Murder Makes an Entree (28 page)

‘No!’ Alfred yelled.

‘You swam out after James Pegg,’ said Rose inexorably, ‘and held his head down knowing he wouldn’t struggle because you’d
put laudanum in his coffee.’

Alfred looked wildly round for James Pegg to come to his aid in his hour of need, but he wasn’t there. He looked desperately
to his other protector. She did not fail him.

‘I think it is me you want, Inspector, do you not?’ Alice Fenwick, her face as composed as ever, stood up and walked to where
Sergeant Stitch awaited her. As she reached the doorway, she turned.

‘I would have made you a wonderful wife,’ she said anxiously to Alfred. ‘I really would.’

Everyone seemed to be gathered at the Albion Hotel that Monday evening, though Gwendolen Figgis-Hewett kept well away from
the ladies’ retiring room, in case Mr Dickens, too, was interested to hear about how the murders were solved. Mr Multhrop,
who when news of the arrest reached him realised that his ordeal was all but over, was somewhat concerned that this evening
cooks were to mingle with Lionisers, but was relieved to discover that in their evening clothes cooks looked not much different
from real human beings. Araminta was sitting demurely by his side, a vision in rose pink chiffon and about as practical.

Algernon Peckham wore a haunted look, as if now that
the murders had been solved, Scotland Yard’s attention might well be turned to a small matter of a necklace. Heinrich Freimüller
sat dazed next to Emily who still sniffled a little through shock. Auguste had apologised very nicely and said it had been
necessary in order to free Heinrich, but she did so hate Grandmama’s little secret being general knowledge. She didn’t want
the story to follow her wherever she went in her new career. Career? Suddenly that seemed rather a dismal word. Alfred, looking
even more dazed, sat next to Sid whom he seemed to have appointed as his temporary keeper.

Gwendolen sat next to Lord Beddington, her arm firmly through his, Angelina with Oliver and Samuel Pipkin next to Edith Rose.
They seemed to have struck up an animated conversation about
The Pickwick Papers
.

The landlord eyed the bottle of hollands wistfully, but was mindful of the fact that Scotland Yard had forbidden it to be
served at least until after dinner.

‘Alice Fenwick,’ began Rose, ‘though I doubt if that will turn out to be her real name, was a housemaid in Sir Thomas’s establishment
ten years ago. She was, and has remained, ambitious and determined. She furthered these ambitions by whatever means she could;
she found out about the bonds, stole them, and persuaded the groom, who was in love with her, to take them to France. Any
suspicions Sir Thomas might have had were countered by the fact that she was – um – having an intimate relationship with him.
She blackmailed him by threatening to tell his sick wife of their relationship, and he consequently did not report her in
connection with the theft. She duly left his employ some months later, travelled to France and once there married the groom.
They changed their names and disappeared. Unfortunately, the money being in his name, he had spent a large part of it, and
she decided at last she would gain her freedom and preserve what money was left. She poisoned
him and removed herself to England as an independent, young, unmarried woman, ready to – urn – move up classes, so to speak.’

‘You mean she was Throgmorton’s
mistress
?’ asked Alfred, stunned. A murder he could understand, but this was a new, and terrible, concept. ‘But, dash it, she was
an officer’s daughter.’

‘No, a sergeant’s daughter. He was a sergeant in the Indian frontier wars, killed in eighty-seven. She was born out there,
came to England after his death and went into service. But it was in India she learned of the powers of their datura plant,
which is as common to them as deadly nightshade is to us,’ Emily gripped Heinrich’s hand, ‘and the ease and frequency with
which it was there employed. In France she discovered it was the same poison as used by grooms to treat horses – if not in
the same form.’

‘Why did she do it?’ asked Alfred plaintively.

‘Quite simple, Lord Wittisham. She was determined to marry you, and if Sir Thomas saw her before the event, there could be
no chance of that. But once married to you, it would never occur to him, even if they met, that it could be the same woman.
The nobility never marry housemaids, or so would be his reasoning.’

‘But couldn’t she just have avoided him?’

‘No doubt she hoped to do so, but she could not be sure. And in the end of course he did recognise her and sealed his fate.
Mr Didier put me on to that. He saw you in the donkey cart, Lord Wittisham. He also saw
her
. You thought, and Auguste thought, that he was speaking to you, for
you
answered. It was natural enough. But he wasn’t. He was speaking to Alice Fenwick – not that he knew her by that name.’ Rose
looked at his rapt audience. ‘I should have realised because when he next saw Lord Wittisham late that afternoon he asked
him what he was doing down here – his attention had been elsewhere when Lord Wittisham
answered that same question from the donkey cart. Once he’d seen her, he was determined to see justice done, his wife being
dead, and accused her when he saw her in the hotel before dinner.

‘Unfortunately for her, James Pegg overheard at least part of the conversation. He probably did not realise the significance
of what he’d heard, but it was enough to perplex him. Then you, Lord Wittisham, announced you were going to marry Beatrice
Throgmorton. Alice was horrified but Pegg, of course, was delighted. You were safe. He only wanted to protect you, Lord Wittisham.
When Miss Throgmorton decided not to marry you, you turned back to Miss Fenwick, and Pegg was put in a dilemma. He decided
to tell us all about it, and foolishly told her so on the Wednesday evening. He was drowned before he could do so.’

‘I was not alone in the morning and so he was going to tell me,’ said Auguste bitterly, ‘after we had bathed.’ He glanced
at his demure-looking Delilah in pink chiffon. ‘Alice drugged and drowned him,’ he went on. ‘When Mrs Figgis-Hewett was screaming
for help in the water, Alice bobbed up
behind
her, which showed she had no fear of water, could swim, and indeed was probably on her way back from drowning James Pegg.’

‘But how did she poison Sir Thomas?’ asked Algernon, partly out of genuine interest and partly to keep the Yard’s attention
firmly on murder.

Auguste looked modest as he produced his
coup de théâtre
.

‘Alice was a very determined young woman, but not one of many original ideas. This poisoning required great planning ability.
I recalled how much store she set on Mr Harmsworth’s excellent magazine for information. She had a great interest in murder,
and in the graphic stories and pictures that adorn the magazine’s pages. It had already occurred to me that the poison might
be safer employed if
it were on the china plate, and not in the food itself. And how better, as Alice herself had laid out the dishes, as she confidently
informed us. Yet I could not see how the poison would remain undetected.

‘So I paid a visit to the library and looked through the past issues of the
Harmsworth Magazine
. There I found a most interesting article on poison devices; it told me of poisoned gloves, of poisoned boots, of poisoned
shirts, even of a poisoned hockey stick. But what interested me most was a Chinese device. The Chinese had a most interesting
way of disposing of their victims to avoid the problem of food tasters. The poison was put not in the food itself, but in
the cup or bowl. The bowl was heavily coated with a colourless soluble poison which dissolved when hot tea was poured in.
Alice did not wish to use a poison that would be certain to act immediately and draw attention to the dish straightaway, before
the dirty dishes could be washed, and gambled that atropine usually takes a little time to work. She was used to the poison,
having poisoned her husband. It was colourless and soluble. She coated the bowl with atropine, dissolved in alcohol and set
into a colourless jelly which adhered to the sides and bottom of the bowl and would not be noticed because it was both firm
and thin. She then poisoned the left-over kidneys to divert attention
not
to the later courses, but away from any suspicion that it was the bowl that had been poisoned.

‘Did I not say,’ Auguste concluded rather complacently, ‘that no pupil of mine could poison food of our creation? Particularly
a dish of mine,’ he added.

‘That reminds me, Auguste,’ said Rose offhandedly. ‘Miss Fenwick has a message for you. She said to tell Mr Didier I’m sorry
I used commercial jelly.’

‘But why did you do it, Heinrich?’ asked Emily, walking in the conservatory shortly afterwards amid the potted
palms, in a state of mingled relief and romantic joy. ‘You didn’t really think I’d done a murder, did you?’

‘I did not know. I was afraid,’ said Heinrich simply. ‘You knew much about poisons. You did not like Sir Thomas, and you let
it slip that you knew him before we came here. You said he had a weak stomach, but no one had told us that.’

‘But murder!’ said Emily, still rather shocked. Then she reflected. ‘You did this for
me
, Heinrich?’

‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘I lost my Greta to Sir Thomas. I let her go, and she killed herself. I would not allow another woman
to be lost to Sir Thomas also. And certainly not a woman that I—’ He hesitated.

‘Yes, Heinrich?’ Her grip tightened.

‘That I lof,’ he finished. ‘But I am so much older—’

‘Oh Heinrich.’ She hardly dared breathe.

‘But if you would become Frau Freimüller, we will cook great banquets together. You with your patisserie and me with my meat
pies. You like?’

‘Oh yes, I like
very
much.’

‘What should I do, Sid?’ asked Alfred Wittisham plaintively, over a third glass of hollands.

Sid considered. ‘I reckon there’s a fortune to be made down at the docks for someone who can cook decent grub.’

Alfred brightened. ‘Do you think I could do it?’

‘They’ll think you’re the cat’s whiskers down there, mate,’ Sid assured him, correctly.

Alfred beamed. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked confidently.

‘Well, my dear,’ said Gwendolen Figgis-Hewett, unable to take offence at anything today, ‘I brought the wedding dress just
in case, you know. You see,’ she hesitated, with a sidelong look, ‘dear to me though Thomas was, it is true he had rather
a sharp tongue. I was just a little upset that
he asked me to portray Mrs Leo Hunter from
The Pickwick Papers
reading the Ode to an Expiring Frog. Can you imagine anything more unsuitable?’

Angelina, who had escorted her to the ladies’ retiring room, just in case Mr Dickens should be lurking, gravely assured her
she could not.

‘And I was so cross I thought it would serve him right,’ Gwendolen went on vehemently. ‘Then I thought, well, Agnes was much
more suitable for someone my age, but in the event, he was so
unpleasant
– you do understand, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ said Angelina gravely, and kissed her.

‘Oh, my dear,’ said Gwendolen, pleased. ‘I wonder if – perhaps you might – just a quiet ceremony. But if you would be my bridesmaid
. . .’

‘A word with you, Mr Peckham,’ said Rose, tapping him on the shoulder. ‘About that necklace.’

Algernon started like a rabbit faced with a piecrust.

‘Mr Didier tells me you’ve the making of a brilliant cook,’ Rose continued unexpectedly.

Algernon nodded helplessly.

‘I dare say you had it in mind to tour the great kitchens of Europe in order to nip up a few drainpipes. That right?’

A nod of the head, swiftly followed by several shakes.

‘I’ve persuaded Higgins to part with the necklace, Peckham. My advice is stick to the cooking. Or we’ll be waiting right at
the end of that drainpipe, with the Comtesse de la Ferté’s necklace to drop over your head. Understand?’

Algernon Peckham did. A vision of a small restaurant in Wiltshire with brilliant dishes with a touch of France about them
floated before his mind. Even meat dishes . . .

‘This Alice doesn’t sound a very nice person, Egbert,’ Edith pronounced her severest sentence.

‘She had a lovely face, Edith,’ Auguste said wistfully.

‘Now that isn’t everything, Auguste,’ said Edith gently. ‘As you well know. So had Lucrezia Borgia, no doubt. And Adelaide
Bartlett. And Florence Maybrick. Even Maria Manning—’

‘You seem to know a lot about husband-murderers, my dear,’ observed her husband drily.

‘Oh, Egbert.’

‘Would she have murdered Wittisham had they married, do you suppose?’ said Rose.

Auguste considered. ‘I doubt it. She might well, as she claims, have made a wonderful wife. And to think I nearly—’ He bit
back his words, remembering Edith’s presence. But memory of the night that he had nearly held a murderess in his arms was
vivid. And he too had considered her as a wife.

‘What will you do now, Auguste? Continue with the school?’ asked Rose.

‘I shall return. My pupils wish to finish the course. We shall not give up. And when it is over I shall take a holiday.
Not
at the seaside,’ Auguste added, almost able to smile at himself. ‘There are too many lovely temptations. The sun distorts
one’s usual judgement.’ It might have been an excuse.

‘Why did you first suspect Alice Fenwick, Auguste?’ asked Edith.

‘It was something your Mr Dickens said. “Always suspect everybody.” But I realised there were two people I had never suspected.
Perhaps it was Emily? Perhaps we should suspect the least likely person to have committed murder. And so she was, so timid,
so shy. But then suddenly I thought, no, not her, but
Alice
. Alice, so calm and comforting, so reliable. She was so reliable, she was always
there
, and somehow above suspicion, for we thought of her as ill-treated by Lord Wittisham, not as a murderess of Sir Thomas. And
so . . .’ He could not finish.