Paul Temple and the Kelby Affair. Francis Durbridge

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      ‘Something you’re going to publish?’

      ‘Yes.’ Scott Reed stared into his coffee. ‘Well, we might. I was waiting for your opinion. And it depends on whether we can get an indemnity from all the living people who are mentioned in it. To make sure they don’t sue us for libel.’ He fidgeted slightly. ‘What do you think?’

      As an historian Kelby considered that very few diaries should be published. ‘Serialisation in the Sunday papers,’ he complained. ‘It starts all the amateurs dabbling in history, writing letters. Clutters up scholarship.’ His voice died away as he browsed through the yellowing pages. ‘Good gracious me! Who was this woman? I take it the writer was a woman?’

      ‘Yes. Lord Delamore’s mistress.’

      ‘Lord Delamore?’ Kelby looked pleased. ‘I knew him.’ He read through a few more pages with intense fascination. But gradually he was frowning and clucking his tongue. ‘This isn’t history, it’s downright scandal. Does she have much to say about the way he died? That was the great mystery of 1947.’

      ‘She says a lot about that.’ Scott Reed rose to leave. ‘Perhaps you could read it through and have supper with me on Thursday?’ He smiled distractedly. ‘You can sign the release then.’

      ‘Release?’ Kelby was obviously delighted. ‘Am I mentioned in this?’

      ‘I’m afraid so.’ Scott was edging his way to the door.

      ‘I say, are you off already? I wanted you to meet my son, Ronnie. I don’t think you’ve—’

      ‘I’m sorry, Kelby, I haven’t been to the office yet. I’m late. When does Ronnie go back to the States?’

      ‘Well,’ Kelby began hesitantly, ‘he may be staying in England—’

      ‘Good. Bring him with you on Thursday evening. My wife will be pleased to see him.’ Scott Reed patted the diary. ‘And don’t lose that, for God’s sake. We haven’t been allowed to make a copy until the contract is signed.’

      Kelby was protesting that copies were an historical imperative, but Scott Reed was scuttling across the lawn like a white rabbit, looking anxiously at his watch and eventually scrambling into the driving seat of the Rover. He hooted twice on the horn and vanished towards Melford Cross.

      Alfred Kelby was a distinguished historian: he looked like a don and in fact he had been one until he found that it was interfering with his work. He was sixty-three and had too little time left for teaching thick-headed students. He now confined his lecturing to rare and highly paid television appearances, and spent most of his days researching a life of Neville Chamberlain. He ambled back to the alcove in the library, to finish his cold toast and marmalade.

      It was early spring and low shafts of sunlight were penetrating the dusty corners of the library. Those intimations of summer that usually made him feel optimistic in March, that reconciled him to the rural remoteness of Melford House. But after the briefest glance at the larch trees opposite the window he was browsing again through Scott Reed’s diary. He didn’t hear Tracy Leonard come in.

      ‘The post has arrived,’ she announced. ‘There’s a reply from Ted Mortimer.’

      It should have an index, of course. Kelby had instinctively turned to look up Chamberlain in the index. These amateurs, dabbling in history. Not that Chamberlain had any connection with the Delamore affair.

      ‘I said there’s a reply from Ted Mortimer.’

      ‘Mortimer?’ Kelby smiled, because she was attractive, especially for a secretary. ‘What does he want?’ Severe, but that was all part of her efficiency thing. Like her habit of slightly bullying him. Tracy Leonard was efficient.

      ‘He wants to talk to you about the loan.’

      ‘That means he still can’t repay me.’

      ‘Presumably. And I’m not surprised.’

      Tracy Leonard sat at her desk and crossed her legs with elegant disdain. She flicked open her notebook and leaned forward to write. It made Kelby feel slightly sad that the curve of her thighs against the chair should be so perfect. They had worked together for many years, yet he still felt a pang when she came into the room, when he saw that sweeping gesture with her brown hair. He would never totally know the girl now, and the pangs made him feel like an elderly reprobate. Kelby wondered whether she had a lover, but he didn’t dare ask. She had become inviolable.

      ‘Shall I telephone and make an appointment for you to see him?’

      Kelby nodded. She had admired him once, and Kelby had thought himself in love with the girl. He remembered her embraces that summer and found the memory painful. To her it obviously meant almost nothing, except that if she thought about it she would probably despise him. He was a foolish old man.

      ‘Tell him I might drop in at Galloway Farm this afternoon. At about half past four.’

      She had been a softly spoken and submissive girl until that afternoon when Ted Mortimer had burst into the library while they were working. He had made a scene, shouted his accusations, and Tracy had never forgotten them. That was why Kelby hated the man when he thought about it. He rarely did think about it. He picked up the diary from the table.

      ‘You look pale,’ said Tracy. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to put the whole business into the hands of your solicitor?’

      ‘No, that would be vindictive. He probably hasn’t the money, and it wouldn’t help anybody to sue him.’

      There was nothing submissive about her face at the moment, her long mouth tight with disapproval. Perhaps she was vindictive, he decided, unless she wanted to save him pain.

      ‘I don’t have any other appointments, do I?’ He smiled and made a conscious effort to become his old impish, happy self. He saw himself as mischievously cheerful. ‘I can make this afternoon.’

      ‘Yes, there’s only the council meeting at half past eleven this morning, then you’re free for the day.’

      She was looking at the calf-bound diary, trying to see what had been so absorbing him. It was sheer perversity of Kelby to pick it up and put it secretively in his briefcase. ‘I’ll read this during the meeting,’ he chuckled. ‘More interesting than education business.’

      ‘It looks like a diary,’ she said casually.

      ‘Just something Scott Reed wants me to look at. They’re thinking of publishing it.’

      Kelby left her feeling pleased with himself. His simple pleasure at thwarting her survived even seeing Ronnie come down the stairs, in his pyjamas, at half past ten.

      ‘Aren’t you dressed yet?’ he asked automatically, but his mind was elsewhere. He would leave Tracy Leonard to squash the wastrel son.

      ‘Don’t worry, father, it’s on the agenda.’

      As Kelby left the house he could hear his son attempting his irresistible charm on the secretary. ‘How romantic you make that sound, Miss Leonard. “There’s nothing in the post for you, Mr Kelby.” That sentence is the basis of our relationship.’

      ‘We СКАЧАТЬ