Chef Maurice and the Wrath of Grapes (Chef Maurice Culinary Mysteries Book 2) (6 page)

The butler shook his head. “Not normally. Only when he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

Chef Maurice bent down and put his eye to the keyhole. It was all black. He gave the keyhole a good sniff too.

“In the case of poisonous gas,” he explained as he caught Arthur’s look.

There was the clatter of footsteps on the stairs.

“What’s going on?” It was Bertie, looking puzzled, closely followed by Paloni, straightening his bow tie.

“The master’s gone and locked himself in the cellar and ain’t answering!”

“Maybe the door’s jammed with all this cold weather,” said Paloni. “Happened to me once in Vermont, at this—”

“Then why’s he not answering?” Mrs Bates pounded on the door again. “Sir William, if you can hear me, you open up this door right this minute!”

“What is happening?” Ariane floated down the stairs. Her eyes were slightly red from sleep. “Who is in there?”

“We think Sir William might have had an accident,” said Arthur. “He’s locked the door, and isn’t answering.”

“Well, isn’t there a second key?” said Resnick, who’d caught the end of the conversation as he hurried down behind Ariane, his bow tie hanging around his neck and his jacket undone.

“I believe there is a spare key in the safe in Sir William’s study. I will see if I can procure it,” said Gilles, disappearing back down the corridor.

“You!” said Bertie, advancing on Paloni, who gave him the look a bull would give a particularly uppity sheep. “You were down there with him a moment ago. What happened?”

“What? Nothing!”

“What do you mean, nothing? You mean he was completely fine when you left him?”

“Of course he was!”

“Are you sure? And what did you need to speak to him so badly about in the first place?”

Paloni hesitated. “Just winery business,” he said finally. “Wanted his advice. No, thanks,” he added, as Chef Maurice proffered the tray of goat’s cheese and red onion tartlets that he’d found going cold in the kitchen.

“Who’s making that infernal racket?” said Lady Margaret, coming out of the drawing room, book in hand.

“The master’s gone and locked himself in the cellar, ma’am,” said Mrs Bates.

“Can’t say I blame him. I told him throwing all these parties would wear him out eventually. A nice quiet evening with a book, that’s what you need, I told him.”

Gilles returned, walking fast and carrying a key-shaped lump of red wax.

“Sir William gave you the code to his safe, but keeps the spare cellar key in wax? How oddly . . . untrusting,” said Resnick with a sneer.

Gilles broke the wax open and turned the key in the door. There was a click and a whirring sound, and the door swung backwards. It was now evident that the carved oak was merely a facade, hiding a thick steel door lined with deadbolts all around.

“Gosh, when did that happen?” said Bertie. “It wasn’t like that last June.”

“Sir William had new security measures installed over the summer. I advised him on the design, after he made some rather valuable additions to the collection,” said Resnick.

They descended the stairs, Gilles leading the way, closely followed by Bertie. Chef Maurice brought up the rear, supporting a weak-kneed Mrs Bates.

“Sir William, are you there—” Gilles voice strangled to a stop, mid-sentence.

Chef Maurice, dragging the poor Mrs Bates, hurried down the last steps. They rounded the corner of the stairwell to find the others frozen in place, staring at the scene before them.

Sir William was laid out on the floor, motionless, a broken wine bottle beside him and a terrible gash on his neck.

“Is he . . . ?” breathed Ariane.

Gilles, his face drained of colour, knelt down carefully beside his master and applied two fingers to the man’s wrist.

He nodded. “He’s dead.”

Patrick pulled his hat further down over his ears, stuffed his gloved hands deeper into his pockets, and tried not to think about snow, ice, icicles, ice cubes, ice cream, and other chilly topics.

In the moonlight, the stranger’s footprints were dark pits in the snow, leading endlessly over the fields behind the restaurant.

“Why couldn’t he have taken the main road?” said Patrick, his breath misting the air.

“If he’s heading to Bourne Hall, then this is the quickest way,” said PC Lucy. “The gate on the main road is nowhere near the house itself.”

“So he knows the layout of Bourne Hall, then.”

“Looks like it.”

The black-clad man was nowhere in sight. Patrick liked to think of himself as a fairly fit specimen—it was amazing what lugging copper pots all day would do for your biceps—but it was dawning on him that chefs were built for power over short distances, such as between the walk-in and hobs.

Plus, professional kitchens never got this
cold
.

At least the snow had now stopped falling, leaving the air icy fresh. The low hills around Beakley were soft and pristine in the moon’s glow. It was almost romantic, if you ignored the fact they were on the trail of a potential gun-toting killer.

Perhaps now was a good time to tackle the matter of the
other
mystery man . . .

“So, um, did you get up to much last weekend? Sorry I had to work.”

“What?” PC Lucy was a good head shorter than Patrick, and keeping up the pace was clearly exerting her. But it was equally clear that if he slowed down, she’d take it as a deadly insult and probably never speak to him again. “Oh, no, not much. I was on shift all of Saturday, so I had a lazy Sunday. TV, pyjamas, didn’t see a soul. Blissful, really.”

“So you didn’t go out at all?”

“No. Why, something wrong with that?”

“No! I just thought, um, you might have been seeing family, or something.”

“Family? You’ve got to be kidding. You’d need a crowbar to get my parents further than five miles from their farm. Plus I’ll soon be up there for Christmas.”

“What about your, uh, brother?” It was a stab in the dark, Patrick knew, but he refused to stew any longer over what might be a simple misunderstanding.

PC Lucy gave him a strange look. “I don’t have a brother. Only child, remember?”

Patrick didn’t remember, but he knew better than to admit to the crime of not having listened fully at some point on their last two dates.

“So, Mr Nosy Parker, what did
you
get up to at the weekend?”

“Me? Well, we had a few early Christmas parties at the restaurant, so we were pretty busy. Plus Alf was off all Sunday. I think he went into Cowton to do his Christmas shopping.”

He watched her face carefully for any admission of guilt, but got no reaction.

“Didn’t think Alf was that organised. Just goes to show, eh?”

She halted suddenly, and pointed to a deep rectangular depression in the snow.

The stranger had stopped here to take something out of his briefcase.

Patrick’s heart started beating louder.

“Maybe he just got cold and wanted a hat and scarf,” said PC Lucy.

Even so, they both picked up the pace.

PC Lucy felt bad. Not from the snow slowly dripping into her faux-fur-lined boots, nor the biting wind that was threatening to freeze her nose off. But from the fact that she’d just lied.

She’d lied to Patrick.

And she
liked
Patrick. She really did. He was smart, and funny, and good-looking in that dark, wavy-haired Clark Kent way, minus the occasional urge to run around in tights and red underpants (as far as she knew).

But that was it. She didn’t know him that well, yet. Soon, she promised herself, she’d tell him the truth.

But not just yet.

They walked on in silence through the crunching snow.

After a quick search of the cellar, in case the attacker was still present, Gilles ushered the stunned guests up the stairs, then carefully locked the cellar door and pocketed the key.

Following some unspoken search for comfort—or perhaps because Chef Maurice had been first up the stairs and naturally gravitated towards food preparation areas—they found themselves huddled in the Bourne Hall kitchens.

“If the ladies and gentlemen will remain here,” said Gilles, “I will conduct a quick search of the building, in case the . . . perpetrator is hiding somewhere still.”

Mrs Bates gave a little wail from her rocking chair by the stove. Bertie was sat at the table with his arm around Ariane, talking quietly in soothing tones.

“I’ll come with you,” said Paloni, glancing around and snatching up a heavy-based saucepan to accompany them.

“I suppose we’d better call the police,” said Resnick. “Though in these parts, who knows how long they’ll take to turn up.”

Arthur, who found himself nearest to the wall-hung phone, picked up the receiver and held it to his ear.

“Line’s still down,” he reported. “Nothing but crackle.”

“Surely that can’t be a coincidence,” said Bertie, looking pale.

“Really?” said Resnick. “I understood the line had been down since this afternoon. Surely someone would have noticed an intruder sneaking around all that time.”

“Not necessarily,” said Lady Margaret, crisply. “It’s a big house. My Timothy used to hide for hours in all the nooks and crannies, and only a good gingerbread cake would get him to come out. Plenty of places to hide in here.”

With that, she flipped open her book and started reading.

There was a series of clinks and clatters as Chef Maurice conducted a thorough investigation of the cupboards in search of a coffee pot.

“There’s loose tea and some instant coffee in the drawer over there,” said Mrs Bates, who’d perked up at the sound of another cook invading her professional space.

“Pah, instant coffee,” muttered Chef Maurice, and continued on until he unearthed a slightly tarnished coffee pot and an unopened bag of fresh grounds.

“How many?” he said.

All hands shot up, except for Mrs Bates, who deplored such a patently European habit and went to fill up the teapot.

The coffee had barely brewed when Gilles and Paloni returned, their faces grim. Mrs Bates bustled over and grabbed the saucepan out of Paloni’s hands.

“My best pan, that is,” she tutted.

“We found where he got in,” said Paloni. “Broken window in the storeroom right next to here. Glass all over the shop.”

“The intruder must have waited to enter the cellar after Mr Paloni left Sir William,” said Gilles. “Presumably it was he who locked the cellar door after.”

“But why would he do that?” said Ariane. Her eyes were wide, and she was clutching Bertie’s arm.

“To slow us down and distract us, clearly,” said Resnick. “Give him time to make his escape.”

“A plausible explanation, sir,” said Gilles. “Has anyone telephoned the police?”

They explained the crackly phone line.

“Very well. If you will excuse me, I will walk down to the main road. There is a telephone box not far from the gates. The police must be notified immediately.”

“I’ll go too,” said Bertie, though there was a slight tremor in his voice.

“So will I,” said Resnick.

“And me,” said Paloni.

Arthur looked around and realised he’d have to volunteer too, for the look of the thing. Thankfully, Gilles spoke first.

“If you will allow me, gentlemen, I do not think it needs so many of us. Mr Lafoute and I will go to telephone the police. Perhaps the rest of you gentlemen could stay here and look after the ladies.”