Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (31 page)

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Maisie cheerfully. ‘Never
give up hope. You never know who may come along.’

‘You know very well there is only one for me – after you,’ he added hastily, ‘and Tatiana is beyond my reach for ever.’

‘Have a muffin,’ she suggested practically. ‘And tell me all about unfortunate women instead.’

He explained briefly, for the background she knew.

‘Sounds like one of your recipes, Auguste. A little rich on reading the ingredients, but best to reserve judgment till you taste it. So you think it may be all about white slaves, eh?’

‘Sent abroad in groups, the real reason probably disguised by something else. And in this case, because of that print dress, probably as housemaids.’

‘I wonder. It’s possible, provided they were ostensibly being escorted from and to a respectable agency. France is our main stumbling block, of course, on white-slaving,’ said Maisie scathingly. ‘It’s their insistence on regulated prostitution that opened a gateway again for it. You can see why. Lawful houses make illegal supply more difficult to spot. The French have agreed there’s a link now, but too late. It’s spread outside. France to Belgium and Amsterdam, and the organisation is too strong to break and too clever. Girls are being sent over to Hungary, and the rest of Eastern Europe, linking up with the Chinese trade. And Africa now of course.’

‘All organised from Paris?’

‘I’ll try to find out.’

‘Quickly, please, Maisie.’

‘And where are they kept here, till they’re taken abroad?’ asked Maisie. ‘Any ideas?’

‘As you say, it must be somewhere so very respectable so that no one would think of questioning it,’ said Auguste. He called forth the assistance of his wildest flights of imagination to illustrate his point. ‘More
respectable even than a school for housemaids. Like a school of cookery for instance.’

Maisie laughed. ‘Mrs Marshall’s perhaps?’ she suggested mockingly. ‘Or perhaps you prefer Mrs Crosby’s Training School for Embassy Staff?’

‘Embassy staff?’ Auguste looked startled. ‘What is that?’

‘It’s a school in Battersea. Haven’t you heard of it? Does a lot of good work, training girls up from bad beginnings and fitting them for work in diplomatic households, according to capability. Housemaids to office workers and translators. They all learn languages. She takes girls from the slums, or from those who’ve been picked up soliciting outside the Empire or music halls. She finds many of her girls from Marlborough Street—’

‘
Marlborough
?’ croaked Auguste.

‘Why are you sitting there with your mouth wide open like a carp
au Didier
?’ she enquired rudely. ‘Surely the Great Detective has heard of Great Marlborough Street? It’s a police court,’ she explained kindly.

Auguste sighed. ‘Put on your hat, Maisie. I think there is work to do. Quickly.’

‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

‘Luncheon?
Ah, non
. Do not fear, we will eat—’

‘Not that, Auguste,’ she said patiently. ‘The information you wanted. I’ve a friend in the
Union internationale des amies de la jeune fille
.’

‘She too will be at luncheon,’ murmured Auguste. Never had he resented that grand moment of the day more.

The hours of twelve o’clock to two o’clock were hardly in accordance with a day of rest for either of them. Maisie was the more fortunate since her role was merely to change her attire to one she deemed appropriate
for the head of a committee for fallen women, travel to Scotland Yard and contact her friend via Egbert Rose, Inspecteur Chesnais and the London to Paris telephone link.

Sergeant Stitch, fervently agreeing with Rose’s opinion of Mr Bell’s annoying device of communication, reluctantly changed his Sunday attire for that of Scotland Yard approved garb, patted two small Stitches on the head, kissed Mrs Stitch on the cheek, and with the smell of the beef roasting in the oven lingering in his nostrils, left his Clapham abode in pursuit of promotion and the No.38 omnibus.

Egbert Rose had long forgotten the untasted delights of Mr Pinpole’s pork. Telegraph and telephone wires were clicking and humming, and he sat, a thin and eager spider in the midst of its web waiting for sustenance to arrive. Great Marlborough Street proved as unco-operative as Paris, presented with the demand for quick action at the one sacrosanct time of day – Sunday luncheon – but eventually Twitch was despatched to their premises and granted access to their records. What he found there almost compensated for the loss of his roast beef. One Mary White, accused of vagrancy in London’s Haymarket, was released into the custody of one Mrs Crosby for corrective training. As were several other girls, noted Twitch’s eager eye.

It was Auguste who faced true disaster. Confident in the expectation that at twelve fifteen a wassail bowl would be flowing in the drawing room, the dining room prepared for luncheon, and his staff moving with precision into their service positions, he strolled into the entrance hall. Something was wrong! He knew it by the very atmosphere which held nothing of pleasant anticipation of joys to come; instead it held rancour, and the sound of testy voices. He flew to the door of
the drawing room; guests but no staff, a few bowls of nuts, but no wassail bowl.

On winged feet he flew to the dining room. It was cold, cheerless – and staffless. True, the tables were laid after a fashion, but here he could see a mark on a glass, there a knife laid askew. His faced paled. A god of vengeance now, he rushed to the kitchens to find chaos. White-coated figures were rushing about aimlessly, bumping into one another; some ovens stood unattended, while others had three apiece fighting over the saucepans. On the tables, uncooked vegetables vied with half-eaten pies and cold fish for space. The remains of last evening’s plum puddings seemed to look stolidly and reproachfully at him with their raisin eyes. Cheese yellowing at the edges like old newspaper tumbled in a heap with leftover fowl.

‘Where is John?’ he enquired faintly.

‘Mumps, sir,’ one of the underchefs informed him in quavering voice.

‘Mumps?’ Auguste repeated blankly.

‘He’s gone home, sir.’

It was for such emergencies every true chef must be prepared. First, he must not alarm his staff by pointing out the severity of the situation. Secondly, to forewarn was to disarm.

‘Monsieur,’ he addressed a young apprentice grandly, ‘have the goodness to request the footmen to serve drinks immediately. You, you – and you, take up a wassail bowl. I take it we do have it prepared?’

A dozen voices assured him that John had the concoction of beer, ginger, yeast and sherry prepared some days ago and that it merely awaited its hot roasted apples.

‘Add another bottle of sherry,’ instructed Auguste grimly. Good humour would be restored the more quickly. ‘And I will announce that luncheon will be
served at one, and not twelve thirty.’

A good general organises his army with the objective always in view. Aim: speedy luncheon. One-third of the staff were detailed to disguising leftovers, garnishing slices of half-eaten pie; another third to preparing side dishes and salads; and for himself and his own picked band: ‘
Alors, mes amis, la bataille commence
.’

Four pairs of hands promptly fell on every tomato that could be found. . .

One hour later, ‘the kitchen’ was receiving compliments channelled through the hotelier. The
fritot
of chicken
avec purée de tomates
was superb, his spaghetti
de Nice
(tomato sauce with
herbes de Provence
), the beef
à la Rose
(tomato sauce with horseradish), the devilled game (tomato sauce with mustard and Worcester Sauce) were exquisite. But highest praise was reserved for the lamb cutlets
à la
Twelfth Night. For here the tomatoes and meat were embellished with a very special spice – a spice no kitchen should be without, Auguste fervently decided. Mrs Marshall’s coralline pepper.

‘I still think you’re barking up the wrong tree, picking on Mrs Crosby’s school,’ said Maisie crossly, as her coroneted carriage complete with Auguste and Egbert Rose made its way to Battersea.

‘Maisie, it fits,’ said Auguste firmly.

‘You make her sound like a pie crust,’ she muttered. ‘What am I going to tell my girls?’ she added belligerently. ‘That instead of rescuing them, we’ve been sending them down the white slavers’ road?’

‘Anything is better than to risk the trade continuing,’ Auguste pointed out, rather obviously, which earned him no thanks.

‘What sort of woman are we dealing with?’ asked Rose.

‘Middle-aged, severe, spare the rod and spoil the child.’

‘You do not like her?’ observed Auguste.

Maisie glared at him. ‘I don’t suppose I’d have taken to St Paul much, but I wouldn’t deny he did a good job.’

The Ferns was a large house, set in its own grounds, surrounded by greenery, though not ferns. It was shaded by pine trees, damp and depressing on this Sunday afternoon. In the street outside, families were out walking for their Sunday afternoon recreation; normal life passed by. It made their mission all the more incongruous, thought Auguste, an impression strengthened when they were shown in to meet Mrs Crosby. Severe-looking indeed, but plump with it; something about her denoted an impartial and kindly charity.

‘It is odd, Inspector, that Scotland Yard should be involved in the hunt for one girl,’ she observed as she took the only photograph they had of Mary White. She studied it carefully and returned it. ‘I do not know her, or anyone of that name,’ she told them.

‘In the Great Marlborough Street records it says that you do.’

She frowned and took the picture once again. ‘Possibly – if you say so. Some of our girls run away. We are not successful all the time, as Her Ladyship knows.’ Deferential nod to the aristocracy.

‘You have records yourself, ma’am, I’m sure. I’d like to see them. No doubt you keep them carefully, seeing as how you supply girls to embassies.’

‘We do indeed.’ She rang a bell. ‘However, you will not find her listed if she left us as soon as she arrived.’

‘Why would she do that, ma’am, if you’re offering such a good opportunity here?’

‘I fear,’ she smiled thinly, after instructing the girl
who replied to her summons, ‘that you have little acquaintance with young girls of that class.’

‘Perhaps not, ma’am,’ said the veteran of the Ratcliffe Highway beat humbly.

‘Some, I regret to say, have no desire to be reformed. They prefer a life of immediate pleasure to storing up talents for the future. The courts may release them to us, but neither we nor they have any method of enforcing their wishes. Girls,’ she informed the two men, ‘are deceivers. They persuade the magistrates they wish to embrace a pure life, but have no intention of doing so.’

‘Very reprehensible,’ agreed Rose. ‘I wonder if you’d mind showing us your school, Mrs Crosby. Her Ladyship here has told us a fair bit about it. Raised my interest, as you might say.’

His interest was gratified, as they were taken round sewing rooms, empty classrooms and dormitories. ‘This is Sunday, of course, Inspector. The girls have leisure now.’ It didn’t look much like it to Rose, with girls employed sewing heavy coarse sheets, working in the kitchens and cleaning dormitories.

‘And where do your girls go, Mrs Crosby, when they’re trained up to your high standard?’ Rose asked blandly.

‘Mostly to the Continent. We have connections all over Europe.’

‘There can’t be that many British embassies.’

Another thin smile. ‘We supply chiefly foreign embassies, Inspector, particularly those of the smaller countries, who are eager to have English staff to gain a prestige that otherwise they could not aspire to.’

‘How do your girls get to their destinations? Singly, or in groups?’

‘It varies, Inspector. Sometimes I or one of my assistants take a group. Occasionally they are collected.
Now, you wished to inspect my records.’ She led the way back into her office. ‘My dear Inspector,’ she exclaimed, ‘I owe you an apology. White, Mary. She was here. You were quite right. But then, so am I.’

In the column under comments was the terse sentence: Left after two days, 18th September 1900.

‘Does this mean anything to you, ma’am?’ Rose exhibited a piece of the dead girl’s dress.

She stared at it. ‘It is an ordinary print, like the print dresses my girls wear, only this is a different design, is it not?’

‘It is indeed, ma’am, and I’m most grateful for your help.’

‘Not a thing I can get an arrest on,’ Rose said disgustedly, as the carriage made its way back to the Yard.

‘Did you notice nothing strange?’ asked Auguste smugly.

‘What?’ Rose looked at him sharply.

‘I fear that you have little acquaintance with young girls of that class,’ Auguste repeated, smiling. ‘Especially housemaids and the like. Every single one of those print dresses was new.’

‘Once upon a time I’d have had to have gone there to get all this.’ Unlike his sergeant, Rose had changed his opinion of Mr Bell as he looked with satisfaction at the record of Stitch’s telephone conversation with Chesnais. Not so much a conversation, in fact, more like sheaves and sheaves of information.

‘It boils down to this, Auguste. They’ve been doing their best in France to cut down on regulated prostitution ever since the London conference, and as a result the illegal trade is tending to move.’