Lodge by force. Not that Temple admitted to any fear in this respect. But he had to keep out reporters and had installed these little windows purely for this reason. That they also protected him against the gang, however, was certainly an additional advantage, not to be readily underestimated.
On the Saturday at the end of a very eventful week Steve Trent had to undergo inspection through the grill for the first time. At about ten that morning she had left her office behind Fleet Street and stepped into her fast sports car. It was a low, black under-slung model with an engine whose six small, but very powerful cylinders, gave her as much speed as any driver could cope with. Moreover, Miss Trent was still young and unspoiled enough to get a renewed thrill out of speeding.
It provided her with a means of escape from the hard and often sordid details of her daily work. Letting her hair stream out, and with the windscreen flat down in front of her, she would press the accelerator hard down with an exhilarated feeling of freedom. She had reached the office soon after half-past eight on this particular Saturday morning in order to complete a weekly woman’s article, and then fled from the building before an unfeeling news editor could prevent her from keeping her appointment with Paul Temple.
Late the night before had come a telegram from the novelist asking her if she could possibly come and have lunch with him the next day. ‘Interesting news to discuss,’ was the intriguing reason he had given. Steve Trent wondered what the urgency was that had persuaded Temple to send for her in such an unusual fashion. Nevertheless, as she resolutely set her alarm clock for seven o’clock the next morning, she felt tremendously elated.
And she felt even more elated at the near prospect of the meeting as she swung her car out of Tudor Street towards Blackfriars Bridge and the hundred odd miles to Bramley Lodge. A traffic block at the Blackfriars Bridge junction which disregarded the regular ‘Go!’ signal of the traffic lights held her up for nearly ten minutes.
But somehow, on this particular morning, Steve did not seem to care.
At last she was able to release the brakes and, earnestly praying that no vigilant police patrol car would be drawn to her by the lusty roar from the car’s exhaust, she started down the Thames Embankment. Looking periodically into her tiny driving mirror, for the reflection of any suspicious-looking car in the rear, she shot along the wide clear road at just over fifty.
Two and a half hours later, she had parked the car in the drive of Bramley Lodge and was undergoing Pryce’s careful inspection through the little grill. This time, there was none of the enmity Pryce had been forced to display on the first occasion she had called.
In fact she had already won a unique place in the old man’s affections.
Steve Trent had a happy knack of making people like her, at times even against what they firmly believed to be their better judgment. Like Temple she assessed people, not by the rank they held, but at their real value as human beings, and in Pryce Steve found the completely efficient manservant, old-fashioned in his ideas, perhaps, but nevertheless faithful, solid and reliable, who could carry out for the novelist all the many duties of a bachelor establishment.
On the few brief occasions he had seen her, she had completely enslaved Pryce. So much so that, when Temple asked him the day before to prepare lunch for them both and to ‘do your stuff because Miss Trent will be coming,’ he set out to provide a meal fit for a proverbial princess. And Steve Trent enjoyed it to the full when it was set before her.
Nearly as much as she enjoyed being in this lovely old room. Its oak panelling gave it a character which Temple had managed to preserve with the help of, or perhaps in spite of, some real Chippendale furniture an aunt had left him. ‘Always be kind to wealthy aunts,’ had been his never-failing maxim after that occasion. Through the windows the fruit trees could be seen in full blossom.
In the summer it was a very proud host who placed bowls of apples and pears, peaches and less common fruits before his appreciative guests.
The sight of the luxuriant white blossom outside the dining-room windows kept Steve Trent chattering like an excited child. Already her girlhood memories of the even more luxuriant blooms of South Africa were growing dim, and in London she had far too little opportunity of tasting the joys of the countryside.
By common consent, neither of them said a word about Steve’s brother and the crimes that had led their paths together. But Max Lorraine, the mystery man, and his gang of jewel thieves were not very far from the thoughts of either of them. Both regarded this lunch together as something in the nature of a respite. And both host and guest kept up a steady chatter of current events. They talked of Mr. Coward’s versatility, the capriciousness of editors, the publicity value of Mr. Hore-Belisha, the lack of good shows in town, and kindred topics. Each seemed to feel it was essential to go on talking, if only to keep at bay the dark shadow of the powerful gang behind the ‘Midland Mysteries’. They could discuss all that over their coffee later in the afternoon.
And all too soon the coffee stage was reached. Paul Temple made his usual apologies at this time of the year for ‘not being able to give you fruit out of my garden: you will have to wait a bit for that!’ but he produced quite excellent substitutes from foreign climes. The dessert seemed to have the effect of making them silent. After a while they got up and Temple led the way into the lounge.
It was a rather chilly day, and a great fire was burning in the ingle. A number of logs were piled up by the side, drying in the heat of the flames and imparting a pleasant but keen aromatic smell to the room. He pulled up a comfortable armchair for his guest at one corner of the inglenook and produced boxes of Virginia and Turkish cigarettes for her. These Turkish cigarettes were made for Temple by a Greek who kept a little cafe in Shaftesbury Avenue, and Paul Temple, in his self-imposed role of being the perfect host, was very proud of them. They were of excellent tobacco, and the cigarette itself was attached to a gold-tipped tube of equal length which formed the mouthpiece.
He himself took a Virginia and inserted it carefully into his ivory cigarette holder.
‘Would you care for a liqueur, Steve?’ he asked, as he started pouring out the coffee.
Steve Trent hesitated. ‘No, I don’t think so, thanks.’ But then, how was Steve to know that one never refused a liqueur at Bramley Lodge? Temple’s cherry brandy had an almost notorious reputation.
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Temple. ‘By Timothy, this coffee needs it. Pryce,’ he called, ‘a cherry brandy for Miss Trent.’
Pryce had been tactfully hovering in the background waiting for this very command. He, at all events, had no delusions about the cherry brandy at Bramley Lodge.
‘Certainly, sir,’ he replied, and proceeded to pour out precious drops of the rosy liquid. Then he set the bottle down conveniently and temptingly on the sideboard, and silently withdrew.
‘Well, it was very decent of you to come down from town at a moment’s notice like this,’ Temple started at last. ‘I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient?’
‘No, of course not, but—’ and she paused, ‘but why did you send for me so suddenly?’
‘Well, Steve, because…oh, by the way, I’ve decided to drop the Miss Trent,’ he added a little inconsequently. ‘It reminded me of a rather elderly lady I met at a garden party. She thought I was part author of Gone With the Wind.’
A ripple of happy laughter floated across the air.
‘I sent for you, Steve, because I’ve been thinking of what you told me the other day.’
‘You
