Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (11 page)

‘He will go through with this reception?’ Auguste was horror-stricken.

‘You know what he said to me? “Anarchists are bad shots.” I reminded him that the chap who shot the King of Italy in July didn’t do too badly and the Shah only escaped because the Grand Vizier acted quickly. But no. Refuses to alter his plans. I’ll have the place swarming with men, of course.’

Auguste digested this news. He had twice saved the Prince of Wales from becoming involved in the aftermath of murder. To prevent his own was a far different matter.

‘I’ll meet you tonight with the results of the PM on Nancy Watkins, but otherwise I’ll have to leave you to Twitch’s tender mercies.’

As if on cue, Sergeant Stitch marched in like Hannibal intent on taking Rome. Far from contrition, he seemed to ooze triumph as he addressed Auguste. ‘There’s no doubt,’ he said, delighted, ‘bodies do seem to follow you, Mr Didier. Someone will be putting two and two together one day, won’t they?’

‘And with your detective powers, Sergeant Stitch,’ Auguste retorted, ‘no doubt they will still make two of it.’

‘Now, now, Auguste,’ murmured Rose indulgently. ‘You’re colleagues, remember.’

Was there ever such tension and excitement as the moment before the rise of the curtain at a theatre, especially at a pantomime, the orchestra playing a crescendo, childish voices whispering, shushing, crying? Even Auguste was excited, as though a child again. Not that pantomime was a French pastime, particularly not in Cannes. But he loved it still, especially the magic of Drury Lane and the inestimable Dan Leno.

Some of the guests had not taken up their tickets for
Sleeping Beauty and the Beast
, preferring to remain at the hotel partaking of a supper with which Fancelli had excelled himself, though this was not saying a great deal in Auguste’s opinion. Thus there had been spare seats which he had offered as a gesture of reconciliation to Egbert and his family. Rose had hesitated, refused on his own account, but accepted on his family’s. Edith, Oswald, Ermyntrude and their brood thus joined Lady Gincrack’s select party in the stalls.

Auguste watched the pantomime entranced, as the set moved to a street where two closed palanquins
moved slowly across the stage, by courtesy of their occupants’ feet protruding below. From within came the unmistakable voice of Dan Leno’s comic genius. True, he could not understand quite the humour of his quick patter, but his very voice was funny, a true clown. And then there was the spectacle of the harlequinade, more decorative and beautiful at Drury Lane than anywhere else. Perhaps these floating ladies and wondrous translucent colours were the results of modern marvels backstage, but the illusion was enough. He was himself Harlequin. Would he ever see his Columbine again, let alone possess her? He firmly removed his mind from Tatiana, suddenly aware that Bella’s thigh was pleasantly near his own, indeed much nearer than it had any right to be. He concentrated quickly on the Beast’s Palace.

Marble columns, rather like the kitchens of the Reform Club when Soyer moved in there in the 1840s. The Reform Club had had many such master chefs – Francatelli, Rosa Lewis, Emma Pryde, all had passed through those eminent Pall Mall doors. Pall Mall was the southern boundary of clubland, containing not only the Reform and the Guards Clubs, but the Marlborough Club and – he stopped. Marlborough? Nonsense. That was a club. A man was safe in his club. He remembered affectionately his days at Plum’s. No, not always safe, he reminded himself uneasily; Plum’s was not always so. Not even a prince would be safe at a club, even one founded by himself, because no one would expect—

He stood up suddenly, jerking Edith’s box of chocolates from her hand by mistake and stammering apologies as he made his way to the exit. He could not wait for Egbert to meet them at the end of the performance. He must tell him
now
.

Rose looked up from his desk impatiently, but his irritation soon changed to interest. ‘Pall Mall?’ he repeated, seeing again that scrap of paper, the blurred ink. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘Pall Mall, not Paddington. Not Padd, but Pall.’

He couldn’t afford to ignore Paddington though. But nor could he afford to ignore the link with the word Marlborough. And if the Marlborough, then somehow it was all linked to Cranton’s Hotel. He made his mind up quickly. He scowled at Auguste in his old familiar fashion and the last remnants of the rift vanished. ‘I reckon you thought this up just because you don’t want to be left to Twitch’s tender mercies,’ he grunted. ‘Now you’re here, look at this.’

He pushed the post-mortem report across the desk to Auguste, who scanned it quickly, then read it again more slowly. He looked up questioningly.

Rose nodded. ‘That’s right. The dagger was taken out. Then replaced in the wound later. And she’d been dead well over a few hours. Rigor mortis was wearing off. They reckon she was killed over twenty-four hours before you found her.’

Auguste wrestled with this problem. ‘But—’

‘The four Ws,’ interrupted Rose. ‘Where? Certainly not in the drawing room or chest. When? Might be possible to determine according to her duty list. Who? An open question at the moment. And why—’

‘Why was she murdered? But this we can guess.’

‘No. Why was the body put in the chest? And why was the dagger replaced? To make us think it happened on Boxing Day, I suppose.’

‘And what better place to hide a weapon,
mon ami
?’ asked Auguste simply.

Slowly London bestirred herself, rumbled into life, uneasily aware that by rights Christmas was over and that in normal years Wordsworth’s Stern Daughter of the Voice of God, Duty, would issue instructions to bury it quickly and efficiently in the interests of Queen, Empire and Industry. However, 1900 was not a normal year, for in a few days another great event would be celebrated. This new year celebration would carry an extra frisson, an occasion for reflection, for self-congratulation and for confident expectation. This new year would usher in the twentieth century, and only a minority doubted that it was a century that would see yet more laurel boughs of victory set on the forehead of mankind’s conquest of the elements. And the old Widow of Windsor would march at its head to lead her people into the new dawn. Buoyed up with encouraging reports that the Queen’s health remained excellent, and that rumours of her deteriorating strength were not merely greatly exaggerated but completely unfounded, London waited breathlessly to greet firstly the new century, then its returning hero, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, and in due course its Queen returning from Osborne House.

It was the second of these events that was giving Inspector Egbert Rose severe anxiety as he awoke this Thursday morning. Duty was not merely shouting in his ear; she seemed to be sitting on his stomach and pounding it up and down. For this he blamed Auguste.
It was all very well to insist he accompany the party to the new Carlton Hotel for a little late supper after the pantomime, but did he have to recommend Mr Escoffier’s personally prepared
dindonneau aux perles noires
followed by
suprêmes de foie gras au Champagne
, not to mention his famous
pêches melba
? Furthermore, as he had staggered from the private room, his cup as well as his stomach was full when Auguste soberly pointed out the name of the private suite opposite to the one in which they had been dining: the Marlborough. They had looked at each other in unspoken agreement. This they would consider in the morning.

Now that morning had arrived – and far too early for Rose’s head. After palely refusing all Edith’s blandishments of a nice fried egg, he arrived at Cranton’s at 7 a.m. to find a distraught Auguste, drawn between a desire to superintend the arrival of breakfast and the safeguarding of his office from the increasing number of policemen who seemed to have designs on it. He lost on both counts. Fancelli ignored his tactful comments on what was expected of English breakfast and Rose promptly commandeered his office.

Auguste had only had an office of his own for four days, and now he was to lose it because of a murder which was undoubtedly linked to another murder which he had reported only to be laughed at. He smarted with injustice. Really, life was most unfair. He was forced to content himself with the cubby hole adjoining the library, despite the fact that it was not as near the kitchens as he could have wished.

‘Marlborough,’ said Rose glumly, considering widening horizons unenthusiastically.

‘Marlborough House, the Prince’s own residence in Pall Mall.’

‘Marlborough Club at No. 52 Pall Mall, and now
this. The Carlton – in Pall Mall. What’s the odds that HRH is a frequent visitor to Monsieur Ritz’s new establishment?’

‘I do not offer odds,’ said Auguste slowly. ‘I remember only that His Royal Highness once stated that “Where Ritz goes, we shall follow”. For where Ritz goes, Monsieur Escoffier also follows, with his
poularde Derby
and countless other dishes to appeal to the Prince’s taste. I have no doubt he is a frequent visitor.’

‘Right. I’ll get Twitch down to the club to sniff around a bit. And to the Carlton. Meanwhile, we’ll take the routine side again here.’ Rose paused. ‘You’ll be helping me, Auguste.’ There was a slight query in his voice.

‘As,’ replied Auguste with dignity, ‘Sergeant Stitch will undoubtedly arrest me for murder unless I do—’

‘Don’t think I’m capable of it, eh?’ commented Rose abstractedly.

‘This is my
first
hotel,’ said Auguste vehemently, ‘although only for twelve days. My own honour demands that I help bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice.’

‘With not much time to find them in,’ Rose pointed out grimly. ‘We’d better make a start. We know the girl was alive at seven thirty on Christmas morning because young Nash spoke to her. And we’ll need another word with that young man too. It’s likely she disappeared sometime between then and the time you were looking for her.’

‘Yes, about ten o’clock.’

Somehow it made murder all the worse for its having happened when it did, Auguste reflected. The morning Christ had been born to make the world a more loving place.

‘Right.’ Rose took a deep breath. ‘Bring on the chorus girls.’

Mrs Pomfret was shown in first, bridling under the stern eye of Twitch, and an unlikely candidate for the chorus line. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she informed both police and manager, twitching her bombasine skirt nervously. Her trustworthiness thus established, she took the seat Rose waved her to, chatelaine’s keys rattling at her waist.

‘Nancy was a good worker,’ she replied doubtfully to Rose’s first question. ‘I only met the girl on Sunday, didn’t I, but I prides myself I’m a judge of character. I didn’t expect her to end up in a chest,’ she added, torn between horror and indignation that this could happen to someone under her command.

‘Remember exactly when you saw Nancy on Christmas morning?’

‘She was there for the teas, that I remember. Bessie was with her – you can speak to her.’

‘And when did you see her after that?’ He consulted a timetable drawn up for him by Auguste. ‘Servants’ breakfast?’

She wrinkled her brow. ‘I can’t rightly remember if she was at breakfast. We was all new to one another, you see. I wouldn’t have noticed if one had been missing without some special reason to do so. There ain’t a lot of time at servants’ breakfasts.’

Auguste knew that only too well. He remembered at Stockbery Towers that for the housemaids it was a matter of a quick half-hour, if that, between the polishing, the blacking, the cleaning, the hot water carrying . . . Ah, Stockbery Towers. He wondered if his dear kitchen was being properly run now he had gone. Stockbery Towers had, after all, started him off on his life of crime. That matter, too, had begun with the murder of a servant, but see how far its tentacles
had spread. Now Nancy Watkins’ death boded much the same.

Bessie, when summoned, burst through the door ahead of Twitch in excitement at meeting real London policemen. She also seemed to be bursting through stays and print gown, plump with glowing health. Auguste was hardly surprised to find this was her first London post. Even the presence of her manager and the housekeeper did not quell her exuberance.

‘Are we safe ’ere, sir? Mrs Pomfret didn’t tell us about no murderers being in the house. And my mum, she said, look out for the butler; he’s a caution most places.’

‘Mr Didier’s the nearest thing you got to a butler here, Bessie. You’re quite safe,’ said Rose kindly.

Auguste glared at him. ‘The Inspector and his invaluable assistant Sergeant Stitch will catch this murderer in no time. Do not fear, Bessie. We understand you served the early morning teas with Nancy?’

‘That’s right,’ answered Bessie cheerfully. Then the enormity struck her. ‘So it might have been me,’ she whispered.

‘I doubt it,’ grunted Rose reassuringly. ‘The murderer was definitely after Nancy. All we need to know from you, miss, is which rooms you took tea to.’

‘Nancy were supposed to do one side of the staircase and me the other, that was on the first floor, and she did the three rooms on the second floor, seeing as how I had further to walk on the first, my rooms being further from the lift,’ she told them all in one breath. ‘I offered to help, but she said she could manage,’ she announced, sounding a trifle regretful that her beneficence had been so unappreciated.

‘Where’s that plan of the rooms, Mr Didier?’

Auguste produced it, and Bessie pored over it, one pudgy finger pointing to the west side of the hotel
where Sir John Harnet, Miss Rosanna Pembrey, the de Castillons and Colonel Carruthers slept.

‘So Nancy was responsible for Mr and Mrs Harbottle, Misses Ethel and Evelyn Pembrey, Major Dalmaine, and Miss Guessings, and on the next floor the Baroness, her companion, and Mr Bowman. And so far as you know, miss, they all got their tea.’

Bessie nodded vigorously. ‘Course they did. There’d have been a tray left in the lift otherwise, eh?’ She beamed at her percipience.

‘And there wasn’t?’

‘Can’t have bin. ’Cos I collected all the empties after, ’cos Nancy would have bin at breakfast by then, so she could start her dusting at nine. An’ I collected
all
the trays.’

‘Everyone had tea then, if you know you collected them all?’

Her face fell as slowly she took this in.

‘I don’t know, do I?’ she said a little pettishly. ‘You want dahn below.’

The term ‘dahn below’ in fact encompassed several rooms, the main kitchen itself, the subsidiary kitchen used as the staff dining room, scullery, larders, still room, cold room and wine cellars, together with a laundry and delivery room. It was the main kitchen, however, that immediately riveted Auguste’s attention.

Fancelli, as soon as he saw Auguste, leaned nonchalantly back against the range. He had something to hide. What was it? was Auguste’s fearful reaction. He had approved the menu both for luncheon and for dinner. Ergo, his detective instinct told him, Fancelli had altered something. All around, fresh wares from Covent Garden, Billingsgate and Smithfield lay awaiting attention, breakfast now being over. And there Auguste saw a distressing sight. He marched up to it, inspected and turned on the culprit.

‘A fish with a dull eye is as bad as a detective with one,’ he informed Fancelli none too gently. ‘A cod’s eye should be as bright as Inspector Rose’s.’

‘Very well, I will make him into soup,’ Fancelli hissed clearly, wishing he could do the same with Auguste.

Rose suppressed a grin as he parted the warring cooks. ‘What I want to know is who was responsible for loading the service lift with early morning tea trays?’

‘Me.’ An unhappy spotty youth was propelled forward by eager comrades none too anxious to be at closer quarters with the police.

‘Any trays left unclaimed in the lift, son?’ Rose asked him.

‘No, sir. Thirteen trays went up as ordered.’

‘And,’ put in Bessie, ‘I sends thirteen dahn again. And please, sir, I’ve been thinking. You was asking me about the teas. Well, if she was, like, killed
then
, where was the body put?’

‘What do you mean, Bessie?’ Auguste enquired. ‘Either she was killed in the last room she visited with tea, or after that. Probably not in a public room, but in a bedroom. You may leave that to Inspector Rose to consider,’ he told her gravely.

Bessie had no intention of leaving the limelight. ‘Can’t have been like that,’ she said, pleased as Christmas punch. ‘It can’t have been put in the chest till late that evening, what with that young lady’s joke.
Where
was the body hid in the meantime? You see, we girls would have noticed a body when we did the rooms proper, even if they ’id it when I collected the tea trays.’

Rose silently cursed last night’s
foie gras
which had dulled mind as well as stomach.

‘Hidden,’ said Rose, less than adequately.

‘But where?’ asked Bessie, emboldened.

‘Under the bed?’

A look of scorn from Bessie. ‘Nah. Not with Mrs Pomfret around. Much as our life’s worth not to do under the beds.’

‘Wardrobe?’

‘Nah. We opens them to put the day covers and cushions out for the beds.’ Bessie was openly gloating now, looking round triumphantly to make sure her listening colleagues absorbed this triumph over the police, not to mention the all-powerful manager.

‘A guest’s trunk or another chest?’

‘All the trunks are in the baggage room, Inspector,’ Auguste told him, interested now. ‘And as for chests, there are none in the bedrooms.’

‘There must be many places in a hotel this size where a body could be hidden. Down in the cellars, for example.’

Fancelli, passing casually by, ostensibly with a half-eaten cold turkey but in fact to ensure Auguste was not putting the blame on him for murder, quickly intervened. ‘No in my cellar. No in my kitchens.’

‘Down the servants’ stairs? Outside?’

‘Then why bring it back?’ asked Auguste reasonably. ‘The guests,’ he told Rose when they were alone in his office once more, having established that after about eight thirty none of the staff recalled seeing Nancy, and that apart from the other housemaids, all the staff were busy with Christmas luncheon and not bent on murder. ‘It seems most likely to have been one of them.’

‘What about maids and valets?’ asked Rose sharply, remembering Stockbery Towers.

‘The de Castillons have a maid and valet with them, as do Sir John Harnet and the Pembrey girls. They are lodged in nearby houses with some of the staff.’

‘How do they get in?’

‘Through the tradesmen’s entrance.’

‘So anyone could have got in.’

‘My friend,’ said Auguste gently, ‘it is possible. But hardly likely. Remember – “At Cranton’s? Christmas?”’