Francis Durbridge - Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery

Carefully he closed the lid of the boot and walked to Sergeant Long’s window.

‘You and I aren’t going to get much sleep tonight, Sergeant.’

Steve Temple stood in front of the fireplace in her new drawing-room and tried to see it with the eyes of someone coming in for the first time. Did it look too much of a mixture? She and Paul had tried very hard to avoid the impersonal effect of a room which had been ‘done’ by one of the fashionable interior decorators. Since it was they themselves who were going to live in the flat they had decided to decorate and furnish it according to their own personal tastes. If George II had to rub shoulders with Louis XIV, then that was just too bad.

It was barely a week since the Temples had moved into the Eaton Square flat. For months before that they had been brooding over wallpapers and pastel shades, selecting carpets and the additional pieces of furniture needed for the more spacious rooms of their new residence. Yet when the carpets had been laid and each article had been moved into its predestined position everything seemed just a little uneasy. Gradually, during the past week, the correct place for every chair, table or cabinet had revealed itself to them. The flat was at last beginning to look like a home, but the result was that both Temple and Steve had itching fingers. They could not leave things alone. Now, before she could check herself, Steve moved impulsively to transfer a bowl of flowers from the top of a tallboy to a low occasional table.

She was studying the effect with her head on one side when Temple’s key sounded in the door of the flat. She heard it open and then close again with the comforting thud of a mass of mahogany going into place in an eighteen-inch wall. Temple’s footsteps crossed the parquet floor of the hall without pausing and she visualised him throwing his hat onto the hall table as he passed.

As soon as he entered the room she could tell by the expression on his face that the meeting with his agent had turned out successfully. But she knew him too well to expect him to burst out with the news immediately.

‘Hello, Steve.’

He stopped, smiling at her, thinking how well the setting suited her. She had been created to stand against an Adam fireplace under a high ceiling, surrounded by the most skilful achievements of craftsmanship. Almost immediately his eye moved to the Queen Anne card-table standing now between the two tall windows. Steve had moved it there since he had gone out that morning. She studied his face anxiously.

‘How do you think it looks in that position?’

Temple came into the middle of the room, eyeing the table judiciously.

‘That’s the right spot for it. Now that it’s there I can’t imagine why we wanted to put it anywhere else.’

‘I keep moving things and then putting them back again. Paul, do you think there’ll ever come a time when we can say it’s done? Sometimes I wonder if we’ve got the fidgets about the flat.’

Temple nodded towards the empty space above the fireplace.

‘When we find the right picture for that spot we’ll draw the deadline, shall we? Make a rule that we shan’t move anything for a month.’

‘Good idea. Now then. What are you going to have to drink?’

Steve walked to the huge bow-fronted corner cupboard and opened it with a flourish. Inside a light went on and revealed two well-stocked shelves of bottles. Temple stopped with his lighter halfway to his cigarette.

‘By Timothy! There’s enough booze to sink a battleship.’

‘I stocked up this morning. We shall need all this sooner or later and it looks rather gay, doesn’t it? Liqueurs, port and brandy on that shelf, bits and pieces for cocktails down here. What’ll you have?’

‘I’ll have gin and Cinzano, with a strong dash of Angostura bitters.’

While Steve was mixing the drinks, Temple glanced at the paper which Steve had thrown on the sofa. It was open at the page on which the Tyler murder was reported. She handed him his glass, chilled by a marble-sized lump of ice from the baby refrigerator built into the back of the cupboard. Temple met her eyes as he sipped it, toasting her silently.

‘It’s wonderful to be able to get back home so quickly. I was with Watson only a quarter of an hour ago. If we were still living at the old place I’d have probably lunched in town.’

‘How did you get on with Watson?’

Steve tried to make the question sound casual, though she knew that Temple was holding something up his sleeve.

‘How would you like a trip to Paris?’

‘Paul! Do you really mean that?’

‘I do. I’ve sold the film rights on my last book to an American company. They want me to go over to Paris the week after next and meet one of their producers – a chap called Pasterwake.’

‘Darling, how marvellous! I shall be able to buy some new clothes. I haven’t a stitch to my back.’

Steve parked her drink down on the mantelpiece and put her arms round his neck.

‘If you haven’t a stitch to your back,’ Temple retorted, ‘why did you insist on a built-in hanging cupboard running the whole length of your bedroom wall?’

‘Fashions change, darling. Hadn’t you heard about Balmain’s exciting New Line?’

‘And hadn’t you heard about the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s boring old line?’

‘We’ll get around that. This man Pasterwake will be reeking with dollars. You can ask him to give you an advance on the film rights. What day shall we go? We’ll fly, of course. Can we stay at the Pompadour again? I love being near the Champs-Élysées.’

As she talked Steve disengaged herself from Temple and with apparent casualness picked up the paper from the sofa, folded it and pushed it in amongst the other periodicals in the magazine rack. Temple watched her with amusement. He could see perfectly clearly what was going on in her mind.

‘You needn’t bother, Steve. I’ve seen it already.’

‘Seen what, darling—?’

‘The report of the Tyler murder.’

‘The Tyler murder? What’s that?’

Steve knew he had seen through her, but for the sake of appearances she kept up the deception a little longer.

He took the paper out of the rack, found the passage and read it aloud:

‘“Police are still baffled by the case which has already become known as the Tyler Mystery. Blonde, pretty Betty Tyler, aged 24, was found strangled in a stolen car on the outskirts of Oxford the night before last by a police patrol car. Betty worked at the Oxford salon of Mariano, fashionable Mayfair beauty culturist, whence she had recently been transferred from London—”’

‘That’s the Courier ,’ interrupted Steve. ‘Have you seen the Echo ?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Let me read it to you: “Scotland Yard has been called in by the Chief Constable of Oxford. Interviewed today at the Yard, Sir Graham Forbes denied a report that approaches had been made to Paul Temple, the well-known novelist and criminologist. Knowledgeable observers, however, reaffirm that this case sets precisely the kind of problem in which Temple has so often assisted the police in the past”.’

Temple’s eyes were thoughtful for a moment. Then he knocked his drink back and carried the empty glass to the corner cupboard.

‘That’s just journalistic patter. I’ve no intention of becoming involved in the Tyler affair. We’ve enough on our hands as it is, Steve.’

‘That’s exactly what I think. When I read about this, I felt certain that Sir Graham would ask your help.’

‘So you hid the paper. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice?’

‘Not really.’ Steve grimaced at him impishly. ‘But I don’t want to miss out on that Paris trip.’

‘You won’t. The Tyler case is not going to upset our plans.’