‘Excuse me, Mrs Dunbar,’ said Jack. ‘But if you hadn’t seen your husband for a couple of months or so before his death, how were you so sure of his change of mood?’
She said nothing for a moment.
‘I told you, didn’t I?’ said Ferguson. ‘Don’t you remember? We talked about how odd it was.’ He looked at Jack. ‘It was after that I started to wonder who I could ask about it and eventually I thought of you.’
‘That’s right, Hector,’ she said with a tinge of relief. ‘Yes, you told me about it.’
Hector Ferguson stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I saw him about two weeks after Charles Otterbourne and the Professor copped it.’
‘And that was the last time you saw him, wasn’t it, Hector?’
Ferguson looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Yes,’ he said after a slight pause. ‘Yes, it must have been. You’re quite right, you know, Mother. It is funny to think you’ve seen someone for the last time. He’d come down to meet Captain Lewis. I thought he’d be beside himself about Professor Carrington’s death but he wasn’t.’
‘He had been,’ said Mrs Dunbar with a touch of reproof.
‘That may be so, but he got over it pretty quickly, didn’t he? He was going to meet Captain Lewis and talk things over with him. Perhaps he had the idea about asking Gerard Carrington to work on his father’s machine then, but if he did, he didn’t mention it.’ He looked at Mr Bryce. ‘Do you know when it was decided Gerard Carrington should take over the work?’
‘It was later that same week,’ said Mr Bryce, after a moment’s thought. ‘As you say, Mr Dunbar had come to London to see Mr Lewis and it was then the arrangement was made.’ His round face crinkled unhappily. ‘It was an awkward situation. We – the firm, that is – have a clear right to Professor Carrington’s machine. Mr Dunbar hoped that Gerard Carrington would complete his father’s work under the same terms that Professor Carrington agreed but Gerard Carrington refused to be bound by that contract.’ He stopped and looked at Mrs Dunbar with an apologetic air. ‘I know you have reservations about Captain Lewis, Mrs Dunbar, but in my opinion if it hadn’t been for his intervention, I believe Mr Carrington would have been a great deal more awkward about matters.’
Mrs Dunbar bridled. ‘Captain Lewis! Don’t talk about Captain Lewis to me! Andrew should never have got involved with Otterbourne’s. I distrusted Stephen Lewis from the moment I saw him.’
Hector Ferguson wrinkled his nose. ‘Did you, mother? I thought you got on perfectly well.’
She drew herself upright. ‘Naturally, Hector, I did not parade my feelings, but I have them, all the same. I do not expect you to understand my reasons. I have never concerned myself with matters of business.’
‘Which is why you asked Mr Bryce and me to accompany you to the meeting.’
‘But I do understand people,’ she continued, as if Ferguson hadn’t spoken. ‘Stephen Lewis has a shifty expression. Not only that, but he has grey eyes.’
‘What on earth have his eyes got to do with it?’ said Ferguson in bewilderment.
‘I have never trusted anyone with grey eyes. You may laugh, but the eyes are the window of the soul. Grey eyes are the token of a treacherous nature.’
‘You can’t honestly intend to run a business based on what colour someone’s eyes are, Mother. It’s crazy.’
‘It is nothing of the sort, Hector. This whole idea of an association with Otterbourne’s has been nothing but trouble from the word go. It was a disaster from the start. For all his reputation, in my opinion Mr Otterbourne had a most undesirable love of publicity with his so-called good works and his model factory and his model village and making sure everyone lived model lives. It was nothing but unwarranted interference and busy-bodying. Andrew might have had his faults but at least he was content to let his workers simply be, without constantly telling them what they should do and how they should live and what they should think. Charles Otterbourne was nothing more or less than a dictator and eventually he showed himself to be the fraud he always was. I am not an unfeeling woman. No one who has lived my life could be. Heartbreak has been my lot. I have known tragedy. I have supped sorrow with a spoon. I would not mock or jeer at the depths of misery which force self-annihilation, yet I tell you, I believe Charles Otterbourne received nothing but his just desserts. The mills of God grind slowly, Hector, but they grind exceedingly small.’
There was a stunned pause from the men in the room. Jack bowed his head as if moved beyond words. What he was actually doing was trying desperately not to look at Bill. He knew that if he did, he couldn’t help but laugh.
Mr Bryce made a hrumm noise. ‘And yet, Mrs Dunbar, the offer from Otterbourne’s is a good one. I understood you were perfectly satisfied. Captain Lewis is, I know, keen to proceed with the deal and I would be failing in my duties if I did not urge you most strongly to consider it.’
Evelyn Dunbar lifted her head and looked at him squarely. ‘I will not entertain the notion.’ She shuddered. ‘Stephen Lewis is not to be trusted. I know that glamorous, handsome type, with their smooth speech, fine clothes, slick manners and easy charm. I’ve seen any amount of Captain Lewises in my time. Stage-door Johnnies, the lot of them!’
‘Lewis isn’t like that,’ protested Hector Ferguson. ‘You make him sound like a tailor’s dummy. He’s a good-looking beggar, I suppose, and he knows how to enjoy himself, but you can’t hold that against him.’
‘I know, Hector,’ said Mrs Dunbar repressively. ‘I am never wrong about these things. Andrew trusted him and he paid the penalty.’
Hector Ferguson brought down his hand with a thump on the leather arm of his chair. ‘For heaven’s sake, Mother! Are you saying that Stephen Lewis murdered my stepfather?’
She winced. ‘Murder is a harsh word, Hector. But yes, I think it’s possible. More than that, even.’
‘That’s the third theory you’ve been certain of in as many minutes!’ said Ferguson in exasperation. ‘First Gerry Carrington killed him, then he killed himself and now you’ve accused Stephen Lewis. What earthly reason have you got for suspecting him?’
‘You may mock intuition, Hector, but there is such a thing in this world as guidance.’
‘It’s guiding you up the garden path this time,’ he said shortly. ‘Come on, Mother, you can’t be serious. Stephen Lewis can’t have bumped off my stepfather. He was nowhere near the place. I read as much in the paper.’
She closed her eyes in the manner of a Pre-Raphaelite mediaeval saint. ‘I make no claims to cleverness. There was a time I regretted that. Learning was something that, no matter how earnestly I desired it, was not mine to command. And yet, there was a purpose in that, as there is in all things. I have come to see that what the world calls learning is flawed. True wisdom knows the human heart. My intuition is never wrong.’
Ferguson snorted dismissively. ‘Apart from the times it’s not right. Wisdom or no wisdom, I can’t see how Lewis could be in two places at once.’
This time Jack couldn’t help looking at Bill. Bill’s eyes crinkled and his mouth was suspiciously tight. It was a good few moments before he could say anything but when he did, his voice, much to Jack’s admiration, was level. ‘Mr Ferguson is quite correct, Mrs Dunbar.’
‘It’s unfair to Mr Lewis that you should harbour such suspicions,’ put in Mr Bryce. ‘The offer from Otterbourne’s is very good. I’m not dismissing intuition, you understand, but it would be very awkward for us to deal with Mr Lewis if you take against him. It’s bad for business.’
‘Business!’ murmured Mrs Dunbar, subsiding back against the sofa.
Mr Bryce pursed his lips. ‘I’m afraid you will have to consider what is best for business, Mrs Dunbar. The firm is yours and you have to take the decisions. I will, of course, advise you to the best of my ability but the decisions are yours.’
‘Mine as well,’ put in Ferguson. He hesitated, looking at his mother’s bowed head. ‘I was looking forward to it. I’ve got plans, things I want to do. You liked my idea
s. You said you wanted me to run the firm.’
Mrs Dunbar put her hand to her forehead. ‘That is no longer possible, Hector. I will probably sell the firm.’
Both Mr Bryce and Hector looked startled but it was Ferguson who spoke. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘Can’t I? Correct me if I’m wrong, Mr Bryce, but as I understand it, the firm is not doing as well as it once was.’
‘Unfortunately, that is so. We are, I may say, not alone. These are very hard times for any gramophone manufacturer. The quality of sound on the wireless is excellent and records have slipped out of fashion.’
‘Records sound tinny and outdated,’ said Hector Ferguson. ‘That’s why my stepfather was so enthusiastic about Professor Carrington’s machine. We might not have seen eye to eye about lots of things but he was right about that. If this machine is all it’s cracked up to be, we’ll go great guns.’ He leaned forward, his eyes bright. ‘Can you imagine it? As I understand it, we’ll be able to reproduce a sound that’s so close to the real thing you’ll hardly be able to tell the difference. I know musicians who can fill a dance floor. If we can capture any of the excitement of that sound, we’ll make a mint. It’s not just musicians, either, it’s singers too. At the moment, no one bothers much about singers. All the attention is given to band leaders but – I was thinking of you, Mother – you were famous because you were a singer. There’s no reason why a singer shouldn’t be a star.’
‘Now that,’ said Mr Bryce in a pleased sort of way, ‘is the kind of radical idea that we need.’
‘You can’t give it up now, Mother, you really can’t. What’s the problem? You were all for it earlier on.’
‘You seem to think, Hector, that I am running the firm solely for the benefit of you and your friends.’
‘That’s not—’
‘You have, I know, ambitions to be a musician.’
‘I am a musician,’ said Hector, flushing. ‘What on earth’s got into you, Mother? You’ve always encouraged me before.’
‘If you are serious, Hector, you should study. Paris, perhaps, or even New York. I’ve heard you talk about New York often enough.’
‘I don’t want to go to New York,’ said Ferguson mutinously. ‘Not now. You said I could run the firm.’
‘Don’t be silly, dear,’ said his mother with a lightning smile. She picked up the pair of gold-wire framed spectacles she wore on a chain round her neck, carefully put them on, and stared at her son without speaking. Then she laughed. ‘Look at you. You’re far too young to tie yourself to an office desk. It’s all for the best. You don’t want to be bothered with business at your age. You’ll be far, far happier in New York.’ There was an edge to her voice. ‘Trust me.’
NINE
‘Mrs Dunbar,’ said Bill Rackham, once they were out of the house and safely out of earshot, ‘takes the biscuit. She must be the most appalling woman I’ve ever come across. I couldn’t believe it when she insisted on telling us about money and her freedom and so on. A pearl of great price. I’ve never heard anything like it. It was downright embarrassing, to say nothing of all that toe-curling stuff about supping sorrow with a spoon, or whatever it was.’
They crossed the street, walking towards the tube station. Essex Gardens was one side of a square. In the middle of the square was a tree-lined, railed-off garden which, as the notice detailing Regulations For Use beside the iron gates informed them, was restricted to Residents Only. The shady paths and open lawn were, in a picture of prosperous middle-class content, occupied by a scattering of householders and, correctly Secured On A Leash, a bevy of well-behaved dogs, all enjoying the evening sun.
‘I mean,’ said Rackham in disgust. ‘Look at this place! It’s hardly a picture of grinding poverty, is it? To hear her talk, you’d think she’d been forced to take in washing.’
‘It was a wonderful performance,’ said Jack with a grin. ‘I wonder if the Bluebell of Scotland has become a thistle. Or, to put it another way, if she was spiking your guns?’
Rackham looked at him. ‘You mean all that nonsense was intentional? It can’t have been. You’d have thought the silly woman wanted to be arrested.’
‘Maybe she did.’
‘Following in her mother’s footsteps, you mean?’ Rackham sighed impatiently. ‘She’s such a blinkin’ drama queen she’s probably rubbing her hands together at the thought of appearing in court. I know people do confess to crimes they haven’t done. They want the attention, I suppose. She’s half-baked enough to be one of them.’
‘She didn’t actually confess, though, did she?’
‘No, she stopped short of actual lunacy.’
‘And yet she was demonstrably on the spot and she certainly had a motive. Like you, I think nine hundred quid a year is nothing to be sneezed at, but if she’d really had money to burn before she married Dunbar, she probably did resent it. And I know she put it oddly, but she has regained her freedom now Dunbar’s dead. What she’s done is present you with the points that tell against her wrapped up in way that means you can’t really take her seriously. After all, say you did arrest her. What would happen?’
‘If she treated a court to a fraction of the nonsense we’ve just heard, I imagine most of the jury would die laughing. You can never tell, though. Some of them might think she was a tragic victim. It wouldn’t wash though, Jack. Once her doctor gave evidence that her ankle really was crocked, she’d be acquitted.’ He looked at his friend inquisitively. ‘What’s on your mind?’
Jack clicked his tongue. ‘She’s an actress, Bill. She looks like an unremarkable middle-aged lady. Before she rang the bell on the desk at the Marchmont Hotel no one from the hotel had taken any notice of her.’
‘So what?’
‘So our unremarkable middle-aged actress could easily come into the hotel, complete with a change of clothes and a different hat. She could get up to Dunbar’s room, do the deed and be back downstairs without anyone really noticing she’d been there in the first place.’
‘But her ankle was crocked.’
‘Her ankle might have been crocked but that doesn’t paralyze her from the waist down, does it? She is still capable of movement. How were you so sure that she hadn’t taken the lift up to the second floor?’
‘I asked the lift boy. When I was called to the Marchmont I saw Sergeant Butley. He was waiting in the manager’s office with Mr Sutton, the manager, Mrs Gledburn, the chambermaid who’d found the body, and Mrs Dunbar. Mrs Dunbar was so upset I sent her home. We’ve got to be careful of interviewing witnesses when they’re in a state. I don’t like doing it and any statement they do make would probably be deemed inadmissible as it was obtained under duress. However, before she left, I collared the lift boy and asked him if he’d taken Mrs Dunbar up in the lift. I wanted to ask him while it was still fresh in his mind. He was positive he hadn’t.’
‘But he didn’t know Mrs Dunbar, did he? I bet he didn’t recognize her as such, but remembered what she was wearing. If he was asked to identify a lady in green tweed with a cloche hat, say, it wouldn’t occur to him to him she could possibly be a woman in red, for instance, with a fox-fur collar and a wide-brimmed panama with a veil and a feather.’
Rackham bit his lip. ‘That’s true enough. You’re right, dammit. I’ll tell you something else, too. She must have said about a dozen times how awful it was to think of her husband lying dead upstairs while she was sitting alone in the lobby, waiting for him. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but she did insist upon it. She told the manager he must have seen her, sitting quietly in the lobby, not knowing what dreadful news awaited her – I think those were more or less her exact words – and he agreed, of course.’
‘He would, under those circumstances. He wouldn’t want to argue with a newly bereaved woman. I can’t imagine the manager was feeling any too bright, either.’
‘No, he wasn’t. I can see he wouldn’t want to contradict her. At the time I thought he probably hadn’t noticed her at all, but it’s odd,
you know, how convincing that sort of innocent-sounding statement can be. I have to say I didn’t take Mrs Dunbar seriously as a suspect. Her account of herself seemed so credible that I didn’t really doubt it.’
They walked for a couple of minutes in silence. ‘If Mrs Dunbar did murder her husband, she must have planned it,’ said Rackham. ‘It can’t have been impulsive, not if she changed her clothes and so on. How would she know he was alone?’
‘She might not be certain, but she could have hoped for the best. She certainly saw Carrington leave the hotel, so she’d have known he was out of the way. She’d asked to have tea with Dunbar, hadn’t she? If he intended to keep that appointment, he’d probably rid himself of any other guests beforehand. And if, by chance, he wasn’t alone?’ Jack shrugged. ‘She hadn’t committed herself in any way. All she’d actually done is turn up for afternoon tea. That’s not a criminal offence.’
‘I don’t like this,’ said Rackham after a little while. ‘It’s beginning to sound all too plausible for my liking. What’s her motive? I know she told us about money and freedom and so on, but none of that is new. She’s been separated from Dunbar for about five years. Why should she decide to take action now?’
‘She wasn’t too happy about Dunbar’s association with Otterbourne’s. That’s new.’ Jack frowned. ‘It doesn’t seem enough though.’
‘I couldn’t understand why she was so worked up about that. After all, Mr Bryce said they stood to make a lot of money out of it.’
Jack suddenly stopped dead. ‘Bill! That’s it! Mr Bryce.’
‘Mr Bryce?’
‘Don’t you think he knew a lot about her? He’s the manager of the firm. Why on earth should he know how much Mrs Dunbar had to live on? That’s nothing to do with the running of the company, that’s strictly private.’
‘I don’t know if that woman knows the meaning of strictly private,’ muttered Rackham. ‘I see what you mean, though. D’you think they might be more than friends?’
Off the Record Page 13
