Gourmet Detective (30 page)

“He'll meet us there,” she said. “I came here by taxi. Can we—”

“I'll call Gupta,” I said and did so. “He runs a 24 hour service,” I explained to Winnie. “Often does emergency runs for me. He'll have a car downstairs by the time we get there.”

The driver was one of Gupta's best. He dodged around the late night traffic at Hammersmith Broadway and raced through Brook Green. He slipped over to Cromwell Road and we shuddered to a stop at the entrance to Brompton Mews.

A constable was standing in front of a mews house down the narrow cobbled thoroughfare.

“The inspector had the nearest man on the beat come over here,” said Winnie and even as she spoke, an unmarked car pulled up behind us and Inspector Hemingway jumped out.

The constable was a fresh-faced young man with a West Country accent. He saluted Hemingway smartly.

“Arrived here four minutes after your call, sir,” he reported. “Door was unlocked. I went in. Body of a man. Dead, sir. Constable MacAvoy arrived five minutes later. He's been covering the back door and I've remained here ever since.”

“Right, constable.” Hemingway was crisp and efficient—though I'd not seen him any other way. “Stay here. We're going inside.”

The inside of the mews house was a surprise after the old, cobbled road outside. Deep brown leather couches flanked an enormous glass coffee table with mechanisms of ancient clocks embedded in the thick glass. The hard-wood floor was waxed to a mellow sheen and a large fireplace was set in a stone wall, between deep bookcases.

A heavy table of hewn wood had been converted from one-time kitchen duty to serve as a desk and had a typewriter and papers and books strewn over it. Close by were two deep armchairs in the same deep brown leather as the couches. Larry Leopold sat in one of them.

His face was chalky-white but otherwise he looked the same in death as in life. His reddish beard stuck out at a jaunty angle and I stayed out of range of his hands. I hadn't forgotten my terror when Ivor Jenkinson had reached out from beyond death and grabbed my wrist.

Inspector Hemingway was checking Leopold cautiously too but his caution was professional. Winnie, meanwhile, was prowling around the room, looking at everything but touching nothing.

“Is he really dead?” I asked. I was a little hoarse.

“You haven't forgotten IJ, have you?” Hemingway said. “Well, we'll have a more extensive examination very soon but as far as I can tell—yes, he's dead.”

“So was IJ,” I said, not taking my eyes off Leopold.

Hemingway straightened up and his glance swept across the room.

“Anything, sergeant?” he asked Winnie.

“There's a message in the typewriter,” she said.

The inspector and I read it.

I can't go on. I must end it. I didn't plan it this way. It started with a dream and it would have worked—it would have been the most powerful organisation on the British food scene.

I had promises of financing but I needed seed capital. François had said that he would give me first option on buying Le Trouquet d'Or but he loved the business too much to give it up.

I did all those things to get him discredited so that he would sell out to me. Then Jenkinson started probing the food business and caught on to me.

I cultured the botulin. I decided that making guests ill at the Circle dinner would be the last straw. IJ came early, told me what he had planned for his programme.

I panicked, put the extra botulin in his drink.

Now I've put it in mine.

We read it again. Near the typewriter was a glass, empty but used. The inspector sniffed it cautiously and looked inquiringly at Winnie. She nodded.

“The botulin has little odour but I think it was in there with the Scotch.”

The two of them continued to prowl through the room. I tried to do the same thing but I didn't know what I was looking for.

There was a knock at the door and the young constable admitted two men in plain-clothes who were evidently known to Inspector Hemingway. While they were talking, there was another knock and a few minutes later another.

I tried to count but they were all moving round too much. I did establish that there were three ambulance attendants, two technicians from the Mobile Crime Squad, a woman from the Photo Unit, a man and a woman from Forensic, a poisons specialist, an officer from the Metropolitan Police, one from the Records Department and two more constables. The dazzle of electronic flashes, the interchanges of unintelligibly technical conversation and the scurrying to and fro were making me dizzy.

I sought out the inspector.

“You've probably got more experts coming,” I said. “If I leave, it will make a little more room for them.”

He nodded. “You can go. Be in my office at two o'clock this afternoon. We'll run through the whole scene to date.”

I waved to Winnie and battled through the crowd.

In the Middle Ages, students took lemon balm to help them in exams. Ergot, a fungus growing on rye, is the basis of a new miracle drug that improves intelligence and learning ability. Lecithin and choline have similar effects and rosemary has recommended by many including Shakespeare for improving the memory.

I could have used all of them when I prepared breakfast the next morning but instead I made some Mexican eggs. The green peppers and the chilli powder stimulated my taste buds but I didn't notice any sharpening of my mental faculties. I was still baffled.

Baffled and disappointed. Larry Leopold of all people! He had certainly seemed a dynamic and ambitious individual but I wouldn't have thought he would stoop to the dirty tricks with which he had tried to damage the reputation of Le Trouquet d'Or.

Ivor Jenkinson had certainly lived up to his reputation as master investigator but his professional skills had then proved to be the death of him.

The questions remaining were—what had been happening at Raymond's and who was the other person? I still placed a lot of store in IJ's dying remark that “The two of them are in it together”. My money was still on Roger St Leger.

I went to the office but couldn't concentrate. Sage was supposed to help that. One of these days, I would have to look into this subject in depth.

I went to Bookery Cooks where Michael and Molly were agog to hear the story so far.

“So it's over,” said Molly. “What a relief for you.”

“Scotland Yard will soon find the accomplice—if there was one,” Michael said.

“If the events that happened at Raymond's were deliberate,” I said, “then there was one.”

Michael looked thoughtful. “Even the best restaurants have lapses—”

“True,” I agreed. “But there was the statement by IJ that two of them were in it.”

“IJ was under the influence of a powerful toxin,” said Michael. “Why did anything he said have to make sense?”

I had to agree that sounded reasonable.

“And,” Michael went on, “if there was another involved, it seems to me more likely that it's someone outside the restaurant business.”

“That leaves several choices,” put in Molly. “The book business, the frozen food business, the market business, the banking business and the television business.”

“A busy lot of businesses,” commented Michael.

“Well, thanks for the ideas,” I said. I sniffed. “That smells good? What is it?”

“Very well, Mr Gourmet Detective,” said Molly. “What does it smell like?”

I sniffed again. The aromas coming from the kitchen were not at all strong so I presumed that Marita and Dorothy were cooking dishes traditionally more delicately flavoured.

I could just detect soya sauce and certainly there was a smell of frying scallions and vinegar.

“I'll guess at Japanese or Korean,” I said.

Dorothy heard me and nodded and her pony-tail bounced up and down.

“It's Japanese today. A lot of dishes are the same though.”

There was Sashimi—cooked so as to convert even the most sceptical eater of uncooked fish; Nori Maki, rice rolls in seaweed; Kushi Dango, meatballs in soya sauce and ginger; tender strips of Teriyaki chicken; and specially tasty sardines, marinated and barbecued.

I sampled all and complimented Dorothy and Marita. I declined sake so they poured me some Campo de Borja, a recent DO wine from Aragon and an excellent and inexpensive white deserving wider distribution.

The sardines were so good that I had two more. Molly was on the phone arguing with a transport company and Michael was trying to find a book on the herbal value of garlic that a professor from the University of Michigan wanted. I waved goodbye to both of them and walked up Kensington Park Road towards Notting Hill Gate tube station and my rendezvous at Scotland Yard.

Inspector Hemingway closed the file he was studying. He looked as dapper and competent as ever. His small moustache was trimmed to the last hair and his eyes penetrated me like sharpened skewers. He leaned back in his chair.

Winnie had brought me in from the lobby but we had exchanged only pleasantries on the way. She sat now in the same seat as before, demure in a way that contrasted delightfully with her severe uniform.

“You know,” Hemingway said, “you're beginning to resemble the albatross at the feast.”

“Daniel Webster, the University of Oxford and the Smithsonian Library would all dispute the existence of such a metaphor,” I told him. I felt more comfortable in his presence now. Well, somewhat more comfortable anyway. “Nevertheless,” I said, “I can sympathise with your view.”

Hemingway nodded. “I'm glad. You understand then that I see you in the form of a sort of lightning-conductor, attracting bizarre events though not responsible for them.”

“If you didn't know me this well, you'd be suspicious of me, you mean?”

“Exactly. Here you are, a gourmet detective, a fan of lurid and far-fetched crime stories and somehow or other you're involved in a real case involving a famous man who dies in mysterious circumstances of a very unusual poison, comes back to life and dies again. As if that's not enough, you receive a phone call from a man who says he murdered the first man and has now killed himself.”

“I can see your next question,” I said. “I've been wondering too. Why did he call
me
to tell me he was committing suicide?”

“That's not the question,” said Hemingway flatly.

“We believe we know the answer to that one,” put in Winnie.

I was deflated. “You do. What is it?”

Winnie was off-hand. “We can come to it later.”

“There's another question?” I asked Hemingway.

His features were non-committal as usual.

“A more important one,” he assured me.

“What is it?” I asked, interested.

“We can come to it later too,” said Hemingway. “Along with the other finalising details.”

He patted the file before him.

“So it's all sewed up,” I said. Someone had to keep the conversation going and neither of these two was very forthcoming.

There was no reply. “And you're satisfied,” I added.

Winnie darted a glance at the inspector. He caught it.

“We have the Forensic report on Leopold. As they knew what they were looking for, it didn't take them long. It was the same botulin and about four times the lethal dose,” he said.

“And traces of the botulin have been found in his garage. It's very virulent and nearly impossible to eradicate completely,” added Winnie. “He was a graduate in Food Science. It would have been easy for him to culture it and there's no doubt that's where he did so.”

“There are a few loose ends that need tying up,” said Hemingway. “The Forensic people are going through Leopold's place with a fine toothcomb, checking the drinking glass, the typewriter, the kitchen … we'll have their report tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he went on, “we have persuaded Scarponi to tell us what was in the envelope you saw St Leger hand to Jenkinson.”

“Really!” I was excited. “What was in it?”

“Photos he had taken of staff of Le Trouquet d'Or,” said Hemingway.

“Do you have them?”

“No.” It was Winnie who answered. “It was news of Leopold's suicide that prompted Scarponi to tell us what he knows. Leopold is in several of the photos. Oh, Scarponi photographed others too but he got scared when he heard about Leopold.”

“That's all?” I asked. I was disappointed.

“Almost all. Scarponi insists he didn't keep prints. He told us where he has his photos processed though.” Winnie went on. “I'm going there this afternoon.”

They were both taking the closing of this case very casually, it seemed to me. Then they probably did this kind of thing every day of the week whereas it was still new and exciting to me.

“Then there remains the matter of Leopold's accomplice,” I said.

“Accomplice.” Hemingway wasn't really asking a question. His tone was steady.

“I still remember IJ's words,” I told them. “The two of them are in it together.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” asked Hemingway.

“St Leger. I still think he knows a lot he's not telling.”

Hemingway leaned back and regarded me. “We've talked to him further. He insists he know nothing more.”

I looked from Hemingway to Winnie. She turned her guileless blue-eyed gaze on me, enchanting but uncommunicative.

“You believe him? He has a strong motive.”

“You mean his own show on TV?” asked Winnie.

“IJ's show—an even stronger motive,” I said.

“You think that's motive enough?” asked Hemingway.

“Not for a murderer perhaps but surely for an accomplice.”

Hemingway didn't answer. Winnie said nothing.