Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (33 page)

‘To establish both his own and Madame’s innocence. It could have been anyone. He chanced on Bowman simply because the room was conveniently next door.
His death demonstrated that his employer, to whom he is devoted, was in all likelihood innocent of murder, being in police custody at the time.’

‘And where,’ asked Ethel wistfully, ‘did the first body go, if not into the lift?’

‘You were nearly right, Miss Pembrey,’ Rose told her kindly. ‘Only we did not listen to you carefully enough. The body of Nancy Watkins
was
taken into the bathroom opposite, but not brought back. It was taken through the window into the empty attic room above. They are sash windows, and not very far apart for even a moderate gymnast. Into the same room he later put personal articles that would cause comment if a search was made, such as razor and strop. With his fair hair, he did not have a big problem over his beard, but it nevertheless required attention with a razor and the application of concealing creams. And of course he wore a concealing wig.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Carruthers, who had been puzzling over something. ‘How could he lift a body out of a window?’ he snorted. ‘Ever tried to lift a body? Tried it in Zululand. Couldn’t shift it two yards, let alone dance around in a window frame.’

‘But if you had been a trapeze artist, you could have done, Colonel,’ said Auguste. ‘The good Sergeant Stitch checked further and found that there was indeed a Marie-Paul Gonnet, but she had died when she was three. Paul-Marie Gonnet was her twin, and survived. They came of a famous circus family, so Sergeant Stitch discovered, well known for their work on the high wire and the flying trapeze as the Flying Brothers. Paul-Marie had an accident six years ago, which left him with a permanent weakness in his foot, and no use for the high wire any more. Embittered, he went to work for Madame. He made a useful guardian and courier, for the strength in his arms remained, for all his slight
figure. He was well able to shift that body, bringing it down again that night, where something very much as you suspected, Miss Pembrey, happened. They planned to move the body out but were prevented by the unfortunate presence of Danny Nash. So, thinking the chest, having been used in the game, would never be so used again as a hiding place, in went Nancy’s body. Roughly the opposite reasoning applied to Alfred Bowman. It was necessary to make clear he was dead, and to demonstrate that a man had killed him. Hence the blows to his head, and later transporting his body to the chest – something no woman could do alone, certainly not slender Miss Gonnet.’

De Castillon was intrigued for once. ‘How, if I may enquire, did this enterprising young man manage to climb dressed as a woman? Did his skirts not hamper him?’

‘Those thick black stockings, sir. Not stockings, but a leotard. He had no masculine clothes other than that, and a pair of braces we found upstairs. He may have used those round his body, or used the rope round the trunk up there. Either way, the stiletto dagger had to be taken out of the body.’

‘Why wasn’t he seen, Holmes?’ asked Evelyn brightly. ‘It was light by the time he was shifting the body.’

‘My dear Miss Watson,’ Auguste could not resist addressing her, ‘the windows overlook a mews. True, there is a public house and one or two commercial premises there, as well as stables, but I feel that early on Christmas morning, when Father Christmas had departed, no one would be present to wonder why gymnastics were in progress high above them.’ He hummed: ‘From two storeys high, he had lowered her down to the ground on his flying trapeze!’

‘Do you recall Mr Bowman singing that song one evening? It remained in my mind, as did also the inestimable Dan Leno as a pantomime dame. When it came to Mr Bowman’s murder, I suspect Gonnet approached through the window also to avoid raising suspicions if Bowman had to come to the door to unbolt it.’

‘I
said
only Father Christmas could have committed this crime. We found the knobkerry up on the roof, another feat by our daring young man,’ said Rose a little smugly, then noticing Auguste’s crestfallen face, added hastily, ‘and it was Mr Didier here cleverly worked out who it was.’

Auguste brightened. ‘And the Hungarian link also. At first I thought—’ He stopped abruptly.

‘You thought it was
me
?’ cried Bella in horror, while de Castillon stiffened. ‘Oh Auguste, how could you?’ she said reproachfully.

‘It had to be considered, ma’am, especially with the embassy link,’ Rose confessed.

Bella looked at her husband ruefully. For the first time the Marquis laughed. ‘I shall have great pleasure, Inspector, in informing Monsieur le Président de la République that I am not only a murderer three times over, but a white slave trafficker.’ And all he’d wanted to do was disrupt the British Empire, he thought to himself. How strange.

His wife smiled happily at him. They could return to Paris, her mission was accomplished, and Auguste had suspected nothing. It had been all her idea, and she was glad he hadn’t yielded – almost glad, she amended, looking at his dark eyes and slim figure.

‘I still don’t understand,’ said Sir John querulously, ‘why the fellow kept his leotard.’

‘He’d come prepared for murder,’ pointed out Rose.

‘Didn’t come prepared to lug bodies up and down
buildings, I’ll be bound,’ Sir John commented triumphantly.

‘Then perhaps, sir,’ said Auguste quietly, ‘an acrobat can no more give up the accoutrements of his trade than a cook his. Can a chef be separated from his knife?’

Auguste sadly considered the results of his Christmas party. He had helped solve the murders, but at what cost? He had let Maisie down as a hotelier, his life’s ambition was in ruins. He glanced at her. Dear, dear Maisie. Would she ever forgive him? She winked at him.

‘Are you putting a party on next Christmas, Lady Gincrack?’ asked Gladys brightly.

‘Oh yes,
do
,’ breathed the twins in unison, moving to the piano.

‘We might spend our honeymoon here, darling,’ Dalmaine cast a fond look at his bride-to-be.

‘Not a bad Christmas, all in all,’ ruminated Carruthers. ‘You be here next Christmas, Miss Guessings?’

She grew pink with pleasure. ‘I’m sure I shall, Colonel,’ she declared.

‘Oh the mistletoe bough, the mistletoe bough,’ struck up the twins at the piano.

By eleven thirty the room was empty of all save Auguste and the footmen, busy clearing the greenery and decorations lest ill luck fall upon this place. Why bother? thought Auguste wearily. What worse could happen? The kissing bough fell to the ground with a crash. Christmas was over.

Epilogue

It was February. It was damp and cheerless. No snowdrop had dared yet flower. Auguste stood shivering on Charing Cross railway station, wondering why this twentieth century seemed even bleaker than the nineteenth. Christmas was past, his one and only opportunity to be a hotelier was ruined. And perhaps wisely so. Never would he forsake his kitchens again.

He and Egbert had received their due reward for thwarting an attempt on the Prince of Wales’s life by being summoned to Marlborough House to receive his personal thanks – and a signed photograph. Ironic. They had done nothing, a murderer had done it for them, but they could hardly tell Albert Edward this. And that was why he was here now.

‘By the way,’ HRH had remarked, ‘you speak French, don’t you?’ Auguste admitted to royalty that he did.

‘I thought so. You’re just the fellow then. Maisie,’ he told them informally, ‘is meeting this relative of mine. Distant relative of course,’ he said hastily. ‘You can go with her.’

Since then, only three weeks ago, much had happened. The old Queen was dead, along with the nineteenth century. An era had passed, and a new era supposedly dawned. It had seemed she was immortal, but now the Prince of Wales was King; it seemed on this bleak day as if the Empire were rudderless, rushing towards an unknown future, until Edward VII could
gather the reins in his hands. Dear Egbert was now Chief Inspector. Even Twitch had become Inspector Stitch at last. It seemed everything was changing, save for him, Auguste Didier. For him it was back to the school of cuisine, a procession of faces passing in and then out of his life. Would it ever be thus?

Now here he was at Charing Cross. Naturally Maisie had not yet arrived, he thought annoyed. This royal relative, however distant, was also the owner of Cranton’s, she had told him casually only yesterday as she hurried back to greet her returning husband. So much for the importance she attached to Cranton’s that she had not even mentioned this earlier, he thought viciously, watching young lovers kiss under the clock.

The Channel train puffed its way into the railway station, and he walked towards it helplessly. Still no sign of Her Ladyship. Whom was he looking for? How would he recognise this person whose sex he did not even know?

Doors opened, porters rushed up to first class compartments, baggage attendants and passengers milled round customs officials. He looked feverishly for signs of important passengers. They were everywhere. Where was Maisie? Whom did he seek?

A brilliant idea occurred to him. He would cry out in French for ‘the visitor for Windsor Castle’.

But there was no need. Glowing even in the February chill, surrounded by swarming, jostling people, he glimpsed a face he recognised. Someone coming towards him. Hurrying. Arms outstretched. It was the Princess Maniovskaya. It was Tatiana.