Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8) (25 page)

‘I am. Look after yourself, my dear.’

‘Is that all you can say to me?’ she cried.

He considered. ‘I believe so.’

‘That wasn’t what you said to me that night at the Britannia.’

‘You’re a lovely girl, my dear.’

He still had power over her. She blenched. ‘I can come and see you sometimes, Horace?’

‘Of course,’ he agreed generously.

‘You heard Will left you twenty-five pounds?’ Dolly was anxious to keep the conversation going.

‘I did. I heard
all
about it to the point of boredom.’

‘Did you expect more?’ she asked, slightly maliciously.

‘That my dear, is one of the sadnesses of life. We always expect more.’ He patted her cheek and walked away laughing.

Harry Pickles was not laughing. He was one of those who had expected more – anything, in fact. He was an old friend of Will’s, wasn’t he? Everyone had been left something but him. There was only one bright spot.

He threw open the door of Nettie’s dressing-room without bothering to knock. ‘I hear your old pal only left you a pittance. One in the eye for you.’

‘At least you’ll stop this nonsense of thinking Will and I were lovers, Harry.’ Nettie, affected by the general malaise, dropped her guard to speak quite naturally to him.

He took full advantage. ‘He obviously didn’t think much of you, gal, but that don’t mean you didn’t fancy him, eh? Perhaps you found out he’d left the lot to Mariella and old Yapp?’

‘Perhaps I did, Harry. Perhaps I did,’ she said quietly.

When he had gone, disappointed in her reaction, she leaned her head in her hands. The game had to go on. Night after night, while she could still totter on to a stage. That’s what the halls did to you. Took you over, wore you out and demanded your life. And what for?
For a few minutes of knowing you’d lit a flame inside yourself so strong it felt like you were burning up. The flames flared as the music stopped and you heard the roar of your audience, or even during the song, as you hit a note that reached its heart as well as its ears. But how often would it flare now, now that Will had gone, and taken the best of her with him?

Evangeline for once had given herself time to think. At the end of the performance she barred the way as her husband went to follow the audience to the bar. ‘Thomas,’ she said quietly, in the now silent auditorium, ‘he left me nothing. He left it all to you. Why?’

‘What?’ Yapp raised the glass that he, as Chairman, insisted on having by him. ‘Who? Left me what?’

‘My beloved Will. He left all his money – well, over half of it, thirty thousand pounds – to you. Why? When he loved
me?’
Evangeline was by no means sure that her private interpretation of his motivation was correct. Thomas was very odd about Will Lamb and always had been.

Thomas gazed at her, gazed at the glass, found life too much for him, and sat down. ‘How nice of him,’ he said vaguely.

‘I think,’ Evangeline found a solution to satisfy her, ‘that it was his form of revenge, because I would not, could not return his love. I was after all married to you.’

‘I daresay that was it, my love.’

Thomas drained the glass. After all, he could afford all the whisky in the world. He need never work at the Old King Cole again. He could get as drunk as a lord. He almost was a lord, with that money. New horizons
flashed temptingly in front of him. He could even leave Evangeline.

‘Why didn’t you tell me he’d left it to you? You must have known.’

‘I don’t think I did, my love.’

‘I could have lived like a queen all these years,’ she wailed. A short pause. ‘I can do so now though.’ Another pause. ‘I won’t tell them, Thomas.’

‘Tell who what?’

‘The police.’

‘Tell
them
what?’

‘That it was you got Percy to ask Will Lamb to come here.’

Auguste had spent, in contrast to most of those at the Old King Cole, a rewarding evening. He had a feeling that one of the great passions of his life had begun. Let Egbert continue his relationship with Ma Bisley. For himself, Mrs Jolly was the doorway to new and exciting fields. Or, more accurately, pies. He had set forth to Neptune Street, fearing to find another Mount’s Pie Emporium, for one pie was but flimsy evidence.

Oh, how wrong he was. If smell alone had not seduced him, one look into her gas-lit windows would have made him her slave for life. One window was dressed in what he had learned was the traditional manner for an eel-pie shop: eels displayed on a huge bed of parsley surrounded by the products they were privileged to make. The other window contained not only the other traditional pastries associated with such shops, cranberry tarts, and apple tarts, but some of Mrs Jolly’s other specialities: beefsteak pies, hot apple fritters, meat
puddings, mutton pies, fish pies— His eye could take in no more beauty, and Auguste marched inside.

And met Mrs Jolly.

Mrs Jolly was not a tall woman, hardly reaching Will Lamb’s height. Nor was she fat. Bustling was the word Auguste chose, not in an inquisitive, irritating sense, but with the decisive movements that spoke of a woman who knew where she was going. Her pink cheeks were full, her eyes bright like a robin’s, her hair swept back Queen Victoria style, under a spotless cap. She was not over-generous with her smiles, and her approval, or the opposite, he sensed, would be conveyed by those considering eyes.

He took a deep breath. ‘I have come from the Old King Cole.’

Mrs Jolly did not waste words. She entered a note in her record book, she bent down, extracted two large boxes, and handed over her produce.

Auguste bowed, and took paradise within his arms.

‘And very nice too.’ Egbert looked approvingly at the glass of champagne cup which Tatiana handed him. Sunday at the Yard was not so hard if it involved luncheon at Queen Anne’s Gate. This should by rights have been his fortnightly day off, but not on this case. A momentary twinge of remorse at the thought of Edith alone with Mr Pinpole’s tough beef was dispelled. ‘Where’s Auguste, if I might ask?’

Tatiana pulled a face. ‘I regret to inform you, Egbert, he is in the kitchen. He claimed your presence at Sunday luncheon was sufficient reason for him to check what was going on in the kitchen. I rather fear it might not be going
on
so much as going
out
, so far as John, our chef, is concerned. Auguste is not—’ She broke off and laughed.

‘The soul of tact?’ Egbert finished blandly.

‘He says two artistes should be dedicated to the achievement of perfection and John will understand.’

Auguste walked in, still wearing an apron, and a flushed expression that suggested the achievement of perfection had not been without difficulties.

‘Eh bien, chéri
?’ Tatiana greeted him cautiously.

‘John,’ Auguste remarked airily to the room in general, ‘quite saw my point of view over the caper sauce.’

‘I am so glad.’ Tatiana stood by the window, her attention suddenly caught by the street below.

‘A little diplomacy is all that is required. English mutton requires larding, parboiling and broiling, whereas John seems quite determined to ignore such elementary procedures. I am afraid there he is a little obstinate and has
boiled
throughout. The very least one could do to achieve a satisfactory result is to provide a soft sauce
soubise
to complement its blandness, but no, he would maintain a butter caper sauce was preferable.’

‘But you persuaded him in the end?’

‘Naturally.’ Auguste took his glass of champagne cup.

‘Then why, Auguste, is John walking across Bird Cage Walk into St James’s Park with a very determined stride and his hat and overcoat on?’

Auguste leapt up and joined her hurriedly at the window, guilt creeping over his face.

‘Go after him, Auguste,’ Tatiana suggested sweetly.

‘Mais—’

‘Please,
cheri!
’

Egbert studied his drink with great interest, as Auguste, the epitome of injured pride, hurried out, and he and Tatiana watched from the window as Auguste, running by now, went in pursuit of his errant cook, and after a few moments’ consultation, the two figures walked back, if not in harmony, at least in the right direction.

‘Leaves are changing colour in the park, I see. Fine sight, eh?’ Egbert remarked, on Auguste’s somewhat
crestfallen re-entry into the drawing-room.

‘It is,’ Auguste replied shortly.

‘Wish I could have a stroll myself, but duty calls. You’ll forgive me, Tatiana, but this ain’t entirely a social visit.’

‘Naturally, Egbert. You have two crimes to solve, both of great urgency and national importance.’

‘Two murders, and
perhaps
two separate crimes,’ Egbert reminded her.

‘Prince Henry the Navigator’s cross is an icon of national honour.’ Tatiana sighed. ‘Such symbols become a burden, and heritage a duty, not a pleasure.’

‘Still has to be done.’

‘Indeed, yes, Egbert. My third cousin, the Czar, is a man of simple tastes, and his wife also, but they have inherited the trappings and riches of a family and must look after them for the nation’s sake. Or that is the way he sees it. No one stops to ask
why
or at what cost to that nation.’

‘With all due respect to your other third cousin, Tatiana, King Bertie doesn’t seem to have the same attitude. Careless, letting two thieves walk off with a priceless relic.’

‘You think so?’ Tatiana looked directly at Egbert, and Auguste, catching the glance between the two of them, felt for a moment he had missed an idea that was communicating itself between them.

‘His Majesty, Egbert, is not such a straightforward case as the Czar. He may seem to be, but he has had a long time to wait while his mother occupies the throne. He may have spent it with ideas of his own. Now that he is King, he may feel he has not a great deal of time to put them into effect.’

‘
Ideas on what?’

‘The future of Europe, for instance,’ she answered soberly. ‘Did you know there are those who believe the Great Pyramid foretells the future of the world if only one can interpret it correctly? Those that so far think they can do so believe that Europe’s future trembles in the balance at this very moment, and that there is the shadow of a great war approaching which will affect the whole world. Whether this is so or not, His Majesty has strong views on the need to preserve the unity of Europe.’

‘Some say,
ma belle
,’ Auguste joined the conversation suddenly, ‘he merely wishes to keep France sweet so that he can continue to enjoy the pleasures of the Can-Can, and Gay Paree.’

Tatiana laughed. ‘I fear Auguste is not altogether an admirer of some of my relations.’

‘Not those who divide an artiste from his craft.’

‘You and cooking, Auguste?’ Egbert asked, amused.

‘You were talking about pies in your sleep, Auguste,’ Tatiana revealed. ‘I wonder why that could be? I suppose the Old King Cole does not by some mere chance have a restaurant?’

‘It does not, my love,’ Auguste replied firmly. This was true. How could its abominable eating-room be termed a restaurant?

‘And you cried out to a Mrs Jolly. It seems this is a lady you love with great passion,’ Tatiana continued inexorably.

‘I believe,’ Auguste said hastily, ‘we are being summoned to luncheon.’ The door had providentially opened to reveal their butler, Jones, with the welcome news.

Enjoying himself hugely, Egbert held out his arm to Tatiana, leaving Auguste to bring up the rear of their small procession, as they descended the staircase to Sunday luncheon.

The Old King Cole took on the unreality of a Grimm fairy-tale, as they discussed the case over luncheon. Auguste’s face darkened as he realised the sauce was indisputably better than
soubise.
Moreover, the mutton had been nowhere near a gridiron. But with Tatiana’s eye on him, and Egbert’s loud praises at John’s efforts, he managed to turn his thoughts from luncheon (so far as this was possible) to Egbert’s problems.

‘If Will Lamb was murdered for the sake of the cross, it doesn’t make sense for the murderer to leave it behind.’

‘Suppose someone stole the true cross and substituted a fake?’ Auguste suggested, trying to subdue a sneaking feeling that discussion of the cross was as helpful as John’s rehashing of yesterday’s baron of beef. It kept the problem alive without striking the slightest spark from the tinder-box of cuisine (or detection).

‘Sir Henry Irving had the fake made, and Will Lamb went to Windsor to nab the cross. That what you believe, Auguste? You’ll be telling me next that HM played a part in this too.’

‘It so happens I am to visit the Palace tomorrow,’ Tatiana remarked innocently. ‘His Majesty asked me to make some purchases in Paris on his behalf.’

Again a glance between Egbert and Tatiana.
Was
he missing something? Auguste wondered. ‘I believe the cross is a red herring, Egbert, so far as Will’s murder is concerned, and the cause of it must lie in the Old King
Cole. Will gets letters warning him off, the raven is released to frighten him away, he sees ghosts everywhere. Perhaps someone thought the will might be changed because of the cross business.’