Paul Temple and the Jonathan Mystery
Part #3: The Ring
Paul Temple
Steve Temple
Sir Graham Forbes
Diana Nelson
Reggie Macintosh
Mrs. Mavis Russell
Mark Elliot
Richard Ferguson
Mrs. Ferguson
I.
First is the recap. Paul Temple has called his wife who is in the lobby of the hotel, and told her that the man she is accompanying isn’t Max Wyman. Paul gives her instructions to dump Wyman, while she pretends that she’s talking to an old friend so as not to make him suspicious. She successfully escapes, but the false Wyman also drives off – but they get his license plate number.
Temple explains how he knew Wyman was an imposter. Sir Graham had told him that Wyman was the author of a book on Justinian, but when Wyman spoke to them he misidentified a name that he should have known. But Temple hadn’t remembered it until he and Steve had already left.
In the lobby, Paul asks the reception to put through a call for him to London, to Sir Graham Forbes. Reception also hands him an evening paper. The front page says, “Is Richard Ferguson still alive.”
“Someone must have talked,” deduces Paul. “It’s either one of the Fergusons or Reggie Macintosh.”
They return to their room, where they speculate that the attempted kidnapping was because “they” must think that Paul is on to something. Then the call to Sir Graham is connected, and Paul asks him if he’d gotten in touch with Max Wyman. Wyman was away, says Sir Graham, and that he had spoken to Rudolph Charles, Wyman’s roommate.
Paul gives the car number to Sir Graham, they discuss the incident a bit more, then Paul hangs up.
Steve and Paul discuss the case to date, then there’s a knock on the door and Rudolph Charles is there. He had seen the paper that said that Richard Ferguson was still alive, and wants to know if Richard Ferguson is still alive.
Charles tells them that a friend of his, a woman, thought she saw Richard go into the Encounter restaurant. No one believed her, but now he, Charles, believes that she was probably right.
They invite Charles to go down to the lobby for a drink, but he turns them down. He has a date.
II.
In the lobby they part. Steve goes into the lounge, Paul goes to get some cigarettes from the front desk. The desk clerk says they he doesn’t have any, but he can get some in the bar. Mrs. Mavis Russell approaches and asks the desk clerk if there’s a Paul Temple staying there. The desk clerk introduces them.
Mrs. Russell explains that she was a friend of Richard Ferguson’s, and that people are talking of her like she had led Ferguson astray.
She scoffs at the news in the paper about Richard being alive.
“I know Richard’s dead,” says Mrs. Russell. “I had a letter this afternoon from the man who murdered him.”
III.
They are in the Temple’s bedroom, and Mrs. Russell explains her relationship to Richard Ferguson, and then shows them the letter.
It’s a type written letter.
“Dear Mrs. Russell,
I feel quite sure that you more than anyone else would like to have the enclosed. It belonged to Richard Ferguson.”
She then shows the enclosure – the signet ring.
Paul asks Mrs. Russell if she’d ever met someone named Jonathan.
Inside the ring are some initials – A4 and D 4. Mrs. Russell has no idea what they mean.
Paul asks her if she knew a man named Mark Elliot. Mrs. Russell says yes, he owns a restaurant called The Encounter.
Paul then asks her about her writing as Europa and the New Feature. “If you want to know who murdered your son, ask Europa.”
Mrs. Russell says that’s a beastly thing to do, but doesn’t understand why anyone would do it.
IV.
Paul and Steve are having dinner at the Encounter. Steve goes into the ladies’ cloakroom, which is on the first floor. Dinah Nelson and Reggie Macintosh (her brother in law) come up to him. Macintosh explains that he’d let the cat out of the bag because he’d had too much to drink when he’d been talking with a friend who was a reporter.
Diana sounds happy, she believes Richard is alive and there’s a perfectly simple explanation to the whole mystery. Paul points out that if the victim wasn’t Richard, then Richard was probably the murderer.
Macintosh usually pops up to Oxford two or three times a week. He’s in the textile business.
Paul shows the signet ring to Diana, who immediately gets a bit hysterical, and tries to get Paul to give her the ring. Paul refuses.
Mark Elliott comes up to them. He greets Macintosh and Diana, and they have what seems to be a rather pointed exchange. Reggie and Diana leave, and Elliot asks Temple if he’d like to have a drink.
They go into the cocktail bar. Elliot said he’d never liked Ferguson. “I prefer my intellectuals to be over 40.” He says that he had a motive to kill Ferguson – he was being blackmailed by him.
V.
Steve and Paul are back in their hotel room. Steve is yawning and very tired. They discuss Mark Elliot and that Elliot had paid Ferguson over two thousand pounds in the last six weeks.
Steve says she took a favorable view of Mrs. Russell.
It’s 11.45 pm. The phone rings. It’s Richard Ferguson. He begs Paul to bring the signet ring to his landlady Mrs. Gulliver first thing the next morning. If he does so, he’ll meet Paul at the Encounter the next night to explain what it’s all about.
Paul searches for the ring, he thought he’d put it in his inside pocket, but it’s gone.
Paul wonders if Reggie Macintosh took it, but Steve says Elliot took it.
There’s a knock on the door, and Mrs. Ferguson comes into the room. She and her husband are staying in the hotel also. They’d come down to see Mrs. Gulliver. A letter had arrived for Richard that morning, and Mrs. Gulliver had opened it by mistake.
“It’s from that friend of Richard’s. The one no one seems to know anything about. Jonathan.”
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