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

by Myers, Amy

  His task well in hand, curiosity sent Auguste to the rear courtyard where Hester Hart would shortly be arriving for the first public airing of the Dolly Dobbs. Within the repair house he could see Leo moving about, and Miss Dazey, jauntily dressed in a dashing blue dust coat and cap, as his faithful shadow. Outside, however, he suddenly noticed a stranger sprawled full length along the gully of the roof between the motor house and the repair house, and doing his best to peer in at the heavily barred skylight. A spy!

  ‘Who are you?’

  At his shout the man twitched like a nervous rabbit, scrambled to the rear of the roof and disappeared. Grimly, Auguste ran to the side of the motor stable in time to catch the intruder by the arm before he could slip away. He was dressed in an old top hat and huge apron. The former he raised, and cleared his throat.

  ‘Morning, guv’nor,’ he ventured.

  ‘And good morning to you,’ Auguste replied amiably, relaxing his hold. ‘You are a window cleaner?’

  The man’s face relaxed. ‘That’s it, guv’nor. Sort of odd job man.’

  ‘A very odd job man. All such gentlemen here are known to me. You are not one of them.’

  ‘Got the wrong house,’ the man said hopefully, in what he obviously believed was a nonchalant manner.

  Auguste caught his arm again as he began to walk away. ‘Not so fast, mon ami. You are a Ham.’

  ‘No, Auguste.’ Contrary to his predictions, Tatiana had arrived, becomingly clad in broderie anglaise and embroidered linen dust cloak. Apart from the dark hair already escaping from its pins, and the fact that she appeared to have only one glove, Tatiana was ready. Her toilette was not foremost in her mind, however. ‘This is no Ham. You’re Mr Thomas Bailey, aren’t you? Mr Dobbs’s greatest rival.’

  The man flushed. He must have been much the same age as Harold Dobbs, around thirty, but whereas Dobbs had the look of an absent-minded butterfly-collector, Bailey – once he abandoned the pretence of being an odd job man – was a much shorter man, with the air of a fanatical Napoleon set on world conquest.

  ‘I am merely displaying a professional interest,’ Bailey announced loftily.

  ‘Then I suggest you display it at Hyde Park Corner next Thursday where we begin the official trials.’

  He seized this as welcome dismissal. ‘Very well. But I have my suspicions,’ he added mysteriously as he left.

  ‘Isn’t anyone guarding this motorcar?’ Tatiana inquired crossly, hurrying into the repair house.

  Attracted by the sound of voices, Fred Gale had just clambered up the circular staircase from the repair house basement. He shook his head indulgently as he saw Miss Dazey devotedly peering over Leo’s shoulder as he cleaned one of the new pneumatic tyres with a jeweller’s scratchbox. ‘Now, now, miss, this is no place for you.’

  Leo, relief on his face, greeted Fred and Tatiana as his saviours.

  ‘Leo doesn’t want me here either. Isn’t he silly, Mr Didier?’ she greeted him cheerfully, as Tatiana went to talk to Fred.

  Looking at her, Auguste could only agree, while Leo muttered, ‘I’ve got work to do,’ in the time-honoured way of all harassed men.

  ‘Working on darling Dolly, I expect.’ Miss Dazey paused provocatively at the communicating door to the Dobbs’s motor house. She put her hand on the knob, causing Leo to spring forward, detaching the hand, and providing his body as a human shield against her invasion of Dolly’s secrets. ‘We’ll all see it in a moment,’ Miss Dazey pointed out, hurt.

  ‘But not till Mr Dobbs says,’ Leo said firmly.

  In answer, her arms crept round his neck and, spread-eagled as he was, he could do nothing to prevent her planting a kiss on his cheek. ‘It’s at a very delicate stage.’

  ‘It is not a soufflé, mon ami, it is only a motorcar,’ Auguste pointed out, laughing, just as Harold Dobbs arrived with his wife.

  ‘The Dolly Dobbs is more than a motorcar.’ Its proud inventor brimmed over with pride. ‘Like Icarus and Daedelus, I reach for the sun.’

  ‘You’re wonderful, Harold.’ The faithful Judith, clad in an old-fashioned mackintosh hood, three times as large as Napoleon’s tricorne, stood staunchly at his side.

  ‘Is Miss Hart here?’ Harold demanded.

  ‘Not yet.’ Tatiana joined them. ‘And Mr Dobbs, just why have you changed your mind about the Duchess driving your car next week? And do you propose Miss Hart should drive it today as well?’

  Harold went pink. ‘Certainly. Miss Hart is a professional driver,’ he said unhappily. ‘The Duchess quite understands.’

  ‘Does she? Then why is she marching across the courtyard in such a determined manner?’ Tatiana inquired.

  Harold took one nervous glance at Her Grace and rushed down the staircase leading to the basement, swiftly followed by his wife.

  Agatha swept in in primrose silk and a fine temper. ‘Where is he?’ She looked round, and when Tatiana indicated the basement, she marched to the staircase. ‘Come up here, you foolish little man.’

  After a moment Harold sheepishly emerged, bowing to the Duchess and removing his cap.

  Agatha wasted no time on formalities. ‘Is the Dolly Dobbs ready for me? If so, conduct me to it.’

  ‘Er . . .’

  Agatha whirled round to address Tatiana. ‘Kindly ignore that rubbish in the Morning Post, Your Highness. I shall be driving my car.’

  ‘Mine,’ squeaked Harold in a semblance of spirit.

  ‘I do not intend to argue with you, sir. Take me to my car.’

  Defeated, Harold went to the communicating door, followed by a triumphant Agatha, and opened it.

  Greeting them on the threshold was Hester Hart. ‘My dear Agatha.’ Her handsome face, topped by a rakish tam o’shanter, and topping an unbecoming lilac dust coat boasting two long rows of silver buttons, looked amused. ‘Surely you leave driving to the servants? So I shall drive and you can take your rightful place in the rear seat. The motor servant’s seat is low. I shall not impede your view.’

  Auguste was riveted and stepped forward as if to intervene. Tatiana’s hand restrained him. Hester advanced into the repair house, preventing Agatha from seeing the car. Harold pressed himself against the work bench in pursuit of invisibility, Mrs Dobbs was looking mystified, Leo had vanished and Miss Dazey after him. Fred was apparently engrossed in tidying his set of duplicate keys. The Duchess stood stock still, and Tatiana trembled for her club. All eyes were on the Duchess. She said nothing for a moment, and then, amazingly, she ceded victory. She was even smiling.

  ‘My dear Hester,’ she said sweetly, ‘if Harold wishes you to drive our motorcar, then drive you shall. Far be it from me to seek to spoil your hour of glory. Or Harold’s. I am quite sure you are the better driver.’ She glanced at the bright sunshine, snapped up her chiffon-frilled parasol with its clusters of forget-me-nots as though the damaging rays of the sun were her only concern, and walked briskly away.

  Even Hester was surprised. Then she regained her composure. ‘What a charming woman Agatha is. One of my oldest friends.’

  ‘Something very strange is going on,’ whispered Tatiana to Auguste, as Harold, confidence regained, marched through the communicating door to the Dolly Dobbs. ‘When the serpent hisses, he usually has something to hiss about.’

  ‘Is the serpent Hester or Agatha?’

  ‘Both.’

  Only Harold and Hester were allowed inside the holy of holies. Tatiana, Auguste, Mrs Dobbs, Fred, Leo and Miss Dazey were forced to gather outside, and Harold Dobbs took one step further down in Tatiana’s estimation. By now Auguste’s curiosity about what the Dolly Dobbs would be like now it was completed was sufficient to overlook the fact that it was a motorcar.

  As Fred Gale was at last allowed to throw back the doors of the motor house, the sound of the Dolly Dobbs’s horn tooted in triumph, and the car itself, Hester at the wheel, began to move forward with Harold, almost weeping with excitement, running beside it.

  Tatiana clutched Auguste’s arm. ‘What on earth
are those?’

  If this was a motorcar, it was the most extraordinary-looking one Auguste had ever seen. High up, perched on each of the front mudguards, was what at first sight appeared to be an enormous phonograph horn. At the front of each one was a gaily-coloured windmill with eight blades each painted in a different colour. A sprightly weathercock clung daintily to the curved dash in front of the steering pillar. It rather resembled the last pantomime dragon Auguste had seen at Drury Lane.

  After her first surprise, Tatiana ran forward to inspect this monstrosity, which was evidently nothing new to Hester who sat smugly in the driving seat.

  ‘What are they?’ Tatiana demanded, stopping by the ‘phonograph horns’ and their accompanying apparatus.

  Harold glowed. ‘They are wind machines. I have discovered the secret of perpetual motion.’

  ‘The name of Dobbs will be written in the history of science,’ shrieked Judith, the mackintosh hood falling over one eye in her excitement.

  ‘The laws of physics do not permit perpetual motion,’ Auguste pointed out dubiously. Surely where Ancient Greece had failed to supply an answer, it was very unlikely that Upper Norwood would succeed.

  ‘It is very simple,’ Hester announced loftily, instantly assuming proprietorial rights. ‘Wind blows in as the car moves forward and is converted by the dynamo and motor into electricity to recharge the battery as fast as it discharges.’

  ‘The voltmeter will always show around two volts per cell,’ Harold explained. ‘I got the idea from my daughter Dolly’s paper windmill which she bought at the Zoo. That’s why I’ve painted the propeller blades these colours – to please Dolly.’

  ‘Suppose there is a tailwind, or no wind at all, or the wind is not coming from the front?’ Tatiana asked doubtfully.

  ‘Naturally Mr Dobbs has thought of that,’ Hester snapped. ‘The weathercock tells me if the wind has changed. I have a handle here on my left,’ she bent down and jerked it and the huge cowl on the left mudguard promptly swung round through 360 degrees, ‘and on my right.’ The right-hand cowl obediently followed suit. ‘Dolly Dobbs can catch the wind from whatever direction it comes from. If there is no wind, merely driving the car forward will create it. I shall be honoured to drive this wonderful invention on its official trials.’

  Only because, Auguste reflected, of the glory it would reflect on Hester Hart. He agreed with Tatiana: he did not like Hester Hart. She had charm, but then so did Medusa.

  ‘You’ll certainly attract notice,’ Tatiana commented, still convinced there must be a flaw in Harold’s theory and longing to see the car in motion. ‘We’ve kept the car’s appearance today a secret, but if Mr Bailey managed to see anything before we stopped him just now, it’s possible—’

  ‘Thomas Bailey here?’ Harold interrupted. ‘Are you sure?’ He went very pale.

  ‘Yes,’ Tatiana said blithely. ‘I recognised him at once. Isn’t he rumoured to be working on a new car too?’

  Harold clutched his brow feverishly, ignoring Tatiana’s question. ‘Take her back into the motor house,’ he unwisely ordered Dolly’s driver in a strangled voice.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Hester retorted.

  ‘Take it back!’ Harold was so agitated he appeared to be about to pull Hester Hart down bodily. She cast them a look, jumped down from the car and marched inside the motor house, beckoning meaningfully to Harold and banging the doors shut after them.

  With bated breath, they waited while the sound of raised voices came from within.

  ‘I back Hester,’ Tatiana said with glee.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Judith glared at them. Her faith was justified, for five minutes later they both reappeared. Harold had won, for he climbed on to the driving seat of the Dolly Dobbs and reversed her into the motor house. Hester Hart, without another word but with lips angrily compressed, walked over to where Roderick Smythe had drawn up in the yard.

  Seeing her face, he leapt from the car and ushered her devotedly to the driving seat of his new Crossley.

  ‘What do you make of that?’ Tatiana asked as they drove away without a backward glance. ‘I never thought I’d see Harold Dobbs get the better of Agatha and Hester.’

  ‘Yet he does not seem happy with his victory,’ Auguste observed. Far from it; he looked extremely nervous. Why had the mention of Bailey so alarmed him? And what had the Duchess in mind? Remembering her unusual behaviour, he was convinced she had a plan for revenge. Next Thursday promised to be even more interesting than he had hoped.

  ‘Pierre, have you packed the sauce remoularde for the mousse de crabe?’

  ‘Naturellement, Monsieur Didier,’ Pierre answered him patiently. And the horseradish sauce for the quails, and the sauce chocolat for the bavarois, and the apricot syrup for the chestnut soufflé pudding, and the hundred and one other details that a luncheon buffet and tea in the grounds of a country house at Richmond would require.

  After the hill trials on Petersham Hill in Richmond Park, in which the ladies would compete for the best times between two points, the Dysart Arms in Petersham Road, and the Star and Garter Hotel’s main entrance on the hilltop, the best twenty would compete again on ‘Test Hill’ in Richmond Park, between what Tatiana had referred to as the ‘usual oak trees’.

  Auguste was not entirely happy. The Dolly Dobbs episode did not bode well for convivial club gatherings today. Moreover, Pierre’s patisserie inclined to the oversweet. As well as cream, his millefeuilles positively oozed honey. Delightful, but unusual. He watched the staff in the last throes of hectic preparation. Once he would have been a bustling part of it, this final onslaught, but now his role was supervisory only.

  Today’s banquet was Pierre’s responsibility, next Thursday’s would be his. Yet Pierre did not seem overjoyed at his privilege.

  ‘Something is troubling you, Pierre?’ he asked eventually. ‘The cold duck, perhaps?’

  ‘That dog.’

  ‘Dog?’ Auguste was unable to recall any recipe requiring such ingredients.

  ‘Working with Luigi Peroni is no pleasure, maître.’

  ‘Any trouble today is more likely to stem from Miss Hart, I fear.’ Auguste had spoken unguardedly. Gone were the days when his life belonged solely to this side of the green baize door.

  ‘Mr Smythe has returned to Miss Lockwood?’ Pierre asked with interest.

  ‘No, but the debut of the Dolly Dobbs has been postponed until next Thursday.’

  ‘She cannot have been pleased.’

  ‘She was not.’ Auguste hesitated. ‘You must help me keep a watch on the motorcar until next Thursday, watch for anyone trying to get into the motor house.’

  ‘Miss Hart would surely not harm the motorcar.’

  ‘No, but others might.’

  ‘Or harm her?’ Pierre asked anxiously. ‘She is a splendid woman.’

  Auguste glanced at him curiously. ‘Yes, but she is the prune in a dish of delicate peaches. Too harsh, too dark. She overshadows all around her.’

  The last baskets left the kitchen for the motor vans outside. To Auguste, who had reluctantly agreed that motor vans were the most sensible form of transport for a precious buffet, their radiators and lamps seemed to be grinning at him with some secret knowledge as he emerged into the courtyard where the cavalcade was lined up.

  Winter House, whose grounds ran down to the river bank, was a Georgian brick mansion which had belonged to the Francis family ever since it had been built. The present incumbent, Hugh Francis, cousin and lover of Isabel, Countess of Tunstall, was a bachelor who undoubtedly merited the description of a ‘swell’. It said much for his cousinly (or other) devotion that he was prepared to allow over a hundred motorcars to bump over his grass. Such considerations were trivial beside the attractions of Isabel.

  Auguste’s nose for trouble, however, was twitching like a diviner’s hazel twig over a waterfall. This waterfall must be underground, however, for looking round he could see nothing to justify his anxiety. The ladies and th
eir passengers had now arrived from the hill trials, and Tatiana’s whispered information that Hester Hart had won the hill trials in the Crossley with times of 1 minute 42 seconds on Petersham Hill and an astounding 1 minute 48 seconds on Test Hill had not so far ruined the day. Nor had the thrilling news that Maud had side-slipped on to the grass behind her, or that poor Phyllis’s benzine tank had been filled with water at an inn by a misguided ostler. Auguste told himself modestly that his buffet, even though he was just supervising this one, could always be counted on to cheer the most aggrieved of spirits.

  It had clearly done so this time. He glanced round at the colourful assembly on the lawns, dust coats discarded and parasols sprouting like exotic cabbages. He had been wrong. All would be well.

  ‘What are you going to do about that woman, Agatha?’ Maud Bullinger bit viciously into an éclair. ‘You’re not going to let her drive the Dolly Dobbs, are you?’

  ‘Are you going to let her drive in the International Women’s Race?’ the Duchess countered.

  ‘Out of my hands.’ Maud looked at her heavy fingers as though she’d like to strangle the lady.

  ‘And mine.’ Agatha smiled brightly.

  ‘You’re up to something, aren’t you?’ Maud suddenly realised.

  ‘There are more ways to kill a cat, as the old saying goes.’

  ‘Be careful, Agatha,’ Maud frowned. ‘We don’t want that old story raked up again.’

  Both women rearranged their faces as the Duke ambled towards them. ‘My dear,’ his Duchess informed her sister-in-law, ‘I quite forgot I hadn’t dropped the sprog; I almost dropped it when the Horbick started running backwards but then I remembered . . .’