Off the Record (6 page)

‘Sorry.’ Ferguson took a deep breath. ‘It’s about Stoke Horam. You remember what happened there?’

Jack sat up attentively. This sounded promising. ‘Considering it was in the newspapers for weeks, I should say so.’

Ferguson brought down his hands in a chord, closed the piano lid in a gesture of finality, and turned round. ‘Have you ever heard of a man called Andrew Dunbar?’

‘Andrew Dunbar? The name rings a bell but I don’t know why. Who is he?’

‘He’s my stepfather.’ Hector Ferguson went to the door, shut it, and walked back to the piano with his chin lowered and his hands deep in his pockets. ‘He lives in Scotland but he comes down to London fairly often. He’s separated from my mother and he hasn’t got a lot of time for either of us.’ He looked up with a faint smile. ‘I may say the feeling’s mutual. He’s the owner of Dunbar’s, the gramophone manufacturers. He was on the spot when Charles Otterbourne committed suicide.’

‘Was he, by jingo?’

‘Yes . . .’ Ferguson hitched himself on to the stool. ‘I know you’ve got friends in the police. I wondered if you ever got to know what went on behind the scenes.’

‘Sometimes,’ said Jack cautiously. ‘I haven’t any special knowledge of what happened at Stoke Horam though.’

Ferguson looked deflated. ‘Haven’t you?’ He drummed his fingers on the wood of the stool. ‘I’m not sure how to put this, but since Professor Carrington and Mr Otterbourne died, my stepfather has been a very happy man.’ He tapped a cigarette on the back of his hand and lit it nervously. ‘He’s never been able to conceal his feelings, Haldean, and he was delighted with how things turned out.’

‘It sounds a bit ghoulish. Why should he be so happy?’

‘I don’t know.’ Hector Ferguson pulled nervously at his cigarette. ‘You see, on the face of it, Mr Otterbourne’s and Professor Carrington’s deaths, particularly the Professor’s, should have made things very difficult for him, but he’s been on top of the world. It’s very odd, especially when you understand how much he likes money.’

‘I don’t suppose he’s unique in that.’

Ferguson smiled fleetingly. ‘No, I don’t suppose he is, but he’s a canny customer, and no mistake. Professor Carrington built a new type of gramophone for my stepfather. When that machine’s ready for production, it’ll be a very valuable commodity indeed. Professor Carrington had absolutely no business sense and my stepfather got him to sign a contract giving him the rights to the machine. That contract was little more than daylight robbery. I’ve heard him gloat about what a shrewd deal he’d pulled off. So far so good, yes?’

‘Yes, from your stepfather’s point of view,’ said Jack with a shrug. ‘Not so good for Professor Carrington, I’d say.’

‘Exactly. When the Professor died, my stepfather should have been devastated. I don’t suppose he cared tuppence about the Professor but he cared about his machine. He was hoping to make a considerable profit from it, so I wasn’t surprised when I heard he’d asked Gerard Carrington, the Professor’s son, to take over his father’s work.’ Hector Ferguson clasped his hands together with a frown. ‘I made it my business to meet Carrington. I wanted his opinion of what happened at Stoke Horam.’

‘Which is?’

‘Which is the story in the newspapers was essentially true,’ said Ferguson with a shrug. ‘Gerard Carrington believes Mr Otterbourne committed suicide. I can see why my stepfather approached Gerard Carrington. He’s a scientist at the University of London and, in many ways, a much better bet than his father. He’s not as brilliant as the Professor, perhaps, but he’s a much more reasonable type. He’s the ideal man – perhaps the only man – to bring the new machine to a point where it’s ready for production.’

‘Couldn’t that be why your stepfather’s so pleased?’ suggested Jack. ‘I mean, I don’t know much about science and so on, but to get someone to step into the breach like that must have been a huge weight off his mind.’

Ferguson glanced up. ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? However, Gerard Carrington is nobody’s fool and he’s arguing the toss about the contract. I expected my stepfather to be furious, but he isn’t. He’s completely and utterly smug. Somehow, in some way, things have worked out for him. He’s as pleased as punch. I can’t get to the bottom of it, but I’m sure there’s something funny going on.’

Jack looked at Ferguson thoughtfully. He was alive with anxiety. ‘What’s eating you? There’s more to this than a suspicion that your stepfather has brought off a smart piece of business.’

Ferguson took a deep breath. ‘It’s the Stoke Horam suicides, Haldean. Two men died in very peculiar circumstances.’ There were white lines etched round his mouth and his eyes were narrow with tension. ‘My stepfather’s ruthless. And he’s very happy.’ His meaning was obvious.

‘Do you think he’s responsible?’ asked Jack, quietly.

‘I don’t know!’ exploded Ferguson. He made a chopping motion with his hand as if to physically fend off the suggestion. ‘Charles Otterbourne and Professor Carrington committed suicide. The coroner said so.’ He stopped, catching his breath. ‘I know,’ he added wearily. ‘Anything else sounds ridiculous.’ He met Jack’s eyes squarely. ‘I said I didn’t like him. I admit that, but I know what he’s capable of. I don’t know what he did or how he engineered it, but I’m sure the full truth hasn’t come to light. I don’t know what to do. Everything seems so cut and dried but it’s
wrong
.’

‘Why don’t you go to the police?’

‘And tell them what?’ demanded Ferguson. ‘I haven’t got any evidence. I’d be laughed at or, worse than that, be accused of having my own axe to grind.’

Jack finished his cigarette in silence. ‘What if I have a word with my friend, Bill Rackham? He’s a Scotland Yard man. He’ll be discreet, I know.’

Ferguson looked relieved. ‘I’d be very grateful. I might be barking up the wrong tree. If my stepfather’s innocent, I’ll be glad to hear it. It’s just that I can’t get it out of my mind that he might not be.’

‘The Charles Otterbourne case?’ said Inspector William Rackham thoughtfully.

Jack had abandoned his plans both for the pub and the park to follow up his promise to Ferguson. They were in Rackham’s rooms off Russell Square, the upper floor of an inconvenient but beautifully proportioned Georgian building. The sash windows stood open, the last of the evening sun gilding the well-worn carpet and comfortable chairs.

‘Help yourself to whisky, Jack,’ Rackham said, gesturing to the decanter on the sideboard, ‘or there’s beer, if you’d rather.’ He moved a heap of newspapers off the sofa and sat down. ‘It’s certainly a puzzle about Dunbar. I don’t know why he should be so happy.’

Jack took the cork out of a bottle of Bass and, pouring out a glass, sat down in the opposite chair. He and Bill Rackham, a big, untidy ginger-haired Northerner, were good friends, and Jack trusted his judgement. ‘So you don’t think there’s anything in it?’

‘I don’t know what there can be,’ said Bill. ‘I’d have said Dunbar was very much a loser from the affair. I went into the Otterbourne case fairly closely at the time as I had a hunch – incorrectly as it turned out – that we would be called in. After you telephoned I looked up my notes. The coroner brought in a verdict of suicide on Charles Otterbourne, I know, but in the first instance it looked as if Otterbourne had been murdered by Professor Carrington.’

‘The Professor hanged himself while he was under arrest, didn’t he?’

Rackham nodded. ‘That’s right. Gibson, the officer in charge of the case, had to endure a reprimand from the coroner which, I think, was probably deserved. After all, Professor Carrington was clearly unstable and shouldn’t have been left alone. His son said as much, and so did his doctor. I did wonder, though, if the Professor’s suicide made the coroner’s verdict a bit more sympathetic than it might have been.’

‘You mean Professor Carrington could have murdered Otterbourne after all?’

‘It’s a possibility, isn’t it? However, the coroner heard the evidence and, although there didn’t seem any real reason to doubt his verdict, it all seemed a bit neat.’

‘It’s got a closed-off quality about it, hasn’t it?’ agreed Jack. He stretched his legs out on the footstool with relief.

‘How’s your leg?’ asked Rackham, seeing his mouth contract briefly. Jack had had a slight limp for as long as Rackham had known him, a souvenir of the war, but he had recently broken his leg badly and, although the bone had healed, the limp had worsened.

‘Not bad,’ Jack said dismissively.

‘Come off it,’ said Rackham, seeing the lines of strain on his friend’s dark, rather gypsy-like face. ‘It looks like it’s giving you the pip.’

Jack smiled broadly. ‘All right, Mister Detective-Inspector, sir, you’ve got me bang to rights. I’m being a brave little soldier. I hope you’re suitably impressed. My wretched leg hurts like sin and I’ve been on my feet for ages. I did a bit of digging in Fleet Street before I came to see you. Stanhope gave me the background to the case.’

‘Stanhope of
The Messenger
?’

‘That’s the lad. Stanhope was disappointed with the Stoke Horam case. He was all geared up to shock us with sensational revelations, when it more or less petered out.’

‘I wouldn’t say it had petered out, Jack,’ countered Rackham. ‘The papers were full of it for weeks. With the not-so-saintly Mr Otterbourne on the one hand and a genuine mad scientist on the other, the press had a field day. Ernest Stanhope doesn’t know when he’s well off.’

‘He meant as a crime,’ said Jack. ‘Like you, he thought the verdict on Charles Otterbourne was very sympathetic to Professor Carrington. His money’s on the Professor for murder. However, that’s not what’s eating my pal, Hector Ferguson. He didn’t want to come right out and say it, but he’s worried, granted how pleased Dunbar is, that his stepfather might be the real villain of the piece.’

Rackham’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Dunbar murdered Charles Otterbourne, you mean?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Can you rely on Ferguson? It sounds as if he may have it in for his stepfather.’

‘He admitted he didn’t like him,’ said Jack with a shrug. ‘He said he was a ruthless beggar. I had the impression Ferguson was trying to be objective. He’s a very thoughtful Scot. You know the type, Bill. He’ll worry away at a thing for ages before he comes to a conclusion, but when he has worked something out, you can be sure he’s got a rock-solid line of argument to back him up. He’s not someone to make an accusation lightly and, to be fair to him, he hasn’t done that.’

‘And Andrew Dunbar is happy with the way things have worked out.’ Bill took a cigarette from the box. ‘That’s interesting, but I can’t see it adds up. Dunbar was hoping Charles Otterbourne was going to buy his firm. Therefore it’s to Dunbar’s advantage that Otterbourne was alive to put the deal through. So on that count, Dunbar’s out of it, yes?’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Jack.

‘Now, as I understand it, Professor Carrington was Dunbar’s star prize. He’d agreed to make this marvellous machine at a knockdown price for Dunbar. I can’t see why Dunbar would kill Otterbourne and he certainly wouldn’t do it so as to incriminate the Professor. Professor Carrington wouldn’t be any use to Dunbar if he was tried and hanged.’

‘Could Gerard Carrington be in league with Dunbar, perhaps? No, that won’t work, not if he’s trying to negotiate a fairer contract.’

‘Exactly, Jack. Dunbar would hardly conspire to murder if it meant he was going to be out of pocket over the deal. I suppose Gerard Carrington could have turned nasty afterwards,’ he added thoughtfully.

‘Yes, but Dunbar wouldn’t be happy about that, would he? He’d be hopping mad.’

‘True enough,’ agreed Rackham with a frown.

‘Say Charles Otterbourne didn’t commit suicide,’ said Jack. ‘Is there anyone else in the running, apart from the Professor?’

‘There’s the servants, of course. They gave evidence at the inquest, but I can’t see they’d have anything to gain. Gerard Carrington, but we’ve more or less covered him. I can’t see why he’d murder Charles Otterbourne. It could be to his advantage that his father died, perhaps, but I don’t see how he could have done it, as his father was in a cell at the police station. Professor Carrington was certainly alive when he left. Inspector Gibson testified to that effect.’

‘So he’s out of it.’ Jack ran a hand through his dark hair in a dissatisfied way. ‘Anyone else? Chuck the lighter over, Bill. What about the bloke who caused a sensation in court when he blew the gaff about Mr Otterbourne’s jiggery-pokery with the pension funds?’

‘That’s Hugo Ragnall, the secretary, but not only didn’t he have anything to gain, he wasn’t there. He’d discovered the fraud the night before. The following morning he told Stephen Lewis, Otterbourne’s son-in-law, what he’d found and the pair of them had decided to confront Mr Otterbourne after Professor Carrington and Dunbar had gone. Neither man wanted to be around during the day. Stephen Lewis said that the thought of trying to act naturally with the bombshell of the pension funds hanging over them was too much, so they made their excuses and disappeared.’

‘Yes, I can see it would be difficult,’ agreed Jack. ‘Do you know where they got to?’

‘Lewis went off to his uncle’s, a Colonel Willoughby, and Ragnall came up to London for the day.’

‘Stanhope mentioned Stephen Lewis,’ said Jack. ‘He’s pitched in and saved the firm. It looked as if the company might go under but Lewis turned it round. According to Stanhope, Lewis restored a lot of confidence in the business and it looks as if it’s going to pull through. What about Mr Otterbourne’s daughter?’

‘She was knocked sideways by her father’s death, by all accounts. He was a dictatorial sort of beggar though, and she might have resented it. Having said that, there was no particular reason why she and her husband should continue living with her father if she didn’t want to. It seems a bit extreme to bump him off when all she had to do was move out. Besides that, she was in the kitchen talking to the cook when it happened.’ Rackham shook his head. ‘It was an odd case altogether, Jack. There’s all sorts of threads that could have lead somewhere but it all seemed to be done and dusted. With the two verdicts of suicide it was never put under the spotlight as a murder investigation would have been, but if it was murder, then the chief suspect has to be Professor Carrington.’