Murder In The Motor Stable: (Auguste Didier Mystery 9) (19 page)

Roderick turned red, then tried a light laugh. ‘Mrs Didier must have misunderstood. Hester and I did shout a little at first, but then we realised how much we loved each other. Perhaps she did not hear that part.’

‘Doesn’t explain the time, does it? Not covering up for anybody, are you? You seem very keen to defend Miss Lockwood.’

‘Whatever reason would Miss Lockwood have to harm Hester Hart?’ he demanded belligerently.

‘The same as quite a few people perhaps. Those diaries. Seen them, have you?’

‘No. I knew Hester kept diaries but I’ve never seen them.’

‘She didn’t give them to you for safekeeping?’

‘She did not.’ He was growing increasingly uneasy; yesterday had been a nightmare and today had begun little better.

‘Where did you first meet Miss Hart?’ Egbert asked casually, and Auguste was surprised to see this question threw Roderick’s composure even more.

‘In—’ He stopped. ‘In the Motor Club of Great Britain headquarters. In April.’

‘Not earlier?’

‘I don’t think so.’ He tried another light laugh. ‘I may have done. One meets so many . . .’ His voice trailed off.

Phyllis burst into tears. A short burst. ‘Darling Roderick wouldn’t hurt a fly. He tells me you think he murdered her, just because he realised he loved me and not her.’

‘He claims he was reconciled to her.’

Her large blue eyes brimmed over. ‘Perhaps I was wrong. Anyway, he can’t marry both of us, can he? I mean, he won’t have to now. Just me.’

‘Quite, Miss Lockwood.’

Phyllis smiled shyly. ‘I suppose that gives me a sort of motive. But I couldn’t have done it, really I couldn’t. I can’t stand loud bangs. I couldn’t pull the trigger on a water pistol.’

Egbert looked at her suspiciously. Bangs? ‘Miss Hart was stabbed, not shot.’

‘
Was
she? I quite thought she was shot, because of the gun she always carried.’

‘It wasn’t with her body when she was found.’

‘Roderick said she always carried a Colt pistol, so I quite thought she was shot. That proves I couldn’t have done it, doesn’t it?’ she added brightly.

Egbert did not comment.

‘She may have left it at home,’ Phyllis continued helpfully. ‘After all, she had come out expecting only to dine that night when she was so horrid to us; she wasn’t planning to stay all night to guard the car, so she may have left it at home, but it is odd, isn’t it, because she must have had time to run home – well, not literally run – to get it.’

‘She did go home,’ Auguste said. ‘She had changed her clothes, and it is odd.’

Egbert agreed. Twitch had not mentioned a gun being found at Hester Hart’s home. ‘Where were you on Wednesday evening, Miss Lockwood?’

‘Oh, we had a lovely evening, although Hester was so nasty to us, just because Roderick had brought me to the club for dinner. We had been engaged, after all.
She
stole him from me, though Roderick has explained it to me.’

‘How?’ Auguste was fascinated as to how he had managed to wriggle out of his predicament.

‘Roderick told me she more or less
forced
him into marrying her. She knew something really nasty about his godmother whom he’s very fond of and said unless Roderick married her – I mean Hester, not the godmother, that’s Maud Bullinger, you know – she would tell
everybody
about it. I was puzzled because she then threatened to tell everybody about it anyway, but Roderick is such an old-fashioned gentleman, he agreed straightaway.’

‘Not very gentlemanly towards you.’

‘Don’t you think so?’ She looked sweetly surprised. ‘But he loves me, he really does, and always has. It was only because—’

‘Yes, yes.’ Egbert cut her off hastily as the phonograph recording threatened to begin again. ‘Where did you go when you left Milton House?’

‘To the Carlton. We had a divine little soufflé of—’

‘And after that?’

‘He took me home, and went home himself.’

‘No. He went back to Milton House. I take it you didn’t accompany him?’

‘Oh
no
.’

‘Or decide to follow him?’

She stared at him, tears threatening to well up once more. ‘Oh,
no
! Why would I?’

‘You, too, had good reason to dislike Miss Hart; perhaps you wanted to ensure the engagement was not reinstated, as Mr Smythe claims it was.’

‘She trapped him.’ The sweetness vanished.

‘You were dining with Mr Millward on the previous evening. Why was that, Miss Lockwood?’ Auguste asked politely.

‘He’s a friend of mine.’

‘Not of Miss Hart’s, though.’

She stared at him. ‘Poor John,’ she said tremulously, ‘you don’t understand. He was in such distress. His wife, you know . . .’ She cast her eyes demurely down, and refused to say more.

‘I don’t see Phyllis Lockwood missing her beauty sleep, even for darling Roderick, let alone John Millward,’ Egbert commented after she had left.

‘
Mon ami
, remember her profession.’

In the home of a good horse-loving family, Hortensia for once was not thinking about form and flanks but about her husband. He was off his fodder and that was unusual. Then she remembered what she’d been going to ask him.

‘Where were you on Tuesday evening, John?’

He turned pink. He was always a bad liar. ‘At the club.’

‘Oh.’ She didn’t pursue the matter, to his relief, and he assumed she had just forgotten to inquire
which
club. She had not, and her concern increased.

‘My dear Inspector.’

Agatha sailed into the library, as though welcoming Egbert to an At Home. ‘And Mr Didier. How delightful. And how is dear Tatiana this morning?’

Auguste was tempted to reply that she was as well as might be expected after a murder, but simply bowed instead, as the Duchess graciously agreed to be seated.

‘Poor Hester.’ Agatha sighed. Obviously, like royalty, she felt she must speak first, Auguste noted.

‘Did you like Miss Hart, Your Grace?’ Egbert asked.

Agatha considered. ‘I don’t believe I gave much thought to the question. Her lectures were stimulating.’

‘You had known her a long time, I believe, long enough to be threatened by the announced publication of her memoirs.’

‘Good gracious, no.’ She decided in favour of humour rather than the outrage she felt. ‘People don’t
threaten
duchesses. It is one of the great advantages of the position.’

‘So you didn’t meet her earlier in your life?’

‘I can’t recall. Why? Should I have done?’

‘She was at one time going to marry the man who is now your husband.’

‘Oh, is
that
who she was? Do you know, I thought there was something just a little familiar about her face. She was infatuated with my husband – or, rather, with his title. It was all very sad, poor girl. Luckily my husband – though he wasn’t my husband then of course – realised that it would never do. She went abroad, and then he met me.’

‘Hadn’t he met you before that? Weren’t you instrumental in making him realise it would never do?’

‘Really, Inspector, what are you implying? I fear I find you quite impolite.’

‘I fear I have to be at times, Your Grace. I can speak to your husband, if you prefer.’

She stared at him coldly. ‘I doubt that very much. I shall advise him to have nothing to say to you, if you are to twist what I say in this appalling manner.’

‘Then I’ll have to rely on what Miss Hart’s diaries tell us.’

She was ready for that, Auguste observed. ‘Poor Hester, always such a dreamer. She wrote such a lot about so many things and not one of them true. Have you found the diaries? One’s lawyers may have such a splendid time. They are not at all impressed by fairy stories without evidence to back them up.’

Egbert decided to change tack. ‘You were originally planning to drive the Dolly Dobbs, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, until poor Hester badgered Harold into letting her drive. I quite understood, of course.’ Then she glanced at Auguste and belatedly remembered his presence at a certain occasion when understanding had not played any part at all in the proceedings. ‘I was naturally disappointed at first.’

‘Why did he change his mind?’

‘I see now the woman must have blackmailed him, threatening to describe his car to Thomas Bailey.’

‘And you resented it?’

She laughed winningly. ‘Perhaps a little. Until Thomas Bailey came to me.’

‘He came to you, not the other way about?’

‘He is of the servant classes, Inspector. How could I visit him? He asked me to drive his new motorcar, the Brighton Baby.’

‘And you agreed, knowing that it was exactly the same as the Dolly Dobbs?’

‘So I have now heard. I had absolutely
no
idea, I assure you. I simply suggested to Thomas, as Hester did not appear in time to join the run, that he let the Motor Club officials think
the Brighton Baby was the Dolly Dobbs, as none of us had any idea what Harold’s car was like. I gather they had the same idea about the hoods and the windmills. Harold was so scared his great idea would be stolen that he kept his secrets even from me. If you recall, Mr Didier, Dolly did not emerge on the day it should, and no wonder, if it was a copy.’

‘No. I didn’t say copy, Your Grace. I said exactly the same. There’s a difference.’

Agatha was not interested in semantics.

‘When did you last see Miss Hart, Your Grace?’

The eyebrows arched. ‘That evening in the restaurant when we were all treated to the most exciting scene.’

‘Your motorcar was still in the motor house when Leo went off duty at twelve. Did you collect it yourself?’

‘I cannot – ah, yes, I believe I must have done.’

‘But you didn’t see Miss Hart?’

‘I am glad to say I did not. I am quite sure the motor house doors were all shut.’

Lady Bullinger, who followed her sister-in-law in the library, gave all the appearance of being the more dominant of the two, though Auguste did not underestimate Agatha’s sweetened steel.

‘I didn’t like the woman,’ Lady Bullinger barked, ‘but I wouldn’t have wished that death on her. Very sorry to hear it.’ She sat down heavily in the chair Egbert held for her.

‘Would you be one of the ladies Hester Hart referred to in her diaries?’ he asked.

‘We moved in different circles, Inspector. I knew her, but I doubt if she recorded the fact.’

‘You and Her Grace may be mistaken.’

‘You haven’t been accusing the Duchess of Dewbury of murdering the woman, have you?’

‘I’m not accusing anyone at this stage, Lady Bullinger. Your godson in fact was the last person to see Hester Hart alive.’

‘Is that why you hauled the boy off to London like a common criminal? We all saw Hester after he did.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘She was on public display in the restaurant, my man.’

‘Roderick Smythe returned after midnight to the motor stable.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘He was seen and he admits it.’

‘The boy was still infatuated,’ she said after a few moments, having assimilated this. ‘Probably went for a goodnight kiss and left.’

‘The boy is thirty-five,’ Egbert pointed out.

‘A boy at heart,’ she maintained doggedly. ‘He wouldn’t have touched a hair on her head.’

‘Miss Hart was going to marry your brother at one time, wasn’t she?’

‘He did know her,’ she replied instantly and dismissively. ‘I gather Miss Hart over-dramatised the extent of their involvement. When he met and preferred Agatha, she went abroad.’

‘Without any help from you?’

‘I’m George’s sister, not his nurse. I may have met Miss Hart then, I can’t recall.’ She paused. ‘She’s a first-class driver, you know.’

‘Ah yes,’ Egbert said thoughtfully. ‘This race in October . . .’

‘I was glad to have her on my team,’ Lady Bullinger said stoutly.

‘Did you have a chat about it on Wednesday night, when you went to collect your motorcar?’

‘I did not.’

‘But you saw her?’

‘I could hardly help it. She was sitting in the back seat of that ridiculous motorcar. And she was still sitting there, alive, when I left.’

‘With the motor house door open?’

‘Naturally. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to see her.’ Her tone implied if this was the standard of Scotland Yard inspectors, it was hardly surprising that crime was so prevalent in London. She congratulated herself as she emerged that she’d carried that off rather well.

‘When will you be in town again, Isabel?’ Hugh asked as casually as he could, as Isabel pretended to be fascinated by Leo’s contortions in providing the Royce with its necessities of life. ‘And why,’ he suddenly asked, ‘are you preparing the Royce?’

‘My husband suggested I drive you back, Cousin Hugh.’ She moved out of Leo’s earshot. ‘Aren’t you pleased?’