Murder in Pug's Parlour (7 page)

He had been invited because Her Grace considered it useful to have a political face present, to counter rumours that she had purely frivolous house parties. She had made private enquiries as to his family and, upon discovering his
school had been Shrewsbury and his family insignificant – his grandfather had been a mere baronet – had dismissed him as a contender for Jane’s hand. He was unassuming, a good conversationalist and since he was not on her list it had never occurred to Her Grace, until this evening, that he presented any threat at all.

Nor had it occurred to Lady Jane.

‘Well, Mr Marshall, after your previous enthusiasm, you appear, if I may say so, a little lackadaisical in your attentions. I believe it time for our dance,’ she remarked righteously now, appearing by his side.

He rose to his feet with a start, bowed and led her on to the floor.

‘My apologies, Lady Jane. You are very good to seek me out.’

‘Yes,’ said Jane offhandedly, ‘I thought that too.’

‘I’m very honoured. Particularly when you are so much in demand.’

Jane looked at him suspiciously, but he seemed to have nothing more on his mind than the negotiation of the corner of the dance floor.

‘Did you really forget?’ she asked ingenuously. ‘Or were you sulking?’

He laughed, not apparently annoyed, which disappointed Jane. ‘No, I genuinely forgot.’

‘That’s not very flattering!’

‘The truth is always flattering to an intelligent person.’

She thought about this, but he apparently didn’t need a reply for he continued: ‘I’d been thinking about your murder.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Jane.

He smiled at her. ‘That was badly put. I mean, your steward Greeves’ murder.’

‘That’s all a lot of fuss about nothing. He was much
too nasty a man to murder. They’ll find it was an accident.’

‘I wonder . . .’

In the servants’ wing, all but those unfortunates detailed to wait until the last of the guests had disappeared, at least temporarily, into their bedrooms, the servants were preparing for their briefer hours of rest.

In his room on the second floor, Auguste pulled his nightshirt over his head, welcoming the cool feel of the calico after the hot clamminess of his dress suit donned for servants’ supper and redolent of kitchen smells. He was more physically tired than he could ever remember, yet his brain was still whirling, a mass of conflicting thoughts.

‘
Les ortolans
– too brown. Four minutes only. Five at the most, and tonight they had
six.
Inattention to detail, so essential to a cook – and so essential in a murderer. How carefully Greeves’ murderer must have planned . . . The larks were too skinny. Thirteen ounces I said, not twelve.
Les flancs. Diable
!’ Had they been edible even? Had Gladys burnt the
crème de cacao
just a little? No, there would have been complaints, and he had heard nothing. The familiar murmur of contented voices had met his ears as he opened the door to the garden for a breath of the sharp night air. The sound of those that had dined well. Where else could people relax, be happy, be sensuous – and it was his food that made them so. They did not know how to enjoy food properly, these English; they thought it wrong. Yet they had the best food in the world if only they would appreciate it. And with the touch of a maître upon it, it was transformed into the ambrosia of the gods. It was his mission to save English cooking from itself. And now Monsieur Escoffier had come to the Savoy Hotel, between the two of them what triumphs they would achieve! Escoffier in London, himself in Kent – at first, but soon he would
travel . . . Noble houses the length and breadth of England. This glowing thought died away and grimmer thoughts took its place, a kaleidoscope of
ortolans
, of death, of glasses of brandy, of Greeves and of blackmail, and those policemen rushing around like one of the choruses from those ridiculous Gilbert and Sullivan operas, looking so imposing in their helmets, but with little proceeding underneath them. He thought again of the evening’s chaos, policemen mixing with kitchen-maids and footmen as they examined the housekeeper’s stores, and sealed off Pug’s Parlour while his staff was trying to serve a banquet for over forty people, and make preparations for tomorrow’s grand buffet. It had not been easy. And he was tired – oh, so tired. He climbed thankfully into the small iron bed and extinguished the lamp.

There was a quiet knock at the door. Before he could even think who could be knocking at this time of night, the door opened and a dark-clad slim girlish figure slipped in, two long plaits falling behind her pretty head, and with candle in hand.

‘Ethel!’ Auguste was horrified.

‘Oh don’t scold me, Mr Didier – Auguste. I had to come.’

‘But if you’d been seen!’ He was shocked – amongst other emotions. It would be instant dismissal for her, and probably for him too. These things had to be arranged with discretion . . . even by a maître chef.

‘I was ever so careful – I didn’t come up the men’s staircase.’ The male servants’ quarters on the second floor were reached by a staircase inaccessible to the women on the first floor, who were provided with their own staircase which, needless to say, did not connect with the second floor. ‘I came through the main house.’

‘You did what?’ said Auguste faintly. Was this his little
Ethel, his English dove? He was obliged to regard her with a new admiration.

‘That way I could pretend I’d brought something to one of the rooms.’

‘But what if Mr Hobbs or Mr Chambers—’

‘Well, they didn’t,’ said Ethel shortly, dismissing the subject. ‘And when I go back, I’ll be just as careful.’

‘But perhaps you had better wait some time,
hein
?’ murmured Auguste, his arm reaching out automatically. But Ethel was intent on other matters than love.

‘The policeman said it’s now certain it was murder, Mr Didier. Who do you think did it?’ She turned large hopeful eyes on him.

Auguste was torn between natural pride that he should be regarded as the fount of knowledge, and pique that she had not come to his room through an irresistible desire to be with him.

‘No, Estelle’ – this was his compromise to the ugly sound of Ethel. ‘My star, my little star’, he had called her on the first evening they had walked out. Ethel had liked that. No one had called her a little star in the Maidstone house where she’d been brought up. ‘But why do you have to come to ask me this now?’ he murmured. Naturally it was an excuse. She desired to be with him.

‘Oh, Mr Didier.’ Her large grey eyes brimmed over with tears, so that it seemed quite natural for Auguste to draw her closer and put his arm round her. ‘I’m afraid they’ll think I did it.’

‘You?’ He laughed aloud at the thought, then quickly stifled it, remembering Chambers in the next room. ‘Now why,
chérie
, should they think a little English maid like you should be capable of murder?’

‘Because I – there was a reason,’ she said in a whisper.

‘What?’ said Auguste, agog with curiosity. Ethel of all people.

‘He tried to – I don’t like to say . . .’

‘What?’ said Auguste, grimly.

‘He tried to – well – you know, in the parlour on Wednesday. And then when I wouldn’t, he said he’d get me dismissed . . . And oh, Mr Didier, what would I have done? What with no reference, I’d get no other job. And me mum needs the money. So you see, Mr Didier, you must find out who done it. They’ll think it’s me.’

‘But no one will know.’

‘Yes, he told me he’d spoken to Mrs Hankey. Lied about me . . . And she’ll tell the policemen. You won’t let them take me away, will you?’

Auguste looked at the weeping girl, felt her shoulders heaving beneath his arm. He watched her breasts rising and falling under the plain black dress. He could stem those tears in the best of all possible ways. But he was French and caution came before passion – and there was the memory of Tatiana’s lovely figure . . .

He withdrew his arm and patted her briskly in the best approved English fashion.

‘No, my star,’ he murmured. ‘They will not harm you. I will discover this murderer for you.’

‘Edith,’ he had whispered, only last Sunday. ‘Just you and me, and a little cottage of our own. Think of that, eh?’

‘I’d like that, Archibald, yes. I want to be your wife. Look after you.’

‘You shall, Edith. Very soon.’

Edith Hankey tossed and turned in her bed in her bedroom on the ground floor, as she had done all that week, remembering how Archibald had held her hand in that very room where he . . . Now she stared into a bleak future, an
endless procession of years, holding office until she couldn’t run the Towers any more and was pensioned off – if she were lucky – to find a little room somewhere, alone. Then she thought of May Fawcett and her torment began again. She was glad he was dead now. Glad. How could he have deceived her so? That hussy. All those afternoons off when he said he was visiting his sick brother. And he’d been with her. Her. No, she was glad he was dead. He’d made a fool of her.

Directly above, her rival tossed and turned in her smaller bed on the first floor. She had tried counting pins, tried counting Her Grace’s hats, but sleep would not come. She kept seeing the dead face of Archibald Greeves staring up at her.

‘What would the old Hankey say if she could see us?’ she’d giggled in Archibald’s arms only a week ago.

‘Don’t you worry about that old Kentish pudding. She thinks I’ve got my eye on her, just because I’m a bit sorry for her. But we know what’s what, don’t we?’ And the deceitful old goat had taken her in the parlour then and there, just where . . . And only a day later she caught him fondling the scullery maid! He was no good. It must have been him seduced Hobbs’ daughter after all. Well, she was glad he was dead!

‘You thinking of telling His Grace that then, Hobbs? Telling him I make your life a misery, eh? Telling him you can’t remember how many bottles of Chateau Margaux you laid down? Telling him how your Rosie ran after me, deliberately got herself in the family way . . .?’

Yes, Ernest Hobbs was a happy man. Greeves was dead. He could sleep easy for the first time in five years knowing
he didn’t have to stand those sneers and insults, the sudden shout as he was handling the Staffordshire, the jerk of the arm as he was decanting the port. Now he was acting steward and soon he’d be steward. His Grace was a notoriously lazy man, and would not be bothered to train someone new in the ways of the estate. Hobbs can manage, he’d say.

‘Well, Mr Chambers, so you had your eye on Miss Fawcett, eh? Think she’d look at you, did you? Know what she told me about you? About what it was like when you kissed her . . .’ And Greeves hadn’t even stopped there. ‘Still, you didn’t let it bother you, did you? One woman found you repulsive, so you try the next. Bill Sidder’s widow was an easy target, weren’t she? Don’t think His Grace would like it though. Molesting the maids, then the estate workers. Do you think he’d like it, Chambers?’

Frederick Chambers was asleep, a smile of satisfaction on his lips. May Fawcett might not want him, but at least Greeves wouldn’t have her . . .

‘Oh, that’s unfortunate, John. Very unfortunate, Mr Cricket. I quite thought you’d be able to get me what I wanted. What a pity. I don’t think His Grace likes failures around him, do you, Cricket . . .?’

John Cricket lay awake. He was even more twitchy than usual. Greeves was dead. The police were investigating. Suppose they found out about Greeves’ extra source of income and wondered where he got his information from? Wondered if he had an informant the other side of the baize door? How could he explain that Greeves had made him do it, that he had held the threat of dismissal over him? He had his invalid mother to think of. She depended on him. He couldn’t have risked it. And it wasn’t very serious after all,
what he did – only gossip, they could never trace it back to him. Or could they?

Thirty yards from the servants’ quarters the house party was settling down for the night. Perhaps settling down was not the right phrase. A stone’s throw from the enforced virtuous beds of the servants, their betters set a different example, complimenting themselves on bestowing light and happiness upon this dull world. Prearranged signals were given and accepted, silken dresses rustled up the wide staircases, swished through chamber doors and, in due and rapid course, fell to the ground with the expert help of ladies’-maids, followed by the subsidence of billowing petticoats, corset covers, corsets, chemises, stockings and drawers to be replaced by the flattering softness of lace-trimmed silk night attire. Her Grace had informed the company that early morning tea was at seven, and that she hoped no one would be disturbed by the longcase moon clock, the mechanisms of which were arranged to chime at six o’clock only, thus providing an hour during which even the most somnolent or assiduous lover could return safely to his own room. In due course a number of doors tentatively opened and the long chain of love unwound down the corridors of Stockbery Towers, dispersing into their several rooms.

Only the Marquise, unworried by the chancy arrangements of others, already rested peacefully in the arms of her lover, having requested his room adjoin hers. There were some compensations in being deemed past the age for love.

Sergeant Bladon arrived at nine on the Saturday morning, once more correctly interpreting his proper place to be the tradesmen’s entrance in the kitchen courtyard, and propped up his bicycle against the wall of Mrs Hankey’s room. Heavy rain the night before had conspired to bespatter his sturdy uniformed legs with mud from the narrow lane that led to Stockbery Towers and that, combined with a consciousness that his method of arrival did not befit a sergeant of the detective force of Kent County Police, did not put him in the best of humours.

His request for use of the force’s equipage had been met by a curt refusal from Naseby. On a good day Bladon would have conceded that the short distance from his Hollingham home to the Towers was easily bridgeable by bicycle or even by foot, but this was not a good day. It was a day clouded by Inspector Naseby. A weaselly-featured man of fifty who had come to the top of the detective branch by his fortunate fluke in trapping the infamous Rum Bubber Bill of the Ramsgate smuggling trade, Naseby would play his cards carefully. He’d be out for the glory of solving the Stockbery case, as it was already known, but it boded fair to be a difficult one and it would be on Bladon’s shoulders that the blame would be laid if the ducal temper were to be lost.