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

by Myers, Amy

  He looked up hopefully as there was a rap on the door and it opened. It wasn’t a duchess, or a countess; it was only Auguste again and some cook fellow judging by his long apron.

  ‘Come to apologise for that beef, have you?’ he grunted.

  For a moment Auguste was sidetracked, seeing the remains of dinner and instantly wishing to put the matter right. After he had explained and introduced Pierre, Egbert looked at him with what Auguste called his ‘Factory face’ – Factory being slang for Scotland Yard.

  ‘Kept quiet about this, haven’t you?’

  ‘Miss Hart asked me to do so, monsieur, and then when I heard the terrible news at luncheon today, what else could I do? I was there to serve luncheon to the King. I could not rush away to tell Mr Didier then.’

  Egbert sympathised; he had his own problems with His Majesty. ‘How did you get the job at the club?’

  ‘Miss Hart asked me.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Egbert said impatiently, ‘but how? Mrs Didier wouldn’t have taken you without a character.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Recommendation from your previous employers,’ Auguste explained.

  ‘Ah. Miss Hart helped me.’

  ‘Forged them, did you?’ Egbert asked grimly.

  Pierre blushed hotly. ‘I am a good cook, monsieur, and an honest man. Miss Hart testified to that.’

  ‘They don’t always go together. Look at Sweeney Todd.’

  ‘Who?’ Pierre turned to Auguste.

  ‘A gentleman who was not overconcerned with the contents of his pies,’ he explained. ‘Egbert, I can vouch for Pierre’s pies.’ Auguste suddenly wondered whether it had ever occurred to His Majesty that Sweeney was not the most propitious of names to employ as a private detective. Distracted by this happy thought, he missed Egbert’s next comments to Pierre. When he came to, Pierre had already embarked on the list of those who had upset Miss Hart.

  ‘First there is Miss Lockwood. While we were travelling last year, Miss Hart received a copy of a magazine article which much distressed her. It was written by Miss Lockwood, and it was that that made up her mind to return home to—’

  ‘Not her sweetheart?’

  ‘That I do not know,’ Pierre replied simply.

  ‘And who else is there?’

  ‘There were many, but three in particular she never forgave. She mentioned them time after time. She had attended the same school as one of them and moved in the same circles as all of these ladies, she told me, but yet she was treated as an inferior, mocked and laughed at, although her father was a knight, honoured by the great Empress Queen Victoria, and he was very rich.’

  ‘English society is strict,’ Auguste agreed. ‘My wife says sometimes it takes so long to be accepted, it can’t happen before you are dead.’

  Egbert looked at him. ‘Miss Hart is dead.’

  ‘I apologise, Egbert.’ Auguste was contrite.

  ‘Al-Islam believes that the lowest may aspire to the highest,’ Pierre said.

  ‘Not in England.’

  ‘Who else?’ Egbert asked impatiently, glaring at Auguste.

  ‘There is Lady Tunstall.’

  ‘She a friend of yours, Auguste?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ He did not add more, but intimated to Egbert that he would elaborate once they were alone.

  ‘When Miss Hart had been travelling for several years,’ Pierre continued, ‘she returned to London for periods still hoping, she told me, to expunge the memory of a terrible event that had forced her to leave London, and to be accepted by society again. She had recently had much acclaim for her travels in Egypt, and so there was a chance. She was determined to be received by the Prince and Princess of Wales. She had an ideal opportunity, for the Princess was interested in Egyptian tombs and as one of the celebrations for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria she was to hold a special dinner for explorers, at which Miss Hart was to be one of the guests.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘She was dropped from the invitation list at the last moment. Lady Tunstall, who is a very beautiful woman, was a close friend of the Prince of Wales and persuaded him that Miss Hart was not a suitable person to attend.’

  ‘But His Majesty wouldn’t agree to that if it was an official dinner. He is a man of principle.’

  ‘She told him, so Miss Hart later discovered, that Miss Hart was quite mad, and travelled much abroad because of her notorious – forgive me – sexual life here. Worse, she was addicted to fabricating fantasies about love affairs with famous gentlemen. She mentioned the name of Harriet Mordaunt. I did not understand that.’

  Egbert glanced at Auguste. They understood all too well. One of the less savoury incidents in the Prince of Wales’s career was when he had been forced to appear in the witness box during an unpleasant divorce case in which the truth of Harriet Mordaunt’s claim that the Prince of Wales was her lover was to be tested. It caused much excitement and scandal, and the last thing the Prince of Wales would have wanted was to be troubled by such a scandal again – especially without cause.

  ‘Miss Hart intended to take revenge against Lady Tunstall by recounting the story in her memoirs, together with the story of how she had eloped with the family coachman at the age of seventeen.’

  ‘Did she?’ Auguste was diverted, earning another glare from Egbert. ‘How did Miss Hart know?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘What about the defamation laws? Wasn’t she worried?’

  ‘No. She was a rich woman, and in any case she could start to travel again, taking her money with her. But no one, she thought, would dare to sue because the allegations would be true and she could prove them.’

  ‘What about Lady Tunstall’s allegations against her to the Prince of Wales? Were they true?’

  ‘Yes and no. There was a scandal, but Miss Hart was innocent.’

  ‘Or so she said.’

  ‘But she was,’ Pierre shouted hotly. ‘That was why she was so bitter against Lady Bullinger and the Duchess of Dewbury.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Egbert said.

  ‘Miss Hart often talked about them, for it eased her bitterness, she said.’ There was pride in Pierre’s voice. ‘After school Miss Hart’s father wished her to enter London society, and to please him she did so. She was attractive, she said, but she scared gentlemen because of her interest in travel. Englishmen, she believed, sought only a mother for their children, a hostess at their table, and a woman in their bed.’

  Egbert thought of Edith’s staunch faith in him and wondered why people generalised so much.

  ‘She spoke of society, of course,’ Pierre qualified, ‘and of the kind of gentleman her father so much wished her to marry. He wanted her to have a title if possible, to add to his riches. But there was one gentleman who fell greatly in love with her and she with him.’

  ‘Titled?’

  ‘Oh yes. The heir to a dukedom.’

  Of course, Auguste thought. Of course.

  ‘And what happened?’ Egbert demanded.

  ‘His sister, two years younger than he was but the stronger character, objected strongly to Hester marrying her brother.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of her birth. Trade, Miss Hart would say when she spoke of it so bitterly.’

  ‘Half of them were butchers once, on the battlefield if not in the slaughterhouse,’ Egbert muttered.

  ‘And Miss Hart was intelligent, too,’ Pierre said. ‘The English aristocracy, she told me, distrust intelligence in men or women.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘The sister selected a friend of hers as a suitable future duchess, and between them they concocted a plan. They did everything they could to dissuade the brother, but Miss Hart just laughed at them when she found out. He would not be dissuaded, so they then took stronger measures. They forged letters in Miss Hart’s handwriting and gave them to a young man who moved in the best circles. He pretended to be inebriated and boasted in one of your gentlemen’s clubs a
bout his love affair with Miss Hart, and when the brother challenged him, he showed him the letters.’

  ‘And he believed it, just like that?’ Auguste could not believe it. It sounded straight out of a Sherlock Holmes story.

  ‘Not at first. He loved Miss Hart. But the young man then became inebriated regularly in restaurants, at balls, at the opera, even boasting of her charms —’ he blushed – ‘in bed not only with him but other gentlemen of his acquaintance. In due course the friend, a lovely and apparently shocked young lady of twenty-five, purported to have heard the rumours and asked the duke-to-be whether they were true. It got to the point where for the sake of his family’s reputation he could not afford to marry Miss Hart, innocent or guilty. Society believed they were true, and Miss Hart was forced to go abroad. The sister is now, of course, Lady Bullinger, and the young lady the Duchess of Dewbury.’

  ‘And who was the young man?’

  ‘I do not know his name.’

  Auguste was about to delve further when Egbert changed tack.

  ‘Miss Hart mentioned diaries at the club. Did you ever see them?’

  ‘Of course. She wrote them every night. She had begun at school and kept them up wherever she could.’

  ‘And all you have told us would be recorded in them?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Twitch will have found them by now,’ Egbert said. ‘Wait here.’ He went into the entrance hall and put through a call to Scotland Yard, returning a few minutes later.

  ‘No diaries were found in the house.’

  Pierre looked astonished. ‘But they must be there. They were in a large chest, she told me.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s given them to someone to look after for her. Her parents?’

  ‘Both are now dead. There is no family home. She was going to buy one when she married.’

  ‘Could she have given them to someone else?’

  ‘There is only one person to whom she would have entrusted them. Me, and I do not have them.’

  ‘A bank?’

  ‘Perhaps, or—’ Pierre exclaimed. ‘It is just possible that dog Luigi has them.’

  ‘Why should he have them?’ Auguste asked, bewildered.

  ‘I suspect Miss Hart used him for information,’ he said darkly. ‘It was my job but I failed to tell her in sufficient time about the Dolly Dobbs’s arrival for her to accompany it. It may be she was punishing me by paying Luigi to provide information too. I told her he is a rogue, and not to be trusted.’

  ‘But she did trust you?’

  ‘Yes, but I am a man of honour. I could not approve,’ he admitted reluctantly, ‘of all Miss Hart did, though you will recall I have always defended her to others. I tried to dissuade her from her plan of revenge because of the danger to herself. She may have feared I would destroy the diaries if she gave them to me.’

  ‘And would you have done so?’

  He considered. ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Very loyal of you,’ Egbert commented sourly.

  Pierre took it at face value and inclined his head in acknowledgement.

  ‘Did you see Miss Hart the evening she died?’

  ‘No, monsieur, I wish I had,’ he said vehemently. ‘But by the time I knew she intended to guard the car, I also knew Fred Gale would be there. I was working in the kitchens all the evening – Monsieur Didier will confirm that.’

  ‘He left shortly before Tatiana and I did, at about twelve thirty,’ Auguste confirmed.

  ‘And this morning?’

  ‘I arrived early to let the staff in and then worked until it was time to go.’

  ‘A pieful of motives,’ Egbert commented after he’d gone, ‘presented to us on a plate. She must have died in the early hours, anyway, as you told me the body was cooling, so it’s immaterial if Pierre was in the kitchen alone early this morning.’

  ‘Powerful motives, too, Egbert. All recorded in those diaries. Did Twitch check to see if there had been any callers at Miss Hart’s house before himself?’

  ‘He didn’t say but I’d wager Mr Pinpole’s best joint that he asked.’

  ‘What about her servants there?’

  ‘Hannah Smirch, cook-general, and a general handyman called Peters, both hired along with the house when Hester Hart returned to this country in April. They don’t seem as enthusiastic about their mistress as this Pierre of yours.’

  ‘Then they might be bribed not to mention any other visitors yesterday.’

  Egbert considered. ‘Possible.’

  ‘And Pierre suspects Luigi of being a paid informer for members of the club.’

  ‘One way and another, that club of Tatiana’s seems to be nurturing quite a few vipers in its bosom.’

  Many of these vipers were circling in stately fashion on the dance floor to the strains of a merry waltz played by a German band from Margate overcome at the honour of playing for His Majesty, even if that Majesty was nowhere to be seen. When Auguste returned to the ballroom, he found it hard to believe that only last evening these people dancing the night away to Strauss were concentrating their hate on Hester Hart, an evening that had ended in her murder.

  Isabel circled complacently in the arms of her cousin Hugh. Maud Bullinger overwhelmed a slightly-built lad, doing his best to enjoy his duty. Agatha bobbed and jerked in the arms of Roderick Smythe, Phyllis danced with a reluctant John Millward, blissfully happy in the knowledge that her beloved was restored to her. Miss Dazey chatted brightly to her partner while wondering jealously where Leo might be, and Hortensia discoursed on the merits of her new mare to Sir Algernon Bullinger who found his evening unexpectedly enlivened. Thomas Bailey, in disgrace, sat in a corner of the servants’ hall with a notebook and pencil, feverishly scribbling mathematical calculations which intimately affected the Brighton Baby, and an ashen-faced Harold Dobbs moaned over the injustice of it all at home after a whole day at Scotland Yard.

  Chapter Seven

  All motorists were mad, Auguste decided, and lady motorists were the maddest of all. He had come out to find Leo, but was arrested by the spectacle outside the Martyr House stables on the Friday morning. Unlike Milton House, these stables housed motorcars along with horses with whom they had settled down to an ill-assorted but companionable partnership. The horses, Isabel had informed him without a glimmer of humour, were periodically sent to Coventry to learn the ways of motorcars in that home of manufacturing. This morning, however, the horses’ noses were decidedly out of joint. The Earl’s Lanchester was already drawn up in front of the main entrance of the house waiting for His Majesty’s appearance (it would have a long wait, in Auguste’s experience; it was only ten o’clock) while the horses’ yard was entirely full of the motorcars belonging to those who had stayed overnight in Martyr House, together with those of the outboarders who had come to rejoin their comrades for the cavalcade home. Luncheon was to be served before their departure, for which the ladies had Auguste’s full sympathy. Even with income tax at 5½d in the pound, the Earl could surely afford better staff.

  The yard seemed to have become an open-air garage, batteries were being reinstalled after charging, oil was being checked, water tanks filled, a queue waited for the benzine house, and Leo was rushing from car to car (his faithful Miss Dazey trotting at his heels). The Duchess, to Auguste’s dismay, was sitting in the driver’s seat of their Léon Bollée with ominously proprietorial pride. Last night all these serviceably-clad ladies were delicate flowers in satin and silks on the ballroom floor. Now they were an Amazonian army.

  Egbert had been responsible for delaying departure till after luncheon, to Isabel’s great displeasure. Had His Majesty remained, she would not have objected, but to entertain her fellow club members, she had intimated to Egbert, was an imposition. Egbert, however, had not been amused at being made a monkey of last night, and blandly ignored all cries of protest when he informed the party at breakfast that the boot was now on the police’s foot and they would await his convenience. Cries of complaints to the Commissioner were also ignore
d; the nearer you rose to the top of the pyramid, Egbert reflected, the less pressure could be applied from above.

  Tatiana was taking breakfast with His Majesty, a rare honour which Auguste did not regret missing. Auguste could imagine Bertie’s guffaws as they swapped stories of the royal families of Europe, especially those of Russia. It was Bertie’s opinion that they were riding for a fall more injurious than anything Hortensia Millward’s horses could inflict if they failed to acknowledge that the Czarist empire, too, had entered the twentieth century. Auguste disliked guffaws at breakfast and much preferred taking breakfast with Egbert to enduring the company of the Martyr House breakfast room – despite the fact that Egbert, quartered in the housekeeper’s linen room, was in sour mood after missing a great deal of sleep. Footsteps had creaked up and down the passageway all night.

  ‘I remember,’ Auguste observed with a straight face, ‘that the corridors of Stockbery Towers were equally busy at night.’

  Egbert was, once again, not amused. Auguste was instantly sent to check his own staff’s movements on the Wednesday night. By the time he returned to inform Egbert that only two of them had visited the far larders near the entrance, and ten visits had been paid to the privy, all of them before twelve o’clock, the kedgeree was cold and the coffee lukewarm.