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

by Myers, Amy

  ‘But you knew that, Agatha.’ Maud was astonished. ‘You told me at Martyr House.’

  Her Grace’s eyes arched upwards. ‘I did? I fear you are mistaken, Maud. I cared very little about the Dolly Dobbs and Hester Hart.’

  Maud saw no reason to take a hint. ‘You cared a lot, Agatha. And you wrote those threatening letters. Do the police know?’

  There was a pause, as the steel that had ensured the survival of the British aristocracy for so many hundreds of years came to the Duchess’s rescue: when in trouble, unite. ‘I suggest, dear Maud, that on the whole our best course is to find those diaries, as I said to Roderick. We don’t want the whole world knowing what dear Hester wrote in her private diaries for herself alone.’

  ‘I doubt if we can prevent it,’ Maud said stiffly. ‘I would remind you there were three of us involved.’

  Agatha paused. ‘Destroying the diaries is essential. And we know where to start, don’t we?’

  ‘Not that housekeeper again,’ Maud declared. ‘The woman was positively rude.’

  ‘No. I believe Luigi has them. So does Roderick. It is most unfortunate; he is not the most discreet – or cheapest – person in the world.’

  Hortensia was engrossed in studying form for Goodwood.

  ‘I must say it’s a rotten field. I think His Majesty’s horse, don’t you? Chatsworth.’

  John Millward could raise little enthusiasm for horses; he was rather more interested in remaining in London this week but knew that the odds on Hortensia allowing him to do so were considerably longer than on the King’s horse. Goodwood always bored him. It was true that the archaeological world in London was closing down for the summer and after that he would be starting a long trip to Cairo. He always endeavoured to miss Newmarket and Lincoln, with a vague promise of being back for Christmas. This year was different, however. He felt uneasy about leaving with those diaries of Hester’s floating around. Whatever she had said in them, it would be pure invention but that never stopped people from believing it; furthermore, he had met a publisher this week who told him he wanted to publish Hester Hart’s travel diaries since he had lost the chance of the memoirs. John was all too well aware that he would be figuring in them, including, if he were really unlucky, coy references to their imaginary love affair. Hortensia, he was still convinced, simply would not understand, especially after his dinner with the fearful Phyllis last week. No, he had to find those diaries before they were handed over for publication, and he thought he knew where to start.

  ‘Good legs,’ Hortensia continued.

  John Millward looked enthusiastically at the chicken limb on his plate.

  ‘Very tasty,’ he agreed bleakly.

  ‘Where do you think those diaries are?’ Hugh lounged back on the cushions spread on the grass in an entirely private part of the grounds of Winter House.

  ‘They’re not at her home,’ Isabel replied despondently. ‘Have a cherry.’

  He obliged, watching the way she daintily expelled the stones from her mouth. They appeared to glide out of their own accord in order to avoid over-sullying Isabel’s fine white hands. In a fit of absent-mindedness he reverted to his childhood habit of spitting his own out as far as they would go. He chortled as one hit an oak tree, and Isabel looked pained. He didn’t mind; he felt he had struck a small blow for the freedom of the male of the species.

  ‘Where else could they be?’ Isabel fretted. ‘I suspect that maître d’ would know; she was always very chummy with him,’ she observed superciliously. Typical of Hester to consort with the servants.

  ‘They might be with a publisher already.’

  ‘That’s an alarming thought.’

  It was indeed, Hugh thought uneasily, wishing he hadn’t had it. This whole affair of the diaries and Hester Hart was beginning to get out of control. He was going to have to get involved in the search without a doubt. Once the matter of the diaries was satisfactorily settled, perhaps he’d separate from Isabel, delightful and beautiful though she was. She was his cousin unfortunately, so it wouldn’t be easy. He would have to keep on reasonable terms with her; perhaps he could make her think she had broken it off. It was always difficult to know what Isabel was thinking about but he was quite sure that she didn’t like being thwarted. Meanwhile, the diaries had to be found.

  Harold Dobbs was not out in the sunshine; he was looking at it through his parlour window, unimpressed. Outside in the garden, his children were whooping around like a Wild West rodeo, using the neighbours’ somewhat younger children as horses. Why didn’t they use them as motorcars? he wondered fiercely. The charge of the Light Brigade would never have failed if Lord Cardigan had used motorcars, especially if they were of Harold Dobbs’s design.

  Should he or should he not go to see Thomas Bailey? Suppose he mentioned the awkward matter of the patent? Then Judith broke in upon his thoughts.

  ‘It’s time you rebuilt Dolly.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s not patented, and Thomas Bailey’s was.’

  ‘So what? You didn’t steal his idea, did you?’

  ‘No,’ he said quickly, ‘but it means I can’t build one again. Unless Bailey and I see if we can’t make it work between us. You see, Judith,’ he went off into a string of technicalities during which she adopted her Harold-you-are-a-genius look and mentally composed the week’s shopping list. ‘Perpetual motion is within our grasp; I am positive I am on the right road. Perhaps wind is not the answer. I shall discuss it with Bailey.’

  ‘I shouldn’t.’ Judith suddenly finished her list and heard what he was saying.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We don’t know that he isn’t the terrible person who smashed poor Dolly.’

  ‘That would make him a murderer too,’ Harold pointed out.

  ‘Someone has to be.’ Judith fixed him with a stare. ‘And it wasn’t you, was it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Harold said righteously. ‘You know I was here all that evening and night.’

  Judith said nothing. She had slept like a log till morning.

  Egbert Rose yawned. Mondays were worse when you had worked on Sunday. He had been here all day, studying forensic reports, Fingerprint Department reports, and his own notes. There was no sign of Twitch who was no doubt still beavering away in Somerset House.

  Time to go, and he closed his files thankfully. Edith was expecting her sister for supper tonight, and he always liked her husband Fred, a restful sort of bloke. Auguste was also, in a way, though not like Fred. Fred rarely said anything, and you couldn’t say that of Auguste.

  The door opened and a messenger shot in with a telegraph message. Egbert regarded it with extreme distaste. He didn’t like things you couldn’t control. You could decide whether to read letters that came by post, and even whether you answered a telephone, but a telegraph message brooked no delay. It could be from one of the divisional supers, and it could be urgent. He pulled it towards him, read it – and lifted the telephone off its hook.

  Auguste hummed to himself. The cares of the day were over and he had the bliss of this special evening ahead. True, Tatiana would be out, but this meant the whole evening could be devoted to delightful experimentation. It was Mrs Jolly’s evening off, and by arrangement he was allowed the courtesy of cooking in his own kitchen. He had decided on chicken crépinettes, a recipe he had learned during his apprenticeship under Monsieur Escoffier at the Faisan d’ Orée in Cannes, to which he now wished to make some subtle variations. He had tried to interest Mrs Jolly in this fascinating project, but she had refused. She knew what she was good at, and though she could always be persuaded to try something new, she could never be persuaded to try something at which she had previously failed.

  He ran upstairs to his dressing room to bathe and change into his cooking clothes, just as the telephone bell rang out. He heard their butler go to answer it, and then with sinking heart heard his footsteps mounting the stairs. The call was for him. With a sigh Auguste follo
wed the footsteps downstairs again, and took up the telephone, always solemnly offered to him on a silver salver.

  ‘Egbert here. What are you doing this evening?’

  Relief. ‘Tonight I am cooking, in my own kitchen. You are welcome to—’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re not. I need you, and later Tatiana.’

  ‘What has happened? Where do you want me?’

  ‘The Zoo, Auguste. The Zoological Gardens of Regent’s Park.’

  Monday was always the busiest day of the week at London Zoo, mainly because it cost only 6d to get in as opposed to 1s on the other days, and partly because admission on Sundays was restricted to Fellows of the Society and their friends. This ensured that every Londoner from Ealing to the Isle of Dogs would be there on Monday, together with a few members of higher London society who had failed to persuade a Fellow to give them a ticket for the more fashionable Sunday. It was still crowded when Auguste arrived although it was past six o’clock, and some of the smaller children were being dragged bawling out through the gates as he paid his sixpence entrance fee. He wondered idly whether Egbert had had to pay sixpence too.

  He hurried through the turnstile, studied the usefully provided Guide to the Gardens plan, then set off towards his goal, pushing through the crowds gazing entranced at monkeys and pink flamingos. Why did the parrot house have to be in the furthest corner of the gardens? Was Gregorin, his old enemy, the reason for the summons? He hadn’t thought of him for months; perhaps this was his reward for ignoring the threat. His reason promptly dismissed the thought. If it was Gregorin, Special Branch would be involved, not Egbert. No, this was to do with Hester Hart.

  Three solid-helmeted police constables were shooing away curious sightseers, to the great indignation of the lawful occupants, some of whom, it being a fine day, were enjoying an outside airing on their perches and resented being deprived of their due reward in the form of nuts. A black-capped lory screeched angrily as Auguste rushed past, backed up in his complaint by an equally colourful Swainson’s lorikeet. Auguste, however, had no evil designs on their living quarters outside or inside; he could hear Egbert’s voice coming from somewhere out of sight behind the parrot house, where the public had less cause to walk.

  Heart in his mouth and feeling rather sick, Auguste cleared his credentials with the constable and hurried round to join Egbert. He found him standing by a kneeling police surgeon. To his horror he realised they were inspecting species of homo sapiens. Auguste struggled to overcome his revulsion as for the second time in under a week he saw a pool of blood creeping out from under a face-down dead body.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked in a voice he hardly recognised as his own. All Egbert had been able to tell him on the telephone was that the body of a man had been found; there was no identification save a club key on him. He could be the husband of a member or, Auguste swallowed, one of the kitchen or dining room staff.

  ‘Luigi Peroni, and he’s been stabbed. No weapon again. Odd thing is,’ Egbert indicated a gun, ‘there was a Colt lying tastefully by his side. My money’s on its being Hester Hart’s, so we don’t have the trouble of hunting it any longer. Very thoughtful of our murderer.’

  All around came shouts of family laughter interspersed with jungle roars from animal cages. Close by, children were scrambling over one another in their eagerness to pay their twopence for an elephant or camel ride. Chimpanzees were clutching the hands of their keepers as they paraded round the lawn; judging by the excited roars, a sea lion was performing for an admiring crowd. Here behind the parrot house, in stark contrast to the life that buzzed around them, a man lay dead.

  ‘And it could have been anyone who killed him,’ grunted Egbert.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘The parrot house,’ Egbert remarked disgustedly. ‘What a place for anyone to end their days.’ Edith liked coming to the Zoo; it had been part of the holiday ritual for them to escort her sisters’ children here at least twice a year, and the lion house, sea lion enclosure and camel rides were old familiar friends. Now that the children were adults, he and Edith still came, tracing out the familiar patterns ready for the new generation of children now coming of zoo age. He didn’t like this blot on the gardens of his memory; it was a personal affront.

  The police surgeon clambered stiffly to his feet. ‘He’s been dead about an hour and a half, judging by his temperature. Roughly, that is.’

  Egbert looked at the long row of parrots on their outdoor perches by the trees, screeching in the late afternoon sunshine. ‘He could have used the gun. Wonder why the villain brought both?’

  People were now beginning to make their way home, and as Auguste watched, the gardens began to belong once more to the animals they housed. The roars from the lion house, the chattering of the monkeys, and the cries of birds of prey began to speak more loudly of the jungle they had come from, in these last hours before sundown.

  ‘And why choose this public spot at all? There are many quiet corners in London,’ Auguste pointed out.

  ‘But a good place to meet unobserved. The animals are on parade during the week, not their visitors like on Sundays. What gatekeeper is going to remember one face from another? Stitch is over at the main gate now.’ Egbert watched as the surgeon and constables covered the body. ‘We’ll wait till the Zoo closes.’

  ‘I suppose it could not be suicide,’ Auguste asked, ‘and the weapon removed by someone else?’ It sounded unlikely even to him.

  The surgeon shook his head. ‘I’ll know more later. But from the amount of blood I’d say the weapon was driven in too deep and hard.’

  ‘The killer would get blood on him though?’

  ‘Some, but not as much as from a more superficial wound.’

  ‘Was there nothing in his pockets, Egbert, that might lead us to the diaries?’

  ‘I’ll send Stitch back to the house again, just in case. Here he is now.’

  Twitch was escorting a uniformed man, white in the face at the prospect of his coming ordeal. ‘The gatekeeper, sir.’

  ‘I’d like you to take a look at him.’ Egbert was sympathetic. ‘Nasty business, but it has to be done. Look at the clothes – and the hat,’ he instructed as the gatekeeper gingerly approached the body, which the surgeon uncovered again. The homburg had been found lying at the side of his body. ‘Remember him? And whether he came in alone or with someone else? Or someone leaving with bloodstained clothing?’

  The gatekeeper took as short a look as was possible, and shook his head on all counts. As he departed, a police constable brought up an elderly sandwich-board man. He, too, was nervous, his boards proudly bearing the signs ‘Buns for the Bears. Two a penny’ clanking together in his agitation.

  ‘He says he saw a gentleman walk round here,’ the constable prompted, as his charge seemed overwhelmed.

  ‘That’s right. During my easy time when I takes a little walk.’

  ‘This gentleman?’ Egbert indicated the still uncovered face of Luigi Peroni.

  ‘That’s him.’ He edged away as quickly as possible.

  ‘When was this easy time?’

  ‘In my business, after the big animals have been fed at four o’clock, my turnover decreases,’ he explained. ‘It picks up again just before closing time. It must have been about a quarter to five. There was someone waiting for him.’

  ‘Who?’ Egbert asked sharply. ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘I believe it was a man, but the merest impression was all I gained. A long coat, a hat, a presence. Lots of people come to the Zoo to meet other people. Ladies and gentlemen, if you know what I mean.’ He looked hopefully at Egbert.

  Egbert did know what he meant. He meant he didn’t want to be pinned down.

  ‘I went into the parrot house. I like looking at them. They’re restful.’ A screech nearby sounded like mocking laughter to Auguste. The bun-seller looked at them, conscious of disappointing, and tried again. ‘This place hasn’t been the same since Jumbo went.’

  ‘At least we’re a little furth
er forward,’ Auguste said comfortingly to Egbert as half an hour later the corpse of Luigi Peroni was carried to a waiting motor van. Twitch had been despatched to Luigi’s lodgings, and he and Egbert were walking back through the gardens to the main entrance. At their side pink flamingos waded in the evening sunlight, an elephant (not the late lamented Jumbo) extended a hopeful trunk for buns, and monkeys chattered, bringing close lands Auguste would never see.

  ‘How far forward?’ Egbert cast a scathing look at a monkey extending the hand of friendship towards him. ‘Even the parrot-keeper couldn’t tell us anything.’

  ‘The bun-seller believed it to be a man, and surely if Lady Bullinger, the Duchess or the Countess had come into the gardens with murder in mind, they could hardly be mistaken for a man.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be wearing their tiaras,’ Egbert pointed out grumpily. ‘In one of those dust coats, with a large hat, they might pass at a distance for a man.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ Auguste replied firmly. ‘Moreover, there is something else you must consider.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘You are assuming that the killer of Luigi was also the killer of Miss Hart.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Egbert was none too happy at having this pointed out to him. ‘But it’s likely, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but coincidences do happen. We know Luigi supplied information for money, but we don’t know to how many people he supplied it – or how many he might be blackmailing as a result. He might even have had other enemies who were nothing to do with the club.’

  ‘What about Pierre? He couldn’t stand the fellow.’

  ‘Certainly you should talk to him. And there is Luigi’s fiancée – and his other young lady.’

  ‘Nicely brought up fiancées don’t go stabbing their intended behind parrot houses.’

  ‘Nicely brought up people are as capable of murder as anyone else when they are threatened.’

  ‘Which brings us back to their ladyships, the diaries—’