Murder At Plums (5 page)

This was only to be expected, for food was the very reason that Plum’s had first come into being. It had been founded on the initiative and money of a certain Captain Harvey Plum, of the 23rd Light Dragoons. Captain Plum, the third son of an exceptionally well-established country gentleman, resided in a house on the north side of St James’s Square, when not at his country estate in Wiltshire. Tired of the indifferent food he received at his club, and no doubt missing the home comforts of Mrs Plum’s establishment in Wiltshire, he resolved to found his own. Memories of the starvation diet he had often been forced to undergo along with his men during the Peninsular Campaign, and of a particular day when, but for the grace of his men who were more adept at self-survival, he would have been reduced to eating acorns, he resolved never to go hungry again. The Heroes of the Charge at Talavera were entitled to more than acorns. During his later career at Waterloo, by now appointed to the staff of the Duke of Wellington himself, he became aware that the culinary art had more to offer than London was prepared to admit. In his later travels
on the Continent, he had become an early admirer of the anonymous work soon to be revealed as that of Brillat-Savarin, and took his aphorism to heart that the destiny of nations was controlled by the way they ate. When funds and time permitted, he was determined that since it was England’s destiny to rule the world, her leaders should have every opportunity of doing so well fed.

There was, it was true, the Reform Club with Alexis Soyer in its kitchens, but the Reform. Club after all had been established for politics, not for food. Plum’s was founded upon the quaint idea, which took some time to achieve practicality, that not only statesmen but men of all professions would pool their wisdoms for the benefit of mankind if drawn together by food. For this reason all tables at Plum’s were at first long communal tables; only when after several decades and much debate guests were allowed in one day a week was another small dining room opened with separate tables. The idea was that professions should be left behind once a member entered Plum’s portals. So they were at table; but before and after meals, cracks in this ideal began to make themselves apparent.

However, Captain Plum himself was never fated to be disillusioned. On the grand opening night, the chef, enthusiastic at the honour heaped upon him, served a glorious banquet, culminating in the arrival of a grand
pièce montée
of a 23rd Dragoon constructed of sponge, meringue and strawberries, and sporting a chocolate shako, followed by one only slightly less grand of a chocolate-bicorned Napoleon. Transported by the sight of this superb feast that rivalled Soyer’s banquet for Ibrahim Pasha, and endeavouring to do more than justice to it, Captain Plum passed away between the removes and the entremets of an apoplexy brought on by the feverish excitement of the occasion.

It might have been thought that this was the end of Plum’s great venture. But the Widow Plum arrived clad in black and a determination to preserve her husband’s name. She was as astute as she was determined, and turned his untimely death to the club’s advantage. The following Saturday she held a wake in the club for her deceased spouse, which eclipsed in culinary splendour the one at which he
had so regrettably passed away. Henceforth, she decreed, this feast would be held yearly to commemorate the founding of the club and her husband’s death; it would be called Plum’s Passing. As the years passed, she cunningly and unobtrusively spun traditions around it, so subtly that members could not quite recall how they came about, only that they had ‘always happened’. This was the reason that each year on 17th June, unless it were a Sunday, a solemn procession of all members present would parade through each room of the club, none being omitted, in a ritual ‘beating of the bounds’. The secretary would lead the candlelit parade, followed by the chef and his minions, conveying a boar’s head, and the members, and all singing the Song of the Passing, a rousing ditty whose origins were lost in the mists of time (but whose composition had cost the Widow Plum several sleepless nights). Behind the boar’s head were more minions bearing the two
pièces montées
– the 23rd Dragoon and the sinister meringue replica of Napoleon. The parade halted beneath the oil painting of the Charge at Talavera, hats were swept into the air, and with cries of ‘Forward the Dragoons’ and similar military exhortations, six chosen members would plunge a sword into Napoleon’s meringue bosom.

And it was to this solemn, sacred festival that this year, on Plum’s fiftieth anniversary, it had been proposed and, even more shockingly, agreed that ladies should be admitted.

It was a fine spring morning in St James’s Square. The sun beat down on the mellow red brick of Plum’s, tulips bloomed cheerfully in the gardens; an errand boy from Messrs Jackson’s glanced up at the equestrian William III and whistled disrespectfully. But inside Plum’s morning room, which faced north into the small rear garden and high brick wall at the foot of it, the occupants were oblivious that somewhere the sun might be shining.

For here consternation reigned. Where normally all was peaceful silence, disturbed only by the faint rustle of a newspaper, or the heaping of coals by a steward on to a glowing fire, voices were raised not merely in animation but in fury. Down below in the basement kitchens even Auguste
could hear them as he busied himself with the luncheon. He was not surprised. Agnes, bright-eyed with excitement, had brought him the news of the notice pinned on the board an hour since and he awaited the members’ reactions with interest.

‘And oh, Mr Auguste,’ Agnes had added for good measure, ‘what do you think? Mr Peeps said there was another of those nasty letters left at his desk. And it was for
him.
Isn’t that
dreadful
?’

To Auguste’s mind this was far more serious than the matter occupying the emotions of the morning room. This was an insidious poison that boded worse for Plum’s than The News. He had busied himself in the intervening two days with gathering together information on all the incidents at Plum’s that were apparently so little regarded by its members. There had been that rat left on a dining table, the torn books and newspapers, the letter sent to Mr Erskine, one to Mr Preston, and now this. It began to look as if Emma was right to insist he investigated. For upset the porter and you threaten the very foundations of club life. And obscene letters addressed to Mr Alfred Peeps were a splendid way of accomplishing this objective. Excitement again took hold of him. More than excitement, a curiosity, a wish to find out more, to put two and two together, to detect –

‘
Alors, mon enfant
,’ he said firmly, ‘I shall attend to the coffee
personally.
’

From the noise that came from above, the members apparently neither saw nor cared for the threat to their continued existence, caught up as they were in the matter of the moment. For, fifteen minutes before, Colonel Worthington had been standing gloomily in front of the fire, carefully avoiding any eye that might momentarily stray from its newspaper in his direction. It could only be a matter of time now before someone casually glanced at the notice board in the corridor and then he would be for it. As if it were his fault! The unfairness of life swept over him once again.

Just because his fellow committee members were all married to exceptionally strong-minded women, all of
whom, he strongly suspected, had an implacable determination to see the inside of Plum’s and had eagerly grasped the opportunity to do so, he, Mortimer Worthington, was going to get the blame. For, apart from Nollins, who took care to hide himself away in his office, he was the only one who ever set foot in the place before evening. Oh yes, Messrs Fortescue, Partridge, Wilmot, Mannering, Tiptree, Ross and Beeton would make quite sure they didn’t have to face the wrath of the membership!

‘What the deuce—?’ A stentorian roar was audible even through the closed door of the morning room.

Worthington blenched. It would have to be Bulstrode. His lordship erupted into the morning room like the bull after Europa.

‘Women?’ Bulstrode was purple in the face, clutching the offending piece of paper in one hand, ripped where he had torn it off the board in his fury. ‘Some kind of joke, it it? Women to be let into Plum’s! April the first, is it, Worthington?’

Startled faces appeared from behind newspapers, more at the disturbance to routine than at the purport of the words, the enormity of which could not fully be comprehended at first. Slowly, however, the newspapers were lowered . . .

‘Ladies to be admitted?’ General Fredericks queried after the committee’s notice had been read, or rather bellowed out by Bulstrode. ‘I must say I—’ But his quiet voice was for once drowned by the general uproar.

‘Dash it,’ howled Charlie Briton, and it says much for the occasion that such a youthful member was not frowned upon for speaking at all. ‘My Gertie—’ This time he
was
frowned upon. Ladies were never mentioned by name – at least, not members’ wives.

‘Has the committee taken leave of its senses?’ bristled Peregrine Salt. He often bristled.

‘Not far to go,’ snorted Bulstrode, stamping round the room.

Worthington turned pink. ‘I must say, Bulstrode, that is—’

‘You’re on the committee, Worthington. What the devil’s the meaning of it? What were you thinking of?’ interrupted Erskine. Then he reconsidered. Were these words too
strong? As a new member he could not afford to speak vehemently on
any
subject without much prior thought.

A politician to the last, Samuel Preston alone sat quiet. He would note others’ reactions first, before airing his views.

‘
Women?
In Plum’s?’ bleated Jeremiah ‘Jorrocks’ Atkins, ever eager to grasp an opportunity of open warfare against that damned fellow Worthington. Rotund, and belligerent, like his own bull-terrier, Jeremiah Atkins was the Colonel’s avowed enemy. ‘Never thought you’d go that far, Worthington.’

‘Gentlemen,’ began Worthington with dignity, ‘I may have the honour to be on the committee. I am, however, but one member of it.’ He glanced at the stony faces, and looked round beseechingly. ‘Gentlemen, I am as opposed to this decision as you are. In my view, the ruin of the club and all it stands for are at stake. This is a black day, gentlemen. I make no secret of the fact that I was outvoted in this matter, and in my opinion it is scandalous.
Scandalous.
’

Fortunately for Worthington he had little difficulty in making himself believed, as his dislike of women was well known.

Auguste, entering to serve the coffee, looked round the assembled company and wondered anew at the English. He tried to imagine the scene in his native France, and almost laughed openly.

‘They must have made a mistake,’ said Charles Briton hopefully.

‘No,’ said Worthington gloomily, completely forgetting he was speaking to a mere captain. ‘That’s just it, they thought about it carefully. One day they were all opposed to it, just as you are, gentlemen. Then suddenly the next day – most of them were in favour. Extraordinary thing.’ Or perhaps not so extraordinary if his suspicions were correct.

‘But why?’ said Peregrine Salt querulously. ‘Why, if they
have
to come in, why for Plum’s Passing? Why not some other day, for coffee perhaps? Afternoon tea? One of my magic-lantern shows perhaps?’ His audience cringed. Not again! ‘But for the Passing – it’s – it’s unthinkable.’

‘My view entirely,’ trumpeted Worthington. ‘Gentlemen,
I propose that we – er – you do not take this lying down. After all, there’ll be delicate matters to consider.’

‘What matters?’ enquired Charlie.

‘Delicate matters,’ snorted Atkins. ‘Lavatories, man, say lavatories. I’m a plain-speaking man—’

‘You are indeed, sir,’ said Worthington coldly. An inimical glance passed between them. It was common club knowledge that a feud existed between Worthington and Jeremiah Atkins, apparently born of some misunderstanding at their adjoining country estates. Some held that it sprang from rival territorial claims by Atkins’ bull-terrier and Worthington’s tabby cat Melissa; others that it arose through a fox-hunting dispute of which ‘Jorrocks’ Atkins considered himself the local potentate.

‘Lavatories?’ growled Bulstrode. ‘Dammit, you mean they’ll have to use our lavatories?’

‘But – they can’t do that,’ spluttered Charles, appalled at the prospect and trying to imagine Gertrude’s face when she saw the cold, draughty tiled corridor and cubicles, and the line of urinals with the jolly prints of ladies in bathing dresses above them.

‘No, they can’t,’ said Salt indignantly, following his drift and thinking of Juanita’s ample curves.

‘But the parade will in any case have to pass through the club lavatories,’ pointed out Preston. ‘It’s the tradition, whether they stop to use them or hot,’ he added, laughing.

His levity was not well received.

‘We’ll protest,’ said Worthington. ‘With you to back me up, gentlemen, we’ll have a deputation to Nollins tomorrow. All of us. I’m an old soldier. I’ll spearhead an advance when I have to. Why, once at Chillianwallah—’

Cries of approval for one hundred per cent support hastily supported the plan.

‘May I ask,’ put in the soft voice of General Fredericks, ‘who made the suggestion in the first place that ladies should be admitted?’

‘It was in the Suggestions Book,’ growled Worthington bitterly. ‘Came up as a routine matter at the committee meeting.’

‘Whose suggestion?’

‘No name given. Don’t have to, you know.’

‘But we could send the rotter to Coventry,’ said Charlie Briton, inspired. He led a charge as spirited as any in his army career out into the lobby where the Suggestions Book was kept. Auguste was one of the vanguard. Peeps looked on gloomily. There hadn’t been this excitement over the letter he’d received. A disgusting letter too. Not that Mr Nollins had seemed worried by it. It was a fine thing if a man couldn’t come to work without being accused of being a – He tried to shut it out of his mind, and thought he’d succeeded. But he hadn’t.

The Suggestions Book should have been more properly defined as a Complaints Book since it inclined to the negative. ‘Are pigs’ feet never to disappear from the menu?’ ‘Is it impossible for the smoking room to possess more than one ashtray?’ ‘Could other members kindly refrain from taking other members’ hats from the cloakroom . . .’