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Temple at last managed to shepherd the talkative Brooks out of the flat. He went back to the drawing-room to find Steve at the window, waiting to watch their visitor as he went along the street.
‘Something peculiar about that chap. You and he seemed to be getting on like a house on fire.’
‘Does that make him peculiar? I liked him but I felt that we weren’t seeing the real person. All that surface charm seemed switched on for your benefit.’
‘For my benefit? Come on, Steve, you under-rate yourself. Now, we’ll have to get a move on if we’re to be at Sonning in time. We’ll hang that picture when we get home this evening.’
They were lucky with traffic and it was still only half-past twelve when the two-seater Frazer Nash passed the 30 limit sign on the far side of Maidenhead and Temple brought the speedometer needle up to 80, an easy cruising speed for the car.
‘I’m going to be ready for this lunch,’ Steve said, looking up at the blue sky. ‘I wonder if we can eat outside.’
The fine weather had continued and the trees lining the side of the road were a fresh, rich green. The hum of the tyres and the gentle swish of wind over the streamlined body were not enough to prevent conversation.
‘I wonder if you’ll get anything of interest out of Mrs Draper.’
‘I don’t expect to,’ Temple answered, his eye on the driving mirror. ‘I’m convinced that Harry Shelford had nothing to do with the Tyler business. I’m only doing this to make Sir Graham happy.’
‘Don’t you think that the coincidence of this mysterious Harry who telephoned and Harry Shelford’s name on the paper found in Betty Tyler’s handbag is too strong to be – well, just coincidence?’
‘Coincidences happen in everyday life which no one would accept in fiction. What does this ass think he’s trying to do?’
A white sports car Triumph had been catching up on the Frazer Nash for some miles and was now sitting on their tail about a hundred yards behind. Temple had waved the driver on but he had taken no notice. He was alone in the car and had lowered the windscreen flat onto the bonnet. His cap was pulled down over his face and he wore a fearsome pair of goggles. Temple was used to being challenged to a race by foolhardy owners of sports cars but he invariably declined, though he knew that the Frazer Nash was capable of showing a clean pair of heels to most of them.
He slowed to about sixty and at last the Triumph accelerated and went past them with a vulgar blare from its exhaust. The driver did not even glance at them. He then played that most infuriating of tricks: began to motor at a speed just slower than Temple’s usual gait. The noise of his exhaust drowned conversation. Temple made up his mind to give the Frazer Nash the gun and leave the Triumph behind.
The road ahead was a fast straight stretch divided into three lanes. About four hundred yards away a car was stopped on the left-hand side. A little beyond it, coming towards them, was a massive Marston Valley brick lorry. Temple decided to bide his time, but at that moment the driver of the Triumph put out a gloved hand and gave the slowing down signal. Just as he came up to the parked car he waved the Frazer Nash on. Temple assumed that he intended to brake sharply and pull in behind the stationary car. The brick lorry was just coming level with it, but the centre lane was clear.
The Frazer Nash surged quickly from forty to sixty miles an hour as Temple pulled out to pass. It occurred to him that the Triumph was going to have to brake very sharply to avoid hitting the stationary car. Just at the last moment the goggled driver put his hand out and edged the Triumph on to the centre lane. Temple found himself being forced out towards the oncoming bonnet of the brick lorry, now only thirty yards distant, his only way through blocked.
There was no time to sound a horn or curse. The lesser of two evils was to shunt the Triumph but even that would mean an impact of fifty miles an hour and Steve’s forehead was terribly close to the dashboard.
The man at the wheel of the brick lorry, with the vigilance typical of British transport drivers, applied his vacuum brakes and stopped the vehicle in its own length. Temple swerved sharply to the right, aiming the Frazer Nash across the front of the brick lorry. Nothing but a machine developed in trials and racing would have accepted the brutal change of direction; tyres shrieked but the car remained on four wheels. She missed the lorry by two feet, rushed on to the grass verge and passed between two trees. Still miraculously in control, Temple put her through an open gate into a grass field beyond. The car skidded on the soft surface and ended up facing the gate through which it had come. Temple had kept his engine running. He selected bottom gear and drove back on to the grass verge.
‘Sorry, Steve. It was the only way out.’
Steve produced a compact and began to powder her nose with slightly trembling hands. Temple switched off his engine and took a deep breath before he stepped out of the car. The lorry driver had driven another hundred yards up the road and was climbing down from his cab. The white Triumph, now moving very fast, was just disappearing round a distant bend.
Temple went to meet the lorry driver as he walked towards them.
‘Your missus all right, mate?’
‘Yes, thanks. I’d like to thank you for keeping your brakes in good order and using them so promptly. It saved our lives.’
The driver scratched the back of his head and stared down the road.
‘Didn’t even stop, the—. Pity we couldn’t get his number.’
Temple offered his cigarette-case to the driver without answering. He had made a mental note of the Triumph’s registration number when it first passed him. He intended to write it down in his diary before he rejoined Steve.
‘Police ought to do something about them sort of drivers,’ the lorry man went on. ‘If he’d been trying to do it deliberate he couldn’t have put you in a worse spot.’
Out of respect for Steve’s nerves, Temple drove slowly the rest of the way to Sonning. Neither of them spoke a word until they had turned off the main road and were idling down the minor road that led to the village. Then Steve turned to examine Temple’s profile.
‘Paul. That was a deliberate attempt to kill us.’
Temple was ready for the remark. He took his eye off the road for long enough to give Steve a reassuring smile.
‘I don’t think so, Steve. Probably some idiot who doesn’t know his car. Too many of these fast machines get into the hands of people who can’t control them.’
‘I thought he controlled his rather skilfully,’ Steve remarked drily. ‘His timing was absolutely perfect.’
The Dutch Treat stood on the river bank just beyond the Sonning bridge. On a well-kept lawn between the verandah and the water were placed a number of gaily painted tables and chairs, shaded by striped Continental style sun-shades tipped at rakish angles. Temple parked the car, then Steve and he went into the building by the hotel entrance. Steve said she wanted to fix her hair, and while she went off to the Ladies’ Room Temple waited in the foyer.
He caught the eye of the reception clerk and went over to speak to him.
‘Mrs Draper owns this place now, doesn’t she?’
‘That is so, sir.’
The clerk, hardly glancing at him, answered in the impersonal manner of his kind.
‘Can you tell me where I would find her?’
‘Perhaps I can help you, sir?’
‘I’m afraid not. This is a personal matter.’
‘Mrs Draper is not in the hotel, sir. She will not be returning till after lunch.’
‘Well, we are lunching here, so it doesn’t matter very much. When she returns will you tell her that Mr Temple would like to have a word with her?’
‘Very good, sir.’
Temple was amused to note that as he turned away the clerk returned not to his register of guests but to study a copy of the Sporting Life. The reference book which he pulled down from a shelf was not a Bradshaw but Ruff’s Guide to the Turf.
There was still no sign of Steve. Temple noticed a public call box at the end of the foyer. It was unoccupied. He went over to it slowly, closed the door on himself and asked for Vosper’s number at Scotland Yard. The Inspector had gone home to lunch, but his assistant was there. Temple gave him the number of the offending Triumph and suggested he should check up on it. He was about to open the door and step out, when he hesitated. A man, emerging from the passage which led to the dining room, had entered the foyer at the same moment as Steve reappeared. He was only a few yards from Temple’s call box. When he looked towards Steve he stopped dead, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face. He turned on his heel and went quickly back the way he had come. As he passed, Temple made a note of his features. He was aged about forty-seven or -eight, athletically built, though rather on the short side, clean shaven and well dressed in a tweedy kind of way. Steve had not noticed him and he had certainly not spotted Temple in the gloom of the call box.
Temple claimed Steve and together they went through to the dining room. For the summer season the dining room had been extended on to the verandah and boxes of flowers on stands lined the glass walls. The whole effect was very French. It remained to be seen, Temple thought, whether the cooking came up to the same standard.
A maître d’hôtel, poised before a desk bearing the list of table reservations, waylaid them as they entered.
‘Name, sir?’
‘Temple. I telephoned last night.’
‘Ah, Mr Paul Temple, isn’t it? I have a nice table for you, sir.’
After an appreciative glance at Steve in her neat suit and flame-coloured shirt and shoes, the maître d’hôtel, walking with unction and brandishing his pencil as if it were a conductor’s baton, led them to a table flanked by tumbling geraniums. At a twitch of his fingers, a pair of waiters materialised from the carpet and set in front of Steve and Temple a couple of menus as big as railway posters.
When they had given their order Steve folded her hands and looked around her with appreciation.
‘It’s rather nice to be alive, isn’t it? We so very nearly weren’t. You can’t fool me, you know. I saw you coming out of that call box.’
Temple sipped his Tio Pepe and concentrated on Steve. A quick glance round the room had shown him that the startled man he had seen in the foyer was not here. Several faces had turned towards him with recognition, but there was no one he knew.
‘Perhaps it did look rather like a deliberate attempt—’
‘Looked like! If you hadn’t spotted that gap in the wall we’d have been finished. Was it anyone you’d seen before?’
Temple shook his head.
‘Even if it had been I wouldn’t have recognised him with all that stuff on his face.’
‘But why pick on us?’
‘The only reason I can think of is that someone is under the impression that I am investigating the Tyler case. Though why that should justify my execution I fail to see.’
At that moment the service squad arrived with the eats and drinks for the Temples’ first course. During the next hour they were far too preoccupied with the pleasures of living to worry about their escape from death. Mrs Draper’s imported chef was a genius and Temple rejoiced to have found for once an establishment which did not grudge the few shillings needed to supply the kitchen with adequate wine for the sauces.
After the meal, at the maître d’hotel’s suggestion, they took their coffee in a pleasant sun lounge built out over the water. They were still there, fingering liqueur glasses, when Mrs Draper came up and introduced herself.
Lucille Draper was a striking woman. She looked a good deal less than her forty-odd years; only a certain severity of expression, reflected in the cut of her black suit, showed that she had seen some of the darker side of life. She had accepted her widowhood as a challenge and had put all the money left by her husband into The Dutch Treat. She seemed to have an exceptional gift for business and in a very few years she had turned the hotel into one of the most popular out-of-town rendezvous.
She had heard a great deal about Temple from her brother and her pleasure at meeting him and Steve appeared quite genuine. She accepted Temple’s invitation to join them for a few minutes, but refused a liqueur or coffee. She seemed to sense that there was more than affability in his request to speak to her. Temple was perfectly frank with her. After complimenting her on the cuisine and service he came to the point.
‘What I really wanted to ask you, Mrs Draper, was whether you could give me any news of Harry?’
Temple purposely kept his eyes on his liqueur glass as he asked the question. He knew he could rely on Steve to watch her reaction.
Mrs Draper answered without the slightest hesitation: ‘It’s funny you should ask me that. I had a letter from Harry only two days ago. He’s doing wonderfully well out there.’
She leaned towards Temple and gave him the full benefit of very blue eyes.
‘I shall always be so grateful to you for helping Harry in the way you did. Giving him that money was the most generous—’
‘I didn’t give it to him,’ Temple said uncomfortably. ‘It was only a loan – which he repaid in full.’
Lucille Draper, with a gesture which appeared sincere and impulsive, laid a hand on his arm. Her nails were deep scarlet and several diamonds glistened on her fingers.
‘But it was the gesture that counted! He felt that someone really had faith in him.’
Temple tried unsuccessfully to imagine the hard-bitten Harry Shelford voicing any such sentiment. He tried to steer the conversation back on to course.
‘He wrote you from Cape Town?’
‘Yes. Of course he travels a lot – searching out really good second-hand cars, you know. He takes care not to sell anything shoddy.’
‘Forgive my interrupting, Mrs Draper. Has Harry ever talked of coming back to England?’
Mrs Draper’s pretty mouth remained open for a few moments to express her amazement. Then she gave a tinkle of laughter.
‘That’s the last thing he would do. Why should he come back to England when he’s making a fortune out there? And an honest one, too. Harry’s going straight now, Mr Temple, I can assure you of that. He wouldn’t let you down; not after what you did for him.’
Just for a moment Temple believed he detected real sincerity in her voice. He did not try to question her any further. After a few moments of small talk during which she turned rather ostentatiously to Steve, as if inviting her to join a private conversation, she claimed pressure of business and rose.
When she had disappeared into the hotel proper, Temple turned to Steve with a smile. She was looking daggers.
‘Well?’
‘Bogus, from the peroxide down.’
‘I’m not worried about whether she bleaches her hair or not. Am I mistaken, or was she covering something up?’
Steve grinned at a private thought.
‘I was watching her when you first asked her about Harry. She was ready for the question and waiting for it.’
‘I thought she was a shade too glib. Of course it’s difficult not having met her before. Some women are always like that with men, but she seemed somehow strained, brittle—’
‘I know what you mean. She’s worried about something. Do you know why she refused coffee?’
‘No.’
‘Because her hands weren’t steady. And she didn’t dare to look my way till the interrogation was over. She knew another woman would see through her.’
The Temples were loth to leave the pleasant lazy atmosphere of Sonning on a warm May day. It was four thirty before they arrived back in Eaton Square.
Charlie had left a note propped on the hall table: ‘See me soon as you come in’.
Steve picked it up and threw Temple a despairing look. Charlie answered the drawing-room bell promptly.
‘There was a telephone call for you about an hour ago. From Guildford. It was a girl – she seemed young, anyway – called Jane Dallas. She wanted to speak to you personally. Sounded pretty desperate, she did.’
‘What did she want to speak to me about?’
‘She wouldn’t say. She closed up when I told her you weren’t available.’
‘Jane Dallas. She didn’t mind giving her name, then?’
‘Well,’ Charlie’s face was disfigured by a self-satisfied smirk. ‘She thought I was you, see? When I answered the phone I said “Eaton double two, double four – who’s calling please?” She says, very quick like, “Oh, Mr Temple, my name is Jane Dallas. I have some very urgent—” Then I thought I’d better stop her before she spilled the beans.’
Charlie gave such a vivid imitation of Temple’s voice and that of the unknown Jane Dallas that he and Steve had to smile.
‘All right, Charlie. Thanks.’
Temple frowned thoughtfully at Steve as the door closed on Charlie.
‘Guildford? We don’t know anyone called Jane Dallas.’