FRANCIS DURBRIDGE
Paul Temple and the Tyler Mystery
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First published in Great Britain by
Hodder & Stoughton 1957
Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1957
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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008252908
Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008252915
Version: 2017-06-29
Contents
At about ten-thirty on a Thursday evening in early May a prowl car of the Oxford Constabulary was patrolling the Chipping Norton road a few miles outside the city. There had been complaints of wild driving on this fast section during the lurid period immediately after the closing of the pubs.
Sergeant Long turned his Austin a few hundred yards past the Welsh Harp and began to motor decorously back towards Oxford. Only a few weeks earlier the landlord of the Welsh Harp had been warned for serving customers after the prescribed hour. He had made sure of emptying his premises in good time that night. The parking space out in front was already empty, and through the uncurtained windows the two policemen could see the proprietor and his barmaid as they moved among the deserted tables collecting the empties.
‘Not much doing tonight,’ Long remarked to the constable at his side.
‘Pay day tomorrow,’ Benson answered briefly. He was a man of deep thoughts and few words; he spoke in a curiously oblique way which implied more than he actually said.
Three miles further on, a signpost with the words Lay-by swam up into the headlights. As they passed the bay at the side of the road Benson screwed up his eyes to note the number of the solitary saloon car parked there.
‘4006 JDR.’
He repeated the number aloud and switched on the light which illuminated his message pad.
‘Same number, all right.’
Long had already applied the brakes. Both men had memorised the number as belonging to one of the cars stolen in Oxford that evening. He put the Austin into reverse and with one arm laid along the back of Benson’s seat, manœuvred the police car back into the lay-by. Before he had stopped with his bumpers almost touching those of the stolen car Benson was out on the roadway.
The now abandoned saloon was a black Jaguar Mark VII. It was complete and undamaged. Benson opened the door, felt for the light switch and turned
