Send for Paul Temple by Francis Durbridge

Author:Francis Durbridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781743481295
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2013-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XV

The Wristlet Watch

The plan Paul Temple had suggested to the Commissioner of Police had won wide favour. Here, at last, was a definite move that might lead to something tangible. Up to the present the police had been working completely in the dark, for both of the criminals who could be identified with the crimes, Lefty Jackson and Skid Tyler, had met a sudden and unexpected end. Scotland Yard only knew of men who had worked for the gang; they knew nothing of any of its present members, save that its leader might be a nebulous figure known as Max Lorraine or the Knave of Diamonds.

Now Paul Temple was carrying the war into the enemy camp. He had himself formed one or two shrewd suspicions, but needed confirmation for them. The police themselves welcomed the plan in that it might at last give them something positive to work on.

On the Thursday after Skid Tyler’s sudden and mysterious end at Scotland Yard, Steve Trent had driven her little sports car up to Bramley Lodge. An old acquaintance was coming to see Paul Temple, and Steve was anxious to meet him. Temple and Steve were now sitting over their coffee in the lounge, awaiting his arrival. As usual, they had much to talk about, and as usual where journalists are concerned, most of it was concerned with the stranger happenings of the moment in which they were personally involved. In this case, however, although they tried to forget the ‘Midland Mysteries’, conversation seemed to drift back to the subject quite naturally.

At last Pryce came in to announce the arrival of Alec Rice.

As he entered, Paul Temple jumped out of his seat to welcome him. The two had not met for some years, and the warmth of their greeting showed how glad they were to see each other again. The jeweller was a man who looked at least fifteen years junior to Temple, whereas he could only have been four or five years younger at the most. He was a huge man of breezy manners who swept everything before him. He was now wearing a pair of old and very voluminous grey flannel trousers with an even more ancient Harris tweed jacket. Nevertheless, Alec Rice was not entirely an old public school boy who could talk of little but sport, and had to adopt the exaggerated accent of pseudo-culture. He was essentially a businessman who had thrown off his robes of office to get into these comfortable old clothes for an informal call. Consequently, on being introduced to Steve, he felt it more discreet to withdraw as rapidly as circumstances permitted. Not that Steve made him feel gawkish or boorish at all, but he felt he was both intruding and that his garb was not quite what it might have been. Steve was wearing a long dinner dress of black silk, while Paul Temple, who was by no means a slave to fashion but liked to do ‘the right thing’, was wearing a tuxedo.

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