Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘That’s all right, Cyril. Show them up here.’

  There was a pause at the other end. ‘Whatever you say, boss.’

  Tully opened up his cocktail cabinet and distributed large brandies while Inspector Vosper and two plain clothes policemen came into the room and sat uncomfortably on a sofa. One of the policemen nursed a tape recorder on his lap.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Steve said to break the atmosphere, ‘I could go downstairs and have a chat with Dolly –’

  ‘No. I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Vosper. ‘I’d like you to hear this tape record, Mrs Temple.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Tully, ‘make yourselves at home. There’s a plug beside the bookcase.’

  Tully helped the constable plug it in and set the tape’s position. Then they sat back and listened to the telephone call in comfort, sipping brandy and smoking Fancy Free cigars. They could hear the ringing sound, and then it stopped.

  ‘Is that 788 1347?’ asked Danny Clayton’s voice.

  ‘Have you got the money?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Danny. ‘Now what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Listen,’ said the man, ‘and listen carefully. Put the money in a case and take it to the Fancy Free Club in Soho –’

  ‘Now?’ Danny sounded surprised. ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yeah, tonight. Any time after eleven. Leave the case with the cloakroom attendant. Give the girl a pound and tell her someone called Lesley will pick it up later.’

  Danny was being slow to understand in order to get as much of the man’s voice on tape as possible. ‘Someone called Lesley?’ he repeated.

  ‘That’s right. Fancy Free Club, Old Compton Street, after eleven o’clock. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’

  ‘Okay, that’s all, Mr Clayton. Good night.’

  The policeman switched off the tape recorder.

  ‘I know that voice,’ Steve said excitedly. ‘It’s the man who brought the car – you remember, Paul, he said his name was Stone and that you’d told him to bring the car –’

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Temple,’ said Inspector Vosper. ‘When he left the box we had him tailed to Notting Hill Gate. He has a flat out there.’

  ‘You didn’t pick him up, did you?’ asked Paul.

  ‘We’re not that stupid, Temple. It isn’t Stone we’re after. We want this character called Lesley.’

  Paul grunted. ‘Lesley! That’s just a cover name for –’

  ‘Hey!’ Tully had risen to his feet in bewilderment. ‘I thought Mickey Stone was out of circulation?’

  Vosper began to explain that he had walked with a limp and was looking rather fragile, but then he understood. ‘Oh, I see. But it was Stone who did over Dolly Brazier, was it? No wonder he limps. But he’s a tough character. A stretch in prison is the only thing –’

  The moral homily was interrupted by a bleep from the inspector’s inside pocket. He took out a short wave radio transmitter. ‘Excuse me,’ he muttered. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock, sir. Mr Clayton is just entering the club.’

  Tully went to the window and peered down into the street. He grinned and pointed out to Paul the three parked cars and the two loiterers who were keeping the premises under observation. There was no fooling an old hand at the game.

  ‘Clever,’ said Paul. ‘But our blackmailer is not a professional like you, Tully. This is an amateur.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Tully, ‘I think it would be better if the inspector and his two yes-men stayed up here. You and I can go downstairs and wait for the collection. My boys will handle any trouble.’

  Vosper was doubtful, but Paul agreed before the police could object. It was sound thinking.

  ‘And don’t bother to search the office,’ Tully said cynically. ‘I knew you were coming, so it’s clean.’

  The three policemen laughed heartily at the joke.

  ‘I’ll come down as well,’ said Steve. ‘I’ve always wondered what these clubs were like, and Paul refuses to take me. I think I might even enjoy it.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Tully boomed, ‘they’re doing the Vicarage Tea Party! Nothing that a husband wouldn’t want his wife to see.’

  The club was filled with people and smoke and noise; there were tables where men ate expensive meals in the half light; at the rear of the floor was a bar where more men stood drinking alone. The décor was red plush with gilt trimmings, which seemed appropriate. Up on stage two young ladies were stripping before an apoplectic vicar, while a clarinet and guitar maintained the erotic mood.

  ‘Isn’t this rather dull?’ Steve enquired as the girls got down to their underwear. ‘The men in the audience aren’t even sweating.’

  ‘They bring on the toasted tea cakes next,’ said Tully, ‘that’s when the real fun starts.’

  Dolly Brazier was out in the cloakroom, dressed in provocative furs and fishnet. The effect of her naked midriff was slightly spoiled by a large band of sticking plaster. She looked as always like the cheerful housemaid who arranges flowers when the first act curtain goes up. She was waving vigorously at Paul when Danny Clayton arrived with his weekend case.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ said Dolly.

  ‘Hi. I want to leave this case with you. Someone called Lesley will pick it up later this evening.’

  ‘A gentleman?’ asked Dolly.

  Danny looked confused. ‘Well – I suppose so.’ He slapped a pound note on the counter. ‘Here, this is for your trouble.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ said Dolly. ‘I’ll see that Lesley gets the case whether she’s male or he’s female.’ She giggled as Danny came through into the club.

  ‘We’d better wait over here,’ Tully said to Paul. ‘We can see everything that’s going on, except that they can’t see us. This is where the bouncers keep an eye on the customers.’

  It was a dark recess beside the steps which had been a prompt box in more sophisticated days, when exquisite little revues had kept the customers amused. Paul and Steve sat in comfortable armchairs and watched the dancers waiting in the wings with their bird-like feathers.

  ‘Darling,’ said Steve suddenly, ‘look who’s over there at the bar!’

  Danny had walked across to the bar to fetch a drink and he was standing by a dishevelled man in a flying jacket. Of the two Danny was looking the more embarrassed, as if he didn’t want Vince Langham to think he habitually visited strip clubs.

  ‘He’s a film director,’ Tully explained.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’

  Tully laughed happily. ‘He wants to use the Fancy Free in a new film that he’s making. It’s about a girl who starts in a place like this, makes a few useful contacts and goes on the stage, then ends up as an alcoholic in Hollywood. Sounds a lot of old malarkey to me – my girls end up getting married and having five kids. But Vince Langham is a romantic, and a film like that will be good for my business.’

  ‘I’d have thought,’ Paul said reflectively, ‘that he’d have used one of the clubs in New York.’

  ‘They’re all the same. London, New York, Hamburg. We had the television people here a few months ago, pretending this was Berlin in the nineteen-twenties.’

  The conversation came to an end with Danny drinking a rapid whisky and leaving the club. It was all according to plan, but Vince obviously thought he had been brushed off again. He glared after the retreating Danny and then went to sit with a delectable blonde stripper.

  ‘Is he here for the money or the girl?’ asked Steve.

  ‘We’d have to watch and see.’

  They didn’t have to watch for long. The blackmailer had obviously been waiting outside for Danny to leave and was now coming down the stairs. He paused and went across to the cloakroom.

  ‘That’s him!’ said Paul. ‘Wait here, Steve.’

  Paul slipped out of the prompt box and hurried through the darkened auditorium. He reached the cloakroom a moment after Dolly had handed over the weekend case. She called out a gleeful, ‘Hello, darling, I w
as waving at you!’ as he ran past.

  ‘Wait a minute, Lonsdale!’ called Paul. ‘I think you should stay for a few explanations.’

  Lonsdale spun round with the case in his hands. ‘Temple!’ He glanced back up the stairs and into the club. ‘What are you doing here?’ But the converging policemen and Tully with his bouncers gave the answer.

  ‘I thought you were in Switzerland,’ said Lonsdale. ‘I telephoned your hotel this morning –’

  Paul smiled. ‘Actually you didn’t speak to the manager, you spoke to a man called Neider. We thought you’d probably check up on me. Hand over that case!’

  Lonsdale had waited until the two policemen on the stairs had reached him. He grabbed them both by their tunics and pulled them down on to Paul. Then he ran.

  A chorus of police whistles began to blow. When Paul reached the top of the stairs he found a flurry of bodies as the bouncers fought their way through a panic-stricken swarm of customers who thought it was a police raid. Police cars arrived with screeching brakes as Lonsdale broke free. He swung the weekend case at Charlie Vosper, slammed a car door on its driver and darted into the road.

  ‘Look out!’ shouted Paul. He reached for Lonsdale’s hand, but it was too late. A police car with klaxon wailing had hit Lonsdale and skidded over his body.

  The confusion on the pavement increased, people were shouting and a woman began to cry hysterically. The crowd pressed round to watch the blood gushing from under the car.

  ‘He ran straight into us,’ said the driver helplessly. ‘We were coming to lend assistance –’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Vosper.

  Paul knelt down by the twisted body; Lonsdale was dead with the weekend case still clasped to his chest. He took the case and handed it to Vosper. ‘Don’t bother to open it,’ he murmured. ‘Half a dozen books, that’s all it contains.’

  Somebody behind them said that an ambulance was on its way. Paul shrugged and went off in search of Steve. There was little that an ambulance could do except clear up the mess. Paul found her at the back of the crowd consoling Dolly Brazier.

  ‘Poor Lonsdale,’ she said to Paul with a shudder. ‘I didn’t like him, but –’

  Paul led the two women into the club. ‘I suppose it’s poetic; the affair started with a road accident in Geneva, and ends with one in Soho. We need some of Tully’s brandy.’

  ‘Just a moment, Miss Brazier!’ It was Inspector Vosper at his most official. ‘I must ask you to accompany me to New Scotland Yard. There are one or two questions…’

  Paul looked quickly at Dolly. She was crying and her make-up had run to reveal two scars on her face. Of course – Paul cursed himself for being so susceptible to blondes. Dolly had known Maurice Lonsdale!

  ‘She needs a drink,’ said Paul. ‘Come back upstairs and ask your questions in comfort.’

  Actually it was the blood and the sudden violence that had reduced Dolly to tears, it had shocked her. ‘I hated him,’ she said mildly after the large brandy. ‘I lived with him for a few weeks, because he was a millionaire and he said he would help me with my career. But he always frightened me.’

  Vosper muttered something about feather-headed showgirls.

  ‘I wasn’t even that when I met Mr Lonsdale. I was a typist with the Freda Sands Agency, and I soon got the sack from there.’ She began sobbing again. ‘I’m no good at anything except looking decorative. And now with these scars –’

  Paul put an arm round her shoulders. ‘It’s all right, Dolly, don’t upset yourself. You simply have a talent for making the wrong friends, but we’d look after you.’ He smiled. ‘After all, you did warn me, didn’t you?’

  ‘I heard Mr Lonsdale arranging to have you taken care of. He knew I was going to warn you and he didn’t seem to mind. But then Mickey Stone…It was terrible. I’m glad he’s dead!’

  Inspector Vosper stood over her and looked severe. ‘There’s only one other question, Miss Brazier. Did you know what was in the weekend case when it was brought in this evening?’

  Dolly shook her head and looked dizzily innocent. ‘It wasn’t until Mr Lonsdale came in and told me his name was Lesley that I realised I was involved in trouble again. I would have told Paul, but then you all appeared and the whistles started blowing…’

  Paul sighed and poured himself another brandy. She might be telling the truth, more or less, or she might have hoped that Lonsdale would turn out to be sweet and generous. Poor Dolly was never very clever at knowing the truth for herself. But she wasn’t a criminal.

  ‘Feather-headed showgirls,’ muttered Vosper.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She was a terrifying girl who chain-smoked miniature cigars and coughed continuously into her tape recorder. She peered at him through a mass of tangled hair and asked a question which included the phrases comme il faut and fortior quam prudentior erat and concluded with something about Weltanschauung.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Whither the novel?’ she asked, brushing ash off her ancient miniskirt.

  ‘I leave questions like that to Scott Reed,’ said Paul. ‘He lies awake at night worrying in case the novel is dead.’ The girl was looking bewildered. ‘Scott Reed is my publisher.’

  ‘I know.’ She sighed, and launched into a theory about nonfiction art which derived from Truman Capote and the dignity of the ‘Fact’. ‘Have you no ambitions to create in this new form?’

  ‘No.’ Paul glanced at his watch. The girl had been given an hour and a half by Kate Balfour. Only an hour and a quarter to go. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Beer, please, Mr Temple.’

  Paul called down the stairs for Kate to bring up a can from the fridge. Whatever happened to those old-fashioned journalists who ask about the money you earn and whether your wife is jealous of the heroines you invent? He poured himself a whisky.

  ‘Of course F.R. Leavis would question the whole moral basis –’

  They were interrupted by an approaching commotion; Kate Balfour was saying, ‘No no, you’ll have to wait, he’s being interviewed for one of the colour comics,’ and somebody else was being unimpressed. Thank God. Paul knew how they’d felt at the relief of Mafeking. Relieved.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling, I’m terribly good with reporters.’

  That sounded like the clipped self-confident voice of Margaret Milbourne.

  ‘Yeah, well, I mean, I’ve got something to tell the press, haven’t I?’ The Bronx accents of Danny Clayton.

  The girl switched off her tape recorder as the door burst open and Danny came in with a can of beer in each hand. He was followed by Margaret Milbourne and a protesting Kate. Luckily the girl had written articles called ‘Whither Theatre?’ for Isis so she was impressed with Margaret.

  ‘Will you drink it out of the can?’ asked Danny. ‘Or shall I find you a glass?’

  ‘Perhaps I should come back some other time?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Steve as she joined him, ‘it’s usually like this. Yesterday we had policemen all over the house. I’m afraid we’ve had a busy time with this blackmail affair.’

  ‘Thank God it’s over,’ said Margaret. ‘The whole business has been a nightmare. Even now it just doesn’t make sense.’ She sat tragically in the egg-shaped chair facing Paul’s desk. ‘How on earth did it all happen, Mr Temple?’

  Paul waited while Steve poured drinks for everyone.

  ‘It started when Vince Langham heard about the fire in Santa Barbara. He was directing Julia in a film at the time, and some years later he decided to write a book about it. Thanks very much. When the book was finished Vince sent it to Freda Sands to be typed, and the woman who typed it was Dolly Brazier. She had a very temporary job with the Sands Agency at the time.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Steve, ‘I wondered how Dolly came into it.’

  ‘Vince showed the book to Carl Milbourne, who bought it outright and persuaded Vince to use a pseudonym – Richard Randolph.’

  ‘That’s clear enough,�
� said Margaret impatiently. ‘But how did my brother become involved?’

  ‘Maurice Lonsdale had lent your husband a large sum of money and he wanted immediate repayment. They were discussing this when Carl mentioned the book Too Young to Die. Well, Lonsdale was already operating several rackets and he realised that Julia Carrington was an extremely wealthy woman. He decided that the book could be used as a means of blackmail.’

  Danny Clayton sat on the floor and muttered, ‘Too bloody right.’

  ‘Carl Milbourne went to Geneva because Lonsdale told him to. He went and saw Julia, and they did a deal together, but on the way home he was knocked down and killed. Yes, he was dead, but Lonsdale was determined that the plan should still go ahead. So Lonsdale telephoned Julia saying that he was Carl, saying that the accident had been a fake. And later,’ Paul said turning to Margaret Milbourne, ‘he put a doubt into your mind about the accident.’

  ‘That was when he sent me the hat?’

  Paul nodded. ‘The note was in your husband’s handwriting, but it was an undated note which Carl had previously sent to your brother. Lonsdale simply added the date.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Danny, ‘but what was the point? Why should Lonsdale want to convince Mrs Milbourne that her husband was still alive?’

  ‘It was Julia he wanted to convince,’ said Paul. ‘But he knew that if Margaret Milbourne thought her husband was alive she’d say so in a loud voice, and that way Julia would hear about it.’ Paul smiled complacently. ‘What Lonsdale didn’t bargain for was the fact that Margaret would consult me. He was nervous about me; he even hired that man Stone to scare me off and to beat up Dolly Brazier.’

  Paul went and poured himself another drink, and while he was passing made sure that the girl hadn’t got the tape recorder switched on. She hadn’t. She was a feature writer.

  ‘I’m afraid your brother was a pretty ruthless character, Mrs Milbourne. He beat up Dolly to show he meant business and he attacked Danny in the train to Switzerland. I think he even scared you, didn’t he? He frightened you into telling that story about Danny asking for money?’