Send for paul temple, p.15
Send for Paul Temple, page 15
“Meanwhile,” the novelist continued, “at 9.15, the men watching the inn follow exactly the same procedure: close in on ‘The Little General’ and force an entrance.”
At that moment a knock sounded on the door and Chief Inspector Dale appeared.
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir!” He stopped. “I thought—”
“That’s all right, Dale!” the Commissioner hastened to reassure him. “Tell Davis of the Flying Squad I want a word with him!”
“Very good, sir!”
“I should have your men planted at about eight, Sir Graham,” Paul Temple continued as the door closed, “and then—”
“Don’t worry, Temple. I’ll see to that all right!”
The Commissioner walked over to the fireplace and flicked the ash off his cigarette. “It might be a good idea if I came down myself!” he suggested. “The two of us could join the men at ‘The Little General’, and then—”
The novelist nodded. “Excellent idea, Sir Graham!”
“By gosh!” exclaimed the Commissioner, finding difficulty in restraining himself. “We’ve got him! We’ve got him this time!”
Paul Temple smiled. “I wonder, Sir Graham,” he said. “I wonder . . .?”
Steve Vanishes!
Chapter XIX
Steve Vanishes!
It was shortly after eight o’clock the following evening. Sir Graham Forbes, Chief Inspector Dale, and Paul Temple were standing in the drawing-room at Bramley Lodge. All three were smoking, the novelist his customary pipe, the two police chiefs cigarettes. Both kept flicking their ash nervously into the grate and into the ashtrays that lay scattered over the room.
There was an air of expectancy, the feeling that something decisive and unexpected was going to happen. The last remaining details of their plan were under discussion.
“Are the men armed, Sir Graham?” Paul Temple asked.
“Some of them are, I believe, aren’t they, Dale?” he asked, turning to the inspector who had arranged the practical details of the plan.
“The men watching the house have service revolvers, sir,” Dale explained. “I thought under the circumstances that—”
“Yes, of course.”
“You understand about the statue, don’t you, Inspector?” Paul Temple suddenly asked him.
“Yes, I think so, sir!” he replied. “It’s on the left you say, as soon as you enter the lounge?”
“Yes, that’s right. The head of the statue is on a sort of base: as soon as you turn it, you’ll see the panel in the wall. I told you about the light, didn’t I?”
Dale nodded.
“Good,” said Temple. “As far as I could gather, the lift works automatically. Immediately you close the panel you’ll hear the machinery.”
“I see.”
“I think someone ought to be left behind in the house,” Sir Graham interrupted. “I should leave Smith, Hodgson, and Mowbray, Dale. We’ll pick them up later.”
“Very good, sir.”
For a few minutes, no one spoke. Each seemed occupied in turning over in his own mind the events that were shortly to occur at the inn.
“By the way,” remarked the Commissioner suddenly, “you have the search warrant?”
“Oh, yes, sir!”
“Good!” Sir Graham turned to his host. “Well, I think that’s about all, isn’t it, Temple?”
The novelist nodded.
“We shall be waiting for you at ‘The Little General’, Dale,” he said. “Good luck!”
“Thank you, sir!”
“And be careful in that passage,” the Commissioner added. “I expect the devils know the place backwards.”
As the Inspector walked out of the drawing-room both men watched him, and speculated as to what would happen before they met again.
“Dale seems a nice fellow,” Temple remarked at last.
“Yes,” Sir Graham replied. “A bit reserved, but very efficient. He’s only been at the Yard about twelve months.”
The Commissioner walked over to one of the inviting armchairs and sat down. Temple remained perched on the arm of one of the smaller chairs.
“What time is it, exactly?” asked the Commissioner, at last.
“I make it 8.40.”
“How long should it take us to get down to the inn?”
“Oh, about fifteen minutes.”
“Well, there’s no hurry.”
“Dale said he had six men at the house,” commented Temple, after a slight pause. “How many are watching the inn?”
The Commissioner frowned. “Now, let me see,” he said. “There’s Foster, Robinson. . . . Oh, about eight or nine, I should say.”
“Good. Is Merritt there?”
“No.”
“Then I think the best plan would be for you and I to enter the inn first,” said Temple thoughtfully, “then if possible we can also . . .”
He stopped to look round at the door, which had suddenly opened.
“What is it, Pryce?”
“There’s a lady called to see you, sir. A Mrs. Neddy. I told her you were engaged, but—”
“Mrs. Neddy?” Temple was obviously puzzled. “Good Lord!” he exclaimed suddenly, as memory came back to him, “that’s Steve’s landlady; surely she—”
At that moment, the very large, very flamboyant figure of Mrs. Neddy appeared in the doorway. She was puffing and blowing with sheer exhaustion, and her eyes were shining with an excitement that partly communicated itself to the two men. She was trying to find breath with which to speak, but the sentences she attempted were all equally unintelligible. At last, after standing still for a moment, Mrs. Neddy was able to speak.
“You’ll have to be excusing me bursting in on you like this, Mr. Temple,” she started, her Irish brogue stronger than ever in her agitation, “but—” Mrs. Neddy did not contain enough breath to complete the sentence. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” she spluttered. “I’m that exhausted!”
Paul Temple knew better than anyone that he had to use all the patience in the world with the good Irish woman. Anxious as he was to know what had brought her to Bramley Lodge at such an extraordinary hour, he nevertheless remained, outwardly at any rate, perfectly calm.
“Sit down, Mrs. Neddy,” he said gently, as he drew a chair up for her, and even helped her into it. “That’s all right, Pryce,” he added to his manservant, who had been looking at the strange scene with a crestfallen air, ready to apologize as best he could for what he imagined was so unwelcome an intrusion.
“I’m sorry to be—” Mrs. Neddy started, as the door closed, and her bosom heaved again as she struggled for enough breath to complete the sentence. “I’m sorry to be troubling you, sir. But . . . but—”
Again she came to a full stop. Her recent exertion was clearly more than her constitution was able to stand. Her face was still so flushed that Paul Temple felt very serious alarms for the safety of her heart.
“Now, that’s all right, Mrs. Neddy,” said Paul Temple, sitting on a chair beside her, and trying his best both to smooth over his own impatience, and relieve Mrs. Neddy. “Just take your time,” he added.
“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Neddy. Then she breathed out a mighty sigh. “Ah! What a relief!” she murmured.
For a few moments she sat still, growing gradually calmer, her high colour slowly disappearing.
“Now,” Paul Temple started, when he at last felt it was time for Mrs. Neddy to deliver her message, “do you feel any better?”
“Yes,” sighed Mrs. Neddy. “Yes, much better, thank you, sir.”
“Good!” he replied. “Well,” he asked, in a gentle, persuasive voice, “what is it you want to see me about?”
“It’s—it’s about Miss Trent, sir,” Mrs. Neddy stuttered, some of her excitement returning as she remembered the purpose of her visit.
“Miss Trent?” Paul Temple paused. “What about Miss Trent?”
“She’s . . . she’s disappeared, sir!”
“Disappeared!” repeated Sir Graham, startled in spite of himself.
“What makes you say that, Mrs. Neddy?” asked Paul Temple, still very gently, still concealing from her the increasing perturbation he felt within.
“Well, it’s like this, sir,” she began to explain. “This morning at about half-past nine, the telephone rang in Miss Trent’s flat. I was in the kitchen downstairs at the time, and I could ‘ear it as clear as a bell, as you might say, sir.
“After a little while, Miss Trent came downstairs. She seemed in rather a hurry, and slightly excited. I asked her if she was going out, and whether she’d be back for lunch or not. Miss Trent said that her editor had sent for her, and that she would probably be back in about an hour and a half.”
Mrs. Neddy was very obviously enjoying herself. Now that she had recovered her speech, and it could again be uttered without undue effort, she could watch Paul Temple and Sir Graham Forbes hanging on every word. It was not every day that Mrs. Neddy could secure such an audience, and she was determined to make the most of it.
Paul Temple almost shouted at her in his sheer, tearing impatience. “Go on, Mrs. Neddy!”
“Well, sir, there’s nothing much to tell, really, except that— she never came back. And then, about a quarter to twelve, the telephone went again. I could hear it all over the blessed house. . . . So after a while I went upstairs and answered it, and . . . and—”
“Yes, Mrs. Neddy!” urged Paul Temple, now more anxious than ever.
“It was the newspaper office, sir. They said they wanted to speak to Miss Trent. I told them she had left the house immediately after they first called her. But . . . but . . . but—” Once again Mrs. Neddy began to be carried away by her emotions. She was now very nearly weeping at the thought of what might have happened to her beloved Steve Trent. “Well, the man at the other end said he was the editor, and that . . . and that . . . they never had called her!”
“My God!” exclaimed Temple under his breath.
“I—I didn’t know what to do, sir,” Mrs. Neddy went on. “I was in a quandary, as you might say. Then suddenly I remembered all those articles Miss Trent used to write about – ‘Send for Paul Temple’, and I thought that if I could—”
“You acted very wisely, Mrs. Neddy,” said Temple quietly, and Mrs. Neddy beamed with joy at this flattery. “Temple,” exclaimed Sir Graham suddenly, “you don’t think that the Knave . . .?”
Paul Temple’s face was grave. “Yes,” he replied desperately, “and, by Timothy, we’ve no time to lose, Sir Graham. No time to lose!”
Chapter XX
At the Inn
Paul Temple rang the bell for Pryce and rushed out into the hall to collect their overcoats.
As they came out of the house the uniformed Flying Squad officer sitting in the driver’s seat pressed the starter, and the two men had barely taken their seats before the tyres of the car were sending a shower of gravel backwards towards the porch.
“The inn, as fast as you can get there!” barked the Commissioner, leaning forward to the driver.
“Very good, sir.”
In the back the two men began to talk in low tones. It was a strange and highly irregular conversation.
But then, as Sir Graham Forbes explained to the novelist, “This whole business is so devilish unprecedented.”
“You know,” he pointed out to Paul Temple, “we have to appoint somebody as Harvey’s successor. Dale hasn’t been with us long enough for the job, and there is nobody else who is properly au fait with these, er, extraordinary jewel robberies.”
Sir Graham paused. He was finding it hard to say exactly what he had in mind. Temple thought he knew what was coming, but not even Temple had guessed all that was in the Commissioner’s mind.
“Chief Constable Purley will be taking over Harvey’s duties when this business is over. He has done some very good work at the Yard, and we are making him a Super. But that won’t help us over the present business.”
Again the Commissioner paused. “I wonder,” he went on at last, “I wonder if you would care to take an, er, an unofficial sort of appointment?”
Once again there was a slight pause before he continued.
“Naturally, I can’t give you any official rank or standing, but personally I don’t see any reason why you yourself should not carry on with what Harvey started.”
Sir Graham Forbes had been staring straight ahead, watching the car’s passage through the country road on the way to ‘The Little General’.
“How do you feel about it, Temple?” he asked, at length.
For a moment or two Paul Temple did not reply, then at last he said, “It’s very good of you, Sir Graham.”
“I shall tell Dale, of course,” Sir Graham continued, “and any orders you have to make you can give directly through me, or if you prefer it, through Dale or Merritt. That puts the whole arrangement on a practical footing.”
“Well, it’s very good of you to show this confidence in me,” Temple replied. “I shall certainly do what I can. I think myself the arrangement should work fairly well.”
The two men fell silent. Temple sat considering his new position. A superintendent without rank or standing, a police chief without police experience, office, or salary, a detective who had to give his orders through an intermediary. Nevertheless, Sir Graham Forbes had given him the highest possible token of his appreciation.
They were still thinking over this new arrangement when the brakes shrieked, and the car skidded on the loose gravel to a stop outside the inn. Immediately both men leaped out and hurried up to a figure that loomed out of the darkness.
“Anything to report, Turner?” asked the Commissioner briskly.
“No, sir.”
“Has anyone entered the inn?” Temple asked.
“Not a soul, sir; I can’t understand it.”
Paul Temple took the Commissioner by the arm.
“Come along, Sir Graham,” he said quickly.
“You know the signal, Turner,” added the Commissioner. “Just in case we need you.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Commissioner and the novelist strode towards the inn. Temple opened the door to the hall and led the way inside to the bar parlour.
“The place seems deserted,” remarked the Commissioner, as he looked around.
“Yes,” agreed Temple, after hesitating a moment. “I wonder if there’s anyone in the back parlour?”
“We’ll soon find out!” the Commissioner replied. He walked over to the flap in the counter, raised it, and walked through. He then opened the door leading to the back room, and looked inside.
“It looks to me as if we’re on a wild goose chase,” said Temple, as the Commissioner came back.
Sir Graham made no comment.
“Where does this door lead to?” he asked suddenly, indicating the other door behind the counter.
“Oh, that leads outside, I think, into a sort of courtyard,” Paul Temple explained. “You won’t find anything out there except pigeons.”
“Well, where the devil is the room you were telling me about?” asked the Commissioner. “Room 7?”
“Yes,” Temple replied slowly. “That’s what I want to know, Sir Graham.”
“It can’t very well be upstairs, because of the passage leading from the house,” remarked the Commissioner.
“No. . . . It must be behind this panelling.”
Temple walked across the room to the wall and started thumping on it with his fist.
“It sounds solid enough,” remarked Sir Graham.
“Yes, but there’s quite a gap between this parlour and the staircase. I reckon that’s where the room is.”
“Yes, but how are we going to get into it? There must be a—”
“Just a minute,” Temple suddenly interrupted.
“What is it?” asked the Commissioner, after a short pause.
“I thought I heard . . .” Paul Temple started. “Listen!” he exclaimed.
They could hear sounds from somewhere behind the wall. There were creaks, as if from footboards, then the clear noise of footsteps.
“There’s someone behind the panelling!” exclaimed Sir Graham.
“Yes.”
Again they listened. Suddenly a knock was heard against the panelling. It was as if some ghostly hand were repeating the endeavours Temple had just been making.
“That’s Dale!” exclaimed the Commissioner.
“Then, by Timothy, he’s been quick!” Temple added.
The Commissioner nodded to him. Suddenly he shouted, “Is that you, Dale?”
Clearly, from somewhere behind the wall, they could hear the inspector.
“Yes! Where are you?”
“Knock on the wall, Dale!” shouted Temple, by way of answer.
They listened, and once again they heard the thump on the wall.
“He’s over here, I think,” said the Commissioner.
Together they walked over to the spot which Sir Graham indicated.
“There must be some way to—” Temple broke off, bewildered by what he saw in front of him.
“Look!” exclaimed Sir Graham Forbes. “Look! The panel’s moving!”
It was true. Part of the actual panelling in the wall was slowly swinging backwards. Neither of them could have suspected its possibility, even from their close inspection of the wall.
“He must have found the switch,” remarked Temple, as Chief Inspector Dale appeared through the opening.
“Hello, Sir Graham!” smiled Dale. “There’s a room in here, sir; it seems . . .”
“Yes,” interrupted Temple, “that’s what we’re looking for.”
The inspector drew back into the room, followed by Temple and the Commissioner. The top of the panelling was not more than five feet high, and they had to bow their heads as they stepped into the room.
“I was certainly lucky to find the switch for the panel,” Dale remarked.
“So . . . this . . . is Room 7!” said Paul Temple, when they were safely inside.
“Where’s the entrance from the house?” asked the Commissioner.
“Through that cupboard, sir,” said Inspector Dale, pointing to a large cupboard built into a corner of the room. “There’s another panel. It leads down to the passage.”
