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

by Myers, Amy

  Harold Dobbs was, surprisingly, in happy mood, pottering in the large shed that dominated their garden, his inventor’s domain. It fitted Harold, Auguste decided. It was haphazard, untidy, and decidedly eccentric. A drawing of a motorcar that looked as if Sir John Tenniel might have put his hand to it in a very off moment was pinned over a newspaper portrait of General Gordon at Khartoum, while a similar one of his late monarch Queen Victoria had various amounts of pounds, shillings and pence scribbled in its borders – presumably Dobbs’s costing budgets. Bits of motorcars still to be made lay everywhere. In the middle of the floor was a large space roped off for no apparent reason. Dobbs saw Auguste looking at it.

  ‘My new motorcar,’ he said happily.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ Auguste ventured cautiously.

  ‘It’s in my head.’

  ‘No more Dolly Dobbs, eh?’ Egbert remarked genially.

  ‘My heart went into that motorcar, and it was broken beyond repair.’

  ‘The car or your heart?’ Auguste could not resist asking.

  ‘Both. How could I rebuild it now?’

  Auguste sympathised. If a pièce montée of his creation had been flung to the ground, smashed into pieces, its delicate spun sugar strands a heap of crumbs, how could he recreate exactly the same artistic triumph? Personally, he could not see motorcars in quite the same light, or the Dolly Dobbs as a triumph, but he was prepared to admit a similarity in outlook.

  Egbert was not so tolerant. ‘That’s what we’re here to discuss.’

  ‘I don’t want to rebuild her,’ Harold said piteously.

  ‘That couldn’t be anything to do with the fact the Dolly Dobbs is a copy of Thomas Bailey’s Brighton Baby, could it?’

  He stared at them nervously. ‘How could it be? I’ve been working on the Dolly Dobbs for five years. How could I have known what Bailey was doing? Anyway, who says it’s a copy?’ he added too belatedly to convince.

  ‘Those who’ve seen both of them. Mrs Didier, Mr Didier, the Duchess, Leo, Fred Gale—’

  ‘It’s coincidence.’ Harold was red in the face.

  ‘Then why didn’t you try to patent yours? Bailey did. Is that why you smashed the machine up yourself, so that you didn’t have to drive it publicly once you knew the Duchess was driving in the Brighton Baby?’

  ‘That’s certainly why you would not allow it to come out of the stable last Saturday, isn’t it?’ Auguste asked.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Harold moaned. ‘I’m an artist. How could I lay a violent hand on my own beloved Dolly? The reason I didn’t apply for a patent is much simpler.’

  ‘And that is?’ Egbert pressed as Harold came to a full stop, looking wildly from one to the other, hoping for appreciation for the artist in him in vain.

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘Forgot? For over five years?’

  ‘I’m rather absent-minded.’ An air of slight complacency entered Harold’s voice. ‘I was so enthusiastic about building my Dolly I’m afraid it never occurred to me that anyone else could possibly be as clever as me.’

  ‘Yet you didn’t seem too surprised when we told you the Brighton Baby had been patented. You knew about that.’ Egbert was never moved by the plight of artists.

  He swallowed. ‘Miss Hart told me. Now you’ll think I murdered her.’ His voice ended in a shriek as the full horror of his position struck home.

  ‘Why should we?’ Egbert inquired as gently as a pike after a minnow.

  Harold gave in. ‘She was blackmailing me. She’d found out that I hadn’t patented it. I think she was determined to drive Dolly, she liked her so much,’ he explained ingenuously. ‘So she went to the Patent Office just on the off chance she might find something interesting. She told me Thomas Bailey had a similar idea to mine, and that if she couldn’t drive the Dolly, she would tell him before the trials.’

  ‘And how did you hope to get away with it once details were published?’

  ‘I suppose I hoped Bailey’s was different and wouldn’t work.’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  ‘Really?’ Delight took over his face. ‘So I can rebuild Dolly.’

  ‘Only if it’s different to the Brighton Baby, or yours won’t work either,’ Auguste pointed out.

  ‘Of course it will work,’ he answered feverishly. ‘I wonder if I should go to see Mr Bailey. If I don’t, he’ll rebuild his and all my work will be wasted.’ He was already moving towards the door.

  ‘But you’re starting on a new car,’ Auguste pointed out.

  ‘Dolly’s reputation must be cleared first. Where’s my hat?’ He looked round vaguely for Judith.

  ‘Not so fast, Mr Dobbs,’ Egbert said none too cordially. ‘Don’t forget that Dolly’s reputation gave you an excellent motive for disposing of Hester Hart.’

  Harold Dobbs’s mouth opened, shut, and opened again. ‘I suppose it did,’ he agreed unhappily.

  Pierre looked up eagerly as Auguste came in, though whether this was excitement at the possibility of a discussion on the superiority of French sanguines mushrooms over English parasols or desire to discuss the topic of Miss Hart Auguste could not tell. Obstinacy made him decide to concentrate his immediate attention on cuisine, not on the missions with which Egbert had charged him. He was, after all, a maître chef, not primarily a Scotland Yard consultant detective, he reminded himself. Egbert all too frequently overlooked this fact.

  ‘What is there still to do?’ he asked, donning his long apron. ‘Are the pies glazed?’

  ‘Oui, monsieur. Is there news about—’

  ‘And the poussins with the veal and pork truffled stuffing ready for the oven?’

  ‘Oui, monsieur. Has the murderer—’

  ‘The Calvados and apple sauce for the quails?’

  ‘Non, monsieur, but I will do it. Have you—’

  ‘No, I will do it.’ Auguste was happy again. He was part of that warm, cocooned world in which heaven and hell had briefly made appearances and disappearances; the ecstatic joy of creation versus the imps of mischief in the form of imperfect supplies and smoking stoves. The world was called a kitchen, and he was king of it. For a little while, at least.

  Eventually he took pity on Pierre – or, rather, on the club restaurant’s forthcoming dinner. Pierre had at least one eye on him, if not both, and the food might suffer. Some dishes could sulk as effectively as humans, often more disastrously.

  ‘Did Miss Hart ever speak of her family to you? Living members, that is?’

  Happiness glowed in Pierre’s face. ‘She spoke little of her family at all, monsieur. I gained the impression she had left England to break away from her family as much as her so-called friends.’

  ‘But she was a wealthy woman, thanks to them.’

  ‘I do not know.’ He shrugged. ‘She was concerned for money. She carefully checked what I spent in the markets but I do not think she was short of money. How could she be? She travelled where she wished.’

  ‘And when she was not travelling, where did she go?’

  Pierre considered. ‘Sometimes she would return to England, sometimes stay in Paris, I believe. I was not with her then, of course. I returned to my father’s restaurant in Marseille, or took temporary positions in other restaurants in France, or Algeria, and sometimes Turkey. That is how I gained so much experience. As you will know, monsieur, in countries where food is highly esteemed, the peasant or the seaman is as exacting in his demands as the nobleman.’

  How true. The best judge of an omelette aux truffes Auguste had ever met lived in a charcoal burner’s hut in the Alpes-Maritimes.

  ‘Now tell me, monsieur, have you found this murderer yet?’

  ‘A daube is not cooked in thirty minutes, Pierre.’

  ‘But he, perhaps she, may escape. Leave London. Leave England.’

  ‘Then we will know who it is, and track him or her down,’ Auguste told him patiently. ‘And meanwhile you can help.’

  ‘Me?’ Pierre’s face lit up. ‘Anything to trap the do
g who did this.’

  Auguste produced the copy of the Rubáiyát which had been found in Hester Hart’s dorothy bag. ‘Have you any idea what this was doing in her bag? Was it a favourite of hers, a present from someone?’

  Pierre took it and examined it. ‘No, I do not think so. She was very fond of poetry and frequently carried it with her; she may have bought this, or had it given to her. It looks quite new.’ He opened it, and read. ‘“But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine/And many a Garden by the water blows.” A very nice poem,’ he said approvingly. He handed it back to Auguste, and as he did so the page fell out.

  Auguste bent to pick it up, glanced at it and replaced it. ‘I like it too, Pierre. You should read it.’

  ‘If Miss Hart liked it, I shall.’

  ‘Did Miss Hart carry a gun while she was with you?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘Did she use it?’

  ‘To threaten brigands frequently, and once to shoot an intruder in her tent. The captain of the caravan. It was a difficult time, we were lucky to escape from his companions.’

  ‘Did she carry it with her here?’

  ‘I cannot be sure, of course, but knowing her I would think she did.’

  ‘Then why would it not have been in her bag in the motor stable?’

  ‘That seems strange. I do not understand. But then Miss Hart had her own way of doing things.’

  ‘It’s the last time I go with the house,’ Hannah Smirch declared, limping painfully into Hester Hart’s former study and dining room.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Auguste asked the question for both of them, as Egbert immediately began to look through the desk. Not, he explained later to Auguste, in case Twitch had overlooked anything but to get the smell of the evidence himself. Twitch, in Egbert’s opinion, never overlooked anything except the Thames from his office window, and even the Thames thought twice about it with Twitch’s eye on it.

  ‘With the house,’ Hannah repeated. ‘It’s rented, and Peters, that’s the man, and I go with it. Not any more, I don’t. It’s not right. Tenants getting themselves murdered. The landlord should be more careful. I can’t be getting all upset with all these people marching in and out. Police indeed.’

  ‘We won’t be long, Mrs Smirch,’ Auguste said pacifyingly, before Egbert could reply. He was well used to a long succession of Hannah Smirches in the course of his profession.

  ‘You’ll be wanting muffins,’ she continued gloomily. ‘That’s all you police think of. I’ve got better things to do than run around all day serving you muffins and tea.’

  ‘Before you start them,’ Egbert weighed in, ‘I want to know what happened to the chestful of diaries that Miss Hart kept here.’

  ‘You’re about the fourth person to ask me that today, and I’ll tell you the same as I told them. She had it here up to a week or so ago. Now I don’t know where it’s gone. And before you ask, nor does Peters.’

  ‘What other people?’ Egbert asked sharply. ‘Police?’

  ‘With a feathered hat like that stuck on her head? Said she was Miss Hart’s cousin but didn’t give a name.’

  ‘Cousin? Describe her, if you please.’

  With a martyred look that would have done justice to St Catherine, Hannah Smirch obliged with an excellent description of Isabel, Countess of Tunstall.

  ‘Who else?’

  Maud Bullinger had not been so coy about her name, John Millward had apparently masqueraded as a lawyer but was identifiable not only by the description of his person but by the fact that he was the only one to arrive in an old-fashioned hansom horse cab.

  ‘How could the chest have been removed without either you or Peters seeing it go, Mrs Smirch?’

  ‘Must have gone on my afternoon off.’ Her look implied that any reasonable employer would give her Sunday off too, so she wouldn’t be troubled with all these police. ‘Madam didn’t say anything to me about it, or to Peters, though most likely it come out through my kitchen while he was asleep in his room. Lazy good-for-nothing. Catch Madam hauling it down the front steps. A stickler she was for “How Things Are Done, Mrs Smirch.”’ She mimicked Hester’s high, strained voice.

  ‘She was a great traveller, social conventions would not trouble her, surely,’ Auguste observed.

  ‘Wouldn’t they?’ Hannah replied darkly. ‘Except when it come to him, of course.’ She eyed them, obviously hoping they would insist on hearing more.

  Auguste obliged.

  ‘I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, mind, even if she did complain about my muffins, but sometimes he stayed over.’ She gave them a look heavy with meaning. ‘Mr Smythe. Madam said to make the guest room up, but I can tell a rumpled sheet when I see one.’ She nodded to herself, confirming her own worst suspicions.

  ‘She was planning to marry him, wasn’t she?’ Auguste asked innocently.

  ‘Not afore time. A den of sinful iniquity this house has been.’

  ‘Has he been here since Miss Hart died?’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t let him across the threshold. I didn’t like him, no more I did that foreigner chappie.’

  ‘Pierre Calille?’

  ‘That wasn’t the name. Louis Gee something. I had to show him into Madam quite often.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘He always drank wine. He didn’t go round demanding muffins, I’ll say that for him.’

  As they left, Auguste nursed a fantasy in which Hannah Smirch might have murdered Hester for criticising her muffins. After all, if he as a maître chef was entitled to rage against those who did not appreciate his cailles farcies, why should Hannah Smirch not rate her wares as highly?

  Chapter Nine

  ‘The case of the disappearing chest, Tatiana.’ Egbert settled himself on the Chesterfield in the drawing room at Queen Anne’s Gate, indulgently glancing at the amorous activity of the numerous goddesses, nymphs and infant cupids rampaging around the Angelica Kaufmann ceiling above him. Busier than Stockbery Towers, he had remarked to Auguste when he first saw it. He liked this ceiling though; they looked as if they were enjoying themselves, which appeared to be against the rules in English society. The warm golds of the ceiling were reflected in Tatiana’s choice of décor and made this a comfortable place to be on a Sunday working lunchtime.

  ‘Like Maskelyne and Devant?’

  ‘I’d welcome their assistance.’ Egbert was beginning to think only a couple of magicians could sort this case out.

  ‘Mrs Smirch, ma mie, the all-too-solid housekeeper, claims the chest has vanished into thin air,’ Auguste told his wife. ‘One day it was there, another it wasn’t.’

  ‘Is Mrs Smirch entirely reliable?’ Tatiana inquired.

  ‘Has she had her palm greased with silver, do you mean?’ Egbert considered this. ‘It didn’t look too greasy to me. What do you think, Auguste?’

  ‘I think it more likely that Hester Hart deliberately chose Mrs Smirch’s afternoon off, and organised Peters’s absence too, in case they should prove susceptible to silver. Miss Hart was a well-organised woman.’

  ‘And so is Mrs Jolly,’ Tatiana mentioned. ‘I fear if we don’t appear in the dining room right away, her luncheon might perform the same trick as the chest.’

  Auguste leapt up anxiously. Tatiana was not jesting. On one terrible occasion they had had to make do with cold food because the game pie was deemed by Mrs Jolly to be overcooked, and no amount of cajoling could magic it back to their table.

  Today, however, Mrs Jolly was obviously prepared to do her best to further the course of British justice, Auguste realised thankfully as he eyed the comforting assortment of cold plates on the sideboard which Mrs Jolly had provided, and the even more comforting smell of roast duck wafting up from the kitchens to their ground-floor dining room. It needed only Mrs Jolly’s olive sauce to make his satisfaction complete. They had a harmonious triangular arrangement. If Auguste proposed a dish, Mrs Jolly amended it, and Tatiana accepted it – with a few interventions of her own, usually eccentricities from her Russian upbringing or culled from
reading of Far Eastern delights.

  Today all was well. What could be more English? Potted lobster, young celery salad, roast duck, olive sauce, stewed cucumbers, young potatoes, raspberries with whipped strawberry cream, splendid English Stilton cheese, followed by dessert of fresh fruit and a savoury. Auguste still could not entirely reconcile himself to the English habit of concluding a meal with a savoury taste instead of sweet, but in Egbert’s honour Mrs Jolly produced her special Scotch Woodcock savoury and he was content, though feeling somewhat guilty at the thought of Edith ploughing valiantly through Mr Pinpole’s tough beef alone. It was with regret that he remembered he must return to his desk, not retire to a comfortable deckchair in their Highbury garden.

  ‘Before you leave, Egbert, I must tell you about the gun.’ Auguste regretted having to spoil the afterglow of such a meal. ‘Pierre confirms that Miss Hart always carried one when he knew her, and presumes she did in London also.’

  ‘Our villain can’t have known that, or why not use it to kill her?’ Egbert made a superhuman effort to drag himself back into the case.

  ‘Because of the noise?’ Tatiana suggested.

  ‘At that time of night there would be so few people around that even if someone came rushing to investigate, there would be time for the villain to escape.’

  Auguste was dubious. ‘I’m not sure. The murderer would have to shoot Miss Hart before destroying the Dolly Dobbs, and then move the block and tackle along the roof girders to the correct position to swing the block in. It would take some time.’

  ‘Most of our suspects were familiar with that motor house. They’d know how the block and tackle worked.’

  Tatiana said nothing. Looking at his wife, Auguste suffered with her. This was her motoring school which she had carefully built up into the crowning glory of the club this year, over which she had worked so hard, and the members of which were, many of them, her friends. And now this!

  ‘It would take courage to carry out the destruction of the car,’ Auguste maintained, ‘knowing that the alarm might be raised by the gunshot.’

  ‘In that case,’ Egbert asked, reasonably enough, ‘where is that dratted gun?’