Page 63 of Murder on the Brighton Express
“That’s why I’m looking for you. When Harmony joins you for breakfast tomorrow morning, can you tell her not to wake me until midday. I’ll need my beauty sleep.”
Flossy proved she could hear us from the sitting room. “You need more than sleep, Brother!”
“I wouldn’t throw stones if I were you, Sister!”
I grabbed Floyd by the jacket lapel and dragged him inside. “Pipe down, both of you. The other guests will hear.”
Flossy appeared, arms crossed beneath her bosom. “What does that mean?” she asked Floyd.
He ignored her. “So will you tell Harmony for me, Cleo?”
“I won’t see her in the morning. I sent her a message to say I’m having an early breakfast and will be leaving the hotel before she starts work.”
“Where are you going?”
“None of your business.” I smoothed the wrinkle I’d left in his lapel when I’d grabbed it. “I don’t think you should have a late night. Tomorrow is the last chance to perfect all the last-minute details for the wedding. You’ll need to be alert and prepared, particularly with Mrs. Hessing still refusing to agree to the suppliers’ prices. What if they decide not to fulfill the orders until someone pays? Your father won’t be impressed if he’s left to pick up the bill.”
“Harmony will take care of it. That’s why I hired her.”
“It’s not her job to force Mrs. Hessing to pay. It’s yours.Youare the liaison between the hotel and the client.”
“Stop worrying, Cleo. Everything will come together on the day.” He removed his watch by its chain from his waistcoat pocket. “I have to go.”
“Can I come?” Flossy asked.
“No. It’s not a place for young ladies.”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“None of your business.” He seemed pleased to be able to throw my response back at me. He tempered it by chucking me under the chin. “Enjoy your outing tomorrow, Cousin. Don’t get into too much trouble.”
“You too, Floyd,” I said with a resigned sigh.
Harryand I changed trains in Brighton and caught the service to Portslade on the western edge of Hove. The journey gave Harry plenty of time to tell me everything he knew about the Thousand Mile Trial, the event in which Alistair McAllister reportedly cheated. The Automobile Club of Great Britain & Ireland had organized the endurance trial to showcase the prowess of automobiles over a long distance. It wasn’t a race, but was designed to put to bed the notion that horseless carriages—as some still called motorized vehicles—were unreliable.
Held in April and May, the event had been a resounding success for the companies who’d managed to design and manufacture a vehicle that finished. Out of the sixty-five who took part, only thirty-five completed the course. The Brighton-Hove Automobile Company had been one of them. Interest in the company boomed. They couldn’t keep up with orders for new vehicles. Investors saw the potential and laid down large sums to encourage the company to expand.
The vehicle they’d entered had been driven by one of their founders and the head engineer, Alistair McAllister. According to the article written by Thomas Salter, a farmhand had claimed McAllister swapped his vehicle with another along the route. He’d hidden a spare vehicle in a barn on a farm outside Edinburgh. It looked identical to the one in which he’d started the Trial days earlier in London. By swapping the vehicle with older parts worn by constant driving on rough roads with the fresher one, he’d returned to London triumphant. McAllister was lauded as a hero of British auto manufacturing.
But his success was apparently based on a lie, and that lie had come unstuck when the farmhand told his story to Thomas Salter. Mr. Salter traveled to Brighton to speak to an employee at the Brighton-Hove Automobile Company. That fellow must have confirmed the story, because Mr. Salter’s article appeared inThe London Tattler.
Everything Harry told me gave McAllister a motive for killing Thomas Salter, not Ruth. Yet, if we were correct, he’d dressed in a disguise and entered her compartment on the express to London. Even if he didn’t murder her, I wanted to know why he was interested in her.
We found the factory in Portslade easily enough. Everyone we asked for directions knew of it. The single building with all six of its chimneys spewing smoke was smaller than I expected, which explained why the Brighton-Hove Automobile Company had plans to move to a larger site, according to Harry. Those plans might be on hold now, if investors pulled out due to the cheating scandal.
We asked to speak to Alistair McAllister, but were directed to a stiff-lipped man in an office whose upper lip became even stiffer when we repeated our request to speak to McAllister.
“Your kind are not welcome here!” he bellowed.
“Our kind?” Harry echoed.
“Gutter press.”
“We’re private detectives from London.”
His demeanor instantly changed. He tugged his shirt collar away from his neck and cleared his throat. “Please inform your client that the Brighton-Hove Automobile Company did not cheat in the Thousand Mile Trial.” He stood and rounded the desk, approaching us cautiously, as if worried he’d frighten us away and therefore the client he imagined we represented. “He’s welcome to speak to us in person at any time. Please, let us have a chance to allay his fears before he makes any rash decisions.”
“You misunderstand,” Harry said. “We have no interest in the Trial and our client isn’t one of your investors. We want to speak to McAllister in relation to the death of Ruth Price.” He kept his voice even, but I detected a little tightness in the consonants. If the man didn’t give up the whereabouts to McAllister soon, Harry might lose his temper. It happened so rarely that I sometimes forgot it even existed.
