Murder in Pug's Parlour (9 page)

‘Of the door.’

‘And they never visited here?’ The sergeant saw a gleam of hope.

The eyes were again full of fascinated horror at this ultimate sacrilege.

Hobbs cleared his throat. ‘No, Sergeant, never does His Grace, nor Her Grace, nor any of the family nor guests enter the servants’ wing. Once a year only do they enter here, to open the Servants’ Ball on New Year’s Eve. At our invitation, you understand.’

‘It is like your House of Lords and House of Commons,’ put in Auguste.

Sergeant Bladon was not interested in the House of Commons. ‘So I take it, it would be unusual to see a guest or the family here.’

‘Not unusual, Sergeant. Impossible. But consider, Sergeant—’

The sergeant did not wish to consider. This Frenchie was going to be a nuisance. Fancied themselves as great detectives, the French, so he’d heard. He’d see about that.

‘I still think he done it himself,’ said Mrs Hankey flatly. ‘Like I said. Can’t have been one of us.’

‘He was a popular fellow then?’ said Sergeant Bladon, knowing the answer full well but rather enjoying his power to cause discomfiture.

The Upper Ten refrained from looking at each other.

Hobbs spoke carefully. ‘He was not well liked, Sergeant.’

A protest from Mrs Hankey was overborne by Auguste’s pointing out that that did not mean people go round killing each other.

‘Perhaps not,’ said the sergeant, hastily dispelling a mental vision of Inspector Naseby lying over his own desk with a dagger in his back. ‘And I heard tell, Mr Didier, you didn’t have much cause to like this Greeves much?’

‘That is true,’ said Auguste with dignity. ‘He did not appreciate that I am an
artiste.
We had words about a
soufflé grand marnier
, but men do not kill for that, Sergeant.’ This was not quite accurate. He recalled a famous establishment in Paris where the chef had killed his underling who had implied that his
timbale
lacked finesse. ‘But it seemed to me, Sergeant, that it is important to determine how this poison was used, whether in pure form in a bottle or by gathering in a garden or hedgerow. And there I think I can suggest—’

The sergeant fixed him with a withering look. Who did this Frenchie think he was? Auguste Dupin, Mr Poe’s great detective, whose adventures he had so painstakingly read as a boy? ‘I’m told that aconite is found in many large gardens.
What about here at the Towers? Any in your vegetable gardens?’

‘I said so,’ said Cricket brightly. ‘It was in the greens. Didn’t I say so?’

‘Monsieur Cricket, your job may leave you time to wander the gardens of Stockbery Towers but mine does not. When I gather sorrel I do not wander into the wilderness garden to pick some wolfsbane and absentmindedly toss it in with the vegetables.’

Cricket was not abashed. ‘It could have been done,’ he said obstinately.

‘Yes,’ chimed in May Fawcett vindictively, ‘you always make a point of collecting it yourself. And preparing it. I always cook the vegetables myself,’ she mimicked.

Auguste exploded. ‘
Ma foi
, you English idiots. You think I ruin my art for the sake of murdering that
salaud.
It was not the puree – it was in the brandy. That is obvious.’

‘Quiet,’ shouted the sergeant again. This time unnecessarily, for a complete silence had fallen. The sergeant took in what Auguste had said.

‘This is a confession, Mr Didier? What brandy might that be?’

Auguste gaped at him. ‘A confession?
Non. Non.
’ He spread his hands in despair. ‘I try to help. Three times you shout me down when I try to tell you this talk of savouries, this talk of Edward being responsible is wrong. Of course he is not guilty. The poison was in the brandy. He always had a glass of brandy with his coffee. And did he not that day also, Edward?’ He turned a slightly puzzled look on Edward.

‘Yus,’ muttered Edward.

The sergeant, depressed, stared at his notes. He seemed to be going in circles. ‘And when he drank the brandy how long was it before he was taken queer . . .?’

‘About five, ten minutes I fink,’ Edward vouchsafed rather slowly, clearly bent on saying as little as possible on the grounds that anything he said appeared to incriminate him.

‘And who looked after the brandy – where was it?’

‘I had it in the pantry.’ Edward looked as if he was about to cry.

‘So there we are, Mr Didier. Why couldn’t young Mr Jackson here have poisoned Greeves, whether it was in the savoury, the coffee – or the brandy?’ the sergeant shot out triumphantly.

‘Because,’ said Auguste slowly, ‘it was a Monday. And on a Monday the Duke gave Greeves a new bottle for his own use. It was a usual thing. Greeves would go to the morning room where the Duke would have the bottle waiting, would present the accounts and the Duke would give him the bottle. He used to tell us about it. He was proud of it.’

‘Well?’ said Bladon impatiently.

Hobbs was looking at Auguste with sudden enlightenment and with mixed feelings.

‘The bottle’s open when the Duke gives it to Greeves, sir. I opens it when I bring it up from the cellar to check it as a good ’un, and leaves it ready for His Grace in the morning room.’

‘And there,’ said Auguste, triumphantly, ‘
anyone
could have poisoned it.’

The upper servants almost applauded. The sergeant did not. He looked grey as the implications set in. He was going to have to tell Naseby.
They
were going to have to tell the Duke.
They
were going to interview his guests a little more rigorously. He made one last valiant attempt, for which Naseby should have given him his long overdue promotion.

‘And who keeps the medicine chest here?’

Mrs Hankey blinked. ‘I do, naturally, Sergeant.’

‘Any aconitia?’

She was shaken, but stiffened. ‘Naturally I keep some. Aconite liniment and the like, and some as a base for Dr Parkes’ cough cure. His Grace—’

‘And where is this ’ere medicine kept?’

‘In my still-room.’ She indicated the small room leading off her parlour.

‘I’d like to view this bottle,’ he said severely.

Every pound of her quivering resentment, Mrs Hankey led the way. A bottle was triumphantly produced with a sniff.

‘Any missing?’ the sergeant growled, determined to keep the upper hand.

He lost it.

‘Couldn’t say, Mr – er – Sergeant Bladon. When people are ill, I give them medicine to cure them. We don’t count the cost of that sort of thing at the Towers.’

‘I’ll be taking this bottle, Mrs Hankey,’ Bladon said hastily.

‘You may, Sergeant, I’ve got another.’

‘Who can come in here? Bladon asked weakly, defeated now.

And Mrs Hankey knew it.

‘Me, Mr Hobbs and Daisy, of course. My maid. And Mr Greeves – poorsoul. Things must have got too much for him. ’E knew it was here.’

‘Anyone else?’ said Bladon, ignoring this dangled herring.

‘I’d like to see them try.’

The sergeant looked round. ‘There’s a door to the hallway,’ he pointed out. ‘Anyone could’ve got in.’

She looked at him with amazed tolerance. ‘This,’ she pointed out, ‘is
my
corridor. No one comes down it without my permission.’

‘No one?’

‘Except the luggage men to collect the guests’ luggage. But I’m always here to supervise that.’

‘But what if your lovely back were turned, Mrs Hankey?’ asked Sergeant Bladon jovially.

‘My back,’ she said glacially, ‘is never turned. I’d know if someone’d been in here,
Mr
Bladon, I’d know. Don’t I always know, Mr Didier?’

Auguste inclined his head.

Sergeant Bladon looked unconvinced, and his eyes gleamed with anticipatory pleasure as though the murderer of Archibald Greeves were already within reach of his plump hand. It was a pleasure to be long deferred.

Four carriages with different crests contained such guests as could be dissuaded from the charms of a late breakfast; the servants walked behind. The family was very democratic. They went to the same church as the servants. At the head of the long column of servants was Mrs Hankey escorted by Mr Hobbs, newly elevated to this honour; followed by Miss Fawcett and Mr Cricket, then Ethel and Mr Chambers and the visiting servants. Then followed the lower servants. For them church was compulsory, except of course for those minions whom God excused on the grounds that they were required to assist with ministering to the guests or with the luncheon. God was therefore forced to do without Auguste on most Sundays. His private devotions were rendered in the family chapel, designed by the architect more for convention than from any great conviction that it would be constantly in use. Auguste liked the chapel. Its Victorian pretentiousness, out of all proportion to its size, reminded him of the small Catholic church of his childhood; of hurrying along the Provençal street under the hot sun; of the impatience of
Monsieur le curé
, anxious to be away to his
dejeuner;
the simple trust of the village folk; the centimes
spared with such difficulty to light another candle to the Virgin. To him the chapel had a meaning, a faith that the big Norman church at Hollingham failed to inspire in him. But his devotions this Sunday morning were solely to luncheon. The
grand buffet
for the previous evening had passed from his thoughts as completely as the strains of the orchestra hired from Canterbury for the occasion. The next meal was always the sole preoccupation of a maître chef. The roasts were checked; the watercress stuffing prepared for the geese, the pheasants plucked and ready for the ovens. When all was as ready as to satisfy even Auguste, he went once more in search of Edward Jackson, and this time found him easily, fresh from another ‘chat’ with Sergeant Bladon. He was moodily kicking oil canisters in the lamp-filling room, watching the diminutive lampboy, lowest in the pecking line, trimming wicks with nervous fingers.

A hand fell on his shoulder. ‘Monsieur Edouard, a few words more if you please.’

‘What yer want?’ Edward enquired aggressively. His thin face would have been attractive, almost angelic, had it not had the look of an adult before his time. He had been living with an aunt in Maidstone before he entered the Duke’s service eighteen months previously. He had been a telegraph boy and had won the Duke’s gratitude for saving one of his hunting dogs’ lives when it had incautiously entered a swift-flowing river in search of its quarry. Fifteen minutes after he had started cycling whistling up the drive that morning he found himself promptly transferred from bringing telegraphs in from the post office to Stockbery Towers to taking them out of the Towers. Then the cold winters of the Kentish downs produced a constant cough and the need to transfer to indoor work. What better than to set him to work for that damned useful chap Greeves?

‘I take it you did not murder the good Greeves?’ asked Auguste quietly.

Edward snorted by way of reply. He only wished he’d thought of it, had the nerve.

‘Now of course we know that it is probable someone poisoned the brandy before it reached you –’ he saw the flicker of something cross Edward’s face, but could not interpret it – ‘but all the same the police will wish to blame the servants if they can. So it is necessary we think a little,
hein
? When Dr Lamson poisoned his nephew he inserted the poison in a raisin in a Dundee cake.’

‘I didn’t give Greeves no cake,’ said Edward sullenly.

‘No, Edward,’ said Auguste laughing. ‘I think we must be sure now it was in the brandy. Either in the morning room or while it was in the pantry before we came or while we were there.’

‘But no one was there except me, Mr Didier. And we was all together at luncheon before that.’

‘Somehow it was done,
mon ami.
Someone disliked Greeves enough to murder him. And I think, pleasant though it is to have the good sergeant investigating the other side of our baize door, the reasons for murdering him are all on this – So what I wish to know, Edward, is
why
you were so sure it was murder right from the beginning. When you came to find Mrs Hankey, you said someone had done him in.
Why?’

‘Dunno.’ This short monosyllable abruptly concluded the conversation so far as Edward was concerned, as he ducked under Auguste’s arm to make a speedy exit.

But Auguste was used to the ways of boys, and a quick movement quickly prevented the escape of his prey.

‘And now, Edward,’ he said silkily, ‘tell me why.’

‘Plenty of folks didn’t like him,’ said Edward unwillingly, seeing no escape. ‘Old Greeves used to laugh
about how they’d like him out of the way. Talk about the power he’d got.’

‘Power? Over whom? Over Mrs Hankey? Mr Chambers? Mr Hobbs?’

‘Yes,’ said the boy, glancing slyly at Auguste. ‘He used to laugh and say he’d got more power than the Duke himself and knew more about what went on. He didn’t mean just us, neither. The others.’

‘Others?’

‘Over there.’ And he jerked his head in the same direction as had Tucker the previous evening. ‘I fink ’e meant
them
.’

A rising excitement grasped Auguste. ‘What sort of power,
mon brave
?’

‘Dunno,’ said Edward. ‘But that’s what he said. I was in the pantry, see, and he didn’t know. When I came out he was putting summit away. That big bible he’s got. He sort of smirked when he saw me, and said summit like, “This is the good book, Edward. It means power. My power. Plenty of them would like to destroy it, destroy me. But they won’t get the chance.” He thought I was a kid, so he didn’t care what he said to me. Thought I didn’t know what he was on about. I was going to take a peek when I got a chance. But I never did. Then he was done in.’

‘But, Edward, do you not see how important this is? Perhaps this Greeves was a blackmailer. And would he blackmail me, Mrs Hankey, Mr Chambers? Our Mr Greeves liked a comfortable life, money. We have no money. No, if he was a blackmailer he was blackmailing those who have . . . It must mean the brandy was poisoned in the morning-room.’

This time he did not miss the flicker of reaction on Edward’s face. ‘What is it, Edouard?’ he asked softly.