Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8) (29 page)

‘It’s not timekeeping we’re concerned with. It’s where he is.’

‘I don’t know, I’m sure. How can I?’ Clarence looked even more alarmed. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’

‘You’re related to Max Hill then?’

‘No!’ yelled Clarence.

‘Live with him?’

‘No . . .’ There was some hesitation this time.

‘But you know where he lives.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

Clarence looked for escape and found none. ‘In the same lodgings as myself. Bethnal Green is very nice. We all lead separate lives. Mrs Bistle will tell you that.’

‘And who might Mrs Bistle be?’

‘Our excellent landlady. Sometimes we go to the theatre together, sometimes we don’t, depending on our engagements. Max and I, that is. Not Mrs Bistle. She doesn’t come to the theatre, of course,’ he ended in a nervous whinny of laughter, ‘unless we invite her.’

‘Did you see Max Hill today?’

‘Of course. He was there while you were telling us about Miguel. I was to meet him in Mr Didier’s excellent eating-room afterwards,’ he added ingratiatingly.

Auguste, relishing appreciation of whatever standard of sincerity, suddenly realised it was no longer
his
eating-room. It was Lizzie’s eating-room, and whether her burgeoning talent would be up to it it was too early to say. Good teacher though he was, he could hardly flatter himself he had instilled enough technique into that young lady in a week to set her up for life. Moreover she was showing distressing tendencies of being distracted by young love.

‘Did you?’

‘Did I what?’

‘Meet him in the eating-room?’

‘I met him, but he wanted to go to a pub,’ Clarence was forced to admit. ‘So we went out and had a drink together, and a pie.’

‘One of Mrs Jolly’s?’

Clarence regarded Auguste doubtfully, looking for a trap. ‘The Cock and Dragon doesn’t have any ladies. Not ladies, if you see what I mean.’

Auguste did. A peep into some of the nearby pubs had quickly told him that the only ladies present were those in hope of immediate employment supplying the needs of seamen coming off the ships.

‘And what then?’ Rose asked, impatient with pies.

‘We parted. He said he’d see me tonight as usual.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Rose asked urgently.

‘He said he had one or two things to do.’ Clarence was only too well aware he was, not for the first time, disappointing his audience. He looked alarmed. ‘He’s all right, I suppose? You don’t think he’s had an accident?’

‘What sort of accident?’

‘He might have been murdered,’ Clarence cried shrilly. ‘A lot of people have, you know.’

Rose did know.

The Shadwell Mob were recklessly risking their earnings from the managers of rival music halls by abandoning barracking for cheers of approval. Gwendolen was coming off the stage, bathed in triumph, as Auguste came backstage to meet her. ‘Nasty crowd,’ she said gleefully. ‘I had to work hard, remembering all
my old tricks. I’ve been away too long, and there’s not much call for music-hall technique in the peerage.’ She paused. ‘Tatiana returned, has she?’ she asked, apparently inconsequentially.

‘She has, I am delighted to say.’

‘I’m in the doghouse, am I, for bringing you down here?’

‘She has no objection at all.’ Lady Westland’s eyebrows arched in surprise. ‘Naturally,’ he added, as if it hardly mattered, ‘I have not mentioned to her that I was a cook here.’

‘I do understand,’ she replied gravely.

‘Tatiana visited His Majesty this morning,’ he added, to underline his point the more heavily.

‘What about?’

It was not the reply he expected, but he saw no harm in telling her. After all, thanks to the efficiency of the Harmsworth Press the whole of England knew about the theft of Prince Henry the Navigator’s cross from Windsor Castle, though, it occurred to him, few people at the Old King Cole yet seemed to.

‘His Majesty is naturally eager to hear about Tatiana’s motor races in France,’ he began diplomatically.

‘Of course,’ Lady Westland murmured, then briskly said, ‘Do not let me keep you from your great love, Mr Didier.’

‘Madame?’

‘Your eating-room, of course. Were you not intending to visit it to ensure everything is in order for the after-performance diners?’ She marched off, swinging her cane and chuckling heartily, though for the life of him
he could not see why. Suddenly, she stopped and returned to him, and said to him seriously, and incongruously in her check-trousered outfit, ‘I want Max found, Auguste. I’ve known him for a long time, and I can’t afford to lose a friend.’

Auguste, somewhat puzzled, hurried back through the corridors to the eating-room, telling himself he must remember he was no longer in a position of power. He merely wished to see whether Lizzie required extra assistance, but if one of Mrs Jolly’s pies were by chance still available . . . Also, he admitted to some curiosity as to whether the new-found love of Charlie and Lizzie had survived the testing ground of the evening.

The latter point was soon settled. Auguste’s eye immediately fell on the plump, reasonably white-uniformed shape of Charlie, offhandedly turned the odd chop with one hand and cuddling Lizzie with the other. As Auguste hurtled through the door, agonised as to what the diners might find – if anything – when the performance ended, Charlie turned a slow warm intimate smile on his beloved. A technique surely far beyond his years, Auguste thought enviously. He himself had not perfected it until he met Violetta, and then had been at least twenty-six. He had first attempted it, he recalled, while demonstrating a
cailles aux raisins.
Six months later they had parted over
acrepe Jeannette.
She had mistakenly taken the latter to be a rival. (There had been one, but her name was not Jeannette.)

He coughed gently. ‘Lizzie, is everything in order?’

She spun round, her face red – either from love or guilt. ‘Naturally, Mr Didier,’ she said fervently. ‘Charlie is wonderful. You’re going to stay, aren’t you, Charlie?’

‘Try and keep me away, Miss Eliza. You spice an eel as good as Auntie, and that’s saying something.’

Lizzie flushed at this over-lavish praise, and wriggled modestly.

‘There’s a lady waiting for you, Mr D,’ she sang out, as belatedly she recalled her duties and fled down the stairs. She jerked a thumb as she went. ‘Over in the corner,’ her disembodied voice cried.

‘Lady?’ Auguste turned round curiously, and was startled to see Tatiana, as out of place here as an ortolan in a pile of mutton chops. Her dark coat and hat did not stand out from those around her, her bearing and lively face did.

‘You don’t mind my coming here, do you, Auguste?’ she asked innocently as he sat down.

‘Ma mie
, I am delighted to see you.’ He glanced nervously at his surroundings, and relaxed. After all, he could be here for some totally innocent purpose, not for cooking purposes. True, a certain familiarity with the cook might be misinterpreted, yet he was a detective, he reminded himself, and entitled to speak to everyone.

‘I have been enjoying the performance.’

‘Enjoying?’

She laughed. ‘Parts of it. Gwendolen was superb, and there was someone else—’

Auguste thought quickly through the other artistes – if that was the right word, and could not immediately think who she had in mind. ‘Our Pickles?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘No. That child.’

‘
Emmeline?
’

His astonishment was so great, she giggled. ‘She is a
terrible dancer, but talented all the same. She is a natural comedienne, and no one has realised it. I shall tell Gwendolen.’

‘Why?’ Auguste asked faintly, horrified at the thought of Emmeline’s beady eyes intruding into his life.

‘I wonder if she can sing.’

‘Gwendolen?’

‘Emmeline.’

‘I doubt it. Where would she buy songs?’

‘That’s where Gwendolen might help.’

Auguste decided to relegate this minor matter to the back of his mind. ‘I feel sure Little Emmeline is not what brought you here,
ma fleur.’

‘If I have something to eat and a glass of ale, I might remember what brought me. A chop?’ she asked hopefully.

‘A
chop?
But,
ma mie
, I could prepare you a delicate
omelette aux truffes
with a
petite salade
—’

‘I would so like a plain chop,’ she interrupted wistfully. ‘Gwendolen’s motorcar passed several Russian restaurants nearby – we could go there if you prefer.’

‘If you are determined to eat here,’ Auguste said hastily, ‘I will get you a pie.’

‘But—’

‘A very
special
pie.’ He ignored her protest and began to vie for Lizzie’s attention. It took some time.

‘Course you can have a coupla pies, Mr D. You know where they are, swelp yourself,’ she told him grandly. ‘’Ere,’ she added, ‘I showed Charlie how to do them chops just like you showed me. Never mind about them pies – I’ll get ’em. You can have them on the house.’

‘Showed?’
Tatiana queried, after Auguste expressed his gratitude for this munificence.

‘He’s not a bad cook, is he, ma’am?’ Lizzie asked her, one woman to another. ‘Must be a help at home. All the regulars took to him. I didn’t think they would, him being a Frenchie, but he understands grub, I’ll say that for him.’

‘Oh yes, he does indeed, Miss – er?’ Tatiana agreed.

‘Lizzie. I’m his assistant, or was. Now I’m cook and Charlie there –’ she looked at her plump swain with pride, ‘– ’e ’elps me. All thanks to Mr D, eh?’ She dug him gratefully in the ribs.

‘Lizzie, that gentleman there is trying to attract your attention,’ Auguste said firmly, looking at a particularly belligerent member of the Mob. She exclaimed and rushed off.

‘Cook?’ asked Tatiana politely.

‘Detective,’ he explained firmly. ‘The cooking was essential as part of that job.’

‘I understand completely.’

‘
And
it was Lady Westland who arranged it for me.’

‘Indeed. Auguste, does His Majesty know about this?’

‘No. But surely he cannot but approve if it results in the return of the cross.’

A plate with a large pie suddenly shot in front of Tatiana, followed by one for Auguste. These were followed rapidly by two jugs of ale sliding across the table in their eagerness after being slammed down by old Jacob’s drinks waiter.

‘The cross. Ah yes. That is why I am here tonight.’

‘Evening, Tatiana.’ Egbert materialised at their side. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘I am delighted, Egbert. Now I can tell you both together.’

‘My word, those pies look good,’ he said meaningfully.

Auguste sighed, pushed his plate over to Egbert, and hurried to the bar to obtain a replacement. There was none. Resentfully, he returned to the table, trying hard to restrain envy of their enjoyment.

‘If that lady called Mrs Jolly made this pie,’ Tatiana said approvingly, ‘I realise why Auguste has such a passion for her.’ Auguste enviously watched a crumb lying on her plate. Even a crumb should not be wasted of that delicious feather-light pastry. ‘Egbert, His Majesty has told me the truth about the cross.’

‘And what might that be?’ Egbert asked sharply, relegating pies and Edith’s inadequacies in the preparation thereof to the back of his mind.

‘You did not fail in your task, Egbert. You were too good at it.’

‘Explain, if you please.’

‘His Majesty was caught,’ she began, ‘in a difficult situation. The King of Portugal, as you know, is to visit him in less than two months, and next year Bertie will return the visit. He is, as you also know, a firm believer in the need for unity in Europe, and standing between him and accomplishing this ideal was the cross, since it has become the subject of so much controversy. If he retained it, Portugal would be very upset; if he returned it, half of England would never forgive him, and nor would much of Europe – not on Portugal’s behalf but because it feared the same principle being applied to many of their so-called national treasures.’

‘So His Majesty had the fake made?’

Tatiana shook her head. ‘No. He had the brilliant idea, as it then seemed, of arranging for the cross to be stolen; he would seem to be very upset, but in fact would ensure the cross was sent back to the Portuguese royal family. If it seemed to the public that it had been stolen, he reasoned, whether for financial or political motives, he could not be blamed after the initial uproar had died down. The idea was good, but he made one mistake. His Special Branch personal detective, Mr Sweeney, was naturally the first person he turned to, and Sweeney naturally suggested Special Branch handle this delicate operation for him. They did, but with unfortunate results. The Portuguese footman they planted at Windsor Castle in order to allow the theft to happen, was a Republican sympathiser, who chose his friend Miguel to carry out the actual theft. Once the theft had taken place, the plan was that the CID should be brought in. You, Egbert, would be kept in the dark, and naturally you should have no chance of actually regaining the cross. The newspapers, however, would see that you were trying to do you best, but failing.’