Paul took her arm and led her through to the dining room. ‘There’s no doubt in my mind what you should do, Miss Carrington,’ he said firmly. ‘No doubt at all.’
Steve followed behind with Danny Clayton. ‘All this excitement has made me hungry as well,’ she was saying. ‘It’s all action in Switzerland this year, isn’t it?’
Chapter Twelve
Paul had been in a strangely cryptic mood on the way back to the hotel. It had seemed to Steve that their mystery was almost solved – all they needed to know was the identity of the blackmailer and whether Carl Milbourne was really alive. But Paul was preoccupied. Perhaps it was the arctic weather.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘I’ve been wondering about Danny Clayton and that shooting incident in Geneva.’
Paul stared at the curtain of snow on the car window. ‘Yes, I was wondering about that. Why should anyone want to kill Danny?’
‘Well!’ said Steve, ‘he had been trying to persuade Julia to go to the police about being blackmailed.’
‘That’s what he says.’
They drove on slowly through the snow. Steve stared at the close-cropped neck of the chauffeur. She wondered whether his ears were holding up his hat. She yawned, and decided that she was tired. A shame they didn’t have electric blankets in the hotel. She should have brought a hot water bottle from home.
‘There is another explanation, of course,’ Paul continued unexpectedly. ‘Danny might have been doing a little investigating on his own behalf. We know that the first thing he did when he arrived in London was to look up Margaret Milbourne. What else did he get up to?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Steve.
‘Do you think he tried to blackmail her, as she said? Is he playing a double game?’
‘I’ve always trusted Danny completely.’ Steve thought for a moment. ‘Darling, are you suggesting that Danny took over –?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, except that blackmail is contagious. I wouldn’t cross Danny off our list of suspects yet, that’s all.’ There was another silence, and then Paul added bitterly, ‘Nor would I cross off Vince Langham. We may know the story behind all this, but we’re no closer to the person responsible. I’m still sceptical about them all.’
‘I like Vince Langham,’ Steve said regretfully.
‘He was probably on the train that night Danny was beaten up,’ said Paul. ‘He’s known Julia for years, and the chances are he knew Danny better than either of them admitted.’
Steve sighed. ‘I’d much rather you pinned the whole thing on Maurice Lonsdale. He’s an odious man, and what the blazes is he doing with us in St Moritz?’
He was staying at the same hotel, and the manager thought he was a friend of Paul’s. As soon as the car drew up in the forecourt the manager came scurrying out to have a word with them.
‘Yes,’ Paul admitted, ‘we know Mr Lonsdale. What on earth has he done?’
The manager was indeterminately Mediterranean, excitable and hideously discreet. ‘There’s been a most unfortunate accident…’ It was clearly something too awful to mention in polite company.
Paul sent Steve ahead to their suite while he went with the manager to Lonsdale’s room. Lonsdale was on the top floor at the end of the corridor; an unfashionable, inexpensive room which, as the manager explained, had been booked at very short notice.
‘One of the maids went to Mr Lonsdale’s room thinking it was empty,’ he whispered. ‘She heard groans coming from the bathroom. Poor girl, she was appalled. Mr Lonsdale had taken some tablets. He was being extremely sick, Mr Temple, in the bidet!’
‘Not quite the thing,’ Paul murmured.
‘Absolutely, Mr Temple! People should commit suicide in their own homes. It’s a very private thing –’
Paul took the manager’s arm and stopped him before they entered the room. ‘Suicide?’ he repeated.
‘That’s what I said. Yes, yes, I am certain. The maid sent for me at once, and while we were waiting for the doctor I noticed a letter on the bedside table. I put it in my pocket, but as soon as Mr Lonsdale recovered he asked for the letter and tore it up. He didn’t even open it.’
‘Have you told Mrs Milbourne about this?’
The manager shook his head. ‘It happened after she left, sir.’
‘Left?’ Paul frowned. ‘I thought she was leaving tomorrow.’
‘No, she left for Zurich this evening. Mrs Milbourne was a lady, she would never have permitted –’
Paul patted his arm and made reassuring noises. ‘Leave it to me, I’ll have a word with Mr Lonsdale. Don’t worry.’ He tapped on the door and went into Lonsdale’s room as the manager departed unhappily.
Lonsdale was sitting up in bed looking pale in mauve patterned pyjamas. He glared at Paul and took a thermometer from his mouth, read his temperature and sighed.
‘Has that fool of a manager sent you up here, Temple? The idiot thinks I was trying to do away with myself! As if it isn’t bad enough to be ill!’
Paul sat by the bed. ‘I think he’s worried about the bidet.’
‘It happened so suddenly,’ Lonsdale looked slightly ashamed. ‘I suffer from these violent migraines, Temple. Had one all day. So I took some of the tablets I keep for the purpose. I must have taken too many, that’s all. It’s happened before and I dare say it will happen again.’
‘Fine,’ said Paul. ‘I’m glad it was a false alarm. Are you feeling better?’
‘I’m perfectly all right.’
Paul glanced about the room. ‘May I use your telephone?’ He went across to the desk and picked up the receiver. ‘Temple here. Can you put me through to my room, please?’ He glanced at Lonsdale in the mirror. ‘Steve? It’s all right, darling, there’s nothing to worry about. Lonsdale had a migraine and took too many tablets. I’ll be down immediately.’
Paul replaced the receiver and turned to Lonsdale. ‘Well, I should have a good night’s sleep if I were you.’ He went to the door. ‘Pity you sent your sister back to London, but if you need anything in the night just give me a ring.’
‘Thank you, Temple, that’s very kind.’
Paul went downstairs and found Steve already in bed. She was wide awake and deeply suspicious. ‘Darling,’ she said as he entered the room, ‘what was that ridiculous telephone call about?’
‘I had to give myself an excuse to sit at Lonsdale’s desk.’ Paul sat on the bed beside her and took a sheet of blotting paper from his pocket. ‘Can I borrow your mirror?’
He took the mirror and held it in front of the blotting paper. ‘This was the top sheet on his pad,’ Paul explained. ‘I couldn’t resist it.’ The writing was spidery and legible.
Dear Margaret, it began, and then the occasional phrase could be read.… deeply shocked by what you have told me…cannot become involved in this affair…It had been a short note.
‘What does he mean?’ Steve asked, peering over his shoulder. ‘Do you know what affair he’s talking about?’
Paul shrugged and gave her back the mirror. ‘It could be the Milbourne affair, I suppose.’ He tossed the blotting paper into the basket.
The snow was still falling outside when Paul turned out the lights and drew the curtains. The lights of the city reflected eerily on the white roof tops. Paul opened the window very slightly and hoped Steve wouldn’t notice. But she was still worrying about the note.
‘Surely Lonsdale doesn’t think that his sister was responsible for –’ Her voice changed gear excitedly. ‘Paul, you don’t think Margaret Milbourne would be the person behind all this?’
He slipped down into the warm bed. ‘And that she has been trying to involve her brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hence,’ said Paul thoughtfully, ‘the note and the suicide attempt?’
‘Yes.’ She wriggled close to him. ‘It would be rather funny if we’ve been underrating Mrs Milbourne all this time.’
‘It would be even funnier,’ said Paul, ‘if we’ve been underrating Mr Lonsdale.’ He
slipped his arm round her waist and kissed her shoulder. ‘Good night, darling.’
At breakfast Lonsdale was looking his usual bluff business self. He apologised for the ‘spot of bother last night’ and announced that he was completely recovered. He said he was off to visit Freda Sands in hospital, but he also checked out of the hotel. He had a sensitive spot somewhere beneath the well cut suit.
Paul sipped his black coffee and watched the man climb into a car. He glanced down at his newspaper and pretended to listen while Steve planned their day. It didn’t matter what they did. They were waiting, that was all, until the blackmailer made contact with Julia.
‘Darling, do try to listen. This is our holiday!’
The blackmailer made contact shortly before lunchtime. Paul heard about it when he visited Vince Langham in the sickroom of the Villa Serbolini. Danny Clayton was so nervous that he brushed aside all discussion of the stitches in Vince’s ribs and whether the severed muscles would heal.
‘He telephoned while I was up here with the doctor,’ said Danny. ‘Julia took the call herself. She said it was the same man as before, the same voice. He said he was Carl Milbourne and that he wanted a final payment of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’
That was – yes, something like sixty thousand pounds. Roughly. Paul left: the grapes, cigarettes and back issues of Sight & Sound by Vince’s bed, grinned encouragingly, and followed Danny from the room.
‘Julia did what you told her to, she agreed to everything. I have to take the money to London and on Friday night, at eight o’clock precisely, I have to ring this number.’ He showed Paul a slip of paper with the number 788 1347 jotted down.
‘That’s a Putney number,’ said Paul.
But Putney meant nothing to Danny. ‘Presumably our friend will be waiting for the call, and he’d tell me where to take the money.’
‘Excellent,’ said Paul cheerfully. ‘Friday gives us four clear days. Just go ahead and follow my instructions, Danny.’
‘Sure,’ Danny said ironically. ‘Just go ahead. Okay.’ He put the slip of paper back in his pocket. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Paul. I’m tired of being attacked by these hoodlums.’
‘You never did tell me who attacked you on the train over here,’ Paul murmured.
Danny shrugged. ‘I thought it was Vince Langham, because I’d seen him on the boat. But it was dark, and the more I thought about it the less certain I became. The guy who attacked me was bigger than Vince. At least I think so.’
As they came down the staircase Paul turned to look into Danny’s face. ‘What did you learn from Freda Sands when you visited her in hospital?’
But Danny didn’t react. ‘Nothing,’ he said casually. ‘She was convinced that Milbourne is dead. I believed her! You know, I believed that she thought so.’
Paul refused the invitation to lunch. He had to persuade Steve that their holiday was over, which might make for a busy afternoon.
‘See you in London then,’ said Danny.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday was a busy day. Inspector Vosper was padding about the mews house trying to ensure that he knew what was going on, and Paul was trying to ensure that the call box on Putney Heath wasn’t surrounded by blue uniforms at eight o’clock when the phone call was to be made. In addition there was normal life to be led. Kate Balfour had a series of problems to be sorted out – the central heating had developed a noisy sore throat, the mended Rolls was waiting to be collected, and a Saturday appointment had been made for the lady from the posh Sunday paper. Kate believed in an orderly regimen, and blackmail cases had to be fitted into it.
Steve was ostentatiously leaving her skis at the top of the stairs and looking up train timetables to the Cairngorms.
‘I don’t know why the blackmailer chose a phone box on Putney Heath,’ Vosper grumbled. ‘It makes it difficult for my men, you know. It’s a notorious meeting place for dubious characters. No decent man would go there after dark –’
‘I’m sure,’ Steve said icily, ‘that your men will come to no harm. They can walk in pairs.’
‘I meant that they could arrest everybody they saw,’ Vosper explained. ‘A plethora of suspects.’ He grinned and turned to Paul. ‘Plethora, Temple?’
Paul nodded. ‘Yes, very good. But they aren’t supposed to be arresting anybody!’
‘Good lord no!’ He went across to the desk, where Kate Balfour was speaking on the telephone. ‘Any luck, detective sergeant?’
‘No,’ said Kate. ‘He doesn’t seem to be answering. They’ve tried his suite but there’s no reply.’ She hung up.
‘Never mind. I have a plain clothes man tailing him. If he’s playing funny games –’
When the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs struck seven Steve had her revenge. It was the final briefing session, but she burst into the operations room and announced that it was the cocktail hour.
Paul looked up from his desk in surprise. ‘Cocktails?’ said Charlie Vosper. Three constables stood to attention. ‘If you have a can of beer in the house…’
‘I’ll fetch some from the fridge,’ said Kate.
At half past seven Paul went off with Charlie Vosper to Putney Heath. They left Steve behind to wash her hair and attend to all the womanly things that had been left undone for the past ten days. It was snowing in London as well. Paul wondered why they had to go to St Moritz or the Cairngorms when the temperature at home was below freezing point.
‘Of course there’s one problem,’ said Vosper unhappily. ‘If we catch your blackmailer, what do we do with him or her? Whose case is this?’
Paul shrugged. ‘I suppose the victim lives in Switzerland, but the crime was planned and executed in London. That’s how we come to be out this evening.’
‘As long as Walter Neider doesn’t get bureaucratic about it. These Interpol characters are sticklers for procedure.’
‘Leave him to me.’
Putney Heath was slightly better lit since a man had been murdered there, and police patrols tried to combat the prowling teenage gangs. But it looked a joyless place. The police car drove round the perimeter, past occasional figures huddled in overcoats, an endless line of parked cars and several courting couples until they drew up by Tibbet’s Corner.
It was two minutes to eight.
The public call box was a hundred yards inside by the King’s Mere. There was a street lamp glowing nearby. And on a park bench a woman police constable was being embraced by a plain clothes detective. The shabby man coming up through the subway and shuffling along the path was another policeman; he paused to forage through a litter basket.
‘We’ll wait here in the car,’ said Vosper. ‘No need to get in the way. My men know what they’re doing.’
He checked on the car radio that everyone else was in position.
‘Yes, sir. Mr Clayton was at the cinema this afternoon, but he came back –’
‘The cinema? What does he think he’s doing? Taking a bloody holiday?’
‘It was an old film directed by Vince Langham, sir. At the National Film Theatre.’
‘Oh.’
‘But he’s back at the Savoy now, waiting to make the call.’
‘Right.’ Vosper glanced at his watch. It was eight o’clock. ‘Here we go.’
They sat in the car while Danny Clayton made his phone call, a policeman recorded the conversation, and the courting couple watched to see who answered the telephone. When the man left the call box the shabby man turned away from the litter basket and followed him.
At five past eight Paul saw the man leave the heath and go off towards the railway station. He was a stoutly built man with a limp, about thirty-five but slow in his movements.
‘There goes the messenger,’ said Charlie Vosper. ‘Now for the real villain.’
Inspector Vosper flicked the switch on his car radio. ‘Get me Gabriel,’ he said biblically. ‘Gabriel? This is Beelzebub. What are the arrangements?’
‘The hand-over is at t
he Fancy Free Club in Soho, sir, any time after eleven o’clock. That’s a place run by Tully –’
‘I know all about Tully’s fun palace,’ Vosper snapped. ‘Move on to phase two of the operation, Gabriel. Get moving.’ He turned to Paul. ‘The Fancy Free is a high class strip joint, you pay more and get less –’
Paul nodded. ‘Tully is a friend of mine.’
The inspector looked surprised.
‘I’d better let Steve know we’re going there,’ Paul continued meekly. ‘She has her doubts about Tully.’
When Paul and Steve arrived at the Fancy Free they were shown straight through the side door and up to Tully’s office. They were whisked through so quickly that Steve didn’t have a chance to examine the photographs in the foyer or to wonder what a ‘sexorama’ could possibly be.
She seemed quite interested in the girls going to and from their dressing-rooms disguised as Siamese cats and she asked innocently what the men did in the show. But they were soon in the owner’s luxury apartment.
‘Steve, girl, you’re looking gorgeous!’ Tully embraced her as an old friend. ‘So this is what the women who wear clothes are wearing these days?’ He slapped her on the bottom and then turned to shake hands with Paul. ‘Great to see you again, Paul. I hear I’m supposed to be on the side of the law tonight?’
‘I’m afraid so –’
‘It’ll scare the life out of my boys.’ He roared with laughter. ‘If only coppers didn’t look so much like bloody coppers! I’ll have to tell everybody they’re here to check up on Dolly Brazier’s attack.’
‘How is Dolly?’ asked Steve.
‘Oh, she’s making the most of the drama,’ Tully said with a laugh. ‘She came back to work yesterday, looking none the worse but talking as if she’s the heroine in a gangster film.’ He pressed a button on the intercom. ‘Send up Dolly Brazier,’ he ordered.
‘Okay, boss,’ said a blurred voice at the other end. ‘By the way, we’ve got the fuzz in the cloakroom. The girls have switched to the Vicarage Tea Party until we get rid of –’
Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery Page 12
