‘Old Man Otterbourne was put out,’ said Hamilton. ‘He was as close to losing his temper this morning as I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something.’ He nodded his head towards the door. ‘When I took their coffee in to the study they were at it hammer and tongs. I heard them.’ He adopted a high-pitched voice. ‘ “Don’t be an absolute fool, man!” That’s what the Professor said, true as I’m sat here, and a good bit more. His nibs didn’t like it above half, especially as I was in the room.’
‘What was he going on about?’ asked Eckersley with interest, reaching for another biscuit.
Hamilton shrugged. ‘Something to do with that machine of his. Edison or something or other came into it.’ He laughed. ‘His Highness had a face like thunder. I don’t think he’s ever been spoken to like that in his life.’
Eckersley grinned. ‘It won’t do him any harm.’ He stopped short. The door opening on to the kitchen garden was ajar and from somewhere very close at hand came a sharp crack. Eckersley thrust his chair back and stood up abruptly, his body poised, listening keenly. ‘That was a gunshot.’
‘It can’t have been,’ said Hamilton.
Eckersley waved him quiet. ‘It was. I know what I’m talking about. That was a gun.’
‘It’ll be a poacher in the woods,’ said Hamilton uneasily.
Eckersley shook his head. ‘No. It was too close. Come on, we’d better have a look and see what’s happening.’
Hamilton unwillingly got to his feet, sobered by Eckersley’s complete seriousness. The chauffeur was right; he’d served in the army for two years and did know what he was talking about when it came to guns.
‘I reckon it came from the back of the house,’ said Eckersley. ‘Shall we go along the terrace? It’s quickest.’
Hamilton was shocked. ‘We can’t do that! What if the master sees us? We’d better take a look in the hall.’
Eckersley’s mouth hardened into a straight line. ‘All right.’
On the other side of the green baize door the hall was deathly quiet. Once again, Eckersley stood, poised and listening. ‘The study,’ he said softly. ‘Can you hear it?’
Hamilton did hear it then, a little choking sob followed by rapid breathing. Straightening his waistcoat and squaring his shoulders, he pushed open the door of the study.
Professor Alan Carrington was kneeling on the floor, a gun held loosely in his hand. Beside him the body of Charles Otterbourne lay sprawled out on the hearthrug. He looked round as the door opened but said nothing.
Hamilton looked from the Professor to the horribly still body on the rug. There was a great dark patch by Mr Otterbourne’s ear. For what seemed an endless space of time, Hamilton couldn’t take in what had happened and then Eckersley spoke.
‘You’ve killed him!’
The Professor got to his feet and stared at them. ‘I killed him?’ He looked at the gun in his hand. ‘I killed him?’
Hamilton was shaking. ‘You bloody murderer. Yes, you killed him.’
The Professor’s face twisted in fury. ‘What the devil are you talking about? I’ll have you know I’ve done no such thing, my good man.’
It was the my good man that did it. As if someone had broken a spell, Hamilton started forward, Eckersley by his side. ‘Don’t you my good man me. You’ve killed him.’
The gun came up in the Professor’s hand and Eckersley made a dive for his arm. The Professor grunted and struggled. Hamilton tried to catch hold of him and, with a deafening blast, the gun went off, the bullet zinging off the marble of the fireplace. There was an utter confusion of shouts, blows and grabbing hands, then the gun went skittering along the floor and the three men fell into the hall in a heaving, struggling, yelling mass.
Hamilton felt a hand between his shoulder blades, pulling him away, and found himself looking into a distorted, shouting face he dimly recognized as that of Gerard Carrington. He fell back, panting, as Carrington wrenched Eckersley away from the Professor. The hall was suddenly full of people all demanding to know what was happening. Gerard Carrington had hold of his father’s arm and the womenservants surrounded Hamilton. Molly Lewis was with them. She was speaking too, but Hamilton couldn’t make out the words.
Hamilton, his chest heaving, straightened his clothes and pointed a shaky hand at the Professor. ‘He killed him,’ he said, raising his voice to carry over the torrent of questioning voices. ‘He killed the Master.’
There was a fresh chorus of voices. Mr Dunbar, he mechanically noticed, had come out of the library and was staring at the Professor.
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ said Dunbar robustly, plunging his way past the group and into the study. Gerard Carrington, keeping a firm grip on his father, went after him. Molly followed. She was so utterly bewildered she scarcely grasped the sense of what Hamilton said. The Professor was talking, a non-stop flow of words, but she couldn’t make out what he said.
Then she saw her father’s body and screamed.
THREE
Molly, after that first scream, stood bewildered and silent, her hand to her mouth. Dad was lying sprawled out on the rug before the hearth, one hand flung wide. Papers were scattered round him on the floor, flapping lazily in the breeze from the open French windows. In the garden beyond, the lawns stretched out in the green glory of a spring day. She knew there was an avalanche of voices round her, a meaningless torrent of noise. A blackbird hopped across the grass and Molly stared at it, trying to see anything but that grotesque thing on the rug, the thing that had been her father. The blackbird pecked a worm from the grass, snapping at it with its beak. Molly gave a little cry as this innocent violence seemed suddenly too much to bear.
She felt her maid, Susan, put her hand on her arm. ‘Come with me, m’am. You shouldn’t be in here. It’s not right.’ Susan’s voice was kindly but Molly didn’t want to go. Mr Dunbar was still kneeling beside her father. It was hard to take in how quickly everything had happened.
Dunbar looked up, his face grave. ‘He’s dead, all right,’ he said, looking to where Professor Carrington stood, Gerry beside him. ‘You did this, sir?’
‘No, I damn well didn’t,’ said the Professor testily. ‘Gerry, for heaven’s sake, can we go?’ He ran a shaky hand through his hair. ‘There’s no point staying here any longer. We’ll have to get my machine packed up, I know, but then I really think we should leave.’ His gaze slid past the body on the rug. ‘It’s obvious that Mr Otterbourne can’t help us any more and we have no further business here.’
Gerry’s grip tightened on his arm. ‘Dad, shut up!’ He looked at Molly, his face harried. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just his way of talking.’ He turned to Hamilton and Eckersley. ‘Is there anywhere I can take my father? Somewhere we can stay until the police arrive?’
‘The police?’ broke in Professor Carrington. ‘Bless my soul, boy, what do you want the police for?’
Dunbar stood up, his hands behind his back, his chin thrust forward. ‘There is a man lying dead, sir, and you have to account for it.’
The Professor flinched back as if he had been struck a physical blow.
‘For God’s sake,’ said Gerry desperately, ‘will you leave this to me?’ He looked at Hamilton and Eckersley once more. ‘Is there anywhere?’
Molly found her voice. ‘You’d better go into the library,’ she said shakily. ‘It’s across the hall.’ She shook off Susan’s hand. ‘Don’t worry. It’s all right. I’ll be all right.’
In a ghastly parody of his usual manner, Hamilton showed them across the hall into the library. With Gerry beside him, Professor Carrington sat bolt upright on the leather sofa.
‘The police,’ said Molly to Hamilton. ‘Please phone the police.’
Inspector Gibson paused by the open door of the library where Sergeant Atterby was solidly keeping guard. ‘Is he in here?’ he asked in an undertone.
‘Yes, sir,’ said the sergeant quietly. ‘Him and his son, Gerard Carrington.’
‘Has he said anything?’
Sergeant Atterby puffed out his cheeks in wry agreement. ‘He’s done nothing but talk, sir,’ he said in low voice. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if he’s all there. He hasn’t mentioned Mr Otterbourne but he’s gone on and on about a lecture he’s supposed to be giving tonight.’ Sergeant Atterby shrugged. ‘I couldn’t understand a word of it. He’s not shut up.’ He cast a glance back into the room. ‘I know he’s a professor, sir. I reckon we might have a real mad scientist on our hands.’
‘You mustn’t believe what you read in magazines about scientists, Sergeant,’ said Gibson, uneasily aware that the Sergeant was voicing his own thoughts.
‘He’s not normal, sir,’ said Atterby with conviction. ‘That young chap, Mr Carrington, he’s all right. He’s worried, I can tell. He knows what’s happened. He’s tried to get his father to talk about it, but the Professor just ignores him.’
This, thought Inspector Gibson, was going to be difficult. On the face of it, there didn’t seem to be much doubt about what had happened, certainly not in view of the menservants’ evidence.
He had been shown the study first where Charles Otterbourne still lay with papers scattered around him. On the table were more papers, scribbled over with mysterious-looking diagrams and a box about the size of a gramophone without its horn. The gun, an automatic, belonged to the house. Mrs Lewis’s husband had used it during the war. Hamilton, the butler, couldn’t say if it was usually kept in the study but Mr Lewis might have left it there.
The Inspector drew a deep breath. It seemed like an open and shut case but he was wary of arresting the Professor out of hand. For one thing, he was a professor and therefore a man to treat with respect. But what was really making him pause was Hamilton’s and Eckersley’s assurance that the man was off his head. Inspector Gibson had never had anything to do with loonies before and Hamilton’s confident assertion that the Professor would end up in Broadmoor unsettled him. ‘Mad as a hatter,’ Hamilton had said and he had witnessed the Professor quarrelling with his master. It worried him that Sergeant Atterby so obviously agreed with them.
He squared his shoulders and walked into the library, motioning to Sergeant Atterby to follow him.
The Professor was sitting on a leather sofa beside a younger man who was, presumably, Gerard Carrington. Despite his shabby clothes, the Professor had a real presence, thought Gibson. His eyes were very bright. Unnaturally bright, perhaps. He gave an official cough. ‘Can I have a word with you, sir?’
‘At last!’ Professor Carrington got to his feet. ‘How long will this take?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t say, sir,’ said Gibson. ‘I must ask you to tell me exactly what happened.’
‘I’ve gone through this endlessly,’ said Professor Carrington, clenching his fists in frustration.
‘Dad,’ said Gerard Carrington warningly. ‘This is a police officer. Just answer his questions, will you?’
The Professor sighed in exasperation. ‘Very well.’ He braced his arms against the back of the sofa. ‘If you insist, I’ll go through it again. I had an appointment with Charles Otterbourne to discuss my new recording apparatus. The sound itself is recorded on to magnetic ribbons by means of . . .’
‘What did you actually do, sir?’
‘I invented it.’
Inspector Gibson began to wonder if Professor Carrington was pulling his leg. ‘What did you actually do with regard to Mr Otterbourne, sir?’
Alan Carrington glared at him. ‘Nothing.’
Inspector Gibson coughed once more. ‘You must have done something, sir. Let me just run through the facts of the case as I understand them. You had an appointment with Mr Otterbourne, yes?’
Professor Carrington looked at him wearily. ‘So I’ve said. It was to discuss . . .’
Inspector Gibson held up his hand. ‘Never mind that for the moment, sir. You’d been with Mr Otterbourne in the study, yes?’
‘Yes, of course I was. Great heavens, man, do you usually state the obvious?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Can you hurry up? I want to catch the train back to London and the best service departs in little over half an hour.’
Inspector Gibson heard Sergeant Atterby’s quick intake of breath. Surely, surely the man must know he was in danger of being arrested for murder? ‘I’m afraid you might have to miss the train, sir,’ he managed to say. He held up his hand to cut off Alan Carrington’s torrent of words. ‘I need to get to the bottom of what occurred this morning. The butler served you and Mr Otterbourne with coffee at approximately quarter past eleven.’ Alan Carrington looked blank. ‘The butler stated he heard you speak very sharply to Mr Otterbourne.’
‘The butler should mind his own business,’ said Carrington distractedly. ‘I might have been a little impatient. It’s a fault of mine, I’m afraid. Mr Otterbourne seemed unable to grasp the utilitarian value of thermionic emissions and I was probably more abrupt than the occasion demanded.’ He glanced up. ‘You might have heard the process referred to as the Edison effect. It can be demonstrated by . . .’
Inspector Gibson hastily intervened. ‘Never mind that, sir. You say there was no personal disagreement between you and Mr Otterbourne?’
‘No.’ The Professor looked puzzled. ‘Why on earth should there be?’
Inspector Gibson ignored the question. ‘About ten or fifteen minutes later, the butler and the chauffeur heard a shot. They found you in the study, holding a gun.’
Alan Carrington ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’ve explained all that,’ he complained. ‘And I must say, I thought both the menservants behaved in a disgraceful way.’ He dropped his gaze and looked away. ‘I don’t know what came over them.’
Gerard Carrington stood up. ‘Listen to me, Dad.’ He spoke slowly and clearly. Professor Carrington unwillingly raised his chin and looked at his son. ‘Mr Otterbourne is dead.’ Professor Carrington flinched. ‘The police think you shot him.’
He ignored his father’s murmur of ridiculous. ‘You were found holding the gun. How did that come about?’ The elder man swallowed but said nothing. Gerard Carrington took a deep breath. He spoke very deliberately, spacing out the words. ‘Did you shoot Mr Otterbourne?’
Alan Carrington started back as if he’d been struck. ‘Of course not! Gerry, you mustn’t say such things, even in jest.’
‘Then tell us what happened.’ Again, Gerard Carrington spoke very deliberately.
Professor Carrington covered his face with his hands. ‘I went out of the room. It was a call of nature, you understand. I was only a few minutes at most. When I came back in he was dead.’ He dropped his hands. ‘I suppose he committed suicide but why he should do any such thing, I do not know. He seemed perfectly in control of himself before I left. I was astonished. He was lying face down on the floor with a gun beside him. As I went to turn him over, the menservants burst into the room and demanded to know what I was doing. Their manner was abrasive in the extreme.’
‘You actually had the gun in your hand, I believe,’ said the Inspector.
‘I picked it up, yes.’
‘And you threatened the butler with it.’
‘I did no such thing!’ said Carrington indignantly. ‘I told him to stop talking nonsense – he was babbling that I had shot his master – and I told him to stop.’
‘Whilst holding the gun.’
‘What the devil was I meant to do with it?’
Inspector Gibson glanced at Sergeant Atterby and took a deep breath. ‘Professor Carrington, I’m afraid I have to ask you to accompany me to the station.’
‘To catch the train?’ asked the Professor hopefully.
Gerard Carrington caught hold of his father’s arm. ‘Dad, you’re being taken to the police station. Stop pretending you don’t know what’s going on. You’re being arrested.’
‘Arrested?’ repeated Alan Carrington. ‘Arrested?’
‘Yes. For the murder of Mr Otterbourne.’
And Alan Carrington started to laugh.
It was near
ly nine o’clock that evening when Gerard Carrington returned to Stoke Horam House.
Steve Lewis was standing by the fireplace in the drawing room, his elbow on the mantelpiece, talking earnestly to a sandy-haired man about his own age. He broke off abruptly as Carrington was shown into the room. ‘Gerry! I can hardly believe what’s happened. I was at Uncle Maurice’s. I’ve only just got back. Why didn’t someone try and get hold of me?’
‘I knew you were there,’ said Carrington. ‘Your wife said so when we first arrived. Uncle Maurice is Colonel Willoughby, isn’t he? I don’t know his address or if he’s on the telephone or not.’
‘He’s not on the phone but Molly should have sent a telegram.’
Carrington shook his head. He was speaking mechanically, forcing himself to think of the words. ‘Your wife was knocked sideways. The doctor packed her off to bed with a sleeping draught.’
‘Yes, Hamilton told me she’d taken it pretty hard.’ Steve Lewis looked critically at Carrington. His face was paper-white and he was swaying on his feet. ‘Sit down, Gerry.’ He walked over to the sideboard and picked up the whisky. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
Carrington sank gratefully into a chair, resting his forehead on his hand. ‘Thanks. It’s been awful.’ He took the whisky and soda from Lewis. ‘I hoped you’d be here. I wanted to explain things. There aren’t any real excuses but I don’t know if my father’s responsible for his actions.’
The sandy-haired man looked at him curiously. ‘Excuse me, Mr Carrington, but do you believe your father’s guilty? I’m Ragnall, by the way, Hugo Ragnall, Mr Otterbourne’s secretary.’
Off the Record Page 3