Design For Murder: Based on ‘Paul Temple and the Gregory Affair’. Francis Durbridge

      

      FRANCIS DURBRIDGE

       Design for Murder

      PLUS

       Paul Temple’s White Christmas

      WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MELVYN BARNES

       Copyright

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by

      John Long 1951

      ‘Paul Temple’s White Christmas’ first published in Radio Times 1946

      Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1946, 1951

      All rights reserved

      Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright,

      Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

      Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      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.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008242077

      Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008242060

      Version: 2017-09-26

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Introduction

       Chapter I: Death of a Policewoman

       Chapter II: A Lift From Doctor Fraser

       Chapter III: The Cottage on the Cliff

       Chapter IV: Sir Donald Angus Is Perturbed

      

       Chapter V: The Girl Who Knew Too Much

      

       Chapter VI: Mr Linder Has an Alibi

      

       Chapter VII: Miss Beaumont Remembers

      

       Chapter VIII: A Warrant for Mr Luigi

      

       Chapter IX: A Woman’s Intuition

      

       Chapter X: Guest Night at the Palais

      

       Chapter XI: Exit Mr Luigi

      

       Chapter XII: Presenting: ‘Mr Rossiter’

      

       Paul Temple’s White Christmas

      

       Also in This Series

      

       By the Same Author

      

       About the Author

      

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      In November 1951, when John Long published Design for Murder, Francis Durbridge (1912–1998) had for many years been the most popular writer of mystery thrillers for BBC radio and was soon to make his mark on television and in the theatre. He remains best known as the creator of the novelist-detective Paul Temple, who first appeared in the 1938 BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple. This was an immediate hit, and led to Paul and his wife Steve rapidly becoming cult figures of the airwaves in the sequels Paul Temple and the Front Page Men (1938), News of Paul Temple (1939), Paul Temple Intervenes (1942), Send for Paul Temple Again (1945) and many more. These first five radio serials were all novelised, published by John Long between 1938 and 1948, and most recently reissued in 2015 by Collins Crime Club.

      In 1950 there was an interesting development in Durbridge’s career with the publication of Back Room Girl, a novel that was not based on any of his radio serials. He followed this in April 1951 with Beware of Johnny Washington, a rewrite of his first novel Send for Paul Temple with various plot changes and a new set of characters, including replacements for Paul and Steve.

      From this it appears