Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) Read online

  ‘How could you not tell me, Tatiana, that you were in danger?’ Auguste cried.

  ‘You haven’t been listening carefully enough,’ she replied soberly. ‘My uncle would never kill a Romanov. It is you Pyotr Gregorin intends to kill.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘This puts a different sauce on the goose,’ Rose grunted after Tatiana had left them.

  It certainly did, and it was not one Auguste found digestible. He shivered, as if a Russian assassin even now stood behind the deep rose-red velvet curtains armed with Webley and poisoned samovar. He sipped his brandy and soda gratefully, as the fire glowed comfortingly in the lamplight.

  His brain was numb, pinioned on the concept that somewhere, somehow, sometime, a Russian was about to kill him. Tatiana’s account had brought the reality of the attack home to him. No happy fantasy of mistaken shots at rabbits could delude him now.

  ‘So the Tabors were protecting me, and I thought they suspected me of having designs on their teaspoons.’ He spoke as lightly as he could.

  ‘Not all diamonds and foie gras marrying royalty, then.’

  ‘Too rich a diet for me, Egbert. Like eating Mr Breckles’ toffee pudding every day.’

  Egbert grinned. ‘Not to be compared with your bavarois de framboises, but naturally, when in Yorkshire, eh?’

  ‘You are a true friend, Egbert.’

  ‘Policeman too.’

  His meaning was lost on Auguste as his eyes gently began to close . . .

  ‘But the Tabors must have known that body wasn’t Gregorin’s,’ Rose muttered as much to himself as Auguste. ‘Alexander would have told them when he went to rouse them.’ He frowned. ‘That might lead to another conclusion . . .’ He glanced at Auguste, who dozed in happy ignorance of Egbert’s deduction. It wasn’t entirely sound but he couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility, or, at least, the detective in him couldn’t. The man could quite easily.

  A sudden tap on his shoulder. Auguste spun round in the Tabors’ morning room, his nerves still not steady. It was not Gregorin, but it was a face he knew well. Sergeant Stitch – no, Inspector, he must now remember. How strange to think that Twitch, to use Rose’s not too affectionate adaptation of his name, had now attained the rank that had been Rose’s when Auguste first met him ten years ago at Stockbery Towers.

  ‘Morning, Mr Didier.’ Something that was almost a grin stretched across Twitch’s face. ‘Didn’t expect to see me, eh?’ Promotion had made his heart a trifle fonder towards Auguste, hitherto regarded as an interfering Frenchie.

  ‘No, indeed. Chief Inspector Rose told me he had sent for a sergeant. We are fortunate indeed.’

  ‘Came myself,’ Twitch said obviously. ‘Can’t get along without me in a major investigation of this kind. Royalty,’ he summed up succinctly. He eyed Auguste as if expecting him to challenge his statement. Indeed perhaps it was true. Where routine and painstaking thoroughness were concerned, there had been few better than Sergeant Stitch. Whether he would exhibit new dramatic qualities as Inspector Stitch remained to be proved. True, there had been the affair of Charlie Harbottle and the Earl of Doncaster’s Rubens, but as Twitch had in fact arrested the villain in connection with a daring raid on Perkins’ Pie Shop, the Rubens could be said to be a fortunate bonus.

  ‘I’m at the Temperance Hotel.’ Twitch eyed the glories of Tabor Hall wistfully.

  ‘I am sure there is plenty of room in the royal wing,’ murmured Auguste generously on behalf of his hostess, leading the way to Rose’s quarters.

  Egbert Rose glanced up from his peaceful survey of the Craven Herald where a demure paragraph announced the discovery of the body of an unknown man in the grounds of Tabor Hall. ‘Solved the crime yet, Stitch?’

  ‘On the trail, sir,’ Twitch replied woodenly.

  ‘Fortunately Mr Didier was staying here as a guest. That’s a help, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yessir,’ Stitch replied without batting an eyelid. He never quite knew how to take the Chief.

  ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘The Frenchie tailor can’t be found, so Chesnais says.’ Twitch relished the fact that he was now of equal status to Rose’s friend in the Sûreté. No more ‘Inspector Chesnais’ for him.

  ‘And the shirt?’

  ‘There’s a shirtmaker of that name in New York. None too grand, so they don’t keep records of every batch of shirts they produce. They have a regular clients’ list,’ Stitch told him, carried away by his achievements, ‘so if we could let them have a name . . .’ His voice trailed off weakly as his chief looked at him scathingly.

  Rose decided to let him off. ‘Underwear?’

  ‘The same.’ Twitch began to get nervous. ‘They need the name—’

  Rose pulled a face. ‘Why don’t I ever get told, “That shirt’s one of two made for the Marquis of Yorkshire Pudding.” No, it’s always if we send them the name of the client, they’d be happy to check their pneumatic cash carriers to see if some old bills have decayed inside.’ He sighed. ‘Get the lists, Stitch, check ’em against the missing persons list we sent you.’

  ‘I did, sir. And against the Yard’s lists.’ Pride animated his voice.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’ It deflated again.

  Rose sighed.

  ‘I’ve brought details of steamship arrivals from the United States in the last few weeks,’ Stitch offered hopefully.

  ‘Better than nothing, I suppose,’ Rose admitted grudgingly. ‘Though the fellow can’t have sailed right up and docked outside the gates. Even if he hopped over the wall, he had to have arrived at one of the local villages or towns at some point, and that’s where we stick at the moment. Somebody must know the fellow,’ he continued irritably. ‘Poke round the city, Stitch. See if there’s anything in these rumours about the gold market falling, and its affecting Janes. And telegraph the Colonial Office and Army HQ on Simpson. There’s plenty of leads in this case, that’s one thing. Like that children’s game, the Labyrinth. Ever played it, Auguste? Edith’s eldest sister’s middle one used to be fond of it. You wind balls of string or wool in and out of trees and bushes in the garden, or if you’re unlucky, all around the house. Everyone takes the end of a piece and follows it. At the end of one of them lies the buried treasure. Like detective work really.’

  ‘And like Fair Rosamund, born to William de Clifford in Skipton Castle,’ Auguste laughed, glad his time in Skipton had not been entirely wasted. ‘King Henry II set his love in the midst of a labyrinthine maze so that his jealous wife could not find her. But Queen Eleanor managed to find the way in and poisoned her.’

  ‘Did they get any evidence on this Eleanor?’ Rose asked disapprovingly. ‘More likely to be the King up to no good if you ask me. Ladies in bowers could be demanding. Probably blackmailing him.’

  ‘It is but a legend, Egbert. In Skipton I learned many – like that of the green fairies haunting Ilkley bathhouse. They have not been seen for some years, though.’

  ‘Add green fairies to the missing persons list, Stitch,’ Rose grunted.

  ‘Do you forgive me, Auguste, for not telling you? It was for your own good.’ Tatiana hurried to catch up with him as he strode towards the smokehouse, and finally caught his arm impatiently. ‘I did not tell you because I thought if I spoke to Gregorin I could persuade him to forgive me. Alexander and I were so sure he would come on Saturday night. On Friday we escorted you everywhere, and at night I locked our windows and doors once you were asleep. I slept with a gun beneath my pillows. I would have—’

  ‘Gun?’ This was getting worse.

  ‘It was loaned to me by George. It was not the Webley, Auguste,’ she added reproachfully. ‘On Saturday we watched all day without success, and at night I locked you in as soon as you came back, and closed the windows again. Alexander and I searched the house, and then went back to the Chinese Blue Salon directly underneath our room. We were so sure it was Gregorin in the smokehouse.’ She paused. ‘I told Egbert the truth, ma mie.’
r />   ‘Were you going to see Gregorin yesterday in Settle?’ asked Auguste, enlightenment dawning.

  ‘Yes. I believed my uncle might well be staying there.’

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes?’ A shiver ran up his spine.

  ‘But I fear, I very much fear, Auguste, that I talked in vain.’

  Auguste swallowed. ‘Do not worry,’ he told her, more bravely than he felt. ‘Egbert can discuss it immediately with Special Branch and Gregorin can be made to leave the country. Special Branch are most particular about other countries’ secret agents working here, ever since a body turned up in Strutton Ground about fifteen years ago. That was the work of the Okhrana too,’ he told her, trying hard to sound matter of fact.

  ‘It is not Gregorin’s style to leave bodies lying around. He usually disposes of them.’

  ‘The sooner this gentleman leaves England, the better.’

  ‘Then we can never go abroad again.’

  Could he cut himself off from La Belle France? Auguste sighed. ‘I suppose it is better to face these people.’

  ‘He prefers it,’ she informed him soberly. ‘His favourite method is a stiletto in the breast.’

  Auguste gulped. ‘Pray tell me more about your delightful uncle.’

  ‘I think he is now about forty-five, but always he seems the same age to me. He is slim, dark, not tall, and moves like a cat. And like a cat, he works best alone. He has no friends that I know of, merely associates. Those who use his services, the Tsar, the Kaiser and others, trust him. He has a code of honour to those for whom he works.’

  Auguste tried to grapple with the notion of an assassin who pounced like a cat with a stiletto. ‘Good.’ He attempted nonchalance.

  ‘I tried to convince him I am not worthy to be a Romanov, and that I would renounce my rank and live privately, so it is just possible he might dismiss you from his list,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Or else—’

  ‘Yes?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘He might kill us both.’ She watched him, then added wrily, ‘He will wish you to know who killed you, however. He will introduce himself. He is, after all, a gentleman.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. It makes the prospect of sudden death much more appealing.’

  She ignored this. ‘Russians are patient, of course. He may wait five hours, five days or five years before striking again. But I know he will return.’

  His heart sank. ‘Why did you not tell me before?’

  ‘I was afraid you might not marry me if I did.’

  ‘I would not have hesitated,’ he said truthfully, taking her in his arms. The rarest truffles of Périgord were beyond price.

  ‘Auguste,’ she said, her voice muffled against his cheek, ‘when we go back to London I shall stop being a princess. I have been one for thirty-three years and it is time to change. There are many more interesting things to do in the world. I do so hate At Homes. I never wish to be At Home again. Moreover, I do not think Mr Marx would approve of Nainsook knickers or bust improvers modelled on the Venus de Milo, and that is all the Mrs Janes of this world can talk of.’

  ‘Ma mie!’ Auguste’s heart melted at her patent efforts to cheer him up. ‘You can never not be a princess, any more than I can say I will not be Auguste Didier born in the fishing village of Cannes. We carry our past with us.’

  ‘Only if we let it.’

  ‘Society does not yet permit otherwise,’ he said, despondently.

  ‘But we make Society,’ said Tatiana obstinately. ‘It is all brazen pretence. It accepts whom and what it chooses, regardless of its own rules; like Lady Tichborne acknowledging that fat old butcher as her son in the famous Tichborne Claimant case, even though he was nothing like the missing heir.’

  ‘That is not Society, that is the human heart.’

  ‘So that,’ said Tatiana triumphantly, ‘is the most important. Is it not, Auguste?’

  He laughed at having been caught out, hugging her and swinging her round. ‘Once I would have thought so, and between us two it is. But we live in the world, and regretfully the world is not yet at a stage when Society can be entirely disregarded.’

  ‘But what shall I do, when we return to London? I cannot be At Home for ever. I cannot.’

  ‘What would you want to do?’ he asked gravely. Marriage was producing unexpected problems. Love might not necessarily solve everything. What would his wife do? Between breakfast and the marriage bed there was much time to fill. (Assuming Gregorin permitted him to fill it, he thought uneasily.) For him there was the ten-volume work on cuisine. But for her? ‘What would you like to do?’

  ‘I would like to have a profession, like you.’

  ‘Cooking?’ asked Auguste guardedly.

  She laughed. ‘No. I do not have the patience.’

  Relief flooded over him, until an equally appalling prospect struck him. ‘Not detection?’

  ‘No, I do not have the logic.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I don’t yet know. But I will soon. I am simmering the pot, Auguste.’

  They had arrived at the smokehouse, and Police Constable Walters eyed them suspiciously.

  ‘What have you come for?’ Tatiana asked Auguste. She seemed unwilling to enter.

  ‘To meet Egbert.’

  ‘Oh. Then you will not need me.’

  ‘On the contr—’ but Tatiana was already hurrying away. Auguste watched her, in some surprise at her lack of enthusiasm for meeting Egbert again now all was well between them, and idly wondered why.

  In the morning greyness, the ladies of the smokehouse seemed to have donned a veneer of respectability as though they wore their morning faces. The smell of stale smoke hung in the air, reeking from ashtrays untouched since Saturday night by police orders. His matches marking the position of the body had been replaced with a chalk outline; in any case his careful work was now irrelevant, since the body had been moved before George Tabor touched it.

  ‘Morning, Walters.’

  ‘Morning, Chief Inspector.’ The reply came as eagerly as if Walters was envisaging a rapid removal to the very pinnacles of Scotland Yard. Egbert had arrived.

  ‘Come alone, did you, Auguste? Brave of you.’

  ‘No. Tatiana felt she should accompany me.’

  ‘Ah.’ Rose made no comment on her absence.

  ‘If Gregorin is to come, then he will,’ Auguste said, not knowing how to interpret this.

  ‘Twitch is checking what Special Branch has on him. These foreign agents are lying low at the moment, now we’ve got the anarchists and nihilists at least temporarily under control. But you can never tell. I’ve heard of Gregorin.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can see why Tatiana’s worried,’ Rose told him soberly. ‘Feel like Sherlock Holmes with a Moriarty dogging your footsteps, do you? No villain is a true Moriarty, Auguste; everyone has his weakness – if you can find it.’

  ‘Do you know of any particular weaknesses attached to Gregorin?’ Auguste asked, trying not to sound too interested.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ Auguste swallowed. ‘Then let us return to the dead man.’ It was a brave start.

  ‘You know, Auguste, the Yard is full of Twitches, from top to bottom. Excellent once they’ve a lead along a well-known path. But they don’t listen to what’s happening in the undergrowth to right or left.’

  ‘The call of the cicadas?’

  ‘Not to mention frogs. In the undergrowth nowadays are the scientists in the medical laboratories, as we were saying earlier.’ He rummaged in the pocket of his overcoat and produced photographs of the smokehouse before and after the body had been removed. ‘Look at this—’ He pointed to a shape on one photograph, a dull grey shadow on a rug about two feet from where the corpse had lain on the carpet. ‘What’s that? There’s nothing there now.’

  Auguste dropped down on his knees to examine the rug.

  ‘But there is,’ he said excitedly. ‘Egbert – see. The photograp
h picked up what our eyes couldn’t. But if you look very closely indeed, there’s the faintest of stains on it in the pile. As if it had been washed.’

  ‘Blood?’ said Rose dubiously, squatting beside him.

  ‘It could be. Yet why should the murderer wash away one stain and leave the other?’ Auguste pointed to the dull brown patch where the head had lain.

  ‘To make it look like suicide.’

  ‘Probably. You mean he fell here, and the murderer shifted the body to where it was found?’

  ‘But why move the body to one side like this and try to obscure the fact?’

  Auguste glanced up when Egbert said nothing more. ‘Alexander denies altering the position; he merely lifted it slightly and let it drop.’

  ‘We’ve got a test now for the presence of blood. Some chemical turns blue. Cobbold’s got a chum at a Leeds hospital who’s a Home Office pathologist. I’ll get him to send the rug along. If there’s anything at all left, it might work.’ Rose paused. ‘Cobbold’s been up this morning. He told me the Denver police have telegraphed about Uncle Oscar. They tracked him down to the Yukon. Running a gold assay office there under the name of Percy Smith. Last seen a week ago. If that’s reliable, there goes one bright idea and Lady Tabor’s whiter than white. They’ve confirmed the mine-salting story too, but the chief victim died two years ago. Uncle Oscar doesn’t appear to be short of enemies, but they can’t suggest any who’d be up to tracking him down here, New York shirt or not.’

  ‘So Mr Janes’ motive disappears too,’ Auguste said glumly. ‘Yet he is certainly nervous about something.’