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

by Myers, Amy

  ‘Pierre did not know. Nor did he know anything about this book –’ Auguste produced the Rubáiyát – ‘save that Hester Hart liked poetry, so it must have been a recent purchase or gift.’

  ‘I don’t think many people felt like giving Hester Hart gifts.’

  ‘Except Roderick Smythe,’ Tatiana pointed out.

  ‘That’s true, Tatiana. I’ll see what he has to say for himself.’ Egbert eyed the sunshine outside wistfully. ‘Shame to spend an afternoon like this inside, case or no case.’

  ‘Perhaps a walk in St James’s Park would help your thoughts, Egbert?’ Tatiana asked with a straight face.

  Egbert yielded. ‘Do you know, I think it might.’

  St James’s Park was crowded. A multitude of large hats that seemed to be adorned with more birds and flowers than the park itself possessed sat in deckchairs listening to the military band playing selections from The Troubadour, children were dressed up in their Sunday best, sailor suits, frilly pinafore dresses and black stockings, ducks were fed, an army of sunshades battled their way along the paths, sweethearts strolled daringly arm in arm, and on the bridge over the lake visitors to London gazed towards the Horseguards Parade and the Foreign Office then turned to admire Buckingham Palace. It was a beautiful park. Auguste recalled an old story of how a Queen of England had asked the Prime Minister how much it would cost to buy it back for private royal use. The answer had been: two crowns.

  ‘Here is the book, Egbert.’ Auguste handed it to him as they stopped to take tea at the refreshment house. ‘Be careful, there is a loose page.’

  ‘A page of the book or something inserted?’

  ‘Of the book.’ He leaned over and plucked it out to confirm his memory.

  ‘It’s unlikely you’d have just one loose page,’ Tatiana pointed out. ‘It is probably bound in small sections, so there must be one missing or another loose.’ She took the book from Egbert. It was an ornate, compact edition, each page artistically decorated with coloured scrolls and vine motifs. ‘You see,’ she cried in triumph, ‘the title page is missing. What at first seems to be the title page is only a preliminary page bearing the title, put in so that it can be attached to the endpapers. In an eight-page section, this loose page would have been printed on the same sheet as the title page.’

  ‘Maybe that excellent duck has clouded my mind,’ Egbert replied, ‘but what’s so interesting about that?’

  ‘Because the title page might have been signed by the giver.’

  There was a silence, which Auguste broke. ‘Then why did the murderer – if he was by chance the giver – leave the book in the handbag? Why not remove it entirely instead of tearing out the title page?’

  Tatiana’s face fell, then brightened again. ‘Perhaps he tore out the title page earlier. Hester would have noticed if the whole book had disappeared.’

  Egbert shook his head, dissatisfied. ‘Seems unlikely to me. More probably she bought it herself, and the page got ripped somehow.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Auguste was disappointed. ‘After all, if it was Roderick Smythe who gave it to her, why should he remove the dedication, even if he was the murderer? It would be quite natural for him to give a book to his fiancée,’ Auguste said.

  ‘Unless he’d intended to give the book to Phyllis,’ Tatiana suggested brightly, ‘and changed his mind.’

  ‘Wine! Wine! Wine! Red Wine!’ Auguste replaced the loose page.

  ‘Haven’t you had enough?’ Egbert asked.

  ‘That’s how the poem continues,’ Auguste replied patiently. ‘A hymn to the glories of the Grape of Today, rather than the silence of tomorrow.’

  ‘Must be a drinker, then, our friend. A wine-lover.’ Egbert stopped. ‘Are you thinking what I am, Auguste?’

  ‘Yes. Suppose Luigi thought he stood a chance of her hand in marriage, since she was a rich woman.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Tatiana declared. ‘She was going to marry Roderick.’

  ‘Modesty is not Luigi’s strong point.’

  ‘But he is a maître d’. I don’t see Hester Hart marrying even a top waiter. Not in London. She was always so socially aspiring.’

  ‘Luigi may not have seen it that way. Moreover, he claims to be from an aristocratic Italian family.’

  ‘It’s worth following up,’ Egbert said resignedly, ‘but it may be a red herring. My money’s on the obvious – Roderick Smythe. Or Harold Dobbs,’ he added, as a small girl ran past, a windmill twirling merrily in her hand.

  ‘I don’t see Harold giving books of poetry to Hester Hart,’ Tatiana objected.

  ‘Nevertheless, I’m keeping my eye on him. Now about this Luigi. Is he on duty today, Tatiana?’

  ‘Yes, but at this time in the afternoon he is free. He is unlikely to be at the club on an afternoon like this.’

  Nor at home, Auguste thought. It was warm enough to enjoy the sunshine but not so hot as to endanger delicate London complexions, despite the cloudless blue sky. He longed all the more for the seaside. London was dusty, country roads were even dustier, but the seaside, approached by railway train, promised clean, exciting air. Already London was beginning to empty for the summer holidays – holidays in society’s case from the wearying business of social life. Behind the glittering smiles of appearance, he knew, lay as many anxieties, rivalries and battles as any industrialist or City stockbroker faced. He and Tatiana compromised with the rules, but for those like Hester Hart who vainly clambered to reach the ‘heights’, the climb was hard indeed.

  Roderick Smythe was escorting his once more beloved Phyllis through the Royal Botanic Society’s gardens in Regent’s Park, anxious that no rough tussock of grass, such as was found on common ground like that of Hampstead Heath, might impede the progress of her dainty feet; moreover a satisfyingly large number of people bowed to them here, whereas on the heath it was all too likely that he would pass unrecognised.

  He was reasonably contented; he had been released from Scotland Yard, and once he had put a certain question to Phyllis he would be the happiest man on earth. ‘Darling, I’ve been an absolute fool. Can you ever forgive me?’

  Phyllis smiled sweetly at him, passing several sunshade owners and an interested robin. ‘Yes, Roderick.’

  ‘By Jove, that’s wonderful. I can’t think what came over me, deserting you like a rotter.’

  ‘Hester came over you, Roderick. She was not a nice woman. All the same,’ she added quickly, ‘it’s terrible that she’s dead.’

  ‘Terrible,’ he agreed, though all he was feeling was an overwhelming relief. When the inquest was over, Hester and all the problems surrounding her would be laid to rest. True, there was all that lovely money he’d be missing, but she’d made it clear enough that she wouldn’t be marrying him, and even if she had, he suspected a tight hand would be kept on her cheque book, however generous her hands in other fields. Bed, after all, took up eight hours of the day including sleep, which meant there were still sixteen of the day to fill. Even allowing for racing and driving motorcars, there were still quite a few hours left, and he was by no means sure that the best use of them for Roderick Smythe would have been on Hester, despite her expertise in the other eight hours. With Phyllis at his side, he realised, life was going to be jolly all day.

  ‘Phyllis,’ he said earnestly over tea a little later, ‘I can’t drop on one knee here at this table, but if I could I’d be asking whether there was any chance that you could forgive me enough to let me slip the ring back on your dear little finger?’

  Phyllis glanced at her lace-gloved hand. The glove remained on.

  ‘Shall we wait a little, Roderick?’ She poured the tea with a steady hand. ‘Just for the look of the thing, you know.’

  ‘But you will eventually, won’t you?’ Roderick asked, greatly alarmed at this diversion from what he had planned.

  ‘Oh, eventually I will,’ she agreed sweetly. Or at least, she thought, after an arrest had been made. She had to look after her own interests, and it was Roderick, she
bore in mind, who had last seen Hester Hart alive. Hester, she remembered all too clearly, had been awfully rude to them earlier that evening, and Roderick did have rather a temper. She had not forgotten the occasion when he had scolded her for wasting time when all she was doing was putting a little woolly jacket on Mr Henry Irving, her little doggie. No, on the whole, she thought she would wait a little. It was no good spending time and effort posing for picture postcards if one’s name was to appear the following day linked to a murder charge.

  Roderick, to whom the message was all too clear, glumly watched his adored Phyllis demolish two éclairs and a petit four.

  Thirty years ago this was a rookery. Now, although the worst of the slums had been removed, the area still looked drab and overcrowded. Nearby Rochester Row and Horseferry Road boasted buildings such as the Guards Hospital, police court, and Wesleyan training college, but huddled around them were terraces of tall, smoke-blackened brick houses. The London grime showed up even murkier in the July sunshine and yet on the Embankment and in St James’s Park London society serenaded itself. It was an odd contrast, Auguste thought.

  The front door of Luigi’s lodgings was opened by a thin, truculent woman of forty-odd, who appeared determined not to rejoice in the Lord’s sunshine. ‘Mr Peroni’s out.’

  ‘I’ll see for myself, if you don’t mind.’ Egbert displayed his badge, and with the air of one who had suspected it all the time she led them up three flights of stairs to the top floor, and flung the door open triumphantly to prove her point.

  Luigi had two rooms, one a bedroom, the other a living room, both small, crowded and stuffy. A small statue of the Virgin Mary and an unlit candle in the bedroom revealed a new side of Luigi; several bottles of the club wine store revealed a more familiar side and suggested devoutness stopped short of the Ten Commandments.

  ‘Do you know where Mr Peroni is?’

  ‘Out with his lady friend.’ His landlady snorted with disdain.

  ‘And who might she be?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m sure. She doesn’t cross this threshold, that I do know. This is a respectable house.’

  Auguste looked round the two rooms. Even the briefest glance was enough to show him that no chest was hidden here, nor even a pile of diaries. If Luigi had them, they were elsewhere.

  Luigi was evidently primed by his landlady for by the time they caught up with him at the club just after six o’clock, he did not look surprised to see them. ‘This is a busy time for me.’ He inspected a table, rearranged napkins, and picked off a wilting bloom from the floral decorations.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ll be run off your feet on a Sunday evening in late July,’ Egbert replied. ‘We could go to the Yard. You might not feel so busy there.’

  Luigi cast a longing look at his safe territory, and decided his mammoth tasks could wait.

  ‘You didn’t tell us you’d ever called at Miss Hart’s home.’

  Luigi looked hurt. ‘You did not ask me, Inspector. It is natural, after all. I admitted I gave her regular information, and it would be difficult to talk frequently here without arousing suspicions. I called to see Miss Hart once a week, more if I had urgent news for her.’

  ‘And this money she gave you, how highly did she rate your services? Information, that is.’

  Luigi flushed. ‘I am not proud of it,’ he said angrily. ‘An Italian aristocrat should never be reduced to accepting money from ladies. But it is not cheap to live, and I wish to marry – for bambini,’ he explained virtuously.

  ‘And who’s the lucky young lady?’ Egbert inquired. ‘The one you were with this afternoon?’

  Luigi was shocked. ‘She is only one of the servants. My fiancée is high-born. Her father owns a hotel.’

  Auguste began to like Luigi even less. ‘On the Riviera?’ he asked.

  ‘Woolwich.’

  Not quite so fashionable, but nevertheless it must be a prosperous hotel if it attracted Luigi, Auguste decided, feeling sorry for the mere ‘servant’ he had been with this afternoon. Which servant? he wondered, as Egbert produced the copy of the Rubáiyát.

  ‘Seen this before?’ he asked. Luigi shook his head. ‘Take a closer look.’

  He obeyed, and opened it readily enough. ‘The Rubáiyát,’ he remarked.

  ‘You’ve heard of it?’

  ‘Florence, where I worked, is home to many English people, and it is a popular poem.’

  ‘Any idea who gave it to her?’

  ‘It was not me,’ he said apologetically; his smile was meant to charm. ‘I cannot afford leather bindings.’

  Egbert was impervious to charming smiles. ‘You could if you used those diaries for blackmail. That is why you went to her home, isn’t it?’

  The smile rapidly disappeared. ‘Me? Inspector, information is one thing, blackmail quite another.’

  ‘Even more lucrative,’ Egbert agreed. ‘Where have you hidden the diaries? In a bank? Railway station? Lost property office at New Scotland Yard?’

  ‘Why do you think I have them?’ He shrugged as though the matter was of little concern. ‘Pierre was her dragoman, Mr Smythe her fiancé. Either of them could have them.’

  ‘Pierre didn’t go to Miss Hart’s house, according to the housekeeper. You did.’

  ‘And so did Mr Smythe. He went far more than I did.’

  ‘Good of you to be so helpful,’ Egbert said grimly. ‘But I’m asking you where the diaries are. I know they’re not in your rooms, I’ve looked.’

  Luigi looked as if he was about to protest, then changed his mind. ‘Why should I not tell you?’ he cried. ‘You think I want to be suspected of murder?’

  ‘You could be taking up a new career in blackmail. While those diaries are lying around, quite a few people might feel the need to give you little gifts.’

  Luigi stared at him, then suddenly grinned. ‘That is a splendid idea. I’ll bear it in mind.’

  ‘Morning, Stitch. I’ve got a job for you.’

  Stitch was instantly wary. Cordiality at this time on a Monday morning was unusual from the chief and seldom bode well.

  ‘Somerset House.’

  Stitch’s worst fears came true. The last time this had happened he’d been made a monkey of by that Frenchie; he remembered it bitterly. He wouldn’t put it past Monsieur Didier to have invented some reason to send him off on another fool’s errand to get him out of the way on an interesting case. The chief wouldn’t do it to him but that foreigner would. He didn’t behave like an English gentleman, for all he was related to His Majesty now.

  ‘Hester Hart, father Herbert Hart, born in Blackburn in eighteen thirty-two, mother Maria Trotter, born in Blackburn eighteen thirty-six. See what you can find out.’

  ‘About what, sir?’ Twitch inquired woodenly.

  ‘Nearest living relatives.’

  ‘That’s before registration was officially compulsory.’

  ‘Always ready for a challenge though, aren’t you, Stitch?’

  ‘I am, sir,’ Twitch answered despondently. He left the Yard with the feeling that H. M. Stanley had been allotted an easier task when he set off to find Livingstone in the heart of Africa. A few million jungle trees and rivers were as nothing compared with the mighty tomes of Somerset House and the prospect of hunting down parish registers in Blackburn. He thought wistfully, instead of with his customary resentfulness, of the two weeks’ holiday ahead at Margate-on-Sea with Martha, when a Panama hat would replace the accustomed bowler, a shrimping net his notebook, and a penny for the ‘Burglar Jack’ slot machine his entire acquaintanceship with crime and criminals.

  Lady Bullinger greeted Monday morning with the same determination as her Napier had greeted Porlock Hill. This was Goodwood week. The fact that horses would necessarily take pride of place there made her arrival by motorcar all the more important. This morning she was to visit the Motor Club of Great Britain headquarters to discuss her representing the country in the International Women’s Race in October. This afternoon she would join Agatha
for tea at her house, where they had equally important matters to discuss.

  After a highly satisfactory morning, she approached her afternoon assignment somewhat later than intended but with equal confidence in its successful outcome.

  ‘Maud, darling.’ Agatha flitted in hand-painted silk with apparent delight to greet her.

  ‘Business first, Agatha,’ Maud said briskly, once sunshade, goggles and dust coat had disappeared along with the butler. ‘What have you discovered about those diaries?’

  ‘They’re not with Roderick, so he informs me. He knew of them, but they disappeared.’ The Duchess took a delicate sip of China tea.

  Maud exclaimed in annoyance. ‘And does Roderick not know where they have gone?’

  ‘No. It does seem rather careless of him, Maud. I suppose he can be relied on when he says he doesn’t have them himself?’

  ‘How dare you, Agatha. Roderick is my godson. He wouldn’t lie to me.’ Maud thumped down her teacup, determined to forego the usually rather good seed cake if need be.

  ‘I dare, Maud, because it seems to me that you have got entirely your own way in this terrible affair.’

  ‘Just what do you mean by that?’ This was not going the way Maud had planned, yet she couldn’t walk away now. Or even drive. Maud, always one for looking facts in the face, acknowledged that she and Agatha were as much bound together over Hester Hart as they had been fifteen years before.

  Agatha gave the tinkling laugh that had always annoyed her sister-in-law. ‘If I were objective like, say, that police inspector, I might notice that due to Hester’s death you are going to drive in the October race as you wanted, and that you have rid yourself of Hester as a god-daughter-in-law – a result which I do appreciate is entirely desirable.’

  ‘Rid myself?’ Maud was belligerent. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Whatever you think I mean, dearest. There is no doubt that you have emerged from this terrible affair rather splendidly, whereas I am a laughing stock on account of that terrible motorcar. Seldom have I been so mistaken in a man as in Thomas Bailey.’ She paused. ‘It now turns out the Dolly Dobbs and the Brighton Baby are identical.’