Murder At The Masque Read online

  Murder at the Masque

  Amy Myers

  The fourth Auguste Didier crime novel

  Copyright © 1991 Amy Myers

  The right of Amy Myers to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2013

  All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical characters – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library eISBN 978 1 4722 1386 0

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Also by Amy Myers

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Floor Plan

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Amy Myers was born in Kent. After taking a degree in English Literature, she was director of a London publishing company and is now a writer and a freelance editor. She is married to an American and they live in a Kentish village on the North Downs. As well as writing the hugely popular Auguste Didier crime series, Amy Myers has also written five Kentish sagas, under the name Harriet Hudson, that are also available in ebook from Headline.

  Praise for Amy Myers’ previous Victorian crime novels featuring Auguste Didier, also available in ebook from Headline: ‘Wittily written and intricately plotted with some fine characterisation. Perfection’ Best

  ‘Reading like a cross between Hercule Poirot and Mrs Beeton . . . this feast of entertainment is packed with splendid late-Victorian detail’ Evening Standard

  ‘What a marvellous tale of Victorian mores and murders this is – an entertaining whodunnit that whets the appetite of mystery lovers and foodies alike’ Kent Today

  ‘Delightfully written, light, amusing and witty. I look forward to Auguste Didier’s next banquet of delights’ Eastern Daily Press

  ‘Plenty of fun, along with murder and mystery . . . as brilliantly coloured as a picture postcard’ Dartmouth Chronicle

  ‘Classically murderous’ Woman’s Own

  ‘An amusing Victorian whodunnit’ Netta Martin, Annabel

  ‘Impossible to put down’ Kent Messenger

  ‘An intriguing Victorian whodunnit’ Daily Examiner

  Also by Amy Myers and available in ebook from Headline

  Victorian crime series featuring Auguste Didier

  1. Murder in Pug‘s Parlour

  2. Murder in the Limelight

  3. Murder at Plum’s

  4. Murder at the Masque

  5. Murder makes an Entrée

  6. Murder under the Kissing Bough 7. Murder in the Smokehouse

  8. Murder at the Music Hall

  9. Murder in the Motor Stable

  And Kentish sagas written under the name Harriet Hudson also available in ebook from Headline

  Look for Me by Moonlight

  When Nightingales Sang

  The Sun in Glory

  The Wooing of Katie May

  The Girl from Gadsby’s

  About the Book

  When master chef Auguste Didier decides he needs a rest in his native Cannes he is convinced that there at least he will not encounter murder which seems recently to have stalked him as inexorably as Jack the Ripper his victims. No cold hand of violent death could possibly touch this delightful place of sun and warmth . . .

  But back in London Inspector Egbert Rose of Scotland Yard is investigating a series of jewel burglaries. Only when he meets the sixth victim, ballerina Natalia Kallinkova, does he realise this is no ordinary case. For each missing jewel had been encased in an exquisite Fabergé egg, the gift of the Grand Duke Igor of Russia to his ex-mistresses. Worse, he discovers there is a seventh egg . . . and Inspector Rose sets off hot-foot to warn its owner – in Cannes.

  There, the Gentlemen (the English, under the captaincy of the Prince of Wales) are about to engage the Players (the rest of the world) in a to-the-death cricket match. And where such passions are raised, murder is sure to follow . . .

  For Marian,

  with love

  Author’s Note

  For the purposes of this story the Tsar Alexander II has been credited with an additional son, the Grand Duke Igor. He, his household and the Villa Russe are fictitious, as are the other active participants in the plot. For information on the Cannes Cricket Club I am indebted to Patrick Howarth’s fascinating When the Riviera was Ours (Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1977); the pavilion, however, is my own invention. La Fabuleuse Histoire de Cannes by Jean Bresson (Editions du Rocher, Monaco, 1981) provided much information on the history of the grand villas of the town; The Man Behind the Iron Mask by John Noone (Alan Sutton, 1988) provided comprehensive details of the mysterious prisoner kept on the Ile Ste Marguérite, and in particular an epilogue concerning rumours of the ghost recently seen near the old town in Le Suquet. It is a fictitious extension on my part to cast this apparition back nearly a century, but with stories about Iron Mask circulating in the town ever since the masked prisoner arrived, it did not seem to me far-fetched.

  I am, as ever, grateful to my agent Dorothy Lumley for her constant support, and to Jane Morpeth and all at Headline for making the path to publication so pleasant; to Rodney Burton; and to the Bibliothèque Municipale in Cannes, situated so appropriately in the former Villa Rothschild on the route de Fréjus. A special thank-you to the artist Natalie Greenwood, who so expertly interpreted Inspector Rose’s sketch of the Cannes Cricket Pavilion.

  Floor plan

  Chapter One

  Auguste Didier stepped off the Calais-Mediterranean Express and sniffed. He gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. Ah, the perfume of the air. The scents of the pines of the Esterel mountains and the hillside flowers still filled the air of his native village with their warm magic. Some said Cannes belonged only to the English, that it had become the new battleground of Europe with the Romanovs to the east on the hill of la Californie and the English to the west on the route de Fréjus. But to those who really knew it, Cannes was still Cannes, the small fishing village that over the centuries had seen invaders come and go, Romans, Greeks, Saracens, Italians. Here he had been born in a small house on the hillside of Mont Chevalier, gone to the small school in the Rue du Barri. Here he had been apprenticed to Le Maître, the great Auguste Escoffier. Cannes was in his blood, a village blessed by the heavens.

  ‘Murder! It’s murder, I say.’

  Auguste spun round at the shrill sound of an undoubtedly English aristocratic voice disturbing the peace of the south. He smiled with relief when, peering curiously outside into the Place de la Gare, he saw a familiar scene. Skirts rustling in indignation, an English lady was waving her lace-edged pink parasol threateningly at an uncomprehending cabbie w
ho was merely persuading his bored horse by time-honoured means to begin yet another journey to the Hôtel du Parc. Or perhaps to the Hôtel Gonnet, though with the seaside front position the latter was not so popular. It would not suffice for this stiffly corseted martinet with her fashionable trained carriage dress.

  Murder indeed. Auguste laughed at himself. He must have murder on the brain.

  ‘A holiday,’ the secretary of Plum’s Club for Gentlemen had said to its maître chef reproachfully. ‘You need a holiday, Monsieur Didier. It isn’t like you to forget the truffles in the Chicken Bayonnaise.’

  There had been A Complaint. About his food. And moreover it had been justified. Auguste had been appalled. How could it have happened? He had briefly contemplated suicide, and had decided against it. Honour could be restored another way. After his holiday, they would be waiting for him with open arms – or rather mouths – after six weeks of Monsieur Archibald Binks’s efforts. Pah! Trained in the Marshall School. The school gave excellent training for cooking treacle pudding no doubt. But the gentlemen of Plum’s required la vrai cuisine. Auguste gloated with satisfaction. He would return and cook them delicacies such as they had never imagined, inspired by the perfumes and tastes of his native land.

  The smell of the coffee from the café tabac in the railway station recalled him from theorising on how to transform Alexis Soyer’s turkey à la Nelson into something edible – the sauce, he wondered, was that the mistake? Omit the tomato perhaps? He found his billet de baggage, exchanged ritual imprecations with a porter who tried to relieve him of his hand luggage with the practised ease of the French, bypassed the crowd of English hiverneurs, arranged for the delivery of his modest suitcases to his parents’ home and walked out into the Place de la Gare, a happy man. He was home.

  ‘Fiacre, monsieur?’

  A cab? No. He would walk. Absorb the smell of the south. His mother had once told him that when the Empress Marie-Alexandrovna of Russia had come to Cannes nineteen years ago in 1879, her last words on leaving were, ‘Let me smell once more that perfumed air . . .’ The warmth was in his nostrils, beguiling his senses, for all it was only the beginning of March, as he crossed the Place into the Rue de la Gare, heading for Le Suquet, the small house in the Rue du Barri and six weeks of pure bliss.

  For Cannes had one other blessing that London, delightful though it was, seemed to lack, at least as far as he was concerned. For Auguste, London was inextricably bound up with murder, which seemed to stalk him as inexorably as Jack the Ripper his victims.

  Not long after he had been instrumental (he tried to put it modestly even to himself) in solving the murders at Stockbery Towers in Kent, he had become the chef at the restaurant of the Galaxy Theatre in the Strand – and murder came too. Delightful though Plum’s was, he felt that at the age of thirty-eight he should consider his future carefully. That dream, the dream of every maître, to own his own restaurant, even a hotel, was but a dream yet. As seemingly unobtainable as that other dream of Tatiana, his beautiful Russian princess in Paris. His, he thought ruefully. But she could never be his. He was a cook, albeit a maître, and she a princess.

  But, he had told himself firmly, one cannot produce a dish for a Grimod jury without peeling a potato. And Plum’s in St James’s Square was a potato très sympathique. Alas, incredibly, in that place of quiet gentlemanly retreat from the world, murder followed once more. True, all these melancholy events had brought him into contact with cher Egbert, Inspector Egbert Rose of Scotland Yard, but murder was murder; it tore at the emotions. He needed a holiday.

  And no cold hand of murder could possibly touch this delightful place of sun and warmth.

  Early March in London was not a time of beautiful perfumes and scented air. It was a time when the skies were grey, even when they could be glimpsed through the smoke from chimneys that failed to disperse but hung loweringly over the blackened buildings. Muddy pavements were cluttered with equally unsunny Londoners – at least in this part of London – as the hansom continued its journey towards Wapping.

  Pulling his greatcoat firmly around him, as the hansom arrived at his destination, Inspector Egbert Rose paid the driver his two shillings, having successfully won the battle of whether or not the journey was within the four-mile radius, by demanding to see his Book of Distances. He ignored the look of distaste at the customary meagre Scotland Yard allowance for tipping and picked his way along the river front. Accustomed to this street from his days on the beat, now thankfully well over twenty years behind him, the filth and smells were no surprise to him; the Thames looked an evil thoroughfare on this bleak day. Peabody could have spent some of his millions building a few new homes round here all right. Place hadn’t changed in a century, if that.

  A swarming den of thieving villains, thought Rose grimly, as he pushed open the door of The Seamen’s Rest and surveyed the assembled company. A riverside pub would obviously be packed with seamen, and it looked like the scum of the earth had gravitated to this flash-house. Every villain on the Thames Police’s books – together with Lascars, Arabs, Chinese – all stopped in mid-talk as he entered. They all knew a crusher when they saw one. Especially a jack.

  Only the publican, a middle-aged gentleman with impressive Newgate-knockers sidewhiskers, seemed unperturbed as he carefully inspected a glass, whistling ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’ in a thoughtful manner.

  ‘Ah, Higgins,’ Rose said blandly. ‘I’ve come about those Fabergé Easter Eggs again.’ He believed in the direct approach.

  The publican dropped the glass, then fielded it as expertly as the great W. G. Grace himself. ‘Now now, Inspector. I’ve got my reputation to think of,’ he said indulgently. ‘Don’t want my customers to think I’m running a swells’ dolly-shop—’ His voice swelled in righteous indignation. ‘You will have your little jokes, Inspector. If it’s about that licence, you’d best come in here.’ A broad hand firmly ushered Rose behind the scenes, after its owner’s stentorian shout for ‘Ma!’ They were followed by interested and wary eyes.

  ‘It ain’t all perlice I’d invite into my home,’ Higgins pointed out.

  Rose believed him, glancing round. The room was plentifully though not ostentatiously adorned with the benefits of Higgins’s trade as the biggest fence in London – ‘international trade welcomed’ (the pub conveniently near the docks for overseas business).

  ‘Muriel,’ Higgins yelled – this time to his wife.

  So there was going to be business, Rose thought. Muriel was only summoned when something big was on. The lady appeared, simpering as if Rose were royalty. It was a misleading facade. Were it not for the fact that Rose had once viewed Muriel in full combat bargaining with the toughest cracksman in London, he would have put her down as an unlikely mate for the shrewd James Higgins. Since then, closer attention on his part had revealed her to be if not the brains behind the business, at least the treasurer.

  ‘Any news for me on those eggs?’ inquired Rose, pushing aside the leaves of an over-excited aspidistra, to sit in a chair surrounded by photographs of all the little Higginses framed in interestingly high-quality silver frames. It had been a long shot, but Higgins had been known to part with information if it suited his book. And Rose’s usual channels of information had yielded nothing.

  Higgins shook his head regretfully. ‘Nah. ’Ad you asked me about Lady Becker’s ruby suspenders, or the old Duke’s cuff-links with the naughty cameos, I might’ve obliged. But eggs? Nah. Out of my class.’

  ‘You, Higgins? Nothing too hot to handle, that’s your line.’

  Muriel interposed on behalf of her husband.

  ‘Inspector, ’oo wants an egg everyone is going to recognise?’ Her hands resting in her lap, she could have been presiding at an At Home.

  ‘Abroad?’

  ‘The Continong? Nah. Mind you, as one pal to another . . .’ Higgins paused, a beaming smile extending almost as far as the sidewhiskers.

  ‘No pal of yours, Higgins,’ Rose reminded him blandly
.

  ‘Working mates, then. Nah, this ’ere cat burglar of yours. ’Igh-society lad, seems to me. Don’t see ’im in the Ratcliffe ’Ighway pinching old Ma Thomas’s tea caddy. And where does ’Igh Society hang out this time of year?’

  Rose looked blank. ‘Hunting?’ he ventured.

  ‘Nah.’ Higgins tapped his pipe on the table impressively. ‘Cannes, that’s where they go. Down to the old Riviera.’ An enormous wink impressed on Rose that something of importance was being conveyed to him.

  Half London society seemed to own one of these Fabergé eggs, thought Rose gloomily as he left, and certainly over-pessimistically. Someone had decided to scoop the pool. Why?

  He’d been on the case for weeks now and was getting no nearer to presenting the Chief with any kind of solution. Meanwhile the thefts continued. Six in all now. He felt rather as he had done in Hampton Court Maze when he and Mrs Rose took his sister Ethel’s two youngest. All very interesting, but how do you reach the middle? The middle of this case, if the interviews he’d had so far were anything to go by, was very securely hidden . . .

  Rose, assumed to have knowledge of the mysterious ways of the aristocracy after his successful solving of the cases at Stockbery Towers and Plum’s Club for Gentlemen, had with some relief on the part of his superiors been handed the task of discovering who had been carrying out a series of outrageous jewel thefts. The husbands were decidedly well placed in society, and Lord Westbourne in particular had made his views plain. The jewels must be found: and quickly. Seemed straightforward enough, Rose had thought – until he had begun his usual inquiries. Nothing. Not a whisper on the villains’ network.

  ‘And you know what that means, Stitch.’

  His subordinate, known privately as Twitch, was eager to shine.