Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) Read online

  ‘She was there for the teas, that I remember. Bessie was with her – you can speak to her.’

  ‘And when did you see her after that?’ He consulted a timetable drawn up for him by Auguste. ‘Servants’ breakfast?’

  She wrinkled her brow. ‘I can’t rightly remember if she was at breakfast. We was all new to one another, you see. I wouldn’t have noticed if one had been missing without some special reason to do so. There ain’t a lot of time at servants’ breakfasts.’

  Auguste knew that only too well. He remembered at Stockbery Towers that for the housemaids it was a matter of a quick half-hour, if that, between the polishing, the blacking, the cleaning, the hot water carrying . . . Ah, Stockbery Towers. He wondered if his dear kitchen was being properly run now he had gone. Stockbery Towers had, after all, started him off on his life of crime. That matter, too, had begun with the murder of a servant, but see how far its tentacles had spread. Now Nancy Watkins’ death boded much the same.

  Bessie, when summoned, burst through the door ahead of Twitch in excitement at meeting real London policemen. She also seemed to be bursting through stays and print gown, plump with glowing health. Auguste was hardly surprised to find this was her first London post. Even the presence of her manager and the housekeeper did not quell her exuberance.

  ‘Are we safe ’ere, sir? Mrs Pomfret didn’t tell us about no murderers being in the house. And my mum, she said, look out for the butler; he’s a caution most places.’

  ‘Mr Didier’s the nearest thing you got to a butler here, Bessie. You’re quite safe,’ said Rose kindly.

  Auguste glared at him. ‘The Inspector and his invaluable assistant Sergeant Stitch will catch this murderer in no time. Do not fear, Bessie. We understand you served the early morning teas with Nancy?’

  ‘That’s right,’ answered Bessie cheerfully. Then the enormity struck her. ‘So it might have been me,’ she whispered.

  ‘I doubt it,’ grunted Rose reassuringly. ‘The murderer was definitely after Nancy. All we need to know from you, miss, is which rooms you took tea to.’

  ‘Nancy were supposed to do one side of the staircase and me the other, that was on the first floor, and she did the three rooms on the second floor, seeing as how I had further to walk on the first, my rooms being further from the lift,’ she told them all in one breath. ‘I offered to help, but she said she could manage,’ she announced, sounding a trifle regretful that her beneficence had been so unappreciated.

  ‘Where’s that plan of the rooms, Mr Didier?’

  Auguste produced it, and Bessie pored over it, one pudgy finger pointing to the west side of the hotel where Sir John Harnet, Miss Rosanna Pembrey, the de Castillons and Colonel Carruthers slept.

  ‘So Nancy was responsible for Mr and Mrs Harbottle, Misses Ethel and Evelyn Pembrey, Major Dalmaine, and Miss Guessings, and on the next floor the Baroness, her companion, and Mr Bowman. And so far as you know, miss, they all got their tea.’

  Bessie nodded vigorously. ‘Course they did. There’d have been a tray left in the lift otherwise, eh?’ She beamed at her percipience.

  ‘And there wasn’t?’

  ‘Can’t have bin. ’Cos I collected all the empties after, ’cos Nancy would have bin at breakfast by then, so she could start her dusting at nine. An’ I collected all the trays.’

  ‘Everyone had tea then, if you know you collected them all?’

  Her face fell as slowly she took this in.

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’ she said a little pettishly. ‘You want dahn below.’

  The term ‘dahn below’ in fact encompassed several rooms, the main kitchen itself, the subsidiary kitchen used as the staff dining room, scullery, larders, still room, cold room and wine cellars, together with a laundry and delivery room. It was the main kitchen, however, that immediately riveted Auguste’s attention.

  Fancelli, as soon as he saw Auguste, leaned nonchalantly back against the range. He had something to hide. What was it? was Auguste’s fearful reaction. He had approved the menu both for luncheon and for dinner. Ergo, his detective instinct told him, Fancelli had altered something. All around, fresh wares from Covent Garden, Billingsgate and Smithfield lay awaiting attention, breakfast now being over. And there Auguste saw a distressing sight. He marched up to it, inspected and turned on the culprit.

  ‘A fish with a dull eye is as bad as a detective with one,’ he informed Fancelli none too gently. ‘A cod’s eye should be as bright as Inspector Rose’s.’

  ‘Very well, I will make him into soup,’ Fancelli hissed clearly, wishing he could do the same with Auguste.

  Rose suppressed a grin as he parted the warring cooks. ‘What I want to know is who was responsible for loading the service lift with early morning tea trays?’

  ‘Me.’ An unhappy spotty youth was propelled forward by eager comrades none too anxious to be at closer quarters with the police.

  ‘Any trays left unclaimed in the lift, son?’ Rose asked him.

  ‘No, sir. Thirteen trays went up as ordered.’

  ‘And,’ put in Bessie, ‘I sends thirteen dahn again. And please, sir, I’ve been thinking. You was asking me about the teas. Well, if she was, like, killed then, where was the body put?’

  ‘What do you mean, Bessie?’ Auguste enquired. ‘Either she was killed in the last room she visited with tea, or after that. Probably not in a public room, but in a bedroom. You may leave that to Inspector Rose to consider,’ he told her gravely.

  Bessie had no intention of leaving the limelight. ‘Can’t have been like that,’ she said, pleased as Christmas punch. ‘It can’t have been put in the chest till late that evening, what with that young lady’s joke. Where was the body hid in the meantime? You see, we girls would have noticed a body when we did the rooms proper, even if they ’id it when I collected the tea trays.’

  Rose silently cursed last night’s foie gras which had dulled mind as well as stomach.

  ‘Hidden,’ said Rose, less than adequately.

  ‘But where?’ asked Bessie, emboldened.

  ‘Under the bed?’

  A look of scorn from Bessie. ‘Nah. Not with Mrs Pomfret around. Much as our life’s worth not to do under the beds.’

  ‘Wardrobe?’

  ‘Nah. We opens them to put the day covers and cushions out for the beds.’ Bessie was openly gloating now, looking round triumphantly to make sure her listening colleagues absorbed this triumph over the police, not to mention the all-powerful manager.

  ‘A guest’s trunk or another chest?’

  ‘All the trunks are in the baggage room, Inspector,’ Auguste told him, interested now. ‘And as for chests, there are none in the bedrooms.’

  ‘There must be many places in a hotel this size where a body could be hidden. Down in the cellars, for example.’

  Fancelli, passing casually by, ostensibly with a half-eaten cold turkey but in fact to ensure Auguste was not putting the blame on him for murder, quickly intervened. ‘No in my cellar. No in my kitchens.’

  ‘Down the servants’ stairs? Outside?’

  ‘Then why bring it back?’ asked Auguste reasonably. ‘The guests,’ he told Rose when they were alone in his office once more, having established that after about eight thirty none of the staff recalled seeing Nancy, and that apart from the other housemaids, all the staff were busy with Christmas luncheon and not bent on murder. ‘It seems most likely to have been one of them.’

  ‘What about maids and valets?’ asked Rose sharply, remembering Stockbery Towers.

  ‘The de Castillons have a maid and valet with them, as do Sir John Harnet and the Pembrey girls. They are lodged in nearby houses with some of the staff.’

  ‘How do they get in?’

  ‘Through the tradesmen’s entrance.’

  ‘So anyone could have got in.’

  ‘My friend,’ said Auguste gently, ‘it is possible. But hardly likely. Remember – “At Cranton’s? Christmas?”’

  ‘Might we take a stroll round Portman Square,
Mr Bowman? I would be so grateful for your company.’ Gladys’s kid-gloved hand stole inexorably round the crook of his arm.

  ‘Never fear, dear lady, they’ll arrest you over my dead body.’ Alfred Bowman perceived his joke was not well received, and a guffaw was hastily turned into a cough. The gardens, though well-kept, were barren at this time of year, life represented only by one or two intrepid guests from the hotel like themselves, whom Gladys appeared to eye with alarm.

  ‘Now,’ began Bowman genially, ‘how can I help you, dear lady? I can see you are troubled.’

  ‘I knew her, you see,’ Gladys burst out.

  ‘Who?’ asked Bowman cautiously.

  ‘The girl. Nancy. The one who was murdered. I didn’t know who it was dead till last night, and since I found out I’ve worried and worried. Oh, Mr Bowman, do you think I ought to tell the police? Will they think I did it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ replied Bowman offhandedly and far from reassuringly. ‘How did you know her, my dear Gladys, if I might so address you?’

  ‘They said a maid had been murdered, you see. And Nancy wasn’t a maid. Well, not really. I recognised her on Christmas Eve – she was so startled to see me here, that’s when she dropped that chestnut purée. Oh dear, I don’t suppose the Baroness will be very grateful to me either. She comes from Much Wallop, you see.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The village where I live. She’s the ward of an acquaintance of mine. Went to the bad, you know.’

  ‘You mean, she became an unfortunate?’ Bowman just held himself back from his usual word for the oldest profession.

  A shocked silence. Then, ‘No. But nearly as bad. She went to work for a newspaper.’

  ‘Your just knowing her isn’t going to worry the Inspector, dear lady. Shall I come with you to see him? Ten to one they’ve discovered already who the girl was.’

  ‘But it’s worse than that, Mr Bowman,’ Gladys cried, determined to tell all. Or nearly. ‘You see, when she brought my tea in on Christmas morning, she told me what she was doing here. And, oh, Mr Bowman, what do you think? She said she was working on a story for her magazine.’

  ‘What story?’ Sharply.

  ‘She writes a household hints column, so I did just wonder. . .’

  ‘Yes, dear lady?’

  Gladys grew a trifle pink. ‘She said something odd. I asked her if she couldn’t make a little visit at New Year to Much Wallop, for her guardian would so like to see her. But she said no, it was urgent, for there was something she had to stop happening. It was still going on, she said. I wondered,’ Gladys added diffidently, ‘if she had something like the adulteration of honey in mind,’ looking at Mr Bowman for his views. But he had no views to offer on honey.

  ‘I suggest,’ he said heartily, ‘that you tell the Inspector at the earliest opportunity everything you’ve told me. Especially about the household hints. It might give them a lead.’

  Thérèse von Bechlein, too, was walking in Portman Square, with Marie-Paul. There they came upon Thomas and Eva Harbottle, the latter being subjected to the complete Baedeker guide pouring forth from the lips of her husband. ‘That,’ he pointed to the northern corner of the square, ‘was the home of Monsieur Otto, the French ambassador who at the time of peace being concluded between England and France in 1802 hung lights to spell the word “Concord” outside it. The crowd outside construed it as “Conquered” and took great exception.’

  ‘Was that not rather foolish of your countrymen, Thomas?’ enquired his bride not entirely innocently.

  He turned pink. ‘Nonsense, my dear. It was but the misreading of the moment.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Mr Harbottle,’ interjected Thérèse, overhearing, ‘Monsieur Otto’s subsequent attempt “Amitié” was also misread as “Enmity”. You see how hard we French endeavour to please you English in vain.’

  ‘As you say, Baroness,’ retorted Mr Harbottle. ‘Unfortunately, every country has its mob. Even France.’

  ‘Oh la, la, Marie-Paul, we have aroused the sleeping lion. My apologies, Mr Harbottle.’

  He bowed, but as the Baroness walked away, she remarked to her companion, ‘Not a lion, but a sleeping tiger, that one, Marie-Paul.’

  ‘The Englishman?’

  ‘Ah non. His wife, I meant.’

  ‘Can’t keep out of a good murder, can you, Auguste?’

  Maisie’s head appeared round the door of his cubbyhole, surmounted by a large pink feathered hat and muffled in white fur.

  ‘Dear Maisie.’ He leapt up and embraced her; chastely, with merely two kisses. ‘It follows me, as you well know.’

  ‘Cherchez l’homme, say I,’ pulling off her gloves.

  ‘Which homme had you in mind?’ asked Auguste drily.

  ‘Her young man,’ said Maisie cheerfully. ‘He’s the obvious suspect. Ten to one they had a quarrel when they met that morning, he stabbed her and there you are.’

  ‘And then she arose and served seven trays of tea?’ he enquired.

  ‘He lied about the time,’ she said shortly.

  ‘And how did the body walk inside the hotel again unnoticed?’ enquired Auguste patiently.

  ‘Elementary, Watson,’ said Maisie, twinkling now. ‘I reckon he hid it in the cellars where he was sleeping, then popped it up into the chest during the night. At eight thirty there wouldn’t be too much risk when he stabbed her. The servants would be in the kitchens, not the cellars.’

  ‘This body was not yet released from rigor mortis. You think he could “pop” it up a staircase into the drawing room just like that?’

  ‘I can’t solve everything for you, Auguste. I have to leave something to you,’ she said impatiently, then soberly: ‘Poor girl. Like the others. Remember?’

  A glance between them, and six years fell away once more. They were back in the Galaxy Theatre, that place of enchantment, now being swept away under the beginnings of a new roadway, the Aldwych. Soon the theatre would open again elsewhere, yet the old building had gone with its years of happy memories. True, of the time he and Maisie had been there, not all the memories were happy.

  ‘We both remember,’ he said quietly.

  She sighed. ‘That’s why I want to help find who murdered this girl.’

  ‘Then, Maisie, tell me. How, when did the staff come to you? Where and when did your guests hear of this party? It is, Egbert and I know, of great significance.’

  ‘We advertised in The Times for guests, of course.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I think October.’

  ‘So we can rule out all those who live so far away that the news could not have reached them in time.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Maisie said, highly pleased. ‘You’re losing your touch. Perhaps they have relatives in this country, who arranged it for them.’

  ‘True,’ he agreed regretfully. ‘And the staff were all hired in early December?’

  ‘Yes, at about the same time I approached you.’

  ‘You came to me first?’ he asked suspiciously.

  ‘Naturally, I thought of you first,’ said Maisie smoothly, ‘but it never occurred to me that you would be free. Not until one of your former pupils applied for a job, and mentioned it.’

  ‘Why, as a pupil of Auguste Didier, did he not get a position?’ he demanded indignantly, diverted for the moment from the thread of his enquiries.

  ‘Because I’d already appointed Fancelli,’ retorted Maisie. ‘And nothing but the best posts, naturally, would suit your pupils, Auguste.’

  ‘Ah.’ Auguste was mollified.

  Egbert Rose had arranged to see the guests one by one and Maisie was deputed to search her offices for all correspondence likely to be of interest. Highly incensed at being banished, she went off, head in air.

  Rose had elected to see the Marquise first, but to his surprise it was Gladys Guessings who swept in first, hat askew, nose pink, to explain her mission.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us earlier you knew the young lady?’ he asked resignedly. ‘It wou
ld have saved a great deal of work tracing her relations.’

  ‘Oh!’ Her face was anxious. ‘Has her poor guardian been told? I didn’t know, you see. I just thought of her as poor Nancy Watkins gone to the bad.’

  ‘To the London Watchman, in fact,’ observed Rose drily.

  ‘Yes. She was working on honey, I believe,’ Gladys announced in a hushed voice.

  ‘Honey?’ Rose asked blankly.

  ‘It’s very wicked, you know, what goes on in our food.’ She leant across the table confidentially. ‘They adulterate it. I’ve read about it. And other foods. All sorts of things in there that shouldn’t be. And our water. Food was put on earth to be clean, Inspector Rose.’ The bobble on her hat emphasised its agreement with her. ‘What is mankind doing to it? That’s what we need to know. I think Nancy was quite right, although she’d gone to the bad.’

  ‘To the bad, madame?’ asked Auguste, just entering. ‘You mean she . . .’ Visions of white slavers, the Haymarket, the brothels of Soho, flooded through his mind.

  ‘Oh no. Why must you gentlemen always be thinking of that?’ Gladys blushed half in annoyance, half in embarrassment.

  ‘He’s French, ma’am,’ Rose retorted gravely, shooting a sidelong look at a highly annoyed Auguste. ‘Did she talk to you after she had recognised you?’

  ‘Oh yes, we had quite a chat when she brought the tea in in the morning, and she asked me not to tell anyone why she was there. I suppose it’s all right now though,’ she added sadly. ‘She said she was after an important story, you see. That it was all happening again. About the food.’

  ‘I think the story she was after might have been bigger than that, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh no, it was definitely food. Particularly puddings.’

  ‘Puddings?’ repeated Rose blankly.

  ‘Yes, I remember that clearly because she mentioned my favourite. My father brought the recipe home from his club one day for Mother, but I fear,’ she giggled, ‘I used to eat the greater part. It was called Emma Pryde’s Pall Mall Pudding. That’s Emma Pryde, the famous cook, you know,’ she added.

  ‘Oui, madame, I know,’ Auguste said, well aware of Emma’s specialities. Pall Mall Pudding was not a recipe he was acquainted with, but with its inventor – ah, that was a different matter.