‘In Holland it’s called the Time drug. Nobody seems to know where it comes from in the first place – all I ever found out was that it’s difficult to get ’old of, and worth its weight in gold.’
‘All this is news to me,’ confessed Temple. ‘Tell me how you came to handle this drug.’
‘I was in the Seamen’s Hostel one night – it’d be about two or three months ago now – ’avin’ a game o’ cards with a feller, when up comes the parson chap and gives me a note which says: “Be at Redhouse Wharf tonight at nine.”’
‘Just a minute, Chubby. Which parson are you referring to?’
‘Why ’im as calls ’imself the Reverend Hargreaves – bloke what runs the place.’
Temple whistled expressively, and nodded to Chubby to continue.
‘Well, I never did like to miss a good thing, Mr. Temple, so to cut a long story short, I turned up at the wharf. There was a bloke waiting for me – a little feller with a high, falsetto voice. He said he could do with as much of this Amashyer as I could get ’old of. I told ’im peddlin’ dope was a risky game, but all ’e did was to put ’is ’and in ’is pocket and take out a wad of notes. I counted ’em when I got back – they were hundreds, and the total was four thousand quid!’
‘Phew!’
‘So I didn’t lose any time, I can tell yer,’ continued Chubby with a wink. ‘I got in touch with a feller called Cokey Williams, and he got me all the Amashyer stuff ’e could lay his ’ands on.’ Chubby paused, and after a little while Temple nodded for him to continue.
‘This chap with the falsetto voice arranged to meet me at a warehouse up the river. They had a boat waiting for me at the wharf, and off we went. The little feller seemed very pleased when I gave ’im the stuff, and once I’d ’anded it over I was politely dismissed, and taken back to Redhouse Wharf.’
‘Did you recognise anyone at the warehouse?’
‘Not a soul, at least …’ Chubby seemed to hesitate.
‘Well?’ demanded Temple.
‘I couldn’t swear to it, but just before I stepped into the boat I had an idea I saw Hargreaves – the Reverend Hargreaves, I mean. But I must have been mistaken, because I came straight back ’ere, and who should be the first person I bump into but the Reverend ’imself.’
‘H’m,’ mused Temple. ‘Of course, we really have no proof that all this has anything to do with the Front Page Men.’
‘Oh yes it has!’ insisted Chubby.
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because when I left the warehouse the little feller gives me a funny sort of look. Then he says, “If you feel like talking, Chubby, remember Sydney Debenham.”’
‘Sydney Debenham?’
‘Yes, it was the week after that murder – you remember – he was the head cashier at the Margate Bank—’
‘I remember,’ said Temple quietly. Apparently the Front Page Men left nothing to chance.
‘Where is this warehouse, Chubby?’ questioned Temple, presently.
‘Don’t ask me, guv’nor. I’ve got no bump of locality, as they calls it. As far as I could make out, it seemed to be about a mile up river from Redhouse Wharf.’
Temple weighed up this information carefully. ‘Thanks, Chubby. Drop in and see me before you sail. You know my flat.’ He handed over a small bundle of notes.
‘Yes – thank yer, guvnor. And mum’s the word!’
‘Of course. How can I get out of here without going through the bar?’
‘That’s easy,’ Chubby assured him. ‘Follow me, Mr. Temple.’
He opened the door, and they stood for a moment just inside. Temple suddenly became conscious of a piano being played in one of the rooms upstairs. He recognised the melody even above the hubbub of conversation and roars of laughter from the bar and tap-room.
‘What’s that?’ he demanded swiftly.
Chubby looked alarmed. ‘What’s up, guvnor?’ he whispered, hoarsely.
‘That music!’
Chubby laughed reassuringly. ‘Oh, that’s just a piano in one of the rooms upstairs. They often ’ave smokers and lodge meetin’s up there.’
‘I see,’ said Temple gruffly, and followed Chubby along the passage and out into the murky backyard, where his companion indicated a passage which led back to the waterside.
As he was about to go, the novelist turned and looked up quickly at an illuminated window. Faintly, in the background, he could still hear the sound of the piano.
It was the melody that Mr. J. P. Goldie had played in the drawing-room of Paul Temple’s flat.
CHAPTER VII
A Message for Paul Temple
Paul Temple caught a bus going to Charing Cross, climbed the stairs, and thoughtfully lit a cigarette, preparatory to reviewing the situation.
It had been a stroke of luck finding Chubby, though, once found, Temple knew the odds were in favour of Chubby having had some transaction with the Front Page Men. There was scarcely a gang in the London underworld that had not employed Chubby at some stage in its existence.
But his reputation as a squealer had been getting around a little too actively for Chubby’s liking during the past few months. His income had dropped accordingly, and he had even been reduced to attempting petty thefts from time to time.
If he really did intend to cross to America, then both police and crooks were in for some lively times, reflected Temple with amusement. Chubby’s double-crossing propensities were bound to make trouble for somebody – trouble that Chubby himself had an eel-like trick of wriggling out of.
All the same, the Front Page Men must have been very sure of themselves to have taken a chance with Chubby Wilson.
*
Temple was inclined to reproach himself for not making certain whether it really was Goldie in that upstairs room. Anyhow, it certainly looked suspicious. How often did one hear Liszt played in a low riverside tavern? All the same, there was a chance that if he had gone upstairs he would have bumped into the Reverend Hargreaves, and he wished to avoid any such meeting at that juncture.
Temple was frankly puzzled about Hargreaves. According to Chubby Wilson, the cleric was implicated to some extent with the Front Page Men. How else could one construe his delivery of the note? Was the Seamen’s Hostel a cloak for these nefarious pursuits? Temple decided to lie low and watch the Reverend Charles Hargreaves’ activities very carefully.
He got off the bus at Charing Cross and turned up to the left through the streets of Soho, animated with the arrival of late diners and the departure of others on their way to the theatres. He eventually reached Mayfair, arriving in a mild glow as a result of his exercise. Pryce heard him come in, and met him while he was delving in the letter-box for any letters by the late delivery.
‘Hello, Pryce,’ Temple greeted him cheerfully. ‘Is Mrs. Temple upstairs?’
‘No, sir, she’s out. She left about twenty minutes ago to meet Miss Forbes.’
‘To meet Miss Forbes?’ queried Temple, in some surprise.
‘Yes, sir. Madam received a telephone message from Miss Forbes, shortly after you left.’
‘Oh, about something they bought this afternoon, perhaps,’ speculated Temple.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell arrived about five minutes ago, sir.’
‘Back so soon?’ murmured Temple with a slight lift of the eyebrows. ‘Oh—er—all right, Pryce.’ The manservant returned to his kitchen, and Temple made for the drawing-room.
‘So here you are at last, you old reprobate,’ Gerald greeted him, excitedly.
‘Hello, Gerald! Hello, Ann! What’s all the fuss about?’
‘You’ve been holding out on me, you old sinner,’ said Gerald, reproachfully.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve discovered that I am Andrea Fortune,’ replied Temple, solemnly.
They all laughed.
‘It isn’t you at all,’ explained Ann, who looked her best in an expensive black evening frock that revealed her lovely figure to every advantage. ‘Gerald’s just heard that Stev
e is writing a novel, and he wants to get her signature on the dotted line, before any of the other publishers.’
‘Well, you haven’t lost much time,’ laughed Temple. ‘I wish Steve made such rapid progress. Why, she’s been working on it for at least six months, and she hasn’t even finished the prologue yet.’
‘Not finished the prologue?’
‘I told you there was no hurry,’ laughed Ann, amused at her husband’s bewilderment.
‘How on earth did you hear about it, anyhow?’ asked Temple.
‘The editor of the Daily Courier told me about it two days ago, and I happened to mention it at dinner tonight,’ said Ann. ‘Gerald nearly passed out with excitement.’
‘If Steve is half the novelist that she was a reporter, that’s good enough for my money,’ declared Gerald emphatically.
‘Then what about fifty pounds in advance on royalties?’ laughed Temple. ‘Remember Steve has a husband to maintain …’
‘Now I see why you married, Paul,’ riposted Ann.
‘Seriously, though, Gerald, the subject of Steve’s novel is absolutely taboo in the Temple household. We had our first and only row over that blessed novel – or should I say prologue?’
‘So you’ll just have to be content with an optional agreement,’ Ann told her husband.
At that moment Pryce entered carrying a silver salver on which lay a card. It was rather smaller than a playing-card.
‘This was in the letter-box, sir. I thought perhaps it might be important.’
‘It certainly wasn’t there when I came in,’ murmured Temple, turning to take it.
‘No, sir.’
The Mitchells watched him examine it carefully, saw his jaw drop as its significance dawned upon him.
‘Paul, it isn’t bad news, is it?’ asked Mitchell quietly.
Temple did not seem to hear. His brain was working so frantically that it excluded everything outside itself. Then, with a distinct catch in his voice, he asked, ‘Have you got your car here?’
‘Why, yes—’
‘I want to get to Scotland Yard as quickly as possible,’ Temple heard himself say, as if from a great distance.
‘Paul, what is it?’ exclaimed Mitchell in alarm.
‘It’s—it’s the Front Page Men,’ said Paul Temple, in that peculiar tense voice.
Ann jumped to her feet in dismay.
‘The Front Page Men!’ she cried.
‘Yes,’ nodded Temple deliberately. ‘They’ve got Steve.’
CHAPTER VIII
The Front Page Men
Mr. Andrew Brightman was inclined to be irritable. He had been summoned peremptorily to Scotland Yard, where Sir Graham Forbes was putting him through what might have been described as a refined version of the third degree.
And Mr. Brightman was showing some signs of feeling the strain, though outwardly his manner had lost little of its pristine pompousness. Sir Graham liked him less and less, and was doing his utmost to find a flaw in his story. But Brightman had been equal to him so far.
‘My dear Sir Graham, why on earth you brought me here to ask me the questions I have already answered half a dozen times is completely beyond my comprehension,’ he was protesting in his oily, assured tones.
Forbes ignored this outburst.
‘Mr. Brightman, I am anxious to get to the bottom of this business,’ he persisted quietly. ‘And there is just one more point. You say you deposited the suitcase in the cloakroom of the Regal Palace Hotel?’
‘Yes, yes!’ snapped Brightman, his patience almost exhausted.
‘And the cloak-room attendant gave you a ticket for the case?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ said Brightman wearily, as if he were dealing with an inquisitive child.
‘Thank you,’ said Sir Graham, pressing a button on his desk, which brought in Chief Inspector Reed.
‘Mac, Mr. Brightman is leaving,’ said Sir Graham shortly.
His visitor seemed surprised that the ordeal was over, and a little uncertain as to what he should say.
‘This way, sir,’ prompted Mac.
‘Oh—er—thank you,’ said Brightman, recovering. ‘Goodbye, Sir Graham.’
‘Good night,’ grunted Forbes. The more he saw of Andrew Brightman, the less he liked that obsequious smirk of his.
Forbes seized the telephone, intending to give orders to have Brightman followed, then thought better of it. He was still pondering on the problem when Reed looked in again and announced, ‘Mr. Temple, sir!’
‘Hallo, Temple, what brings you here at this time of night?’ demanded Sir Graham, who did not seem any too pleased at this intrusion. Then he noticed Temple was not his usual urbane self, and that there was a strained expression in his eyes.
‘Sir Graham, I’m sorry to burst in like this—’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’
‘It’s—it’s Steve,’ said Temple, chokingly.
‘Steve? What do you mean?’
‘They’ve got her … the Front Page Men!’
Sir Graham leapt to his feet, pushing his chair back with a bang. ‘Impossible! It can’t be true!’ he gasped incredulously. ‘Here – sit down – let me get you a drink.’
He went to the cupboard and splashed a generous quantity of Scotch whisky into a tumbler. Temple gulped it down before speaking again.
‘Earlier this evening I went to a pub on the river called the Glass Bowl—’
‘I know it verra well,’ put in Reed, but Sir Graham silenced him with a look.
‘While I was there, Steve apparently received a telephone message which she believed came from your daughter.’
‘Maybe it was. You know how friendly they are.’
Temple shook his head. ‘No, it couldn’t have been Carol. Half an hour ago I had this card.’
‘Good God!’ breathed Sir Graham, recognising the familiar warning.
‘Wouldn’t it be as well if ye ’phoned Miss Carol?’ suggested Reed.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Forbes, snatching the receiver from his desk.
There was a short pause, during which Reed gloomily inspected the card, and Temple paced nervously up and down the office.
‘Is that you, Davis?’ said Sir Graham suddenly. ‘Yes, Sir Graham here … is Miss Carol in? Oh … I see …’
He replaced the receiver.
‘She left the house about an hour ago,’ he informed them.
‘Then it’s all right after all,’ hazarded Reed. ‘She’s gone out to meet Mrs. Temple. Mebbe that card is only—’
‘It isn’t all right! I don’t like it!’ snapped Sir Graham, who had begun to look very worried.
Temple paused in his restless pacing.
‘I went to the Glass Bowl to see a man named Chubby Wilson,’ he said slowly, obviously deep in thought.
‘Ay, ye’d find him there, no doubt,’ agreed Mac.
‘I found him all right. And he talked. He told me about an empty warehouse a mile from Redhouse Wharf.’
‘What about it?’ queried Forbes.
‘It’s used by the Front Page Men,’ Temple informed him.
Even the dour Reed was aroused by this.
‘You think mebbe they’ve taken ye wife and perhaps Miss Carol—’ he was beginning, when Sir Graham cut him short again.
‘Mac, get the Thames Police,’ he thundered. ‘I want a launch at the North Pier; tell Brooks and Donovan.’
Again he snatched up the telephone.
‘Hunter? Meet me at the North Pier in twenty minutes.’ He paused to give some brief instructions to Reed, then snatched up his hat and followed Temple, who was already half-way downstairs.
Outside, Gerald Mitchell was waiting for them. ‘Ann took the car home,’ he explained. ‘I thought perhaps I might be able to help in some way …’
‘Sir Graham, this is Gerald Mitchell, a friend of mine. Would you mind if he came along?’ asked Temple.
&nbs
p; Sir Graham sized up Mitchell with a rapid glance. ‘All right,’ he consented gruffly, ‘as long as he understands he isn’t coming to a picnic.’
They all entered a fast police-car, and were whirled through a succession of back streets which the driver used to avoid the heavy traffic.
Temple’s face was white and set beneath the glare of the street lamps that shone in on them in monotonous succession. Nobody talked much, and Mitchell was patently nervous, though nonetheless, determined.
Hunter was already seated in the launch with the two sergeants, Brooks and Donovan, lean, weather-beaten river police, whose eyes appeared to be perpetually focused on some distant object. Sir Graham’s party settled themselves in the launch, and Donovan started the engine.
This was not the usual type of police-boat maintained for patrolling purposes, but a rakish, speedy craft reserved for emergencies, and fitted with a powerful miniature searchlight.
They slipped out into the river, and Temple noticed for the first time, that there was a considerable amount of fog over the water. Sir Graham murmured some instructions to Sergeant Donovan at the wheel, and soon they were travelling at a fair pace in the direction of Redhouse Wharf.
The fog was so patchy that at times they had to slow down to a mere crawl. Then it would drift away, and the lights on the Embankment would be visible once more. Donovan opened the throttle, and the black waters slid swirling behind in their wake.
Save for the distant siren of a departing tramp steamer and the dim roar of the city traffic, the river was very quiet. They might have been in another world, reflected Mitchell, buttoning up his coat, for it was very cold on the water. A tug came into view, towing a line of four barges, and chugged its way into the distance, and the mysterious silence, broken only by the roar of their own engine, descended upon them again.
Brooks and Donovan exchanged a clipped comment occasionally on the subject of their bearings, but none of the others spoke, until Temple murmured, ‘The fog seems pretty bad, Sergeant.’
‘Nothing to what it is sometimes, sir,’ Brooks told him. ‘I’ve been in it that thick that you couldn’t see the water under you, and there hasn’t been a soul on the river except the police-boat.’
Paul Temple 3-Book Collection Page 29
