Free Murder In The Motor Stable: (Auguste Didier Mystery 9) by Amy Myers Page A

trapped in the immaculate polish of Harold’s future buzzed worryingly, but he immediately swatted it. A mere technical detail could not affect the true artist, save that unfortunately he had had to let that Hart woman drive. He couldn’t explain to the Duchess of Dewbury just how this came about but she, like him, he comforted himself, was dedicated to the Dolly Dobbs, and Hester Hart would bring even more publicity for it than a duchess. Harold’s optimism about the future regained its usual rosy hue.
    Motorcars rose above personal feelings. He had a vision of a future motorcar literally rising, like Hiram Maxim’s flying machine. Perhaps they could travel on water . . . His mind wandered, just as Dolly took advantage of his abstraction to tip the contents of the toast rack on to little Billy’s lap. Fortunately the maid brought in the morning’s post, excusing Harold from involvement in the ensuing fracas. In domestic matters, Judith always felt herself one step away from control, trying in vain to be the perfect mistress of the household that
The Lady
magazine made sound so easy and which was only darling Harold’s due.
    Darling Harold uttered a yelp of distress.
    ‘Dolly was only playing,’ Judith said nervously.
    ‘No, no,’ Harold managed to say, choking. ‘This – the letter.’
    Judith took it. The word letter unduly dignified the communication. Its thick block capitals written apparently without benefit of blotting paper read: THE DOLLY DOBBS WILL NEVERRUN . Any hope that this might be an objective evaluation of its engineering merits was dashed by the writer’s apparent afterthought: I WILL SEE TO THAT .
    ‘What do you think it means?’ Harold quavered, helpless in the face of the unthinkable: that someone in the world was not as devoted to the Dolly Dobbs as he was.
    Dolly burst into tears, waiting hopefully for her mother’s usual instant support. It didn’t come, so she bawled, ‘I’m Dolly Dobbs. Why won’t I run?’
    Billy seized the opportunity to retaliate with a lapful of scrambled egg but to his annoyance was ignored by all but Dolly.
    ‘It means,’ Judith said decidedly ‘that we must see Mrs Didier immediately.’
    Immediately was in the hands of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, but obviously realising the importance of the Dolly Dobbs, it deposited them at Victoria Railway Station in plenty of time to ruin Tatiana’s morning . . .
    Hats, Tatiana decided, revealed mood as well as character. Judith Dobbs’s white felt, its front brim curving up like a galleon’s prow with a particularly pugnacious figurehead underneath, warned her that trouble was on the way even before the letter had been thrust under her nose by Harold, who seemed incapable of speech.
    She read it, greatly perturbed, though her words were comforting. ‘Surely this is merely a threat, perhaps from a Ham. One of the members, surely, for I can’t think that Mrs Millward would descend to such levels.’
    ‘There are others,’ Judith pointed out darkly. ‘Jealousy is a powerful force.’
    ‘You mean rivals? I hardly think Thomas Bailey would do such a thing.’
    ‘No.
Women
.’
    Tatiana had an instant vision of the Duchess sitting down sedately on a Chippendale chair in Dewbury House, penning this nastiness and handing it gravely to the butler. Or did Judith, she wondered even more wildly, think that nameless hordes of women fighting over the glories of Harold Dobbs’s person would take vengeance by such threats? Judith must be calmed, and the Dolly Dobbs made secure, she decided. ‘I’m sure it’s not a serious threat but I will place a twenty-four-hour guard on the motor stable.’
    ‘Armed,’ Judith demanded. ‘A stout knobkerrie.’
    ‘Pistol,’ Harold at last managed to contribute.
    ‘With a large torch and whistle only,’ declared Tatiana firmly.
    Mrs Jolly’s raspberry charlotte began to look less inviting as Tatiana regaled Auguste with the events of her morning and he was