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

  The flutes began to pipe. It was time to raise the boar’s head and start the candlelit procession. Auguste took a deep breath and began to sing. There had been fierce competition between himself and Fancelli, an argument he only won by pointing out yet once more that he was the manager. The chatter in the dining room was hushed as lights were dimmed and the guests listened to the sound of approaching festivity.

  The boar’s head in hand bear I

  With garlands, bays and rosemary. . .

  I pray you all sing merrily

  Qui estis in convivio.

  The old boar’s head carol banished murder from Auguste’s mind as he bore his joy and delight high in his arms, leading the garlanded and greenery-waving footmen and other staff up from the kitchens into the dining room.

  Ah, what tradition, what centuries of meaning lay behind it. For a moment Auguste almost forgot the side of him that was French in valuing the traditions of England – or rather the Vikings, he thought more realistically. As usual the English had taken a custom from others and made it peculiarly their own. Who could doubt that Father Christmas, the Christmas tree, the yule log were other than purely English now? As the procession neared the dining rooms Auguste could hear the guests who were all now singing.

  Caput apri defero

  Reddens laudes Domino.

  Even Carruthers seemed to be joining in with gusto, napkin already tucked in neck in preparation. The twins, side by side, were singing with almost angelic sweetness and Auguste wondered suspiciously what devilry they might be cooking up. Cooking up – what an insult to the purest of all arts that phrase was. Cook the books – ah, these English. What travesties of language they committed.

  And there was Maisie, her buxom figure resplendent in red velvet, and with a child on either side. How fortunate for both their honours that she was not staying in the hotel last night or this night. As if reading his thoughts, she grinned at him, and the years fell away. Six years . . . in which he had cooked countless marvels of cuisine, and solved three more murder cases. Murder . . . the disagreeable thought jolted him back to reality.

  ‘The finest dish in all the land . . .’ The carol came to a triumphant close as the boar’s head was reverently put in pride of place, and Fancelli took his place by it to carve. Auguste longed to do it, could not bear to leave it, and as if sensing his dilemma, Maisie came to lead him away and place him at her side.

  ‘Remember the plum pudding we stirred, Auguste?’

  ‘Ah, you stir more than my puddings, Maisie.’

  ‘Auguste! What a thing to say.’

  ‘Maisie,’ he leaned towards her quickly, pausing only momentarily to assess the texture of the walnut and prune forcemeat as he was served a portion, ‘a problem presents itself.’

  ‘The guests?’ she hissed instantly, defensively.

  ‘Non, non,’ said Auguste hastily, ‘they are quite –’ he swallowed, ‘delightful.’ This forcemeat was not so delightful. It was merely adequate. ‘It is the murder that I mentioned to you.’

  ‘The one Inspector Rose said never happened?’ She eyed him keenly.

  ‘It happened. And the murderess is here, or rather, not here.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll take the “not here”.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘You are in earnest, aren’t you, my old cock-sparrer?’

  Auguste nodded. How incongruous to speak of murder while all around goose, duck, turkey were sending out delicious aromas, their message of comfort and wellbeing. Not to mention the slices of boar’s head – his eye went to a plate piled high with slices. Bowman of course. A man who enjoyed his food. ‘Last night I recognised the voice I heard that night, Maisie. It was sans doute the same voice. The voice of the murderess. It was one of the maids.’

  She stared at him. ‘Oh come, Auguste. I can’t believe it. One of the maids?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘And she must somehow have recognised me, because she is nowhere to be found. So I want you to tell me, Maisie, all you can about the staff.’

  ‘I would if I could, Auguste. But I didn’t interview them. My staff did. And the office is closed till next Monday.’

  At that moment the Lady Ellen, Maisie’s daughter, caused a diversion by dropping a dollop of John’s cream mustard sauce on Maisie’s lap, which temporarily concluded discussions.

  ‘This is delicious forcemeat,’ announced Gladys distinctly, taking a large and ostentatious sip of orange cup. ‘Really, I’m quite glad I came away.’

  ‘I am glad of that too, dear lady.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Bowman, I fear you are a tease,’ she giggled.

  Auguste looked at the industrialist’s portly figure and wondered what made him so attractive in Miss Guessings’s eyes. Compared with his own figure – he squinted complacently down. A master chef, and over forty – only a little over forty – and still almost as slim as when he had created a poularde à la Didier in the kitchens of the Faisan Doré at Cannes. Yet the eighteen-year-old twins treated him as a father figure. What was worse was that he no longer found eighteen-year-old girls objects of great desire. Maturity and mystery were of more interest, like Madame la Marquise with her full, womanly figure and her delightful red hair, and mischievous eyes. He realised he was staring at her and hastily averted his eyes. Too late, for Bella was well aware of his gaze.

  ‘Will you pull the wishbone with me, Monsieur Didier?’

  Maisie kicked him amicably under the table.

  ‘Certainly, madame.’ He was far from feeling this was a good idea. What, after all, did 1901 hold for him, that he could wish for? Then he remembered something he could indeed request of the wishbone.

  ‘You’ve won, Mr Didier. What did you wish?’

  ‘That there should be no more murder in my life,’ he said lightly. It was not in fact his wish. But that was an impossible one. Tatiana would never be his, even if a hundred genii jumped out of magic lamps to help him.

  ‘But your wish won’t come true now, Mr Didier,’ said Bella, laughing. ‘You’ve broken the spell by letting us know what you wished. So, there will be another murder in your life.’

  A sudden silence at the table, as all eyes turned to Auguste.

  ‘Murder?’ said Thérèse von Bechlein slowly. ‘Not here, I trust, Mr Didier. Not at Christmas.’

  Inspector Egbert Rose was thinking longingly of his quiet working life (quiet by comparison with this noisy brood), in a semi-comatose state of Christmas collapse. His and Edith’s morning had begun exceptionally early at 4 a.m. with the unexpected arrival of Edith’s elder sister’s daughter’s youngest in the middle of his chest. It appeared that Gertrude wished to show him her mechanical musical pig at the earliest possible opportunity – approximately three minutes after Father Christmas’s reindeer had galloped off to their next port of call. Musical was not the word Rose would have chosen of this pig, but Edith had seemed delighted at the honour paid to them. Shortly after that, Edith’s younger sister’s son arrived. Ten-year-old Augustus had a cast-iron model of a hansom cab, which appeared only to operate on beds and recumbent limbs.

  One or two later arrivals ensured that there was no chance of recapturing that paradise called sleep, and a decidedly morose Egbert but surprisingly cheerful Edith appeared at breakfast only a little after eight. Rose had then tried hard to repair to the study with his brother-in-law, but it appeared that Oswald thought Christmas morning should be spent with the young folks. Edith disappeared into the kitchen with her two sisters, a cook and an overwhelmed tweeny. Gusts of muffled laughter could be heard at intervals.

  When the Hornby had clattered round the rails for the twentieth time, fallen off thirty times, and the stations and Great Western Railway personnel had been suitably named, even Oswald had had enough of the young folk and suggested gruffly to his brother-in-law that a Christmas whisky and soda in the study might be in order. It certainly was with Rose.

  Once in this masculine haunt, Oswald cleared his throat. ‘Much on at present?’ he enquired, in the opening
gambit of a time-honoured custom. If Rose replied, ‘One or two things to be cleared up,’ that was the end of the conversation. Matters of serious import were under way. If on the other hand he replied, ‘Not a lot, Oswald,’ Oswald felt at liberty to enquire further as to the situation regarding the latest scandal or murder. Particularly the latter. Oswald had a morbid interest in murder.

  Today, however, there were one or two things to be cleared up. Then in Christmas spirit, Rose threw a sop to his brother-in-law. ‘We had a non-murder though. No murder, no body.’

  Oswald brightened. ‘Sounds interesting.’

  ‘Our friend Auguste. Swears he saw a murder committed in the fog. A young girl. Had to go some way to contact us. Time we got there, no body, no trace, no one reported missing and no bodies turned up. Auguste had been overdoing it. Had a dose of influenza. Took one of these patent remedies with too much opium, if you ask me. Fog can produce funny feelings.’

  ‘Oh.’ Oswald drew in his breath with a sigh of satisfaction. He could participate in this. ‘Not usually wrong is Auguste,’ he pointed out, pulling weightily on his pipe.

  ‘No,’ Rose said shortly, uneasily aware that he’d been hoping Oswald would agree he was right in dismissing Auguste’s fantasy.

  ‘Could have got rid of the body. In the river.’

  ‘True.’ Rose paused. ‘The Three Tuns nearby didn’t hear anything,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘Lot of noise in pubs,’ pointed out Oswald.

  A long silence while they both contemplated the situation.

  ‘Why didn’t he go to the pub right away for help?’

  ‘Says he didn’t know it was there. It was just behind him when he reached the place where he says the body was, and he couldn’t see it for the fog. It was a Particular all right that night,’ Rose added. ‘A peasouper. He was right about that.’

  ‘Oh.’ A long pause. ‘Could have been an unfortunate,’ Oswald offered, trying not to sound over-eager in his detection.

  ‘What?’

  ‘An unfortunate,’ Oswald repeated shamefacedly. ‘They don’t get reported missing. White slavers and all that.’

  ‘White slavers’ victims don’t get murdered either – leastways, not by women, and Auguste says it was a woman did it.’

  ‘None of your Jack the Rippers then,’ said Oswald rather regretfully, remembering Rose’s involvement with that case. ‘No mutilated bodies left lying around.’

  ‘Time for turkey, you two.’ Edith’s head popped round the door, flushed red from laughter, the heat of the kitchen, and an unaccustomed glass of sweet sherry.

  ‘Any of your work, my dear?’ Rose enquired interestedly.

  ‘Clarice let me make the bread sauce this morning,’ Edith answered proudly.

  Rose made a mental note to avoid all but a token portion.

  If only his present worries were as straightforward as, with hindsight, the case of Jack the Ripper had been. Rose was lucky to be here at all today. One day off, that was all, he’d been told. He’d be back at the Yard this evening, at his desk, hoping that something, anything would turn up to give them a lead. So far not a whiff, and all the usual lines of investigation had proved to be dead ends. Perhaps the tip-off was all a mare’s nest, but if so it was a filly they could not afford to ignore.

  He had been informed by Inspector Chesnais of the Paris Sûreté that they’d received a tip-off of a planned assassination of the Prince of Wales, and that was followed by an urgent summons to Paris. Chesnais’ man had been found dead. In true Sherlock Holmes style, the only clue – if clue it was, and not his laundry bill thought Rose savagely – was a piece of paper in the dead man’s hands, the merest scrap where the rest had been torn away in some struggle. And then it had rained, and the ink had run. This famous clue, or non-clue, consisted of a ‘P’, an ‘a’ or ‘o’, and two letters following that could have been ‘l’ or ‘d’.

  Even Watson would have little difficulty solving that one at the moment. It had immediate and ominous significance for Rose. On 3 January, Field Marshal Lord Roberts would be arriving at Paddington Station on his triumphant return from South Africa, after his meeting with Her Majesty the Queen at Osborne. At Paddington Lord Roberts would be greeted by two notable dignitaries, the Duke of Connaught and the Prince of Wales. And, thanks to Chesnais’ tip-off, Rose now had every reason to believe that there an attempt would be made to assassinate the heir to the throne.

  Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, yawned. At least he wasn’t at Osborne, owing to Mama’s unaccountable failure to insist on his presence. Perhaps she really wasn’t feeling up to the mark, despite all her denials. Obstinate, that’s what she was. Here she was at eighty-one, still insisting on behaving as though she had the constitution of a twenty-year-old. Christmas anywhere was much the same, though, even at Sandringham. Children squabbling, women grimacing – and not interesting women either. Only your family, approved guests, and the estate workers lining up for Christmas gifts. Gone were the days when droits de seigneur gave the latter ceremony any interest. Anyway, either something had happened to the standard of Norfolk beauty over the centuries, or droits de seigneur hadn’t been all they were cracked up to be, judging by the lot this morning.

  Yes, Christmas was always the same. Too much family, too much to eat. He thought uneasily of the pheasant, turkey and boar he had consumed, and wondered if his cook was really up to it. What would that French fellow, Tatiana’s chum, make of Christmas dinner? he wondered. It wouldn’t be lying quite as heavily on his stomach as the results of the last hour or two, that was for sure.

  A few days’ shooting, and then he’d have to get back to London to greet old Roberts. He remembered somewhat uneasily that he’d been told someone was about to assassinate him again. He was getting quite used to it. Poor fellows. Probably they all thought they were doing the world a good turn. Perhaps they were, he concluded gloomily. What kind of a king would he make now? He was nearly sixty. He’d shown good form at foreign affairs (and not only the Folies Bergères), but as to home affairs, Mama gave him less free rein than one of her blasted dogs.

  He wondered who could be planning to assassinate him this time. Willie perhaps, His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser Wilhelm II? No, his beloved cousin Willie seemed curiously friendly at the moment. He’d shown Kruger the door when he called a few weeks ago, and any enemy of President Kruger was at present a friend of Britain’s. Perhaps it was Kruger himself behind it. That was the most likely. The Boers were getting their own back for Roberts’s victories. Perhaps they hoped to wipe both of them out with the same bomb. He wondered if the Yard had thought about that. Well, he squared his shoulders, if he was going to go, he might as well have another brandy and soda first.

  Alfred Bowman wriggled uncomfortably in tights and livery, wondering whether this was too high a price to pay for having been elected Lord of Misrule of the Christmas evening festivities. He had deliberately purloined the all-important ring from Miss Guessings’s portion of plum pudding, this being a time-honoured method of electing the important post. Unfortunately, the plum pudding was taking its revenge and he felt by no means as lithe and enthusiastic about the revelries to come under his command as he had in the sunshine of the December morn. For the first time, he seriously considered the acquisition of a Harness Electropathic Belt.

  He had staved off the more energetic games until later, but the younger members of the household had grown weary of Hunt the Slipper, and even the delights of Snapdragon, in plucking raisins and sweetmeats from flaming brandy, had palled, despite the attractions of its taking place in the dark where all manner of liberties might be taken under the mistletoe.

  ‘With his blue and lapping tongue

  Many of you will be stung,

  Snip, Snap! Dragon’

  shouted the twins strumming at the piano. Thérèse von Bechlein pursed her lips and looked at Marie-Paul. Had they, she wondered, been right to attend this Old English Christmas?

  Blind Man’s Buff had provided more amusem
ent, particularly to Bella who innocently suggested the roles were reversed. Auguste should be the target, the ladies blindfolded and seeking him. Oddly, Bella managed to find him surprisingly easily and the kiss she bestowed was dangerously sweet. Others were less sweet, and one decidedly bristly. Fortunately most contented themselves with the merest peck. All the same, it was not a game that he would wish to repeat, delightful though it had been to feel Maisie’s lips on his once more. Less so to hear her muttered: ‘And don’t you go thinking that’s going to happen again, my Young Lochinvar.’ Yet as the women took their turns, one by one, he tired of the game, remembering the missing girl with a lurch, and that while their festivities ruled inside, outside there was still a murderess. Suppose she had come to him, blindfolded in a game, pressed her lips to his cheek!

  He shivered at the thought and then acknowledged this was ridiculous. In the morning he would telephone Egbert. Meanwhile this was Christmas evening and he had a duty to his guests.

  ‘Hide and seek, oh hide and seek, please,’ pleaded young Lady Ellen, one eye on her mother. Her mother smiled indulgently.

  ‘Yes,’ chorused the twins happily, glancing at each other.

  ‘Yes,’ breathed Bella, her eyes on Auguste.

  ‘Must we?’ said Bowman with a groan.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Gladys firmly, seeing many opportunities ahead. ‘And you must play.’

  Reluctantly, Auguste led his flock into the entrance hall, where at the twins’ insistence they drew lots for the first person to hide.