Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery

‘Don’t tell me Britain’s number one Private Eye didn’t think of that one,’ she said seriously. ‘It was your car, in the dark, and the number plates hadn’t been changed. Anyone following the car must have thought you were driving it.’

‘You’re being fanciful, darling. I expect you’re worried about travelling by bus for the next week or so.’ The telephone rang at that moment and Paul hoped it would be somebody to take Steve’s mind off the subject.

‘Mr Temple!’ called Kate Balfour. ‘It’s Scott Reed for you!’

‘I’ll take it up in the workroom,’ said Paul.

‘Yes, it was a classic story of its kind – I sat up until three o’clock. Couldn’t put it down. Absolutely riveting, although I still don’t know who committed the murder. Was that intentional?

‘But it will keep me solvent for another year,’ Scott Reed concluded. ‘Might even pay for this academic study of history and the myth of potency which I’ve just published.’

‘What was that about?’ Paul asked politely.

‘I’ve no idea.’

Paul sat in the swivel chair at his desk and swung round with his feet in the air. Scott was a difficult man to keep to the point. And the idea of a scholarly work proving that politicians were national sex symbols seemed absurd.

‘Before you ring off, Scott,’ he interrupted, ‘hang on, I want to ask you about Carl Milbourne. What made you think I’d want to get involved? Is there something mysterious about his death?’

‘Good lord, no,’ Scott said nervously. ‘He was a friend of mine, that’s all, and naturally when his wife told me she needed to talk to a skilled investigator –’

Paul laughed. ‘I don’t believe you, but it doesn’t matter. Steve is dragging me off on holiday at the end of the week. You’re a devious old devil. We’ll see you when we come back.’

He replaced the receiver and swung his chair round to the desk as Kate Balfour tapped on the door. She showed in a dramatically attractive woman. Paul didn’t need telling that this was the ex-actress widow of Carl Milbourne. She was dressed in mauve and she swept in with the distraught air that had thrilled gallery first-nighters in play after play during the post war years. She began pouring out her troubles as Paul was shaking her gloved hand.

‘It’s no use, Mr Temple,’ she said tensely, sitting in the chair which Paul had indicated and peeling off the gloves, ‘the more I think about it the more certain I am that the dead man we saw that morning was not my husband.’

Paul nodded sympathetically and asked why she hadn’t said so at the time.

‘I was upset. Confused.’ A rapid glance at Paul and then she looked down again at the hands in her lap. ‘I really didn’t know what was happening.’

‘But your brother was with you, Mrs Milbourne, and he also identified the body. Surely he wouldn’t have –’

‘Maurice was upset too,’ she intruded. Her tone suddenly changed. ‘You mean you’ve seen Maurice? You’ve been talking to him?’

‘My wife and I had dinner out last night – at L’Hachoire Restaurant. Your brother was there, and he invited us into his office for a drink.’

‘What did he say about me?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘He said that you were still very upset, Mrs Milbourne, and that you simply refuse to face up to your husband’s death.’ Paul sat on the sofa next to her. ‘I didn’t know your husband well, Mrs Milbourne. I only met him once, and that was several years ago. I don’t believe he was married then.’

‘We were married six years ago.’

‘I remember him as a very charming man. I’m not surprised you find it difficult to imagine a world without him. You must feel very lonely now. I gather you don’t have any children?’

Margaret Milbourne had acted in enough problem dramas to understand the significance of Paul’s question. ‘That’s true. We both wanted children, but it wasn’t to be.’ She sighed. ‘Mr Temple, you might think this business has been too much for me and that I’m perhaps – a little unbalanced. But I assure you –’

‘Don’t worry about what I think, Mrs Milbourne. For the moment let’s concentrate on the facts. What was your husband doing in Geneva?’

She was slightly pained by the efficient manner. ‘Carl went on business, to see Julia Carrington.’

Paul knew the legend of Julia Carrington, the beautiful American actress who had retired after her tenth film and taken her dollars to Switzerland. Scandals still attached to her name as the dream factory hinted at indiscipline on the set and orgies between films.

‘Carl had heard a rumour that she was writing her memoirs,’ explained Margaret Milbourne. ‘He was anxious to find out whether that was true.’

Yes, he would have been, Paul reflected. Julia Carrington’s memoirs would be a scoop for any publisher. A success and sex story with famous names thrown in. Beautiful women, temperamental stars and bankers with several millions of dollars at stake. The only people who could be more interested in them than a publisher would be the famous names, the film company and the bankers.

‘I didn’t want him to go,’ Margaret Milbourne was saying. ‘I had a feeling, I don’t know why. Julia Carrington doesn’t bring other people luck. She has a doomed aura –’

‘Mrs Milbourne, I don’t doubt your sincerity. I don’t doubt that you really believe that your husband is still alive. But feelings and aura and the word of a medium are not evidence.’

She smiled ironically. ‘I have evidence.’ She took a piece of paper from her handbag and passed it across to Paul. ‘Is this evidence enough for you, Mr Temple?’

When she and her brother had returned from Switzerland after the accident Mrs Milbourne had found a parcel waiting at her home. It was addressed to Carl Milbourne from a shop in St Moritz. It contained the hat which Milbourne had been wearing when he left.

‘Your husband’s hat?’ Paul repeated.

‘Carl had a weakness for buying hats, he was constantly buying them. His dress sense was something I never quite adjusted to, even after six years of marriage. I knew at once what had happened. Carl had bought a new hat in St Moritz, and he had asked the shop to post his old one home.’

‘But obviously,’ Paul murmured, ‘this must have happened before the accident.’

She raised an imperious hand. ‘I’m coming to that, Mr Temple. You see, the hat was no use to me and I gave it away. I gave it to the gardener, as a matter of fact. And the day before yesterday he came to see me. He had found this piece of paper in the brim of the hat.’

Paul examined the paper. It was a note, dated January the sixth. ‘Please don’t worry,’ it read. ‘Have seen Randolph and everything will be all right. Will contact you later.’ Paul looked enquiringly at Mrs Milbourne.

‘January the sixth, Mr Temple, was two days after the accident.’

He nodded. ‘Are you sure this is your husband’s handwriting?’

‘Positive.’

‘So who do you suppose was killed by that car, Mrs Milbourne?’

‘I haven’t the remotest idea.’

Paul sighed. ‘And I suppose you don’t know anyone called Randolph. All we know is that whoever this note was addressed to it was never sent, otherwise it wouldn’t have been in your husband’s hat.’

‘You’re the private investigator, Mr Temple.’

Paul winced. She made him sound like a man in a raincoat spying on adulterers. One of these days, when he was grey and sporting a beard, he would call himself a criminologist. ‘What did you want me to do, Mrs Milbourne?’

‘I’d like you and Mrs Temple to come out with me to Switzerland.’ She continued in a puzzled tone, ‘I’d like to know what Carl was doing in St Moritz. He didn’t tell me he was going there, and he hates winter sports.’

They were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. ‘Excuse me,’ murmured Paul. He picked up the receiver.

‘Is that Paul Temple?’ asked the anxious voice. ‘Darling, you won’t remember me –’

‘Dolly! Of course I remember you. How’s the dancing now? Are you working again?’ He shrugged apologetically at Mrs Milbourne. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?’

‘I’d like to talk to you, Mr Temple, darling. It’s terribly important.’

‘Of course. Why don’t you come round –?’

‘No no,’ the voice said anxiously, ‘I’d sooner meet you somewhere else. In the open somewhere, the park or somewhere like that.’

‘The Zoo?’

‘That’s a wonderful idea! Just the place! I’ll be inside the main gate in about forty minutes. See you then, darling.’

Paul replaced the receiver and turned back to Mrs Milbourne. ‘I’m sorry, an old friend of mine seems to be in trouble.’

‘That’s all right, Mr Temple,’ she said. ‘I rather think we’ve finished, haven’t we? I’ll arrange the flight –’

‘There is one more thing. A personal question. Did you and your husband quarrel before he left for Geneva?’

She laughed dismissively. ‘Actually, yes we did. I suppose Maurice told you?’ She rose to her feet and began putting on her gloves. ‘There was only one subject we ever quarrelled about, but unfortunately it happened to crop up just before he left. Carl was anxious to avoid paying death duties. He always took it for granted that he would go first, and…’ Her voice quickened dramatically. ‘He just would insist on talking about death. I hated the subject, simply hated it, Mr Temple. I used to tell him, “You’re only forty-eight!” But he would insist on discussing it.’

‘He talked about death and estate duties the night before he left for Geneva?’ Paul asked thoughtfully.

‘Yes, he did.’

Chapter Two

Paul Temple paid off his taxi outside the main entrance to the London Zoological Gardens. It was an exhilarating January morning with a low sun filtering through the clouds. Paul went in and bought a bag of peanuts for the monkeys; they deserved a treat in this temperature, although they looked perfectly cheerful.

The last time Paul had seen Dolly Brazier she had been in the dock for her part in a drugs scandal. He had known her for many years. She had played the part of a pop singer in a stage thriller he had written. The play had been a disaster, because the director had cut out most of the clues and all the explanations, but Dolly had remained his friend. A few years later when she was arrested Paul had persuaded Arnold Waldron to defend her, and Arnold had got her off with a twelve months’ suspended sentence.

There was no sign of her yet, so Paul found a telephone kiosk and put through a call to the Pentagon Garage in Newport Pagnell. The drive across London with a talkative cockney taxi driver had convinced Paul that he needed the Rolls.

The news was unpromising. His car had been returned to the factory for a new radiator, a new windscreen and some panel beating. The cheerful indifference of the mechanic was tiresome, especially when he concluded that it would be about ten days before the work was completed. Paul hung up and went back to feed the monkeys.

‘Hello, Paul! Here I am, darling!’

Dolly Brazier ran up through the west tunnel waving her handbag. She was a vivacious little red-head with a black maxi coat billowing to reveal the shapely legs of a chorus girl. She embraced him and left a smear of lipstick on his cheek.

‘Nice to see you again,’ said Paul. ‘Although you don’t look worried out of your mind to me.’ She had that kind of face. ‘Where are you working these days?’

‘Oh, I’ve done all sorts of things since the summer season in Scarborough last year.’ She laughed and took his arm. ‘I even did secretarial work, until they discovered that I couldn’t spell.’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ said Paul. ‘Where are you working now?’

She tried to sound casual. ‘I’m – you know, I’m a night club hostess. It’s work, isn’t it?’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, in Soho.’ She took a peanut and threw it to a weary orang-utan. ‘Shall we go across to the cafe by the penguin pool? I’m dying for a coffee.’

They walked across the gardens, past the screeching gibbons, the lions and the love-lorn panda, until they reached the refreshment stall. Paul bought two coffees and a packet of chocolate biscuits for Dolly.

‘Now,’ he said when they were sat down in full view of the penguins, ‘you’re working in a Soho club and you’re in trouble. Tell me more.’

‘Oh no, I didn’t mean I was in trouble, darling. I’m worried about you. I mean, you’ve always been very kind to me, even though I was murdered in the first act of your play, and – well, you’re in awful danger. Listen, Mr Temple, I wish you wouldn’t get mixed up in this Swiss affair.’

‘You mean Mrs Milbourne and –’

‘I don’t want to see anything happen to you, or that wife of yours. She was always terribly sweet and…’ Her voice broke off incoherently.

‘Do you know Mrs Milbourne, Dolly?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’ve heard of her, in a roundabout way. She’s been talking to you, claiming that her husband isn’t dead.’ She put her hand on Paul’s. ‘Are you going to help her?’

Paul shrugged. ‘She only spoke to me this morning.’

‘Well, don’t help her, Mr Temple. Don’t get involved, darling, it isn’t worth it’

‘I’m grateful to you for being so concerned,’ Paul said, slightly amused, ‘but you know, Steve and I have come up against a few ruthless people in our time. We’re still alive to tell the tale.’

Dolly cast a nervous glance over her shoulder. ‘Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I’d never have forgiven myself if I hadn’t passed the word. But I must get back. If I’m seen with you –’

‘But you haven’t passed any word, Dolly! You haven’t told me a damn thing.’ As he walked beside her towards the south gate he asked, ‘Is Carl Milbourne dead? Was he really killed in that accident?’

‘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?’

Paul rearranged the flowers he had brought for her. They were gladioli and he wondered absently where flowers came from at this time of year. ‘She told me to take care,’ he said quietly. ‘Not to become involved.’ Perhaps they were imported from the Bahamas. If they have gladioli in the Bahamas.

‘Involved in what?’ Steve asked. ‘In the Milbourne affair?’

‘I didn’t intend to tell you about this, Steve,’ he said. ‘Not today. You need to rest –’

‘I’ll rest when I know what’s going on. I have to be kept in the picture, and you just remember that, Temple!’

Paul laughed and said, ‘Of course I will, darling.’ He kissed her and ruffled her hair so that it partially covered the bandage. ‘I’ll rest better myself when I know what’s going on.’ He went to the door and blew her a kiss. ‘Sleep well, darling.’

He found Kate in his workroom, sitting at his desk and talking briskly on the telephone. Daunting, Paul thought to himself, she must have routed crime like a battleship in her day. He had a brief mental picture of her tossing gangsters across the police station, reducing full grown bruisers to tears.

‘No lead there, Mr Temple,’ she said as she hung up. ‘Mrs Milbourne didn’t tell anyone about her visit, except her brother. She hasn’t seen many people socially since her husband –’

‘I’m not surprised. Kate, will you stay and keep an eye on my wife for a couple of hours? I think I’d better visit Mrs Milbourne’s brother. And after that I might find out a little more about Dolly Brazier’s current job.’

Maurice Lonsdale greeted him like an old friend and insisted that they should dine together. ‘So much more civilised than talking in the office,’ he said. ‘I’m told the trout is superb this week.’

Paul agreed to sample the trout.

‘I’m glad you saw my sister, Temple.’ He had a good memory and ordered the dry sherry Paul had had the last time. ‘But I hope you didn’t take her story too seriously. You see, Margaret has always been highly strung, even when she was in the theatre.’

‘Apart from being highly strung,’ said Paul, ‘she’s also highly intelligent. I don’t think we can completely dismiss everything she says.’

‘Good gracious me, of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m not suggesting we should, Temple. Not for one minute. But I did go out to Switzerland with her. I saw Carl after the accident and I identified him.’ He paused while the waiter placed the soup before them. ‘However, you’re a busy man. I’m sure you had a particular reason for coming to see me this evening.’

Paul nodded. ‘I want to know who else you’ve discussed this business with. Who, apart from your sister, knows that I’ve been consulted?’