Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (24 page)

He flushed with pleasure. ‘All in a day’s work,’ he
announced fatuously, patting the relevant limb.

‘I want you to tell me about Africa again. Everything. And those Ashantis that your brother fought.’

Dalmaine turned bright red. ‘How the deuce did you know about that?’

Rosanna looked nonplussed. Had it perhaps been Danny who had mentioned George Dalmaine? No matter. She had intended to please Frederick and please him she would. ‘It must have been the Inspector or Mr Didier mentioned it,’ she told him brightly, and proceeded to chatter on the delights of the social season. She was used to rapt attention but on this occasion failed to discover the difference between rapt and simulated.

Auguste was having a barren afternoon, and it was not made the more fruitful by his coming across Carruthers.

‘No good under fire. Look at Quatre Bras.’

Auguste was at a loss, and seeing this, the Colonel said impatiently: ‘The Dutch, man. Damned room’s full of Dutch paintings.’

‘But we are not at war—’

‘
Not at war
? It was damned Frenchies like you Wellington went over to thrash. Waterloo, man. The Dutch-Belgian brigade. Supposed to be our allies. Might as well have been on your side, scared of a few Frenchies on horses.’ He snorted, looking Auguste up and down. ‘Surprised they let you into the country,’ he informed his host, and marched stiffly away to inspect an ‘Alpine Scene with Waterfall’.

After the exigencies of the afternoon, a nearby hostelry provided a refuge from the Cranton’s party. It also, Rose thought cunningly, distanced Auguste from the preoccupation of worrying about how John might be
faring with the provision of dinner. Looking rather wistfully at the fire, they retired to a more private corner, though there were few enough patrons on an early January night.

Rose watched Auguste drink a brandy and soda without enthusiasm, as he drank his own ale. No finesse, no subtlety in their drinks, the English. Their food, yes, it spelled infinite potential, but the drinks?
Non
. True, in the country he had tasted excellent fruit wines but how in London could one drink parsnip wine with coq au vin?

‘You have to face it, Auguste,’ Rose said at last. ‘It’s either Bowman or the Baroness we’re after.’

‘Bowman is the obvious choice,’ said Auguste desperately. He pushed away the thought of a fellow chef (in which category he had not included Fancelli) being a murderer.

‘Motive?’

‘I have an idea about this,’ said Auguste eagerly. ‘Bowman is a dealer in iron, he travels to the Low Countries frequently. Too often for someone who merely deals in iron gates, for instance. Maisie observed at the Tower of London, as I did at the Wallace Collection, that he spends much time studying the collections of firearms. Suppose he is a dealer in guns, providing the Boers with their modern weapons, an intermediary between Krupp and the Boer government? At the moment they could not afford still to be seen supplying armaments to the Transvaal. Would Mr Bowman not have a motive for wishing the war to continue? Would he not wish to encourage guerrilla warfare among the Boer farmers resisting British rule? And what better way than assassinating the Prince of Wales so that it is assumed to be a plot by Kruger?’

‘It’s possible, Auguste.’ High praise indeed from
Rose, whose face fell into its thinking lines. Then: ‘Evidence?’

Auguste searched rapidly for ingredients, and laid them metaphorically on the table before Rose as they emerged from the storeroom of his mind.

‘
Un
: the probability is that, as you say, the murder was committed by one of those on the second floor, of which only the Baroness and Bowman had tea.
Deux
: the murder was possibly done by a woman, but more probably by a man.
Trois
: the body was most certainly lifted by a man, for it would be too heavy for a woman once the girl was dead. It might have been Fancelli, but more likely, because of the fear of detection, it was a guest.
Quatre
: as the girl must have been killed in a guest’s room, and Fancelli could not have come to assist until night-time, only Bowman, as a man, could have had the strength to lift the body to hide it until the hotel was quiet for the night.
Cinq
. . .’ Auguste paused.

‘
Cinq
, you don’t like him and you do like the Baroness. You’ll never make the CID, Auguste,’ Rose informed him kindly. ‘We have to suspect everyone, from the chimney sweep and chefs to our own mothers.
I’ll
do the Baroness, then.
Motive
: her husband is German, at the Kaiser’s court. Could be young Willie Kaiser having a go at underground politics, but unlikely. Royals don’t go encouraging assassination. It could be a private argument between Kruger’s supporters and the Baron. He goes off to Hungary to avoid suspicion, she comes here to arrange the dirty work.’

‘Evidence?’ asked Auguste mutinously.

‘
One
: her room is conveniently placed, as you say.
Two
: she is strong for a woman.
Three
: she is an organiser.
Four
: no specific reason for her as a Frenchwoman to choose to spend Christmas here. What’s the
matter?’ he asked sharply at a slight exclamation from Auguste.

‘
Mon ami
, I should confess I have reason to doubt . . .’ Auguste looked unhappy.

‘What?’ Rose asked inexorably.

‘That the Baroness
is
French, as she claims. I believe,’ he continued unhappily, ‘that she is Belgian.’

‘Reasons?’ Rose asked sharply.

‘She uses the word
nonante
not
quatre-vingt-dix
for your ninety. This is the Belgian form. Either she
is
Belgian or has spent much time there. I believe, having observed her method of cooking, that it is the former.
Chicon gratiné
is much beloved in Belgium. And furthermore,’ he added reluctantly, ‘Maisie informs me that she referred to the “enemy’s” view on Blenheim as though she herself were not French. But why,’ he rushed on, ‘if she knows Belgium well, did she come
here
to meet Fancelli? Why not come over with him just before the third of January?’

‘We don’t know what arrangements they have to make here,’ said Rose deflatingly.

‘And why bring a companion?’ Auguste pressed on belligerently. ‘Is Marie-Paul also in the plot? Perhaps she is the murderess? Perhaps she lied about ordering no tea?
Mon ami, that
is the answer.’ He sat back, beaming happily.

‘No tea tray,’ Rose said dismissively.

‘Why did she need one? She could have attacked Nancy after she left the Baroness’s room, and she has strong hands,’ Auguste pointed out eagerly.

Rose considered, then shook his head. ‘Don’t see our Miss Gonnet being strong enough to carry this out on her own, and if she were in league with Fancelli, how could she hope to get away with it unless the Baroness were involved too? The Baroness might go to her companion’s adjoining room at any time; she
couldn’t be sure of being alone for the murder, but the companion would not go to her mistress unless summoned. She’s been with the Baroness a fair time too; she didn’t just take this job in order to bump off Bertie.’ He coughed and looked round hastily in case anyone had overheard this lese-majesty from a senior detective of Scotland Yard. ‘It’s either the Baroness, both together,’ he declared, ‘or Bowm—What is it, Twitch?’ he broke off impatiently, letting the nickname slip, which normally only happened under great provocation.

Sergeant Stitch had come through the door, and half the patrons of the pub hurriedly finished their beer and left at this unmistakable sign of the law.

‘Thought you’d like to see this, sir.’ He ignored Auguste. This was Yard business.

‘It’d better be important.’

Rose glanced at the lengthy telegraphed message, whistled, and handed it to Auguste without a word.

The Prince of Wales settled back into his favourite armchair at Marlborough House and picked up the
Sporting Times
. There were, he supposed, compensations for being dragged back from decent shooting at Sandringham. Even if it did mean back to the grind of daily engagements in tight uniforms. He was reminded that one such engagement coming up on Thursday had a distinctly unpleasant variety to the routine planned. Tomorrow Mama would be meeting ‘Bobs’ at Cowes, and the next day it was his turn. He frowned. Not that he believed all this talk of a second Sipido. All the same, he’d make quite sure that Alexandra didn’t come. Nor young George. Just in case. Not that there was a word of truth in the rumour.

It hadn’t been a bad Christmas. Mama had been unusually quiet. For years he used to dread the sight of
the telegraph room at Sandringham which always seemed to be clattering with messages from Osborne. Give him the days even before that when you could at least see the telegraph boy pedalling furiously up the path and have time to make yourself scarce. When they put the telephone instrument in, he’d had more than a few anxious moments, but fortunately Mama was a creature of habit. Dashing off a few furious words came more naturally than shouting through a round piece of metal. Why had she been so quiet? A sudden anxiety. Was there anything to Beattie’s worries? No. The old girl would live for ever. They’d had these scares before and she’d always come through. Nothing would keep her from meeting her beloved Field Marshal tomorrow. Nevertheless he supposed he’d better go down to see her shortly. He viewed the prospect of visiting the Isle of Wight and its shrine to his late father, Osborne, without enthusiasm. It wasn’t even the yachting season. Still, at least it meant that his beloved cousin, Kaiser Willie, wouldn’t be there.

Breakfast at Cranton’s was again unusually well-attended, now that news had got out of the improved menu under John, with the delights of smoked salmon and eggs, herring roes, truffled eggs, and kidneys. The pleasures of coddled eggs taken in solitary rooms paled beside this morning’s menu. Auguste, at his post, flinched as Rose and Twitch entered, with two police constables guarding the door. For once he was entirely with the Colonel.

‘I say,’ shouted Carruthers, ‘can’t a fellow eat his kedgeree in peace?’ Only the presence of ladies made his outburst so mild.

‘My apologies, sir. I’m afraid it’s necessary,’ Twitch told him smugly.

‘If we might have a word, madam.’ Rose stopped at the Baroness’s table.

‘Certainly,’ she told him.

‘In private, madam.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘I am glad I can be of assistance, Inspector,’ she said coolly, rising to follow him. ‘Does Mr Didier require further assistance in the kitchens?’

‘No, madam,’ Rose told her woodenly, once outside. ‘I’m here to arrest you in connection with the murder of Nancy Watkins.’

The Baroness said nothing. Her hands gripped her dorothy bag tightly.

‘And,’ Rose continued, ‘in connection with a plot to murder the Prince of Wales.’

‘
Quoi?
This is quite ridiculous, Inspector. Monsieur Didier, has not some mistake been made?’

Auguste shook his head mutely. In the face of the evidence what could he say?

Marie-Paul, descending the staircase for breakfast, took in the situation at a glance, flying to her mistress’s side.

‘What are you saying to Madame?’ she demanded shrilly. ‘Eh?’

A glance from the Baroness stilled her as Rose said: ‘Do you deny, madam, that you are not the Baroness von Bechlein? There is indeed such a lady, but she is in Hungary at the moment with her husband. That you are in fact Thérèse Lepont, Belgian national, owner of the Hôtel Sud in Brussels?’

‘No,’ Thérèse said abruptly, as Marie-Paul clutched her arm. ‘I do not deny it.’

‘Madame?’ Marie-Paul’s hands gripped the more tightly, though the news was clearly no great shock to her.

Thérèse gently prised her arm away. ‘All will be well, Marie-Paul,’ she said firmly before turning to Rose: ‘I do deny, however, that I have murdered anybody, or
have any intention of doing so. Except perhaps Mr Didier,’ she said lightly. ‘I believed you were my friend,’ reproachfully.

‘Madame, if only it had been possible.’ Now he knew how traitors felt.

‘What about my poor Marie-Paul?’ she asked briskly. ‘Is she to be left here to see to my affairs or to be arrested as my accomplice?’

‘Your accomplice will be caught soon enough, madam.’

‘Caught?’ she asked warily.

‘We know where Fancelli’s been sleeping, madam,’ said Twitch, eager to join the festivities. ‘You managed to warn him last night, because he didn’t turn up, but we’ll get him—’

‘I think we’d better go, madam,’ Rose interrupted quickly. The odds on Twitch’s promotion lengthened.

‘By all means,’ Thérèse agreed cordially. ‘By the way, do you have any evidence to charge me?’

‘Enough to stop you and Fancelli murdering the Prince of Wales tomorrow.’

‘If you can catch him,’ she pointed out, amused.

‘Madame? Ah non,
non
!’ The hitherto subdued Mademoiselle Gonnet was promptly transformed into a fighting, spitting tigress on behalf of her maligned mistress. Having seen Madame escorted away, she had almost to be physically restrained from pursuit, her voice harsh as she imparted her views on the British police force to its members present. ‘Tyrants’, was the only word Rose could understand, which was just as well. Auguste, who understood a lot more, since they were in his native tongue, was shocked, unable to believe that for a few moments the other evening he had contemplated . . . Marie-Paul glanced at him, and subsided into a semblance of her normal self, eyes flashing, controlled fury in her tense figure. ‘Murder
le Prince de Galles
? But how, monsieur?’ She spread her ringless hands expressively. ‘With what? And how could I not know if Madame intended such a thing?’

‘How indeed?’ commented Rose mildly.

She shot him a suspicious glance. ‘Madame could not stab anybody, she has not the strength,’ Marie-Paul declared.

‘Together you might have,’ observed Rose.

‘You do not think that I—’ She half rose from the chair in alarm.

‘We’d like you to remain in the hotel, if you don’t mind, miss. Just till this matter’s settled. Just in case you have plans to meet Fancelli.’

‘Who is this Fancelli?’ she asked sullenly.

‘He was employed here as a cook, until yesterday,’ a graphic look at Auguste. He didn’t see it, for his eyes were on Marie-Paul.

‘I have never heard of this person,’ was her defiant reply.

‘Madame Lepont would hardly tell you. She could meet him without your knowledge.’

‘How?’ Marie-Paul answered. ‘We arrive on Sunday, and she is with me always.’

‘You visited friends some mornings,’ observed Auguste. ‘And there are the nights.’

She hesitated. ‘This is true, but Madame would not descend to the kitchens during the night like a scullerymaid,’ she added scornfully and triumphantly.

‘You knew she was not a baroness, didn’t you, Miss Gonnet?’ Rose cut in.

She relaxed in her chair, and smirked. ‘So if she pretends to be a baroness, is this a crime?’

‘She carries false identity papers,’ Rose pointed out.

‘And so? For her it is real. To herself, she has been a baroness for many years.’

‘And has she been French for many years too, to herself, and not Belgian?’ Rose asked. ‘Suppose you tell us a little more about your life with her?’

‘Madame is Madame,’ replied Marie-Paul indifferently. ‘If Madame wishes you to know, she will tell you.’

‘Madame is being held on a charge of two murders, and a suspected plotted assassination,’ Rose pointed out.

The knuckles of the hands gripping the large black companion bag whitened, but it was Marie-Paul’s only sign of concern. She merely remarked: ‘
C’est ridicule ça
’.

‘You told us you’d worked for Madame Lepont for five years. Do you want to change that statement?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t know she was Belgian?’

‘What does it matter, Belgian or French?’

Rose sighed. ‘Tell her she’s a
mur de pierre
, Auguste.’

The stone wall remained immovable.

‘Very well,’ said Rose. ‘From now on, Miss Gonnet, you’re going to have a companion of your own. A nice big English policeman. He’ll be with you all day and one of his chums will be right outside your door tonight. And tomorrow, when we formally charge Madame with murder, yet another chum will be right with you when you come to the Yard to loosen a few boulders from that wall of yours.’

‘They’re waiting for something all right, our Madame and Mademoiselle,’ Rose observed, after he had returned from the Yard. ‘They both look as smug as a cat licking cream. Or don’t they do that in France?’

‘My mother used to say that in France the cat who stayed too long to lick the cream would find itself a cat
au vin en casserole
. She was,
naturellement
,’ added Auguste hastily, ‘jesting.’ A memory flickered through his mind, and fled as swiftly as the taste of a rose-petal cream.

‘And
my
mother used to say,’ Rose told him, ‘that the cat who licked the cream grew too fat to catch his mice. She wasn’t joking, though. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, could be in luck – provided we catch Fancelli.’

‘No word?’

‘We’ve got descriptions of him outside every police station, and on half the lampposts in London. Ma Bisley’s runners ain’t heard anything; the Leather Lane community swore he hadn’t been there since before Christmas. Every Italian restaurant’s been checked and
every Italian we can lay our hands on has been stopped and questioned.’

‘If he has slept here, it is not surprising he has not been found,’ observed Auguste.

‘He didn’t sleep here last night, did he? Nor, incidentally, did young Nash. Somehow Fancelli must have been warned, because he didn’t even show up. We’ve got the brains of this project safely tucked away, but we haven’t got the brawn; and it’s the brawn going to be carrying out the job tomorrow, unless we track him down.’

Brawn? Was there sufficient left for luncheon? And would John remember to add the zest and juice of an orange to the sauce? True, he had presented a creditable array of dishes yesterday, Auguste acknowledged, although there was undoubtedly too much juniper in the ptarmigan pie. It had been a wrench to leave this special seasonal pie to John, when in normal times he himself would have had the honour of creating every step of the delectable dish. And the port jelly too – a trifle too heavy. It required a touch of something – perhaps lemon? Orange? Jelly. How debased a word it was, rapidly becoming condemned to the nursery. Yet one of the lost great cooks of our time was called Jelly, he recalled. Or rather Gellée. But no, some foolish so-called cook had dismissed him, and he had been forced to take up painting instead. How great a chef Claude Lorraine Gellée might have become if he had put the delicacy, balance and order of his landscapes into cuisine!

‘Which of them murdered the girl in the fog, do you think?’ Rose was asking.

‘A
Claude bavarois
,’ replied Auguste dreamily, only drawn back to reality by the sight of Rose’s blank face.

‘I don’t see our Thérèse wielding a stiletto in the fog
herself,’ said Rose, having made nothing of Auguste’s last utterance.

‘I agree. We have no evidence she was even in England then. It is much more likely to have been Fancelli on his own, and for it to have been the reason he came here. Somehow this girl had found out about the threat to the Prince. Do you have any more information on her?’ Auguste asked awkwardly. He took this corpse very personally. Every time he thought of that girl, he was transported back to the choking terrors of that November night. Had he moved more quickly, might he not have prevented it? Had he realised immediately that the speaker of those words ‘
At Cranton’s? Christmas
?’ and the murderer might not be the same, might he have found Fancelli lurking in a basement area, waiting, waiting for this intrusive stranger to depart?

‘We’ve got a lead on her, but it will have to wait now till we’ve got tomorrow out of the way. Ma Bisley’s runner in Hackney has found someone who thinks she recognises her. Girl who used to live in the same street in Shoreditch. She could be a fifteen-year-old called Mary White, who left home about a year ago.’

‘She was on the streets?’

‘Apparently not. Went into service, so her parents said. And they had not reported not hearing from her.’

Auguste was shocked.

Rose looked at him with kindly eye. ‘Ever been out that way, Auguste? I’ll take you some day. Worse than Soho for rabbit warrens of tenements. When you get families living eight to a room, they spend all their time trying to live themselves; no time for worrying about how one that’s actually making some kind of living’s getting on.’

‘But it is Christmas.’ Auguste had been long enough
in this country to know the ties that drew even to the poorest house.

‘Christmas out there ain’t changed since Scrooge and Bob Cratchit, without the goose or the happy ending. No,’ said Rose regretfully, ‘that’s a dead end. We can only try to establish the link between the household she worked for and Thérèse Lepont.’

‘But that is odd, is it not? A loose
fils
– the ingredient that does not fit. Another household—’

‘Auguste,’ Rose said sharply, ‘tomorrow’s the day. Start with the sure thing we’ve got – a suspect in custody. And Fancelli at large.’

‘Do not forget Mademoiselle Gonnet,’ Auguste said mutinously. Even now he could not believe the Baroness – for so he would always think of her – a political assassin.

‘Marie-Paul’s under guard,’ said Rose grimly. ‘Evidence or not.’

‘It is true Thérèse Lepont could not have got the body into the lift alone, and Mademoiselle Gonnet was at hand. Fancelli was not,’ Auguste said rather regretfully. The more iniquity he could believe that man capable of the better. ‘Although,’ he added, brightening, ‘Egbert, it would be easy enough for Fancelli to come up after breakfast on some pretext – that floor is quite deserted. Ah yes,
mon ami
, I have it,’ he crowed triumphantly. ‘He came up
in the lift
pulled up by the murderer, put the corpse in it and walked down himself.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Rose at last, having considered. ‘Smacks of one of your fancy solutions, Auguste.’

‘My fancy solutions, as you call them,’ replied Auguste with dignity, ‘have proved correct in some instances in the past, Inspector.’

‘Perhaps it takes hindsight to see them as not so fancy after all. Perhaps this will look the same, eh? I’ll
think about it. Maybe put it to the Baroness.’

‘The Baroness?’ asked Auguste, smiling.

‘Our Madame Lepont, then.’

‘What reason now does she give for being here?’ Auguste asked curiously.

‘She claims she wants her hotel to become more fashionable and thought she’d come here incognito, so to speak, to find out how an English hotel is run.’

‘Perhaps, if she does so,’ said Auguste sourly, ‘she could inform
me
. I did not plan, Egbert,’ he added sorrowfully, ‘to open my career as a hotelier by accusing my guests of murder.’

The guests of Cranton’s Hotel had just partaken of John’s luncheon and showed no signs of dissatisfaction. Auguste relaxed, as far as he could, knowing that Egbert was about to address them. John was developing well, even though he had received no direct training from Auguste Didier. Only he could discern the very slight errors that had been made, but such was his relief that he was prepared to overlook the sharpness of the lemon sauce for the Hindle Wakes.

‘I have to tell you,’ Rose began, ‘that at the moment we are questioning the Baroness von Bechlein, or Thérèse Lepont as is her real name, in connection with two murders and a plot to assassinate the Prince of Wales.’

Each member of his audience considered the implications of this announcement as regards themselves. Marie-Paul stared mutinously in front of her, a young constable hovering behind, anxious to be seen by the Inspector to be doing his duty by allowing her to mingle with no one, but wondering whether he stood any chance of a bite himself.

‘She’s not a baroness?’ Gladys was the first to speak.
She had been looking forward to boasting of her new friends to Much Wallop.

‘No. Madame Lepont runs a hotel in Belgium, and we believe she is a member of a group of Boer sympathisers, or if not a sympathiser herself, then a paid intermediary between the group and the assassin.’

‘Who?’ asked Frederick Dalmaine abruptly.

‘Antonio Fancelli, who worked here.’

‘How’s a poor old cook going to assassinate Bertie?’ shouted Bowman with a guffaw. ‘Strangle him with spaghetti?’

‘That we don’t know yet. But he has vanished.’

‘Perhaps he’s in the chest,’ offered Gladys brightly, then blushed as everyone stared at her.

The twins giggled and Auguste looked at Gladys disapprovingly. That chest was something he did not wish to be reminded of. All the same . . . He glanced at Rose who nodded slightly. Twitch slipped unobtrusively from the room, proud of his ability to divine Rose’s intentions.

Carruthers had been thinking things over. ‘You telling us that that little woman stabbed a girl to death and proposed to do the same to the Prince of Wales?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Rose replied patiently.

‘Poppycock,’ snorted Carruthers. ‘How’d she manage it? We were all here. Got it wrong. It was one of the servants.’

‘Perhaps, sir. But we think that the girl was killed in Madame Lepont’s room when she brought tea, and that the body was then put into the service lift either temporarily or to be taken below by Fancelli and hidden in the basement area until it could be disposed of. In either event, something went wrong with their plans, and the body had to be put back in the bedroom after the room had been cleaned, and was disposed of later that night by being put into the chest, a safe
enough place since no one would use it again for Christmas games.’

Rose sensed a faint restlessness in his audience, but no one seemed disposed to comment, save Carruthers, who after thinking this over announced: This girl, Nancy Watkins, she was a servant. That right?’