Murder In The Motor Stable: (Auguste Didier Mystery 9) (13 page)

‘Charlie, go into the club and telephone for Inspector Stitch at Scotland Yard to come here immediately. Tell him I am trying to reach Inspector Rose.’ Egbert would be travelling the Dover Road on a fruitless errand, for there was no longer a Dolly Dobbs or Hester Hart to guard.

What about Harold Dobbs? He should not be left alone with the body while Charlie was absent. Impatient though he was, Auguste knew he must stay here. Then rescue appeared as the meat chef made an incautious appearance in the yard. He was promptly summoned to Auguste’s side and ordered to guard Harold until Charlie returned. It was almost irrelevant. Harold, sitting on the ground sobbing convulsively, looked as incapable of action as Dolly herself.

The motorcars at Hyde Park Corner were assembling at an hour not normally acknowledged by fashionable ladies, had not the presence of His Majesty at Martyr House persuaded them to rise in what many considered the middle of the night. There had been much to be decided. Not only had ball dresses and morning dresses for the return drive tomorrow to be packed but a decision made on whether mourning garments should be included on the off chance that some member of the royal family might pass away during the day, thus forcing the entire assembly into deepest black. Furthermore, the essential
despatch of maids by railway train to be in Kent to minister to their needs on arrival had had the unfortunate result of depriving their mistresses of their services in the vital hour before their own departure. In consequence, as the motorcars took their places, lined up in double rank on Constitution Hill, the atmosphere was not nearly as clubbable as Tatiana might have wished, though she hardly noticed in her own anxiety.

‘Where is Auguste?’ She turned worriedly to Egbert, sitting shrouded at her side in the clothes Edith had ordered as suitable for the perils to health of a July drive: his winter full-length mackintosh, her Great-Uncle William’s deerstalker, a knitted scarf that usually saw duty when winter necessitated a draught from the sash window being blocked off, and goggles carefully smoked over a candle lest the rays of the sun affect his eyes. He also had a hot water bottle, despite his reassurance that cars were provided with footwarmers nowadays.

‘Surely he could not have forgotten and gone by train,’ she continued.

‘Easily. If he had his mind on carbonades and not carburettors.’ He was rather enjoying himself, despite his garb. He couldn’t see anything very terrible happening in this procession of London society, it was a day in the country even if the King was at the end of it, and he could partake of at least one Auguste Didier banquet. Moreover, he could enliven Edith’s weekend with a description of the outlandish clothes these women dolled themselves up in, which far outstripped his own. He could hear her now: ‘Tell me about the
hats
, Egbert . . .’

‘Good morning, Tatiana.’

Maud Bullinger loomed up beside Egbert, giving him the fright of his life. This one looked like the close-up of a beetle’s
face in the nature study book he’d bought his niece for Christmas, what with her enormous goggles and hat secured by a black chiffon veil, at present thrown back.

‘Good morning, Maud.’ Tatiana climbed down and walked round to the pathway to greet her, thankful that at least one participant seemed in good humour.

‘Are the Motor Club men here yet?’

‘Yes. They’re over there,’ Tatiana indicated the opposite side of the road, ‘waiting to measure the first mile. There will be two more just outside Chatham, to measure a mile at Gad’s Hill, and the last two will be on Barham Downs.’

‘Ha,’ Maud commented cryptically. ‘Madam not here yet, I see.’

‘No. I’m concerned.’ Tatiana frowned. ‘We depart in five minutes.’

Lady Bullinger gave a short, jolly laugh. ‘Knowing Miss Hart, she’ll leave it till the last possible moment to make a spectacular entry.’

Tatiana looked down the line of cars at the club she had founded with such excitement only months ago. Why had she imagined peace and harmony where all were devoted to the cause of motorcars? The long line of limousines, tourers, two-seaters, voiturettes, landaulets and broughams stretched into the distance. Petrol, steam, or electrically-powered, at the wheel of each of them sat one of her members. She saw that wheels gleamed, satin dust coats shone, paintwork on cars and ladies alike was brightly polished. Her sun shone again. ‘Don’t they look
wonderful?
’ she breathed.

It was all worth it, Hester Hart or no Hester Hart, Dolly Dobbs or no— Where was Hester? And where was Auguste? Her worries returned. One latecomer arrived but proved to be Isabel with Hugh beside her. Only three more to go. Phyllis,
the Duchess – and Hester. The first drove by to join the line with a happy squeak of the hooter.

‘No wonder she sounds so happy,’ Tatiana commented to Egbert. ‘Look who’s with her.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Of course, you don’t know. That’s Roderick Smythe.’

‘The racing driver?’ Even Egbert had heard of him.

‘Yes. Whatever has happened? Hester won’t like this one little bit. He was going to drive his new Crossley at the end of the procession but he’s with Phyllis in her Fiat.’

‘She looks a very pretty lady to be with.’

‘Indeed she is. There’s only one problem.’

‘And that is?’

‘He’s engaged to Hester Hart.’

As she ran down the line to greet Phyllis, Egbert watched her go, admiring her enthusiasm. Privately he could understand Auguste’s views on motorcars, but he could also see they were useful. Leaping into a hansom did not achieve the same immediate results, particularly when their drivers had to be haggled with as to whether their book of distances covered the journey in question. He wondered whether he might get a motorcar if they ever became cheaper. At the moment they were the toys of the rich. He tried to imagine Edith perched on top of one of these shining monsters, swathed in chiffon like a Hallowe’en phantom. So far she had not been enthusiastic. Dusty, dirty contraptions had been her verdict after a trip in her sister’s husband’s brother’s de Dion, hence her concern for him today. In his view, travelling by foot, omnibus and railway train taught you more than a box on four wheels. You were in the middle of life, not shut away from it. But times changed. It was nearly forty years since he was a crusher on the beat on the Ratcliffe Highway. Villains had changed,
transport had changed, the century had changed, and now he was a chief inspector with Twitch, his private name for Inspector Stitch, still faithfully plodding behind him despite his persistent attempts to dislodge him from the trail.

‘No sign of Auguste?’ he asked as Tatiana hurried back. It was eight thirty.

‘No, nor the Duchess nor Hester. But we’ll have to go.’ She bent down to pick up the starting handle to hand to Egbert, and gave one last look down the line.

‘
There’s
Hester!’ she exclaimed with relief, signalling to the Motor Club officials. Joining the queue of cars was the familiar shape and bright red of the Dolly Dobbs. ‘Thank goodness. We’re only missing Agatha and Auguste now, and that –’ as the engine spluttered into life – ‘is just too bad.’

Egbert Rose jumped up into the passenger seat again, relieved he still had his right arm. He wasn’t used to cranking motorcars and Edith had sombrely read out an article in her magazine about the dangers of allowing your husband to indulge in such occupations, lest he break his arm if the handle swung back. He had survived his first ordeal, and the Bollée swept off with a triumphant toot round Hyde Park Corner. As the wind caught his face he was suddenly grateful for the deerstalker, though he still felt like a fish out of water. Even Auguste Didier banquets lost their appeal as he realised over sixty windy, dusty, chalky miles lay ahead. Why hadn’t he sent Twitch?

‘Didier’s hopped it, has he?’

Inspector Stitch was well-satisfied. He was no friend of Auguste’s, and deduced his absence from the scene of the crime meant he was involved in it up to his neck, or his name wasn’t Stitch. True, he found the image of Auguste as a
murderer hard to reconcile with his being intimately connected to the royal family, of which both Stitches, Alfred and Martha, were unshakeable admirers, but he lived in hopes that there had been some terrible mistake and that Auguste and Tatiana’s marriage would be declared null and void, thus rendering Stitch’s world once again unsullied.

‘He wanted to catch Inspector Rose before he reached Canterbury, so he said,’ Charlie explained.

‘Why?’ Twitch bristled with suspicion.

‘Maybe so he could tell His Majesty himself,’ Charlie suggested helpfully.

This was unwelcome news to Stitch. His name did not carry the weight it should have done with His Majesty, and devoted admirer though he was, if His Majesty was in the case, then the further out Stitch was the better.

‘Taking the Dover Road, are they?’

‘The very one.’

‘I’ll have them stopped, and get the Chief back here.’

‘But—’

‘Leave it to the police, son.’ Stitch moved portentously into the motor house where the police doctor was examining the body, and proceeded to act like the competent and thorough policeman he was.

Auguste attempted to organise his jumbled thoughts and emotions. Here he was, sitting in a railway train bound for a village he did not know, in the hope of stopping the cavalcade before it passed through. He had waited impatiently at Charing Cross while an army of bowler-hatted gentlemen had marched their way off Platform
I
towards their offices for the Saturday morning, hoping that his memory of poring over the road map of Kent with Tatiana
was accurate, and that at Welling the railway station was almost on the Dover Road.

As the station names passed by, New Cross, Blackheath, Well Hall, he realised with thankfulness that his thoughts were beginning to take shape. First he must consider how the iron block had swung with such sickening force on to the Dolly Dobbs’s vital innards. By accident? By Hester’s hand? By another’s? Was that why she now lay there dead? Motorcars raised dangerous passions – he remembered his last sight of Harold Dobbs who had hardly seemed to notice that a human being had lost her life, only that his beloved motorcar was ruined. He could build another motorcar; the life was lost for ever.

How Hester had died would not be resolved until the police had inspected the body. Auguste had his own views though. She lay face down, the back of her body apparently uninjured, despite the dried blood he had noticed on her clothes and on the floor. A gun? Hadn’t Tatiana told him Hester carried one? Stabbed? He would soon know. And then came the question why? More people had reason to dislike her than Auguste could have believed possible, but how many of them felt strongly enough for murder was another matter. Perhaps it was an accident, he thought without great hope. He tried to keep his mind clear, for it could achieve nothing until he had more facts, yet against his will stray memories flitted in and out of his mind. Some were connected with Hester Hart, some were not, and they were all unwelcome.

In the end, he banished them by an even more unwelcome thought. In two hours’ time His Majesty would be ready to greet the first arrivals of the cavalcade. If it was murder, not accident, every one of the people now on the run might need to be questioned, and quickly. He could envisage His
Majesty’s face all too clearly. He would deem the murder a personal insult dreamed up by Auguste Didier. Auguste battled with conscience. Could he – terrible thought – leave the banquet to Pierre and return to London with Egbert? No, that would be deemed a personal insult too. The sheer awfulness of his situation overcame him. His cup overflowed with horror when he realised as he leapt down from the railway carriage at Welling Station that
he had forgotten the horseradish sauce
.

‘Down there, mate.’ There was a jerk of the thumb from the ticket collector in answer to his question as he handed his ticket in. ‘Left under the bridge, and Bob’s your uncle.’

Whether Bob was his uncle or not, Auguste was thankful to see as he pounded down the slope and turned under the railway bridge on a rough track that the old Roman Watling Street, now re-used as the Dover Road, was indeed close. He stood on the corner and looked to left and right. The station was set in a waste of sandstones and protective palings. In both directions the Dover Road yawned straight and comparatively empty, save for horse vans. To his right under another railway bridge he could see stuccoed cottages; to his left, some way off, villas, and what was obviously the centre of the hamlet. Opposite was farmland. There was nothing to indicate whether a cavalcade of fifty cars had recently passed. He looked westwards again towards London. The cottages must be near the delightfully named Shoulder-of-Mutton Green, and in the distance he could see wooded hills stretching up into a blue haze, surmounted by a tower of some sort. That must be Shooter’s Hill, beloved of highwaymen. Perhaps with luck the steep hill had caused problems for some of the motorcars and the cavalcade had stopped. It was just gone nine thirty, a long time for a drive of perhaps fifteen miles out of London, though
it was, he told himself, a time of day when roads out of the city might be busy. Then he realised with joy that the haze was now a huge cloud of dust, and it was growing larger. He was not too late. Never had he been so glad to see the Bollée coming towards him. He jumped out into the road, waving his arms.

‘Auguste!’ There was a shriek, either from Tatiana or the motorcar, as Tatiana was so startled that she almost forgot to apply the brake, so that when she did so the car indignantly side-slipped as Auguste leapt for his life, fortunately in the opposite direction. Behind the Bollée, forty-eight motorcars drew up with varying degrees of promptness and distinct lack of pleasure from the steamers.