Murder in Pug's Parlour Read online

  Yet, as she got up and washed in her basin with the tepid water that one of the housemaids had placed outside her door, such pleasant thoughts faded, as she brought to mind what had been worrying her. The sandwiches. The doctor had asked about the sandwiches. And she had made them.

  ‘These sandwiches, miss. You usually make sandwiches?’

  Sergeant Bladon was looking less like the fatherly figure she had always taken him for, partly because he had been up all night.

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘Can’t hear you, miss.’

  She forced herself to speak. She was innocent. She had nothing to hide. ‘No,’ was all she could manage.

  Auguste was protective. ‘No, Sergeant Bladon, but everyone else had gone to bed. So when Mrs Hartham rang for some sandwiches, Ethel was the only one still up.’

  Sergeant Bladon turned purringly to Auguste. ‘Ah, Mr Didier, so how come you know so much about it?’

  ‘Because I was there,’ said Auguste. ‘I gave Miss Gubbins the duck to place in the sandwiches.’

  ‘Oh did you, Mr Didier?’ Bladon beamed. ‘Unfortunate really. Very unfortunate, you might say. You being so – ah – closely connected with the demise of poor Mr Greeves.’

  Auguste controlled himself with an effort. ‘Monsieur le Sergent, you know very well that the poison that poisoned Mr Greeves was in the brandy bottle, not in the luncheon.’

  ‘Oh I know that, do I, Mr Didier? Well, you may think I know it, but what I know ain’t going to count much longer. It’s the new man you’ll have to convince. First thing His Grace insisted on this morning is that this fellow from Scotland Yard comes down. He’s going to be attached to us for a while.’ Bladon was torn between relief that responsibility was now to be lifted from his shoulders, and irritation at this reflection on the Kent Police’s competence, even though it was one in the eye for Naseby. ‘He’ll want to see you, Mr Didier. You too, Miss Gubbins.’

  ‘Me?’ Ethel looked frightened.

  ‘You made the sandwiches, see.’

  ‘But, Sergeant,’ said Auguste impatiently, as to a child, ‘Miss Gubbins was alone in Mrs Hartham’s bedroom – why could she not have removed the sandwiches if they were full of poison which she had put there?’

  ‘Could have been a trick,’ said Bladon portentously. ‘To throw us off the track.’

  Ethel dissolved into tears as the enormity of her position hit her.

  Bladon was taken aback. ‘There, there,’ he said uneasily. ‘Don’t take it hard. I daresay they won’t be too hard on you.’

  Strangely, this failed to calm Ethel’s fears.

  Auguste was perplexed. It had seemed so simple over the mayonnaise. He knew just how Greeves had been murdered and guessed why. Blackmail. But why then Mrs Hartham? Was it accident perhaps? No, no accident. So Marshall was right – there was danger for all in Stockbery Towers till this murderer was discovered. And now Scotland Yard. Auguste had a high opinion of La Sûreté, but of Scotland Yard . . . they made mistakes. That he knew. They had good men there; they had found Charlie Peace, many other murderers too, but of the application of logic, of patient reasoning? That was a French gift. Not English. They would be prejudiced. They were used to what they classified as the hot-headed émigrés who flocked to London’s Bohemia. In their way they would be as prejudiced as Bladon. A Frenchman present? Let us blame the Frenchman.

  Directly he entered Pug’s Parlour he knew something was wrong. There was a silence as they saw him, a heavy silence and Ethel was in the midst of it. She jumped up when he entered and regardless of decorum threw herself into his arms. May Fawcett’s lips grew thinner, Mrs Hankey’s bosom swelled.

  ‘Mr Didier,’ she gulped, ‘they think, they’re saying—’ and she broke into a torrent of weeping.

  ‘Ah yes, what are they saying?’ he replied steadily, keeping his arm round her defiantly while she searched for a handkerchief.

  Nobody enlightened him. A few feet shuffled uneasily.

  May Fawcett, braver than the rest, finally ventured: ‘Remarkable, isn’t it, Mr Didier, that it was you prepared the sandwiches, you two together, that is?’

  ‘So that makes me the murderer, hein?’ enquired Auguste mildly. ‘First I kill Greeves, then I go out and kill a woman I do not know.’

  ‘Not murder, no.’ said Mrs Hankey eagerly, pacifyingly. ‘Accident was what we thought.’

  ‘They said you might be one of those people just likes killing people for the fun of it,’ said Ethel, noisily snuffling. ‘Like that Dr Palmer.’

  ‘Did they indeed?’ Auguste regarded his colleagues with fascinated horror.

  ‘Say what you like, Mr Didier, the poison was in the food and you prepared it,’ said Cricket, eyes flickering malevolently.

  Five pairs of eyes regarded Auguste, not giving an inch. No longer one of them now. Their former united front was giving way. And he was the outsider. He must hurry to find this murderer. The sands were running through the egg glass rapidly.

  Inspector Rose of Scotland Yard sat in his second-class compartment on the branch line to Hollingham Halt and gloomily considered his immediate future. Unless this case was solved and double quick, and in the manner least upsetting to the Duke, his position was likely to be awkward. He was under no illusions after reading the notes rushed up by special courier the night before as to why he had been detailed to this assignment. The Men of Kent were neatly bypassing the possibility of failure by acquiescing in the Duke’s request to the commissioner on the tenuous grounds that the crime might well have had its genesis in London. Walter Marshall’s sudden interest in the August ball at Stockbery House, Mayfair, had not escaped the Duke’s attention.

  Nor was Rose under any illusions as to why he, Rose, had been selected. Too low-ranking an officer could not be sent to Stockbery Towers; too high-ranking an officer and they would fear to fall. Rose was not a man who regarded the world through rose-coloured spectacles – they tended to be distinctly grey. Nor was he possessed of much humour, fortunate in view of his name, which had he been conscious of its unsuitability for a ferocious senior officer of the Yard would have been a drawback indeed. Instead, it was a strength. The villains knew when Rose was coming. Some of his gloom was inherent, but much due to his delicate stomach, not eased by the culinary skills, or lack of them, possessed by Mrs Rose. A vicar’s son, brought up in close contact with the East End, he had a way of handling villains, as he called them, that inspired healthy respect for Egbert Rose and in turn gave him an understanding of the criminal mind that stood him in good stead at the Yard.

  Stockbery Towers was not going to be his milieu, however; he felt it in his bones. What did he know of Dukes and Duchesses and Honourables? Give him a mobsman, a cracksman, a bit faker and he knew where he was. But these swells – it was an alien world.

  Morosely he threw down the window to survey the Kentish landscape and a cloud of sooty smoke blew in his face, making him gasp and reach for his handkerchief. Thus half blinded and eyes streaming he arrived at Hollingham Halt.

  ‘Hum ha,’ commented Rose gloomily. He had been listening to Naseby with the occasional interruption from Bladon for an hour, closeted in the Duke’s writing-room. A high honour this and, coupled with the presence of the ducal carriage at Hollingham Halt to await his arrival, a sure sign that His Grace had recognised that murder had entered the front portals of the Towers.

  ‘What do you – um – think?’ asked Naseby ingratiatingly.

  Rose was staring out of the window. What he was thinking was that all those gardens out there must need a tidy bit of upkeep; not so many flowers of course as in his little house in Highbury, more naked statues, in fact. He wondered if they had to be scrubbed, and if so, who . . .? He pushed this thought away and tried to concentrate. He had in fact already reached certain conclusions about this case. One was that he didn’t like Naseby.

  Sergeant Bladon regarded his long lean face respectfully, trying to suppress the improper thought that this Scotland Yard chap looked so
mewhat like a mournful bloodhound pup. He pushed this rare flurry of imagination away. Rose wasn’t that young anyway, must be forty, forty-five perhaps. ‘The cook,’ Rose said abruptly. ‘I want to see the cook.’

  Naseby stared. ‘But, surely, His Grace, you’ll want to see His Grace?’

  Rose considered. ‘No,’ he said at last, ‘the cook.’

  ‘But you must say how do ye do to the Duke first.’ Naseby was shocked.

  Rose reluctantly ceded ground. ‘The Duke then.’

  His Grace was somewhat mystified to find himself alone after a mere five minutes, inveigled into feeling it better their discussion were postponed; much of the information, he understood, Rose could glean from other people, thus causing the least upset to His Grace. A sudden unexpected smile from Rose found His Grace agreeing this would indeed be best, and Rose had gone.

  ‘You’re the cook,’ said Rose. It was more of a statement than a question, as he waved Auguste to a chair in the writing-room. His Grace had suggested the servants might more suitably be interviewed elsewhere, but Rose had pointed out the upset to the routine of the kitchens and thence to the Duke’s dinner.

  Auguste took his time. Always sum up one’s opponent. He saw a man with a noncommittal face but with intelligent, darting eyes. No Bladon this, or a Naseby either. ‘I am the maître chef.’

  ‘French for cook, I know that,’ said Rose, calculatingly dismissive.

  ‘Maître chef – it is not the same thing.’

  They eyed each other carefully, prowling round each other in mental duel.

  ‘The inquest jury added a caution against you,’ said Rose abruptly.

  ‘The jury were fools – they do not understand the preparation of food.’

  Nor did Rose, but he let that pass.

  ‘Nor the purpose of logic,’ added Auguste.

  ‘Good men and true,’ murmured Rose.

  ‘That is right,’ agreed Auguste. ‘Their verdict was correct, but they do not know how they get to it. The logic is not for them. It is for you – and for me.’

  Rose put down the pen he had been pretending to make notes with – always a useful distraction for his victims. ‘And what does logic tell you, Mr Didier?’ It was impossible to guess his thoughts.

  ‘That we have two murders, one on one side of the green baize door, one on the other. But that most probably unless we have two murderers at large in one house, they were done by the same person. And that while Mr Greeves could have been murdered by someone from the main house, it is out of the question Mrs Hartham could have been murdered by someone from the servants’ quarters.’

  Rose regarded Auguste in silence. He twiddled the pen, paying scant respect to its George III pedigree. ‘A convenient theory, Mr Didier,’ he said drily. ‘Since I understand –’ he pretended to inspect some notes by his side, ‘ah yes, you prepared the duck for the sandwich that killed Mrs Hartham.’

  Auguste waved this aside. ‘Physically, yes, we could have poisoned the sandwiches; Gladys the scullery maid could have crept from her bed in the midst of the night and poisoned the sandwiches, but she would not, Monsieur I’lnspecteur.’

  ‘Would not?’

  Auguste tried to explain. ‘The main house, it is another world, m’sieur. What reason would a servant have to kill Mrs Hartham? Discovery, you will say. They killed Greeves because he had driven them beyond endurance, Mrs Hartham somehow knew about it and so she too was killed. Ah, Inspecteur, it is not likely. They are beings from another world to most of those in the servants’ hall; and to us upper servants even, they are scarcely human – we do not think of death in connection with them. We would run from them, flee from them, but not kill. No,’ he went on, ‘it is the blackmail you must look for.’

  Ignoring this tempting carrot which had already been put to him by Naseby as an irrelevance, Rose remarked: ‘Your French logic we hear so much about, Mr Didier. But my superiors like facts. No use to talk to them about flighty fancies and such like. It wasn’t fancies that caught Charlie Peace, just years of patient footslogging. Just give me a nice fact, Mr Didier.’

  ‘Very well, Inspector,’ replied Auguste quietly. ‘I will give you your fact. It is beyond question, is it not, that the poison for Mr Greeves was in the brandy bottle?’

  Rose regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Don’t let that Frenchie fellow think he’s home and dry,’ Naseby had said warningly only half an hour before. But Rose was made of sterner stuff than Naseby. ‘That seems to be the way of it,’ he said carefully.

  ‘And you think it might have been poisoned in the Duke’s morning-room? Well, I will tell you that it cannot. Because Edward Jackson, the steward’s boy, drank from that bottle while it was in the pantry next to Pug’s Parlour.’

  ‘It don’t seem to me, Mr Didier, that your French logic is working the right way round at all,’ said Rose mildly. ‘Very unfortunate, you might say, for you and your colleagues.’

  ‘Now, I go on to show you—’

  ‘No, Mr Didier, I’m a plodding sort of chap. One step after another. Let’s have a word with this ’ere boy, see what he says.’

  Rose did not look a plodding sort of chap at all, decided Auguste, looking at his sharp eyes.

  ‘Pull the bell, Inspector.’

  Rose looked at the ornate bell rope, and with a smile of satisfaction pulled it. He glanced at Auguste. ‘Often wondered what it was like to do that,’ he offered mildly. A footman was dispatched in search of Edward Jackson who appeared, mulishly reluctant, some minutes later. He shot a look at Rose, then kept his eyes downcast.

  ‘True is it, lad, what Mr Didier says? You took a swig of brandy before you joined the others at dinner?’

  ‘Yus,’ he muttered, scuffing at the Wilton in a way which would have brought instant dismissal had Hobbs caught sight of this foul deed.

  ‘And that was in your pantry, by the side of Mr Greeves’ room?’

  ‘Yus. Ole – Mr Greeves put the bottle there before dinner.’

  ‘And this dinner. Was it in Mr Greeves’ room?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Jackson with scorn for such ignorance of the ways of the gentry. ‘It were in the servants’ hall like it always is. Then old Greeves and the rest came in ’ere for their dessert. I serves that,’ he added, not without pride.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police about drinking from the bottle?’

  Edward stole a glance at Auguste, and clearly decided he had more to lose by alienating Auguste than the police.

  ‘Forgot about it,’ he pronounced.

  ‘Did you need, my lad, did you indeed? Sure you haven’t just remembered it, like?’ Though what he would have to gain by this, Rose could not see.

  ‘Nah.’

  Rose was looking at the boy in a puzzled way. ‘Ain’t I seen you somewhere before, lad?’

  ‘Nah,’ muttered Jackson shortly.

  ‘Got a good memory for faces,’ said Rose thoughtfully. ‘Have to, at the Yard. Lot of villains about nowadays. All right, lad, off you go. Not you,’ he added to Auguste who showed signs of retreat also. He looked at him heavily. ‘Why me?’ He made it sound like an accusation. ‘Not Naseby or Bladon. Ain’t because of my friendly face, is it?’

  ‘No,’ said Auguste untactfully. ‘Because I am certain, monsieur, that one of His Grace’s guests killed Greeves – and now this lady – and I wish to explain to you how he could have done so. And so it is necessary I tell you everything. You see, if Edward speaks the truth, then no one could have poisoned the brandy after he drank from it because we were all at lunch in the servants’ hall. And no one but Edward entered the servery after we returned.’

  ‘As I understand it,’ said Rose, frowning, ‘you said no one could have entered the servants’ quarters from the main house without being recognised – the risk would be too great. And everyone agreed with you.’

  ‘No,’ said Auguste histrionically. ‘I say that, yes I do. But what, Inspector, if he were or she were dressed like a servant, like a footman, and creeps in quietly �
� he would be taken for a footman returning from front-hall duty.’

  Rose laughed, not the reaction Auguste had intended. ‘Touch of the Lecoq in you, eh, Didier? No, my friend, murder ain’t like that, all dressing up and creeping along corridors; it’s knives in the dark, and jealousy and hands round throats. None of this fancy stuff. Not like the Strand Magazine, you know.’

  Auguste was indignant. ‘Monsieur, you do not realise. It is possible; there is no other solution. Let me tell you, now. The afternoon of the murder,’ he went on eagerly, ‘I presented the menus to Her Grace as is customary. His Grace was also present. He made a remark about the routine of the house having been upset . . . and one of the things he mentioned was that footmen were leaping about in full livery before luncheon.’

  ‘What of it?’

  Auguste looked pained. ‘You would not understand, Inspector.’

  ‘Naturally not,’ murmured Rose.

  Auguste swept on. ‘That is a crime. Dress is as important for a servant as for the ladies and gentlemen. You must not transgress the rules. The housemaids wear their print dresses until luncheon; in the afternoons they must wear black; no housemaid must show her face above stairs after twelve o’clock. And the footmen do not wear their livery until after luncheon. In the mornings they wear informal dress, except the two on duty in the hall who wear what is called undress livery –’ Rose looked puzzled. ‘That is to say, dark coat and trousers. In the afternoons they put on their dress livery but never till after luncheon. Only for very formal occasions do they wear wigs, and that makes it full dress livery. Normally they sprinkle violet powder over their own hair to get the white effect.’