Send for Paul Temple Again!. Francis Durbridge
‘No, seriously, what do you think of it?’
‘It’s stupendous! It’s terrific! It’s colossal!’ he enthused, rescuing her ball of wool which had rolled under a chair. He went on, ‘How much did it cost?’
‘You’ll never know!’ laughed Steve. ‘I paid cash.’ She went on knitting for a while and her husband idly rolled the ball of wool along the edge of the settee.
‘What did Sir Graham want?’ asked Steve presently, doing her utmost to make the inquiry sound casual.
Temple dropped the wool and felt for his cigarette-case.
‘Oh, he just happened to be passing,’ he answered lightly.
She did not speak again for a minute or two. Temple wandered rather restlessly round the room, lighting a cigarette and stubbing out after a few puffs. Presently Steve gave vent to a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness, that’s the heel finished!’ she announced. Then, apparently as an afterthought, ‘Paul, have you seen the evening paper?’
He turned quickly.
‘No, darling. Why?’
Steve reached for her handbag, opened it and took out a small, neatly folded square of paper, which she opened out and passed over to him. The first thing to catch his eye was the streamed headline:
SCOTLAND YARD SENDS FOR PAUL TEMPLE
He glanced quickly at the report, then tossed the paper on the floor.
‘Darling, you know what they’re like in Fleet Street,’ she murmured apologetically.
‘I know,’ Steve nodded, the memories of her newspaper days always fresh in her mind.
‘I can’t think where they could possibly get this information from,’ went on Temple hurriedly. ‘Considering we only got here last night—’
‘Did Sir Graham mention this Rex affair?’ asked Steve in the same casual tone, though her heart was beating much faster than she would have cared to admit.
‘Oh, he mentioned it, of course, in a general sort of way,’ replied Temple vaguely, glancing at his wrist-watch, and suddenly leaping to his feet. ‘I say, I must be off. I’m supposed to be at Broadcasting House at seven sharp.’
‘I’ll drive you down,’ she offered.
‘Good!’ he agreed. ‘Then if you pick me up later we can have a spot of dinner together and I’ll tell you all the blunders I made.’
‘Yes, let’s do that,’ she nodded. But she seemed to have suddenly become restrained and on the defensive. He could see that she was troubled.
‘Steve, don’t worry,’ he begged. ‘I’m not going to get mixed up in anything more dangerous than the Brains Trust. I promised you last time, remember?’
Her face seemed to clear.
‘All right, darling.’
‘So come along, put on that ridiculous hat of yours and let’s go and earn an honest living.’
‘Okay. And don’t make a fool of yourself any more than you can help.’
She thrust her knitting under a cushion and went out into the hall with him.
‘Good heavens, why should I? Just because I’m in the Brains Trust!’
‘Well,’ murmured Steve, standing in front of the mirror and adjusting her hat to the correct angle, ‘what shall you do if they ask you some pretty awkward questions?’
‘That will rather depend,’ smiled Temple. ‘But I imagine I shall give them some pretty awkward answers!’
It took them rather less than five minutes to reach the dignified entrance to Broadcasting House, but the clock showed three minutes to seven as Temple passed into the hall, and he chafed impatiently as he waited to announce himself to the receptionist, who dispatched a pageboy to accompany him to the studio immediately.
He found the announcer talking to Donald McCullough and both eyeing the clock anxiously, while the members of the Brains Trust were sitting round a table in the centre of which was a microphone. They were all looking extremely cheerful and engaging in desultory bursts of conversation.
‘I’m afraid you’ve missed the “warming-up” question, Mr. Temple,’ said the announcer, ‘but you’ll be all right.’ He briefly acquainted Temple with the procedure, and a minute later they were ready to go.
‘Remember, although this is a recording, it’s the real thing! So get right on your toes,’ smiled the announcer.
‘Really, I’ve never felt so nervous in my life,’ admitted Lady Weyman, a tall woman with piercing eyes, who rather surprisingly proved to be an expert on international affairs.
Next to her sat A. P. Mulroy, editor of the London Tribune, and a very young man for the job – a man who never hesitated to print what he thought.
Sitting next to him was Sir Ernest Cranbury, Professor of Economics, who had a large following in America by reason of his readable book on the subject of the gold standard. He was a man in the early fifties, with pale, watery eyes, iron-grey hair and a protruding forehead.
As he slipped into his seat next to C.E.M. Joad, who favoured him with a murmured greeting, Temple was overcome for a moment by the collection of such distinguished individuals, and wondered what he could possibly add to the remarks of such a company. However, he nodded and smiled at the producer, who was sitting behind Donald McCullough. Suddenly McCullough began to introduce them.
He paused for a moment, then continued: ‘Our first question this evening comes from Mrs. Palfrey, Chorley Forest, Abingale. She would like the Brains Trust to explain what is meant when one speaks of the Science of any particular subject. Is it correct, for instance, to speak of the Science of History?’
McCullough looked round his team, who were reading duplicates of the question on slips of paper passed round by the producer. Presently, Joad raised a languid hand, and McCullough nodded to him.
‘Well, of course, it all depends what you mean by the word “science”,’ Joad was beginning in his inimitable fashion, when there was a strangled gasp from Sir Ernest, who suddenly fell forward across the table, knocking a carafe of water and two glasses on to the floor. Lady Weyman could not suppress a scream and Joad stopped speaking.
Meanwhile, the announcer had gone to the microphone and given the curt order, ‘Stop recording!’
‘It’s my heart!’ gasped Cranbury, clutching aimlessly at his coat. ‘I can feel it…racing…’
‘Are you all right, Sir Ernest?’ cried Lady Weyman rather unnecessarily.
‘I’ll be all right presently,’ Cranbury told them. ‘I’m most terribly sorry.’
‘Get some more water,’ said McCullough, and one of the studio assistants ran to obey.
Sir Ernest tried to struggle into an upright position.
‘Don’t try and get up, Sir Ernest,’ advised Temple, who was feeling Cranbury’s pulse. The sick man gave a little cry of pain and relapsed into his former position.
‘Don’t excite yourself, and lie perfectly still,’ insisted Temple still holding Cranbury’s wrist. He turned to tell McCullough that it would be advisable to get a doctor, and the latter replied that the staff doctor was on his way.
Cranbury took a sip at the glass Temple held to his lips, then said in a weak voice: ‘Temple, listen! There’s something I want you to know, just in case anything happens.’
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Temple tried to reassure him though he felt far from confident on the subject.
‘It’s just a sort of giddy turn,’ said Mulroy comfortingly. ‘We all get ’em at times.’