‘Now,’ he said when they were sat down in full view of the penguins, ‘you’re working in a Soho club and you’re in trouble. Tell me more.’
‘Oh no, I didn’t mean I was in trouble, darling. I’m worried about you. I mean, you’ve always been very kind to me, even though I was murdered in the first act of your play, and – well, you’re in awful danger. Listen, Mr Temple, I wish you wouldn’t get mixed up in this Swiss affair.’
‘You mean Mrs Milbourne and –’
‘I don’t want to see anything happen to you, or that wife of yours. She was always terribly sweet and…’ Her voice broke off incoherently.
‘Do you know Mrs Milbourne, Dolly?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’ve heard of her, in a roundabout way. She’s been talking to you, claiming that her husband isn’t dead.’ She put her hand on Paul’s. ‘Are you going to help her?’
Paul shrugged. ‘She only spoke to me this morning.’
‘Well, don’t help her, Mr Temple. Don’t get involved, darling, it isn’t worth it’
‘I’m grateful to you for being so concerned,’ Paul said, slightly amused, ‘but you know, Steve and I have come up against a few ruthless people in our time. We’re still alive to tell the tale.’
Dolly cast a nervous glance over her shoulder. ‘Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I’d never have forgiven myself if I hadn’t passed the word. But I must get back. If I’m seen with you –’
‘But you haven’t passed any word, Dolly! You haven’t told me a damn thing.’ As he walked beside her towards the south gate he asked, ‘Is Carl Milbourne dead? Was he really killed in that accident?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about Carl Milbourne. All I know is that – that a certain person doesn’t want you to help Mrs Milbourne.’
‘Who, Dolly?’ He took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. ‘Why won’t you tell me all you know?’
‘Because I’m scared.’ She smiled helplessly. ‘You see, darling, I’m too young to die. I’m sorry.’ She broke away from him and ran out of the gate.
Paul wandered down past the wolves, deep in thought. There were too many things he needed to know, such as whether the man killed in the car had been alone and whether there were witnesses to the accident. Paul liked the wolves, they were elegant and wild, and they didn’t smell so strongly in winter. He admired the one standing guard on the top of the air raid shelter. Supposing the dead man were not Carl Milbourne, Paul reflected. Did that mean Milbourne had arranged an accident so that he could disappear? In which case, as somebody’s body had definitely been dead, was Milbourne involved in murder?
Paul glanced at his watch. Nearly twelve o’clock. He decided to telephone Steve and ask her to meet him for an early lunch.
Kate Balfour watched from the kitchen window as a black Wolseley drew up in the mews. She heard Steve come down the stairs and answer the door herself.
‘Mrs Temple? My name’s Stone, of the Pentagon Garage.’
‘Oh yes,’ she heard Steve say, ‘you have my husband’s car.’
‘That’s right, Mrs Temple. But it will take a couple of weeks to put right, so your husband has hired this for the meantime.’
Kate was an ex-policewoman and it pleased her to see that Paul would be driving something more appropriate than the Rolls. In her day all black Wolseleys were police cars and she knew their performance. Not that Mr Stone looked like a policeman. He was standing by the car with Steve, handing over the keys and pointing out the logbook.
‘Kate,’ said Steve excitingly. ‘I’m just off to meet Paul for lunch. I’m mobile again.’
‘Yes, Mrs Temple.’
As Kate watched Stone walk off towards Chester Square the Wolseley shuddered and then purred gently away.
Beautiful cars, she thought, what a shame the police are driving about in any old vehicle these days; all those blue flashing lights and vulgar klaxons. Her reverie was interrupted by the telephone ringing.
‘Hello, Kate. Is my wife there?’
‘No, Mr Temple, she’s just left in the new car to meet you for lunch.’
‘Oh good, she must be psychic.’ There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘What did you say about a new car?’
‘From the Pentagon Garage, the one you hired. It was delivered a few minutes ago and Mrs Temple went straight off-’
‘The Pentagon Garage is in Newport Pagnell, Kate. I didn’t hire a car from them or anybody else!’
Kate Balfour slammed down the telephone and ran from the house. She had her mini in the mews and she set off in pursuit as if she had klaxons blaring and blue lights flashing. She nipped round Chester Square and through the streets of Chelsea with angry motorists aghast and hooting in her wake. Which way Steve had gone was sheer guesswork, but Kate assumed she would have gone up Kensington Church Street, through Sussex Gardens and along Marylebone Road. There was only one recent change in the traffic system, but Kate found herself doing forty miles an hour in the wrong direction along the new one-way street towards a bus. She gritted her teeth and decided to let the bus driver have a heart attack. Kate was in too much of a hurry to lose a game of chicken.
The bus veered into a garage entrance and frightened a postman. Kate sped on, jumping traffic lights where necessary and waving the occasional V-sign at self-important taxi drivers. She had reached Baker Street and was beginning to think she had come the wrong way when she saw the black Wolseley at the lights ahead.
Kate went round an island into the wrong side of the road and drove on. With a hand pressed firmly on the hooter she kept going until a bus came nose to nose with her, then she jumped out and ran the twenty yards more to the black Wolseley.
‘Hey, missis, that’s no place to park while you do your shopping,’ bawled the bus driver. Four taxi drivers joined in the chorus.
Kate pulled open the Wolseley door as Steve was about to drive off. ‘Come out of that car, Steve,’ she said urgently. ‘There may be a bomb –’
Steve nipped out quickly, without any flustered argument. That was what Kate admired about her, she was both attractive and sensible. She argued afterwards. ‘Car hire firms wouldn’t be so careless,’ she began.
‘Mr Temple telephoned soon after you left and said he hadn’t ordered a car!’
There were two commotions now: one doing nicely in front of the abandoned mini and another starting up behind the Wolseley. A policeman was padding purposefully towards them. ‘What’s going on?’ he was demanding. ‘You can’t leave a car in the middle of the road like this!’ The crowds on the pavement were stopping to watch the fun and a traffic warden was threading her menacing way through the jam.
‘Wait in the mini, dear,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll dump the Wolseley round the corner.’
‘Madam, you’re obstructing the traffic,’ the policeman insisted. ‘You’ll have to move that car immediately.’
‘I’d like to examine it first,’ said Kate. ‘I have reason to believe –’ The bonnet of the car lifted suddenly, there was a crash of tearing metal and the front of the Wolseley exploded. Steve ducked instinctively. There were pieces of steel scattering in every direction, smashing windows and cutting into other cars. A taxi driver fell to the ground beside his cab. It seemed nearly half a minute between the hideous bang and the eventual silence which followed. Then somebody screamed, the taxi driver began to curse to himself, and the people on the pavements moved forward among the metal and broken glass.
Steve looked appealingly comic sitting up in bed with a piratical bandage across her forehead. The urchin grin she gave as Paul burst into the bedroom was apologetic. But Paul was too shocked to be amused. He sat on the bed tight lipped and anxious.
‘How are you now, Steve?’
‘Darling, I’m perfectly all right. I’ve a slight headache which would disappear if you’d let me get up and make a pot of tea.’
‘Kate is already making tea.’
Steve looked slightly bashful.
‘Is Kate all right?’
‘Of course she’s all right, she’s an ex-policewoman. A little shaken up to begin with, but I increased her salary and she brightened up at once. The only other casualty was a taxi driver, and he was discharged from hospital as soon as they’d stuck some elastoplasts on his knee. So relax, stay in bed and be pampered.’
Kate came bustling in with tea and biscuits. The whiff of crime was obviously in her nostrils – the tea was not of her usual standard and while it had been standing she had telephoned the Pentagon Garage to establish that they didn’t know a Mr Stone.
‘Well, we had to check,’ said Paul. ‘Perhaps you’d have another go at contacting Mrs Milbourne?’
‘Yes, Mr Temple,’ and she bustled out.
‘Paul, what happened this morning?’
He poured the tea and passed her a cup. ‘This morning?’ he repeated innocently.
‘With Dolly Brazier.’
‘Oh, she tried to borrow some money from me. Poor Dolly, she’s always in some kind of trouble.’
‘Did you lend it to her?’
‘Of course not. She wanted a hundred pounds, and you know how these things develop. Once you start lending people money –’
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ Steve interrupted. ‘If Dolly had needed money you’d have lent it to her. I know you, Paul. What did she really want?’
Paul rearranged the flowers he had brought for her. They were gladioli and he wondered absently where flowers came from at this time of year. ‘She told me to take care,’ he said quietly. ‘Not to become involved.’ Perhaps they were imported from the Bahamas. If they have gladioli in the Bahamas.
‘Involved in what?’ Steve asked. ‘In the Milbourne affair?’
‘I didn’t intend to tell you about this, Steve,’ he said. ‘Not today. You need to rest –’
‘I’ll rest when I know what’s going on. I have to be kept in the picture, and you just remember that, Temple!’
Paul laughed and said, ‘Of course I will, darling.’ He kissed her and ruffled her hair so that it partially covered the bandage. ‘I’ll rest better myself when I know what’s going on.’ He went to the door and blew her a kiss. ‘Sleep well, darling.’
He found Kate in his workroom, sitting at his desk and talking briskly on the telephone. Daunting, Paul thought to himself, she must have routed crime like a battleship in her day. He had a brief mental picture of her tossing gangsters across the police station, reducing full grown bruisers to tears.
‘No lead there, Mr Temple,’ she said as she hung up. ‘Mrs Milbourne didn’t tell anyone about her visit, except her brother. She hasn’t seen many people socially since her husband –’
‘I’m not surprised. Kate, will you stay and keep an eye on my wife for a couple of hours? I think I’d better visit Mrs Milbourne’s brother. And after that I might find out a little more about Dolly Brazier’s current job.’
Maurice Lonsdale greeted him like an old friend and insisted that they should dine together. ‘So much more civilised than talking in the office,’ he said. ‘I’m told the trout is superb this week.’
Paul agreed to sample the trout.
‘I’m glad you saw my sister, Temple.’ He had a good memory and ordered the dry sherry Paul had had the last time. ‘But I hope you didn’t take her story too seriously. You see, Margaret has always been highly strung, even when she was in the theatre.’
‘Apart from being highly strung,’ said Paul, ‘she’s also highly intelligent. I don’t think we can completely dismiss everything she says.’
‘Good gracious me, of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not suggesting we should, Temple. Not for one minute. But I did go out to Switzerland with her. I saw Carl after the accident and I identified him.’ He paused while the waiter placed the soup before them. ‘However, you’re a busy man. I’m sure you had a particular reason for coming to see me this evening.’
Paul nodded. ‘I want to know who else you’ve discussed this business with. Who, apart from your sister, knows that I’ve been consulted?’
‘A curious question,’ he murmured thoughtfully.
‘An important one.’
Lonsdale thought for a moment. ‘I may have mentioned you casually to some friends or acquaintances when we were talking about my sister. I would have seen no reason for not doing so.’ He tipped the bowl in the wrong direction to reach the last spoonful of soup. ‘Why is it so important?’
‘Because,’ Paul said grimly, ‘while my wife and I were talking to you last night my car was stolen. The man who stole it was shot – in mistake for me. And at lunchtime today there was a deliberate attempt to kill my wife.’
Lonsdale stared in amazement. As he blinked it looked as if he were lowering shutters over the cold grey eyes to keep out the truth. ‘And you think that both these –’
‘I think that someone is deliberately trying to stop me taking an interest in the Milbourne case.’
Lonsdale shook his head and muttered, ‘No, it’s not possible. No, never.’ He pushed the empty plate aside and looked again at Paul. ‘There’s only one person, but she’s the soul of discretion. I discussed my sister and the car accident at length with a very good friend of mine, and I remember I did mention you. She had read several of your books –’
‘Could you tell me her name?’
‘Freda Sands.’
Paul had heard of Freda Sands. She ran a secretarial bureau in Baker Street, and whenever highly successful businesswomen were needed by television or press interviewers they contrived to interview her. She was dynamic, attractive, and she didn’t believe in the equality of the sexes because she knew she was superior to any man. She made good copy and she photographed well. Paul wondered where she found the time to read his books.
‘You must meet her,’ said Lonsdale, ‘I’m sure both you and Mrs Temple would enjoy her company. I’ll arrange a little dinner party one evening.’
‘That would be pleasant,’ Paul murmured.
He was wondering whether this was the flaw in Lonsdale’s character – the social ambitions of a millionaire to know and be seen with the fashionable people of the moment. As Paul was thinking this through the waiter approached the table with a message.
‘Excuse me, Mr Lonsdale,’ he said, ‘but I have a message for Mr Temple. An Inspector Vosper telephoned. He wants to see you immediately, sir, at the Middlesex Hospital.’
‘Did he say why?’ asked Paul, rising in alarm.
‘No, sir. But it sounded urgent.’
Lonsdale rose to his feet as well. ‘Gaston, send my chauffeur round to the entrance. I’m sorry, Temple, I hope it’s nothing to do with your wife’s accident. My chauffeur will run you to the hospital in ten minutes.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
Charlie Vosper was sitting in the corridor of the casualty wing, smoking an impatient cigarette under a No Smoking notice when Paul arrived. He stubbed out the cigarette on the gleaming floor. ‘So you got my message,’ he said. ‘I telephoned your home and Detective Sergeant Balfour –’
‘You mean Kate,’ he interrupted. ‘What’s happened? Who has been hurt?’
‘About an hour ago one of our people found a woman called Dolly Brazier in a cul-de-sac off the Kilburn High Road. She’d been very severely done over, I’m afraid.’
‘How severely?’ Paul snapped.
‘Very,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t suppose she’s going to die, but that isn’t everything, is it? She was obviously an attractive girl before –’ He smiled sadly. ‘The poor kid’s only spoken twice, and on both occasions she asked for you.’
Paul went into the tiny ward. He scarcely heard the doctor say something about having given her an injection. He moved the screen aside and sat by the bed. The brutality of her attackers made him feel sick.
‘Can you hear me, Dolly?’ he asked softly. ‘It’s Paul.’
Her hand moved slightly and Paul took it in his. A plastic bag was connected to her arm transfusing b
lood, and her face was swathed in white dressings. The room was silent except for Dolly’s laboured breathing beneath the broken ribs.
‘Who was it?’ he asked. ‘Who did this to you, Dolly?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
‘You must tell me,’ Paul said firmly. ‘I’ll make sure nothing else happens to you –’
But she wasn’t listening. ‘I’m going to get better, aren’t I, Paul? I’m too young to die –’
‘Don’t be silly, of course you’re going to get better.’ He squeezed her hand and waited for her to recover herself. She seemed to have that phrase, ‘too young to die’, firmly lodged in her mind. It was the second time she had used it.
‘I asked the doctor about my face,’ she said, speaking with difficulty. ‘About the stitches. But he wouldn’t tell me anything. Is it a mess, Paul?’
‘You’ll soon be beautiful again,’ he said with false cheerfulness. ‘It’s a bit of a mess now, but you’re in good hands. Just be a good girl and tell me why you were attacked.’
Eventually she whispered, ‘I told you, keep out of this affair. You mustn’t…’
The nurse tapped Paul on the shoulder and indicated that his time was up. Dolly had fallen asleep and the drug would keep her that way for several hours. There was no sense, he thought, in such savagery, no necessity at all.
‘She’ll be all right, Mr Temple,’ said the house doctor as they left the ward. ‘But her head wounds are rather delicate so we have to take care.’
‘Of course,’ said Paul. ‘Do everything you can for her, please. I’ll pay whatever is necessary, and if it’s a question of plastic surgery phone Sir Thomas Staines, he’s a friend of mine.’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Temple.’
Don’t worry. Paul went off down the corridor. His footsteps echoed and in the distance trolleys and pans made noises that reverberated through the tiled passages. Hospitals were full of impersonal sounds at night. No, he wouldn’t worry. The lift gates clattered and he left Dolly Brazier five floors behind. It read ‘Theatre’ on the signboard for Dolly’s floor.
She had told Paul not to worry, throughout rehearsals and even after the appalling reviews. Don’t worry, darling, it’s your first play, you can always write another one. She had been a resilient, happy kid. Loyal and affectionate. She didn’t deserve to end up in a heap behind the Kilburn High Road.
Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery Page 3
