The next day Kenyon woke at mid-morning. He hadn’t slept long—rolling over on his stitches had taken care of that—but the bed was firm and comfortable, and he felt refreshed. He arose and pulled back the curtains, letting light stream into the room. It was going to be a hot Saturday.
Kenyon went to the adjoining bathroom. The soap in the shower stall smelled of lavender. He had a quick shower and a shave, then dug a golf shirt and a pair of jeans from his luggage and got dressed.
The smell of frying sausage hit his nostrils as he walked downstairs. He paused on the stairwell for a moment, listening. He could hear the rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen. Cautiously, he inched down the stairs and advanced quietly to the entrance of the kitchen.
A woman was standing at the stove, her back to Kenyon, singing in Spanish. She was about forty, short and stout, with her hair dyed a brilliant red. She threw a dollop of butter into a frying pan, then cracked several eggs.
Kenyon advanced into the kitchen. “Hello?” he said.
The woman jumped in fright, then spun around, clutching a spatula to her ample bosom. “You scare me!”
“Sorry. What are you doing in my kitchen?”
The woman peered closely at him. “You Mister Yack Kenyon?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, Mister Yack.” She came over and gave him a big hug, her short arms barely reaching around Kenyon’s chest. She started to cry.
Kenyon patted her on the back as she sniffled into his shirt. “Uh, it’s okay,” he said. He reached across and pulled a section off a roll of paper towels and offered it to her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The woman blew her nose in the towel. “No, no. I cry for Miss Lydia.”
Kenyon suddenly understood. “You’re the housekeeper?”
The woman beamed. “Ya. I am Señora Santucci.” Kenyon held out his hand, but the woman hugged him again. “I am so sorry for your auntie.”
“Thank you.” Kenyon glanced at the stove, which was beginning to smoke. “Is something burning?”
Señora Santucci quickly turned and removed the frying pan. “You hungry? See—I make you breakfast.”
Kenyon’s stomach growled in appreciation. “Thanks, I’d love some.” He glanced around the room. “You brew any coffee, Señora Santucci?”
She removed a carafe from an automatic brewer and poured him a cup. “Si. Cream?”
Kenyon held up a hand. “Black is fine.”
“Good. You sit, and I make big meal.”
Kenyon sat down in the nook and watched the housekeeper bustle around the kitchen. Within minutes, she had a steaming plate of sausage and eggs on toast set before him. Kenyon avidly dug in with his knife and fork. “This is great.”
“You like? Good. Then you keep Rosita as housekeeper, no?”
“I’d be happy to, until I leave, anyway.”
Santucci’s smile faded. “You no stay?
“I’ve got a job in San Francisco. I have to go back.”
“I see.” The woman wiped her hands in her apron and turned back to the stove.
Kenyon stopped eating. He suddenly realized that, in effect, he was now Señora Santucci’s employer, and it was up to him to decide her future. He didn’t know what to say. “How long did you work for Lydia?” he finally asked.
“Four years.”
“Where did you work before that?”
“Ingoldsby Manor.”
“You worked for Ilsa?”
Santucci sat down at the nook table, across from Kenyon. “I no want to, but I have a bad husband. He has the hot Italian blood. He get drunk and beat me, so I go away and work in the country.”
“What was Ilsa like?”
“She very bad. She say, ‘You do what I want, or I send you back to your husband.’ I am so worried, my hair fall out.”
Kenyon shook his head in sympathy. “That’s awful.”
Santucci nodded. “One day, your auntie, she come to the Manor, she see me sad. She say, ‘Why you cry?’ I tell her, my mistress is bad.”
Kenyon was intrigued. “What did she do?”
“Miss Lydia give me a job and a place to stay that very day. She very sweet, like an auntie to me.”
Kenyon stared down at his unfinished eggs. “You don’t have to go back to your husband, if you don’t want to.”
Santucci crossed herself. “He is dead.”
“Well, I guess that’s good,” said Kenyon. “Listen, I’ll talk to Tanya. I’m sure there’s someone who needs an excellent housekeeper like you.”
The woman stood up and began to clear up the pots and pans. “You are very kind, Mister Yack, but don’t you worry about me,” she replied. “I be okay.”
Kenyon picked up his coffee and left Santucci to the dishes. He wandered down the hall and stood in the living room, staring out the large bay window. He had only been thinking of the physical assets; he hadn’t considered the people in Lydia’s life. How the hell was he supposed to deal with all of that?
His thoughts were broken by a phone ringing. He looked around the room; a cream-colored desk set sat atop a sideboard. He put down his coffee cup and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Hullo. This is Charles Strand from the Morgan dealership calling about your motor car.”
“What car?”
“The Plus 8. Have you decided what you want to do with it?”
It took a few minutes, but Kenyon finally got the story from the car dealer. Lydia had owned a Morgan sports car, the one she had been killed in. The wreck had been towed back to the dealership and they needed a decision about whether to repair or scrap it.
“How far are you from Herringbone Gardens?” Kenyon asked.
“About four streets south,” replied Strand.
Kenyon got directions from the manager. “I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
The agent walked south until he came to Old Brompton Road. The road was lined with shops; customers bustled in and out of the florists, wine merchants, and bakeries as they did their Saturday morning shopping.
The Morgan dealership was located on a cobbled alleyway off the main road in what would have been a row of stables a century before. The barn doors had been replaced by modern glass windows, and the interior remodeled into a showroom.
Kenyon glanced through the windows. Six Morgans sat in the showroom, their paint gleaming in the morning light. They were all convertibles with a design from the 1940s, with long hoods, flaring wheel wells and large, bulging headlamps. Kenyon pictured Lydia in her fluffy pink slippers, puttering around the countryside at thirty miles per hour.
As Kenyon entered, a short, fat man with a monk’s fringe of hair stepped from behind a desk. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Jack Kenyon. I just had a call from Charles Strand.”
The man stuck out his hand. “Strand, here. I’ll show you Lydia’s car.” He escorted the agent around to the garage beside the showroom.
Inside the garage, the whine of pneumatic tools filled the air as several mechanics in overalls bent over partially dismantled cars. Spare tires, car fenders, and tailpipes littered the floor. An automobile rested to one side of the workshop under a canvas tarpaulin. Strand walked over and pulled off the cover.
Once upon a time, Kenyon imagined, it had been a beautiful car. The body was indigo, and the interior was upholstered in red leather. Now, however, the front wheel wells and hood were bent and scraped. The windshield had been crushed flat, and the interior was spattered with leaves, dried dirt and gravel. Kenyon noted, almost clinically, that there was no evidence of blood or other human remains.
“If you want me to repair it, I can do the job for five thousand pounds.” said Strand.
Kenyon was amazed. “Is that all? It looks like a total write-off.”
“We build the Morgans tough, and we build them smart,” replied Strand. “The engine and chassis are still intact. Most of the damage is cosmetic. We just need to replace the body parts, and she’ll be good as new.”
Kenyon rubbed his chin. He pictured himself flying up the Pacific Coast Highway, the winding, two-lane blacktop that bordered the Pacific Ocean. “Is it a good car to drive?”
Strand smiled. “That it is. It’s very quick, going from 0 to 60 in under six seconds. It has excellent handling abilities on curves, and a top speed of one hundred and thirty miles per hour. We rent them by the day, if you’d care to try one out.”
“Maybe I will,” said Kenyon. “You know, it sounds like a lot of car for Lydia to handle.”
“She’d have boxed your ears for that, lad,” replied Strand. “Miss Kenyon qualified for her competitive driving license ten years ago. She placed fifth at the time trials at Silverstone racecourse just last summer.”
Kenyon whistled. “I didn’t realize she was such a good driver.”
“That’s the odd part,” said Strand, his glance returning to the car. “She’s the last person I imagine would lose control and kill herself.”
Kenyon stared silently at the wreck. Every time he thought he had a handle on Lydia, someone turned it upside down. He glanced over at one of the gleaming models, and made up his mind. “I’d love to fix it,” he said. “Is any of the cost covered by insurance?”
Strand frowned. “I thought that was already settled.” He pointed at the car. “Didn’t you send it here?”
“No. I just got to London yesterday.”
“That’s odd,” replied the manager. “We had an assessor from the insurance company in last week after it arrived from the police compound.”
Kenyon scratched his head. “Lydia’s lawyer must have had it released. Listen, I’d like to get the ball rolling. Mind if I use your phone?”
“Certainly. Let me take you to my office.”
Strand’s office was a little cubbyhole just big enough for a desk and chair. Kenyon pulled out Tanya O’Neill’s business card and dialed her number.
The solicitor was glad to hear his voice. “How was your first night at Lydia’s?”
“You want to know the truth? It was spooky. I kind of expected her ghost to come up the stairwell at midnight.”
O’Neill was sympathetic. “It can be unsettling sleeping all alone in a big house like that,” she replied.
Kenyon liked the direction their conversation was taking. Before he got sidetracked, however, he wanted to get the information he needed to start the garage working on the car. “What’s the name of Lydia’s car insurance company?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” replied O’Neill. “Why do you need to know?”
She listened while Kenyon explained the situation.
“I didn’t release the car,” the solicitor replied. “I have no idea how it got there.”
Well, if you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it, then who did? wondered Kenyon. “Let me check it out, and I’ll get back to you.”
Kenyon returned to the garage. He found Strand filling out a work order form on a clipboard.
“How did the car get here?” he asked the manager.
Strand thought for a moment. “It probably got towed here.”
Kenyon pointed to the clipboard. “Is there a release form?”
Strand shook his head. “Not at this end. The tow-truck operator might need something at the police compound, though.”
“Let’s have another look at the car,” Kenyon suggested.
The door handle was a simple latch. Kenyon opened the driver’s side door and squeezed inside. The dash had four small analog dials for gasoline, temperature, oil, and voltage. There were two larger dials behind the wood-grain steering wheel, a speedometer and tachometer. Kenyon leaned across and checked the small glove compartment on the passenger side. It was empty.
He got out of the car and had a closer look at the exterior. From what he could tell, the front right side seemed to have taken the worst damage. “Do you know how the accident occurred?” I asked.
“The article in the Times said she rolled it late at night,” replied Strand. “I don’t know much else.”
Kenyon walked around to the back of the car, which was relatively intact, except for a broken rear taillight and a black smudge, like that from a bumper. It looked like it had been rear-ended by another
car. He pointed out the damage to Strand. “Is this old, or new?” he asked.
Strand bent over and looked closely. “I certainly don’t recall it being there when she brought it in for tuning the week before,” said Strand. “Maybe it happened during the crash.”
“Did the insurance assessor leave a number to call?” Kenyon asked.
“No, but they rarely do.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
Strand shrugged his shoulders. “We get so many assessors through here, Mr. Kenyon . . .”
“He was a tall man, older.”
The agent turned. A mechanic with Rasta-curls was sitting nearby on a pair of tires, drinking his tea and eating an apple. The name “Cecil” was stenciled on his blue coveralls.
“Do you remember anything else?” Kenyon asked.
Cecil shrugged. “Didn’t seem like much of an assessor, you know? He just looked in the secret compartment. Wasn’t interested in the damage, man.”
Kenyon glanced at Strand. “Morgans have a secret compartment?”
“Not all,” replied the manager, “just Lydia’s.” He pointed to the unlatched windows. “As you can see, it’s child’s play to get inside.” Strand walked to the back, and flipped open the trunk. “Lydia wanted a place to store oddments securely, so we custom-built her one.” He pulled on the rear cover of the trunk to reveal a compartment big enough to hold a case of wine.
Kenyon leaned into the trunk and peered into the compartment. There was nothing inside. He backed out of the trunk and closed the lid. Something wasn’t right; an unauthorized assessor pulls the car out of the police compound, then all he does is search a secret compartment? “Do you remember which pound it got shipped from?” he asked.
Cecil took a sip of his tea. “Somewhere from the south of London. The lad with the tow truck, he bitched about the traffic around Richmond.”
Kenyon turned to Strand. “Do you mind if I hold off on a decision about the car for a day or so? There’s a few things I want to check first.”
Strand shrugged. “We’re not too busy at the moment, we can keep it here while you make up your mind.”
“Good. Don’t touch it until I give you the say-so.”
Kenyon left the dealership and returned to Lydia’s home, pondering the strange events as he walked along. When he reached 61 Herringbone Gardens, he went up to the office and phoned O’Neill. “The insurance assessor sounds like a phony,” he explained. “Lydia had a secret compartment in the Morgan. My guess is, he wanted to get it out of police custody so he could search the car.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” replied O’Neill. “Unless, of course, he was a thief, and he thought there might be something valuable left in the car.”
Kenyon pondered that for a moment. “If a thief was looking for something to steal, he would have broken into her empty house. I haven’t seen any evidence of a forced entry here.”
As they talked, Kenyon idly pulled Lydia’s Filofax out of the pigeonhole and flipped to the calendar section. There was a page for each day. Lydia’s notations were entered in clear, legible fashion, not at all like Kenyon’s own chicken-scratch writing. Most of the entries were for picking up dry-cleaning, meeting clients for lunch, and various appointments.
Curious, Kenyon turned to the day she died, Saturday, July 2. There was a notation for “Auction, 8:00 PM.” “The video of the auction you gave me; was that the night Lydia died?” Kenyon asked.
“Yes. Lydia was coming home when she ran her car off the road.”
Kenyon thought for a moment. “There’s some damage on the back of the Morgan that the dealership can’t account for. It almost looks as though someone rear-ended her car.”
“You think it wasn’t an accident?” asked O’Neill.
“I want to talk to the police investigator,” replied Kenyon. “Do you have a contact name?”
O’Neill put down her receiver. She was back on the phone quickly. “Here’s a name; Sergeant Barker. He’s listed on the accident report as the collision investigation officer at Scotland Yard.”
“Scotland Yard?” Kenyon thought back to his brief meeting with Stan Fairmont at Heathrow airport; what was the FBI’s contact name at Scotland Yard? He fumbled out his wallet and found the card; Detective Inspector Humphrey Arundel. “I’ll call and see if they’ll speak to me,” said Kenyon.
“Ring me later,” O’Neill replied. “I’d love to hear what you discover.”