Vosper finished his coffee and then said casually, ‘Well, we found it late last night, but it needs more than new furnishings. I’m afraid there was a very bad accident the other side of Newport Pagnell.’
‘Tell me more,’ Paul said with a glance at Steve.
‘We found it in a ditch beside the M1. The car seems to have left the road, hit an RAC telephone box and then rolled down the bank. The radiator is damaged and the windscreen smashed.’
‘Any trace of the driver?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Vosper. ‘He was still at the wheel, with a bullet through his head. I forgot to mention the mess on the upholstery.’
Steve had risen to her feet. ‘Oh, Paul!’ She turned away and began pouring more coffee. ‘So that’s why you’re here.’
‘Who was the man?’ Paul asked. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Yes, we know him. He was a small-time car thief called Den Roberts. There were fake number plates in the back of the car; I daresay he planned to change them over in Birmingham.’
‘Was Roberts alone in the car?’
‘He was alone when we found him.’
Paul thought for a moment. Roberts may have quarrelled with his accomplice, although it seemed unlikely that anybody would shoot the driver of the car he was travelling in. It was a problem.
‘What’s happened to my car now?’ asked Paul.
‘It’s in the Pentagon Garage at Newport Pagnell. They’ll telephone you when it’s repaired.’ Charlie Vosper raised himself ponderously from the chair, picked up his plain clothes trilby and announced with deliberation that it was all go, wasn’t it? ‘If there’s nothing else, Temple…’
‘I’ll see you out.’
Paul took the inspector into the passage and closed the kitchen door. He glanced up the stairs behind him to the main part of the house, to make sure that Kate Balfour wasn’t listening. ‘Charlie,’ said Paul, ‘there’s just one thing.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘This man Roberts. I wondered – could he have been mistaken for me?’
Vosper was surprised. ‘Well, he wasn’t much like you to look at, but it happened at night. Anybody overtaking the car might have been under the impression…I suppose it’s possible. Do you think it was an attempt on your life, Temple?’
‘No,’ Paul said lightly, ‘I haven’t an enemy in the world. But let me know if there are more developments.’
He watched Inspector Vosper pad away down the cobbled mews and turn into Chester Square. Then Paul went back into the kitchen. He smiled reassuringly at Steve and began pouring more coffee.
‘We’ll have to book up for Geneva or the Highlands of Scotland this morning –’
‘Darling, I suppose it didn’t occur to Inspector Vosper that whoever shot the car thief might have been under the impression they were shooting you?’
‘Good Lord, Steve, whatever put that idea into your head?’
‘Don’t tell me Britain’s number one Private Eye didn’t think of that one,’ she said seriously. ‘It was your car, in the dark, and the number plates hadn’t been changed. Anyone following the car must have thought you were driving it.’
‘You’re being fanciful, darling. I expect you’re worried about travelling by bus for the next week or so.’ The telephone rang at that moment and Paul hoped it would be somebody to take Steve’s mind off the subject.
‘Mr Temple!’ called Kate Balfour. ‘It’s Scott Reed for you!’
‘I’ll take it up in the workroom,’ said Paul.
‘Yes, it was a classic story of its kind – I sat up until three o’clock. Couldn’t put it down. Absolutely riveting, although I still don’t know who committed the murder. Was that intentional?
‘But it will keep me solvent for another year,’ Scott Reed concluded. ‘Might even pay for this academic study of history and the myth of potency which I’ve just published.’
‘What was that about?’ Paul asked politely.
‘I’ve no idea.’
Paul sat in the swivel chair at his desk and swung round with his feet in the air. Scott was a difficult man to keep to the point. And the idea of a scholarly work proving that politicians were national sex symbols seemed absurd.
‘Before you ring off, Scott,’ he interrupted, ‘hang on, I want to ask you about Carl Milbourne. What made you think I’d want to get involved? Is there something mysterious about his death?’
‘Good lord, no,’ Scott said nervously. ‘He was a friend of mine, that’s all, and naturally when his wife told me she needed to talk to a skilled investigator –’
Paul laughed. ‘I don’t believe you, but it doesn’t matter. Steve is dragging me off on holiday at the end of the week. You’re a devious old devil. We’ll see you when we come back.’
He replaced the receiver and swung his chair round to the desk as Kate Balfour tapped on the door. She showed in a dramatically attractive woman. Paul didn’t need telling that this was the ex-actress widow of Carl Milbourne. She was dressed in mauve and she swept in with the distraught air that had thrilled gallery first-nighters in play after play during the post war years. She began pouring out her troubles as Paul was shaking her gloved hand.
‘It’s no use, Mr Temple,’ she said tensely, sitting in the chair which Paul had indicated and peeling off the gloves, ‘the more I think about it the more certain I am that the dead man we saw that morning was not my husband.’
Paul nodded sympathetically and asked why she hadn’t said so at the time.
‘I was upset. Confused.’ A rapid glance at Paul and then she looked down again at the hands in her lap. ‘I really didn’t know what was happening.’
‘But your brother was with you, Mrs Milbourne, and he also identified the body. Surely he wouldn’t have –’
‘Maurice was upset too,’ she intruded. Her tone suddenly changed. ‘You mean you’ve seen Maurice? You’ve been talking to him?’
‘My wife and I had dinner out last night – at L’Hachoire Restaurant. Your brother was there, and he invited us into his office for a drink.’
‘What did he say about me?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘He said that you were still very upset, Mrs Milbourne, and that you simply refuse to face up to your husband’s death.’ Paul sat on the sofa next to her. ‘I didn’t know your husband well, Mrs Milbourne. I only met him once, and that was several years ago. I don’t believe he was married then.’
‘We were married six years ago.’
‘I remember him as a very charming man. I’m not surprised you find it difficult to imagine a world without him. You must feel very lonely now. I gather you don’t have any children?’
Margaret Milbourne had acted in enough problem dramas to understand the significance of Paul’s question. ‘That’s true. We both wanted children, but it wasn’t to be.’ She sighed. ‘Mr Temple, you might think this business has been too much for me and that I’m perhaps – a little unbalanced. But I assure you –’
‘Don’t worry about what I think, Mrs Milbourne. For the moment let’s concentrate on the facts. What was your husband doing in Geneva?’
She