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For the moment the dead body of Skid Tyler was forgotten. Temple alone seemed to take this extraordinarily timed visit completely for granted.

As Sir Graham Forbes remained staring at Sergeant Leopold as if he were some new species of monster, Temple took it upon himself to issue instructions.

‘Ask her to wait a few minutes.’

‘Very good, sir,’ the sergeant answered, after a pause that was barely perceptible.

‘Where’s the bottle, Sir Graham?’ asked Chief Inspector Dale suddenly.

The Commissioner walked over to a filing cabinet against the wall by the window where he had placed the bottle. The corkscrew and the cork itself were lying near it.

‘It’s…here—’ he managed to say. The Commissioner, normally the most alert and ready of men, now appeared completely baffled.

‘I can’t understand it,’ he went on. ‘The bottle’s a new one.… I bought it myself only two days ago.’

Chief Inspector Dale took the bottle and examined it closely. He turned it from side to side, scrutinized the neck, and finally peered intently at the opening, and cork. At last he looked up.

‘The stopper doesn’t seem to have been tampered with as far as I can see,’ he said. Then again he carried on with his scrutiny. ‘Just a minute!’ Dale hesitated. ‘I’m not so sure.’ From the Commissioner’s desk he took a powerful magnifying glass.

‘Someone must have tampered with it!’ exclaimed Inspector Merritt. ‘Why—’

‘Then the poison must have been meant for you, Sir Graham,’ said Paul Temple quietly; ‘and not for Tyler.’

The Commissioner blinked at him. ‘Yes—it—er—looks very much like it,’ he said.

Meanwhile the body of Skid Tyler was still lying sprawled out unnaturally on the armchair. They had all been too busy with the strange mystery of his death even to think of moving the body.

‘I think we’d better get him into the other room, sir,’ Inspector Merritt said, indicating the body with a wave of his hand. ‘Then Doctor Parkes can have a look at him.’

‘Yes…Yes—er—by all means,’ agreed the Commissioner. He was still very flustered. Completely gone was all pretence of the usual calm, collected man of affairs. Many Press reporters would have given a great deal to have seen him in this state.

‘Oh, and take this bottle,’ he added to Merritt. ‘See that Mollinson gets to work on it.’

Andrew Arthur Mollinson was the research man. After a careful examination of the bottle, during which he was apt to use apparatus of every kind varying from powerful microscopes to ultra violet rays, he would in all probability be able to give an accurate picture of the history of the bottle immediately preceding the strange murder.

The Commissioner pressed a bell to summon Sergeant Leopold again. With the latter’s help, Dale and Merritt picked up the inert mass which had been Skid Tyler and struggled towards the door.

‘You might tell the doctor I’d like a word with him,’ said the Commissioner, as they were going out.

Slowly, down the corridor, they carried him. Finally laying his body flat on a couch so that Dr. Parkes could make his examination before rigor mortis set in.

‘Terrible business!’ Sir Graham remarked to Paul Temple, as soon as the door had closed. ‘I can’t possibly understand how—’ Suddenly he remembered that a ‘mere wisp of a girl’, as he regarded her, had been present right through this gruesome scene, and he turned to Steve Trent with a great measure of fatherly solicitude in his voice.

‘I say, I hope it hasn’t shaken you up, Miss Trent?’

‘No, I’m all right, Sir Graham,’ Steve replied. She had faced similar and even worse ordeals before, and she was comparatively hardened to such sights. ‘But I’m afraid I shall have to be going,’ she continued. ‘I have an appointment at four o’clock and I—’

‘Yes, of course,’ interrupted the Commissioner. ‘Of course.’

Steve Trent knew she had a story any newspaper man would willingly have given a year of his life to possess. There was only one thing to do, and that was to get to the office as fast as the first taxi would take her.

It seemed a pity to leave, but then everything of importance had already happened. In very little over an hour’s time, Sir Graham Forbes would be reading her account in The Evening Post, ‘and she thrilled in anticipation’.

First she talked over the question of the story with the Commissioner and with Temple. Sir Graham gave her full permission to report the events of the afternoon exclusively for The Evening Post, but she must use her discretion in its presentation. Her own part, her eyewitness account, she could give. But she must not, at any cost, stress the sensational side of the mystery.

They were vague instructions. But Steve Trent understood only too well the mood the Commissioner was in, and she did not care to alienate his sympathies. He had also promised her further information if she telephoned or called later in the afternoon, and it was very much to her advantage not to antagonize him.

The murder of Skid Tyler had engrossed her thoughts to such an extent that she had almost forgotten she was a reporter. But now, Steve began to tremble with excitement as the immense value of her ‘news story’ began to sink in to her consciousness.

She bade the Commissioner goodbye and thanked him. But her thoughts were elsewhere. Already she was struggling with her ‘intro’—the first few lines of the report that she felt sure would cause a sensation in Fleet Street. She arranged to meet Paul Temple at the office in about an hour’s time, after her fierce tearing rush was over. Then she said au revoir to him, and was sprinting downstairs to the main door. The ‘story’ was about to ‘break’. As Steve hurriedly looked round for a telephone box, she could literally have shouted with excitement. At the same time, she was running through the whole scene again in her mind, ready to write up her account of it.

She turned round the corner and ran as fast as she could into Westminster Bridge Station. Luckily one of the booths was vacant. In a flash she was inside and dialling her office.

‘It’s Steve Trent here. Will you find me Mr. Watts as quickly as you can? It’s urgent!’

A second’s wait, and she was through to the imperturbable news editor.

‘I’ve got a terrific “story”!’ she started. ‘Skid Tyler’s been murdered in Forbes’s room at the Yard. Forbes gave him a glass of brandy. It killed him. Poison. He was just going to spill the beans. What? Yes. Died in five minutes…Yes…in a phone box in Westminster Bridge Station…No…Yes…Temple, Dale and Merritt, nobody else, except Forbes himself.… Yes, I’m coming over now. Taking the first cab I can find. Goodbye.’

A split second later, and Steve Trent was back on the pavement waving her arm wildly at an approaching taxi.

‘The Evening Post office, as fast as you can make it. For God’s sake, get a move on!’ she added, as she flung herself into the back seat.

The offices of The Evening Post were nearly always in a state of wild excitement but Steve’s telephone call had acted like an earthquake. The number of calls passing through the telephone switchboard was suddenly trebled. Small boys sprinted up and down the corridors carrying pages of proofs. Machines were being stopped. Pages were being reset. Subeditors were swilling down quantities of hot tea.

In desperation the news editor ordered the edition which had just been printed to have the all-important news stamped on the ‘Stop Press’ column. Two minutes later he countermanded his order so that his competitors would not learn of the extraordinary happenings before his next edition had the full story.

Later, when it was all over, Steve wondered how the newspaper was ever produced, in this state of utter turmoil.

A typist was already sitting at a typewriter, ready to start typing at her dictation. By now Steve had the whole story mapped out in her mind. Throwing off her hat on to the table, she started.

After three sentences, a frenzied news editor rushed in, shouted ‘Marvellous, Steve!’ pulled the sheet of paper out of the typewriter, and rushed out again. Barely had they got four more lines on to the next sheet when he was back again. With hand on the top of the sheet, he watched for the full stop. Then out came the page, and Mr. Watts had vanished.

In the meantime, the art department had secured a photograph of Skid Tyler and another of Sir Graham Forbes, and blocks were being made with feverish haste in the race against time. Another reporter had already finished writing a brief resumé of the ‘Midland Mysteries’.

Meanwhile, completely unaware of this terrifying haste at the offices of The Evening Post, Sir Graham Forbes was discussing with Paul Temple the astonishing events of the last half-hour.

‘I wonder whether the poison was meant for Tyler,’ he speculated, ‘or…or for me?’

‘Yes,’ replied Paul Temple in subdued tones. ‘Yes, I wonder.’

‘It seemed strange that Tyler should be poisoned,’ went on the Commissioner, ‘just when he was on the point of talking.’

‘Yes. Yes, it seems strange, doesn’t it?’

For a few moments, neither of the two men spoke. Both seemed to be speculating on this new viewpoint. Was Skid Tyler’s death, after all, an accident, and was the poison destined for the Commissioner himself? Or had he been killed because he was just about to reveal all he knew of what was going on behind the scenes of the ‘Midland Mysteries’?

‘Oh, by the way, Temple,’ the Commissioner suddenly resumed. ‘A constable at Leamington remembers talking to a girl in a saloon car shortly before the robbery occurred. For some reason or other, he’s got it into his head that she had something to do with it.’

‘Did he take the number of the car?’ inquired Temple.

‘No, I’m afraid he didn’t,’ replied Sir Graham.

‘He’s written out a pretty good description of the girl, though.’

He walked over to his desk, opened a drawer and took out some folders. From one of them he extracted a sheet of paper from which he started to read.

‘Height about five feet four. Dark. Rather good-looking. Dressed in a smart grey costume with a fox fur. She had a set of golf clubs in the back of the car. Oh, and apparently she wore a small black wristlet watch.’

‘A small black wristlet watch?’ repeated Temple.

‘Yes,’ said the Commissioner. ‘Does that convey anything?’ He had noticed Paul Temple’s sudden look of surprise as he came to the words ‘black wristlet watch’. He was curious to know the reason.

‘I don’t know,’ said Temple quietly. ‘It might.’

‘We’ve tried to trace the girl,’ the Commissioner informed him, ‘but so far we’ve failed.’

Paul Temple nodded. He got up from his chair, and paced up and down the room. Then he took out his inevitable pipe and carefully filled it. Not until it was smoking to his satisfaction did he speak again.

‘Sir Graham,’ he started. ‘I’ve got an idea in my mind and—’ He hesitated, as if for words.

‘Yes?’ prompted the Commissioner.

‘There’s a jeweller’s in Nottingham by the name of “Trenchman”,’ said Paul Temple suddenly, his mind now apparently made up. ‘They go in for a considerable number of antiques, and all that sort of thing. I was at Oxford with the junior partner – a fellow called Rice. Alec Rice.

‘Now if it became known that Trenchman’s had a very valuable stone on their hands, say a blue-white diamond, for argument’s sake, it would be a pretty safe bet that our friends would, in the course of time, pay Trenchman’s a friendly little visit.’

He paused while Sir Graham Forbes gave thought to his scheme. ‘Yes,’ agreed the Commissioner, though somewhat dubiously. ‘Yes, I dare say they would.’

‘Well, I’m of the opinion that the robbery at Leamington, and all the other robberies for that matter, have been very carefully planned and premeditated.’

Sir Graham was still not over-enthusiastic. ‘I still don’t quite—’ he started.

‘I’m also of the definite opinion, Sir Graham,’ Paul Temple continued, without giving the Commissioner an opportunity to express his doubts, ‘that if it became known that Trenchman’s had a very valuable stone, the people we are up against would take the trouble to verify its existence before actually planning the robbery.’

Again he paused as if to allow his words to sink in.

Sir Graham Forbes had gradually been growing interested, in spite of himself. Now he looked up with some signs of enthusiasm over the drawn lines of his face.

‘Verify its existence?’ he repeated.

‘Yes,’ agreed Temple. ‘Now Alec Rice would, I feel sure, help us over this matter. He would supply us with a list of all the inquiries they might receive about this particular stone. Naturally, most of them would be quite legitimate, but there’s the possibility, a strong possibility in my opinion, that amongst that list there would be an agent of—’

‘Of…the Knave of Diamonds!’ exclaimed Sir Graham.

‘Yes.’

‘By Jove!’

All Sir Graham’s doubts had obviously vanished. ‘By Jove!’ he said again. ‘That’s an idea, Temple!’

He started walking backwards and forwards along the well- worn patch of carpet in front of his fireplace. He tossed the stump of his cigarette into the fire, now dying away through lack of attention, and lit another of his favourite cigarettes. He was turning the plan over and over in his mind and his eyes glinted. Sir Graham Forbes was essentially a man of action. It was the lack of any method, any campaign, any scheme by which some information about the Lorraine gang might be acquired, that had brought about his continual bad temper of the last few days.

‘Now the whole idea would have to be handled very, very carefully,’ Paul Temple continued, embroidering on his plan. Now that he had got the main outline into form, he was thinking over the various details to which attention would have to be paid.

‘We’re not dealing with fools, remember,’ he went on. ‘One or two brief references to the stone might appear in the daily Press, an article or two in the trade journals, and that’s about all. There must be nothing clumsy or blatant about the way the existence of the stone is brought to light, or they’d tumble to the idea immediately.’

‘Yes, of course,’ assented the Commissioner. It was obvious by his attitude that the barriers between the two men had at last been removed.

‘I’ll get into touch with Rice immediately,’ said Paul Temple.

‘And now I suppose I’d better see this woman, Miss—er— Parchment,’ said the Commissioner with a mighty sigh.

Paul Temple’s plan was now fixed. Sir Graham was leaving the details of its execution to the novelist while he himself kept the guiding reins. Miss Parchment had been waiting his pleasure for some time, and he felt it was time he interviewed her, though the immediate prospect did not fill him with any great satisfaction. Nevertheless, he pressed the bell on his desk.

‘Miss Parchment,’ said Paul Temple thoughtfully. ‘Did she ask to see you, or—’

‘No, I sent for her,’ put in the Commissioner. ‘She was at the inn the night Harvey was murdered.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Temple with a smile. ‘I questioned her.’

‘She’s a retired schoolmistress, isn’t she?’

‘Yes. A retired schoolmistress, with a passion for old English inns.’

At that moment the door opened again, and Sergeant Leopold appeared. Immediately behind him the two men saw the somewhat stately form of Miss Parchment. Her bright eyes seemed to sparkle even brighter as Sergeant Leopold announced her presence.

Sir Graham Forbes rose to greet her. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Miss Parchment,’ he said, ‘but I’m rather afraid that—’

But Miss Parchment was not listening quite as intently as she might have been.

She had caught sight of Paul Temple standing a few yards behind the Commissioner, and her face broke into a happy smile of recognition as she started towards him.

‘Ah, Mr. Temple!’ she exclaimed. ‘How nice to see you again. We meet under pleasanter circumstances this time, I hope.’ Suddenly she turned her head as if in alarm. ‘Or do we?’ she added, almost as an afterthought.

‘Yes, of course.’ Paul Temple reassured her with a smile. ‘And how are you, Miss Parchment? Quite well, I hope?’

‘Oh, quite well, thank you,’ said Miss Parchment happily. Even the Commissioner himself was warming to this strange little woman who reminded him of a fragile piece of old porcelain suddenly placed in a room, the furniture and decorations of which were of the most modern varieties. She appeared perfectly at her ease. With her air of old-world calm and quiet, she was not put off by the go-ahead methods of the younger generation. Perhaps her life as a schoolmistress had kept her young. It had certainly not made her the biased and pompous old woman that so many teachers are apt to become. She was bright, even flippant at times, and seemed to have an air of pouring gentle ridicule on all the most earnest efforts of the younger set. She herself was almost timeless, yet intensely human.

‘Very well indeed,’ Miss Parchment went on. ‘A little sciatica now and again, you know. But nothing to complain of.’

Sir Graham Forbes turned to her. ‘Miss Parchment,’ he said, ‘won’t you be seated?’

‘Oh, thank you.’ Miss Parchment rewarded him with one of her most dazzling smiles, as she took the chair Sir Graham indicated.

Suddenly she seemed to recollect her immediate surroundings. ‘Do you know this is the first time I’ve ever been in Scotland Yard!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s quite thrilling, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, er, quite thrilling,’ said the Commissioner drily. He took down a box of his favourite cigarettes from the mantelpiece, preparatory to helping himself, and presented them to Miss Parchment.

‘Will you have a cigarette?’ he asked.

‘No, thank you, I—’ Miss Parchment broke off on seeing the peculiar colour of the cigarettes. ‘Ah!’ she exclaimed. ‘Russian cigarettes!’

‘Yes, I—er—I prefer them.’ The Commissioner cleared his throat somewhat heavily. ‘Now, Miss Parchment, I—’

Once again Miss Parchment did not seem to heed his words very intently.

‘So frightfully clever, the Russians,’ she said provokingly, ‘don’t you think so, Mr. Temple?’ she asked, turning towards where the novelist was sitting.

‘Yes, I—er—suppose they are,’ agreed the latter.

‘Tchehov! Ibsen!’ went on Miss Parchment. She seemed to have suddenly embarked on a pet theme of hers. Then just as suddenly she stopped. ‘Was Ibsen a Russian?’ she asked, with rather a strange note of surprise in her voice.

‘Miss Parchment!’ Sir Graham Forbes was endeavouring to preserve that calm of manner on which he so prided himself. ‘Miss Parchment, I should like to ask you a few questions.’

‘And why not, Sir Graham?’ Miss Parchment spoke with a strange, sudden gaiety. ‘And why not?’