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

  ‘Monsieur,’ Auguste asked, puzzled, addressing his companion as they set off at a spanking pace into the murky blackness. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the smokehouse,’ declared Oliver cheerfully.

  ‘But is the smoking room not where the billiards are?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ Alexander told him blithely. ‘Not at Tabor Hall.’ He glanced at Auguste’s bewildered face. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he assured him. ‘My revered mother-in-law-to-be doesn’t care for tobacco smoke, you see. She has this quaint idea it ruins furniture, tapestries, paintings and health. And while she doesn’t mind about health too much, she does mind about the Tabor heritage.’

  ‘But it is not her own heritage,’ Auguste hissed to Oliver, hoping Alfred was out of earshot.

  ‘No zealot like the convert. She guards each blob of paint more fiercely than George, Laura, Cyril and Miriam put together! Now Miriam is, or rather was, a hostess. Couldn’t care less what was done in the house provided her guests enjoyed it, but Priscilla is a different matter.’

  ‘Blasted walkies,’ Auguste heard Janes mutter to himself in front. ‘Must think we’re bulldogs.’

  ‘But most hostesses simply have a room in the house appointed for smoking. Why not here?’ Auguste shivered as, hemmed in by dark hillsides, they joined a path lit by oil-lamps leading to a wood.

  ‘This smokehouse is Lady Tabor’s very own invention,’ Alexander told him. ‘As it’s so far away from the house, she argues that it’s a test of resolve to go to her smokehouse after dark.’

  ‘But for the King surely—’ Auguste said, horrified, seeing an ever-longer path unwinding before him.

  ‘Priscilla wouldn’t change her mind for George Washington, let alone the King of England,’ her brother-in-law told him with less than his usual joviality. ‘You note she does provide a trap for him, but the rest of us can jolly well walk. There it is now.’ He pointed to a building that seemed to arise before their eyes at the edge of the wood.

  Through the half-open door as they approached Auguste was aware of the King and his host already puffing contently on cigars, but it was the outside of the building that riveted his attention. Perhaps to ram home the undesirability of the noxious weed, Lady Tabor had selected a most unusual smoking room. Jealous of a neighbour who boasted a peel tower in his garden, a Tabor of the 18th century had decided to go one better (in his view) and erect a Gothic folly of tumbling towers, sharp pinnacles, and castellated roofs.

  On her arrival at Tabor Hall, Cyril explained, Priscilla had decreed this gloomy monstrosity would make a most admirable smokehouse. She would brook no argument, and George wisely put up none. Instead, secure in the knowledge that his high-principled lady would never compromise her integrity by setting foot inside, he had adorned the smokehouse with the kind of paintings usually only hung in the back rooms of gentlemen’s clubs, a collection he had much pleasure in updating from time to time. Thus the Alma Tadema ‘Psyche’ over the mantelpiece had been replaced with a distinctly more erotic Sickert nude of the type usually only exported to Paris, and by a variety of Parisian art of lesser distinction in which garters and stockings were the only concession to haute couture.

  Faced with this unexpected entertainment the King seemed somewhat dazed, as Auguste entered, but no doubt reflecting that he was used to such exoticisms in Paris, he was politely congratulating his friend on his choice of artistic adornment, and accepting his second brandy.

  Equally slightly taken aback by his surroundings, Auguste accepted a cigar from Alexander, whose Russian and English ancestry were both clearly visible in his dark romantic good looks.

  ‘Like it?’ he asked Auguste, grinning. ‘Victoria thinks it’s wonderful.’

  ‘Most original.’ Auguste cleared his throat, desperately trying to think of polite conversation in the face (or in some cases rear) of so many flaunted ladies who were anything but polite. Standing by the mantelpiece, he was unable to avoid close study of the Sickert, which showed a lady on a bed, bursting from her armour all too efficiently. Uncertain of his company, he passed a remark to Oliver on the glories of the dead duck on the mantelpiece so charmingly carved in wood. Oliver chuckled, and he relaxed. ‘I gather you are an old friend of the family?’

  ‘Not so old. Late forties,’ Oliver informed him, handing Auguste a glass. ‘I’m a regular visitor every six months. I only come here to propose to Laura. She never accepts. Perhaps luckily so.’

  ‘Luckily?’

  ‘It would affect my career, Didier.’

  ‘And that is?’ Auguste brightened, now he knew he was in the company of a fellow member of the working proletariat.

  ‘I’m a professional bachelor. I’m invited to Society occasions to make up numbers, make amusing conversation – and at Tabor Hall to propose to Laura of course.’

  ‘Why does she refuse? Does she not love you?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Waiting for that ne’er-do-well to roll home,’ grunted George, overhearing. ‘Fellow wasn’t a gentleman.’

  ‘Not in your sense of the word, no,’ Oliver agreed, good-humouredly. ‘But after all, when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’

  George tried to make sense of this, failed, and dismissed it. ‘Only one sense of the word. Fellow either is or he isn’t and nothing can be done about it.’ George’s eye suddenly fell on Auguste and he realised to his horror that he had been guilty of the ultimate ungentlemanliness of making a guest uncomfortable. ‘Seen this one, have you?’ he asked, to make amends. He swung back a folded panel to reveal a fetching study of an otherwise naked lady looking winsomely through her plump black-stockinged legs.

  ‘Er—’ Auguste gulped, reflecting that there were some advantages after all in the restraining armour of the less artistically pleasing portions of a lady’s anatomy. ‘No, I haven’t had the pleasure.’

  Alfred sniggered. ‘Rather like our Beatrice, isn’t she?’

  Auguste looked aghast, noticing the King in earnest conversation with the lady’s husband, who was much of the King’s own build, despite his being twenty years younger. Harold Janes looked as exciting as a vegetable marrow – and yet, Auguste reflected, the marrow was a much neglected vegetable.

  ‘Surprised old Bertie hasn’t noticed the resemblance,’ Alfred continued, with uncalled-for familiarity in referring to his monarch.

  ‘Isn’t it time we rejoined the ladies?’ His father had clearly decided the conversation had gone far enough. Alfred might be twenty-one but he had not yet reached the years of discretion. The young folk of today were far too precocious. ‘Carstairs, keep an eye on Didier, will you?’

  ‘Did you attend Ascot this season, Mr Didier?’

  ‘I regret not.’

  ‘Ah, Goodwood?’

  ‘We were on our honeymoon.’

  No excuse apparently. ‘Henley?’

  ‘I regret not.’

  All conversation ceased.

  It seemed exceedingly strange to be dancing not in the servants’ hall, graciously offering to dance with scullerymaids terrified of offending their god, the chef, but to be circling with over one hundred and sixty-eight solid pounds of aristocratic kid-gloved hostess in your arms, fully aware that one was being judged as to one’s suitability for Society. The stiffly corseted back did not give an inch. Duty was merely being done in dancing with all one’s guests. Even ex-cooks.

  The engagement of Victoria and Alexander had duly been announced by a nervous George. His Majesty had then indicated that dancing to the three-piece band that coincidentally happened to be present would not be an affront to his state of mourning, and Priscilla Tabor was congratulating herself that all had passed off excellently. She smiled beneficently on the cook, and swept away, the black feathers adorning her coiffure nodding their approval of her charitable deed.

  It was with relief that Auguste took Tatiana in his arms. Gloomy black crepe did little to dampen the fires of curiosity in Tatiana’s eyes.

&
nbsp; ‘What is it like, this smokehouse?’ she hissed.

  ‘Not proper for princesses.’

  The eyes gleamed. ‘I am no longer a princess, so I can go there.’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The adornments are not meant for ladies.’

  ‘There are pots in the cupboards, you mean?’

  ‘No,’ he hissed.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The pictures.’

  ‘Oh. I must go. I once met Monsieur Toulouse Lautrec. Such interesting drawings.’

  ‘These are not of the same quality.’

  ‘One must experience everything. Where else can I have a smoke?’

  He almost lost his footing. ‘Quoi?’ he asked faintly.

  ‘I wanted to find out what it was like, so I asked John for a cigarette. Then I tried a cigar.’

  A few judicial words would be spoken to footman John on his return to Queen Anne’s Gate, Auguste decided. True, his relations with the staff had not so far been easy. The very first week the cook had given notice, on account of Auguste’s interference in matters which were none of his concern. After the third cook had left, even Auguste was forced to admit that it might have something to do with him. Hurt, he had pondered the matter, and discussed it with Tatiana. There was no problem. She would cook, she blandly informed her husband. Blinis, for instance. And dumplings. He shuddered, and promptly came to a working arrangement with the fourth cook, whereby Auguste might have the run of the kitchen on the cook’s day off.

  ‘Oh, Mr Didier, so romantic. It’s like King Cophetua and the Beggarmaid, only the other way round, to see you and the princess together.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Auguste shortly, regretting his invitation to Beatrice Janes to dance, and eyeing Carstairs enviously as he took Gertie on to the floor. Gertie no longer wore the white rose, he noted sadly. Authority, in the form of Priscilla, had intervened.

  Dizzy after wine and the effects of smoke, assaulted by Mrs Janes’ high-pitched giggle that inevitably followed one of her conversational sallies, he yielded her gratefully to the arms of her portly husband, only to find himself accosted by the Dowager Lady Tabor, resplendent in black lace over silk. ‘Do take pity on me, Monsieur Didier. I have not danced with a Frenchman since the fall of the Third Republic.’ Whether a Strauss waltz was the best choice to make her reacquaintance with this experience was doubtful, but her energy seemed greater than his.

  ‘You’re still with us, I’m glad to see, Mr Didier.’

  Uncertain he had heard aright, he gave a noncommittal answer.

  ‘I thought you might be dead by now.’

  He could not have heard aright. He had definitely had one brandy too many. ‘What did you say?’ he asked faintly.

  Miriam Tabor smiled at him. ‘I said I thought you might be in bed by now. You mustn’t mind an old lady like me. But I’m going to bed anyway.’

  ‘But the King, my lady, he has not yet retired,’ Auguste blurted out, mindful of protocol.

  ‘Phooey. He won’t be wanting to take me with him, will he?’ Miriam enquired, unanswerably, but quashing all Auguste’s doubts as to her sanity.

  In the event the King retired shortly afterwards, either in pursuit of an early night or after having reached an understanding with Mrs Janes. Black skirts swept the floor in deep curtseys. He was hardly out of earshot before Priscilla Tabor called for the carriages of those guests not staying in the house.

  ‘Withdrawing time, gentlemen, is eleven-thirty.’

  Oliver groaned. ‘Amazing how George lets her get away with it. I think he’s frightened of her. Like Wellington.’

  ‘Boeuf Wellington?’ Auguste asked, still befuddled.

  Oliver laughed. ‘The Iron Duke himself. Remember what he said when the troops arrived to fight in the Peninsula? “I don’t know what effect they may have upon the enemy, but, by God they terrify me!”’ He contemplated Priscilla for a moment. ‘The curfew isn’t for billiards. It’s intended for the smokehouse. She locks the doors of the Hall at eleven-thirty, so that the smokehouse has to be vacated by eleven-fifteen at the latest. At eleven twenty-five the path lights are extinguished. Her excuse is the need to prepare for the Sabbath.’

  ‘Does everyone obey?’ Auguste asked amazed.

  Oliver regarded him kindly. ‘Take a close look at her, Auguste. Would you gainsay Priscilla? She counts every damn man of them, kings, dukes or maharajahs, and locks the front and garden doors herself. Promptly. Fortunately, she doesn’t realise that the staff exist and have their own means of exit. Richey has to lock the smokehouse and put out the lights, after all. One can always get in and out of the kitchens.’

  Auguste looked round blearily for his wife but she was nowhere to be seen. She must already have retired. Just one quick game would do no harm, surely, now he was a gentleman. He joined Oliver in the billiard room, and only the chiming of the loud stable clock reminded him of the lateness of the hour. Even so, it was twelve-thirty before he staggered somewhat drunkenly to his room.

  He was rather more drunk than he realised for he noticed nothing odd; he vigorously cleaned his teeth several times, and only as he approached the bed did he realise that Tatiana was not in it. He contemplated various courses of action, and decided there was only one, dressed as he now was. He would sit up in bed and wait for her. He was just a little hurt, even in his bemused state. This was the first time, such was her enthusiasm for her newly married status, that he had sat in bed alone. He read a page of Zola upside down, his eyes closed . . .

  ‘Wake up! Wake up!’

  He felt sick, he was being swung from side to side. Was he in a boat? If so, it was on some unknown nightmarish sea. A sea that would not be calm. ‘Auguste, chéri, wake up!’

  His eyes opened, the room swam round him. Into slow focus came the face of his wife, leaning over him, her eyes full of terror in the light of the candle she was holding. He tried to force himself awake. ‘What is wrong? And why—?’ His eyes went to her dress. She was still in her black evening gown with a cloak around her shoulders.

  ‘There is a body in the smokehouse. Darling, you must come, please.’

  He shut his eyes thankfully again. For a moment he thought she’d said . . .

  ‘Wake up.’ Reluctantly he opened them once more.

  ‘A body? Someone is drunk?’ Confused by dreams, it did not occur to him to question his wife as to how she came to be discovering drunken gentlemen in smokehouses.

  ‘No, Auguste. Dead,’ she told him quietly. This was one new experience she did not relish.

  Save for his wife’s obviously confident belief that he was well competent to remove such horrors as dead bodies from smokehouses, he would still have thought this part of his nightmare.

  ‘An accident? A joke?’ he asked without hope, seeing any chance of nestling down beneath these inviting bedclothes with an equally inviting wife vanishing rapidly.

  ‘No, Auguste. It is a real body.’

  At last he believed her. ‘No,’ he shouted firmly. ‘No more dead bodies.’

  Then he heard the real fear in her voice. ‘Please, daragoy. Someone must do something and I told Alexander it must be you.’

  She began to drag Auguste out of bed. He contemplated the thought of going in his nightwear across that murky blackness to investigate a body, and decided against it. He lit the oil lamp and clambered into clothes. Should he wear deep mourning, he thought, still slightly confused. No, because doubtless, he told himself, this was some mistake. Men did not die in smokehouses. They got drunk in smokehouses, they were sick in smokehouses, they fell asleep in smokehouses. They did not die there.

  Five minutes later, he followed Tatiana down the main staircase and towards the kitchens. So she knew, he noted automatically, that this was the only exit after Lady Tabor had supervised the locking of the doors.

  In William Breckles’ prized domain, Alexander was sitting slumped at a table, as scrubbed and empty as if it had never seen the passi
ng of a hundred sumptuous dishes that day. For once, however, Auguste had little interest in the trappings of his art.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked wearily as Alexander leapt up. ‘And why—?’

  ‘Please. Later, Auguste. That is not important. We must go. Quickly,’ Tatiana said, tugging at his arm.

  He looked at her. He hardened his heart. If he had to look at a dead body – though he was still sure this was some hoax – he must forget this was his wife for the moment.

  ‘How did you discover it? When?’

  Alexander shrugged, looking at Tatiana.

  ‘I wanted a smoke,’ she said quickly. ‘Because of Priscilla, we had to go to the smokehouse.’

  ‘The path lights were out. Why bother?’

  ‘There are house rules. There are lanterns,’ she said, her cheeks pink.

  ‘It’s also a house rule not to smoke after eleven-thirty.’

  Tatiana stared at him and did not reply.

  ‘You’re wasting time, Auguste. Let’s go,’ Alexander said quietly. ‘I didn’t want her to call you in the first place.’

  Auguste swelled with anger. And why not? He was her husband, he was a detective, and he was here. Moreover it was three-thirty in the morning, on a cold September night. Convinced in righteous anger that there was some foolish mistake, he seized the lantern at Alexander’s side, and marched out in silence. They followed him, picking their way in the dim light along the track to the smokehouse, avoiding the slugs relishing the dark damp air.

  He ran up the steps and paused, anger gone now, senses sharp – just in case, in case they were right and this was violent death.

  ‘Was this door unlocked when you came here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alexander’s flat monosyllable came out of the darkness behind him.

  Auguste flung open the door to an oil-lit room, quite sure there would be nothing there save the artistic ladies guarding their beat.