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‘I’m afraid my sister’s completely dominated by this obsession of hers,’ Maurice Lonsdale was saying. ‘So much so that she’s made up her mind to consult you, Mr Temple.’
Which was the second time that Lonsdale had made an equation between mental imbalance and talking to Paul Temple. Paul decided he had reservations about the successful businessman’s sensitivity. ‘Why should she want to consult me?’ he asked.
‘Can’t you guess?’ Lonsdale was supercilious. ‘She wants you to find her husband for her.’
Paul rose to his feet. He thanked the man for the warning and for the excellent brandy. It was time to continue the evening.
‘I hope you’ll be nice to Margaret,’ Lonsdale said. ‘Listen to her, listen to all she has to say.’ He opened the door and held out his hand. ‘But please, for her sake, don’t take her seriously. The poor darling isn’t herself these days.’
Steve shook his hand and smiled icily. ‘It’s not really surprising, is it, Mr Lonsdale? You know what we women are like – we sometimes take things very much to heart.’ She swept from the room leaving Lonsdale staring.
Paul followed her down to the street in silence. It was a full moon and the Thames was looking serene, the reflections of light almost motionless in the water. He took Steve’s arm and went along the Embankment in search of the car. They passed Cleopatra’s needle before he ventured to speak.
‘I love Westminster in January –’
‘I’m not talking to you!’
‘Oh.’
They walked past the spot where Paul had thought the Rolls should be. It wasn’t there. He remembered that he had parked by a pillar box. Perhaps it had been another pillar box.
‘The whole evening was set up,’ said Steve. ‘You knew about that publisher and his mysterious accident. Scott Reed arranged the meeting with Lonsdale and I was taken for a prize idiot!’
Paul stopped and held on to her hand. ‘Hang on, darling, that isn’t quite true. Scott isn’t as clever as that, and incidentally we seem to have lost the car.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing: I’ve lost interest in going to Geneva. I want a holiday in the Highlands of Scotland.’
‘All right,’ said Paul as he glanced up and down the road, ‘we’ll go to the Highlands of Scotland.’
‘And I hated that man –’
‘So I noticed.’
Steve launched into a savagely accurate imitation of Lonsdale’s manner. ‘You know what women are when they get ideas into their heads,’ she said angrily. ‘Of course I know what women are! Paul, are you listening?’
‘Yes, darling. But I’m afraid the car has vanished.’
‘Serves you right.’ She chuckled unsympathetically. ‘I hope the newspapers make an idiot of you in the morning. Paul Temple’s Rolls Stolen, that’s what the headlines will read, Private Eye Sends for Scotland Yard.’ The thought seemed to cheer her up and she took his arm again. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said softly. ‘It’s very worrying. What are we going to do?’
They walked across the road to Scotland Yard.
The M1 was beautifully clear before them like a yellow band stretched forward into infinity. There were a few long-distance lorries on their way to Edinburgh flashing private signals at each other, an occasional car, but Den Roberts cruised smoothly past them all. It had always been his ambition to steal a Rolls.
‘Goes like a bird,’ he murmured for the fifth time.
‘Yes,’ said Lucas. ‘Listen, keep it down to seventy. We don’t want the law to stop us.’
He was cautious. Den had wanted to drive through the gates of Buckingham Palace and watch the sentries salute. They could have driven round the parade ground and out again, nobody would have stopped a Rolls. But Lucas wanted to reach Birmingham by midnight.
‘I still think we should have hoisted an ordinary car,’ Lucas grumbled. ‘I mean, a mini can be re-sprayed and sold for a few hundred quid. But a bloody Rolls! You suffer from delusions of grandeur!’
Den grinned happily. He didn’t try to explain. Lucas was a petty thief and he would die knocking off the occasional mini between stretches inside. But Den was an artist, he had soul. Through two years of Borstal he had sustained himself with the knowledge that he would drive his own Rolls one day and have every copper on point duty salute him.
‘You don’t need to worry about the number of miles on the clock with a Rolls,’ said Den. ‘You don’t need to worry about what year it was built. This is British craftsmanship!’
‘Shut up. We’re being followed.’
Den peered into the driving mirror at the glaring headlamps behind them. It was impossible to see the car and it dazzled his eyes just to look. ‘Shall we leave it behind?’ he asked. ‘We could easy –’
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s trying to overtake us.’
‘Yes, maybe,’ Den muttered. ‘Although it’s been on our tail for a few miles now.’
It was worrying. The other alternative was to stop. And if it were a police car…The car behind them slowed down as well. Den sighed and prepared himself for battle.
‘They’re coming round on us,’ Lucas hissed. ‘Quick, do something, Den, for God’s sake. Let them stop and then try a racing start to leave whoever it is behind.’
Den glanced over his shoulder as the car drew level with them. It was a large black saloon – a Rover, probably, although it was too dark to be certain. He couldn’t quite distinguish the people inside it, though there seemed to be two, and the second was crouched by the open passenger window. Pointing a revolver at Den’s head.
‘My God!’ cried Lucas. ‘Look out, he’s got a gun!’
Den stamped on the brakes and wrenched the steering wheel over to his left. At that moment a yellow spark flickered from the revolver and the windscreen of the Rolls disintegrated. Den struggled with the car as it slithered across the soft shoulder of the motorway and hit an RAC box. A second bullet thudded into the car, blowing away the side of Den Roberts’ face. Then the Rover accelerated towards Birmingham.
‘Are you all right?’ whimpered Lucas. ‘Den, are you all right? What’s the matter with your –? Oh my God!’
Paul went down to breakfast feeling irritable. He had woken up with the knowledge that something was wrong, and it had taken him several seconds to remember what it was. Then it had dawned on him. As he dressed he peered casually out of the window, pretending not to expect the car to be parked in the mews. It wasn’t.
Steve was already past the porridge and well into the bacon and eggs. Healthy breakfasts were her most serious character defect. She would follow with toast and marmalade. Paul tried not to notice. He went towards the door leading into the garage, but stopped himself. Instead he poured some black coffee.
‘A bath and shave haven’t done you much good,’ said Steve.
‘They wouldn’t help to get the car back,’ he said. ‘The Rolls was stolen last night if you remember.’
‘I know, I’ve been reading about it.’ She tossed the newspaper across to him. ‘You see, they’ve used that old photograph of you looking like a lean and glamorous bloodhound.’
Paul read the item: ‘Mr Temple, usually so self-possessed, was highly irritable when our reporter spoke to him last night about the stolen car. “Don’t ask me what happened”, snapped Britain’s number one Private Eye, “I haven’t a clue.” The police are treating this as a routine case…’ He looked up at the spluttering sound coming from Steve.
‘I never said that,’ he complained. ‘I never said a word about not having a –’
Kate Balfour bustled in from the tiny hall. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Temple, but Inspector Vosper is asking to see you.’
‘Vosper?’ he stared at the housekeeper in disbelief. ‘But Charlie Vosper wouldn’t be on a routine case of –’ He stopped as she gestured that the inspector was standing behind her. ‘Oh well, ask him to come in, will you, Kate?’
Vosper made his way directly to the coffee and sat at the table beside a spare cup. ‘Good morning, Temple. That’s very welcome, yes, I’ll have white with three lumps, please. Good morning, Mrs Temple.’ He was obviously pleased with himself. Either he had bad news for Paul or his retirement was due next week.
‘So what news about my car?’ asked Paul.
‘Ah yes, your car. A sad business when you can’t leave a Rolls Royce parked all evening in a London street, isn’t it?’ His grey eyes glittered maliciously. ‘How many thousand pounds does a car like that cost? Or was that the one you were given as a bribe?’
‘It was offered as an inducement for me to accept a case,’ Paul agreed stiffly. ‘But I paid the price for it when my wife wouldn’t let me return it. My wife enjoys sitting in the back making plans for new ways to furnish it.’
Vosper finished his coffee and then said casually, ‘Well, we found it late last night, but it needs more than new furnishings. I’m afraid there was a very bad accident the other side of Newport Pagnell.’
‘Tell me more,’ Paul said with a glance at Steve.
‘We found it in a ditch beside the M1. The car seems to have left the road, hit an RAC telephone box and then rolled down the bank. The radiator is damaged and the windscreen smashed.’
‘Any trace of the driver?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Vosper. ‘He was still at the wheel, with a bullet through his head. I forgot to mention the mess on the upholstery.’
Steve had risen to her feet. ‘Oh, Paul!’ She turned away and began pouring more coffee. ‘So that’s why you’re here.’
‘Who was the man?’ Paul asked. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Yes, we know him. He was a small-time car thief called Den Roberts. There were fake number plates in the back of the car; I daresay he planned to change them over in Birmingham.’
‘Was Roberts alone in the car?’
‘He was alone when we found him.’
Paul thought for a moment. Roberts may have quarrelled with his accomplice, although it seemed unlikely that anybody would shoot the driver of the car he was travelling in. It was a problem.
‘What’s happened to my car now?’ asked Paul.
‘It’s in the Pentagon Garage at Newport Pagnell. They’ll telephone you when it’s repaired.’ Charlie Vosper raised himself ponderously from the chair, picked up his plain clothes trilby and announced with deliberation that it was all go, wasn’t it? ‘If there’s nothing else, Temple…’
‘I’ll see you out.’
Paul took the inspector into the passage and closed the kitchen door. He glanced up the stairs behind him to the main part of the house, to make sure that Kate Balfour wasn’t listening. ‘Charlie,’ said Paul, ‘there’s just one thing.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘This man Roberts. I wondered – could he have been mistaken for me?’
Vosper was surprised. ‘Well, he wasn’t much like you to look at, but it happened at night. Anybody overtaking the car might have been under the impression…I suppose it’s possible. Do you think it was an attempt on your life, Temple?’
‘No,’ Paul said lightly, ‘I haven’t an enemy in the world. But let me know if there are more developments.’
He watched Inspector Vosper pad away down the cobbled mews and turn into Chester Square. Then Paul went back into the kitchen. He smiled reassuringly at Steve and began pouring more coffee.
‘We’ll have to book up for Geneva or the Highlands of Scotland this morning –’
‘Darling, I suppose it didn’t occur to Inspector Vosper that whoever shot the car thief might have been under the impression they were shooting you?’
‘Good Lord, Steve, whatever put that idea into your head?’
‘Don’t tell me Britain’s number one Private Eye didn’t think of that one,’ she said seriously. ‘It was your car, in the dark, and the number plates hadn’t been changed. Anyone following the car must have thought you were driving it.’
‘You’re being fanciful, darling. I expect you’re worried about travelling by bus for the next week or so.’ The telephone rang at that moment and Paul hoped it would be somebody to take Steve’s mind off the subject.
‘Mr Temple!’ called Kate Balfour. ‘It’s Scott Reed for you!’
‘I’ll take it up in the workroom,’ said Paul.
‘Yes, it was a classic story of its kind – I sat up until three o’clock. Couldn’t put it down. Absolutely riveting, although I still don’t know who committed the murder. Was that intentional?
‘But it will keep me solvent for another year,’ Scott Reed concluded. ‘Might even pay for this academic study of history and the myth of potency which I’ve just published.’
‘What was that about?’ Paul asked politely.
‘I’ve no idea.’
Paul sat in the swivel chair at his desk and swung round with his feet in the air. Scott was a difficult man to keep to the point. And the idea of a scholarly work proving that politicians were national sex symbols seemed absurd.
‘Before you ring off, Scott,’ he interrupted, ‘hang on, I want to ask you about Carl Milbourne. What made you think I’d want to get involved? Is there something mysterious about his death?’
‘Good lord, no,’ Scott said nervously. ‘He was a friend of mine, that’s all, and naturally when his wife told me she needed to talk to a skilled investigator –’
Paul laughed. ‘I don’t believe you, but it doesn’t matter. Steve is dragging me off on holiday at the end of the week. You’re a devious old devil. We’ll see you when we come back.’
He replaced the receiver and swung his chair round to the desk as Kate Balfour tapped on the door. She showed in a dramatically attractive woman. Paul didn’t need telling that this was the ex-actress widow of Carl Milbourne. She was dressed in mauve and she swept in with the distraught air that had thrilled gallery first-nighters in play after play during the post war years. She began pouring out her troubles as Paul was shaking her gloved hand.
‘It’s no use, Mr Temple,’ she said tensely, sitting in the chair which Paul had indicated and peeling off the gloves, ‘the more I think about it the more certain I am that the dead man we saw that morning was not my husband.’
Paul nodded sympathetically and asked why she hadn’t said so at the time.
‘I was upset. Confused.’ A rapid glance at Paul and then she looked down again at the hands in her lap. ‘I really didn’t know what was happening.’
‘But your brother was with you, Mrs Milbourne, and he also identified the body. Surely he wouldn’t have –’
‘Maurice was upset too,’ she intruded. Her tone suddenly changed. ‘You mean you’ve seen Maurice? You’ve been talking to him?’
‘My wife and I had dinner out last night – at L’Hachoire Restaurant. Your brother was there, and he invited us into his office for a drink.’
‘What did he say about me?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘He said that you were still very upset, Mrs Milbourne, and that you simply refuse to face up to your husband’s death.’ Paul sat on the sofa next to her. ‘I didn’t know your husband well, Mrs Milbourne. I only met him once, and that was several years ago. I don’t believe he was married then.’
‘We were married six years ago.’
‘I remember him as a very charming man. I’m not surprised you find it difficult to imagine a world without him. You must feel very lonely now. I gather you don’t have any children?’
Margaret Milbourne had acted in enough problem dramas to understand the significance of Paul’s question. ‘That’s true. We both wanted children, but it wasn’t to be.’ She sighed. ‘Mr Temple, you might think this business has been too much for me and that I’m perhaps – a little unbalanced. But I assure you –’
‘Don’t worry about what I think, Mrs Milbourne. For the moment let’s concentrate on the facts. What was your husband doing in Geneva?’
She was slightly pained by the efficient manner. ‘Carl went on business, to see Julia Carrington.’
