Kitabı oku: «Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery»

Chapter One

At about ten-thirty on a Thursday evening in early May a prowl car of the Oxford Constabulary was patrolling the Chipping Norton road a few miles outside the city. There had been complaints of wild driving on this fast section during the lurid period immediately after the closing of the pubs.

Sergeant Long turned his Austin a few hundred yards past the Welsh Harp and began to motor decorously back towards Oxford. Only a few weeks earlier the landlord of the Welsh Harp had been warned for serving customers after the prescribed hour. He had made sure of emptying his premises in good time that night. The parking space out in front was already empty, and through the uncurtained windows the two policemen could see the proprietor and his barmaid as they moved among the deserted tables collecting the empties.

‘Not much doing tonight,’ Long remarked to the constable at his side.

‘Pay day tomorrow,’ Benson answered briefly. He was a man of deep thoughts and few words; he spoke in a curiously oblique way which implied more than he actually said.

Three miles further on, a signpost with the words Lay-by swam up into the headlights. As they passed the bay at the side of the road Benson screwed up his eyes to note the number of the solitary saloon car parked there.

‘4006 JDR.’

He repeated the number aloud and switched on the light which illuminated his message pad.

‘Same number, all right.’

Long had already applied the brakes. Both men had memorised the number as belonging to one of the cars stolen in Oxford that evening. He put the Austin into reverse and with one arm laid along the back of Benson’s seat, manœuvred the police car back into the lay-by. Before he had stopped with his bumpers almost touching those of the stolen car Benson was out on the roadway.

The now abandoned saloon was a black Jaguar Mark VII. It was complete and undamaged. Benson opened the door, felt for the light switch and turned on the side-lights. Immediately he did so the interior light came on. Benson sniffed. His sensitive non-smoker’s nostrils had detected a whiff of woman’s perfume. He noted the ignition key still in the slot, the neatly folded travelling rug that lay undisturbed on the seat beside the driver.

‘What’s up?’ Long called from the police car. ‘No ignition key, I suppose.’

‘Key’s there, all right.’

To Benson’s tidy mind something about the situation did not make sense. Cars were frequently ‘borrowed’ by young men who could find no other way of arranging an hour’s privacy with their girl friends. But if that were the case it was unlikely that the rug would have preserved its immaculate neatness. And how had the pair gone home? Surely they would not drive out of Oxford for the mere pleasure of walking back again. There were no houses close by to which they could have gone. A thought struck Benson and he checked the petrol gauge. The tank was still half full.

For no particular reason he walked slowly round the Mark VII. It happened that at this moment a pair of sports cars came racing up the road at full-speed – an Austin-Healey pursued by a Triumph. For a few seconds their brilliant lights floodlit the rear of the Jaguar and in that time Benson’s eye was caught by a minute triangle of green at the edge of the luggage compartment lid. It was dark again before he could grip the chromium handle and open the lid. Instantly an automatic light came on inside the compartment, and at the same time the scent of perfume became stronger. The light illuminated the body of a young woman lying huddled on the corrugated rubber flooring. She was dressed as if she had changed to go out for the evening – a green ballet length dress, small handbag, necklace and bracelet to match, court shoes. Round her neck was a colourful silk scarf picturing well-known views of Paris. Benson, though he had never been there, recognised the base of the Eiffel Tower, the pillars of the Madeleine and the façade of the Opera. This scarf, instead of being folded casually round the girl’s throat, had been knotted with savage tightness at the back of her neck. One look at her face was enough to show Benson that she had been strangled.

Carefully he closed the lid of the boot and walked to Sergeant Long’s window.

‘You and I aren’t going to get much sleep tonight, Sergeant.’

Steve Temple stood in front of the fireplace in her new drawing-room and tried to see it with the eyes of someone coming in for the first time. Did it look too much of a mixture? She and Paul had tried very hard to avoid the impersonal effect of a room which had been ‘done’ by one of the fashionable interior decorators. Since it was they themselves who were going to live in the flat they had decided to decorate and furnish it according to their own personal tastes. If George II had to rub shoulders with Louis XIV, then that was just too bad.

It was barely a week since the Temples had moved into the Eaton Square flat. For months before that they had been brooding over wallpapers and pastel shades, selecting carpets and the additional pieces of furniture needed for the more spacious rooms of their new residence. Yet when the carpets had been laid and each article had been moved into its predestined position everything seemed just a little uneasy. Gradually, during the past week, the correct place for every chair, table or cabinet had revealed itself to them. The flat was at last beginning to look like a home, but the result was that both Temple and Steve had itching fingers. They could not leave things alone. Now, before she could check herself, Steve moved impulsively to transfer a bowl of flowers from the top of a tallboy to a low occasional table.

She was studying the effect with her head on one side when Temple’s key sounded in the door of the flat. She heard it open and then close again with the comforting thud of a mass of mahogany going into place in an eighteen-inch wall. Temple’s footsteps crossed the parquet floor of the hall without pausing and she visualised him throwing his hat onto the hall table as he passed.

As soon as he entered the room she could tell by the expression on his face that the meeting with his agent had turned out successfully. But she knew him too well to expect him to burst out with the news immediately.

‘Hello, Steve.’

He stopped, smiling at her, thinking how well the setting suited her. She had been created to stand against an Adam fireplace under a high ceiling, surrounded by the most skilful achievements of craftsmanship. Almost immediately his eye moved to the Queen Anne card-table standing now between the two tall windows. Steve had moved it there since he had gone out that morning. She studied his face anxiously.

‘How do you think it looks in that position?’

Temple came into the middle of the room, eyeing the table judiciously.

‘That’s the right spot for it. Now that it’s there I can’t imagine why we wanted to put it anywhere else.’

‘I keep moving things and then putting them back again. Paul, do you think there’ll ever come a time when we can say it’s done? Sometimes I wonder if we’ve got the fidgets about the flat.’

Temple nodded towards the empty space above the fireplace.

‘When we find the right picture for that spot we’ll draw the deadline, shall we? Make a rule that we shan’t move anything for a month.’

‘Good idea. Now then. What are you going to have to drink?’

Steve walked to the huge bow-fronted corner cupboard and opened it with a flourish. Inside a light went on and revealed two well-stocked shelves of bottles. Temple stopped with his lighter halfway to his cigarette.

‘By Timothy! There’s enough booze to sink a battleship.’

‘I stocked up this morning. We shall need all this sooner or later and it looks rather gay, doesn’t it? Liqueurs, port and brandy on that shelf, bits and pieces for cocktails down here. What’ll you have?’

‘I’ll have gin and Cinzano, with a strong dash of Angostura bitters.’

While Steve was mixing the drinks, Temple glanced at the paper which Steve had thrown on the sofa. It was open at the page on which the Tyler murder was reported. She handed him his glass, chilled by a marble-sized lump of ice from the baby refrigerator built into the back of the cupboard. Temple met her eyes as he sipped it, toasting her silently.

‘It’s wonderful to be able to get back home so quickly. I was with Watson only a quarter of an hour ago. If we were still living at the old place I’d have probably lunched in town.’

‘How did you get on with Watson?’

Steve tried to make the question sound casual, though she knew that Temple was holding something up his sleeve.

‘How would you like a trip to Paris?’

‘Paul! Do you really mean that?’

‘I do. I’ve sold the film rights on my last book to an American company. They want me to go over to Paris the week after next and meet one of their producers – a chap called Pasterwake.’

‘Darling, how marvellous! I shall be able to buy some new clothes. I haven’t a stitch to my back.’

Steve parked her drink down on the mantelpiece and put her arms round his neck.

‘If you haven’t a stitch to your back,’ Temple retorted, ‘why did you insist on a built-in hanging cupboard running the whole length of your bedroom wall?’

‘Fashions change, darling. Hadn’t you heard about Balmain’s exciting New Line?’

‘And hadn’t you heard about the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s boring old line?’

‘We’ll get around that. This man Pasterwake will be reeking with dollars. You can ask him to give you an advance on the film rights. What day shall we go? We’ll fly, of course. Can we stay at the Pompadour again? I love being near the Champs-Élysées.’

As she talked Steve disengaged herself from Temple and with apparent casualness picked up the paper from the sofa, folded it and pushed it in amongst the other periodicals in the magazine rack. Temple watched her with amusement. He could see perfectly clearly what was going on in her mind.

‘You needn’t bother, Steve. I’ve seen it already.’

‘Seen what, darling—?’

‘The report of the Tyler murder.’

‘The Tyler murder? What’s that?’

Steve knew he had seen through her, but for the sake of appearances she kept up the deception a little longer.

He took the paper out of the rack, found the passage and read it aloud:

‘“Police are still baffled by the case which has already become known as the Tyler Mystery. Blonde, pretty Betty Tyler, aged 24, was found strangled in a stolen car on the outskirts of Oxford the night before last by a police patrol car. Betty worked at the Oxford salon of Mariano, fashionable Mayfair beauty culturist, whence she had recently been transferred from London—”’

‘That’s the Courier,’ interrupted Steve. ‘Have you seen the Echo?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Let me read it to you: “Scotland Yard has been called in by the Chief Constable of Oxford. Interviewed today at the Yard, Sir Graham Forbes denied a report that approaches had been made to Paul Temple, the well-known novelist and criminologist. Knowledgeable observers, however, reaffirm that this case sets precisely the kind of problem in which Temple has so often assisted the police in the past”.’

Temple’s eyes were thoughtful for a moment. Then he knocked his drink back and carried the empty glass to the corner cupboard.

‘That’s just journalistic patter. I’ve no intention of becoming involved in the Tyler affair. We’ve enough on our hands as it is, Steve.’

‘That’s exactly what I think. When I read about this, I felt certain that Sir Graham would ask your help.’

‘So you hid the paper. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice?’

‘Not really.’ Steve grimaced at him impishly. ‘But I don’t want to miss out on that Paris trip.’

‘You won’t. The Tyler case is not going to upset our plans.’

‘I wish I could feel certain about that.’ Steve’s expression had become moody. She fiddled absent-mindedly with the flowers she had arranged in the bowl. ‘I have the funniest feeling that it’s going to upset our plans very much.’

‘You and your intuition! How often does it really mean anything?’

Steve straightened up with a frown of mock sternness.

‘More often than you’re prepared to admit, Mr T.’

The following Wednesday was the first day of summer; not the calendar summer, but the true summer, whose coming is like a thief in the night – no man can foretell it. Temple was glad that his business took him along New Bond Street. The thoroughfare was crisp and gay in the warm morning sunshine. The slow-moving cars sparkled and after a chilly spring every woman worth her salt had come forth in a new summer creation. Even Mayfair Man had reduced his habitual vigilance against the climate. Umbrellas had been left at home and though the bowler could not be discarded without affronting protocol, it was being carried in the hand rather than upon the head. Temple himself had greeted the coming of summer by purchasing half a dozen bow ties at Maddingly’s and had changed into one at the shop.

He called at Justerini and Brooks and over a glass of Conquistador sherry discussed with his wine merchant the vintages which he was going to lay down at the Eaton Square flat. His way back to Berkeley Square, where he had parked the Frazer Nash, took him past Anderson’s Art Gallery. His thoughts were on burgundy and château-bottled clarets and he was almost past the window when he stopped. His eye had been arrested by a splash of Mediterranean colour. He went back slowly and stood studying the picture in the window with half-closed eyes. Though it was the only painting in the window it was displayed rather artificially on an easel and the drapings behind it were distracting. Temple could not easily visualise it on his own drawing-room wall.

On an impulse he walked into the shop. The moment he crossed the threshold he entered a world of decorous coolness and silence. The light in here was subdued after the sunshine outside and his feet were cushioned by a thick carpet of a discreet buff shade. There were pictures everywhere, mostly modern. His eye was attacked by stark Gauginesque jibes at the female form and vivid fantasias on oriental or hispanic landscapes.

‘Good morning, sir.’

The voice might have come from a radio set. It was musical and carefully modulated. Its tone managed to suggest that the speaker was prepared to proffer the courtesy title of Sir to his customers but they must not infer thereby that he was in any sense inferior to them socially. The voice had come from behind Temple. He turned round.

The young man was quite as tall as Temple and met his scrutiny unblinkingly. He wore a very well-tailored suit of dark grey flannel with a horizontal stripe which Temple found a shade too bold. His shirt was of cream silk and the cuffs emerged just the correct distance from his coat sleeve. When he put a hand up to brush back a straying curl from his brow a set of gold cuff-links was displayed, stamped with some unchallengeable crest.

‘Can I show you something, sir?’

‘Yes. I’m interested in that picture you have in the window.’

‘Oh yes? The Kappel study of Port Manech.’

‘I thought it might be a Raoul Dufy.’

‘It’s very much the same style,’ the young man looked at Temple with a little more interest. ‘You like it?’

‘That’s rather hard to say. As a picture I like it very much, but I’m wondering how it will look on the wall of my drawing-room.’

‘That’s easily settled.’ The salesman had evidently decided from the cut of Temple’s jib that he was a customer and not merely a sightseer. ‘We can send it round and you can try it. If you don’t like the picture you have only to notify us and it will be taken away again. No obligation to you at all.’

Seeing that the suggestion did not please Temple as much as most customers, he added: ‘Alternatively I can have it hung in our display-room right away.’

‘I think that’s a better idea.’

The young man spoke the name Tripp on a register only a little above his speaking voice and an old character in a baize apron appeared from the back of the shop.

‘Tripp, will you bring the Kappel that’s in the window into the display-room. If you’ll come this way, sir.’

He led Temple to a three-sided space at the back of the shop. One wall consisted of a number of hinged panels so that the approximate colour of any room could be provided as a background to the picture displayed.

‘What colour is your drawing-room, sir?’

‘Well,’ Temple hesitated, ‘I suppose you’d call it duck-egg blue.’

‘Something like – that?’

‘Near enough.’

The young man offered Temple a cigarette while Tripp laboured by with the picture and hung it on the wall, slightly skew-whiff. Temple refused, but he noted that the cigarette-case was gold and the lighter with which the salesman lit his own Benson and Hedges belonged to the same set.

‘I like it,’ Temple said as soon as he saw the picture on the wall. ‘I can see what’s wrong now. It’s the frame. It would clash with the furniture. Our stuff is mostly antique.’

The other man’s eyebrows rose just a fraction, but he gave no other sign of his opinion of people who mingled modern art with antique furniture. He was too good a salesman. Temple interpreted his expression correctly but ignored it.

‘I’d prefer a slightly more ornate frame. And I think a little depth in the frame would give a more three-dimensional effect to the picture.’

‘Certainly we can change the frame, sir.’ The salesman nodded to the waiting Tripp and led Temple to another section of the shop. After some consideration he selected a grey frame flecked with gilt which gave the stippled effect he was after.

‘It will take a day or two to make the frame, you understand, sir. May we send it to you?’

‘If you would. What’s the price of the picture, by the way?’

‘Forty guineas, sir. We’ll send you the account in due course – and the name and address?’

‘Temple.’

‘Paul Temple?’ The young man glanced quickly up from the pad on which he was writing.

‘That’s right,’ Temple answered with a smile. ‘The address is 127a, Eaton Square.’

‘127a, Eaton Square.’

‘You’ve no idea what day it will be coming?’

‘I can’t say exactly, Mr Temple, but it should be early next week. Say Monday or Tuesday.’

‘The sooner the better.’

The young man had produced his wallet. He selected a visiting card from one of the pockets and handed it to Temple.

‘Just in case there’s any query.’

Temple glanced at the card. It bore the name Stephen Brooks, written clearly in a Sweet Roman Hand, which he took to be a reproduction of the young man’s own calligraphy. He picked up his hat from the table.

‘Thank you for your help, Mr Brooks.’

‘Not at all, sir. I hope I may have the pleasure again some day.’

Even at the time Temple was puzzled by the peculiar emphasis which he placed on these words.

Temple drove himself home, his thoughts so occupied with his purchase that he did not pay any particular attention to the black Humber parked a little way down the street from his own entrance. He let himself into the flat, but before he could burst into the drawing-room, Charlie, the Temples’ cook, butler, handyman and watchdog, emerged from the door leading to his own quarters.

‘Hold it, Mr T.’

Charlie’s voice was hushed and conspiratorial. Temple tried to hide the annoyance he always felt when addressed by initial. The thirty-year-old Cockney was a faithful and irreplaceable servant but his familiarity sometimes bordered on insolence.

‘What is it, Charlie?’

‘I’ve a message for you. It’s from Mrs T.’

‘From Mrs Temple? Has she gone out?’

‘No. She’s in there.’ Charlie ignored the reproof implied in Temple’s correction and stabbed a finger towards the closed drawing-room door. ‘But Sir Graham Forbes and that Inspector Vosper are here. She told me to warn you so as you could start thinking up your defence.’

Temple smiled to himself as he laid a hand on the door knob. There was no need for Steve to worry. He had a good idea what had brought Sir Graham to the flat but he was as determined as she was not to be diverted from that trip to Paris. The knob turned under his hand as someone opened the door from inside. It was Steve. During the moment while the door screened them she shook one finger at him in a gesture of warning.

‘Ah, there you are at last, darling,’ she said loudly. ‘Look who’s come to visit us.’

Sir Graham was facing the wall at the far side of the room, scrutinising the picture hung there through a monocle which he used like a magnifying glass. Detective Inspector Vosper had declined to remove his overcoat. As Temple entered he rose to his feet and nodded but left all the talking to his superior.

‘Temple,’ boomed Sir Graham in the vibrant voice which in days long past he had developed in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. ‘Good to see you again. I was telling Steve: I like the way you’ve done this place up. It’s honest. Reflects your personalities. None of this nonsense – the Louis XIV salon, the Marie Antoinette boudoir. What wonderfully proportioned rooms these old houses have! I was just trying to figure out this painting. Looks like one of those Venetian fellows. It’s original, of course.’

The picture that had attracted Forbes’ attention was a modest canvas about eighteen inches by twelve. It represented a wild, prophetic head with flaming cheeks and turbulent red hair.

‘As a matter of fact you’ve put your finger on the gem of the bunch. That’s a Tiepolo. John the Baptist.’

‘Is it, indeed?’ Sir Graham turned on his heel to quiz the picture again. ‘I thought he confined himself to painting ceilings. Trompe l’oeil and that sort of thing.’

‘By no means. He’s not so well known for his portraits but there are plenty of them.’

Temple tried to dismiss the subject by his casual tone. He caught Steve’s eye.

‘I was just telling Sir Graham about our plans to visit Paris, darling.’ Steve spoke pointedly and Temple spotted Vosper’s sudden embarrassed glance at Sir Graham. ‘What’ll you drink, Paul?’

‘Same as usual; Steve has looked after you, Sir Graham – Inspector?’

The two men lifted their still well-filled glasses to show that Steve had not failed to offer them hospitality. With a twinkle in his eye Temple watched Sir Graham move round the back of the sofa until he occupied the commanding position in front of the fireplace. It was the stance he habitually took up when he was about to broach some difficult business.

Forbes was an old friend of the Temples. He was a splendid example of an Englishman who has been shaped by the successive processes of school, university, military service and public office. At the age of sixty he was as fully in possession of his faculties as ever and had behind him a lifetime of rich experience. He was still handsome enough to attract the glances of women and when men saw him they were reminded of the Older Man who figures in advertisements for gentlemen’s clothing – broad shoulders, bristling grey moustache, bushy eyebrows and a certain aura of unshakable confidence and authority.

‘Well, Sir Graham, what brings you here? Did you and Vosper forsake the Yard to admire our pictures?’

‘Well,’ admitted Sir Graham, rocking his weight slightly to and fro and studying the liquid in his glass. ‘Not entirely, I must admit. Have you heard anything lately of a character called Harry Shelford?’

‘Harry Shelford?’

Temple repeated the name thoughtfully as he accepted the cocktail glass Steve handed him. He remembered Harry Shelford distinctly. He was a likeable bad-lot who had been mixed up in a fraud case some four years earlier. Temple had become involved in the investigations and was partly responsible for his being sentenced to two years in gaol. On his release Harry Shelford’s first action had been to call on Temple and ask him for the loan of four hundred pounds; he intended, he said, to give up crime, go back to his old job. His idea was to open up a chemist’s business in South Africa. Temple was so surprised – and amused – by the request that he lent Harry the money. Twelve months later, to his astonishment, he received repayment in full.

‘No, I haven’t heard anything from him – or about him – for over a year now. Why are you interested in him?’

‘So far as you know he hasn’t returned to this country?’

Temple shook his head.

‘If he had done so I’m sure he would have got in touch with me – if only for another loan!’

‘Mmm.’

Sir Graham glanced towards Vosper and finished his whisky. Steve moved forward to replenish it but he said: ‘No more for me, thank you, Steve,’ and held on to the empty glass.

‘Do you know anything about this Tyler affair?’

Steve looked at him sharply and then turned to study Temple’s expression as he answered.

‘I’ve read the headlines,’ he said casually. ‘That’s about all.’

‘It’s an interesting problem,’ Sir Graham continued in his most beguiling tone. ‘Just your cup of tea, in fact.’

‘I don’t want to get involved, Sir Graham. Steve and I are pretty busy at the moment. We’ve had quite a time settling into the flat and now there’s this trip to Paris.’

‘Suppose Harry Shelford is mixed up in the case – would you change your mind?’

‘What makes you think he is?’ Temple put the question warily. He had a soft spot for Harry.

Sir Graham looked down at Vosper and nodded. The Inspector opened the notebook he had been holding ready in his hand and balanced it on his knee. He eyed Temple sternly and cleared his throat. Sir Graham sank back into a chair, and Steve, passing close behind Temple’s back as he sat balanced on the arm of a couch, murmured: ‘Here we go again.’

‘Betty Tyler was an employee at the Mayfair salon de coiffure’ – Vosper pronounced the word as in Saloon Bar and with evident distaste – ‘of a hairdresser of Spanish nationality who is known by the name of Mariano. I understand that he’s quite the rage among the fashionable set now. This Tyler girl was extremely attractive and she became friendly with a Mr George Westeral – in fact she was soon engaged to him.’

‘Westeral?’ Temple cut in. ‘I seem to know that name.’

‘The Honourable George Westeral,’ Sir Graham confirmed and Temple nodded. Westeral was one of the most eligible bachelors in London – wealthy, intelligent and good-looking. Temple associated him with photographs in the Tatler of society people attending race meetings.

‘That must have put a few debutantes’ noses out of joint!’

‘It did,’ Sir Graham chuckled. ‘But his family didn’t raise any objections. You must have read about it in the papers. They made quite a story about the engagement. However, I mustn’t poach on Vosper’s preserves.’

The Inspector took a moment to pick up the thread of his tale after this interruption. He shot Sir Graham a slightly petulant glance before continuing.

‘Well, the engagement did not last long. It was broken off suddenly and no reason was given. Mister Westeral told reporters that he and the girl had simply failed to hit it off but there was a general feeling that more lay behind it than that. The girl was very upset about it. I questioned her employer – this Mariano fellow.’ Again Vosper’s nose wrinkled slightly as he pronounced the foreign name. ‘She asked him if she could be transferred to the new branch he was opening in Oxford. Mariano agreed. He gave her a few days off to find digs and she began work again the following week.’