Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (19 page)

‘Only because the Baroness is so close, Auguste,’ came a throaty murmur in his ear. ‘Otherwise, who knows?’

And the twins played on.

Egbert Rose was on duty, though at first sight he did not appear so. The evening suit he kept was far more often used on duty than on social activities enjoyed by himself and Edith. But if he walked into Jimmy’s at midnight in bowler hat and overcoat, he’d get less help than a Smithfield man at Billingsgate.

He glanced towards Vine Street police station as he walked through to Piccadilly. He reckoned they saw pretty nearly as many villains on this beat as ever walked the Ratcliffe Highway. The best and the worst you saw on Piccadilly. And it was the latter he was in search of now. If that girl had been on the streets, he knew who’d be able to help him.

‘’Allo, darling.’

He turned to his accoster and grinned. ‘Me? Sure?’ The hand fell away, the form slunk back to join her sisters jostling for trade on the pavement. He walked into Jimmy’s. Same trade, different levels. As different as Auguste from the cook at Charley’s Café was the world of the demi-monde from the pavement trade. The front of the restaurant was full of men staring into the dining rooms. Rose walked past in search of his quarry.

‘Emmy,’ he said quietly.

She hadn’t noticed him at first, laughing and talking to her three companions. She turned her head, the red taffeta of her gaudy, low-cut gown rustling as she realised who was with her.

‘Looks like I’ve trade,’ she told the three other women offhandedly. Obediently they moved to another table.

‘Anywhere private we can talk, Emmy?’

She shrugged, lighting a cigarette. ‘’Ere’s good enough. No one’ll hear. All too busy on the jaw. Ain’t seen you in long time, Egbert.’ She eyed him provocatively.
‘Come for a bit, ’ave yer?’

‘Information,’ he replied.

‘Yer oughter get off the straight and narrow.’

‘Land in the river that way, Emmy, you know that.’

‘Begin at Jimmy’s, end up over the Bridge of Sighs, eh? Or out there selling matches. A bright life and a short one, eh?’ Her hands trembled slightly as she held the cigarette. ‘D’yer come ’ere to cart me off to an ’ome, Inspector? Turn me into a nice little ’ousemaid and pack me off to Paris?’

‘Lassie in the river. Thought you might recognise her.’ Rose had no compunction about showing her the photograph. If she felt emotion, she did not display it. ‘Murdered north of Oxford Street. We think she was a housemaid, but might have been on the streets. No one’s reported her missing.’

She studied it and shook her head. ‘Difficult to tell. Don’t recognise her. Try the ’omes.’

‘Homes?’

‘Those training places. Some girls they pick up from the streets, or buy ’em from crowded ’omes. Like they used to do when they wanted young girls for the foreign whorehouses.’

‘That’s all stopped.’

‘There’s an overseas trade in ’ousemaids, Egbert,’ she addressed him familiarly, ‘mostly to Belgium. And Canada. I’ll put the word out round here, but the girl looks, well, not quite our class, if you know what I mean. Print dresses don’t find much in the way of pickings in Piccadilly.’

Auguste staggered into his bedroom, tucked well to the rear of the ground floor behind his office. He had barely been able to restrain himself from resorting to hands and knees to get here. Water, he must drink
water before he slept or assuredly he would be in no fit state to greet the last day of the old century. Greedily he consumed the whole contents of his water flask and sank gratefully into bed. Half an hour later he awoke with a start, aware of an urgent need. Water might be beneficial for his head, but it reached parts where its immediate result was far from convenient. With a groan, he flung aside the bedclothes and swung his legs to the ground, his head throbbing. Just as he did so the door opened, and he smothered a shout of fear that the ghost of the bride of young Lovell was paying him a visit.

It was not a ghost. It was Bella, very much desirable flesh and blood, clad in white satin and lace. At least, under other circumstances, she would have been desirable. At this precise moment he had only one desire, and it was not Bella.

‘Auguste!’ She wafted towards him with open arms, and as he stood up in agitation, threw her arms round him with gusto, toppling him backwards on the bed. She had a fashionable figure, and fashion was not approving of girlish slenderness, thus Auguste was buried under her smothering warmth and kisses. Her arms slid up and down his body, arousing sensations delightful at other times but
not
now!

‘Madame,’ he cried into a mouthful of satin. ‘Bella, don’t,’ as a particularly well-aimed hand found its target. ‘I have sworn to remain faithful to my love,’ he tried without much hope.

But the arms slightly relaxed their hold. ‘She wouldn’t know,’ Bella’s voice informed him from above.

‘I would,’ he cried eagerly. ‘In my heart.’

‘Ah well, I could leave your heart intact,’ Bella murmured beguilingly.

‘The two are linked,’ Auguste shouted in desperation.
‘I plead with you, madame. Would you have me betray another?’

‘Why not?’ Bella enquired, then laughed, rolled off her prey, sat up and patted her hair back into order. ‘I hope your lady appreciates your sacrifice.’

‘No,’ said Auguste simply, ‘for Tatiana is not my lady. Nor ever can be,’ adding hastily lest Bella take this as encouragement to renew the offensive, ‘but yet I cannot love another,’ he perorated, cursing the predicaments in which body and social convention could combine to place one.

‘What a waste,’ sighed Bella. ‘And I thought you liked me. I suppose I could always go to visit Gaston,’ she announced without excitement as she floated out.

A few moments later, urgent needs fulfilled and the chamber pot replaced, Auguste climbed once more thankfully into bed, where he slept out the night, peacefully if regrettably chastely.

Auguste slowly emerged from his bedroom at seven thirty, not yet able to face the possibility of passing guests, to greet the last day of the old century. True, only a slight headache reminded him of his involuntary excesses of the evening before, but consciousness that he had been made to look foolish at least in his own eyes contributed to the distinct grumpiness that enveloped him this Monday morning. He felt a great desire just to go to his cubbyhole office and let the world pass him by. Conscience directed his footsteps elsewhere. To the dining room where guests would shortly be descending for breakfast.

A terrible sight met his eyes. Mary was on duty with two footmen, immaculately clad in livery. The garnish, yes, but where was the meat? Where was the usual array of steaming hot dishes, where were the succulent smells that should gently woo the breakfaster into a delightful awareness of the promise of the day to come? What met Auguste’s nose was burnt devilled kidneys and the smell of old tired herrings that had lain uncalled for in their marinade for too long. Worse, where was the heart of breakfast, the breads? In the place usually occupied by freshly baked muffins, crumpets, Sally Lunns, Didier’s breakfast cakes, anchovy toasts, sausage toasts and Scotch woodcock were what looked suspiciously like the bottom rounds of yesterday’s cottage loaves, with their round roofs sitting on their own, doubling as rolls.

‘What is this?’ asked Auguste simply.

Mary quailed. She had the stamp of a true connoisseur, he noted dispassionately. She had an instinctive awareness of the correctness of things.

‘Cook’s a little busy this morning, sir,’ she offered in misguided loyalty.

Auguste stared at her aghast. ‘A little busy,’ he repeated, dumbfounded. ‘Too busy to—’ He broke off. One should never criticise superiors before their underlings, no matter how great the provocation. And Fancelli was undoubtedly the chef in residence. His chest swelled. His muscles grew tense. The time had come for Showdown in the Kitchen Corral.

Quivering with rage, he ran down the staircase towards that underworld that should have been so entrancing but now was occupied by an alien presence. He spied his quarry, and marched straight to him.

‘Signor Fancelli,’ he began silkily, ‘I understand you are a little busy this morning.’

Fancelli looked up briefly, and went back to his apparently engrossing task of desultorily stuffing a turkey. ‘Yis,’ he informed his superior.

Auguste examined the object of Fancelli’s attention more closely and was transfixed. His whole consignment of delicately perfumed truffles –
fresh
truffles, 8 lb of
Kentish
truffles, supplied by His Grace the Duke as a favour to him – were being carelessly stuffed into one turkey. True, the art of cuisine had been known to demand such sacrifices in the past, but not unless for a centrepiece, a dish for the highest gourmets to appreciate.

‘What is it you do?’ he asked, voice rising uncontrollably. ‘These truffles, at the peak of their condition, so delicately perfumed, snouted out by the Duke’s own dogs, they cannot be wasted so when mushrooms would do as well.’

Fancelli’s reply was muffled and far from cordial as he continued stuffing truffles into the cavity, followed by a noise that suggested he was about to break into song.

‘We
have
no more truffles,’ screamed Auguste. ‘These must be saved for the garnish,’ pulling the dish away.

Fancelli at last took notice, grabbing the dish back, and flourishing a precious truffle under Auguste’s nose.

‘
Attention!
’ cried Auguste anxiously, the delicate perfume under his nose seeming to be pleading for its release.

‘I take care,’ snorted Fancelli. ‘I take care with truffles. They all go in. See!’ plunging one in as though it were a fistful of pug into a wall cavity.

‘No, no,’ Auguste plunging in his own hand as soon as Fancelli’s was released, and removing the precious objects.

A silence fell in the kitchen as the staff began to watch, fascinated.

Fancelli’s face bulged at this affront to his position; he picked up the truffles and replaced them before, too late, Auguste grabbed the dish to guard them against further assault.

‘Signor Didier, you stuff your truffles where you like.’ Fancelli’s preferred choice was menacingly obvious.

‘I, Signor Fancelli, am the manager here.’

‘And I am the chef.’

‘They are
my
truffles. Remove them from this turkey.’

Fancelli looked at him. Then he turned to the turkey. With great care he removed the truffles one by one; then he picked up one, weighed it in his hand, and hurled it at the menu blackboard.

A terrible silence, and at last: ‘You, monsieur, are
not worthy of the name of chef. You will leave these kitchens
now
,’ pronounced Auguste in deadly voice.

‘I go,’ snorted Fancelli in a mixture of grandeur and glee. ‘I go and you have no chef for tonight, your New Century’s Eve banquet.’

Auguste and his staff watched the portly figure don jacket and hat, exit through the tradesmen’s entrance and puff up the steps to the outside world. The strains of
La Donna è Mobile
could just be heard till they faded into the distance.

August drew a deep breath in the stillness of his own domain. He looked at the open-mouthed faces watching him for his reactions, for guidance; he looked at the familiar objects of the kitchen, salt jars, chafing dishes, mousetraps, dough bins, salamanders, from which he had been temporarily banished. He looked at the tables, untidy but scrubbed ready for action. He looked at the menu blackboard, at the cook’s knives inviting his use, he looked at the baskets delivered from the market, beautiful cauliflowers glowing white, green firm sprouts, red glossy apples. Oh, the textures, the colours. He smelled the fresh fish awaiting preparation, he saw the exotic fruits awaiting his master touch.

Scheherazade with all her jewels could not command as much as he before this riot of possibility, this wealth. Auguste drew a deep sigh of happiness. He beamed. He looked at his staff.

‘
Alors, mes enfants
,’ he said, spreading his arms wide in welcome. ‘Come, we have work to do.’

Auguste Didier was himself again. He was home.

Fifteen minutes later, Cranton’s kitchen resembled a maypole of flying figures dancing round it, woven into an intricate dance choreographed by a master chef. Maids flew upstairs with eggs and marrow toast, the smell of baking filled the kitchens. A kedgeree was
somehow spirited into swift existence with just a hint of Colonel Kenny’s curry paste. Auguste eyed Mrs Marshall’s balefully. Not in his kitchen.

Auguste flew round the kitchens, a white-gowned banshee of activity, wailing at all and everyone. Breakfast time would no longer present disaster, but what of luncheon? Not to mention this evening’s banquet. He cast an agonised glance at the blackboards. True, they were his menus, but somehow now they looked uninspired, they lacked the true flavour of a Didier banquet. And the ingredients – how could he be sure that
man
, for assuredly he was no chef, had obtained them correctly? He drew a deep breath. He was the general: he must study the plan of campaign, then inspect the battlefield, and lastly review his troops and send them into battle.

His eye fell on a few dishes at random, purée of partridge soup, supreme of turkey fillets à
l’écarlate, bavarois de marasquin
, apples
à la crémone
, Indian trifle, London syllabub, the sorbets, the ices—Panic seized him. The ices – he had not noticed any. He flew to the ice boxes with sinking heart. As he thought, no sign of ice, no sign of sorbet. Panic momentarily overwhelmed him. He had a matter of hours only. Then he reminded himself firmly that it was for emergencies such as this that Maître Escoffier had trained him.

‘
Alors
,’ he informed his henchmen briskly, ‘we will make junkets, trifles, orange custards – even, yes, Pall Mall Pudding,’ he said triumphantly. Obtaining the recipe from a reluctant Emma Pryde on behalf of Miss Guessings had taken all his considerable arts of blandishment.

Ovens were lit, scullerymaids rushed cooking pots to the fore, kitchenmaids eagerly sorted ingredients as their new master dictated. Footmen were despatched
speedily to Senns High Class Delicacies for missing ingredients. By ten o’clock the kitchen was beginning to show some evidence of order, and work in progress. The banquet, Auguste told himself thankfully, was under way. It could be achieved, and better, oh how much better than it would have been under the direction of Signor Fancelli. He gazed round happily.

‘What’s for luncheon, Mr Didier?’ piped up John, his underchef, brightly.

Quoi?
’ asked Auguste impolitely, so taken aback was he.

John repeated his question, but there was no need. The awful truth had already dawned on the
maître chef. He had forgotten luncheon!
Should he fall on his sword like Vatel? Or rather his kitchen knife? He had forgotten a meal. Such a thing had never happened before! Truly, he grew old, past his prime, an overhung
faisan
. He should be put out to grass, donkey that he was. He gazed at John helplessly, wits deserting him.

‘I hear your cook has left, Monsieur Didier.’

Glassy-eyed, Auguste looked up at this interruption and was appalled. Madame la Baronne was descending the steps of the kitchen in an elegant morning dress of blue wool, a high pearl dog collar at her neck. Such demeaning intrusion of guests to the nether regions must not be allowed. But he was past pretence.

‘The
cook
has indeed departed, madame, but as you see,
le chef
remains.’ He bowed, hoping to impress the Baroness that nothing was amiss.

He did not succeed.

She apparently took in the situation at a glance, and strode towards him. ‘Monsieur Didier, I shall require an apron.’

‘But madame – you cannot!’ He was appalled. What were the aristocracy coming to?

‘
Mais pourquoi?
’ The elegant eyebrows were raised.
‘I have nothing to do this morning other than to write letters and that does not amuse me. Mademoiselle Gonnet has gone to visit friends, and I am too old to wish continually to add to my store of knowledge by visiting museums.’

‘But a baroness to help in the kitchens—’

‘I was not always a baroness,’ she said lightly. ‘I was born Thérèse from Orléans. You need have no fear, monsieur. I have read my Brillat-Savarin, my Dumas, and furthermore I have my specialities. The apron,
s’il vous plaît
, monsieur.’

Somehow the Baroness inspired confidence. He did not understand her, doubtless there was some mystery attached to her, but he felt instinctively that he could rely on her. If she stated she could achieve miracles, then he was prepared to believe it. In fact, he had little choice with a minimum of forty dishes to prepare for this evening.

‘In that case, madame,’ he handed her the apron.

‘And the task, monsieur?’

‘Luncheon for fifteen.’ By her reaction he would test her.

‘And what do your larders possess that can provide the basis for this repast, monsieur?’

His respect grew. ‘Cold goose, madame, it appears, for a
plat rechauffé
, and cold beef for another, brawn, salads, and the stockpot at your service.’

‘And the desserts?’ Her voice was as brisk as his, as set on the task before her as was he.

‘Fruit, madame, would be simplest.’

She dismissed this. ‘Soufflés.’

His respect shot up so high he had to reassure himself. ‘You are bold, madame.’

‘I achieve what I want, monsieur. And now, pray, let us return to our muttons. Or, in this case, our cooked goose.’ She paused, looked round at the staff and her
eyes fell on Mary. ‘I will have you,’ she pronounced, ‘to assist me.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Mary cast a terrified look at Auguste who nodded approvingly. The Baroness, for the moment, could do no wrong.

This indeed appeared to be the case, for she worked efficiently and tidily so that he ceased to keep a wary eye on her and devoted himself to the banquet. A new spirit of goodwill seemed to be flourishing in the kitchens as the morning wore on, a liveliness of eye and step that had not been apparent before. Ah, this was truly where he belonged.

By some miracle, at twelve o’clock the Baroness pronounced herself ready for inspection. By now she would have had to have taken a sledgehammer to a delicate sole to earn his disapproval, and before him lay no evidence of that. He stiffened slightly as he saw the goose in a cream sauce, but the subtle taste of simmered garlic and vegetables within it reassured him. He beamed and nodded approval at a
chicon gratiné
; his eyes rose slightly when he saw spice cloves in the salad dressing, but before he could comment, his eye was drawn to a horror that he could not believe the Baroness capable of. Coralline pepper – furthermore, Mrs Marshall’s coralline pepper – adorning the
réhauffé
dish of beef in sour cream. True, he was forced to admit, the taste could hardly be faulted, but the end did not always justify the means. An eye must be kept on the Baroness after all.

‘I think you deliberately goaded Fancelli into walking out, Auguste,’ announced Maisie crossly, far from pleased at the
fait accompli
that had resulted in an urgent appeal from him to reconsider her absence from Cranton’s.