.

But I thought he might be more superficial than these surroundings suggest.’ When Scott Reed had gone Paul had spent the evening reading history. It was one way of getting to grips with the missing man. And he had found that Kelby’s books were like his television appearances, so brilliant that you suspected him of showing off. He was provocative and witty. Not quite the academic historian.

      ‘He’s a shabby-looking bloke, I gather,’ said the inspector. ‘Lives a pretty dull life here in Melford.’

      ‘Yes. I was referring to his mind.’

      ‘Oh.’

      Paul Temple talked for several minutes about the Kelby he had met and how their lives had occasionally intersected. But it didn’t add up to much. On the occasions when Kelby had been accompanied by a woman she had been thirty years younger than himself, which had also seemed ostentatious.

      ‘Young people have livelier minds,’ said Charlie Vosper. ‘Why should he be compelled to go about with women of his own age? He’s a widower.’

      ‘Really? I didn’t know he had been married.’

      ‘His wife died ten years ago. He has a son, Ronnie, who is staying here at the moment. He’s on holiday from America.’

      ‘Oh yes, of course. Scott Reed said something about avoiding the son; Kelby was fishing after a job for him.’

      ‘Mr Kelby and his son didn’t like each other,’ Vosper said grimly.

      When Paul Temple saw the young man he could understand why. Ronnie was fair haired and charming in an obvious, straightforward way, and his mind was totally conventional. He must have been a grave disappointment to Kelby.

      ‘Do you think my father has been murdered?’ Ronnie asked.

      Inspector Vosper was at his most intimidating. ‘Why, do you think he might have been?’

      ‘I don’t know. If he’d just been kidnapped we should have heard now, shouldn’t we? It’s five days since he left to attend that council meeting.’ He lit a cigarette and glanced nervously at the constable who was writing everything down. ‘The kidnappers would have asked us for the ransom, or something.’

      ‘The other alternative is that he simply cleared off. People are doing that all the time, they simply leave home. It isn’t against the law.’

      Ronnie shrugged. ‘So what are you doing here?’

      ‘Making bloody sure, son. What did you do with yourself on Monday?’

      ‘Monday? Oh, I got up, drifted about—’

      ‘What time did you get up?’

      ‘Half past nine.’

      ‘And where did you drift?’

      ‘Around the house until lunchtime. I usually spend the morning trying to seduce Miss Leonard. She’s my father’s assistant. Then when I fail I go down to the pub for lunch or over to the golf club. It consoles me, you understand, restores my faith in my virility. On Monday I went over to the golf club and went round with the pro. There was nobody else about and I don’t have any friends in Melford. I came back to the house feeling sorry for myself.’

      ‘Time?’

      ‘Oh, between four and five. Then I wrote off for a job.’

      ‘What job?’

      ‘With the Arts Council of Great Britain.’

      Paul found that his attention was straying as the routine interviews proceeded. He ought to have been interested, as Vosper said, to watch somebody else at work. But Paul hadn’t yet acclimatised himself to the English times. In America they were hours behind and they never went to bed.

      He stopped yawning when Tracy Leonard came into the room. She was tall and twenty-five and had straight brown hair. She wasn’t the type to take bullying from Charlie Vosper. She didn’t take to the bluff, fatherly manner either.

      ‘Mr Kelby is a historian, inspector. He needs his books and his papers, otherwise he can’t work. And he had promised Neville Chamberlain to his publisher by October.’

      ‘Neville Chamberlain?’ said Vosper blankly.

      ‘He was prime minister before the war.’

      ‘I know who he was, Miss Leonard! I just fail to see what Neville Chamberlain has to do with your employer’s disappearance!’

      She smiled patiently, a demure advertisement for the very best toothpaste. ‘I am explaining to you that Mr Kelby cannot have left home voluntarily. He is writing a book on Neville Chamberlain, and obviously he will have done absolutely no work this week. He has to work here, among all this.’ She gestured eloquently at the muddle of the library.

      Charlie Vosper took three deep breaths and composed his leathery face back into a friendly expression. ‘Well, that seems to imply that he was removed by force. After all, if he were lost or had fallen ill the local police would have found him. They’re known from here to London as the Blue Berets.’ He chuckled to prove his good nature, the policeman with a sense of humour.

      ‘How did you spend last Monday?’ he asked her.

      ‘I worked all day. I have a room in what Mr Kelby calls the east wing. It’s a room built on to the side of the house. I came through at nine o’clock and opened the post, sorted out the day’s work…’ She had worked for Kelby for several years and her routine was established.

      ‘When did you realise Mr Kelby was missing?’

      Tracy Leonard smiled. She regarded that as a silly question. ‘He was due back from the town hall around one, and he didn’t return. If you mean when did I really become worried, that was in the evening. Ronnie Kelby and I spent half the evening doing a tour of Melford. We searched everywhere he was likely to be. And then at about ten o’clock we went to the police.’

      ‘Did Ronnie Kelby,’ the inspector asked surprisingly, ‘share your concern?’

      ‘I think so. He went for three hours without making a pass at me.’

      ‘How galling for you.’

      ‘It’s like having fleas, you don’t notice them after a while.’

      Tracy Leonard had been one of Kelby’s brightest students; she had stayed on to do research with him when all her contemporaries had taken jobs as schoolteachers, and she had given up university life when Kelby had. She thought he was a great historian.

      ‘Have you any idea why he would have been taken by force?’

      ‘I assume somebody wanted to get their hands on that diary.’

      ‘What diary?’

      ‘The diary that Scott Reed left with him on Monday morning. It seemed to be an important historical document.’

      Charlie Vosper rose slowly to his feet. ‘You didn’t tell me anything about a diary.’

      ‘You didn’t ask me. It was apparently rather valuable.’

      Paul intervened tactfully to save the girl from the massive wrath of the law. ‘Rather scandalous, actually. I should think a lot of people would give a lot to have it suppressed.’

      ‘You knew about this?’ Charlie shouted.

      ‘I assumed everybody knew.’

      Charlie Vosper was turning a terrible shade of mauve.

      *

      ‘No, he wasn’t shouting, Mrs Ashwood. The inspector has one of those voices that carries a long way.’ Paul Temple lifted the ladle to his lips and tasted the stew. ‘Especially when he’s angry. This is a stew like they used to make it in the depths of the country, Mrs A.’

      ‘Mr Kelby is very partial to it, sir.’

      ‘I’m