News of Paul Temple

‘What would you like, Sir Graham? Sherry? Bronx?’

‘I’d rather like a Bronx,’ said Sir Graham, watching Temple rather curiously as he selected the ingredients. ‘What was the trip like, Temple? Got a bit of a shock when I heard you were coming over on the Clipper.’

‘Oh, lovely!’ enthused Steve. ‘We enjoyed every minute of it, didn’t we, darling?’

‘Every minute,’ agreed Temple, handing their visitor his drink and then pouring out a glass of sherry for Steve.

Sir Graham smacked his lips.

‘Isn’t Iris Archer going into a play of yours? I seem to remember reading something about it?’ he asked.

‘Well, she was going into a play of mine,’ replied Temple. ‘Now things seem a little uncertain.’

‘H’m. Pity.’ grunted Forbes, who understood little or nothing of the complications that arise in the theatre world.

‘What’s Scotland Yard doing at the moment?’ asked Temple.

‘Just at the moment,’ began Forbes with elaborate emphasis, ‘we are up against one of the greatest criminal organisations—’

Steve had almost risen from her chair, and Sir Graham broke into a heavy laugh.

‘He’s only pulling your leg, darling,’ Temple reassured her, but somehow Steve did not altogether appreciate the joke.

‘As a matter of fact, things are pretty dead. They have been for months,’ continued the Chief Commissioner evenly. ‘One or two isolated murders, but nothing really big since “The Front Page Men”, and I can’t honestly say I’m sorry.’ He drained his glass and got up.

‘I must be on my way – I only dropped in to welcome the wanderers home again.’

‘We’re going away again in a day or two,’ said Temple, ‘but when we get back you must come to dinner and—’

‘I shall be out of town myself for about a month,’ broke in Sir Graham. ‘First holiday I’ve taken for nearly six years.’

Temple said casually: ‘Where are you going?’

‘Carol’s taken a villa just outside Nice.’

‘Nice!’ echoed Steve in some surprise.

‘Yes,’ said Forbes. ‘I say, you two don’t happen to be going to the South of France, by any chance?’

‘Oddly enough, Sir Graham—’ began Temple.

‘We’re going to Scotland,’ finished Steve. ‘You did want to go to Scotland, didn’t you, darling?’

‘Why—er—yes. Yes, of course,’ said Temple in some embarrassment.

‘Then that’s fine,’ smiled Steve, rather delighted by her husband’s unexpected confusion.

‘Well, wherever you go, Temple, keep out of mischief,’ said Forbes.

Steve smiled. It was a very pleasant smile.

‘That’s just why we are going to Scotland!’ she said.

3

For five hours Temple had been driving steadily through variable Scottish weather. They had stopped at Dunfermline to gaze open-mouthed upon the many evidences of the benevolence of Mr Andrew Carnegie. They had even paused some time at the tomb of Robert the Bruce, and, rather to Steve’s amusement, Temple had drawn many parallels between the tenacity of that legendary figure and the patience required in the solution of modern crime mysteries.

As they continued their journey towards Inverdale, where they proposed to spend a few days, the sky suddenly darkened, and on a particularly lonely stretch of moorland the rain lashed furiously against the windscreen.

Steve was never very comfortable during thunderstorms, and when the sky was streaked with forked flashes she begged her husband to stop. But Temple drove on, holding the theory that a moving vehicle is a less likely target for lightning.

‘The rain seems to be getting worse,’ shouted Steve above the noise of the storm. Temple, struggling with the windscreen wiper, which was sticking occasionally, muttered an imprecation.

‘I don’t believe the lightning is quite so bad now,’ added Steve, after a pause.

‘Perhaps not,’ replied Temple, who had not been paying much attention to it. ‘This road is terrible. If we get a puncture now, everything in the garden will be lovely!’

‘I wonder how many miles we are from Inverdale,’ Steve speculated, eyeing a range of mountains which seemed deceptively near.

‘I’m beginning to wonder if there is such a place,’ grunted Temple.

‘There must be, darling. It’s on the map.’

‘That’s a very old map,’ Temple pointed out as he stepped on the footbrake. ‘Hallo, what’s this?’

‘This’ was a cluster of about twenty cottages, scattered at varying intervals along the road.

‘Looks like a village of some sort,’ said Steve, as the car approached.

‘“Some sort” is about right,’ grimaced Temple. ‘I hope this isn’t Inverdale.’

‘It can’t be, darling. There’s nothing except cottages.’

A solitary cow was straying homewards, and Temple had to slow the car down to practically walking pace. The storm had almost passed over by now, and Temple was anxious to find a signpost of some description. ‘It’s no good going on if we’re off the right road,’ he told Steve, who was busy unfolding the map. He stopped the car outside the first of the cottages.

Temple glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was only half-past six. Steve was busy tracing the route they had followed. ‘We must have done nearly two hundred miles,’ she estimated.

Her husband, who had been surveying the rather unprepossessing cottages, suddenly announced: ‘That second cottage is a shop by the look of things. They’d put us on the right track.’

‘Yes, perhaps it would be quicker,’ agreed Steve. ‘Get me some chocolate, darling – fruit and nut.’

‘You wouldn’t like a juicy steak, by any chance, with sauté potatoes?’ suggested Temple as he climbed out of the car.

‘What, no onions!’ Steve riposted, and the novelist laughed.

Temple approached the cottage, which differed from the others in that it had a roof of slates, and its greystone walls bore no trace of whitewash. He pushed open the heavy door, and a tiny bell clanged discordantly. The interior was gloomy and cluttered with a miscellany of articles ranging from flypapers to sides of bacon suspended from the ceiling.

A tight-lipped Scotswoman in her late forties came into the shop from the kitchen. She had a voice that droned rather than spoke and she eyed Temple with obvious suspicion.