Paul Temple and the Curzon Case. Francis Durbridge

from bad homes,’ said Steve.

      She glanced at herself in the ornately carved mirror above the imitation Adam fireplace. She was wearing a sheer maxi dress with varying degrees of subtle see-through, printed in bands of colour that ranged through blues, reds and mauves. Captivating, Steve thought to herself. So much more restrained than the vulgarly fashionable girl Scott Reed employed as his publicity officer.

      Steve half listened to somebody arguing that capital punishment gave added zest to a murder mystery, while her husband’s group discussed crime in general. She took a dry martini from a passing tray. As the only person in the room who had read the doctor’s book Steve felt a certain aloofness towards the gossip. She felt that Paul was being obtuse about it.

      ‘How can you write a book on the psychology of crime?’ he had asked three times on the way to the party. ‘There are so many different types of crime. I mean, you could write about delinquency or the aggressive impulse—’

      ‘He does,’ Steve had said patiently.

      ‘Criminals are not personality types,’ Paul had continued. ‘They’re people who’ve committed a crime, that’s all, by sudden temper or under provocation, under stress. Unless they’re psychopaths.’

      ‘That’s what he says,’ Steve had murmured.

      ‘Absurd!’

      An elderly lady novelist was bearing down upon Steve with a flourish of her stole and the glint of a storyteller in her eye. Steve turned quickly to the police inspector standing beside her. ‘I didn’t realise crime was so dull,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re going to make many arrests this evening.’

      Inspector Vosper was hurt. ‘I’m here in my private capacity,’ he protested. ‘Mr Temple said I should masquerade as a human being for one evening.’

      ‘What happens when the clock strikes midnight?’ Steve asked him.

      Charlie Vosper looked every inch a policeman with his blue shirt and black tie, plain clothes and cropped grey hair. ‘I turn back into a pumpkin.’ He prodded a finger confidentially into Steve’s left arm. ‘What do you think of this psychology nonsense, eh? How many burglars do you suppose Dr Stein has caught red-handed?’

      ‘Dr Stern,’ she corrected him. ‘I don’t suppose he—’

      ‘Exactly. Would he recognise an embezzler if he stood next to one in a bank? Unless he was wearing a mask!’

      ‘He explains in his book—’

      ‘Books are all very well, Mrs Temple,’ the inspector said heavily. ‘But a policeman’s job is ninety per cent routine hard work and ten per cent knowing the criminal and pinning the rap on him. Dr Stein can’t teach me how to apprehend a murderer.’

      ‘That’s what he says,’ Steve murmured. ‘Dr Stern.’

      ‘Ridiculous!’

      Steve sat wearily on the sofa by the assistant commissioner. ‘What do you make of it, Sir Graham?’ she asked. ‘Are you wishing Paul hadn’t dragged you along to this party?’

      ‘Not really, although the place is rather short on pretty girls. Only one attractive female in sight.’ Sir Graham Forbes closed the book and looked about the room. He was a dapper man with a bouncy, military manner, a military moustache and the steel blue eyes of a soldier. ‘The trouble with crime is that it doesn’t give the women a chance. Look at Paul over there, discussing penal reform with all those dreary men. He’s neglecting his wife.’

      ‘Bless you,’ said Steve, giving him a kiss on his bristling cheek.

      The criticism was not altogether warranted. Paul was at the drinks table jostling among the journalists to get his glass refilled. He emerged eventually from the scrum and tottered across to the sofa.

      ‘Hello,’ said Paul. ‘You look like an oasis of sanity in this mad publishing world. Can I join you?’ He sat on the floor beside the sofa. ‘Oh dear. Crime is too serious a matter to be left to experts. Have you ever heard so much nonsense talked?’

      ‘Sir Graham,’ Steve explained, ‘has been regretting the absence of women from the ranks of crime. Down with male domination, that’s what we say.’

      Paul laughed. ‘I’ll drink to that. Dr Stern forgot to mention sexual differences, didn’t he?’ He looked triumphantly at Steve. ‘I knew the book wasn’t thorough! And poor old Scott is beginning to wish he’d never published it. He’s threatening to sack his non-fiction editor for committing the firm to a book about rats.’

      ‘Rats?’ Inspector Vosper repeated nervously.

      ‘Yes, Scott is losing his grip. He assumed that because there were graphs and footnotes it was a scholarly work.’

      ‘Paul,’ said his wife disloyally to the others, ‘is another of those people who think that psychology is bunk.’

      ‘That’s not true! But I am an arts man, and I think that detection is something to do with logic and understanding people, having intuition and predicting individual behaviour.’

      ‘Hard work and attention to detail,’ Inspector Vosper muttered audibly.

      ‘Detection?’ said Sir Graham. ‘But the book isn’t about detection, is it?’

      ‘Of course not,’ said Steve.

      ‘Then what the devil are we doing here?’ Paul demanded indignantly. ‘Why did Scott ask me to bring along the cream of the British police force? I thought it was a handy manual on spotting crooks by the bumps on their heads. I wouldn’t have agreed to review it if I’d known.’

      ‘I suppose,’ the assistant commissioner said thoughtfully, ‘that we detectives understand crime, understand the psychology of crime if you like. But we don’t reach our understanding by experiments on rats, or by statistics. Charlie has understanding, but it’s not the kind of thing that can be described in a book. For instance, Charlie was telling me this evening of a case that he’s—’

      Inspector Vosper coughed and straightened his shoulders.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ Sir Graham demanded. ‘I was going to tell Temple about those two boys—’

      ‘Yes, sir, that’s what I assumed. I wondered whether that would be discreet.’

      ‘Discreet?’ The military voice barked with exasperation. ‘Discretion is for inspectors, man! An assistant commissioner can be as indiscreet as he likes!’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘If we were discreet we’d accept that no crime had been committed and get on with our work.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘And don’t keep on saying yes, sir, like that. This is an informal occasion. Relax and look as though you’re enjoying the art of conversation. Sit down, man.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ Vosper sat on a stiff-backed chair and tried to compose his stern features into a relaxed order. He was doing quite well until Steve began choking with laughter.

      ‘The point is that no crime has been committed,’ Sir Graham resumed. ‘At least, not that we know of. We’ve simply had a missing persons report, and that wouldn’t justify a full scale investigation. But Vosper thinks the situation should be looked into, and he’s usually right about these matters. A first class detective has a nose for anything not quite right.’

      ‘Really?’ said Paul with bland innocence. ‘Intuition, eh?’

      ‘What I call nose-ology,’ said Sir Graham. ‘But I looked it up in the index of Dr Stern’s book and he doesn’t mention it.’

      ‘Tell me,’ said Paul, ‘about these two missing boys.’

      Vosper glanced at the assistant commissioner, then cleared his throat. ‘Do you know Dulworth Bay?’ he asked conversationally.