‘Ah, Mr. Temple!’ she exclaimed. ‘How nice to see you again. We meet under pleasanter circumstances this time, I hope.’ Suddenly she turned her head as if in alarm. ‘Or do we?’ she added, almost as an afterthought.
‘Yes, of course.’ Paul Temple reassured her with a smile. ‘And how are you, Miss Parchment? Quite well, I hope?’
‘Oh, quite well, thank you,’ said Miss Parchment happily. Even the Commissioner himself was warming to this strange little woman who reminded him of a fragile piece of old porcelain suddenly placed in a room, the furniture and decorations of which were of the most modern varieties. She appeared perfectly at her ease. With her air of old-world calm and quiet, she was not put off by the go-ahead methods of the younger generation. Perhaps her life as a schoolmistress had kept her young. It had certainly not made her the biased and pompous old woman that so many teachers are apt to become. She was bright, even flippant at times, and seemed to have an air of pouring gentle ridicule on all the most earnest efforts of the younger set. She herself was almost timeless, yet intensely human.
‘Very well indeed,’ Miss Parchment went on. ‘A little sciatica now and again, you know. But nothing to complain of.’
Sir Graham Forbes turned to her. ‘Miss Parchment,’ he said, ‘won’t you be seated?’
‘Oh, thank you.’ Miss Parchment rewarded him with one of her most dazzling smiles, as she took the chair Sir Graham indicated.
Suddenly she seemed to recollect her immediate surroundings. ‘Do you know this is the first time I’ve ever been in Scotland Yard!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s quite thrilling, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, er, quite thrilling,’ said the Commissioner drily. He took down a box of his favourite cigarettes from the mantelpiece, preparatory to helping himself, and presented them to Miss Parchment.
‘Will you have a cigarette?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you, I—’ Miss Parchment broke off on seeing the peculiar colour of the cigarettes. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed. ‘Russian cigarettes!’
‘Yes, I—er—I prefer them.’ The Commissioner cleared his throat somewhat heavily. ‘Now, Miss Parchment, I—’
Once again Miss Parchment did not seem to heed his words very intently.
‘So frightfully clever, the Russians,’ she said provokingly, ‘don’t you think so, Mr. Temple?’ she asked, turning towards where the novelist was sitting.
‘Yes, I—er—suppose they are,’ agreed the latter.
‘Tchehov! Ibsen!’ went on Miss Parchment. She seemed to have suddenly embarked on a pet theme of hers. Then just as suddenly she stopped. ‘Was Ibsen a Russian?’ she asked, with rather a strange note of surprise in her voice.
‘Miss Parchment!’ Sir Graham Forbes was endeavouring to preserve that calm of manner on which he so prided himself. ‘Miss Parchment, I should like to ask you a few questions.’
‘And why not, Sir Graham?’ Miss Parchment spoke with a strange, sudden gaiety. ‘And why not?’
A few minutes after six o’clock Paul Temple collected a happy and excited young reporter from the offices of The Evening Post.
Intense excitement reigned outside the office as they drove away. The vans were beginning to load up. Drivers were cursing. Men and boys were running backwards and forwards. As the fast vans tore away at breakneck speed, other vans took their places. Soon the news would have spread to all parts of London and the Home Counties, as the skilful drivers threaded their way at an amazing speed through the rush-hour traffic.
The editors of the rival papers were already beginning to foam gently at the mouth and mutter harsh words at the failure of their own intelligence service. The morning papers were beginning to get busy on the ‘story’, wondering at the same time, in some cases, how they could make the most of the sensation without publicizing too much the news-gathering capabilities of a paper belonging to a rival group.
As Paul Temple started up the car, Steve Trent again opened the copy of the paper she had taken with her. There was her ‘story’, with a streamer headline stretching right across the top of the front page. While the car jolted along, she struggled to read once again the story she had written. ‘It’s the biggest thrill I’ve ever had!’ she confessed to her companion.
Finally they drew up in a quiet Chelsea cul-de-sac, and Paul Temple was gaily escorted up to Steve’s rooms. They were bright, very feminine rooms, yet in the comfort they provided, they were almost masculine. Her sitting-room (‘cum dining-room cum lounge cum office cum women’s gossip club’, as she described it) boasted two very large and very luxurious armchairs, which Paul Temple eyed appreciatively.
A bright plain rust-coloured carpet covered the floor and did most of all to provide an atmosphere which the Germans aptly describe as ‘gemuetlich’. Brown tweed curtains, coloured with a dash of blue, hung over the windows. The furniture in the room was of a sturdy limed pine, ‘not too difficult to look at, and jolly cheap,’ said Steve in praise.
In contrast with the rich warm colours of her large sitting- room, her bedroom was bright and cool. Nearly everything in it was either cream or blue. Even the carpet was blue, while the walls were distempered in a light stone tint. It was a happy little home that Steve Trent possessed, and Paul Temple’s admiration for her and his appreciation of her excellent tastes suddenly jumped up.
But his first remark was one of quiet good humour.
‘So this is where you write all those soul-stirring articles for The Evening Post!’ he said.
Steve Trent, who had been watching him very closely, bubbled over with her infectious laughter. ‘Well, I’m glad somebody thinks they’re soul-stirring!’ she said. Suddenly she became aware that Paul Temple’s arms were still burdened with a host of small parcels, the raw material for the tête-à-tête evening meal Steve had promised him. There were also some cigarettes, a couple of books, and other little purchases Paul Temple had made.
‘Put those parcels on the table, dear!’ she told him.
Paul Temple did as he was told, and then subsided into one of the armchairs he had so much admired when he came into the room.
‘How long have you been on The Evening Post, Steve?’ he asked.
‘Oh, about eighteen months,’ came the reply. ‘I started as “Auntie Molly”,’ she continued with a smile.
‘Auntie Molly?’ queried Paul Temple, looking slightly puzzled.
‘Yes, the—er—the answers to correspondence,’ explained Steve. ‘You know, the—er—the—’ she broke off a little awkwardly.
‘Oh, you mean writing articles about—about love, and things like that?’
‘Mostly about—things like that!’ rippled Steve, and they both began to laugh.
‘I say,’ said Temple, ‘this is a grand little place, isn’t it?’
Steve looked pleased. ‘I’m glad you like it,’ she said.
‘By Timothy, yes!’ said Temple. Slowly he rose out of the depths of his chair and looked round the room again. His eyes finally rested on her radiogram, an extremely large instrument which occupied a corner of the room. It was clearly no ordinary mass production instrument. Its case was of the limed pine of which the rest of her furniture was made.
‘Rather