The Pigeon Pie Mystery (41 page)

CHAPTER XIV
A Surfeit of Anchovy Relish

INK
woke suffering from the usual ruinous consequences of a ball. Not only did her feet ache, but so too did her head, as a result of all the champagne she had drunk to forget the humiliation of being the partner of the man whose antics were already known by the watchman when she returned to the palace. She forced herself to sit up when Pooki brought in her morning tea, and as she sipped it, she remembered Cornelius B. Pilgrim asking the Countess to dance. Wondering again about the mystery woman he was trying to impress, she threw back the covers, staggered over to the writing table, and picked up her pen.

She ate more than usual at breakfast, helping herself twice to the eggs, the smell of the kippers turning her stomach. Still thirsty, she rang the bell and asked Pooki for more tea. The next time she looked up from her newspaper the maid was standing next to her with a silver salver. On it was a glass filled with a swirling black liquid.

“What on earth is that?” the Princess asked, staring at it.

“It is soot and milk, ma’am. It is a cure for people who have drunk too much. The chimney sweep recommended it.”

The Princess looked at her. “I’d rather have some more tea, if you don’t mind.”

The maid shook her head. “Dr. Henderson would not like it,” she replied, leaving the glass on the table before Mink could protest. As the maid started for the door, she added, “That man should never have attempted the Lancers. No one knows how to dance it.”

Mink span round. “How do you know about that?” she asked.

The maid stopped, frowning as she thought. “I think the first person who told me was the fishmonger.”

“The fishmonger?” the Princess asked, eyes wide.

The servant raised a finger to her chin as she tried to remember. “Or maybe it was the sweep … No, I remember now, ma’am, it was the milkman. He said there were people who came off the first train from London this morning who were talking about it … And they were from Germany.”

The Princess reached for more toast. “To make matters worse, he was dressed as Romeo,” she snapped.

“That is what they were saying, ma’am. They found it very funny indeed, as you were dressed as Juliet. German people are known for their sausages, not for their sense of humour, so it must have been very amusing indeed.”

“So it would seem,” muttered Mink, buttering loudly.

The maid put a hand on her hip. “I would say it was even funnier than one of the Maharaja’s comic songs, or that All Fools’ Day when I hid behind the curtain all morning and you were looking for me, getting crosser and crosser. That gave me the worst case of hiccoughs that I have ever had,” she continued.

The Princess put down her knife and looked up. “I’m sure the front steps need whitening.”

“No, ma’am, they do not. I did them while you were recovering from your night of dancing,” the maid said over her shoulder as she headed out. “When Dr. Henderson was not lost, that is.”

MINK WAS JUST FINISHING HER
toast when the front doorbell rang. Shortly afterwards Pooki entered the breakfast room, clutching the sides of her dress, and announced that Mrs. Boots was waiting for her in the drawing room.

“Why are you looking so nervous, Pooki?” the Princess asked. “Anyone would think it was that policeman.”

But the servant didn’t reply.

Mink found the housekeeper frowning back at the portraits of the ancestors. She turned and immediately got to the point. “The charge for the extra supply of water needs paying, Your Highness.”

“It will be paid in due course,” said Mink, raising her chin.

“Forgive my saying, but I’ve heard that one before.”

“I’ve only been here four weeks!” the Princess protested.

The housekeeper crossed her arms underneath her enormous bosom, causing it to surge. “I like to have it upfront. Some grace-and-favour ladies disappear for months at a time, and I never see it until they’re back.”

“I’m sure they’re not avoiding you, Mrs. Boots. They’ve probably gone to visit a relation.”

Mrs. Boots raised an eyebrow. “They don’t want to spend their money heating the place, that’s their problem.”

Suddenly she approached the Princess, lowered her voice, and asked out of the corner of her mouth whether she had ever seen a monkey sitting on top of the chimneypots.

The Princess blinked. “No, Mrs. Boots, I haven’t.”

“Do you drink much tea?” asked the housekeeper, taking a step closer.

The Princess looked at her, wondering whether the woman had been drinking something stronger. “We all drink a lot of tea. It’s how the upper classes cope with the world, along with feeling superior to servants.”

The housekeeper continued to press her. “Have you ever seen anything you shouldn’t have?”

“I’m sure I’ve seen lots of things I shouldn’t have.”

Mrs. Boots smiled. “That does reassure me, ma’am. Pay me in a couple of weeks.”

SHORTLY AFTER THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD
been shown out, Mink heard the drawing room door open and hoped it was Cornelius B. Pilgrim. After thanking him for coming at such short notice, she spotted Pooki’s look of confusion as she closed the door. The Princess immediately saw the reason. He had failed to bring in with him his hat and cane as English etiquette dictated on a brief visit to a mere acquaintance, having left them in the hall as if he were a friend about to stay for luncheon.

“Did you enjoy yourself last night, Mr. Pilgrim?” Mink enquired, offering him a seat. “I must say, I very much admired your Robinson Crusoe costume. You looked suitably deserted before asking Lady Bessington to dance.”

The American smiled. “Oh, I had a wonderful time!” he enthused. “My only regret is that I sat out the Lancers. It looked so much more fun than the American version. That doctor sure can move. If you didn’t know any better you’d think it ended in a bun fight. What a pity the band couldn’t keep up.”

Mink swiftly changed the subject. “I was wondering whether you’d made any progress in your investigation into the new ghost sightings, Mr. Pilgrim. In the event that I have to get a new maid, I may very well struggle to find one if they’re still at large.”

“I’ve been out every night since I arrived,” he replied. “But it hasn’t been easy having to keep it all secret. You wouldn’t believe the number of people walking around the palace after dark. Some of them have spotted me with my equipment, and I’ve had to invent reasons why I was carrying it all.”

“What sort of equipment does one use to catch ghosts?” Mink asked.

Cornelius B. Pilgrim sat back. He had several large nets in which to capture them, a ball of string to keep them in position, should he not be able to get close enough to cast them, and a pistol in the event that things got tricky. “And then there’s the cheese.”

The Princess raised her eyebrows. “The cheese, Mr. Pilgrim?”

“An eight-pound Cheddar. No one can resist a bit of Cheddar cheese, ma’am. Not even the dead.”

“And have you made any progress with your cheese, Mr. Pilgrim?”

The American glanced at the floor. “So far I’ve only attracted Lady Bessington, and then there were the two footmen I caught in my net,” he admitted. “But I haven’t given up. I’ve just managed to get my hands on a phonograph, and hope to make my first recording tonight.”

Pooki came in with some tea and the Princess walked to the window and looked at the view. Once the door was shut again, she asked how Mrs. Bagshot was.

“I sometimes hear her weeping in her bedroom at night,” he said flatly. “She’s finally started redecorating, which seems to be helping to take her mind off things a little. People react to grief in such different ways. Some cling onto every reminder, and others just want to clear everything out.”

Slowly Mink turned round. “You do have my sympathies, Mr. Pilgrim. First you get caught up in the murder of a friend, and then you have to remain a houseguest of his widow. But now that I remember, you made Mrs. Bagshot’s acquaintance first. She must have been a very fine-looking woman when she was younger.”

“Oh, she was,” came the immediate reply, followed by nervous laughter.

The Princess returned to her seat. “Was it love at first sight?” she asked.

Cornelius B. Pilgrim froze.

“I’ve been thinking about your kerasaurus, Mr. Pilgrim,” she continued. “I couldn’t understand why you donated it to a museum in England. The only reason I could come up with was that you wanted someone to see it. That person had to be someone you wanted to impress more than your rival palaeontologists in America. The answer could only be a woman.”

There was no reply.

“And being as though this is your first trip to England, I presumed you must have made her acquaintance abroad, which brought Mrs. Bagshot to mind.”

Still there was silence.

“Mr. Pilgrim, I fear for your trousers.”

The American looked down, and, seeing the precarious angle of his cup and saucer, placed them on the table next to him. He took a moment, then hesitantly told his tale. He had met Mrs. Bagshot seventeen years ago, when he had just turned twenty-two and she was eighteen. She had accompanied her father on a business trip to America, and they were staying for a couple of nights as houseguests. At the time, her father was a senior figure in the company that made Patum Peperium, the English gentleman’s relish, which had been exhibited at the Paris Food Shows in 1849 and 1855, and lauded with a
Citation Favorable
. Pilgrim Senior was the sole American importer, having seen a business opportunity in the spread that was the colour of a mudlark’s legs. With boomtown Chicago trying to rival New York for European sophistication, there was no matching the man’s ability to sell the virtues of the blended remains of a tiny fish with a blunt snout and sharp teeth. Such was his salesmanship, he was credited with starting the 1867 Great Chicago Anchovy Toast Craze, an achievement noted in his obituaries many years later.

At first Cornelius B. Pilgrim took no interest in the young Englishwoman, who barely spoke as they sat in the drawing room
before dinner. What he didn’t know was that her reticence was due to her dread of having to consume six courses laced with the ingredient that whiffed of a Swansea cockle-picker’s socks, and which she couldn’t abide. His eyes kept returning to the clock on the mantelpiece in the hope that the evening would soon be over. Much to his relief, once they had sat down to eat he was unable to see her due to the fashion for tall table decorations. It was only after the entrées were served that she finally spoke, such was her relief that her pheasant was untainted. There was no stopping her, and soon she had turned the conversation round to the world’s first full-scale dinosaur models, displayed at the Crystal Palace in England, which she had recently visited. The sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins had hosted a famous dinner inside the boat-like mould of his thirty-foot-long Iguanodon for more than twenty learned gentlemen, she added, with a peal of laughter. Captivated by her accent, Cornelius B. Pilgrim looked up and tried to see her through the foliage, but he caught only the glimmer of her diamonds. At the end of the meal, when she stood up and asked him whether he intended to spend his life in business with his father, he felt the full impact of her allure. Before he knew what he was saying, he announced that he was going to become a palaeontologist.