Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8) (35 page)

‘And then?’

‘Then we all meet down at the Old King Cole tomorrow afternoon. Percy, Max, Emmeline, Nettie, Brodie, Pickles, the twins, the Yapps, Fernando, Mariella, Old Uncle Tom Cherry and all.’

Max and breakfast were not a beautiful sight, at least, not linked together. To Auguste, coming in from his own unfortunate start to the day, Max looked an incongruous figure at the Westlands’ elegant table, as he sat in solitary splendid state with a napkin tastefully tucked under the dirty red scarf round his neck. Both seemed to be contributing to the mopping-up of unconsidered trifles from Max’s mouth. The Westlands’ footman was studiedly fixing his attention on the middle air somewhere over Max’s head, as Max scraped back his chair, and stalked grandly to the sideboard for what, judging by the footman’s amazed face, must be at least his third plateful of herrings.

‘You moving in here too?’ he grunted, seeing Auguste.

‘Perhaps. Those eggs look magnificent.’ He spoke with feeling. This morning the all-important day for Egbert and himself, had begun with a domestic crisis. It was too much. How was a man expected to work? Worst of all, Tatiana had appeared to blame him, merely because he had ventured to observe to his own cook that the eggs were too hard to be eaten
au beurre.

‘That’s how
I
cook them, sir.’ Emphasis on the ‘I’ did not go unremarked.

‘In that case I suggest your technique could be improved.’

‘Ten minutes was good enough for the Duke of Davenport, sir.’

‘The Duke of Davenport is dead,’ snapped Auguste, patience exhausted. His tone, he conceded, possibly implied this was due to his cook.

‘He enjoyed his eggs—’

‘Then let him pay your wages.’

It was at this point Tatiana had entered the room, instantly taking in the situation – as did John.

‘Are you asking me to leave, sir?’ There was a distinctly artificial quiver in his voice.

Auguste gritted his teeth, infuriated by the man’s hypocrisy. He must stick to his principles, despite Tatiana’s reproachful eye. ‘I am sure you are not,
are you
, Auguste?’ his wife said.

What on earth had possessed him? Some age-old recollection of man’s need to be master in his own household. ‘If you cannot cook a simple egg correctly, then I am.’

This, he had prided himself, would be the subtle answer. Give the man a challenge, put him on his mettle. It had been greatly to his surprise that John had immediately replied: ‘Very well, sir. It’s been a pleasure working
for you
, madam.’ And that was that.

If husbands could be so instantly dismissed, Auguste realised he would rapidly be following in John’s wake.

‘Now,’ Tatiana remarked,
‘all
our staff will leave.’

‘You blame me?’ He was hurt beyond belief.

‘No, yes – oh, Auguste, how
could
you? You know how difficult it is to find good servants.’

‘He was
not
good. Leave it to me. I will solve this problem.’

‘When?’

‘Have I ever let you down?’ Sometimes the general was preferable to the particular in reply.

She thought about this rather too long for comfort. ‘Not intentionally,’ she said at last.

This was not the answer he could have wished, and it aggrieved him greatly on top of a bad indigestible egg.

‘I will find the answer.’

The last sight he had was of Tatiana’s despairing face. He covered guilt by telling himself now he was a detective. Such disputes belonged to his former life as chef, one he had been forbidden to follow by his wife’s family. He was not fairly treated. He stomped to the motorcar. He had the feeling from Manners’ stiff back that news had travelled fast in the servants’ hall, and he knew only too well just how fast that could be. John had been no more popular with the staff than with him, he told himself, though he knew Tatiana was right. A criticism of one member of staff was a slight against all, in the unofficial trade union of the servants’ hall. It was for this reason that the sight of Max calmly enjoying what looked like an excellent breakfast was hardly likely to endear him to Auguste.

‘I have come to escort you. Now.’

‘You’re going to lock me up,’ Max said gloomily. ‘I’ll never be seen alive no more.’

‘Nonsense. Inspector Rose has a few more questions, that is all.’

It took much persuasion, wailing, and more persuasion, before Max condescended to accompany him, and it was eleven o’clock before Auguste delivered his charge into the loving arms of Inspector Stitch, who greeted them at the front entrance of the Yard, managing to convey somehow he had been working since five in the morning.

Max was silent as he was led higher and higher into the far reaches of the Yard, and once installed in Rose’s office, folded his arms, and looked as nonchalant as though this venue would be his first choice for morning chats.

‘Horace Brodie tells us you asked to switch turns at the Lyle, the evening Lamb was murdered, Mr Hill. That correct?’ Rose asked him.

Max nodded cautiously.

So much for theories. Auguste’s hopes subsided quicker than a soufflé. If Brodie had been lying . . .

‘And why was that?’ Rose pressed on.

Max took his point immediately. ‘Not because I killed poor old Will. Look, Brodie’s turn at the Lyle was
before
mine, not after. So that proves it. Why would I want to do an
earlier
turn if I had plans to kill Will and burgle his dressing-room?’ he said triumphantly.

‘To give yourself an alibi, perhaps,’ Rose suggested irritatingly. ‘No one said the chap who burgled the dressing-room tampered with the dagger too.’

‘Now look here—’

‘Did you simply change places in the programme, or did you impersonate him and then do your turn much later in the programme, say the second half?’

‘What would I want to do that for? Not then I didn’t.
I won’t say I haven’t, mind, but not then,’ Max agreed.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Course I’m sure,’ Max roared indignantly. ‘I had somewhere to go.’

‘Ransack Will’s dressing-room?’

‘Blimey, how many more times?
No.
I was trying to find out what Gomez was up to. The bleeding State should be grateful to me, not trying to put a rope round me. You coppers are all the same. Nick the first innocent that comes along. And it had to be me.’

‘Yes, Mr Hill, you’re right,’ Rose agreed cordially. ‘And it’ll still be you unless you play your cards right.’

‘I’ve played ’em straight into your loving hands, it seems to me. Like I said, I was out following Gomez.’

‘Dressed like the ghost of William Terriss? Will cried out “Ghost” as he died.’

Max regarded him with scorn, and didn’t bother to answer.

‘Does the word
sombra
mean anything to you?’ Auguste asked hopefully.

Max sniggered. ‘Going on the streets as a Dr Cure-’em-all, are you? One of them quack remedies? I’ve had my whack of that. Liver pills was my line. Could have made a fortune if it hadn’t been for my lumbago. No, it don’t.’

Egbert was meanwhile making a telephone call. ‘All right,’ he told Max, ‘the manager of the Lyle confirms you both performed that night, and for all he knows you might have changed position.’

‘Thanks,’ said Max sarcastically.

‘So now we just need to know exactly where you went after you left the Lyle.’

‘It wasn’t to the bleedin’ Old King Cole,’ Max said firmly. ‘I weren’t there till the second half, and no one can say they saw me, ‘cos I weren’t there.’

‘There’s such a things as back windows.’

‘There’s such a thing as lumbago, mate,’ Max rejoined fervently. ‘Look, the reason I ran was I thought you and those Special Branch johnnies were all in it together. Can you blame me? I thought you were going to bump me off so you didn’t have to tell His Majesty you’d gone and lost his cross. That one in the bowler hat killed Gomez, I reckon.’

Rose considered this entrancing theory and reluctantly discarded it as unlikely. ‘No, but I still think there’s something you know we don’t. That’s why you’re coming down to the Old King Cole this afternoon.’

‘Why?’ Max asked suspiciously.

‘We’re going to play jigsaw puzzles, and to make sure you’re right there, playing with us, you’re going to have luncheon in a nice warm cell.’

‘With Inspector Stitch as waiter,’ Auguste added.

‘So that’s the red herring squashed,’ Egbert said to Auguste, when Max had been led away. ‘Pity. I fancied Horace Brodie in preference to Max.’

‘Are you sure?’ Auguste said wistfully, reluctant to see his theory vanish.

‘Not me. The manager. I reminded him he told you he hadn’t actually seen Brodie, only heard him singing his blinking song, and was he quite sure it wasn’t Max? He said he was quite sure Brodie was there to do his turn, whether in Max’s position or not, because he went backstage and found him fondling his wife.’

‘Oh.’

‘He said there’s no way she’d mistake Max for Horace.’

‘Oh. But he still—’

‘Could have done it? So could lots of them, including Max. Too many cooks, like I said.’

‘Please do not mention that word.’ Auguste winced.

‘Trouble in the kitchen, eh? Lizzie?’

‘No. Tatiana is not pleased with me, but it is
not my fault,’
he declared passionately.

‘Love’s old sweet song, eh?’

‘Precisely, Egbert. And that, I still think, is the sauce for our goose.’

Mariella was not as happy as she might have been, considering her purchase of six new frocks from Madame Latour of Bond Street, not to mention her legacy. There were two reasons: firstly, she had discovered that solicitors did not work as quickly as legatees might desire, and secondly, that wretched cross was still hidden somewhere, a fact of great interest to a group of gentlemen who had made it clear to her they were prepared to abandon claim to this title if she failed to find it for them. In a way, therefore, she had no objection to spending the afternoon at the Old King Cole. Much as she dreaded meeting Fernando, she had to talk to him, and the presence of Scotland Yard as well as her fellow artistes should ensure that neither Republicans nor Special Branch could openly attack her. Nevertheless it still meant putting her head in a definite lions’ den, and the risks were high. The doors might close on her before she could escape. And lions were not as biddable as little dogs.

‘I’ve come to give you a ride in style, Harry,’ Nettie said shortly.

‘You’re a wonderful woman, Nettie.’ Pickles adopted his old caressing voice, attempting to leap up nonchalantly to the carriage, but failing at his first attempt.

‘Forget all that. It’s too late.’

‘You don’t seem able to. Why else do you come?’ The smiling caress in his voice grew more forced.

‘Because I’ve a reputation to think of, and you’re still my husband in name,’ she told him briskly. ‘It’s not going to do me any good if you’re carted off to prison.’

‘What for?’ His face grew pale.

‘What have you been doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about.’

‘You still think I killed Will,’ he said suddenly.

‘Someone did.’

‘Not me.’

‘And they’re still looking for that cross. I wouldn’t put it past you to have had a hand in that.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘Come on, Harry. If they’re after you for that, I’ll help you all I can. But not if it’s for Will’s murder.’

Our loveable Pickles did not reply, but whistled a merry tune, as though he had not a care in the world.

The Misses Pear obeyed their summons to the Old King Cole, both on the whole happy ladies, for Marigold had just discovered it had all been a horrible mistake. A result of too many acrobatics and too little cabbage, her doctor had told her. Dear Mama had always told
them to be sure to eat lots of suet every day, and that an apple a day kept the doctor away. If only it kept the Horaces of this world away too . . .

There was only one dark spot about coming to the Old King Cole this afternoon, and it made them a little uneasy.

‘Marigold?’

‘Yes, Violet.’

‘After today, shall we go away?’

‘Do let’s, Violet.’

‘I suppose we should do it?’ There was hope in her voice. If only Marigold suggested they needn’t talk to anyone about anything.

‘Will would want us to,’ Marigold said.

‘Yes, of course,’ Violet agreed bleakly.

Blackguard Horace was returning to his alma mater, the Old King Cole, with mixed feelings. He was, he told himself, an established star now and could gloat over lesser lights. He had achieved eminence solely through his own efforts. He grinned. However, there were problems. One of them was Dolly, who was still for some reason out for his blood. The twins hardly entered his calculations, so distant was their memory. Scotland Yard and Special Branch’s presence worried him slightly. He had no opinion of their brain power and
that
was the problem. They might pick on anyone, even in sheer stupidity on
him.
The sooner he could get out of this and back to the fleshpots of the Alhambra, and the flesh of that delightful lady in the green tights, the better. Odd, it had been ladies’ legs started it all. He’d had a passion for legs in tights ever since he fell in love with
the darling of the gods, Nellie Farren, when he was eight. In her days as principal boy in burlesques, Nellie had been far removed from his orbit. She was long dead now, but that had never lessened his determination to join the galaxy of the great, just as she had done. So it was all the more important that the police did not accidentally blunder their way to him.