Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery. Francis Durbridge
first asked her about Harry. She was ready for the question and waiting for it.’
‘I thought she was a shade too glib. Of course it’s difficult not having met her before. Some women are always like that with men, but she seemed somehow strained, brittle—’
‘I know what you mean. She’s worried about something. Do you know why she refused coffee?’
‘No.’
‘Because her hands weren’t steady. And she didn’t dare to look my way till the interrogation was over. She knew another woman would see through her.’
The Temples were loth to leave the pleasant lazy atmosphere of Sonning on a warm May day. It was four thirty before they arrived back in Eaton Square.
Charlie had left a note propped on the hall table: ‘See me soon as you come in’.
Steve picked it up and threw Temple a despairing look. Charlie answered the drawing-room bell promptly.
‘There was a telephone call for you about an hour ago. From Guildford. It was a girl – she seemed young, anyway – called Jane Dallas. She wanted to speak to you personally. Sounded pretty desperate, she did.’
‘What did she want to speak to me about?’
‘She wouldn’t say. She closed up when I told her you weren’t available.’
‘Jane Dallas. She didn’t mind giving her name, then?’
‘Well,’ Charlie’s face was disfigured by a self-satisfied smirk. ‘She thought I was you, see? When I answered the phone I said “Eaton double two, double four – who’s calling please?” She says, very quick like, “Oh, Mr Temple, my name is Jane Dallas. I have some very urgent—” Then I thought I’d better stop her before she spilled the beans.’
Charlie gave such a vivid imitation of Temple’s voice and that of the unknown Jane Dallas that he and Steve had to smile.
‘All right, Charlie. Thanks.’
Temple frowned thoughtfully at Steve as the door closed on Charlie.
‘Guildford? We don’t know anyone called Jane Dallas.’
‘Perhaps it’s someone else who wants you to take cigars to her brother in Paris,’ Steve suggested lightly.
‘Then she’s going to be unlucky. Now, I’d better telephone Sir Graham. He’ll be disappointed that we’ve nothing more definite for him.’
Temple sat down beside the telephone table. He was about to lift the receiver when the bell began to ring. He picked it up and repeated his number.
The operator said, ‘Go ahead, Guildford.’
It was a girl’s voice, faint and distorted by interference on the line, but unmistakably frightened.
‘This is Temple speaking.’
‘Oh, Mr Temple. I read in the papers that you are investigating the Tyler mystery. I have some very important information. I’ve got to see you immediately.’
Jane Dallas sounded a very excitable young lady. There was a touch of hysteria in her voice.
Temple said: ‘The papers are misinformed. It’s not true that I’m investigating the Tyler mystery. Your proper course is to take this information to the police.’
‘I can’t do that, Mr Temple. I’ve got to see you. It’s impossible to explain on the telephone. Oh, can’t you understand?’
The voice was becoming more and more overwrought.
‘I’m afraid I can’t come down to Guildford, Miss Dallas—’
‘You must,’ the girl insisted. Then as if she felt the old tag would clinch matters: ‘It’s a matter of life and death. I’m at 17 Charlotte Street. I’ll expect you at nine o’clock tonight.’
Before Temple had time to object there came a click and the line was dead.
‘That,’ he told Steve, ‘was Jane Dallas.’
‘So I guessed. I could hear most of it from here. She didn’t sound to me as if she was putting on an act.’
‘You mean you think I should have agreed to see her? What are the police for if not to deal with cases like this?’
‘She may have vital information and yet be frightened, for no valid and sensible reason, of going to the police. I felt rather sorry for her.’
This time it was Temple himself who began to whistle: ‘I love Paris—’. Steve remained serious.
‘You say you’re not investigating the Tyler mystery but this morning someone tried to kill us on the Bath Road.’
Temple sat motionless for a moment, then slapped his knee and stood up.
‘All right. This evening we’ll call on Miss Jane Dallas of 17 Charlotte Street. I’ll tell Charlie we want an early dinner.’
A thunderstorm passed across the Southern Counties that evening, bringing darkness on a little earlier than usual. The rain, while it lasted, was very heavy. Temple was forced to slow down at several points outside Guildford where the water had collected in hollows in the road.
He drove directly to the Police Station and left Steve sitting in the car outside whilst he went to inquire the whereabouts of Charlotte Street. He was out within three minutes.
‘I think we’ll walk,’ he said, and opened the door on Steve’s side for her. ‘The place is only ten minutes away and it’s not nine yet. I don’t want to attract attention by driving the car up to her door.’
Guildford’s steep, narrow main street was still glistening wet. The lights from those shops whose owners considered that their window display justified keeping the illuminations on till midnight sent squiggles of orange, red and green across the roadway. Temple felt Steve’s arm pulling on his as they passed a window where some new silk materials were displayed, draped round bogusly bosomed dummies. A little later she did stop dead, her arm hooked firmly in his elbow.
‘Paul, look!’
They were opposite a brand new shop on one of the most prominent street corners in Guildford. The window display was highly imaginative and for a moment Temple was at a loss to tell what kind of merchandise this establishment was offering. The theme of the display was Mediterranean travel and night life in the gayer Riviera resorts. There were travel posters from Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Yugoslavia, photographs of the Casino at San Remo, the Negresco in Cannes, and some unidentified night-spot in Barcelona. In the middle of all this colour and gaiety was the marble bust of a very beautiful, very twentieth-century woman.
Temple followed Steve’s eyes to the sign painted in flowing letters above the window. ‘Mariano. Coiffeur de Dames.’
‘He gets around,’ Temple murmured.
Steve was enthusiastic about Mariano’s window display.
‘It’s rather dashing, don’t you think, darling? Better than that dreadful wax image with some dead person’s hair planted on it like a wig.’
In fact, Temple noticed, most of the people who emerged now that the rain was over, paused to inspect the gay posters and photographs.
A few hundred yards later they turned into Charlotte Street and crossed over to be on the right side for the odd numbers. The houses here were strictly uniform – arched porches flanked by bow windows and separated from the pavement by sad little patches of downtrodden grass. There was a light on in the hall of number 17 and the black figures stood out clearly on the crescent-shaped glass above the doorway. Temple followed Steve up the three steps and