Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) (20 page)

‘I expect he’ll be released,’ Alfred announced cheerfully. ‘Cyril hasn’t the spunk for murder.’

‘Oh!’ This seemed to cheer Gertie up.

‘Mr Didier,’ Priscilla was not amused by this argument and fixed Auguste with the power of her personality, ‘kindly use your influence to get him released.’

Appalled, Auguste bowed slightly. From his hostess’s approving smile, it seemed he had at last met her standards of etiquette.

The smokehouse was a sombre place, despite the best efforts of the cavorting ladies. It was all too easy to remember that sprawled figure on the floor now that there was a gap in their own ranks.

‘Priscilla’s worried, you know,’ her husband informed Auguste.

Was there a note of reproach in George’s voice? Auguste ignored it if so. ‘Naturally.’

‘The Tabors have been here hundreds of years,’ George pointed out. ‘We’re part of the fabric of the Craven area. We have to set an example. Murder doesn’t look good, you know.’

Auguste did know. ‘Cyril will be released, once the police have found out the truth.’ He tried to sound confident.

George gave him a sideways look. ‘It was suicide, of course,’ he said loudly. Even he could see this didn’t go down very convincingly. ‘Murder by one of the servants,’ he continued. ‘Tripped over the gun. Who was the fellow, anyway?’ he added, aggrieved.

‘The police will discover soon.’ It was a placebo and even George recognised it.

‘The family will stick by old Cyril, of course. Priscilla’s very hot on family loyalty. That’s the Tabor motto: Loyalty to the End. Seen this one, have you?’ Obviously hoping to lighten the atmosphere, he swung back a panel to reveal a lady standing in her bath indulging in contortions highly unlikely to have been called for in the pursuit of daily hygiene.

‘I still think the fellow was Mariot.’ Harold’s voice fell into the silence while this study was being appreciated.

‘Aunt Laura told me she’s just had a telegraphic message from him,’ announced Alfred with relish. ‘So it can’t be.’

‘Impostor.’ Harold was adamant.

‘No,’ said Oliver quickly. ‘The police told me they’d had confirmation from Cairo that he set off for England weeks ago. He must be here by now. Somewhere.’ He seemed rather gloomy at the prospect.

‘Laura wouldn’t marry a chap who wasn’t a gentleman,’ George assured him. ‘It would upset Priscilla.’

Oliver began to laugh hysterically. ‘A famous archaeologist and Laura can’t marry him because he isn’t in Burke’s Peerage. Can you believe it, Didier?’

‘Yes.’ Auguste could. He, Auguste Didier, maître chef, would never be a gentleman by Tabor standards. Fortunately, from what he had seen so far he had little desire to be one.

‘This is a salted herring in a
salade de fruits de mer
,’ he told himself later, after he had been released from ordeal by smokehouse. Was it not bizarre that nobody seemed unduly concerned about Cyril – almost as if by consensus? Was this Society’s way of coping with disaster, or was it something more sinister?

Rose returned by the police carriage late that night, and Auguste roused himself from the settle in the entrance hall.

‘Had a good day, Auguste?’ Rose asked grimly. ‘Pheasant shooting, visiting local beauty spots, eh?’ He stalked upstairs towards his quarters.

‘No,’ cried Auguste truthfully, following in his wake. He had no intention of telling Egbert about Big Fizzer yet, but he was convinced his theory added up. The corpse’s clothes had been changed not to delay identification indefinitely, but to the point when no one would miss him, and that would be when the fairground workers would be supposed to have passed out of sight and out of mind. But theory was theory, and this one would not, he knew, impress Egbert without further information.

‘Why have you arrested Cyril Tabor?’ Auguste asked Egbert’s unresponsive back.

Egbert marched on, and then stopped so suddenly that Auguste cannoned into him.

‘He’s not arrested, only being questioned.’ He paused. ‘The gallant colonel’s still missing, and now your Cyril’s admitted he and his wife had a tiff that night – over you as it happens – and he slept in the dressing room, so she can’t vouch for him. Satisfied?’

‘You’re hoping to find the colonel’s uniform buried in the grounds?’ (Over
him
?) Suppose after all Egbert was right about Cyril. It was as likely as his own wild theory.

‘You got anything better to offer?’

Auguste did not reply.

‘Where have you been, Auguste?’ Egbert shot at him.

‘In Skipton.’

Egbert Rose was exasperated and showed it. ‘Look
here, Auguste, I don’t think Tatiana’s guilty, but until we know whose that body is, I have to bear the possibility in mind. I’m a policeman.’

Motorcars had their uses. Auguste yanked the starting handle round almost with pleasure. There was no doubt that to travel along the Harrogate Road was a great deal pleasanter than the roundabout route of the railway train. Even adhering to the maximum permitted speed of 12 mph, three hours would see them safely there. The day was fine, and both he and Tatiana were warmly equipped with fur rugs. And to add to his optimism, Walter Tompkins, at his Lordship’s insistence, sat behind the driving wheel.

Tatiana’s small blue glengarry cap was covered by a gauze veil, not only over her ears but at Beatrice’s insistence over the whole of her face and goggles as well. Her complexion would otherwise apparently be ruined for ever.

‘I look like a toad-in-the-hole,’ Tatiana announced crossly to Auguste, ripping off the veil, ‘and you look like a rather bad burglar.’

The sleeves of his tweed jacket were secured, on George’s advice, to prevent the wind whistling up them, and his felt hat was pulled firmly over his ears inside the collar. He had always understood that a wife’s duty was to admire her husband at all times and in all situations. Apparently he had been misinformed, as in so many ways in this mysterious new world of marriage.

As the Daimler moved on to the Harrogate Road he relaxed. Behind them lay Tabor Hall and the shadow of murder; before them lay the excitement of the hunt. The hunt that might prove Cyril innocent. Not to mention Tatiana herself.

‘Cyril always gets what he wants.’ That’s what
Miriam had said. Yet in this case he had already
got
Gertie. Nothing could change that. What else might make Cyril turn to murder? Nothing that would involve British Army colonels in India, of that he was sure.

The Daimler almost purred under Tompkins’ steady hands. Tatiana had abandoned Auguste in order to sit by Tompkins and discuss motorcars, and was listening to an incomprehensible (to Auguste) account of combustion chambers, pistons and side-slipping.

Left to himself, he pondered the beauty of bracken-covered hillsides, topped with outcrops of limestone crags, under the blue autumn sky. To his right lay valleys of green fields like a
salade de mesclun
– until this peaceful scene was shattered by a sharp explosion.

‘Gregorin!’ It was Tatiana that cried out his fear.

Then his jumping heart subsided, as he saw Tompkins getting calmly down from the Daimler with the air of one to whom this was not an unusual occurrence.

Having satisfied herself of Auguste’s survival, with a quick kiss, Tatiana followed suit.

Auguste leapt out after them, but there was now little to be seen of wife or driver save their lower halves.

‘You don’t die from exhaust stems snapping, Mr Didier,’ Tompkins called out a moment later.

‘It fell into the compression chamber and shattered a piston,’ Tatiana’s voice informed him knowledgeably.

‘Is it serious?’ Auguste asked with foreboding, seeing the Harrogate fair receding yet further. The good thing about railway trains was that by and large they went, he thought savagely. Motorcars did not. Like wives, they only went if they wanted to.

‘It won’t be, if I’ve another one.’ Tompkins was covering the Harrogate Road with the mysterious contents of his tool case.

‘Have you?’

‘Nay.’

It was not the way Auguste would have chosen to arrive in Harrogate. True, they were there, a mere nine hours later, but to the great delight of a cheering populace the Daimler was being towed by a carthorse. Tempers were frayed, particularly that of the horse. Replacement valves being unobtainable in the time, a farmer had been persuaded to lend his horse, who had obligingly begun his task in good spirits. Unfortunately he was a village horse and was used to nothing more alarming than one of his own kind approaching him. When a motorcar roared towards him at 10 mph, he had taken great exception and stopped in his tracks. The Daimler had run into his rear quarters, which caused him even greater surprise, so that he sat on the bonnet in disgust. The Daimler had come off worst, and once in Harrogate Tompkins declared his intention of not being parted from it till it was restored to its pre-horse condition by a reliable engineer.

Tatiana, torn between the rival attractions of motorcars and fairs, somewhat reluctantly accompanied Auguste to the Majestic Hotel, since an overnight stop was now inevitable. An hour later they were hurrying towards the sound of ‘Two Lovely Black Eyes’ roaring out from a fairground organ.

‘I would like to see a flea circus,’ Tatiana said hopefully.

‘Later.’ The middle of the Saturday evening festivities might not be an ideal time to see Blackboots, but he must speak to him as soon as possible, fleas or no fleas.

The difference between a fair being dismantled and one in full swing was as a chicken bone to a
poulet à la Dauphine
. This fair was on the outskirts of the town in order that elegant, fashionable Harrogate might blinker its eyes to the excrescence it had temporarily grown. Its lower orders might creep out to enjoy the fun, but their betters could ignore it. Fortunately there were many lower orders in this affluent town.

On the far side of the road Auguste paused, taken aback by the dark noisy hubbub in front, pierced by bright lights, the air full of laughter, screams, and the noise of songs from conflicting organs.

‘Hold on to my arm,
ma mie
,’ Auguste yelled. ‘Let us advance.’

‘
Impossible
,’ she shouted back. ‘I’ll hold your coat.’

She was right. There was no room to force a way side by side in the hustling crowds. They had to push one behind the other, and every so often he felt himself yanked to the right or left, as Tatiana saw something that caught her eye, and then recollected duty.

Eventually, on the far side of the ground, they found a Savage three-abreast galloper with prancing horses. The magnificent steam organ struck up: ‘Ta ra ra boom de ay’, and riders were lifted high above the everyday world in their painted heaven. And there in the middle was the owner, dexterously swinging out to collect fares as the platform rotated. He hardly allowed time for eager riders to mount before he was off again.

‘We’ll have to take a ride.’ Tatiana eagerly led the way, climbing up to ride side saddle on a huge white horse with scarlet trappings and a lascivious leer in its eye for the dainty yellow mare in the inside stream.

Resigning himself, Auguste chose the mare in order to be nearest his prey. Up and down, up and down, music blaring out, excitement gripped him as the music grew louder, swamping him in the febrile atmosphere
it created. The owner swung round, and Auguste reached down to pay him their sixpence, trying to quash a distinct feeling of queasiness from the motion.

‘Are you Blackboots?’

‘Aye.’

He was a big man, elderly but moving with agility. He was gone again, swinging off one horse after another to take in more threepenny pieces. There was nothing for it but another ride.

‘Does Big Fizzer work for you?’

‘Did!’ A suspicious look now.

‘Is he missing by any chance?’ Auguste in his excitement let go of his pole and nearly slipped from the horse.

‘Might be.’

‘I need to talk to you.’

Blackboots was gone again, the roundabout slowing down. His stomach, empty or not, would not take another ride. Blackboots pushed his way towards him. ‘Come round to the living wagon tomorrow. Early, mind.’

‘What’s Big Fizzer’s real name?’ Auguste yelled, hardly expecting a reply as Blackboots restarted the organ.

‘Tom Griffin. Poor old Tom Griffin,’ came the answer, barely audible over ‘You Are My Honeysuckle’.

‘Poor old Tom Griffin,’ repeated Auguste contentedly. At last the corpse might have a name. It might not be the right name, but it was still a possibility. And tomorrow he would know. Still staggering from the motion of the roundabout, he whirled Tatiana around. ‘Tonight, my love, we share a goosefeather bed,’ he crowed in triumph. He kissed her in the shadows of the Haunted House.

‘After we have been to the flea circus,’ she murmured lovingly in his ear.

‘Very soon after,’ he compromised, happy in the knowledge that sex had been the first – and he trusted the longest-lasting – of Tatiana’s new passions.

Early for the travelling showmen would mean just that, Auguste decided, with some relief. For much of the night he had tossed about in bed restlessly, his mind turning like beef on a spit between the beckoning will o’ the wisp of Tom Griffin and wondering whether it was not his fear for Tatiana that sent him rushing irrationally in pursuit. As he walked under a gradually lightening sky in the mists of a Yorkshire October morning, the air damp in his nostrils, he could see ahead dim shapes of loaded wagons and human activity. They must have been working all through the night from the time that the fair had closed at midnight, for few towns tolerated the defilement of their territory on a Sunday morning. God-fearing folk were then bound for Church, no matter if those same folk had been throwing balls at coconuts with gusto the evening before. Either it must remain silent and unprofitable until Monday, or like Mr Carroll’s Snark, the fair must softly and silently vanish away.

Auguste had invaded the hotel kitchens in search of life-restoring coffee before leaving, trusting that the kitchen staff would put down any disarrangement to laxity of preparation the evening before. He had been strongly tempted to linger, for the sights that greeted his eye in the larders looked most interesting. What, for instance, had been the basis of that sauce? From the colour, soya was widely employed.

Auguste firmly directed his mind back to the matter-in-hand. Where the Golden Galloper had proudly stood only a matter of hours before, ablaze with lights, only a muddied grass ring was to be seen. That and a trail of discarded fish papers and lollipop sticks were the only signs of last night’s magnificence. He made his way towards the living wagons, attracted by the smell of frying bacon.

As he drew near, he could see a woman cooking on a small stove, set on a trivet on the ground. Travellers setting off into the gloom of the winter break did not do so on an empty stomach. Trying not to stare too enthusiastically at her frying pan, he asked the woman for directions to Blackboots’ caravan.

Blackboots too was at the business of breakfast, sharing a stove with his neighbour. He interpreted Auguste’s wistful look correctly, as he hovered on the damp grass. ‘Plenty here. Help yourself.’

Never had breakfast tasted better. Auguste’s feet were wet, his perch on the wooden steps leading up to the living wagon was uncomfortable, but the greasy bacon and the fried potatoes were ambrosia, washed down by a mugful of nectar in the form of hot, sweet, strong tea. Hitherto tea had not been a favourite drink of Auguste’s. Now he began to appreciate its pleasures, not as an afternoon drink to break the monotony of the hours between two and eight, but as a restorative in its own right.

He wondered briefly what Brillat-Savarin might have thought of this none-too-clean mug of delight, and decided that he might approve of the principle while disliking its execution. Soyer, he ruminated, his body glowing with renewed warmth and love of mankind, with his grasp of what might comfort the stomachs of the majority of his fellow-men, would certainly savour this delightful drink. For the first
time, Auguste felt that Soyer and himself, were they to meet in some future heavenly kitchen, might have subjects in common to discuss.

‘Nah,’ Blackboots drained the dregs of his mug with audible gusto. ‘I got half-an-hour, then I got to clean my tubes.’

Auguste eyed him doubtfully. His unspoken question was answered when Blackboots continued, ‘You can give me a hand loading up.’ He pointed to a load of coal at the side of the field.

Auguste’s heart sank, as he tried to convince himself that the total destruction of another suit would be worth it if this companionable activity led to the identity of the body in the smokehouse.

Blackboots knocked out his pipe on the side of the step where Auguste was perched. ‘What’s all this about Big Fizzer?’

‘Who is he?’ Auguste asked eagerly. ‘Was he at Settle with you? Did he leave with you?’

Blackboots carefully cleaned his pipe with the stick he’d stirred his tea with. ‘What’s it to do with you?’

‘Mr Blackboots, I am a guest at Tabor Hall near Malham, not far from Settle, and on Sunday morning an unknown man was found dead in the grounds – murdered, so the enquiry has decided.’ He took the now dog-eared picture from his pocket, almost daring to hope that this time, he might be rewarded.

Blackboots studied it, his fingers packing tobacco into the foul-smelling pipe. ‘Could be Tom,’ he said at last. ‘But he didn’t have hair hanging down like that. Not Tom.’

‘When he was found, the corpse’s hair was short, and he was in evening dress, his beard trimmed, his hands were—’ Auguste sought for a tactful word, ‘—manicured. In short, this man did not look like a traveller of the world.’

‘What’s it to do with Big Fizzer then?’ Blackboots asked reasonably.

‘I believe his clothes were changed after he was dead, his hair cut and his hands attended to, in order to disguise his identity.’

He glanced at Blackboots, aware of how fantastical this theory sounded, out here in the cool morning surrounded by evidence of the hard life of the travelling showmen and their families. Blackboots stuck his pipe in his mouth and took the doctored picture again from Auguste. With only a side view, and Auguste’s artistic embellishments added, it was not much to go on.

‘Could be. Daft old bugger.’ Blackboots’ eyes were moist.

‘Is it like Big Fizzer to go off on his own?’

‘No, it ain’t. I were expecting him ’ere Thursday or Friday. “I’ll be with you for the build-up,” he says. “I’ve somewhere to go when we close on Saturday,” he says. “I’ll catch you on the road if I’m not back before.” Full of importance, silly old fool,’ Blackboots added affectionately. ‘“What you going to do – tow your wagon yerself?” I asks. He ain’t got no horse, see, but hitches his living wagon to the back of Black Beauty.’

Auguste looked bewildered.

‘That’s my steamer, there. It tows the galloper and three or four living wagons. Fine old lass is Black Beauty. “The travelling gingerbread man’s taking me tonight,” he says, “and I’ll be coming back by carriage. You take the wagon, and if I don’t catch you, I’ll take a train,” he says. That’s what money does for you. Never been right since the Leather and Nails, he hasn’t.’

‘Leather and Nails?’ Auguste asked blankly, struggling to cope with accent and jargon simultaneously.

‘Big fair at Settle at Lammas, 19 August. Cobblers and suchlike come from all around. We were lucky.
Got the gaff before Joe Peg-Leg could get his thieving peacocks in.’

‘What happened to Big Fizzer?’

‘We gets to the gaff day before and off he goes. Something to do, he says, mysterious-like. He were back to put up the galloper, but his mind weren’t on the job.’

Blackboots heaved himself out of his chair, and clambered past Auguste into the living wagon, returning with a photograph in a cheap frame.

‘That’s him.’ Blackboots was posed on the platform of the galloper, with his arm round the neck of a bowler-hatted black-bearded Big Fizzer.

Was this the corpse? It could be. The size and build were right. ‘Was – is – he married?’ Auguste asked, trying to subdue excitement.

‘No. Tom’s
dinilow
– a little simple-like. Nothing wrong with him, but he hasn’t much beef in him for all his size. The ladies round here—’ he paused as a crash and shrieks came from a nearby wagon ‘—like spice. He might be called Fizzer but he looked like he were going nowhere, poor chap. He got his name because he started out with a Big Fizzer sherbert stall. I remember him at Windsor Fair as a nipper. Always hoping Her Majesty would drop in. Day she did, he were down with the fever. That’d be like Tom. Unlucky.

‘He stuck with the sherbert twenty year or more. Then I goes to the Nottingham Goose Fair, and there was old Fizzer, helping with a knock ’em down. Coconuts. He did well at that, had his own game, then he fell ill, went into the workhouse. Next thing I heard he were out again, turning his hand to anything he could. He had showing in his blood. Told me his ma died when he was a small nipper Clapham way. She’d been in Wombwell’s Travelling Menagerie, leading the elephants round to the music. That would be back in
the thirties, long time ago now.’ Blackboots mused briefly on the transitoriness of life.

‘Anyway, then poor old Tom runs into Black Rufus, and next thing I hear is that Tom’s looking after his midgets for ’im while Black Rufus gets on with the real work, the roulette in the tent behind for the quality. Tom allus liked children, and them midgets were just like kids. He looked after ’em like a pappy. Black Rufus used to send ’im out to do his dirty work, collecting debts, because old Tom looked fearsome, so they weren’t to know he was no prizefighter. Black Rufus took advantage of old Tom, and he got tired of working for him, so he asked if he could come and help on the galloper, me getting older. If he had one ambition in life it was to have a galloper. He’s like a big kid himself: “I’ll test them swings, I’ll fly those pigs, I’ll try that bicycle ride.” Tom will always oblige. But it was the gallopers are his real love. Just a three-abreast up and down like mine. ’Course, it looked like he’d never be able to afford one and no bank was going to lend old Tom any money. So he did the next best thing and come and help me. I suppose it were because he never had much of a childhood himself. He could never get any of the girls to marry him. They could see they would end up with a dozen kids and no security. My missus died ten year ago, and Tom and I get on all right together.

‘In the winter he gets a pedlar’s licence, same as me, and we work together. He does pens and stationery, he’s good at that, and I do ribbons and the like. I got more of a way with the young ladies than he has. Or had, maybe.’ He sighed.

‘Perhaps,
mon ami
,’ Auguste said compassionately. ‘Black Rufus was at Settle Fair last week, was he not? How did Tom get along with him?’

‘There ain’t no love lost between them, that’s for
sure, but Rufus didn’t usually go too far. Tom’s good at getting money out of folk, so sometimes he’d hire him just for that. Tom doesn’t like it, but it’s money. Black Rufus pays him well.’

‘And do you think that’s where he might have been going after the Leather and Nails Fair, and last Saturday – to chase up debts?’

‘Tom can be a dark horse. I weren’t too pleased about it. “What am I going to do,” I says, “if you go off jaunting?” “I owns the galloper now,” he says. “True enough,” I says, “but that don’t make it right.” Mind you, at the Leather and Nails, there was a right to-do with Black Rufus. “I don’t like roulette and I don’t like you,” Tom says. Not like Tom to be that outspoken. Black Rufus weren’t too pleased, so he clocks Tom one. Tom’s no fighter, but he don’t like being hit, so he floored Black Rufus right in front of his missus. “I’ll get you,” he said, and he were still muttering about it last Saturday when we gets back to Settle again.’

Auguste interrupted the flow to fasten on the salient point. ‘Tom
bought
the galloper?’

‘I thought he was joking, but he flashed all this dosh. I thought perhaps it might be Black Rufus’, but then, that was Tom’s business. Yus, I can see him now, eyes shining, beaming all over his face. “I’m going to buy her, Blackboots,” he says, stroking one of the horses. He looked as if the sky were raining lollipops. I’m getting old, see,’ Blackboots explained apologetically, as though only such a reason could explain his fickleness to Black Beauty and the galloper. ‘“Here’s some of it,” Tom says. “I’ll have the rest of the dosh for you next week.” Sure enough he did.’

‘When?’ Auguste asked, muddled. Blackboots’ grasp of chronology needed improvement.

‘August, beginning of September, thereabouts.’

‘So what will happen to it now?’

Blackboots shrugged. ‘I’ll wait till Tom gets back.’

‘And if he is dead?’

Blackboots thought this through. ‘You come and tell me when you know he is.’ Auguste could not budge him. Tom might or might not be dead, and Blackboots was going to wait for him. That meant not letting flatties into Tom’s living wagon, forestalling Auguste’s next question.

‘But where will I find you?’ Auguste asked, defeated.

Blackboots lumbered towards Black Beauty. ‘I’ll get the damper out of the chimney, while you be coaling up.’ He picked up the shovel and presented it grandly to Auguste. ‘Maybe I’ll be heading for the Smoke, maybe Scotland. Who can tell? By the time Black Beauty’s ready to belch, perhaps I might be able to recall where I was a-going – that’s if you loaded enough of that there coal.’

Auguste sneaked up to his hotel room, eyed with great suspicion by a chambermaid, and prepared to face Tatiana’s mirth. She was not there, but he had only got so far in his obligatory toilet as to gingerly remove his jacket when she came in, extolling the virtues of breakfast as provided by a Mrs Snipes. Mrs Snipes, it transpired, was wife to Herbert Snipes, motorcar engineer.
Then
came the laughter, as she took in her spouse’s blackened appearance. ‘
Voilà, chéri
, I know just the place for you. The Royal Baths. Did you know there are seventeen bogsprings in Harrogate?’

Auguste had no interest in bogsprings or Harrogate. He merely wanted a bath (and the Majestic’s would serve admirably), a speedy snack and to be removed to Tabor Hall as quickly as possible.

Tatiana, in the front seat of a now restored Daimler with Tompkins, busily discussed the merits of the Daimler compared with the De Dion, plug by plug, and
in splendid isolation at the back, Auguste digested what he had learned. Blackboots had last been seen on the Black Beauty as the cavalcade slowly made its way into the misty but infinite possibilities of the open road. He had only partly kept his promise of declaring his route: it might be Selby; it might be Whitby; or it might be the Great North Road. He’d find him all right, if he needed to, seemed to be Blackboots’ attitude.