Francis Durbridge - Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about Carl Milbourne. All I know is that – that a certain person doesn’t want you to help Mrs Milbourne.’

‘Who, Dolly?’ He took her by the shoulders and made her look at him. ‘Why won’t you tell me all you know?’

‘Because I’m scared.’ She smiled helplessly. ‘You see, darling, I’m too young to die. I’m sorry.’ She broke away from him and ran out of the gate.

Paul wandered down past the wolves, deep in thought. There were too many things he needed to know, such as whether the man killed in the car had been alone and whether there were witnesses to the accident. Paul liked the wolves, they were elegant and wild, and they didn’t smell so strongly in winter. He admired the one standing guard on the top of the air raid shelter. Supposing the dead man were not Carl Milbourne, Paul reflected. Did that mean Milbourne had arranged an accident so that he could disappear? In which case, as somebody’s body had definitely been dead, was Milbourne involved in murder?

Paul glanced at his watch. Nearly twelve o’clock. He decided to telephone Steve and ask her to meet him for an early lunch.

Kate Balfour watched from the kitchen window as a black Wolseley drew up in the mews. She heard Steve come down the stairs and answer the door herself.

‘Mrs Temple? My name’s Stone, of the Pentagon Garage.’

‘Oh yes,’ she heard Steve say, ‘you have my husband’s car.’

‘That’s right, Mrs Temple. But it will take a couple of weeks to put right, so your husband has hired this for the meantime.’

Kate was an ex-policewoman and it pleased her to see that Paul would be driving something more appropriate than the Rolls. In her day all black Wolseleys were police cars and she knew their performance. Not that Mr Stone looked like a policeman. He was standing by the car with Steve, handing over the keys and pointing out the logbook.

‘Kate,’ said Steve excitingly. ‘I’m just off to meet Paul for lunch. I’m mobile again.’

‘Yes, Mrs Temple.’

As Kate watched Stone walk off towards Chester Square the Wolseley shuddered and then purred gently away.

Beautiful cars, she thought, what a shame the police are driving about in any old vehicle these days; all those blue flashing lights and vulgar klaxons. Her reverie was interrupted by the telephone ringing.

‘Hello, Kate. Is my wife there?’

‘No, Mr Temple, she’s just left in the new car to meet you for lunch.’

‘Oh good, she must be psychic.’ There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘What did you say about a new car?’

‘From the Pentagon Garage, the one you hired. It was delivered a few minutes ago and Mrs Temple went straight off-’

‘The Pentagon Garage is in Newport Pagnell, Kate. I didn’t hire a car from them or anybody else!’

Kate Balfour slammed down the telephone and ran from the house. She had her mini in the mews and she set off in pursuit as if she had klaxons blaring and blue lights flashing. She nipped round Chester Square and through the streets of Chelsea with angry motorists aghast and hooting in her wake. Which way Steve had gone was sheer guesswork, but Kate assumed she would have gone up Kensington Church Street, through Sussex Gardens and along Marylebone Road. There was only one recent change in the traffic system, but Kate found herself doing forty miles an hour in the wrong direction along the new one-way street towards a bus. She gritted her teeth and decided to let the bus driver have a heart attack. Kate was in too much of a hurry to lose a game of chicken.

The bus veered into a garage entrance and frightened a postman. Kate sped on, jumping traffic lights where necessary and waving the occasional V-sign at self-important taxi drivers. She had reached Baker Street and was beginning to think she had come the wrong way when she saw the black Wolseley at the lights ahead.

Kate went round an island into the wrong side of the road and drove on. With a hand pressed firmly on the hooter she kept going until a bus came nose to nose with her, then she jumped out and ran the twenty yards more to the black Wolseley.

‘Hey, missis, that’s no place to park while you do your shopping,’ bawled the bus driver. Four taxi drivers joined in the chorus.

Kate pulled open the Wolseley door as Steve was about to drive off. ‘Come out of that car, Steve,’ she said urgently. ‘There may be a bomb –’

Steve nipped out quickly, without any flustered argument. That was what Kate admired about her, she was both attractive and sensible. She argued afterwards. ‘Car hire firms wouldn’t be so careless,’ she began.

‘Mr Temple telephoned soon after you left and said he hadn’t ordered a car!’

There were two commotions now: one doing nicely in front of the abandoned mini and another starting up behind the Wolseley. A policeman was padding purposefully towards them. ‘What’s going on?’ he was demanding. ‘You can’t leave a car in the middle of the road like this!’ The crowds on the pavement were stopping to watch the fun and a traffic warden was threading her menacing way through the jam.

‘Wait in the mini, dear,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll dump the Wolseley round the corner.’

‘Madam, you’re obstructing the traffic,’ the policeman insisted. ‘You’ll have to move that car immediately.’

‘I’d like to examine it first,’ said Kate. ‘I have reason to believe –’ The bonnet of the car lifted suddenly, there was a crash of tearing metal and the front of the Wolseley exploded. Steve ducked instinctively. There were pieces of steel scattering in every direction, smashing windows and cutting into other cars. A taxi driver fell to the ground beside his cab. It seemed nearly half a minute between the hideous bang and the eventual silence which followed. Then somebody screamed, the taxi driver began to curse to himself, and the people on the pavements moved forward among the metal and broken glass.

Steve looked appealingly comic sitting up in bed with a piratical bandage across her forehead. The urchin grin she gave as Paul burst into the bedroom was apologetic. But Paul was too shocked to be amused. He sat on the bed tight lipped and anxious.

‘How are you now, Steve?’

‘Darling, I’m perfectly all right. I’ve a slight headache which would disappear if you’d let me get up and make a pot of tea.’

‘Kate is already making tea.’

Steve looked slightly bashful. ‘Is Kate all right?’

‘Of course she’s all right, she’s an ex-policewoman. A little shaken up to begin with, but I increased her salary and she brightened up at once. The only other casualty was a taxi driver, and he was discharged from hospital as soon as they’d stuck some elastoplasts on his knee. So relax, stay in bed and be pampered.’

Kate came bustling in with tea and biscuits. The whiff of crime was obviously in her nostrils – the tea was not of her usual standard and while it had been standing she had telephoned the Pentagon Garage to establish that they didn’t know a Mr Stone.

‘Well, we had to check,’ said Paul. ‘Perhaps you’d have another go at contacting Mrs Milbourne?’

‘Yes, Mr Temple,’ and she bustled out.

‘Paul, what happened this morning?’

He poured the tea and passed her a cup. ‘This morning?’ he repeated innocently.

‘With Dolly Brazier.’

‘Oh, she tried to borrow some money from me. Poor Dolly, she’s always in some kind of trouble.’

‘Did you lend it to her?’

‘Of course not. She wanted a hundred pounds, and you know how these things develop. Once you start lending people money –’

‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ Steve interrupted. ‘If Dolly had needed money you’d have lent it to her. I know you, Paul. What did she really want?’