Francis Durbridge - Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair

‘Where are you off to?’ Vosper asked suspiciously.

‘Me? Oh, I thought I’d make a tour of the neighbouring farms. It hasn’t been done, has it?’

‘No, it hasn’t. Would you mind driving with me, Temple? I’d like to be sure I know all that you know before we search Ted Mortimer’s place. I like to keep abreast.’

They walked across the drive towards the police car with studied casualness. But the inspector reached it first.

‘OF course there never was such a diary, my dear. How could there be when Dickie never had such a mistress? Dickie had his faults, I’d be the first to admit them: he was a bore and he danced abominably, but I never noticed people rushing off to enter up their diaries whenever Dickie trod on their corns. What did you say this person’s name was?’

Steve persevered with the assignment. ‘Miss Spender. Margaret Spender.’

‘Never heard of her!’

‘She was your husband’s secretary.’

The frail old lady said: ‘Oh!’ like an ancient bird sighting a small field mouse. ‘That Miss Spender. I always felt sorry for her. She was a big girl. We called her the last of the big Spenders.’ Her eyes sparkled with malicious life.

‘Miss Spender did keep a diary for those ten years,’ said Steve, ‘and of course that included the period after the war when your husband was murdered.’

‘Killed, dear. It could have been an accident. I expect it gave her something to do in the evenings.’

‘And now that she is dead her sister has decided to publish it.’

‘How very demeaning.’

Steve had felt slightly nervous when she arrived at Delamore House. But she had made an appointment with Lady Delamore’s secretary, which Paul had said was significant. She’s worried, he had said, or else she wants to know what is going on. A butler had shown Steve into the drawing room; and then Lady Delamore had bustled in calling for Simpson to bring tea.

‘We’ll have tea early today,’ she had said pedantically. It was only ten minutes to four. ‘Mrs Temple looks as if she needs sustenance.’

She was not putting Steve at her ease.

‘You young people are so thin these days. I’m thin, but then I’m eighty-five. When I was your age I had a generous bosom and a bottom you could really sit on.’

‘You must have led a busy life in those—’

‘It must be all this unisex that you people go in for these days. It makes everybody thin.’

The butler brought in tea at that point. It gave Steve an excuse to change the subject. She talked about the diary although Lady Delamore’s attention soon wandered.

‘How do you come to be involved in this?’ she suddenly demanded.

‘My husband is a crime writer, and it was his publisher who acquired the diary.’

‘Crime, eh?’ She laughed derisively. ‘It’s a little late for solving any of the mysteries which surrounded my husband’s death. Those of us who are still alive have forgotten what little we knew.’

‘Nobody is trying to solve anything, Lady Delamore,’ Steve said provocatively. ‘The solutions are all given in the diary.’

‘Which has disappeared, you said?’

‘A man has disappeared, Lady Delamore. The historian, Alfred Kelby. The diary is incidental, although if we found that we might also find Mr Kelby. My husband wondered whether you, or some of your friends, might be being blackmailed. Whoever has this diary might try to extort money by it.’

‘I never pay blackmailers,’ she pronounced aphoristically, ‘and none of my friends have any money. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.’

Steve helped herself to another tea cake. ‘Alfred Kelby was reading the diary to give his opinion on its historical authenticity,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand. Do you mean he could confirm that my husband was really murdered? And murdered by whomever Miss Spender accuses? Surely if Mr Kelby knew that he should have said in 1947, when poor Sir Philip Tranmere was arrested. I believe there was a Mr Kelby in the party up at the shooting lodge at the time, but I don’t remember that he was really in with the best people.’

Steve suggested that Mr Kelby could find the diary explanation convincing or not. ‘He would know the people involved, and he might be a better witness than you, Lady Delamore, on the subject of Miss Spender.’

‘What would a historian know of my poor late husband’s sexual relationships? This publisher should have asked me. I could have told him that Dickie’s morals were above reproach. He snored in his sleep and his feet smelled. Those are not characteristics that attract stray women. What is more, after three whiskies he fell fast asleep. What would he want with a mistress? I never knew a man who slept as much as Dickie.’

Lady Delamore had already spent eighty-five years of her life keeping people in their place. Steve found it almost impossible to guess whether she was worried, guilty, or sublimely above the contemporary world. But just as she was about to leave the butler appeared.

‘Excuse me, my lady. Sir Philip Tranmere is on the telephone.’

‘I’ll ring him back, Simpson.’

‘He says that it is most urgent, my lady.’

Lady Delamore sighed. ‘The silly man. It is not urgent to me. Tell him that everything is perfectly in order, and I’ll ring him this evening. Mrs Temple is about to leave.’

Steve left. After the afternoon’s ordeal it was almost a shock to see the mini and maxi skirts and fashionable long hair, people on the streets who belonged unmistakably to the 1970s.

Paul was still out when she reached home. So Steve helped Kate with the housework and allowed her mind to freewheel over the things Lady Delamore had said. She had a record sleeve to design by Monday, but she didn’t want to become absorbed in anything else until she had talked to Paul. He arrived shortly after nine o’clock to find Steve doodling at the drawing board.

‘Lady Delamore didn’t feel worried or guilty, I’m sure of that,’ Steve assured him. ‘In fact I don’t think she gives a damn about anything or anybody. I only hope I’ll be like that when I’m eighty-five. She was so dreadful she was rather splendid.’

Paul laughed. ‘I’m sure that when you’re eighty-five you’ll be absolutely appalling!’

‘Flatterer.’

‘It’s nice to be back.’ He poured himself a whisky and sat beside Steve. ‘Hello, have you been commissioned to do some work?’

‘Yes, I saw Jeremy while you were away.’ She smiled quickly. ‘He said the work was flowing in again. Design looks up. Britain will look a better place to live in—’

‘That sounds like Jeremy. While I was pounding along the Atlantic seaboard earning dollars for Britain Jeremy was seducing my wife with record sleeves.’

Steve laughed. ‘I sat here night after night, thinking of you and knitting in front of the fire. I read Dylan Thomas in America to keep myself company. But did you miss me?’

‘I’ll say I did, my darling.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Next time I see Jeremy I’ll punch him on the nose. Do you want some whisky?’

‘Not at the moment. I’ve spent a hideous afternoon to discover what that old crone knew about the diary. So listen and sound interested.’

‘Mm. Tell me.’

‘I think the diary is probably in her possession.’

Paul stood up in amazement. ‘Really? Steve, you’re marvellous! How did you establish that?’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t. Call it feminine intuition.’

‘Oh, that. You mean you’re guessing.’

‘I’m convinced of it. Can I have some brandy?’

Paul went across to the sideboard and opened a bottle of brandy. ‘I suppose she would be the number one suspect for stealing it. But I can’t see an eighty-five-year-old woman kidnapping Kelby.’ He looked at the bottle for a moment, then said quietly: ‘Did I tell you? We found Kelby this afternoon.’