Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (28 page)

‘Let’s see what she says.’

Gladys appeared half an hour later, it having taken some time to compose herself and remove her curlers. It had after all been a hard night.

‘Poor, dear Alfred,’ she offered as an opening gambit.

‘When did you last see him, ma’am?’

‘At dinner,’ she announced promptly. Too promptly to Auguste’s mind.

‘We have a report that you went to see him in his room – about one o’clock.’

‘Inspector! I am an unmarried woman. How dare you suggest—’

‘You deny it, ma’am?’

‘Certainly I do,’ she said unhappily.

‘We have a witness.’

‘A mistaken one,’ she gasped, then shut her lips primly together.

‘No, ma’am,’ said Rose inexorably.

Her face crumpled. ‘I knocked and he came to the door. He unbolted it, but he wouldn’t let me in. I told him I’d come to talk to him,’ she stumbled, ‘but he slammed the door shut and bolted it in my face.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘He was alive when I left. I didn’t touch him.’ The whisper became a wail.

‘What did you go to see him about?’ asked Rose. ‘Was it, shall we say, intimate?’

Rose could say what he liked, but he would not get her, Gladys Guessings, to admit that it was exactly that hope that had spurred her there, convinced that Alfred could never resist such an opportunity. She had been wrong. And he had made it agonisingly, painfully clear. So clear she—

‘We had business matters to discuss,’ she replied with dignity.

‘Crime passionnel, like I said?’ asked Rose, once he had let her go, too easily in Auguste’s opinion. ‘He rejected her, and she gave him forty whacks like Lizzie Borden?’

‘He was strangled first,
mon ami
,’ said Auguste. ‘And still it seems strange to me that, bad hotelier though I am, my small party could include two murderers. I see Bowman more as a murderer than Madame Lepont.’

‘Someone could have gone in after her,’ pointed out Rose. ‘He must have let his murderer in.’

‘By the state of the room, he did not put up much struggle, however. Almost as if,’ Auguste paused, ‘as if he’d been sleeping when attacked.’

‘It’s like that maze at Stockbery Towers,’ grunted Rose.

‘Every maze has a beginning, a pattern and a solution,’ said Auguste. ‘And in our case, assuming this is one maze not two, the beginning is not, surely, Mr Bowman’s murder but that of Mary White.’ Rose had told him the girl’s identity had now been established. Whose household did she belong to? And how did she meet Nancy Watkins?

‘Twitch has been on to the local police forces in your British guests’ home towns. No one missing, except a
flighty piece who ran away to Gretna with her follower.’

‘And the knobkerry?’

‘Disappeared,’ said Rose succinctly. ‘No one could have got in or out of the hotel except Father Christmas without being stopped. Yet it isn’t anywhere to be found. Knobkerries,’ Rose added disgustedly. ‘Points to one of the army men, don’t you think?’

‘It would,’ said Auguste, ‘if he hadn’t been strangled first. What was the reason he was battered after death?’

‘To obscure identity.’

‘But it did not.’

‘The murderer couldn’t have counted on you recognising his boots,’ said Rose, but there was no conviction in his defence of his theory. ‘Perhaps he wasn’t sure he was dead then.’

Auguste looked at him. It was hardly necessary to point out no murderer came armed with a knobkerry just in case he was inefficient in his strangling. Rose blushed.

‘Might as well begin with the army, at any rate.’

Major Dalmaine entered stiffly at the police summons, obviously about to salute them and thinking better of it. This wasn’t Pretoria.

‘Ever met Alfred Bowman before you came here?’

‘No, sir,’ came the cold reply.

‘Had your brother?’

This shook him, but he made a visible attempt at recovery. ‘My brother? I have no idea. I haven’t seen him for eighteen months.’

‘In Africa, isn’t he?’

‘I believe so.’ Dalmaine hoped his air of finality would conclude the conversation. It did not.

‘Had what they call a chequered career, your brother, so we’re told.’

‘We are not close,’ was Dalmaine’s only response.

‘Seems to write to you often enough,’ remarked Rose, ‘judging by the letters we found in your room. One of them – a most interesting one – seemed to be missing a page or two.’

‘Indeed?’ said Dalmaine in a tone of indifference. ‘I am a smoker, Inspector. I find writing paper makes excellent spills.’

Once again the constable was brushed aside in peremptory fashion as Carruthers burst through the door.

‘What the devil do you think you’re doing, accusing this chap of murder?’

‘Not quite, sir. We were asking a few questions, that’s all.’

‘That knobkerry comes from the smoking room. Anyone could have used it. Even you, sir,’ glaring at Auguste who blenched and looked to see whether Rose might be taking this seriously.

Dalmaine had the air of a Wellington saved by the arrival of the Prussians.

‘I’ll be wanting to talk to you again,’ said Rose, submitting to military solidarity.

‘Certainly, certainly,’ cried Dalmaine, rapidly exiting with little sign of a limp. ‘I’m indebted to you, Colonel,’ he told his saviour outside.

‘Think nothing of it,’ grunted Carruthers gruffly. ‘Even the Buffs and Dirty Half Hundreds can hold together in times of attack. Like Blücher and the Dutch, eh? All in a common cause.’

‘Ah, that I dispute, Colonel,’ said Dalmaine happily, back on familiar ground. Even the sight of Rosanna failed to distract him on this occasion, a fact she noted with great annoyance.

Back in the office, Rose sighed. ‘I’m letting the Lepont woman go. And yet there was
something
. I was sure we had it in our grasp there, you know.’

Auguste shook his head. ‘My friend, I knew you were wrong. Assassination, no. Murder perhaps, in extreme circumstances, but not assassination. Unlike salmon with fennel, the sauce did not fit. It irritated where it should soothe.’

‘Who will be next?’ enquired Gladys plaintively, secure in the knowledge that though the heart was broken, she was, thanks to her Hovenden’s Easy Hair Curlers, looking her very best.

Eva Harbottle consulted her programme. ‘The White-Eyed Kaffir,’ she informed her.

‘No, no,’ Gladys said a little curtly at having been taken so literally. ‘I mean, who will be next to be murdered, now poor dear Alfred—’ She broke off.

‘We’re leaving Cranton’s in two days,’ Eva pointed out. ‘Surely there won’t be many more?’

Gladys eyed her crossly. Some sympathy might not come amiss. Really, Eva Harbottle was a very strange woman. Of course, she was a Boer, she remembered suddenly. The enemy, after all. She inched away, as the Great Chirgwin bounced onto the stage of the Alhambra Theatre, the famous white greasepainted eye hidden under the tall hat.

‘Good evening, ladies and gempmums. . .’

Afterwards, Auguste walked eagerly at the head of his flock into the Carlton Hotel. Despite the troubles of the world, the
maître
could be relied upon to soothe even the dullest spirits. At first, however, the party was quiet, with the air of those surreptitiously wary of their neighbours, as if they expected them either to collapse, mortally wounded, or to leap up with a carving knife in their hands. However, the atmosphere grew less tense and good humour swelled once more at the arrival of the
velouté de champignons de Provence
. Ah, what memories that stirred, both of his native land and of his
apprenticeship at the Faisan Doré. He recalled the enthusiasm the dear master inspired in him, that first dish approved by the
maître
, the little words of approval that meant so much.
Mousse de volaille au curry
. He picked up his fork now still in a reverie of long ago. One day he had created
le faisan Didier
. What excitement when he returned home to tell his parents. They hadn’t believed him of course – he was so young to have achieved such heights. But he knew. Ah, how he rejoiced.

Tonight Egbert Rose would be dining
chez lui avec
Edith. And shortly the Prince of Wales would be dining here once more. This disagreeable thought almost drowned his appreciaton of the
émincé de truffes à la crème
. True, His Royal Highness was obstinately arguing that as nothing had happened at Paddington, nothing would happen thereafter. Clubs were clubs, and not to be invaded by policemen, and as for not dining at the Carlton, he was most certainly not going to miss one of Escoffier’s dinners on the offchance Rose might be right. Escoffier understood his stomach and, like his tailor, fitted his creations to it – that was what cooks were for.

Lingering happily over his
mandarines glacées aux perles des Alpes
, Auguste was transported in his mind back to Cannes once more. It had been on a visit to his parents there that he had been discovered by the Duke of Stockbery and, parted from Tatiana, decided to bury his unhappiness in England. Maman, being half-English, had put a brave face on her son departing across the seas. But last year he had returned – only to take murder with him. Truly, tonight this food had transported him into the sun of Provence, the London January left far behind. He could see, too, the boulevards and
fiacres
of Paris, not the narrow streets and hansom cabs of London. A sudden nostalgia for his
homeland stung him, before he could shake himself free. Did he not have good friends here? Did he not admire English food above all others, if not always its cooking? Did he not wish to present it as it should be cooked? He was, after all, half English; his food,
cuisine à la Didier
, should reflect the best of both nations. He would go to the kitchen now, to thank the
maître
for the honour of the dinner they had just eaten. He would arrange to meet, to discuss the philosophy of food, as Brillat-Savarin did with his friends, and most of all he would see his friend, his master Escoffier, once more.

A word to the
maître d’hôtel
, a word to the police constable solidly eating his way through food such as had never come his way before, in order not to appear too obtrusive in his guard-dog duties, and Auguste found his way to the kitchens. There he found engaged on the creating, garnish, presentation and faultless service of exquisite food, forty white overalled and-hatted kitchen assistants, and the
maître
.

Escoffier saw him, advanced with arms outstretched.

Auguste glowed. ‘
Mon ami
,’ he said simply. It was the seal on a perfect evening.

As he was about to leave, the seal was ripped uncompromisingly off, however. The bang of a door, the sound of a familiar song, and footsteps hurrying up the basement area steps outside. That figure, that song. ‘
La donna è
. . .’ Auguste raced out through the door and looked up, just as his quarry paused to look down. It was indeed Fancelli.

The thoughts tumbled through his head as Auguste pounded after him. Working in the kitchens at the Carlton – thank heavens he had scotched his plans by seeing him; he must be planning to kill the Prince on his visit to the Marlborough Suite; he had saved his master from the terrible fate of having the Prince killed at one
of his banquets, perhaps even poisoned with the blame thrown onto him. How narrowly such disaster had been averted. Yet if he could not catch Fancelli now, he would be free to strike again.

His prey had taken fright, running up the Haymarket and crossing the road, weaving in between the endless streams of cabs, buses and motor vehicles, and already merging into the blue-grey mist of the crowd where the street lights failed to illuminate. Auguste threw himself after him, regretting his second
caille aux raisins
, yelling at a police constable to follow him. ‘Fancelli,’ he hurled at him in explanation.

‘Cripes,’ was the policeman’s response. Like Twitch, he contemplated instant promotion as he hurtled across the road.

‘Lost him,’ panted Auguste.

‘There he is!’ shouted the constable, thus urging on Fancelli, now running down Panton Street, to new heights of achievement. Auguste, in front of the policeman, ran full tilt into three ladies of the night who plied their trade together, cheap perfumes and feathers vying with one another in ostentation. Auguste collided with an ostrich plume, apologised and endeavoured to move it and its owner to one side.

‘I like you, darling,’ she murmured, and as he ran on, ‘Free?’ she offered hopefully at his retreating back.

Auguste raised his hat as he ran, hurling back, ‘
Enchanté
.’ She did not receive such respect from the police constable, whom she knew full well.

‘Lost him, sir?’ he cried, panting on towards Auguste, who was by now reaching the corner of Leicester Square and regretting the first
caille
as well. The Empire Theatre towards which Fancelli was headed was disgorging its evening clientele and hansom cabs were standing three deep, waiting for trade.

He’d lost him. Where was he? Auguste slithered to a
halt on the pavements sticky from rain, only to receive a violent push that sent him crashing to the pavement. His shout brought the constable to his side only to leap uncaringly over him to collar Fancelli who had been endeavouring to run back the way they had come. Meanwhile another lady of the night was bending solicitously over Auguste. ‘Hope you haven’t hurt yourself, dearie. You come with me. I’ll look after you.’