Murder In The Motor Stable: (Auguste Didier Mystery 9) (17 page)

‘You know? How?’

‘She told me.’

‘When, where and what?’ Auguste was sharper than he intended. This could be the key he had been hoping for to the secret of Hester Hart.

‘Everywhere. In the desert, monsieur, in the ruins of Palmyra, in Petra, in Egypt, in ancient Babylon. A dragoman is more than a butler or cook, whose wages are paid for duty done. He is a partner in an adventure. In the desert one needs a companion, for its beauty is too immense for man to be
alone. The infinite stretches ahead, behind, to east, to west, and words flow easier than here in England. In the desert there is stillness and natural beauty to rest the eye; here there are a thousand distractions to occupy every moment. Hurry is from Hell, says the Arab. Hurry is the honeyed path to Heaven, says English society.’

Auguste hardly dared to ask. ‘While Miss Hart talked to you of this great adventure, her revenge, did she mention any names in particular?’

‘Indeed she did, monsieur, and that is why I knew I must tell you of them immediately, for my own sake as well as hers.’

‘
Your
sake?’

‘Because she is dead, monsieur, and I too have a life I cherish.’

Chief Inspector Egbert Rose was impatiently awaiting the arrival of anyone at all. All that had happened so far was that the door had cautiously opened to reveal the most junior footman who had put down a tray of lukewarm roast beef in front of him. He had been disappointed. It tasted like Mr Pinpole’s beef; he suspected his local butcher of advertising in Smithfield for the toughest beef in England to sell to Edith, and now he knew Pinpole was not alone. Mr Pinpole’s brother must be a cattle farmer down here. Meanwhile no one from the ballroom had bothered to take time out of their busy dancing schedules to come to talk to him. Had his visit here been a waste of time? Not entirely, he reflected. In fact, it suggested quite a lot to him. He studied the list Tatiana had given him with the participants of the run and their passengers, plus the notes which Auguste had made at the side on some of them. On the whole, Roderick Smythe was still well up on his own list of those to be carefully investigated.
He’d quarrelled early in the evening with the deceased, he’d come to the motor stable to guard the motorcar when she’d said he wasn’t wanted, and he’d told Fred Gale to go home. Rose was inclined to believe in simple answers where he could – until eliminated, at the very least. He had known Auguste long enough to prove that some cases were far from simple in their resolutions but it still remained a good jumping-off point.

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 about 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.’