Free Off the Record by Dolores Gordon-Smith Page A

‘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