Murder In The Motor Stable: (Auguste Didier Mystery 9) (8 page)

‘There is no need to continue, my love. Of course I remember.’

‘The same passions are aroused by motorcars, as I have often tried to explain. They are more than mere conveyances; they are creations of man’s imagination and free artistic spirit, a testament to man’s achievement.’

‘Hortensia and her supporters don’t see it that way,’ Auguste muttered.

‘Whenever fanatical devotion is involved, you will find it counterbalanced by its opposite. In Hortensia’s case, her devotion to horses leads to excessive hatred of motors.’

‘Or of Hester, if she has heard the rumours about her husband.’

Maud Bullinger was accustomed to taking risks, especially ones that had been carefully planned. Every time she stepped into a racing car the same thrill swept over her. She had it now. She buttoned her gloves and sallied forth. Her
philosophy of life, had she ever entered her own kitchen, would be that omelettes required the breaking of eggs. She’d averted disaster from her family once over Hester Hart and she would do it again. Hester might then retire from the race with a metaphorical puncture and go back to the desert for good, where she could queen it over the natives on the proceeds of those buttons. How dare the woman presume to represent
this
country in an international race? Driving camels, perhaps. Maud snorted in acknowledgement of her humorous thought and mounted the Napier’s rear seat. Today Higgins should drive. She needed to plan strategy.

Twenty minutes later she marched into the Carlton Hotel, prepared for battle. The ferns in the Palm Court rustled in fright.

In his Albany rooms, Roderick Smythe nervously prepared for ordeal by Maud. Give him the Paris-Vienna race any time. He knew motorcars, he understood them from accumulators to yokes. The greasiest, muddiest road failed to cause him to side-slip. He only wished he could side-slip old Maud. He was the idol of the crowds on the racetrack, known for his daredevil adventures. There was Avignon on a Paris to Marseille run when he’d disappeared into a local inn with the outward-going control who was a neat little lady with a twinkle in her eye in place of the usual stolid gendarme. While they were enjoying their
entente cordiale
, thirty motorcars arriving under escort from the inward control failed to have their time of exit stamped and the whole race had to be invalidated. The chaps all had quite a laugh. Roderick disliked being the object of contumely and there was no doubt at all that he was not popular in London. Phyllis on the other hand
was
very popular and rightly so. She was a darling. As Hester had
pointed out, however, it was Phyllis who had broken the engagement. He, Roderick, was the aggrieved party, and indeed despite the glories of Hester he was forced to admit he was far from happy. His nights, or the parts of them that English society turned a blind eye to as suitable between as yet unmarried couples (after the servants had gone to bed and before crossing sweepers and milkmen were about) were an exquisite torment of pleasure. Life with Hester was like driving at sixty miles an hour, the wind on your face, living life to the full. That this also meant gnats and dust in your eyes despite the goggles was something he momentarily forgot. Life with Phyllis would have been a bland bread pudding compared to Hester’s exotic Nesselrode dessert.

He decided he was much misunderstood, and he suspected the situation was about to get worse. He had an uneasy feeling Maud had been hankering to drive in the International Women’s Race herself. ‘Let the best woman drive,’ Hester had declared, and after seeing her on his Napier, he had no doubts on that score. She had explained it to him in bed the night before her test drive for him, and when he saw what she could do behind a steering wheel, he quite agreed. Perhaps Maud wouldn’t. But there was no way Hester could be talked out of it now, was there?

As he entered the Palm Court, Maud sailed towards him like the Boadicea into battle.

‘Ah, Roderick. How delightful.’ Maud smiled.

‘It is indeed, Aunt Maud.’ He advanced cautiously and bowed.

‘Such a pity Hester was deprived of showing us the Dolly Dobbs on Saturday,’ she remarked to open the conversation, once seated at the table. ‘But now she is to live in England,
she’ll have many more such opportunities. I’ll introduce her to the organisers of the English ladies’ circuit races.’

‘You don’t mind about the international race?’ Roderick nearly dropped his brandy and soda in his amazement.

A hearty bellow. ‘Of course not, dear Roderick.’ She had every appearance of honesty. ‘I did at first, I must confess. An old thing like me –’ she swallowed, at forty-eight she was only thirteen years older than he was – ‘looks forward to an event like that. But now I know it’s still in the family since she’s to be my god-daughter-in-law, I’m only too happy. I have enough on hand driving in races in this country. In fact, I had in mind to enter the Scottish Automobile Club’s reliability trial next May. Glasgow to London. I’d like a few tips. I’m after the gold, and a nonstop certificate. I’ve heard there’ll be a Mors and an Ariel there. Perhaps you can give me some . . .’

Roderick, flummoxed by this new Maud, managed to say he would be only too delighted to give his aunt whatever help he could.

‘I hope Hester wins in October,’ Maud continued. ‘You’ll be married by then, eh? Hope so. Looking forward to seeing more of her on the circuits. She and I can be a team.’

‘Yes.’ Roderick grew enthusiastic and Monsieur Escoffier’s menu regained its appeal. ‘Splendid, Aunt Maud.’

‘She’s a bally good driver. I watched her hands. They’re the giveaway. She has the hands of an expert. I expect she’ll be driving in the Gordon Bennett eliminating trials next year.’

‘Of course not, I shall be doing that,’ Roderick replied, slightly shocked. He had had his moment of glory in Germany in June in the Gordon-Bennett Cup race. Averaging forty-one miles an hour over an eleven-hour day wasn’t at all bad in itself, considering that was after handicaps in the form of two stray dogs and one stray peasant, the last of which entailed
side-slipping the Wolseley into a stall of cabbages but which nevertheless won him a kiss from the comely innkeeper’s wife.

‘Come on, Roderick. You can both enter. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition.’ Maud was as hearty as the caviare and blinis now before her. ‘Newspaper men, photographers, even those newfangled moving pictures will all be out there to see Hester win. Phyllis will realise then that there’s more to motorcars than posing against the mudguards.’

‘Why Hester, Maud?’ Roderick asked slowly.

‘What do you mean, dear boy?’

‘Why should
Hester
win if I’m racing too?’

‘Ah, she has the knack. It’s like horses. There’s an element of fate. You can tell by looking at them which has it going with them, and which hasn’t. You’re an excellent driver, Roderick, you’re a man after all –’ it cost her a lot to say this – ‘but Hester has the
look
of a winner.’

‘I’m sure she won’t want to drive after our marriage.’ The
cailles aux feuilles de vigne
lost all appeal.

‘Why not?’

‘Babies and so forth.’

‘I do hope so.’ Warmth floated towards him over the lobster salad. ‘I do look forward to a god-grandson. But it might not be possible. She was at school with Agatha, you know. Her age . . .’ Lady Bullinger diplomatically lowered her voice, then broke off altogether.

‘I know she’s a little older than me, of course, but after all, love is the most important thing.’

‘Hear, hear, Roderick. The sentiment does you every credit,’ agreed Maud. ‘Love makes the pneumatic tyres of marriage race round, eh?’ She laughed heartily, then said in amazement, ‘Why, look who’s here!’

Roderick, now finding Monsieur Escoffier’s best efforts far
from agreeable, glanced up to see a vision of loveliness in pale pink gauze and muslin approaching hesitantly. Had he thought further, he might have been reminded of the entrance of the heroine in
Pink for Miss Pamela
but his eyes were doing his thinking at the moment and they were fully occupied.

‘I heard you were dining here, Maud. I didn’t realise Roderick—’ Phyllis broke off piteously. ‘I’ll leave of course.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Chivalry well to the fore, Roderick leapt to his feet to hold her chair for her. He had been about to say he was just leaving, anxious to rid himself of disturbing memories of Phyllis in his arms. Something made him change his mind.

He was to regret it. Two minutes after Phyllis had proclaimed her appetite to be small and ordered a
filet de boeuf poêle à la Piémontaise
, there was another interruption. Hester Hart did not bother to pose in pink for their benefit. Firstly she was in muddy mustard yellow which a sales lady had ecstatically described as the colour of the desert, and secondly she was far too angry. She could hardly believe it when her special informant at the club had told her that Roderick was lunching with Lady Bullinger behind her back. She didn’t trust that woman an inch. Roderick had told her he was lunching at
his
club. Moreover, that wilting Ophelia was here, Phyllis Lockwood.

‘Is there room for a fourth?’ Hester inquired dangerously.

‘Oh, of course.’ Phyllis blushed and looked appealingly at Roderick to save the situation. Maud, delighted at fate’s happy strokes, did not want it saving.

It occurred to Roderick that sparks flying from dark eyes might be more exciting than misty blue ones but they were a lot more dangerous. An engine on fire could leave you by the roadside waiting for a Good Samaritan who might never come.

Having taken luncheon at Richmond during a cousinly visit, Isabel prepared to take her leave.

‘I take it you’re travelling to Martyr House,’ Hugh said casually.

‘Darling Hugh, I simply have to be there for the whole of tomorrow. However,’ Isabel paused temptingly, ‘I plan to come to town again for tomorrow evening, and then I have the perfect excuse for you to accompany me on the run on Thursday, rather than leaving you to travel by railway.’

Hugh thought this out carefully. ‘Good. We can dine together at the club tomorrow night – if you’re kind enough to invite me.’ He laughed.

‘Certainly.’ Isabel was surprised, but only too willing.

‘What’s His Majesty going to say if you’re not there to greet him?’ Hugh was not a modest man but even he could see the attractions of his monarch might outweigh his own in Isabel’s beautiful but undoubtedly ambitious eyes.

‘He doesn’t arrive until Thursday morning at ten o’clock, in plenty of time to receive the club as it arrives.’

‘But he’ll expect to find you there already. You’re the hostess.’

‘My work’s done,’ she told him lightly. ‘I’ve redecorated the whole of the east wing for the one night he’ll be staying with us.
And
organised the ball for the evening. So I shall be kind to the Dowager and let her be hostess to His Majesty. In her youth she had a brief, er, friendship with him, and I’m quite sure is hoping to renew it.’

‘Will she succeed?’ Hugh was amused, not at all convinced by Isabel’s unselfish motives.

‘With Mrs Keppel looming her metaphorical shadow over him? It’s hardly likely.’ Isabel spoke bitterly, for now that Alice Keppel had assumed such importance in His Majesty’s
private life, it had become much harder to maintain her position in his favour, let alone improve it. She had wrestled agonisingly over the decision to return to London tomorrow. That she would do so had little to do with her mother-in-law’s wistful memories and much to do with Hester Hart. Isabel’s greater need was to be close to that bally woman now that she was about to write her memoirs, and to assure her she was her friend. Just in case she remembered that old story . . .

Writing was power. No one could come between you and the written word, and only the laws of defamation between you and the printed word, although in this case, Hester thought with satisfaction, no one would dare expose their foibles to further public gaze in court. Look what had happened to poor Oscar Wilde, and to Lady Colin Campbell in her deliciously scandalous divorce case, when they exposed their grievances to public scutiny. Both outcasts from society, however unjustly.

Hester gazed at the pile of blank paper with satisfaction. First, she would publish these memoirs, then the diaries of her travels. How certain people would love to get their hands on the diaries on which the memoirs would be based. But they wouldn’t, she’d seen to that already. She laughed to herself at the thought of it. Tomorrow, she decided, she would give a talk in the club; they wouldn’t be able to resist it. They’d all come and she would make them squirm. She would start the memoirs today. There were two sets of diaries, one written for publication, and one recording the agony of her school years, the horrors of her coming-out year, and more, much more.

She would bequeath the diaries to a library where no living person should touch them for at least seventy years. There’d be no danger of solicitous families burning them then. Think
of all the treasures lost to posterity when Sir Richard Burton’s wife burnt his journals after his death. It wouldn’t happen to Hester Hart. They were her masterpiece, and she needed to control what would happen to them. As soon as she married Roderick, she would make a will. Meanwhile she must ensure the diaries’ survival. She could almost recite them from memory, she knew them so well; they were her life.

‘There is a poetry impregnated into the Arab by the desert. No desert is barren to them, for it is their homeland whose beauties they love, whose scents are borne to them on the wind, wherever they might be. Ever since I first read Robert Wood’s
The Ruins of Palmyra
, I had thirsted to visit the place, and when I arrived that golden evening, I found the Arab’s true soul, poetry, passion, hospitality, conversation, all one gracious whole, inspired by the God he worships. All is Allah and Allah is all . . .’