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‘I heard him on the radio last night,’ interposed Temple with a trace of a smile. ‘A remarkable display of oratory, if I may say so.’
‘Oratory never caught a murderer yet in my experience,’ rejoined Forbes grimly. ‘And nobody knows that better than Flexdale. When I saw him this morning, he sent you a message.’
‘This is an unexpected honour.’
‘He said to me: “We must call in Paul Temple, and there isn’t a minute to lose. Get hold of Temple immediately!”’
Temple flicked the ash from his cigarette.
‘You tell Lord Flexdale with my compliments that if he will finish writing my novel I will catch Rex for him,’ he retorted lightly.
Crane did not appreciate this.
‘You’ll catch Rex, eh, Mr. Temple?’ he ruminated ponderously. ‘Just like that?’ He snapped his fingers expressively.
Temple still refused to take the matter very seriously. ‘Well, after all, Inspector,’ he murmured, ‘I was lucky enough to catch the Knave, the Front Page Man, Z 4, and, if I remember rightly, even the Marquis.’
‘Yes, that’s all very well, Mr. Temple,’ insisted Crane heavily, ‘but, if you’ll forgive my saying so, this is a different proposition.’
Temple gave him a friendly smile.
‘I quite appreciate that, Inspector,’ he said reassuringly. Then he turned to Forbes and asked: ‘When did you first hear about Rex? Forgive my asking such elementary questions, but I’ve been buried in the country.’
‘It was about six months ago,’ supplied Crane.
‘Yes,’ nodded Forbes.’ A man called Richard East was murdered – he was found in his car on the Great North Road. Chalked on the windscreen of the car was the word—’
‘Let me guess,’ smiled Temple. ‘And that was Rex’s first appearance?’
‘The very first time.’
‘How was East murdered exactly?’
‘He was shot through the head.’
‘Motive?’
Forbes stirred uneasily in his chair, and looked across at Crane, whose dour features were inscrutable.
‘There didn’t appear to be a motive,’ said Forbes at last. ‘There never does! That’s the extraordinary part about it, Temple, damn it, we just don’t know what we’re up against!’ He rubbed his chin with an impatient gesture.
‘Well, it certainly wasn’t money,’ ventured Crane. ‘East had about a hundred and fifty quid in his pocket when we found him.’
Temple was obviously getting interested.
‘And after the East murder?’ he asked.
‘After that came the Norma Rice affair. You remember that surely, sir?’ put in Crane.
Temple nodded slowly.
‘Oh yes, I read about Norma Rice. I knew her slightly. I even dallied with the idea of writing a play for her at one time. She was a very remarkable actress.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ nodded Crane. ‘She was found in the express from Manchester. The word “Rex” was scrawled across the window.’
‘So it was,’ nodded Temple. ‘This Rex would appear to be something of an exhibitionist.’
‘Yes, and there again, you see, Temple, there didn’t seem to be a motive,’ interposed Forbes eagerly.
Temple lighted another cigarette and asked: ‘Could it have been suicide?’
Crane’s upper lip twitched sardonically.
‘Suicide?’ he repeated in an amused tone. ‘Not a chance!’
‘Surely with a temperament like Norma Rice’s—’ began Temple diffidently, but Crane interrupted.
‘She’d just opened in a new play at Manchester that had been a big success, and was coming to London in a fortnight’s time. What’s more, she’d got herself engaged to be married, so you might say everything in the garden was rosy. Couldn’t possibly have been suicide, whichever way you look at it.’
Temple frowned and looked across at Sir Graham, who appeared to be lost in thought.
‘Was Miss Rice shot through the head?’
Forbes came back to earth with a start.
‘Good God, no!’ he exclaimed. ‘As a matter of fact, when the ticket-inspector found her he thought she was asleep.’
‘She’d been poisoned,’ added Crane. ‘Obviously somebody had given her an overdose of Amashyer.’ He turned to Temple. ‘It’s a delayed-action narcotic that takes about six hours as a rule to prove fatal, Mr.Temple.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard of Amashyer, Inspector,’ smiled Temple, who had been among the first to discover the presence of this drug in London some years previously. He refilled Crane’s tankard, then turned to Sir Graham.
‘How many of these murders did you say there had been, Sir Graham?’
‘Five.’
‘And in every case you came across the word “Rex”?’
Forbes nodded slowly. ‘On the window of a railway carriage, on the windscreen of a car, on a small lace handkerchief written in lipstick, on the face of a watch—’
‘And don’t forget the tattoo mark on the dead man’s wrist,’ put in Crane, who seemed to take a morbid delight in the more gruesome aspects of the case.
Forbes sipped his sherry, wishing Temple would make up his mind whether he was going to work on the case. He was anxious to get back to his office, acquaint himself with any recent developments and get his team of picked men launched on their respective lines of investigation. He had not been particularly enthusiastic about Lord Flexdale’s decision to call in Temple, for he had the impression that during the past year or so Paul Temple had become rather more interested in writing about crime than in active participation. No doubt Steve had something to do with this, and you couldn’t blame her. Temple made a packet of money out of his books, so why should he go rushing into danger just for the fun of the thing? Yet Temple seemed more than a little interested in this case – that was a part of the man’s charm, decided Forbes. He had a capacity for taking a lively interest in whatever you chose to talk about.
‘Is this word “Rex” the only link between each particular murder?’ Temple was asking, his dark brown eyes alight with eagerness. ‘Is that your only reason for suspecting that each murder was committed by the same person?’
‘Yes, СКАЧАТЬ