Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (5 page)

Reluctantly he turned away from Dalmaine. ‘Yes,’ he grunted. ‘Good idea of yours to reopen Cranton’s.’

‘We aim to please,’ said Maisie meekly, winking at Auguste. Six years of marriage into the aristocracy had done little to soften Maisie’s dramatic sense of colour in her dress and she rustled in purple taffeta that did nothing to compliment her to the stranger. To him who had loved her it was a different matter. He felt another stirring of the old passion, and more than a moment’s regret that after due consideration he had decided his honour would not allow him to pursue dear Maisie to recapture those moments of bliss he remembered so
clearly from their days at the Galaxy Theatre. He firmly ordered his mind not to remember them any more and fixed his attention on his guests. An army gentleman stealing glances at the eldest Miss Pembrey, who was talking to the other army gentleman. The maiden lady listening to a gentleman who bellowed and guffawed a great deal. A young married couple stealing glances at each other. The Baroness was engaged in deep conversation with Sir John and the Marquis de Castillon, her companion sitting quietly by her side. Ah yes, all was well. It was Christmas. This party was already at ease with itself. All would go smoothly, like a large happy family. The future for the twenty-first century looked rosy indeed.

For a moment, a mere second, Auguste relaxed, taking his eagle-eyed attention off the serving of dinner. A girl’s startled cry, a clatter, a crash. ‘I’m very sorry, ma’am.’

The merest blob of
crème de marrons
adorned the Baroness’s face as all eyes turned to the waitress who hastily picked up the spoon she had somehow managed to drop.

Oddly, Auguste’s first thought was not of such inexcusable inattention on the part of an incompetent waitress but a sudden feeling of foreboding, together with a sense that the apparent unity here was at best a fragile shell. Why, he wondered, had the girl cried out before she dropped the spoon? And why were her eyes not on the recipient of her carelessness, but on someone else at the table? Sir John? Mr Bowman? Miss Guessings? He pulled his thoughts back. ‘A thousand apologies, madame,’ he said to the Baroness.

She waved them aside. ‘An old woman such as I am is used to applying creams in plenty, Monsieur Didier. What is one more – particularly such a
crème de marrons
as this?’

The moment passed, and all but Auguste resumed their conversations. He knew he should be thinking of what words of upbraiding he should be speaking to the waitress; he should have insisted on all male waiters, not doubling up with mere parlourmaids, but he found it difficult to shake off his sudden fear that the threat of danger had not gone away. The thought of Egbert came into his mind. Egbert and Edith, home together at the cosy house in Highbury.
That
was a happy Christmas, not a party of strangers thrown together by loneliness.

Yet when they were all seated in Cranton’s long drawing room, the old gas lights glowing, hissing gently, and the log fire spitting in the centre, he quickly forgot apprehension once more, and looked round complacently at his little flock.

‘Ghosts, Mr Didier,’ said Rosanna, drawing him in to the group’s conversation. ‘Have you ever seen one?’

Dalmaine cleared his throat. Now was the time to say something witty, or complimentary, to attract her attention to him. ‘I—’ was all he managed, as Maisie answered the question for Auguste, laughing. ‘He only sees the ghosts of dinners past, present, and particularly future, Miss Pembrey.’

‘Maisie – Lady Gincrack –’ what a ridiculous name, Auguste thought, and how typical of her husband to own such a title – ‘You are not fair. Occasionally,’ he explained, hurt, ‘I see the ghost of luncheon too.’

‘Talking of luncheon,’ Colonel Carruthers cleared his throat, ‘what have you got for us tomorrow? Turkey?’

‘And goose, capons,’ said Auguste eagerly. ‘And of course the boar.’

‘
Alors
, which one of us is that?’ asked Thérèse von Bechlein innocently.

‘The
sanglier
, Madame la Baronne, for the boar’s head procession.’

‘We ought to tell ghost stories,’ put in Gladys shrilly. ‘It
is
Christmas Eve after all.’

‘You told me you’d seen a real ghost once, Auguste,’ urged Maisie. ‘Tell us about it.’

‘There is no such thing as a real ghost.’ Auguste had no intention of being drawn into recalling
that
story. ‘I will tell you instead of another,’ he said with sudden inspiration. ‘A tale of a maiden long ago.’ He looked round as a pleasurable sigh ran through the assembly, a breathless silence only broken by the sound of nutcrackers in action and the spitting of dry wood.

‘
Il était une fois
,’ he began, ‘once upon a time, there took place the wedding feast of the beautiful Ginevra and the handsome Lord Lovell. After the feast, the guests began to play hide and seek in the huge old castle, and after a while it was noticed that the bride had disappeared.’

‘Oh,’ proclaimed his audience on cue in sombre tones on recognising the familiar tale.

‘At first, not overworried, the young nobleman sought his bride, calling softly in tones of love, then more anxiously, then desperately, in all the nooks and crannies and disused rooms of the old castle. The guests joined in, calling her name, “Ginevra, Ginevra,” but no trace of the lovely bride could be found. Nor ever was that night. Her father lost his wits, the young husband, heartbroken, went off to battle and did not return for many a year.’

‘Ah,’ sighed his audience.

‘Returning to his homestead at last, he wandered the scene of her disappearance. Coming upon a room of cobwebs, in a disused part of the castle, he found an old carved oaken chest. Curious, he laid his hand upon it, and some impulse made him open it. There inside was a skeleton and rags that once had been a wedding gown. Upon the bony finger was a ring he recognised. ’Twas
his own, the one he gave the lovely Ginevra.’

An obedient united gasp of horror.

‘Since that day the castle is haunted by the ghost of a lady in white who seeks her bridegroom in vain.’

A silence. Then Bella pronounced, ‘How very sad, Mr Didier. Now if my father were here, he could relate many tales of vampires that would leave your English Ginevra looking a very pale spectre.’

‘Vampires,’ breathed Gladys excitedly, eyes agleam.

‘Hunting for ladies with lovely necks such as yours, Miss Guessings,’ boomed Alfred Bowman.

‘Oh,’ Gladys was pink with excitement. Her eyes had fallen first on Colonel Carruthers, but clearly here was metal much more malleable.

‘Garlic keeps them away, I’ve heard,’ observed Major Dalmaine, determined to be noticed.

‘Maybe that’s why Lord Lovell pushed his bride in the chest,’ suggested Thomas Harbottle nervously with the same idea. Then as everyone looked at him, added, ‘Too much garlic, you know,’ weakly, and wished he hadn’t spoken.

‘Perhaps it was murder?’ suggested Thérèse thoughtfully. ‘Have you considered that? Perhaps a jealous lover pushed her in. What do you think, Mr Didier?’

Auguste stiffened. Murder was not an option he wished to consider. But before he could reply, the twins glanced at each other and ran to the piano excitedly, one playing the familiar haunting strains of Sir Henry Bishop’s rendering of the Bride in the Chest story, ‘The Mistletoe Bough’, the other standing by her twin’s side, one hand on the lace fichu of her ivory satin-clad bosom.

intoned the twin, one eye on her guardian who seemed not to be listening to the change of words, and the other on Auguste who was:

Auguste sat rigid. She was a guest. He could say nothing. He was bound to listen, whatever devilry they came up with:

Auguste clapped politely, vowing that no portion of his special
soufflé aux violettes
tomorrow would be allowed to pass the lips of either twin.

In the very early hours of Christmas morning, Auguste walked home from the Catholic church on Maida Hill. He was once again tranquil, the air was still around him, hushed as it once had seemed to him in the days of his youth as the angels waited for the birth of the Christchild, and cattle knelt, Maman told him, to greet the holy day. He was transported back to his beloved church of Notre Dame on the hill of Mont Chevalier in his native town of Cannes. He saw again the
santons
round the Provençal crib, so lifelike they almost moved, it seemed to him as a child, as he stood in the candlelight of the church, holding the hands of Maman and Papa. The sound of the old French carol, ‘
Nous voici dans la ville
’, the women taking Mary’s part, the men Joseph’s. It haunted him still; it spoke of his youth, it spoke of what he was.

Here there was fog in place of the Provençal sun. . . He loved England, but it was not home and Christmas was a time for home. Yet a home should have a wife, and he had none. Tatiana, his princess, was far away, beyond his reach. He had last seen her so tantalisingly in Cannes two years ago. And that reminded him that even in Provence murder could appear.

Murder!
Auguste stood stock-still in the middle of Baker Street. He knew now what troubled him. He had heard that inefficient waitress’s voice before. On the night of the murder. It was the voice of the murderess.

Auguste woke up with a start. Immediately a hammer that seemed to have hit the pit of his stomach reminded him that it was Christmas morning, that he had had far too little sleep, and lastly that all his carefully stifled forebodings about sinister happenings at Cranton’s were swiftly rising to the surface again, like scum in a stockpot. The events of that November fog had not been a figment of his imagination as everyone, even Egbert, had been at such pains to persuade him. That voice was unmistakable. Or was it? he wondered feverishly. Perhaps it was merely that he had fastened on the voice to give substance to what had indeed been fantasy. Eagerly he seized on this enticing possibility. But conscience whispered sternly in his ear. He swung his legs to the floor, and contemplated what might be going on in the kitchens below him.

Firmly he turned his mind to happier matters as he washed and shaved in the hot water provided for him – there were some pleasures in responsibility, he told himself. It would have been cold had he still been a chef. As he was shiveringly climbing into his combinations, Dr Jaeger-approved, he thought back to the excitement of his childhood, for with an English mother he had been privileged among his friends to hang up a small stocking at the foot of his bed in case Père Noël should happen to call. And call he always did – for eight years anyway. And many the little toys and delights he found in it, and at the bottom a glacéed
orange from Monsieur Nègre’s establishment in Grasse. How clever Père Noël was to know where to find the very best. But more even than these delights were those of later in the day, when Maman would produce her own candies – sugary almonds, bonbons and toffee. It was as his first almond had entered his mouth as a six-year-old that his first perceptions of the glories of cuisine had struck him.
Maman had made this
. What wondrous worlds lay ahead of him if such glories could be created by human hand. They did indeed. As soon as was possible, he was apprenticed to the famous young cook Auguste Escoffier, and from then on cuisine had been his life’s work, pure pleasure – until murder had crept in with beckoning finger, the evil witch in his fairy tale. An evil that had to be erased.

Breakfast was already served in the dining room; devilled kidneys, mushrooms and coddled eggs waited in chafing dishes for the arrival of guests – nothing heavy to dull the appetite, merely to provide a firm basis for the delights to come. Auguste stood at the entrance to the kitchens, endeavouring to control a wistfulness that he was not in sole charge of this entrancing realm. Here in the kitchens it was clear who was in charge – or attempting to be. Antonio Fancelli streaked round his three assistants, an avenging angel in pursuit of misdemeanours. A mixture of smells met Auguste’s nostrils, roasting fat, plum puddings already on to steam, the smell of freshly prepared vegetables, of cinnamon, cloves and other spices, the smell of baking – mince pies, no doubt. Geese, turkeys, ducks, capons were busily being stuffed with forcemeat. Jealousy gripped him. All this should be
his
. He should be able to inspect that forcemeat. How could an Italian know about such English matters as mincemeat and forcemeat? And indeed was there not something amiss here? He frowned, and restrained himself from rushing
forward as he saw a young cook preparing to unmould a port jelly. No. He was here on a different matter: murder.

‘Signor Fancelli,’ he began firmly, ‘the young lady who helped wait at dinner yesterday evening—’

‘No,’ answered Fancelli defensively, waving him away as if sensing some kind of danger, ‘I no have anything to do with women.’

Looking at his plump, unprepossessing figure, Auguste found this easy to believe; moreover the hierarchy of servants, and the chain of command, were clearly defined. The girl might well come under the jurisdiction of the housekeeper, Mrs Pomfret.

‘Have you seen her in the kitchen this morning? Is she on duty for breakfast?’

Fancelli considered, one eye ostentatiously on the turkey even now being borne to an oven; he was clearly longing for an excuse to be free of this turbulent manager and back to what really mattered. In other circumstances Auguste might have sympathised.

‘No,’ Fancelli said at last, ‘I think no.’

‘Is she living in the hotel? Did you talk to her at all? She must have been in and out of the kitchens last night.’

Fancelli’s dark eyes flashed. ‘I not remember. This is not my business,’ he cried, his arms lifted despairingly to some far-off god of cuisine in supplication. ‘One girl, one man – they are
hands
, Monsieur Didier. You know how it is,’ he added cunningly.

Auguste did indeed know how it was. When dressed in black and white, they were simply part of a highly organised procession to supply food to tables, a cog in the performance of an art.

‘Is Christmas morning,’ Fancelli said rather pathetically, playing on the softening in Auguste’s eyes. ‘Is much to do.’

It was plain that little more could be gained from remaining here at the moment. Consoling himself that he would be able to return to decorate his beloved boar’s head, and double-check that the horrible sight he had just seen was not what he suspected, Auguste set forth in search of Mrs Pomfret.

A thin, severe-looking woman, she was hard at work in the linen room, young girls clad in print dresses scuttling in and out with their consignments, casting satisfyingly nervous glances at the unexpected arrival of the manager in their midst.

He looked around, gratified. ‘May I compliment you, madame, on the excellent whiteness of your linen,’ then, hastily, in case this might be construed too personally, ‘sheets of incomparable glowing white.’

‘Reckitts,’ Mrs Pomfret informed him tersely, still suspicious of working, however temporarily, for a foreigner.

‘And experience, I’m sure, Mrs Pomfret.’

‘Thir—twenty years, sir,’ she informed him with pride. ‘I shouldn’t by rights be here, but Lady Gincrack pleaded, and I thought I’d oblige.’ She stood belligerently as if expecting attack. ‘So if there are any complaints—’

‘No, no. Very good of you to come,’ Auguste reassured her hastily. ‘I merely wished to find the maid who waited at table yesterday, and dropped the puréed chestnut cream.’

‘It isn’t my fault, Mr Didier, I’m sure. I didn’t choose these girls. Lady Gincrack did all that. Or her company did.’

Never, never would Auguste get used to this ridiculous name. Why should not Maisie use her real name? His opinion of Maisie’s husband fell even further.

‘Yes, yes, I do not wish to upbraid her in any way,’ he hastily explained, ‘merely to –’ feverishly he
searched his mind for an excuse – ‘speak to her about about – walking in the boar’s head procession.’

Mrs Pomfret pursed her lips. Matters were getting out of control if flibbertigibbety young girls marched in processions giving themselves airs. Mr Didier had taken a fancy to her, that was clear. These Frenchies. She’d have to watch him. A housekeeper was responsible for the morals of the girls under her roof, and Mrs Pomfret was not one to shirk her duty.

‘She must be here somewhere, Mr Didier. She started at six. On the fires, of course; then at eight she was doing the teas with Bessie; then servants’ breakfast. Then dusting the drawing room, seeing how she’s a trained parlour maid, and the library.’

The drawing room. Of course. She would be dusting and tidying before the guests entered for the ceremony of the Christmas tree later that morning, after church.

At first he thought the room was empty. Then he realised it was not. Bella de Castillon peered round from the back of a Chesterfield.

‘Oh don’t go, Mr Didier,’ she told him as he immediately began to back out of the room. There was a certain look in her eye . . . ‘Do come in and talk to me.’

Thus commanded, he must obey. It was against his better judgment, as a highly embarrassing episode had occurred after he returned from midnight service the previous evening. Bella had taken advantage of her husband’s preoccupation organising the arrival of whisky to demand seasonal greetings under the mistletoe. She was, she informed him, an authority on the sexual power of mistletoe; but he could not help observing she appeared even more interested in his own. Bella was so attractive, he would hardly have objected save that her husband was only temporarily engaged and might at any moment turn round. Further
intriguing favours had been suggestively whispered in his ear. Still, seeing these could hardly be proffered at ten in the morning in a public drawing room, Auguste advanced, albeit cautiously.

‘I’m looking for a maid,’ he blurted out, his usual savoir-faire deserting him.

Bella shrugged. ‘You will be disappointed with an old married woman such as me. Maid no longer, I fear.’ Laughter bubbled out of her, as Auguste blushed red.

If this was one of the advantages of being on (almost) equal terms with Society, Auguste thought furiously to himself, he was not at all sure he wanted to be. He bowed with what dignity he could muster, and escaped as soon as he could. There was no sign of the girl.

The library, he thought wildly – she must be dusting the library. A murderess, on
his
staff. He felt aggrieved, longing to share his outrage with Maisie, but she would not be here until twelve.

With a curious foreboding, he saw the girl was not in the library either. Had she fled? Had she realised he had heard her voice? Was that why she had dropped the purée? And was that purée of the correct consistency,
i.e.
the Didier-approved consistency? Thoughts tumbling in his mind, ridiculously, he stood uncertainly in the library wondering where to go next.

‘Ah, Didier, I want a word with you.’

Too late for escape. Colonel Carruthers had entered and shut the door firmly behind him.

‘Happy Christmas, Colonel.’ Auguste mustered a smile, hoping he had not been confused with Major Dalmaine. His knowledge of the details of Waterloo was somewhat sketchy, since as Maman and Papa held opposing views on the subject, they avoided giving their son instruction in the matter.

‘Not much of a happy Christmas without kedgeree.’

‘Without what?’

‘Kedgeree,’ Carruthers repeated impatiently.

‘We thought it a little heavy to precede Christmas luncheon.’

‘I
always
have kedgeree for breakfast,’ the Colonel pointed out.

‘Tomorrow,’ promised Auguste, quickly edging round and out, straight into Miss Guessings who was loitering in the corridor, hoping Mr Bowman might appear on the staircase and head for the library.

‘Can I help you?’ Auguste asked, startled.

Gladys turned pink. ‘I wish to complain,’ she blurted out. ‘There are no antimacassars on the armchairs in my room. My dear mother would be shocked.’

‘I will have a word with the housekeeper,’ murmured Auguste, trying to keep a straight face. ‘Most reprehensible.’ Whom, he refrained from asking, did she expect to entertain in her room who would wear macassar oil?

Not in the library, nor the drawing room. The smoking room perhaps. Auguste darted for the staircase again, only to meet Thérèse von Bechlein and Mademoiselle Gonnet returning from a walk.

‘You seem in a hurry, Mr Didier,’ Thérèse commented serenely.

He tried to calm himself and smile. ‘On Christmas morning, the boar’s head awaits me, madame.’

She smiled. ‘Ah monsieur, you are the famous chef,
n’est ce pas
? And detective.
Mon mari
the Baron,
m’a informé de votre succès en quatre-vingt-neuf – ah non, plus tard, nonante-et-un, à
Stockbery Towers.
C’était magnifique, monsieur
.’

Auguste bowed politely. Delightful though it was to converse in French, he did not wish to think of past murders when one much more recent was so uncomfortably weighing on his mind, as heavy as an inexpert mincemeat. Fancelli – he must go to see how he fared.
No, first he must find the girl.

In the smoking room a maid was tending the fire. This must be her. He advanced, reminding himself that this was a murderess. ‘Mademoiselle—’ he broke off as she turned round. That was not the face. Those bovine features had not the same intelligence as shone from the eyes of that girl last night. He swallowed. ‘Be sure to empty the ashtrays each half-hour,’ he said weakly.

She stared. ‘Yessir.’

‘Didier,’ Alfred Bowman’s voice boomed from the recesses of a winged leather armchair. ‘There’s a cracked bowl in my room.’

Auguste gulped. So this was being a manager. He was irresistibly reminded of the
Punch
joke of the fly in the soup, and succumbed to temptation. ‘Hush, sir, they’ll all want one,’ he said conspiratorially.

‘Eh?’

‘A joke, sir,’ muttered Auguste, defeated by the blank expression.

Geniality returned. Bowman guffawed. After all, jokes were supposed to be his stock in trade. He stood up and slapped Auguste on the back. ‘Not serious. Doing a good job here. Quite a decent kidney at breakfast, I’ll say that for you.’

‘You are most kind,’ said Auguste through gritted teeth, taking a definite dislike to bonhomie. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

He made a parade of taking out his watch – and was glad he had done so. It was high time he was in the kitchen adorning the boar’s head. The girl, murderess or no, would have to wait. Unless she had indeed fled, she would undoubtedly be present for the Christmas tree ceremony, he assured himself uneasily, and he would get to the bottom of the mystery then.