Murder In The Motor Stable: (Auguste Didier Mystery 9)

by Myers, Amy

  In the end, he banished them by an even more unwelcome thought. In two hours’ time His Majesty would be ready to greet the first arrivals of the cavalcade. If it was murder, not accident, every one of the people now on the run might need to be questioned, and quickly. He could envisage His Majesty’s face all too clearly. He would deem the murder a personal insult dreamed up by Auguste Didier. Auguste battled with conscience. Could he – terrible thought – leave the banquet to Pierre and return to London with Egbert? No, that would be deemed a personal insult too. The sheer awfulness of his situation overcame him. His cup overflowed with horror when he realised as he leapt down from the railway carriage at Welling Station that he had forgotten the horseradish sauce.

  ‘Down there, mate.’ There was a jerk of the thumb from the ticket collector in answer to his question as he handed his ticket in. ‘Left under the bridge, and Bob’s your uncle.’

  Whether Bob was his uncle or not, Auguste was thankful to see as he pounded down the slope and turned under the railway bridge on a rough track that the old Roman Watling Street, now re-used as the Dover Road, was indeed close. He stood on the corner and looked to left and right. The station was set in a waste of sandstones and protective palings. In both directions the Dover Road yawned straight and comparatively empty, save for horse vans. To his right under another railway bridge he could see stuccoed cottages; to his left, some way off, villas, and what was obviously the centre of the hamlet. Opposite was farmland. There was nothing to indicate whether a cavalcade of fifty cars had recently passed. He looked westwards again towards London. The cottages must be near the delightfully named Shoulder-of-Mutton Green, and in the distance he could see wooded hills stretching up into a blue haze, surmounted by a tower of some sort. That must be Shooter’s Hill, beloved of highwaymen. Perhaps with luck the steep hill had caused problems for some of the motorcars and the cavalcade had stopped. It was just gone nine thirty, a long time for a drive of perhaps fifteen miles out of London, though it was, he told himself, a time of day when roads out of the city might be busy. Then he realised with joy that the haze was now a huge cloud of dust, and it was growing larger. He was not too late. Never had he been so glad to see the Bollée coming towards him. He jumped out into the road, waving his arms.

  ‘Auguste!’ There was a shriek, either from Tatiana or the motorcar, as Tatiana was so startled that she almost forgot to apply the brake, so that when she did so the car indignantly side-slipped as Auguste leapt for his life, fortunately in the opposite direction. Behind the Bollée, forty-eight motorcars drew up with varying degrees of promptness and distinct lack of pleasure from the steamers.

  ‘Have you taken all this trouble to catch me up, mon amour?’ Tatiana was delighted.

  ‘No, I mean yes. I’m afraid, Egbert –’ Egbert had already jumped down from the Bollée, recognising the look on Auguste’s face – ‘that what we feared has actually happened. Hester Hart is dead, and the Dolly Dobbs smashed.’

  ‘A road accident?’

  ‘No. They never left the club.’

  ‘Oh, but you’re wrong,’ Tatiana interrupted. ‘The Dolly Dobbs is here at the end of the procession. I saw it arrive, so Hester must be driving it.’

  ‘My love, I am not wrong,’ he replied gravely.

  ‘But I saw it.’ She jumped down and, ignoring the questions hurled at her as she passed, ran to the end of the cavalcade.

  Left alone, Egbert turned to Auguste. ‘Murder?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Twitch should be there now. The body was face down so I couldn’t move it. But it was cooling, so there was no doubt she was dead. The block and tackle had swung and smashed the car’s controls but I don’t think it possible it caught her too.’ He explained his reasons.

  Egbert thought quickly. ‘Right. I’ll go back. Where are we?’

  ‘The village of Welling. There’s a railway station behind me. You’ll need to take Fred Gale back with you. He’s in charge of the motor stable.’

  ‘Right. And I take it, if it’s murder, half the suspects are trundling along here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Egbert Rose did some fast thinking. In normal circumstances he’d have turned the whole lot of them round, dukes, duchesses, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, but these, as he was fully aware, were not normal circumstances. The King was waiting for them to arrive, and arrive they must.

  Tatiana came running back, her face pale with horror. ‘Auguste, Egbert. I was wrong. It wasn’t the Dolly Dobbs. It was Agatha with Thomas Bailey.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Auguste asked. If driving with Bailey was her revenge on Dobbs, she had been overtaken by events.

  ‘It matters very much. Suppose it has something to do with Hester’s terrible death?’ Tatiana’s cup was full. ‘The car Agatha is driving is an exact replica of the Dolly Dobbs.’

  Even Auguste could see the enormity of this, and its relevance. ‘Tatiana is right, Egbert. It could be important.’

  ‘It’s quite awful.’ Tatiana was distracted. ‘Thomas claims he has been working on this car for years, and since Agatha was deprived of driving her Dolly Dobbs, he allowed her to drive this one. I only caught a glimpse of it earlier and naturally I thought it was the Dolly Dobbs. It isn’t. It’s the Brighton Baby. And what am I to do about the Motor Club trial? Neither Agatha nor Thomas informed the officials that this isn’t the Dolly Dobbs.’

  ‘Keep out of it,’ was Egbert’s instant advice. ‘Sort it out later. There’s more important things to worry about.’

  ‘You’re right, Egbert,’ Tatiana said gratefully. ‘I’m getting it out of proportion. It’s been a terrible morning with my worry over Auguste, then worrying why Phyllis had turned up with Roderick—’

  ‘What?’ Auguste exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, I was surprised too,’ Tatiana said. ‘Since he was guarding the Dolly Dobbs last night, I supposed he’d had a quarrel with Hester this morning—’ She broke off, looking at their faces. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Stay here, ma mie.’ Auguste quickly ran after Egbert who was already marching purposefully down the cavalcade.

  ‘Point him out,’ was all Egbert said as Auguste caught him up. The goggles and mackintosh had vanished, but the deerstalker remained.

  As they approached the Fiat, Auguste could see Roderick sitting in the passenger seat next to Phyllis; his motoring hat and goggles shielded his expression but it was clear that Phyllis was doing all the talking.

  ‘Mr Smythe?’

  ‘Yes.’ His tone was guarded and lacked its usual lofty superiority.

  ‘Chief Inspector Rose, Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Scotland Yard?’ exclaimed Phyllis delightedly. ‘How interesting.’

  Roderick did not appear so enraptured, for he said nothing.

  ‘Some bad news, I’m afraid. About your fiancée.’

  ‘That’s me,’ Phyllis supplied helpfully.

  ‘Miss Hester Hart has been found dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Roderick’s voice emerged as a squeak and Phyllis gave a yelp that would never have been allowed on the boards of Daly’s Musical Comedy Theatre.

  ‘You were with her last night to guard the Dolly Dobbs, I understand.’

  Roderick’s head turned from Egbert to Auguste helplessly. ‘No – yes. No.’

  ‘Suppose you come back to London with me,’ Egbert suggested. ‘You might remember which it is.’

  Without a word Roderick climbed down, just as Phyllis belatedly realised what was happening. She jumped down herself in a flurry of skirts, lace and veils, and not even remembering her parasol ran round and hurled herself into Roderick’s arms. ‘You didn’t do it for me, did you, my darling?’

  ‘No.’ Roderick came to life immediately if ungallantly. ‘I had nothing to do with it. Whatever it was,’ he added. ‘I’m not under arrest, am I?’ He tried a light laugh which failed. Despite Egbert’s denial, his hand on Roderick’s arm suggested the opposite, and had its effect on the cavalcade as they walked back towards the station lane. The news r
ippled from motorcar to motorcar and by the time it reached Tatiana, Hester had been strangled in a fit of jealous rage and Phyllis and Roderick were under arrest for dastardly conspiracy.

  ‘I will explain to Tatiana that I’ll travel to Martyr House by railway later today,’ Auguste told Egbert, preparing to leave for London.

  ‘Not you, Auguste. You’re going there now.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘That’s right.’ A gleam in Egbert’s eye. ‘Someone has to tell His Majesty.’

  He was travelling not only without the horseradish sauce but without his goggles, which he found he had forgotten to put in the Bollée before he left for the club, and was forced to borrow Tatiana’s spare pair which he was miserably aware were quite clearly ladies’. It was not the way Auguste would have hoped to make his appearance at Martyr House, and he squirmed as the cavalcade passed groups of village children gazing open-mouthed as the motorcars lurched over and into the tramlines; two cars got stuck and, to the ecstasy of the mocking children, had to be pushed out by Leo and two male passengers in the absence of Fred.

  The small shops of Welling gave way to splendid villas, bright with geranium beds in front of them, then a mile or two of market gardens and orchards before Bexley Heath came into sight. Or, rather, what sight could be obtained through dust clouds and goggles. One crisis at least might be solved here. Auguste persuaded Tatiana to stop at Penney Son and Parker Ltd, a promising emporium proudly proclaiming itself ‘The London Grocery and Provision Stores, Families Waited on Daily’, in the forlorn hope of finding fresh horseradish and cream. He came away with three bottles of Mrs Marshall’s commercial version of it, which did nothing to improve his mood.

  ‘Poor Hester.’ Tatiana broke a long silence as they passed through a cloud of chalk over the River Cray. ‘I did not like her but for her to meet such a violent end is terrible.’

  ‘It might have been an accident or even suicide.’ Auguste was unable to convince himself, let alone his wife.

  ‘But you don’t think so.’

  ‘I’m afraid murder seems all too possible.’

  ‘I know we’ve feared trouble but I never thought it could be so bad. I know I should not consider such matters, but I can’t help wondering what will happen to the club now.’

  ‘It will probably double in membership.’

  ‘Auguste! It’s not like you to be so heartless.’

  Heart was what his wife had never lacked, he reflected, as he justified himself on grounds of honesty. Hester Hart’s death was a shock, and a sadness which the waste of human life always aroused. But she had seemed a bitter woman who would trample on whom she pleased for her own ends. Perhaps, however, she was justified in being bitter – and perhaps there were those here today who had caused it.

  Elsewhere in the cavalcade, Hester Hart’s death had replaced all other topics of conversation, even displacing His Majesty and such interesting matters as the merits of pneumatic tyres and the new belt-driven transmission. Hushed voices paid respect to the dead but the excitement suppressed within them was attributable to other emotions.

  ‘You knew her once,’ Sir Algernon rumbled, closing his eyes as Maud drove headlong into the cloudy white chalk dust slipstream of the cars in front.

  ‘Yes.’ Maud’s heavy foot hit the brake.

  ‘Wasn’t there some to-do or other over her?’

  Maud ignored him as she expertly regained speed to take the 1 in 14 hill out of Dartford in fine style.

  He tried again. ‘I didn’t know she was a member of your club.’

  ‘Never thought to tell you, Algy. She’d changed, you see. Thoroughly nice woman now. Or rather was.’ Maud thought with satisfaction of the pleasure ahead driving in the October International Women’s Race. Fate took its revenge at the fork where Watling Street left the Dover Road. She had a puncture. With a scathing glance at her unmechanically-minded husband, she climbed down. Leo was already struggling with a tyre some way back so she’d change the wheel herself. It was a small price to pay fate, on the whole.

  Sailing past in her Fiat, Phyllis allowed tears of self-pity to trickle down her cheeks behind the veil. She was alone in a motorcar. If Roderick had not turned up so unexpectedly this morning and insisted on driving with her instead of in his Crossley she would have had her motor servant with her. Now she had no one. What would happen if she had a puncture? It would be so ignominious to have to ask Leo for help, and even he seemed to have disappeared. The horrors of her position overcame her as she realised she was dangerously close to the motorcar in front, and she clutched the wheel as though it were the lead of a mad bulldog. She told herself if she allowed herself to cry, she would be in no fit state to curtsy to the King with her charming smile. Why was she crying? she suddenly wondered. After all, Hester was dead and there was nothing more to worry about. Except punctures. And unless Roderick was arrested for murder.

  ‘There’s someone else stopping us,’ Tatiana exclaimed disbelievingly, beginning to brake. ‘On Gad’s Hill, of all places. We’ll all be running backwards if we’re not careful.’

  ‘It’s not Mrs Millward, is it?’ Auguste peered through his now filthy goggles with their even filthier lace side shields.

  ‘Not unless Hortensia is disguised as a police constable.’

  ‘Police constable?’ he echoed in surprise. Had Egbert issued a reprieve for him? It was rather late to summon him back to London now.

  The constable, middle-aged, lean and excited, more used to rubbing out tramp markings on his beat than having urgent messages from Scotland Yard, smartly saluted Auguste. ‘Chief Inspector Rose?’

  ‘No.’ All, Auguste instantly realised, was explained. Twitch had been at work.

  ‘Where is he then?’ The constable’s politeness faded and suspicion replaced excitement.

  ‘He has returned to London.’

  ‘How could he know he was wanted?’

  ‘I told him.’ Auguste cursed all police constables who aspired to the Detective Branch.

  Suspicion increased. ‘What have you got to do with it?’

  ‘I found the body of the dead woman.’

  The constable pounced. ‘Then why aren’t you back there too? Escaping from justice, are you?’

  ‘Because—’

  Tatiana decided to intervene with a rare call on her rank. Auguste could be annoyingly obstreperous at times. ‘I am the Princess Tatiana Didier, and this is my husband. We are on our way to a reception given by His Majesty. He will not be pleased if we are late.’

  A princess? The constable lost some of his confidence. Nevertheless, his duty had to be done.

  ‘I’d best come with you then to see for myself.’

  This was all he needed, Auguste thought. Now he would arrive at Martyr House with a policeman behind him intent on arresting him on suspicion of murdering Egbert.

  Tatiana again saved the day, her despairing eye on two Motor Club of Great Britain officials waiting to time a measured mile by what they believed to be the Dolly Dobbs.

  ‘I wonder if you would mind, Sergeant, travelling with Miss Lockwood – the musical comedy star, you know. She is a very young lady, and nervous about travelling on her own.’

  The policeman turned brick red. He had no objection to travelling with Miss Lockwood; he’d seen her in Pink For Miss Pamela. He’d been up in the gods then and now he’d be sitting next to her. He took his place in the Fiat with alacrity – just in time for Phyllis’s first puncture of the trip. She turned to him, removed her goggles and let tears form in the lovely eyes. ‘I wonder if you’d mind, Constable . . .’

  ‘I wonder why Phyllis needs a policeman with her.’ Isabel broke the inexplicable silence that had fallen between herself and Hugh ever since they’d heard the news of Hester’s death. ‘Do you think she thumped poor Hester over the head in jealousy? Or that she was in collusion with Roderick to do it?’

  ‘You don’t seem too upset at Hester’s death,’ Hugh observed, watching her closely – not that her expressio
n was visible under the veil.

  ‘No,’ Isabel replied with surprise. ‘Why should I pretend? I didn’t like her very much.’ It was an understatement. She was almost faint with relief.

  ‘My first murder took place near here,’ Auguste observed suddenly as they sped along the Dover Road between hop-fields and cherry orchards towards Faversham.

  ‘I’m glad that policeman can’t hear you say that.’ Tatiana managed a laugh.

  ‘I’ve known Egbert nearly thirteen years. I met him at Stockbery Towers on the downs in eighteen ninety-one.’

  ‘And now you’re an experienced detective.’

  He considered this. ‘Perhaps.’ He wondered why he always felt ambivalent about this role which had been none of his seeking.

  ‘Will Egbert want you to help him on this case?’

  He considered this too. ‘I can hardly refuse if he asks me.’ Nor, he realised, did he want to. He was already throwing ingredients into the casserole of this murder, and besides, he was angry that Tatiana’s beloved club had been the scene of so much violence and hatred. As they passed over Harbledon Down and the magnificent view of Canterbury spread out before them, he reflected on the joy this point in the journey must have brought the pilgrims to the cathedral’s shrine. Their own journey would be a darker one. ‘I hope he does. I want it over quickly. Is that selfish of me?’

  At the back of both their minds was tucked away the thought: what about Eastbourne? Would the trip they were all four looking forward to so much take place? If Egbert was allotted the case, it must be solved. Eastbourne was now less than two weeks away.

  The journey passed slowly as even the mechanically perfect Léon Bollée laboured up the hill out of Canterbury, and then the wind caught them in all its fury on the exposed and virtually treeless Barham Downs. At last a battered signpost displayed the legend Barham. Martyr House was almost upon them.

  ‘At least we haven’t had any trouble from the Hams,’ Tatiana remarked more cheerfully as she turned the steering wheel towards Barham.