Off the Record (8 page)

‘He’s having breakfast, sir.’

‘Good-oh.’ One of the best features of breakfast in the Lewis household was coffee. Mr Otterbourne, although eschewing alcohol, had insisted on the finest Mocha and Molly Lewis kept up the tradition.

‘Morning,’ said Steve Lewis from behind the newspaper as Ragnall walked into the morning room.

‘Would you like some coffee, Hugo?’ asked Molly, reaching for the pot.

‘Yes, please,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I’ll take it into the study, if you’d rather I didn’t disturb your breakfast.’

‘Sit down for few minutes,’ said Lewis, halfway through his scrambled eggs and bacon. ‘We’ve got a fair old amount of work to get through but there’s no need to start just yet.’ He looked at his secretary critically. ‘You seem tired.’

‘I’m not surprised. It’s the pillow my landlady wished on me. I’m sure it’s stuffed with rocks.’

‘You look tired yourself, Steve,’ said Molly, with wifely concern, seeing the dark patches under her husband’s eyes. ‘I’ve said before that you’re working too hard. What time did you get to bed last night?’

‘I don’t honestly know,’ Steve confessed. ‘It took me ages to get Gerry’s ideas and mine into some sort of order. We’ll go through the paperwork this morning, Ragnall. Gerry and I are meeting Dunbar at one o’clock and I want to be absolutely certain of my ground. I intended to come straight to bed,’ he added to Molly, ‘but when I finished, I had a nightcap and what was intended to be ten minutes with the newspaper. I’m ashamed to say I fell asleep on the sofa.’ He ate his eggs thoughtfully. ‘There’s no point denying I’m worried about today. I know Gerry’s got right on his side, but if he tries to lay the law down to Dunbar, the entire deal might go up in smoke. The top and bottom of it is that Gerry can’t stand the man.’

‘You can’t blame him,’ said Molly. ‘I don’t like Mr Dunbar very much, either.’

‘Which is why,’ said Steve, ‘I’m so concerned to get our part of the deal tied up so tightly. I haven’t finished yet,’ he added between mouthfuls of bacon. He nodded towards Ragnall. ‘I’ll show you the costs I’ve worked out. Gerry’s not concerned with that part of the business, of course, but I promised I’d bring him up to date before we have lunch with Dunbar.’

He broke off as the maid came into the room with a telegram on a silver salver. With a puzzled look he took the envelope and ripped it open. As he read it, his face altered. Molly was shocked by his expression.

‘Steve? What is it?’ she asked quickly.

He handed the telegram to her. ‘It’s Uncle Maurice,’ he said in bewilderment. ‘It’s from his housekeeper.’

Molly took the telegram from his outstretched hand.
‘Regret inform you Colonel Willoughby victim of attack,’
she read out loud.
‘Condition serious. Come at once. Tierney.’

Ragnall gaped at her in astonishment. ‘Colonel Willoughby’s been
attacked
?’

‘What on earth can have happened?’ said Molly. ‘He can’t have been attacked. No one would harm an old man, surely?’

Steve took back the telegram, his forehead creasing in a frown. ‘That’s what it says. I wish to God he was on the telephone.’ He turned back to Molly. ‘I don’t know what’s happened but I’ll have to go and see him.’

‘Of course you will,’ she said quickly.

‘Who would want to hurt an old man like that?’ He looked at her in disbelief. ‘I can’t credit it. This is the absolute devil.’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Oh, my God, and there’s so much else to
do.
It couldn’t have happened at a worst time. Ragnall, wait for me in the study, will you? Jot a note to Dunbar and cry off the meeting. I can’t possibly see him now. Tell him what’s happened. You can say ‘unforeseen family circumstances,’ if you don’t want to go into too much detail. He’s staying at the Marchmont Hotel in Southampton Row. If you hurry you can catch the post. Do it now and I’ll have a word with you before I go.’ Steve looked utterly distracted. ‘I need to give you some instructions for the day.’ He stood up, turning to Molly as Ragnall left the room. ‘I’ll have to get a move on. I can hardly believe it. Uncle Maurice! I know he’s difficult at times, but . . .’

‘What does that matter, Steve? This is awful.’

‘I know!’ He looked at her in utter frustration. ‘It would happen now! I really needed to see Dunbar.’

‘Can’t Hugo Ragnall go in your place?’

Steve shook his head. ‘He’s got appointments of his own. They could be cancelled, but Dunbar’s such a tricky devil that he’s bound to put one over on him. Besides that, if there’re any documents to sign, I have to do it. What’s really worrying me is Gerry’s temper. Damn!’ He looked at her, struck by a sudden thought. ‘Can you help?’

‘Me?’ exclaimed Molly. ‘Of course I will, but how can I? I don’t know anything about business. Even if I did, Mr Dunbar wouldn’t talk to me. Not seriously, I mean.’

Steve shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant. You’re quite right about Dunbar, but can you see Gerry? After he’s talked to Dunbar, I mean? They won’t be able to decide anything about Otterbourne’s but I want to know what Dunbar’s agreed to about Gerry’s machine. If Gerry knows he’s got to tell you what happened, he might manage to keep the lid on his temper.’

Molly hesitated for a brief moment. The thought of meeting Gerard Carrington alone was oddly unsettling. ‘All right.’

Steve breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks. That’s something, at any rate. You’d better telephone the university and leave a message for him.’

‘If I arrange to meet him at five we can have tea together.’

He kissed her forehead briefly. ‘Make it a Lyon’s or an A.B.C. or something. He probably can’t run to anything more extravagant.’ He squeezed her shoulders. ‘I’ll probably have to stay at Uncle Maurice’s for one night at least, but I’ll let you know. Damn!’ He left the room in a rapid stride.

Molly walked into the hall and, with a deep breath, picked up the phone.

At quarter past five that afternoon, Mrs Evelyn Dunbar, a stout, well-dressed, grey-haired lady, leaning heavily on an ornate walking stick, stood impatiently by the large mahogany desk which dominated the marble-clad lobby of the Marchmont Hotel. There was no one on duty. If she had been more familiar with the Marchmont Hotel she would have realized how unusual that was. ‘Disgraceful,’ she muttered. ‘Absolutely
disgraceful
,’ and, for the third time, rang the brass bell on the counter, keeping up the peal until a distracted-looking clerk shot out of a door marked
Private
and hurried across the lobby to the desk.

‘I have been waiting,’ said Mrs Dunbar, in an unmistakable and irritated Scottish burr, ‘for a full five minutes. If you and the rest of the staff in this hotel intend to ignore the bell, why have one at all?’

‘I’m terribly sorry, madam,’ said the clerk. ‘There’s been a . . .’ He hesitated and swallowed, mindful of Mr Sutton, the manager’s, snarled instructions.
Answer that bloody bell, will you, and for Pete’s sake, don’t let on to any of the guests!
‘There’s been a slight hiccup in routine, madam,’ he said with an attempt at a smile. ‘I really do apologize. How may I help you?’

‘I telephoned earlier in the afternoon and requested a note be delivered to one of your guests, a Mr Andrew Dunbar.’ She raised an imperious eyebrow. ‘I trust that note was delivered?’

‘Yes, Madam,’ said the clerk hurriedly. The question seemed to throw him off-guard. He swallowed once more. ‘Mr Dunbar, you say? I . . . I . . . Yes, of course it would have been delivered.’

The grey-haired lady looked at him sharply. ‘You seem very uncertain on the matter. Never mind. Mr Dunbar
is
here, isn’t he?’

The oddest expression flickered across the clerk’s face. ‘Mr Dunbar? Yes, he’s here all right. But . . .’

‘Mr Dunbar is unaccountably late for our appointment. I would be grateful if you could send up to his room requesting him to join me
at once.
’

The clerk looked downright harried. ‘I’m sorry, Madam, there may be a problem. What name is it, please?’

‘Dunbar. Mrs Andrew Dunbar.’

The clerk gulped. ‘I do beg your pardon, Mrs Dunbar, but I think it would be as well if you came and had a word with the manager. There’s been an accident . . .’

Sergeant Butley looked carefully round the second-floor hotel room. It was getting on for half past five and he should have gone off duty nearly half an hour ago. However, duty
was
duty and if a guest at the Marchmont Hotel chose to shoot himself after hours, so to speak, then it was all in the day’s work. Apparently the man’s wife was downstairs. He’d have to see her before he left.

He sighed unhappily and looked at the rigidly still body slumped across the desk. Andrew Dunbar, a stout, middle-aged, balding manufacturer of wireless and gramophone sets, resident in Falkirk, Scotland. Suicide.

Sergeant Butley’s face lengthened. It wasn’t easy talking to relatives after a death, even when it was an accident. Suicide made it that much worse.

He looked at the fleshy cheeks and sprawled arms and shook his head. On the desk lay a sheet of hotel writing paper inscribed with two words;
Forgive me
. Beside the paper was a fountain pen, its cap carefully screwed back on. The gun, a neat automatic pistol, was loosely clasped in Dunbar’s hand.

‘It’s funny how often they come to a hotel to do it,’ offered Constable Flynn. ‘Think they’ll save trouble at home perhaps.’

‘Maybe,’ agreed Butley.

‘Or,’ continued Flynn, ‘they could want one last night of living it up.’ He looked round the room appreciatively. ‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’

‘Not if you’re dead,’ said Butley dryly. Although not an imaginative man, he was conscious of a feeling of depression. The Marchmont was clean and comfortable with a reputation for good service, but as the gateway to the next world it was so . . . so
ordinary.

The curtain flapped and through the open window came the sounds of a fine summer evening in London. The hotel overlooked Southampton Row with all its bustle and traffic. A car backfired in the street below and Sergeant Butley nodded in recognition. It sounded just like a shot. That, presumably, was why no one had heard the gun. It would be easy to mistake the noise, and you’d never dream it was a shot you’d heard. Talking of the shot . . . Sergeant Butley tilted his head critically to one side. ‘Constable Flynn?’

‘Yes, Sarge?’

‘Just have a look at where this bullet went in. Right at the back of his head.’ Constable Flynn knelt down beside the body and peered closely. ‘Do you notice anything?’

‘It’s an awkward way to shoot yourself, sir. Why, the bloke must’ve twisted his arm right round. I . . . I don’t see how he could have done it.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Butley slowly. ‘By cripes, my lad, this isn’t suicide.’ He swallowed. ‘It’s murder.’

Inspector William Rackham waited as the Divisional Surgeon completed his investigation. ‘Well?’

‘It’s murder, all right,’ said the doctor.

Rackham nodded to Butley. ‘Well done, Sergeant. Good work. What can you tell us, Doctor?’

Doctor Morris wiped his thermometer and put it back in its case. ‘You can have a report with all the fancy language after the post-mortem but I can’t see it’ll tell you much more than I know already. There aren’t any burn marks round the wound but that, by itself, doesn’t constitute a case for suicide.’ He nodded towards the gun held limply in Dunbar’s hand. ‘There frequently aren’t any, especially when an automatic pistol has been used. What is significant is the angle the gun was fired at. I won’t say that it’s impossible for a man to shoot himself in that way, but it’s virtually impossible. I don’t think it’s on the cards. The other thing to notice is this.’ He stooped down on one knee beside the body and pointed to Dunbar’s outstretched hand. ‘You can see for yourselves how stiff the corpse is. He’s absolutely rigid, which, I may say, is very common in brain injuries. Rigor’s very little guide in these cases. It often sets in immediately. However, if you look at this hand which is holding the gun –’ Doctor Morris lifted the index and forefinger of the right hand, ‘– you can see that this hand, and this hand only, is flexible. And what that means is that someone moved this hand after death.’

Rackham smiled grimly. ‘They’ve tried to be clever, haven’t they? What about the time of death, Doctor?’

Morris glanced at his watch. ‘It’s just gone half past six. It’s a warm day, which will affect things but, on the other hand, the window’s open, which has cooled the room. I’d say he died between half past three and about half past five. If I had to make a guess it’d be roundabout four to half past or thereabouts, but that’s only a guess, mind. It’s impossible to be any more accurate.’

‘He was discovered at five o’clock,’ said Sergeant Butley. ‘The chambermaid came in with fresh towels and found him.’

The doctor raised his eyebrows. ‘Did she, by Jove? That narrows down the latter end of the timescale. We’re fortunate that the body was discovered so soon.’

‘He would have been discovered very shortly in any event, sir,’ volunteered the sergeant. ‘His wife should have had afternoon tea with him.’

‘His wife?’ said the doctor. He glanced round the room with a puzzled frown. ‘Did she have another room? She obviously wasn’t staying in this one.’

‘She’s not staying here at all, sir. Apparently Mr Dunbar and his wife were separated.’

‘I had her escorted home,’ said Rackham. ‘She lives in Kensington. Her son lives with her and she says he should be home from work when she arrives, so she won’t be alone. She was pretty upset, poor woman.’ He saw the doctor’s expression. ‘And no, before you get up in arms in her defence, I didn’t ask her any questions. I didn’t think she was up to answering any.’

The doctor subsided. ‘That’s very restrained of you. Is she a suspect?’

Rackham frowned. ‘Technically, yes. Actually?’ He shrugged. ‘I doubt it. I’ll speak to her tomorrow. What I do need is someone who saw him this afternoon. Sergeant Butley, can you start making enquiries of the hotel staff ? I’ve already seen the chambermaid, of course, but if you find any other witnesses, let me know and I’ll interview them as soon as I can.’