Murder Makes an Entree Read online

  Murder makes an Entrée

  Amy Myers

  The fifth Auguste Didier crime novel

  Copyright © 1992 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 1387 7

  Cover illustration by Fred Preston HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Also By

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Floor Plans

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  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

  Only a dinner of first-class excellence can tempt the Prince of Wales to endure the ordeal of being the president of the Society of Literary Lionisers. And he ensures this by insisting that the year’s highlight, the banquet at Broadstairs, will be cooked by master chef Auguste Didier.

  Broadstairs is famed not only as a seaside resort but also as the holiday haunt of Charles Dickens – the author the Society has chosen to lionise for the year of the Prince’s presidency. The banquet, attended by six Peggottys, two Betsy Trotwoods, a couple of Little Dorrits, a Scrooge and a Mr Pickwick, not to mention a highly emotional Miss Havisham, passes off well – but the readings that follow do not. In the middle of the murder scene from Oliver Twist, the reader Sir Thomas Throgmorton collapses and dies.

  It is soon realised that he has been poisoned, and Inspector Naseby of the local constabulary believes Didier’s banquet is to blame – after all, what can you expect when a foreigner cooks the food? Luckily Inspector Egbert Rose of Scotland Yard is on hand to help Didier’s investigations to prove his innocence of this most heinous of accusations.

  For my mother

  and in memory of my father

  upon whose shelves

  I first met Mr Dickens

  Author’s Note

  Broadstairs today is very much the same delightful place as when Auguste Didier visited it, and the Royal Albion Hotel with its Dickensian history flourishes in Albion Street. The latter’s inhabitants in this novel, however, are fictitious, as is the Imperial Hotel.

  My gratitude for their help is due to Mr Peter Roger (Royal Albion Hotel), Mr Alan Robinson, and the staffs of Lenham, Broadstairs and Margate Public Libraries; among written sources to Cedric Dickens’s delightful Dining with Dickens (Elvendon Press, 1984); to Natalie Greenwood who so expertly sketched the Imperial Hotel for Inspector Rose; to my mother for her help on Victorian dress; and to my agent Dot Lumley and editor Jane Morpeth for their constant enthusiasm and support.

  Floor Plan

  Chapter One

  ‘Who,’ screamed Auguste Didier in anguish, ‘is responsible for this?’ His six apprentice pupils cowered, as he regarded in despair the ornate silver platter and the creation it bore.

  ‘In five minutes, mes amis,’ he continued grimly, as the culprit showed no signs of admitting his or her guilt, perhaps because none of the six could see anything amiss, ‘the Prince of Wales will be dining on this – this – abomination.’ He pointed a finger of scorn at the chicken stuffed with foie gras and truffles from Perigord. ‘Le Maître Escoffier created Poularde Derby as a tribute to His Royal Highness, and you choose to make a mockery of his dish. That pupils of the Auguste Didier School of Cuisine could descend to such abomination!’

  ‘What’s wrong with it, Mr Didier?’ asked James Pegg stolidly; he was braver than the rest, a slow-thinking Englishman of thirty who saw no harm in calling a Poularde Derby a Chicken with Liver.

  Auguste glared at them. ‘The jelly,’ he said shortly, amazed that it was not immediately obvious.

  ‘Oh, that was me, Mr Didier,’ said Alice Fenwick gaily.

  ‘You, Mademoiselle Fenwick?’ Auguste was bereft of adequate words. Of all of them, he looked to Alice for attention to detail. She had a gift of competence rivalled by few, perhaps instilled into her by her upbringing as an army officer’s daughter, Auguste had decided. But then even Homer nods and even he, Auguste Didier, had occasionally been guilty of even quite major sins, such as insufficient attention to the importance of the pudding in English cooking. ‘This horror is from your hand? I do not call it an aspic. It bears no resemblance to one.’ He regarded the bonny-faced Alice sternly. Surel
y she must be aware of the enormity of her error? True, her heart was unhappy. His attitude softened in fellow feeling.

  ‘It’s only a garnish, Maître,’ announced Algernon Peckham superciliously.

  ‘Only’ was not a word to use to maître chefs, particularly not to Auguste Didier. ‘Only a garnish,’ he repeated through gritted teeth. ‘Only the most important part of the dish, only the garland to proclaim the arrival of the boar’s head, only the candles that heralded a feast by Monsieur de La Reynière himself, only the chief advertisement of delights to come. By its garnish shall ye know the dish,’ he thundered. ‘Meat jelly, Mademoiselle Fenwick, should merely coat the back of the spoon in consistency. The end result should not bounce as does Monsieur Pegg’s blanc-manger; it should be as tender and yielding as a woman’s arms,’ he proclaimed, carefully and speedily removing the offending blobs of jelly and replacing them with more croutons bearing slices of foie gras. ‘Never forget that, mes amis.’ He added a last Madeira-soaked truffle. ‘Voilà. Let it depart. Maître Escoffier shall have no reason to be ashamed of his creation.’ Auguste gave the signal to the two footmen clad in the bright blue livery of Gwynne’s Hotel. Nothing subdued for Emma Pryde, its flamboyant owner.

  Dear Emma. He had been unable to disregard her plea to take over her kitchens for the evening in order to cook this very special dinner given for the Prince of Wales, for she herself had been laid low by the unbecoming illness of chickenpox.

  Gwynne’s Hotel in Jermyn Street alternated between a raffish reputation and one of sobriety with a hint of daring. The attendance of the Prince of Wales was a boost to the latter, especially as on this occasion His Royal Highness would be dining, not discreetly in a very private room with a lady of his choice as in days of old, but making a more public entrance with the ultra-respectable members of the Society of Literary Lionisers. Only a dinner of first-class excellence could tempt the Prince of Wales to endure this ordeal for all he was the Society’s president for this year of 1899, and this Emma, at the request (and generous payment) of the Lionisers, had guaranteed. Unfortunately not even Emma could ignore her spots to superintend the kitchens with her usual authoritarian rule and so Auguste had agreed to come to her aid on one condition. He could not work with unknown staff; he would bring in the six pupils from his cooking school. In his innocence, he now thought grimly, he had assumed this would be both a credit to him and good experience for them.

  Now he despaired. Had he done right? For the Society of Literary Lionisers, he was not concerned. For the Prince of Wales he was. His spirits rose slightly as he cast his eyes over the empty dishes coming back from the preceding course, the soup, the sole à la Batelière, the grouse pudding remove, the other entrées. Perhaps there was hope yet. With the pragmatism of the true artiste, Auguste promptly dismissed the departed chicken from his mind, and turned his attention to the now urgent approval of entremets, both sweet and savoury.

  But his heart was not fully in it. It seemed to him that his life must surely be a failure. Yesterday, 24 July 1899, had been his fortieth birthday, and how had he spent it? Alone and a failure. True, he had kept his slim figure; true, his dark eyes could be used to great effect as when they cast their spell over the kitchens of Stockbery Towers, and true, his career was considered by many outstanding. Yet now he must face the fact that in six months he, the master chef, could not teach pupils how to make a correct clear aspic. And for it to be Alice at fault, of all people! Commercial gelatine. Never would he have believed her capable of it. It must be his fault. Yet how could a heart that was sad produce the heights of a chefs art? Tatiana – no, he would not think of his black-haired dark-eyed Russian princess, so nearly for one tantalising moment within his grasp, only to flutter beyond it for ever. Even Natalia – he winced. No, he must devote himself to his art, alone. Never again should woman darken his heart – or commercial gelatine his store cupboard.

  His thunderous face alarmed his pupils.

  ‘Everything is correct, ja?’ enquired Heinrich Freimüller anxiously. The oldest of the class, in his early fifties, he often protectively appointed himself sheepdog to his five colleagues.

  Auguste cast his eye over the entremets: a small crayfish salad, a timbale de macaroni à la Mazarin – and what difficulties that had caused. In vain he had argued with Emma that His Royal Highness disliked such starch-filled foods. Emma had merely smiled in her maddening way and pointed out that she was an expert in what the Prince of Wales liked in everything. To which he had no reply.

  There was a Charlotte Romanov – no mere Charlotte Russe for tonight but his own receipt (with vodka) in honour of his patron the Grand Duke Igor of Russia, who had made it possible for Auguste to leave his employment at Plum’s Club for Gentlemen, albeit with much regret, and to launch the Auguste Didier School of Cuisine in a house in Curzon Street. It had been a rare fit of generosity initiated, had Auguste but known it, not by Igor himself in gratitude for Auguste’s help in the unfortunate happenings that had dogged the Grand Duke’s last season in Cannes, but prompted by Natalia Kallinkova who had danced her way out of Auguste’s life with some guilt.

  And, lastly, there was a pièce montée of the royal coat of arms in meringue and spun sugar, a triumph of the confectioner’s art.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Dawson,’ Auguste commented appreciatively. How strange that such exotic delights should prove to be the skill of Miss Emily Dawson, a former governess in her late twenties. Where in her previous dismal existence looking after the children of others could she have acquired the art of creating such exotic desserts? Not in nursery fare that was for sure. True, the wistfulness in her eye suggested dreams far beyond a governess’s role, and perhaps for this reason she had joined the school.

  ‘Monsieur Soyer was of the opinion,’ observed Algernon Peckham, ‘that one should never attempt to astonish guests with any extensive wonders of nature or art in the matter of eatables.’

  Auguste flashed him a look of pure dislike. ‘Thank you, Monsieur Peckham,’ he snapped. ‘Monsieur Soyer however was not called upon to entertain the Prince of Wales, who was, fortunately for him, still in the nursery then.’

  Peckham’s addiction to the sayings of Alexis Soyer was a perpetual thorn in Auguste’s side, even more annoying than his conspiratorial attitude with Auguste when discussing the cuisine of France, to which he considered a two-week visit made shortly before the commencement of the course entitled him. How, Auguste often reflected, could he have had the misfortune to alight on a disciple of Alexis Soyer for his class: nay, not only a disciple but a fanatical devotee, against whose dicta, though he had been dead over forty years, all Auguste’s pronouncements had to be measured. Alexis Soyer, master chef to the Reform Club, feeder of the poor, inventor of soup kitchens for the famine-stricken Irish, caterer to rich and poor alike, saviour of the Crimea, inventor of the Magic Stove, creator of the splendours of the Gastronomic Symposium of All Nations at Gore House, had dogged Auguste’s footsteps. With his own maître to whom he had been apprenticed in Cannes, Auguste Escoffier, he enjoyed a happy friendship, but Soyer, taking advantage of the fact that he was dead and thereby immortalised, meanly still sneaked up on him to cloud his days. To see him reincarnated in a jaunty, pretentious young man such as Algernon Peckham was the last straw. He tried hard to be charitable, to tell himself that Peckham was only twenty-three, but charity came hard when an aspiring Soyer silently criticised his every dish.

  The school had been operating for six months now, and he counted himself fortunate in his first six pupils. All of a high standard, and a mixture from all walks of life, all co-operating together dedicated to the high calling of food. Four men, Heinrich Freimüller, from the German embassy, James Pegg, the tall and burly son of a veterinary surgeon, the pretentious Algernon Peckham, so anxious to conceal the fact he was a butcher’s son, a fact made obvious from the first time he cut a joint of meat, and Lord Alfred Wittisham, Emma Pryde’s amiable and somewhat vacuous protégé, who had come to Auguste at her urging.
He announced disarmingly that as there seemed nothing else he could do, Emma thought he might be good at cooking. To his own surprise as well as everyone else’s, he turned out to be extremely good at it.

  Two women, Alice Fenwick (who had resolved to become a new Emma Pryde and Lady Wittisham into the bargain) and Emily Dawson, completed the group. The latter two were much of an age, but to the onlooker this was not apparent. Twenty-nine year old Alice, bright-eyed, pretty and good-humoured, made a strange contrast to the quiet Emily whose only relapses into animation tended to be sparked off by references to her grandmother’s vast repertoire of home remedies.

  An odd mixture and, he was bound to admit, an unexciting one. But then so seemed many recipes at first, Auguste thought. It took the art of a master chef to create an exciting unity out of uninteresting ingredients. Yet here he had not achieved it. He sighed. Yes, he needed a holiday, lest here too he saw only failure.

  ‘Nein,’ roared Heinrich Freimüller. ‘What are you doing, Fraülein?’ His usual joviality deserted him as he turned to see Emily Dawson in the act of applying a tacky mess of cream to his dessert. ‘My Nesselrode pudding do not need cream!’ he shouted.

  ‘There’s nothing like a nice bit of Chantilly,’ said Emily unusually firmly. ‘And I’m responsible for garnishing the desserts. I know about desserts.’

  ‘This is not garnish. This is desecration. It is ruined. Carême did not demand cream in his receipt, nor Francatelli, nor even your Miss Acton. No, only Miss Emily Dawson demands cream.’ His voice rose in a wail of frustration, as he pounded the table in anger.

  Emily burst into tears and dropped her cream bag on top of the Canapés de Prince de Galles, where it spat out globules of cream on top of the anchovies and gherkins.