FRANCIS DURBRIDGE

Paul Temple and the Curzon Case

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

Coronet 1972

Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1972

All rights reserved

Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008125745

Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780008125752

Version: 2015-07-24

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

Prologue

Dulworth Bay was a noisy place at night when the tide came in. The sea broke angrily against the shore, retreated with a rush of sand and pebbles and then crashed forward again. Ridges of white foam caught the moonlight as they rode towards the beach. The darkness was like a soundproof blanket pierced by a few stars and the distant lighthouse. The rowing boat a hundred yards out from the shore was alone, cut off by the noise.

A man rested on his oars and looked blindly into the sky; among the sounds of the sea he could distinguish the approaching drone of a twin-engined Hawker Siddeley; his eyes traced a path towards the coast as the aeroplane passed overhead. The man flashed a lamp three times in signal.

The drone of the engines grew louder again as the aeroplane circled back. Then the man saw a winking orange wing light passing through the clouds, dropping low out of the sky and swinging towards the cliffs. He didn’t see the aircraft until the roar of the engines became a screech of agony several seconds later. He heard a dull explosion, and simultaneously a lick of white light shot into the sky. Fire billowed down the cliffs and burned itself out in the sea.

The man in the boat watched for nearly a minute, and then quite slowly he pulled towards the wreckage.

Chapter One

‘Here’s to crime,’ Scott Reed said benevolently, raising his glass in a toast to the manifestly law-abiding company. ‘And long may it prosper.’

Paul Temple looked from his publisher to the circle of guests with drinks in their hands. ‘One eminent French criminologist has argued that there are no crimes, there are only criminals.’

‘That was Professor Saleilles,’ said Steve Temple deflatingly. She turned to Scott Reed. ‘Don’t worry, Scott. The French professor was much less scientific than your Dr Stern. He hadn’t done experiments with rats.’

The publisher looked startled. ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the man whose book on crime was the excuse for the party. ‘Did Dr Stern do experiments with rats?’

‘Of course,’ said Steve. ‘He describes them in detail.’ She laughed teasingly. ‘I thought you always read the books you publish?’

Scott Reed sighed. ‘I don’t always understand them.’

Dr Albert Stern was not looking the part of a literary lion. He stood in the corner of the room watching the throng of journalists, criminologists and novelists with the apprehension of a man caught in lewd company. There was a clutch of thriller writers discussing their overseas sales, two policemen looking as if they were guarding the drink, and an assistant commissioner from Scotland Yard was sitting on the sofa reading The Psychology of Crime. Dr Stern had been told to chat up the booksellers, but the booksellers all seemed to know each other and they preferred to talk among themselves.

‘Do rats,’ Scott Reed asked after careful thought, ‘steal from each other and murder their wives?’

‘Only when they come from bad homes,’ said Steve.

She glanced at herself in the ornately carved mirror above the imitation Adam fireplace. She was wearing a sheer maxi dress with varying degrees of subtle see-through, printed in bands of colour that ranged through blues, reds and mauves. Captivating, Steve thought to herself. So much more restrained than the vulgarly fashionable girl Scott Reed employed as his publicity officer.

Steve half listened to somebody arguing that capital punishment gave added zest to a murder mystery, while her husband’s group discussed crime in general. She took a dry martini from a passing tray. As the only person in the room who had read the doctor’s book Steve felt a certain aloofness towards the gossip. She felt that Paul was being obtuse about it.

‘How can you write a book on the psychology of crime?’ he had asked three times on the way to the party. ‘There are so many different types of crime. I mean, you could write about delinquency or the aggressive impulse—’

‘He does,’ Steve had said patiently.

‘Criminals are not personality types,’ Paul had continued. ‘They’re people who’ve committed a crime, that’s all, by sudden temper or under provocation, under stress. Unless they’re psychopaths.’

‘That’s what he says,’ Steve had murmured.

‘Absurd!’

An elderly lady novelist was bearing down upon Steve with a flourish of her stole and the glint of a storyteller in her eye. Steve turned quickly to the police inspector standing beside her. ‘I didn’t realise crime was so dull,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re going to make many arrests this evening.’

Inspector Vosper was hurt. ‘I’m here in my private capacity,’ he protested. ‘Mr Temple said I should masquerade as a human being for one evening.’

‘What happens when the clock strikes midnight?’ Steve asked him.

Charlie Vosper looked every inch a policeman with his blue shirt and black tie, plain clothes and cropped grey hair. ‘I turn back into a pumpkin.’ He prodded a finger confidentially into Steve’s left arm. ‘What do you think of this psychology nonsense, eh? How many burglars do you suppose Dr Stein has caught red-handed?’

‘Dr Stern,’ she corrected him. ‘I don’t suppose he—’

‘Exactly. Would he recognise an embezzler if he stood next to one in a bank? Unless he was wearing a mask!’

‘He explains in his book—’

‘Books are all very well, Mrs Temple,’ the inspector said heavily. ‘But a policeman’s job is ninety per cent routine hard work and ten per cent knowing the criminal and pinning the rap on him. Dr Stein can’t teach me how to apprehend a murderer.’

‘That’s what he says,’ Steve murmured. ‘Dr Stern.’

‘Ridiculous!’

Steve sat wearily on the sofa by the assistant commissioner. ‘What do you make of it, Sir Graham?’ she asked. ‘Are you wishing Paul hadn’t dragged you along to this party?’

‘Not really, although the place is rather short on pretty girls. Only one attractive female in sight.’ Sir Graham Forbes closed the book and looked about the room. He was a dapper man with a bouncy, military manner, a military moustache and the steel blue eyes of a soldier. ‘The trouble with crime is that it doesn’t give the women a chance. Look at Paul over there, discussing penal reform with all those dreary men. He’s neglecting his wife.’

‘Bless you,’ said Steve, giving him a kiss on his bristling cheek.

The criticism was not altogether warranted. Paul was at the drinks table jostling among the journalists to get his glass refilled. He emerged eventually from the scrum and tottered across to the sofa.

‘Hello,’ said Paul. ‘You look like an oasis of sanity in this mad publishing world. Can I join you?’ He sat on the floor beside the sofa. ‘Oh dear. Crime is too serious a matter to be left to experts. Have you ever heard so much nonsense talked?’

‘Sir Graham,’ Steve explained, ‘has been regretting the absence of women from the ranks of crime. Down with male domination, that’s what we say.’

Paul laughed. ‘I’ll drink to that. Dr Stern forgot to mention sexual differences, didn’t he?’ He looked triumphantly at Steve. ‘I knew the book wasn’t thorough! And poor old Scott is beginning to wish he’d never published it. He’s threatening to sack his non-fiction editor for committing the firm to a book about rats.’

‘Rats?’ Inspector Vosper repeated nervously.

‘Yes, Scott is losing his grip. He assumed that because there were graphs and footnotes it was a scholarly work.’

‘Paul,’ said his wife disloyally to the others, ‘is another of those people who think that psychology is bunk.’

‘That’s not true! But I am an arts man, and I think that detection is something to do with logic and understanding people, having intuition and predicting individual behaviour.’

‘Hard work and attention to detail,’ Inspector Vosper muttered audibly.

‘Detection?’ said Sir Graham. ‘But the book isn’t about detection, is it?’

‘Of course not,’ said Steve.

‘Then what the devil are we doing here?’ Paul demanded indignantly. ‘Why did Scott ask me to bring along the cream of the British police force? I thought it was a handy manual on spotting crooks by the bumps on their heads. I wouldn’t have agreed to review it if I’d known.’

‘I suppose,’ the assistant commissioner said thoughtfully, ‘that we detectives understand crime, understand the psychology of crime if you like. But we don’t reach our understanding by experiments on rats, or by statistics. Charlie has understanding, but it’s not the kind of thing that can be described in a book. For instance, Charlie was telling me this evening of a case that he’s—’

Inspector Vosper coughed and straightened his shoulders.

‘What’s the matter?’ Sir Graham demanded. ‘I was going to tell Temple about those two boys—’

‘Yes, sir, that’s what I assumed. I wondered whether that would be discreet.’

‘Discreet?’ The military voice barked with exasperation. ‘Discretion is for inspectors, man! An assistant commissioner can be as indiscreet as he likes!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘If we were discreet we’d accept that no crime had been committed and get on with our work.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And don’t keep on saying yes, sir, like that. This is an informal occasion. Relax and look as though you’re enjoying the art of conversation. Sit down, man.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Vosper sat on a stiff-backed chair and tried to compose his stern features into a relaxed order. He was doing quite well until Steve began choking with laughter.

‘The point is that no crime has been committed,’ Sir Graham resumed. ‘At least, not that we know of. We’ve simply had a missing persons report, and that wouldn’t justify a full scale investigation. But Vosper thinks the situation should be looked into, and he’s usually right about these matters. A first class detective has a nose for anything not quite right.’

‘Really?’ said Paul with bland innocence. ‘Intuition, eh?’

‘What I call nose-ology,’ said Sir Graham. ‘But I looked it up in the index of Dr Stern’s book and he doesn’t mention it.’

‘Tell me,’ said Paul, ‘about these two missing boys.’

Vosper glanced at the assistant commissioner, then cleared his throat. ‘Do you know Dulworth Bay?’ he asked conversationally.

‘It’s a fishing village in Yorkshire,’ said Paul. ‘A beautiful spot. We know it well.’

‘Ah, so you probably know St Gilbert’s. It’s a minor public school. Quite a good one, so I’m told. They have a hundred boarders and fifty day boys. The headmaster is a Reverend Dudley Clarke.’

Steve found that her attention was straying. Charlie Vosper lacked the eye for detail which makes for a good raconteur. ‘I suppose,’ she said flippantly, ‘that Young Woodley has run off with the housemaster’s wife?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Vosper. ‘Who is Woodley?’

‘The missing boys are called Baxter,’ said the assistant commissioner. ‘They live with their father in a cottage on the Westerby estate. Their mother died about two years ago. Carry on, Charlie, tell them what happened.’

Vosper signalled to the publicity girl for another drink before he continued. He was a beer drinking man himself, but he was apparently reconciled to the rules being changed for one evening. He sipped a large whisky.

‘Three weeks ago last Tuesday,’ said Vosper, ‘Michael and Roger Baxter and another boy left St Gilbert’s after school and walked the mile or so to the Baxter cottage together. When they reached the cottage Michael Baxter remembered that he’d left a book at the school. It was a book he needed for prep that evening so he went back to fetch it. Left his brother and the other lad sitting on a fence in front of the cottage.’

He took another sip at the whisky. ‘Well, to cut a long story short, those two boys waited for nearly an hour, and then Roger Baxter decided to go back to school and look for his brother. The other boy went home. At seven o’clock that evening Mr Baxter, the father, became worried about the boys and went to the school. You can guess the story. The headmaster hadn’t seen the Baxter boys, they hadn’t gone back to the school, and they haven’t been seen since.’

‘I guessed it,’ said Paul. ‘And how did they get on with their father?’

‘Extremely well.’ Vosper nodded emphatically. ‘There was obviously nothing premeditated about this business, Temple. That was the first thing that interested me. They were perfectly normal teenagers, plenty of friends in the village, they were good at sport, interested in girls. Michael is seventeen and he’s particularly friendly with a Miss Maxwell. She’s a niece of Lord Westerby’s and lives at the Hall.’

‘Diana Maxwell?’ asked Paul.

‘Yes. I thought you might have heard of her. She writes poetry, although you wouldn’t think so to meet her. She looks quite normal.’

‘Charlie popped up to Dulworth Bay,’ explained the assistant commissioner, ‘semi-officially. The local inspector invited him up for a couple of days. That was when nose-ology came into the case. Charlie found that his nostrils were twitching.’

‘There may be nothing to it,’ said Vosper modestly. There was only one peculiar detail I could point to, and that may not be significant. But the Baxter boys share a bedroom; it’s a large, pleasant room, more like a playroom in some ways, and it overlooks the lane. I searched it, of course, read through the exercise books and the adolescent stuff that you’d expect to see. But the interesting oddity was a cricket bat.’

‘A boy’s proudest possession,’ said Paul Temple. ‘I remember how I kept mine oiled and supple—’

‘That’s the picture,’ said Charlie Vosper. ‘Young Roger Baxter is fourteen, and he’d collected the autographs of the St Gilbert’s first eleven on the blade of his bat. Struck me as a funny thing to do, but at my school we used cricket bats to hit each other with when we used them at all. So I made a check on the names, and there was one which I couldn’t account for.’ He smiled, pleased with himself. ‘It wasn’t even a genuine signature. Roger Baxter had written it there himself.’

‘What was the name?’ asked Paul.

‘The name,’ pronounced Inspector Vosper, ‘was Curzon.’

‘Just Curzon? No Christian name or initials?’

‘Just Curzon!’ Vosper placed his empty glass on a nearby table and watched it in the hope that it might be miraculously refilled. But it was every man for himself now and the journalists had the drink pinned at the far end of the room. ‘I wouldn’t claim that the name has any particular significance,’ he said. ‘Only that it was odd. I was looking for oddities by that time.’

‘You see, Temple,’ the assistant commissioner interrupted, ‘that’s nose-ology. Nobody at the school has heard of anyone called Curzon. Charlie asked the boys’ father and the name was completely unknown to him. Unknown to everyone else in Dulworth Bay. So what made Roger Baxter write it on his precious cricket bat?’

‘Charlie has a nose for detail,’ murmured Paul. ‘I wonder what Dr Stern would make of the story?’

Steve sighed and rose to her feet. ‘I know, don’t say it: his book is ridiculous.’

‘Nonsense,’ agreed Sir Graham.

‘Paul, are we going home? I’m tired and the noise in this room is giving me a headache. I can scarcely see who’s doing the shouting through this cigarette smoke. I need some fresh air.’

It was a quarter to ten. Paul took her arm and went in search of Scott Reed.

‘I’m fed up with cocktail parties!’ said Scott, staring at a burn and three whisky stains on the carpet. ‘I do hope it hasn’t been too boring, Temple. Goodbye, Steve, so good of you to have kept those detectives amused.’

Kate Balfour had long since gone home, so Paul pottered about in the kitchen producing the cocoa. He prided himself on his masculine independence. He could make cocoa without burning the milk and boil an egg without the yolk becoming solid. He took the drinks upstairs to the living room flushed with a sense of achievement.

‘I hope we didn’t leave too abruptly,’ he said as he put the tray on the table. ‘You didn’t even tell Dr Stern how much you admire his book.’

‘I didn’t admire it,’ Steve confessed. ‘But I did read the wretched thing, which is why I found the rest of you so irritating.’ She went across to the telephone answering machine on the shelf beside Paul’s desk. The large room was furnished in two halves separated by a step. Paul’s study was the half above the garage. ‘We left abruptly because I didn’t want you to start advising the police how to do their job. I know how they resent it—’

‘I thought Sir Graham was inviting my opinion.’

‘He may have been, but he’s only the assistant commissioner. Charlie Vosper is the man who does the work, and he didn’t want your advice. He’ll make Sir Graham pay for tonight’s little indiscretion, I could see it from his eyes.’

Steve smiled at the thought and absently pressed the button on the automatic answering machine. It whirred gently as the loop tape spun back to the beginning. ‘This is Paul Temple’s residence,’ said the recorded voice. ‘Mr and Mrs Temple are not available, but if you care to leave a message…’

Paul sank back into the armchair and drank his cocoa. He was beginning to hate the anonymous actor whose voice punctuated the messages; he always avoided switching on the machine until he was properly fortified against the day by three cups of coffee.

The telephone rang three times and the actor repeated his piece. ‘Gor,’ said a man in disgust, ‘I’ll write you a bloody letter.’ The telephone clicked, rang three times, and the actor spoke again. It was nerve-racking.

‘Damn,’ said a girl’s voice. ‘Oh well, this is Diana Maxwell. I needed to speak urgently to Mr Temple. Tell him I’ll ring him back, will you? I do hate all these mechanised gadgets!’

Paul rose to his feet in astonishment. ‘What did she say her name was?’

‘Exactly,’ said Steve. ‘Now isn’t that a coincidence?’ She spun the tape back to replay the message. ‘She’s the poet who seemed quite normal to Charlie Vosper.’

‘It isn’t a coincidence,’ Diana Maxwell explained when she telephoned the next day. ‘Inspector Vosper visited me on Friday and he mentioned your literary cocktail party. I think Westerby Hall brought out the democrat in him, but all his resentment was displaced on to your literary shindig. He said you would make him look like a penguin.’

‘Charlie Vosper has always walked like that,’ said Paul. ‘Why did you want to talk to me?’

‘I need your help, Mr Temple. Now that the police are searching for the Baxter brothers I think I’m in danger.’

‘I’m a busy man, Miss Maxwell,’ he said politely, ‘and I never interfere in the work of the police. Inspector Vosper is specially trained to protect people in danger.’ And the danger, Paul reflected, could not be imminent. She had waited three days to telephone him after the inspector’s visit, and a further twenty-four hours had passed before she rang back. ‘In danger from whom?’ Paul asked.

‘Someone by the name of Curzon.’

Paul walked round the desk and sat in his swivel chair. ‘Go on, Miss Maxwell.’ Full marks, he thought, to the inspector’s nose. ‘Tell me about Curzon.’

‘Not over the telephone. Do you know the Three Boars in Greek Street? I’ll meet you there at eight o’clock.’ She clearly did not expect any argument. ‘I’ll recognise you, but just for the record I’m wearing a blue suit, no hat; blue handbag. I’m fair, twenty-three and reasonably pretty.’

Paul smiled to himself. ‘I had formed that impression, Miss Maxwell. You know what Robert Browning said: “The devil hath not in all his quiver’s choice”—’

‘An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice,’ she completed. ‘But for your information, Mr Temple, it was Lord Byron.’

They had to park nearly two hundred yards from the Three Boars. Paul took his wife’s arm and walked through the neon-lit glitter of the Latin quarter. It lacked the vitality and charm, he reflected sadly, of the days when he had first got to know his London. The colour had been replaced by commercialism, it was no longer crime and vice for the simple pleasure of it. Or perhaps nostalgia was playing tricks with his memory.

‘This shouldn’t take us long,’ said Paul. ‘Where do you fancy eating afterwards?’

‘Wheelers?’ suggested Steve.

‘Clever me,’ murmured Paul. ‘I’ve booked a table for nine o’clock.’

‘Clever.’

The Three Boars was just another Soho pub, but the room upstairs was used for poetry readings and so the new literacy was centred on the bars. The barmaid with the flaxen hair and large bosom had been the inspiration of two sonnets, an ode to joy, and a somewhat clinical poem about sex. The clientele, Paul noticed as they went through to the saloon bar, looked conventional enough, except that the restrained young men in grey suits were probably known to the police, and the four scruffy characters shouting at each other in the corner were poets.

‘Blue suit, twenty-three,’ Paul said to himself. The girl by the door was pretty, but she didn’t look like a poet. She looked rather different. She waved.

‘I’m Diana Maxwell,’ she gasped. ‘It’s awfully good of you to come like this. I do appreciate—’

Paul bought the drinks while Steve took care of the small talk. He watched the girl in the mirror behind the bar. A striking figure, elegantly dressed, but for a niece of Lord Westerby surprisingly lacking in poise. She fiddled with her long blonde hair as she talked and kept glancing about the room.

‘Did anyone follow you here?’ she asked when Paul arrived with the drinks. ‘Did you notice a large red saloon car?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Paul. ‘Parking is so bad in London now that gangsters travel by taxi.’

The girl tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Temple. I’m not used to physical danger. Six weeks ago I was leading a perfectly ordinary life. That’s why I’m frightened. They’ve already tried to kill me twice, and sooner or later they’ll succeed.’

‘Now listen,’ said Paul with a laugh, ‘I know that two boys have vanished into thin air, but—’

‘You don’t know much about Curzon, do you?’

‘That’s true,’ Paul agreed. ‘That’s why I’m here, remember? You telephoned me and said you’d been talking to Charlie Vosper. We quoted Byron at each other.’ He broke off. Two men had come into the bar with that purposeful look of debt collectors in search of a defaulter. ‘So tell me about Curzon, Miss Maxwell.’

‘Of course,’ she said quickly. ‘It was good of you to come.’ The two men moved together into the centre of the room. ‘Five weeks ago when I was staying at Westerby Hall I came across—’ The larger of the two men took a pistol from his raincoat pocket and fired it from point-blank range. The girl stared in dismay before spinning backwards off her chair. A sudden cavity appeared in the side of her neck and filled with blood.

‘Get down, Steve, for God’s sake!’ Paul shouted.

The two men ran before the panic started. They were gone when Paul Temple reached the street. He caught a glimpse of a red saloon car driving away. People were screaming in the bar, several men spilled into the street, and when Paul returned he found a crowd staring down at the girl—

Steve was kneeling beside the girl’s head, dabbing ineffectually at the wound with a Kleenex. She looked up at Paul. ‘Diana Maxwell is dead,’ she murmured.

Paul picked up a broken sherry glass from the carpet. A pool of blood had been seeping towards it. ‘If this poor kid is dead,’ he said in bewilderment, ‘somebody has blundered. Because she is not Diana Maxwell.’

Chapter Two

Dulworth Bay had been a fishing village since Saxon times, and according to local legend it had then been a popular landing place for marauding Danes. The older families were still predominantly blonde-haired, and the growth of modern Britain had made little impact on their culture. The village was built precariously round the bay, ramshackle houses poised on the cliffs and steep winding streets plunging down to the beach.

A sprinkling of artists had moved into the village, and a few weekend people from Leeds and Middlesbrough had bought weekend houses, but they didn’t belong. In Dulworth Bay you remained a foreigner for three generations, and holidaymakers were encouraged to keep moving until they reached Scarborough twenty miles to the south. To the west, a few hundred yards inland, the Whitby moors extended into nothing.

It was a remote spot, yet the police grapevine covered it effectively. A brief telephone call from Inspector Vosper to his north-country colleague ensured that Paul Temple’s visit to Yorkshire was doomed to frustration.

‘But this visit is nothing to do with your Baxter brothers,’ Steve had protested innocently. ‘This is a purely nostalgic holiday. I used to know Whitby years ago.’

‘I don’t,’ the inspector had said doggedly, ‘want you involved.’

Paul Temple had been slightly exasperated. ‘When a girl asks for my help and is then killed sitting beside me, Charlie, I think I become involved. Whether you and I like it or not. I promised I’d help Miss Maxwell, because she was afraid—’

‘Miss Maxwell is alive and well and staying in Yorkshire!’ said Vosper. When they were out of earshot he telephoned Inspector Morgan. The mention of Assistant Commissioner Forbes had clinched it: they would treat Paul Temple and his wife with impeccable good manners and absolute inscrutability.

They were staying at the Victoria Hotel in Whitby, as a gesture towards diplomacy. It would look less, Paul had thought, as though they were investigating the Dulworth Bay mystery. But Inspector Morgan paid them a courtesy visit on the first morning after their arrival. ‘Just to see whether I can be of help,’ he said diplomatically. ‘Mrs Temple may have forgotten her way around after all those years in the south…’ Inspector Morgan was stationed in Whitby, which he clearly thought would be convenient for them all. ‘Where were you thinking of visiting?’

Steve mentioned St Gilbert’s, ‘Although I think I can find it without having to trouble you, Inspector.’

‘St Gilbert’s?’ he repeated inscrutably. ‘I don’t suppose you’re telling me that Mrs Temple wants to visit her old school?’ He seemed about to wink at Paul. ‘Because St Gilbert’s is a boys’ school.’ He stared smugly at Steve’s trim figure.

‘One of the masters is an old friend of my uncle’s,’ she explained. ‘I haven’t seen him since I was fourteen. He was the Latin master in those days, which is probably why I still find amo-amas-amat slightly romantic. I’ve invited him to dinner this evening.’

‘Sounds as though it should be fun,’ said the inspector. ‘Have you planned many other trips down memory lane?’

‘Westerby Hall?’ Paul suggested.

‘Westerby Hall,’ the inspector repeated with impeccable good manners. ‘Ah yes, that’s where Lord Westerby lives.’

‘Quite.’

‘I don’t,’ he said cannily, ‘know whether Miss Maxwell is staying with him at the moment.’

‘Never mind,’ said Paul. ‘If she isn’t there I’m sure the walk will have done us good. Our journey won’t be wasted. There’s nothing like the Yorkshire moors—’

‘I did hear a rumour that Miss Maxwell is dead.’

‘False, Inspector Morgan, as you well know!’

Paul Temple had tried to find Miss Maxwell in London, but she had proved elusive. The flat which she shared with a girl called Bobbie Jameson had been empty when he called. Miss Jameson was dead and Miss Maxwell had left for Yorkshire. Paul had let himself in the front door with a sliver of perspex against the lock, and he had spent nearly half an hour searching for something to indicate what the girls were mixed up with. But he found nothing.

It was obvious that Diana Maxwell used the flat merely as a pied-a-terre when she was in London. There were few possessions or papers belonging to her, and most of the photographs were of Bobbie Jameson. She had been the girl in the pub.

The instinct for self-preservation which had prompted Diana Maxwell to send a substitute had also led her straight back to Yorkshire when death had struck. But three hundred miles, Paul reflected sourly, was not very far if someone was determined to kill you.

Despite his boast to Inspector Morgan Paul drove out to Westerby Hall. He saw no reason to overdo the healthy life. The Yorkshire countryside was spectacular, but better appreciated from behind the wheel of a car. By foot it could reduce a man to exhaustion and madness. It made a man feel small. Westerby Hall was a mile inland from Dulworth Bay, nestling in a valley as if in hiding.

‘Let’s walk up to the house, darling,’ Steve suggested as a compromise to physical fitness. ‘We can look at these incredible wrought iron gates. I do believe they’re by Tijou.’

They parked by the monumental gates. Steve examined them ecstatically, talking of Tijou’s work at Hampton Court and speculating on the likelihood of the master travelling so far north.

There was a stream running along the high brown stone wall of the estate, and Paul’s eyes followed the glittering band of water through the valley. He could hear a noise like angry wasps approaching, and then in the distance he noticed a tiny green sports car driving much too fast down the hill from the moors. Its wheels visibly left the road as it leaped across a hump backed bridge and the noise of the engine became a roar.

‘Woman driver,’ said Paul.

Steve had decided the gates were superb imitations. She turned away reluctantly to watch the sports car. ‘She looks like a woman after your own heart,’ said Steve ironically. ‘Do you think someone’s chasing her?’

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ Paul said with a laugh.

She was doing at least seventy miles an hour along the narrow lane towards them. A girl’s blonde hair streamed out behind her, reminding Paul of advertisements for motor oil. The aggressive thrust of the engine seemed to pause and the noise rose an octave as the girl changed gear.

‘She’s trying to stop,’ Paul muttered.

‘Brakes?’ suggested Steve.

The car slithered suddenly, shuddered on to the grass verge, and without reducing speed travelled straight at Paul and Steve. It was almost entirely out of control, yet somehow the girl at the wheel managed to avoid them and smash into the wrought iron gates. The car came to rest several yards into the grounds with a tangle of irreplaceable metal twisted round the bonnet.

‘Damn!’ said the blonde.

She leapt miraculously from the wreckage and waved to Paul. ‘Sorry if I startled you,’ she called. ‘The bloody brakes failed.’ Her head disappeared beneath the front wheels while she tried to trace the mechanical fault.

‘Those beautiful gates,’ Steve said softly. ‘Look at the mess. And she hit them on purpose, to avoid the wall.’

‘And to avoid us,’ said Paul as he ambled across to the car. ‘I’m rather glad she doesn’t know much about art.’ He stared down at the girl’s lime-green slacks.

She wriggled out from under the wheels as he watched. ‘There you are,’ she said irritably, ‘the track rods have snapped in two.’

Paul gestured sadly at the buckled bonnet. ‘I’m afraid that’s a minor detail now, Miss Maxwell. You need a new engine, and the chassis looks none too healthy.’ But he glanced under the wheels to see the offending brakes. ‘Dangerous,’ he murmured.

‘I’ll get my uncle to send the chauffeur down. He can at least have it towed away.’ She stood up and turned to look at Paul with her full attention. An impressive girl with pale blue eyes, much more commanding and poised than the girl in the cafe. ‘How do you know my name?’ she asked.

‘We’ve spoken to each other on the telephone,’ said Paul. ‘I recognise your voice. You rang me in London. My name’s Temple, and the lady trying to mend the gates is my wife Steve.’

‘Hello,’ Steve called.

The girl was surprised. ‘I’ve no idea what you mean,’ she began. ‘I don’t know—’

‘You asked me to meet you in the Three Boars,’ said Paul. ‘But it was very wise of you not to come. You might have been killed.’ He smiled sympathetically. ‘By the way, I’m terribly sorry about your friend Bobbie Jameson. She was a nice girl. Her death must have been a great shock to you.’

Her pale blue eyes were coldly deliberate. ‘I didn’t ask you to meet me, Mr Temple. I’ve never spoken to you on the telephone and I wish you hadn’t told the police I had. It caused me some embarrassment.’

Paul shrugged and held open the door of his car. ‘I’m sure my friend Inspector Vosper was the soul of tact. Can I give you a lift to the Hall? It’s a long walk up this drive.’

She climbed into Paul’s car without a word. Wilful, Paul decided, temperamental, like a well-bred race horse. He waited until Steve was safely in the car beside him and then drove off.

‘It’s my belief,’ Paul resumed a few moments later, ‘that you did speak to me on the telephone, Miss Maxwell, that you made the appointment and then changed your mind at the last minute. I suspect you gave poor Miss Jameson a pretty accurate briefing, and that her story about three attempts having been made to kill you was true.’

She tossed her head so that the long blonde hair bounced angrily on her shoulders. ‘If I’d taken the trouble to make an appointment I should have kept it.’

The house was seventeenth century with early Victorian embellishments. It was much larger than it had appeared in the perspective of the valley. Paul drew up by the huge oak doors of the entrance. Almost immediately a young man came round the side of the house.

‘Hello,’ said the young man. ‘Something wrong?’

‘Yes,’ said Diana Maxwell. ‘I’ve smashed up the Aston Martin. Ran into those bloody gates. And to make matters worse this is Paul Temple and his wife.’

‘Oh dear, the man who set the police on to you.’ He turned with an amused expression to Paul. ‘We heard you were up in Yorkshire, Mr Temple. I suppose you’ve come to apologise to Diana?’

‘Not quite,’ said Paul. ‘I was really hoping for an explanation.’

‘Diana never explains anything,’ said the young man. ‘She’s much too aristocratic. Have you found the Baxter kids yet?’

His name was Peter Malo and his official role was secretary to Lord Westerby. But he behaved with proprietorial ease, helping Diana from the car and listening to her account of the crash at the entrance to the estate with humorous detachment.

‘Never mind, you’re alive and the car was insured,’ he said as he led her away. ‘And I’ve always thought those wrought iron monstrosities should be removed.’ He turned back, as if he had suddenly remembered Paul’s existence. ‘By the way, Temple,’ he called, ‘Lord Westerby wondered whether you could have dinner the day after tomorrow? Half past eight?’

‘We’ll be delighted,’ said Paul.

‘Perhaps you’ll have found the Baxter kids by then. Lord Westerby is worried about them, you know. Terribly worried.’

‘Why?’

The young man was taken aback. ‘Well, he is the squire, you know, he takes a benevolent interest in the community. Noblesse oblige.’ He waved carelessly and led Diana Maxwell away round the side of the house. ‘See you both the day after tomorrow.’

Paul Temple let in the clutch and drove away. It had been a frustrating afternoon so far. He wouldn’t learn much from Diana Maxwell or the supercilious young man unless they chose that he should.

‘What did you make of Miss Maxwell?’ he asked Steve.

Steve looked at the wreckage of the sports car as they drove past the gates. ‘A reckless driver,’ she murmured.

‘Not as reckless as all that,’ said Paul. ‘Her brake rods had been sawn nearly through with a hacksaw. They were bound to snap when she needed them most. Somebody tried to kill her, and I think she knew it.’

Paul drove in silence, up on to the moors and across the deserted wastes of green and purple heather. There was a strong breeze whistling over the undulating slopes which added to the sense of desolation. Sheep grazed unconcernedly at the roadside and far to the south the globes of the four minute warning system glinted in the sun.

‘Are we going somewhere?’ asked Steve.

‘I thought we might have tea in Goathland. Do you remember the first time I came up here, just after we met?’

‘Sentimental,’ murmured Steve.

They had a pot of tea for two and toasted scones in the most remote spot in England. Years ago they had discussed whether the village was named after the goats who inhabited the moors or the Goths who might have found it congenial for battles. There was a church, a post office stores, and a few houses straggled along the roadside. It had seemed an idyllic retreat in those days, when walking twenty miles had been pleasurable and sleeping in a tent had been a sensuous treat.

‘I think I’ll have one of those cream pastries,’ Steve said unromantically. ‘And then we’d better hurry. Don’t want to be late for our Latin school master. He’s a devil for punctuality, and he’ll have to get the boy back to the school before lights out.’

The schoolmaster was vague and affable; he talked about Steve’s uncle with the uncertainty of a man who usually finds he is discussing the wrong boy with the wrong parents. His name was Elkington and he arrived early with a sixteen-year-old youth in a blue school cap.

‘Consul victor em laudat,’ Paul said affably.

‘Very well, thank you,’ said the Latin master. ‘Have you met John Draper? He’s the boy you asked—’

‘Militibus turpe est captivos male custodivisse.’

Steve had to take Paul aside and explain that Mr Elkington was in fact English. ‘He used to double up as the sports master. He scored a century the last time I saw him play.’ So Paul discussed cricket with them over dinner, in English, which made conversation easier. It was one of the subjects which John Draper could discuss with authority.

The meal was English, with steaks and roast potatoes and garden peas, followed by apple pie. It was the only sort of meal to have in a northern hotel, Paul had felt, and he was enjoying the evening until the fair-haired youth exploded the pretence at polite conversation.

‘Isn’t it time you asked me the questions, Mr Temple?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I have to be back at school in two hours.’

‘Really, Draper!’ the Latin master protested. ‘This is a purely social—’

‘I’ve already told the police all I know about the Baxter brothers, so I’m afraid I shan’t be much help.

Paul grinned. ‘You’re quite right, John, I did ask Mr Elkington to bring you so that we could discuss the Baxter brothers. Why did you agree to come, I wonder?’

‘I wanted to meet you, Mr Temple. I read some of your books when I was in the sanatorium and I thought they were rather good.’ The slightly secretive smile was still hovering about the boy’s mouth. ‘And that police inspector said that on no account should I tell you anything, so I was thrilled to bits when the Elk said he was bringing me along. Er— I mean Mr Elkington.’

Mr Elkington coughed awkwardly. ‘The boys call me the Elk,’ he explained.

‘I’m anti the police,’ said the boy. ‘I’m going to university next year.’

‘The police appear to be anti me at the moment,’ said Paul with a laugh. ‘So suppose you tell me what you told the police? You went home with the Baxter brothers on the afternoon they disappeared, didn’t you? It is possible that some apparently insignificant detail will prove to be important later. What happened when Roger went in search of his brother?’

The allegiances had been established, and the boy assumed a confidential manner. ‘I went home. I popped into the Baxter cottage to tell their father I couldn’t wait, and then I went home.’

‘Did you walk home?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How far away do you live?’

‘About a mile and a half. It’s straight down the lane.’

‘Did you see anyone in the lane?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Did you hear anything?’

The boy’s self-confidence faltered. ‘No,’ he said after a pause. ‘I don’t think so. What sort of thing do you mean?’

He looked nervously at the Elk. ‘Do you mean anything suspicious?’

‘Anything at all,’ murmured Paul.

‘I don’t think I heard anything.’

Paul waited for the boy to make up his mind while Steve set the port in circulation.

‘Well, there was one thing. I don’t suppose it’s important, but when I left the Baxter cottage I thought I heard someone whistling.’

‘Good,’ Paul said promptingly.

‘But I couldn’t see anyone.’

‘Never mind, John; you thought you heard someone. What did the whistling sound like?’

‘I don’t really know.’ He laughed uncertainly. ‘It was pretty tuneless, as if he was thinking about something else.’

‘Not a wolf whistle, to attract attention?’ Steve intervened.

‘Good lord, no.’

‘Pop or jazz?’ Paul asked.

‘Neither.’

‘Ah,’ said Paul quickly, ‘so you did recognise the tune.’

The boy was confused. ‘I didn’t recognise it, Mr Temple.’

‘But you’re certain it wasn’t a call or a pop song or a jazz theme. So you either recognised the tune itself or you thought you recognised the person who was whistling it.’

The boy shrugged unhappily. ‘I’m not really sure,’ he muttered, ‘but I think it was Loch Lomond.’

‘And whom did you think was whistling it?’

‘I don’t know.’

That was all Paul could elicit from Master John Draper. It almost seemed like a wasted evening. Paul didn’t return to the subject until the Elk and his charge were leaving for the last train to Dulworth Bay.

‘Tell me, John,’ he said on the hotel steps, ‘have you ever heard of anyone called Curzon?’

‘No,’ said the boy, ‘I’m certain I haven’t.’

‘Never mind. It was kind of you to come. I’ve enjoyed meeting you. Civic civicismus, Mr Elkington.’

‘Such a pleasure to discuss old times—’

The fishing fleet was coming into Whitby harbour. Paul and Steve walked along the jetty and watched the boats tying up amid the flurry of excited seagulls and the busy preparations for unloading the catch. It was a cool, dry evening and the light from either the moon or the harbour electricity was sharply clear.

‘Impressive,’ said Paul. ‘I envy you a childhood spent among fishing fleets and countryside like this.’ It was a comment which Paul made whenever he ventured north with his wife, because it always seemed to please her so inordinately. She had been extremely anxious that Yorkshire should meet with Paul Temple’s approval.

‘It seems,’ she said wistfully, ‘a very long time ago.’

Paul nodded. ‘What did you make of young Draper?’

‘Clever,’ said Steve. ‘Too clever by half. He knew exactly how to get round you. All that talk about the police…’

Paul was silent for a moment while they walked to the headland. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. He did seem to think that Elkington was a fool as well.’

Steve smiled to herself. ‘Whereas you treated the Elk like a man of dignity and position.’

‘Well, I always hated Latin at school.’

When they got back to the hotel Paul applied his mind to reviewing Dr Stern’s book on crime. He sat at a table by the window making notes while Steve prepared for bed. He looked across at the quayside and watched the occasional movements of the boats, wondering whether to write a showy piece of invective or a considered essay on understanding the criminal’s mind. He wondered who those sheep on the moors had belonged to and why the editor wanted the book reviewed anyway. He poured himself a large whisky and glanced through the index.

‘Coincidence,’ he said to Steve.

‘Eh?’ She was sitting up in bed, looking elegant in mauve silk pyjamas. ‘What’s a coincidence?’

‘Dr Stern doesn’t mention coincidence. You see, he knows nothing about crime. How many criminals would the law apprehend if it weren’t for luck, chance and coincidence? Take the Great Train Robbery—’

‘Are you doing that review?’ asked Steve in dismay. ‘But you haven’t read the book yet!’

‘I’d only make myself irritable and give the book a panning. I thought I might be generous and welcome this work as a tentative first step towards a more responsible attitude—’

‘You pompous fraud,’ said Steve.

They were interrupted by the strident ring of a telephone. Paul found the instrument on a chair beneath Steve’s dressing-gown. It rang again. ‘Hello?’ said Paul. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly eleven o’clock.

‘Mr Temple? Hello, this is Ian Elkington. I’m sorry if I woke you—’

‘That’s all right,’ Paul said, ‘I was only working.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry, but the fact is that I’ve lost young Draper.’

‘Lost him? Wasn’t that rather difficult?’

‘No— no, you don’t understand. I mean the boy has vanished. We were in the train, walking through the corridor just north of Dulworth Bay, and suddenly I realised he’d gone. We were in the tunnel and the train was rattling rather. Draper was only a few yards ahead of me and at first I thought he’d nipped into the toilet. But he seems to have disappeared.’

Chapter Three

The Whitby to Scarborough train ran along the coast and probably qualified as the most beautiful stretch of track in England. The North Sea stretched away like an immobile sheet of blue on one side, while the inland view was of distant moors and forestry, sudden valleys with neatly arranged farms and a perilous hillside into which the railway lines were cut. They went through places like Burniston and Cloughton and Ravenscar, evocative places which suggested an England before the arrival of railways. There had been a furore of protest when the line had been built, and another a century later when someone had tried to close the line down.

The train chugged slowly through the scene, giving Paul and Steve ample time for leisured contemplation. Steve leaned forward occasionally to point out Farmer Hattersby’s barn on the skyline and the village where old Mrs Stark had lived.

‘We’re just coming into the tunnel now, I think,’ said Steve. ‘This cliff ahead of us…’

The train curled round and into the face of the cliff, plunging the carriage in darkness. The noise of the engine and the wheels on the track seemed aggressively loud, but that wasn’t the noise which Paul was listening to. He could hear somebody coming along the train corridor whistling tunelessly to himself. The whistling came nearer, stopped by their doors, and then came into the carriage.

‘This is where John Draper disappeared,’ said Steve.

‘Quite,’ murmured Paul.

The newcomer seemed to have sat in the corner of the carriage and was whistling an absent-minded version of Loch Lomond. Paul leaned across and placed a reassuring hand on Steve’s knee. She gasped in alarm.

‘It’s all right, darling,’ he said with a laugh, ‘it’s only your husband.’ But he waited apprehensively, all his reflexes at the ready for whatever might happen in the fateful tunnel.

But nothing happened. Two minutes later the train chugged harmlessly into sunshine and Paul found himself staring at an elderly man with a quizzical smile and a deaf aid. The man looked a little startled himself to see Paul Temple.

‘My goodness,’ he said with that slightly overpitched tone of the very deaf, ‘it’s Mr Temple and his wife. Well— well.’ He raised a hand to silence Paul while he adjusted his deaf aid. ‘There, now you can speak. I’m afraid I’m a little hard of hearing.’

‘How do you know—?’ Paul began.

‘I expect you’re wondering how I know your name. By the way, I’m Dr Lawrence Stuart. I’m in practice in Dulworth Bay. We’re all of us agog to see you in action. Local gossip has it that you’ll solve the case in forty-eight hours.’ He laughed. ‘I think they’re hoping you’ll pin all three disappearances on me.’

‘Lucky for you we’re only here for a holiday,’ said Paul. ‘I promised Inspector Morgan he could pin the disappearances on the villain without interference from me.’

Dr Stuart chuckled happily. ‘Yes, I heard about your little pretext. I gather Mrs Temple was brought up in the North Riding? Wonderful place to spend your childhood, don’t you think, Mr Temple?’ He looked out of the window for the wide arc of Dulworth Bay to bear witness to his enthusiasm. The grey overhanging cliffs seemed by an optical illusion to be leaning into the distant sea. ‘This rock face below us is worth a tourist’s visit, Mr Temple,’ he continued ironically. ‘This is where we had the air disaster three weeks ago. You must have read about it. All the passengers were killed and we’ve been plagued by sightseers ever since.’

‘I read about it,’ said Paul.

‘It happened just after midnight. I was called out of my bed. A most distressing business. They’d still be gossiping about it in the village if your Baxter boys hadn’t disappeared to provide a new topic.’

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