Mad Hatter's Holiday by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online

associations; she meant no more to him than a butterfly under a microscope.
    As the service ended and the congregation streamed out into dazzling sunlight, the West Pier cannon boomed. He reached the promenade in time to see a small white cloud disperse in an otherwise flawless sky. The gulls returned swooping to the strips of sand exposed by the low tide.
    Matins at St. Peter’s must have been short, for already a line of shining carriages was sweeping from the Old Steine into Junction Parade at a rate suggesting they had cantered all the way down Grand Parade. Perhaps when the vicar was writing his sermon, he made allowance for the half-mile his flock had to make up on the St. Paul’s congregation.
    He started to stroll along the King’s Road in the direction of Hove, not too quickly, because he would soon reach Preston Street, the western limit of the fashionable drive along the front. He was in a much better frame of mind. Brighton was quite the most exhilarating place to be this Sunday morning. Where else could you see a sea-front so broad that carriages could drive four-deep? And what carriages! Society was coming on parade in force, declaring its arrival in landau after landau, hauled by impeccably groomed pairs in swagger harness. Liveried coachmen in tall hats (at least two of whom he recognised from the audience at the Canterbury) sat aloft with straight backs and expressionless faces, while their passengers kept up animated conversations behind. The most resplendent carriages had their page-boys in identical livery, seated on the dickey beside the driver.
    It was a field-day for the riding academies, too. Mounts of every size and breed had been hired for the morning. The strain on the resources of the stables was clear from the number of handsomely-dressed riders in the saddles of unmistakable hacks, but they scarcely detracted from the elegance of the parade.
    Quite rightly the ladies took the eye, stiff-backed as guardsmen, whether mounted on saddles or carriage upholstery; a severity matched by the style of their costumes— starched collars stretching high up their necks, coats fronted with double ranks of buttons, long kid gloves—and, for the equestriennes, black riding habits, squat, shiny hats, gloved hands managing reins and crop, and a glimpse of boot-heels. The effect was mitigated in a most stimulating way by tiny outbreaks of frivolity—white lace, swansdown, ostrich feathers, the bloom of Piver’s powders and the flash of kohl-washed eyes.
    He was studying a team of magnificent black geldings drawing a large family phaeton, when a familiar profile crossed in front. Prothero—riding a bay. And wearing a dapper set of riding-clothes, tailor-made for certain, and a grey top hat.
    The doctor’s appearance in the King’s Road was no surprise— where else would a professional man go after church on a Sunday morning?—and on consideration it was understandable that he was in the saddle and not with his family in a carriage. Presumably a locum-tenens was managing his practice and would have need of whatever form of private transport he maintained. No, what made Moscrop stand stupefied on the pavement was Dr. Prothero’s patently flirtatious exchanges with a young woman riding beside him who was certainly not his wife. She was as young as Mrs. Prothero, perhaps still in her twenties, but her hair, drawn back into a chignon beneath a small black riding-hat, was a quite extraordinary shade of red, almost—was this a perverse thought?—the colour of the storm-warning cone kept on the West Pier-head. Her features were neatly proportioned, not beautiful, but lit at this moment with a radiance one could not put down alone to Brighton’s bracing air.
    They were past in seconds. The grate of carriage-wheels made it quite impossible to overhear their conversation. Moscrop walked on towards the Pier. Fashionable Brighton trotted past him unnoticed.
    Monday it rained. He spent the morning looking at the