Francis Durbridge - Send for Paul Temple

But Temple had had enough. ‘Righto, Pryce!’

‘Shall I read you what the Daily Page says, sir?’ asked Pryce.

‘No. I think we’ll leave that to the imagination.’ Temple poured himself out a little more coffee.

‘Did anyone call yesterday while I was at the station with Inspector Dale?’ he asked.

‘Several reporters, sir. Oh, and a rather elderly lady by the name of Miss Parchment.’

Temple looked up in surprise. ‘Miss Parchment!’ he echoed, almost to himself. ‘Now what the devil does she want?’

‘The lady didn’t leave a message, sir.’

Paul Temple extracted a cigarette from a nearby box, finished off his coffee, and strolled towards the open window. Below him, worn stone steps descended to a carefully planned garden where early flowers were already adding colour to a picturesque setting. The velvet lawn, its grass thick and smooth with the careful cutting, rolling and general tending of centuries, attracted him. Temple looked at a world far removed from the world of robbery and sudden death. But he was not allowed to digress for long. Pryce’s voice was recalling him back to reality.

‘I’m afraid several of the reporters will be returning this morning, sir. They seemed quite determined to have a word with you.’

‘I don’t want to see any of them,’ said Temple impatiently. The Press men had one by one been giving up their quest. They had found it far too unprofitable lying in wait for Paul Temple. Nor could they even obtain any pointers from his movements. Nevertheless, the bigger, sensational papers and the agencies had kept their men on in the hope that they might suddenly get a lead towards really big news. Most of the men were fairly certain that Harvey’s death was no suicide, and that it was closely bound up with the ‘Midland Mysteries’.

Suddenly, a memory of something that seemed to belong to a bygone age came to Temple and he changed the topic.

‘By Timothy, I must get down to that serial, Pryce. I promised to let “Malpur’s” have the first instalment by the end of May.’

But Pryce was not so easily led astray from the reports he had to make to his master. He had a very high idea, and ideal, of his duties as a manservant. Temple, he felt, needed a little guidance from time to time, especially with that section of his affairs over which Pryce held charge. The serial could wait. There were still weeks to go, not merely days. A long session with a dictaphone would very quickly see the end of the first instalment.

‘There was one reporter who seemed very insistent, sir,’ said Pryce. ‘She simply wouldn’t take “No!” for an answer.’

Temple smiled. ‘Wouldn’t she, Pryce?’

‘A very pretty girl, too, sir,’ added Pryce. ‘If—er—I may say so?’

‘By all means say so, Pryce. A very pretty girl who wouldn’t take “No” for an answer. Sounds interesting.’

Pryce was endeavouring to remember the young lady’s name. He had made a particular note of it at the time because he thought it had sounded a rather peculiar name for a member of the opposite sex.

‘Ah, I remember, sir,’ he said suddenly, ‘it was Trent. Miss Steve Trent.’

Temple was not greatly interested but he forced himself to reply.

‘Well, if Miss Steve Trent calls round again you can tell her—’

He did not complete the sentence. An electric bell started ringing. It was the bell to the front door.

‘It’ll be Inspector Dale,’ said Temple, as Pryce moved towards the hall.

Temple stretched forth his arms in a mighty, luxurious yawn, tossed the cigarette he was smoking into the hearth, and proceeded to fill his pipe. One or other of his big briars was his constant companion. He went through an ounce and a half of tobacco every day although a doctor had warned him long before that two ounces a week should be his limit if he wished to keep his heart sound. The warning, like most other warnings he had received during his life, had not frightened him.

His cultured manners and his breeding formed the best disguise and mask he could desire. There was nothing blunt about Paul Temple. To the casual acquaintance, he even seemed soft-hearted. But behind that smooth exterior was a forceful character and a courage that few even suspected the existence of. It showed only in his strange calmness which nothing could upset.

He sat down on the slope which led down to the garden and savoured the fresh warm air of the new day. His dreams were cut short by the sound of excited voices in the hall. He listened and distinguished Pryce’s voice raised in loud expostulations while a woman’s voice alternated in more subdued tones.

‘I’m very sorry, madam,’ he heard Pryce saying, evidently trying to preserve his normal dignified bearing while at the same time forcibly trying to carry out his master’s bidding. ‘Mr. Temple is out.’

Once again came the lower undertones of a woman’s voice, but Temple could not catch what she said. His curiosity was aroused, however, and he strode to the door and opened it to find Pryce barring the way to a pretty girl who did not look as if she were much more than twenty. Pryce was clearly not above using force. In fact, as Temple appeared, he was actually trying to push her out of the hall.

But she had the advantage of youth and agility against Pryce’s age and bulk, and she had managed to make considerable progress through the hall when Temple came to see what was happening.

‘What the devil is all this?’ he exclaimed.

Pryce was very illuminating.

‘It’s the young lady, sir,’ he managed to exclaim.

‘Which young lady?’

‘The—er—the reporter, sir.’

Temple remembered Pryce’s description of the girl ‘who wouldn’t take “no!” for an answer,’ and smiled.

‘Oh. Oh, I see,’ he said quietly.

The girl was smiling too.

‘May I come in?’ she asked pleasantly.

Temple hesitated. ‘Yes, I think perhaps you’d better,’ he said at last.

He led the way into the comfortable lounge where he had entertained Dr. Milton and Diana Thornley two days before. Unconsciously, he bowed his strange visitor into a comfortable armchair and produced Turkish and Virginia cigarettes for her to smoke. Miss Trent took one of the latter, lit it and smiled happily at him.

‘He’s very determined, isn’t he,’ she said, referring to Pryce.

Temple, normally the most self-possessed of men, was taken aback.

‘Yes—er—yes, very.’ Then suddenly he remembered that even though his charming visitor was certainly more good-looking than Pryce had led him to expect, she had literally broken into his house.

‘I say, look here,’ he expostulated, ‘you can’t come bursting into people’s houses like this!’

‘I’m sorry,’ she started without seeming to display any great depths of misery, ‘but—’ And her voice tailed away as if she had other and far weightier topics to think about and discuss.

‘You are Paul Temple, aren’t you?’ she asked, almost abruptly.

‘Yes,’ said Temple quietly.

Miss Trent had a knack of putting herself so completely in the right that Temple began to feel almost as if he were the offender.

‘I tried to see you yesterday, but your man said you were out.’

‘Well—er—what is it you wanted to see me about?’

Steve Trent looked up at the man she had forced to be her host, and her face gradually became very serious.

‘Do you think Superintendent Harvey committed suicide?’ she asked.

Temple looked at this pretty girl sitting before him with sudden interest. She was certainly a very earnest reporter.

‘My dear Miss Trent, I don’t see that it makes a great deal of difference what I think,’ he said non-committally.