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

by Myers, Amy

  Auguste laughed. ‘For whom? For Italy?’

  ‘No, no, I am serious. For ladies, who pay him for information. Where easier to gather it than in a restaurant with his position?’

  ‘What kind of information?’ Auguste asked, startled.

  Pierre shrugged. ‘Whose husband dines with whom? What so-and-so thinks of so-and-so. Yesterday he was boasting of how he kept Lady Bullinger informed of Miss Hart’s movements, and similarly told Miss Hart of Lady Bullinger’s plans.’

  ‘Do you have any proof?’

  ‘Why should I need it? I am not a policeman.’

  ‘No. And we must remember this is a kitchen,’ Auguste said firmly. ‘My wife tells me that afternoon tea will be required in the lounge this afternoon as well as the restaurant. She has told you?’ He hoped Tatiana had diplomatically suggested someone else should make the pastries today. Lumps of heavy fat and sugary honey would not help the coming ordeal.

  Pierre heaved a sigh. ‘Yes. Cucumber sandwiches and cakes are being made, ices prepared. Though it is difficult with the ices that are needed for tomorrow. What is the reason for this special tea?’ It was not like Pierre to make sugar mountains out of such grains of annoyance in a chef’s life.

  ‘Miss Hart has decided to give a talk on her travels in Syria.’

  ‘Merde.’ Pierre’s face darkened. ‘More sandwiches. And I shall have to be present to serve it, since that pig Luigi will be in the restaurant.’

  ‘The ladies will need all the reassurance and comfort your sandwiches and tea can provide, if Saturday’s experience is anything to go by,’ Auguste said diplomatically.

  ‘My best pastries,’ Pierrre announced.

  Auguste’s heart sank.

  Fascinated, Auguste watched as Hester Hart swept like Queen Zenobia of Palmyra herself through the ranks of her enemies in the lounge to take up a dominant position at the far end of the room, and Tatiana rose to join her. What was it about this woman, he wondered, that although she was apparently set on antagonising the whole club, she was still managing to get her own way? Even Tatiana, usually a diplomatist, had failed to deter Hester from her plans today. Tatiana had thought no one would attend; he had disagreed, and was right – the room was full. Even Agatha sat elegantly at the very front, with Maud next to her. There was Phyllis Lockwood too. One committee member only was missing.

  ‘Where is Isabel?’ he had asked Tatiana before Hester’s arrival.

  ‘On her way from Kent. She’ll be here for the run tomorrow.’

  ‘But then she won’t be there to receive Bertie!’ Auguste was dumbfounded.

  ‘The Dowager is doing the honours. Once upon a time she was his mistress, so gossip goes, when he was a very young Prince of Wales.’

  Given the choice between a hostess aged sixty-five, former mistress or not, and one mature beauty aged thirty-five or so, Auguste had a shrewd idea which His Majesty would prefer. He hoped Isabel’s charm would be up to the King’s displeasure, but remembering one of his own encounters with the lady, whose unfathomable eyes had suddenly become all too fathomable when they were left alone together, he supposed it could be. It was a risk, however, and he wondered very much why Isabel was running it. He had put her down as a lady to whom social position was all, and whose brains in this respect could be counted on to overrule the heart.

  Hester Hart was a good speaker, Auguste conceded, her tall, spare figure, dark eyes and impassioned movements bringing a little of the deserts of Syria into the midst of the crème of London society. There was no doubt that whatever private failings she might have, she had accomplished much. Lady travellers were a much unheralded group, as she was only too eager to point out, driven, she claimed, like outcasts from their own society to appreciate other wider horizons. Like Palmyra.

  ‘Palmyra was one of the outposts of the Roman Empire,’ she enthused, ‘and for centuries before that the centre of caravan trading routes from the mysterious east to the Anti-Lebanon, Jerusalem, Jebel Lubnan, Antioch, Petra, and the Dead Sea. The ruins of its glorious colourful past create a present of its own . . . Damascus, capital of the desert, breathes in the desert air. I visited bazaars and harems, ate with Bedouin and Pashas . . .’

  All the same, Auguste noted with amusement, relieved that there was nothing too contentious in her speech, the questions afterwards from her audience centred not on philosophy but on practical matters.

  ‘What do you wear on a camel? Are you truly alone on your travels? I can’t go to Bond Street unaccompanied!’ Agatha trilled. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ She glanced round as if to reassure herself that she was in a truly feminine society. Obviously she did not count Pierre, himself and three footmen presiding quietly over the arrangements for tea at the back of the lounge. Auguste was amused.

  ‘Naturally I travel with a caravan,’ Hester replied loftily. ‘And there are muleteers, and my dragomen of course. But they are hardly relevant.’

  ‘But in the desert,’ Phyllis asked, shocked, longing to know what the sanitary arrangements were like.

  ‘One hires the labour one needs,’ Hester said shortly. ‘It is of no importance.’

  ‘And the harems?’ barked Lady Bullinger. ‘Approve of them, do you?’

  ‘They are most interesting ladies, so knowledgeable on some subjects.’ Hester looked round maliciously. ‘The art of sexual lovemaking, for instance.’

  There was a stunned silence.

  ‘You talked about it?’ Phyllis squealed. A delicious shiver ran through the audience.

  ‘One can hardly discuss British politics in a harem.’

  ‘But you are a maiden lady,’ Lady Bullinger barked at her future god-daughter-in-law. ‘Hardly a fitting subject.’

  ‘This is going to be the century of the woman. We may like men but we don’t need them.’

  ‘Not even Roderick?’ Phyllis’s voice rang sweetly out.

  Not such a rabbit, was Auguste’s instant thought, as another delicious shiver ran through the assembled ladies, delighted to see Hester put in a difficult position.

  Not for long. ‘My fiancé has a co-driver for life, not a rear seat passenger.’

  ‘So you do need a co-driver,’ Agatha asked innocently, ‘for all you travel alone? Or is Roderick a sort of dragoman to you?’

  ‘He is not!’ Hester shouted.

  ‘Then why ask the poor man to guard that car all night? Why not do it yourself? I feel sure Queen Zenobia would have done.’

  ‘I am driving tomorrow,’ Hester pointed out curtly. ‘I have a responsibility to the Dolly Dobbs, dear Agatha.’

  ‘Is that how you managed things in the desert? Asking others to do what one does not care to do oneself? You will find that matters are conducted differently in London society.’

  ‘So I discovered years ago.’ Hester Hart’s eyes glittered. ‘Have you all forgotten? If so, you will not have long to wait before you are all reminded.’ She smiled, but it was not a sweet smile. ‘And you will find, my friends, that I remember exactly how things are conducted in London society, partly because I recorded it day by day in my diaires. I know them by heart. Shall I recite some passages now, or will you wait for my memoirs?’

  ‘Shall we have tea, ladies?’ Tatiana, desperate, rose to her feet. She forgot to thank the speaker but no one noticed in the sudden enthusiasm to collect cucumber sandwiches.

  Tea? Iced water might be more appropriate, Auguste thought, for these raised temperatures. Those were the darts of the picador to madden the bull. The ladies had been baiting Hester. Would a matador appear to deal the final blow?

  Only Luigi appeared, however. He had apparently decided the restaurant could do without him, and that Pierre, being incompetent, needed his guidance. It was true that under his magic touch, combined with Earl Grey tea, flushed cheeks and angry voices calmed into the semblance of normality. As normal as a box of lucifer matches requiring only a touch to set them alight.

  ‘I wish you were driving with me on the Bollée, Auguste.’ Tatiana, shimmering i
n cream silk, was in the last stages of her garnish in preparation for dinner at the club.

  ‘There is a very dull menu tonight. Mrs Jolly could make a most delightful—’ He rapidly changed the subject.

  ‘No, Auguste. Tonight we must dine at the club.’

  ‘But what could happen this evening? Hester won’t even be there. She said she was dining at home, to prepare for tomorrow.’

  ‘I would still like to be there.’

  Auguste surrendered and stopped feeling treacherous about his relief at travelling with the banquet on the royal train tomorrow. His duty in support of his wife would be performed this evening. As they walked in through the iron gates of Milton House, however, he realised it was going to be a more onerous duty than he had imagined.

  ‘Look!’ Tatiana seized Auguste’s arm.

  Stepping down from the Fiat’s driving seat in front of the club was Roderick Smythe. This was hardly surprising. What shook them was to see his companion, who was looking distinctly smug. The tip of Phyllis Lockwood’s tiny shoes showed beneath the flimsy blue evening dress, which could be glimpsed under her dainty motoring dust coat as Roderick carefully helped her down from the passenger seat. A very large flowery hat was cunningly placed to reveal as much as possible of her golden hair and pretty face.

  Unfortunately for Roderick, as Auguste now shuddered to see, Hester had exercised her woman’s privilege of changing her mind about dining at home and was glaring out from the restaurant window. Then her face disappeared. With one accord, Auguste and Tatiana followed Roderick and Phyllis who were, unaware of their imminent fate, already walking into the club restaurant, divested of their travelling coats. Tatiana was too late to warn them.

  It was not Luigi who greeted Roderick; it was Hester, the feathers in her hat tilting like Roman emperors’ thumbs of death towards her prey. Phyllis’s grip on Roderick’s arm tightened, either in panic or possessiveness.

  Roderick’s opening defence was not impressive. ‘I thought you were to dine at home, Hester.’

  ‘So you chose to sneak here behind my back?’ Hester’s raised voice paid no concessions to the presence of other diners, for whom the dull menu had suddenly received an injection of spice.

  Phyllis deflected the thumbs with ease. ‘Not behind your back, Miss Hart. You asked him to guard the Dolly Dobbs overnight. Don’t you remember?’ There was an admirable note of solicitous inquiry in her voice.

  ‘That’s right.’ Roderick was only too anxious to agree.

  ‘Then kindly change your plans, Roderick. I have no need of a turncoat to guard my motorcar. I shall do it myself.’

  ‘Hester, I can explain—’

  ‘How about you, Miss Lockwood? Can you explain why you are dining with my fiancé?’

  Phyllis burst into tears, a technique she frequently found to be effective when at a loss for words. ‘He’s my fiancé. He loves me, don’t you, Roderick?’

  Roderick apparently found the question too much to answer, for he did not reply.

  ‘Do you, Roderick?’ Hester inquired silkily. ‘I was under the impression, last night in bed, that you loved me.’

  Forty pairs of knives and forks, including those of Maud, Agatha, Isabel and Hugh, halfway through their meat stew, were instantly suspended. Their holders were reeling with delicious shock at hearing their bête noire mention the word ‘bed’ in public with no concern at all for frightening the horses.

  Standing behind the eternal triangle, Auguste saw Roderick looking from one of the women in his life to the other and, like many a man before him, failing to come up with a solution worthy of the situation. He removed Phyllis’s arm, brushed past Tatiana and Auguste without a word, and seizing his hat strode out angrily without even tipping the cloakroom attendant. As he did so, he became aware of two sounds; the first was Phyllis in hot pursuit, the second was Hester’s hurled, ‘Don’t bother to return tonight for your ring; I’ll send it back tomorrow.’

  The three members of her audience most concerned were delighted. Their entertainment ended, however, as Hester continued, ‘I’ll have my revenge on the lot of you. I’ve waited long enough.’

  ‘I don’t think it advisable that you should remain here overnight alone,’ Tatiana said firmly, as she took coffee with Hester in the lounge an hour later. Not for the first time she was thinking that motorcars were considerably easier to control than people, punctures notwithstanding. Especially people like Hester Hart who insisted on breaking all accepted rules of society. Once Tatiana would have been in full agreement with such sentiments; now she had modified her views. She disagreed with rules that did harm, but agreed with those that caused no harm and made daily life run the smoother.

  Hester decided against returning a stinging retort. She had no quarrel with Tatiana, rather to her surprise; Tatiana Didier was, after all, related to the King and was unlikely to have much in common with the world of button manufacture. ‘You need not concern yourself, Mrs Didier. I am used to guarding myself as well as my property.’

  Overlooking the fact that the Dolly Dobbs was not Hester’s property but Harold’s and, she supposed, Agatha’s, Tatiana ceded to the inevitable. ‘Then you must lock all the doors and remain inside the motor house, Miss Hart.’

  ‘It is too warm. I have the instincts of a cat –’ how right she was, Tatiana thought – ‘I wake on an instant. I also have a pistol.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of that.’

  ‘Perhaps not. However, I am aware I am not popular in the club.’

  She sounded proud of the fact, Tatiana thought with distaste. ‘You are too outspoken. London does not approve of private matters being aired in public places. The club may be all female, but it is not a harem.’

  Hester’s face darkened. ‘If that is a reproof, Mrs Didier, I do not accept it. Society needs a fresh wind from the desert to blow through it.’

  ‘Be careful, Hester.’ Tatiana was genuinely concerned. ‘Like the desert, I imagine, it has its own methods of defence.’

  Hester laughed. ‘When you have faced the perils of the Jebel Druze, a London Ladies’ Motoring Club does not seem so very terrifying.’

  ‘I’m sure your travels will also have taught you that danger can lurk in the most unlikely of places,’ Tatiana said quietly. ‘I shall ask Mr Gale to keep watch outside if you insist on carrying out this vigil yourself, while you remain inside.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No traveller can afford to overlook the importance of common sense.’ Unless their vanity gets in the way was Tatiana’s unspoken qualification. ‘I am responsible for this club, and I simply cannot allow any member to remain here alone when a threat of violence has been made.’

  Hester gave in ungraciously. ‘Very well. Fred Gale can sleep outside and I’ll sleep inside. After all, as Maud pointed out, I am a maiden lady.’

  It was the first sign of humour that Tatiana had ever detected in the redoubtable Miss Hart.

  Auguste was in the midst of a heated amicable discussion with Pierre over his desire to serve Cardinal sauce with the lobster mousse. Auguste held firmly that the sauce should contrast in this case, not complement or extend existing flavours. ‘Curry sauce,’ he was urging. ‘Mild, but—’ He broke off, alarmed, as Tatiana came rushing up to him. ‘What is the matter, chérie?’

  ‘It’s Hester. She’s adamant about guarding the Dolly Dobbs herself. Now she has told Roderick she won’t marry him, she doesn’t want him or any man to help her – or rather the car. I insisted Fred stay tonight, but I’m still worried about tomorrow. Please, Auguste, come with me by motorcar to Canterbury. Pierre can manage without you, can’t you, Pierre?’

  ‘Oui, madame.’

  ‘Of course I will come.’ His heart sank, but there was no choice. Tatiana was deeply worried, and, he feared, with good reason.

  Tatiana left to find Fred, and Auguste tried to regain his earlier enthusiasm for the final stages of preparation. It was hard, however, and eventually he tore himself away from lobster mousse
and went over to the motor stable. ‘To smell the stock,’ he informed Leo to his mystification.

  Fred had left to take some rest before his vigil began. There were only four cars left. The separate motor houses were not yet locked, and Auguste walked into them one by one. The smell of machinery was always the same. A slight smell of benzine and of metal polish combined with a dull, dead atmosphere, not the warm living breath of the horses who had lived here before. For those who loved motorcars, he supposed this pungent smell was alive and evocative. He preferred his kitchen, where every saucepan, every scrubbing brush, every potato heralded the excitements to come on the morrow. He supposed to motorcar enthusiasts each motorcar had its own personality, reflecting that of its owners. Here, alone, at night, they spoke most vividly. Lady Bullinger’s Napier was a mighty roast sirloin of beef. Isabel’s new Royce was a subtle blend of spices from the Orient, Agatha’s Horbick a daintily arranged noisette of lamb on a purée of peas à la française. Lastly, in the next house to the Dolly Dobbs, was Miss Dazey’s curved-dash Oldsmobile, looking as out of place as a carp surrounded by turnips. Of Hester Hart’s Serpollet there was no sign.

  And here was the cause of all the trouble, the Dolly Dobbs. Here the open passageway connecting the rear of all the motor houses had had temporary doors attached but the one to the repair house was still open and he could see Leo working at the bench. Here was the Dolly with all the hopes and dreams placed on her about to be fulfilled tomorrow. Or were they? Suppose it was a case of the King’s New Clothes in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, a fantasy motorcar? If one looked at it objectively, could those outlandish windmills inside their monstrous hoods really work? The theory sounded possible, but then the theory taken to its logical limit, Tatiana had pointed out, would mean Harold had indeed discovered the secret of perpetual motion. Mankind had been seeking this for centuries; could a man like Dobbs really have succeeded? It remained to be seen. Tomorrow.

  Despite his antipathy to motorcars, Auguste found he was interested in whether the Dolly Dobbs worked or not. Canterbury was fifty-five miles from London Bridge, the beginning of the Dover Road along which they would travel. Add to that a few miles for starting from Hyde Park Corner, plus about seven miles from Canterbury to Martyr House, and the run would be over sixty-five miles, well in excess of the capabilities of current electric motorcars. If Dolly succeeded, the glory would reflect on Tatiana’s club; if it didn’t, would the reverse be true? Suddenly he realised he was as eager to see the motorcar’s success as Harold could have wished.