Gourmet Detective (29 page)

“Any luck?” I asked Michael.

He shook his head. “No—although just a minute ago, something struck a chord … it was just as you came in.” He paused in thought. “Just a minute.” He hurried out of the office.

He came back in with
The K-9 Cook Book.

“What about it?” I asked.

“I don't know. Something … ah, yes—K-9 and B4. Do they seem to have anything in common?”

“Identification numbers?”

“Not only that. Both are abbreviations. K-9 means ‘canine' so could B4 mean ‘before'?”

“I suppose but—”

Michael was excited now. “What could CC mean that is relevant? What else but Circle of Careme!”

“It's possible. And Dr F? He doesn't seem to fit. We can't find any trace of any Dr F.”

“Because he doesn't exist? Maybe there is no Dr F—maybe it means something completely different.”

I was getting into the codebreaking spirit now. “You mean Dr might not mean Doctor?”

“Exactly! So what else could it mean?”

“Well, if the two don't go together—what about ‘F'? That could stand for François—”

“And Dr in that case …—something François before the Circle of Careme.”

Michael snapped his fingers. “Drinks? ‘Drinks with François before the Circle of Careme'?”

“Makes more sense than whatever else we've got.” I looked at the wall clock. It was 11.30. Molly came in with a slice of an airy looking cake still steaming slightly and with a cup of coffee. I tasted the cake. “Fantastic.” I reached for the phone and called François.

“Before the Circle of Careme dinner …”

“Yes?”

“Where were you?”

“Where was I?” François sounded incredulous. “In the kitchen, of course, where else?”

“You went to your office?”

“No, I told you. The kitchen.”

“The whole time?”

“Certainly. An occasion like that! I had to be in the kitchen all day.”

“Did you entertain anyone there?”

“Of course not. I was much too busy.”

“Did you entertain anyone in the dining room before the dinner?”

François was getting exasperated. “Entertain! One of the most important dinners I have ever put on—how would I be entertaining?”

“Thanks.” I hung up.

“Perhaps we're on the wrong track,” I said to Michael.

“M'm,” he said. “Or François is not telling the truth.”

I enjoyed the cake and the coffee, declined seconds on both. We discussed the case further but nothing useful emerged. Michael kept coming back to last night, unwilling to accept that the famous feud didn't exist.

“Maybe your suspicion was right—but you had the wrong man. Maybe you should be suspecting François and not Raymond.”

“You mean François hired me to find out who was sabotaging his restaurant when he was doing it himself?”

Michael grinned. “Didn't they often do that in your private eye stories?”

“I believed it then. I don't now.”

“Fact is stranger than fiction.”

“If it's maxim time, I'm going.”

I did. I went back to the office and spent most of the afternoon in non-productive speculation. I went home early to make preparations for receiving Winnie.

One of the most important things was to avoid clichés. No peanuts, no crisps, no pâté, no bits of quiche or pizza and no pretzels. Other no-no's were champagne, kir and sherry. All of these have their place and time but not here or now.

On the CD, I discarded Claire de Lune, Scheherazade and Richard Clayderman. I chose Le Coq d'Or to start. It's romantically Oriental but not cloying. Rimsky-Korsakov used the lyrics as a criticism of petty bureaucracy but that doesn't show in the music.

When Winnie arrived, she was avoiding clichés too. She wore a simple but stunning black two-piece suit with a thin gold necklace.

I brought her a glass of Lillet, the wine-based aperitif from Bordeaux. It is light and dry and its herb content perks up the appetite like few other drinks.

“Business first,” I said after we had toasted and sipped.

Her blue eyes sparkled. “More progress?”

“You may not think so after I've told you.” I related last night's excitement and when I had finished; she put down her glass.

“Scary at the time,” she admitted. “You don't carry a gun, I suppose?”

“Certainly not!” I said indignantly. “Like I keep saying, I'm not really a—”

She laughed and waved a hand. “I know you insist you're not a real private eye. But go on.”

“That's all there is. François let me out—and it was a relief to get out of there, I can tell you.”

“So what does that do to your theory about Raymond?”

“It would seem to blow it out of the window. I thought about François as a replacement but I don't see how he could be guilty either. By the way,” I added, “what did your experts make of the inscription on the board at NTV—‘Dr F B4 CC'?”

“Nothing so far.”

I told her of Michael's construction without mentioning him.

She thought for a moment. “Plausible. But you say François denied it?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “At least that fits in with what he told us. He said he was in the kitchen the whole day before the Circle dinner.”

“Speaking of dinner,” I said. “I must check.”

I did so quickly. One of the tricky things about entertaining a charming lady is that you want to spend the minimum time in the kitchen. On the other hand, you want the meal to be memorable. Pre-preparation is vital but it can't be allowed to affect the quality of the meal.

“I have some news too,” said Winnie. “We've found Scarponi.”

“That's great! What did you get out of him?”

“He wasn't really hiding out, he says. He was doing a photographic assignment at the docks at Ipswich. I think he saw the news about IJ and took the first opportunity to duck so that he wouldn't be mixed up in it.”

“Does he have anything to hide?”

Winnie sipped the Lillet. “This is delicious. Less lethal than a Martini, more original than gin and tonic… Scarponi admitted he worked occasionally for IJ. Says he was hired to take pictures of staff going in and out of Le Trouquet d'Or.”

That surprised me. “Staff? Going in and out?”

“That's all he'll admit to.”

“Sounds as if IJ had some strong suspicion of someone there.”

Winnie nodded and her blonde curls danced gently.

“We're interrogating him again. We'll try for more this time.”

“Thumb-screws and the rack?”

She smiled. “You know better than that. The inspector'll get something, don't worry.”

I refilled her glass.

“Did you find anything in IJ's possessions that might correspond to any photos Scarponi could have taken?”

“No,” Winnie said. “But I want to ask you a question. What did you think was in IJ's pocket when he was supposed to be dead?”

I drank some Lillet to cover my confusion. She was watching me carefully and laughed gently.

“The inspector knows too, of course. He never misses a thing like that. You couldn't have known there was nothing in IJ's pocket except by feeling in it—and you were the only person near him when he came back to life.”

I explained what I had seen earlier. “It was the satisfied look on IJ's face that convinced me it was something important. Until then, he hadn't shown much emotion.”

“St Leger denies knowing what it was too,” said Winnie. “Says he merely handed it over. The interesting point is that Scarponi was the man who handed the envelope to St Leger.”

“Then Scarponi knows what was in it!”

“He says it was photos of the staff of Le Trouquet d'Or.”

“All of them?” I was astonished.

“So he says. But he must be lying if it was important enough for someone to beat you to it and take it out of IJ's pocket.”

“I learned a lesson,” I told Winnie. “Never try to hide anything from the police.”

She pouted prettily. “Very wise,” she said and smiled.

The CD player moved on to Saint-Saëns' Sonatas for Cello and Piano and the two instruments blended beautifully. I had taken the centre section out of the table to make it a suitable size for two. I lit the candles but left the lights on—still avoiding clichés. Continuing in the same vein, I pulled the cork on a bottle of Sancerre, the Millet Frères, a complex blending of tastes both dry and rich but still crisp.

With Winnie seated at the table, I brought out a bubbling sizzling tray of oysters. Her eyes widened.

“Are those Oysters Rockefeller?”

“They certainly are.”

Her face glowed with anticipation. “Wonderful! Tell me, is it true about the original recipe being such a closely guarded secret?”

As we ate, I told her that the dish had originated at Antoine's in New Orleans. It had been made with snails then but as Antoine Alciatore, the owner, became aware of the fine Gulf oysters available locally, he began to use them instead. It was said there were 18 ingredients in the sauce.

“And it must have been John D. Rockefeller's favourite dish.”

“Actually, no. John D. Rockefeller was at that time the richest man in the U.S.A. and the dish was named in his honour because it was so rich.”

“Pity,” said Winnie in between oysters. “He couldn't have done other than find it wonderful if it was anything like this. It must be a lot of work.”

“A few of the ingredients are hard to find and I had to substitute,” I told her. “Herbsaint—a cordial containing anise—is difficult to get, for instance.”

“Presumably they used absinthe back in Alciatore's day.”

“Right.”

I poured more of the Sancerre which was perhaps a touch fruitier than I would have preferred. Maybe a dry Chilean Riesling would have been better …

As we sat savouring the wine—which maybe was a good choice after all, being formidable enough not to be overwhelmed by the chervil, Tabasco and shallots in the oyster sauce—Winnie said:

“I forgot. There is one more question. You must answer it as you were there. How long elapsed between eating the fish and IJ's collapse?”

I thought. Finally I said: “Fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“H'm.” Winnie looked pensive.

“Why? Has something come up?”

“Well,” said Winnie, “the inspector has spent more time with the poisons experts in Forensic. The quantity of the botulin that IJ received has now been estimated to take at least an hour to cause death.”

“That doesn't make sense. Do the experts have a margin for error?”

“Yes, it's a considered opinion, no more. The files are not that full of lamprey poisoning cases.”

She smiled. “Anyway, back to eating. Enough of poisons!”

I rose and took the oyster trays.

“Next course coming right away.”

I had bought boned squabs from the butcher and had him halve them. I had cooked some bacon in butter and then put in the squabs, browned and removed them. I cooked onions, shallots and carrots and removed them too. I sprinkled in some flour, added white wine and boiled till thick. Then I added chicken stock, Madeira, fennel, thyme, basil, oregano and marjoram. I simmered this, added the squabs and the vegetables and cooked till it thickened.

I had boiled olives and sautéed some mushrooms in butter. I had removed the squabs, strained the sauce and added the mushroom liquid.

Tonight, all I had to do was heat the sauce, add the squabs, the bacon, the olives and the mushroom liquid. It was slightly thick so I added some more Madeira. I served it with lemon slices and a couple of tiny potato pancakes.

It was a huge success. With it, we had a bottle of Pomerol.

“Not a very common wine,” commented Winnie.

“It's still a subject of debate. It's the best of the Bordeaux reds but does that have anything to do with the fact that Pomerol is the smallest district in Bordeaux? Disagreement continues.”

“But not about the wine itself. It's marvellous.”

The CD player moved on to Scarlatti. Played on ancient instruments, his music is tender and affectionate. The strawberries with kirsch went well with it. I did the flambé work in the kitchen—still avoiding clichés. Michael refers to all flambéed dishes as “food you can read by”.

I sat beside Winnie on the couch as we drank coffee. The food and wine had brought the faintest of flushes to her cheeks and her eyes were merry. I put down my coffee cup. Our hands touched.

The phone rang.

“I should have pulled the plug,” I said.

It continued to ring.

“Maybe they'll go away,” said Winnie.

It rang and rang.

Winnie sighed. “They can sound so insistent, can't they?”

I picked it up.

I couldn't understand a word at first. The voice was husky and rasping. I could hear breathing.

“Who is this?” I asked impatiently.

“This is Larry Leopold.”

I wouldn't have recognised his voice at all.

“Are you all right? You sound strange,” I said. “This is a dreadful line.”

“Listen carefully. I don't have much time.” It wasn't the line, it was him. He sounded terrible.

“I couldn't go on any longer. Those were awful things I did. It all went wrong—I didn't mean for IJ to die but he—anyway I've ended it all now.”

“What do you mean, you've ended it?”

I caught the look of alarm on Winnie's face as she heard my words.

“I've killed myself. It was the only thing to do.”

There was a throaty noise and a click as the connection was severed.

W
INNIE HAD HER HAND
on the phone before I had finished telling her of the conversation. While she was being put through to Inspector Hemingway, I was looking through the phone book for Larry Leopold's address. It was a mews house behind the Victoria and Albert Museum. Winnie relayed it to the inspector.