rather excitedly.

  ‘The phrase, “First Penguin awaiting instructions” would, of course, sound like the most utter balderdash to Sir Graham and Merritt, who wouldn’t even know what “The First Penguin” stood for. Dale knew perfectly well what the note meant, however, and he acted accordingly.’

  ‘But,’ pursued a puzzled Steve, ‘what did you mean by “Malvern pigeons despatched”?’

  ‘You remember I went round to the courtyard just before we were due to leave for Bramley Lodge?’ Temple asked her in return.

  ‘Yes – that was after you noticed the pigeon.’

  ‘That’s right. Well, in the courtyard was a basket of pigeons obviously all ready to carry the Malvern diamonds. That’s how they’ve been getting the stuff out of the country, Steve, by carrier pigeon.’

  ‘That’s ingenious, if you like!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. And a reference to it in the note, which was, of course, supposed to come from Diana Thornley, alias Ludmilla, would, I thought, give the note an authentic touch.’ Paul Temple paused and looked at his companion. She had taken a tiny notebook out of her handbag, and was scribbling in it, very
industriously, very seriously, mocking Paul Temple’s own seriousness, more seriously even than any of the beautiful reporters of fiction and their never-failing notebooks.

  ‘When I got down to the station, Sergeant Morrison informed me that earlier in the evening Merritt had been through on the phone from Bramley Lodge to see if Morrison had seen or heard anything about Miss Parchment and myself. This, of course, accounted for the telephone call that Merritt had made, and to a very large extent cleared him of suspicion. While I was at the station, I wrote another note, which I addressed to Sir Graham and left with the Sergeant, on the strict understanding that he would deliver it to Sir Graham only if the Commissioner arrived at the police station accompanied by Merritt. The note, of course, expressed my opinion about Dale being Max Lorraine. The Knave would, I felt positive, get to “The First Penguin” as quickly as possible in accordance with the instructions in my first note.’

  ‘Well,’ said Steve at last, after listening to Paul Temple with wonderment, ‘you certainly seem to have been exploiting your literary…’

  Suddenly the door opened. They were sitting facing it, and recognized Inspector Merritt as soon as he came into the room.

  ‘Hello, Charles,’ exclaimed Temple, as he rose from the settee to meet him. ‘What is it?’

  Merritt’s gravity of expression, as well as the urgency of his visit, showed that his errand must be serious. He looked from the novelist to Steve before he spoke.

  ‘He’s dead, Paul,’ he said at last.

  Paul Temple looked sharply at him.

  ‘You mean…Dale?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Steve had risen from the couch behind Temple, and moved softly towards them. Her face showed the utter astonishment she felt.

  ‘Dead!’ she echoed.

  ‘Just before we got him to the car,’ Inspector Merritt began to explain, ‘he asked for a cigarette. The Sergeant gave him one, and then Dale took a lighter from his pocket. Before we could do anything he had it to his mouth. I don’t know what was in the lighter. But…oh, my God!’ he suddenly groaned. ‘He looked awful! I thought perhaps you’d like to know, Paul,’ he added quietly.