A Sinister Establishment

by Lynn Messina

  Deeply offended, the banker inhaled sharply and said, “Well, I never!”

  But of course he had—and within the past hour, for Bea’s earlier interrogation had clearly implied that she considered him among her list of suspects. Possibly, he was insulted on his wife’s behalf. Regardless, there was far less space in the modest-size dressing room for bounding around the floor in a temper and he contended himself with huffing repeatedly. His wife, in contrast, recovered just enough vigor to clap her hands together merrily and announce that it was above all good things to be suspected of murder by the Duchess of Kesgrave.

  “In all my calculations, it is the one thing I never considered,” Mrs. Mayhew admitted freely. “As you are our new neighbor, I’ve imagined our meeting a dozen different ways. I hope you won’t mind if I tell you I was determined to make your acquaintance. I have watched your recent career with much interest, for I knew you would soon be occupying Kesgrave House and I wanted to make sure we had conversation. But discussing my whereabouts at two in the morning?” She trilled in amusement as she shook her head. “No amount of planning could account for that. I was here, actually, in this very room, for I had a terrible nightmare and woke up to discover my maid, Annette, holding my shoulders and trying to shake me free of the horrible dream. I was too unsettled to go back to sleep so I requested that she read to me for a while. I am not sure how long. We can ask her. Eventually I felt calm enough to return to my bed. I did not wake again until half past nine, which is when Annette told me the horrible news.” The little burst of high spirits that had carried her through the narration fled as she searched out her husband’s eyes and added softly, “From one nightmare to another. I am so relieved the children are away at school and know nothing of this. That would be yet another horror.”

  Her husband agreed fervently with this statement and took the opportunity to tell the duke about his three highly intelligent boys, who were studying at Eton.

  Bea, recognizing it as the delaying tactic it no doubt was, reminded the banker that they were waiting for him to detail his movements.

  Churlishly, he said, “My valet can provide you with the precise time I went to bed, but I believe it was around one, and Parsons woke me with the horrific news soon after he discovered the body. I do not have someone to account for my specific movements in the interim, but I trust that is not necessary.”

  Well, obviously, it was, for that was the exact purpose of the exercise, removing him from suspicion based on an insurmountable alibi. Nevertheless, she accepted it without comment because she was grateful he had provided the information without arguing further.

  “What else can we tell you?” Mrs. Mayhew asked eagerly, darting a meaningful look at her husband, whose expression was not nearly as congenial as hers. “We are determined to be of as much assistance as possible in hopes of furthering our association. I want you to find us to be the most helpful suspects you have ever had the pleasure of questioning.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Mayhew said with a tight smile, making, Bea thought, a sincere effort to comply with his spouse’s wishes, “the most helpful suspects ever.”

  Although the wife was as determined to use the dead chef’s gruesome murder to satisfy her social ambition as the husband, Bea was far less appalled by her forthright approach than Mr. Mayhew’s manipulative one. It was amusing, how frankly she spoke, almost artless and winsome.

  Bea glanced at the duke to see how he received Mrs. Mayhew’s offer to help and noted he was also diverted by its extravagance. The object of three decades’ worth of toadying, he had naturally assumed he had been subjected to every form of sycophancy, and yet there he was, married to Miss Hyde-Clare for a single day, and already he had been introduced to a new level of fawning.

  As if aware of the tenor of her thoughts, Kesgrave dipped his head in acknowledgment.

  Returning her attention to the Mayhews, Bea asked who among the household did they think could be capable of such a crime.

  “Nobody!” Mrs. Mayhew said with vehemence. “I cannot imagine a single one of our servants responding to anything with such severe brutality.”

  Fervently, the banker echoed her sentiment.

  “You mentioned the kitchen maid scalding the velouté sauce. Was that Gertrude?” Bea asked, recalling the stout woman who had scrubbed the blood off the floor and resisted the urge to faint. She seemed to have both the temperament and strength to chop the head off her superior.

  “Yes, that is she. Gertrude is a rough-seeming creature but very capable. I am sure the problem with the birds last night was an aberration and won’t happen again,” she said firmly, then she pressed her lips together tightly as if struggling to hold in strong emotion. After a long pause, she said, “Forgive me, your grace. I just realized there will not be a next time, for we could not possibly serve quail à la Saint-Jacques without our beloved chef.”

  While his wife collected herself, Bea looked at Mr. Mayhew and asked what the issue was with the quails. “You said previously that they were of excellent quality.”

  “They were of excellent quality before the kitchen maid allowed them to dry out,” he replied plaintively.

  As Mr. Réjane was the one who abandoned the quails to pay a romantical call on the neighbors, Bea did not think it was entirely fair to hold the kitchen maid responsible. Nevertheless, she was not surprised that the person with the lowest rank had to shoulder the most blame. “How did Gertrude and Monsieur Alphonse get along? Was he frustrated by these mistakes?”

  Mrs. Mayhew firmly denied any tension between the associates and insisted they rubbed together well. But then she bowed her head in slight abashment and confessed she was not actually privy to the day-to-day management of the kitchens. “I look in from time to time, of course, to make sure everything is as it should be, but I leave the management to Mrs. Blewitt. That said, I assume there was no discord belowstairs because none has bubbled up and I trust you know as well as I do, your grace, how difficult it is to suppress the grumbling of disaffected servants.”

  As Bea did in fact know this to be true, she accepted the answer and asked the banker if he had any thoughts to add. “Only to reiterate that I believe you are approaching the problem from the wrong perspective. You are assuming the culprit is within the house, but I propose it was a stranger who stole into the house to punish me by cutting Monsieur Alphonse down. The question you should be asking is who wishes to do me harm.”

  But Bea shook her head and reminded him that per their prior agreement, he should be asking that question, not she. “That particular line of inquiry falls under your purview. Divide and conquer, you recall? I will continue to operate under the assumption that Monsieur Alphonse was the target, as I believe that is more likely the case.”

  Mr. Mayhew did not like this answer and opened his mouth to counter it, but before he could speak, his wife ardently endorsed the conclusion. Then she turned to her husband with her lips in a sympathetic moue and apologized for not being able to offer her support.

  “But I wish to align myself with the Duchess of Kesgrave by agreeing with her,” she explained before hastily adding that this new alliance did not indicate anything worrisome in her regard for him. “I am as fond of you as ever, my love.”

  Her claim to affection did little to mollify the banker, who felt that his concerns were not being taken seriously. Mrs. Mayhew cooed soothingly as Bea asked to speak to her maid.

  Roused out of his sulks by the request, Mr. Mayhew protested the insult, for his wife’s word was inviolate and required no verification from the servants.

  “Of course! You must confirm my story with hers,” Mrs. Mayhew said with an approving nod as she applauded the duchess for her thoroughness. “Do wait here while I fetch her.”

  But that would never not do, for it would give the women an opportunity to align their version of events, and Mrs. Mayhew, realizing it a moment after she made the suggestion, chuckled in embarrassment. Instead, she asked her husband to summon the maid using the bel
l tug in her bedchamber. He complied at once, providing her with the opportunity to lavish praise on him behind his back.

  “I love him dreadfully,” she confessed, “but he is so unassuming, which I know you might have a little trouble believing because of how greatly he has botched this tragedy. I think he was just so grateful to have a benign excuse that he grasped onto Parsons’s understanding with both hands, and naturally his confidence swayed the constable. It is so awkward, isn’t it, having a murder in one’s very own home. But obviously we want justice for the poor dear and that is why I am so grateful to you for offering to help us make sense of this tragedy. I just wish I knew what Parsons was about, blaming the chopping device. I am sure, though, that his motives are as innocent as my husband’s.”

  Her tone, however, was dubious, and Bea wondered what the other woman knew about the butler’s relationship with Mr. Réjane. Any attempt to extract information, however, was thwarted by a smiling assurance that she knew nothing about the interactions among the staff and repeated exhortations that she should apply to the housekeeper for further details.

  “If there is anything to know about Parsons’s relationship with Monsieur Alphonse, Mrs. Blewitt will be in full possession of the details,” she said positively. “But as I said before, it is impossible to ignore feuding servants, so I am certain there is nothing to know.”

  As she had indeed said this very thing before, Bea began to wonder if it was a case of protesting too much. Twice she had obliquely referred to friction between Mr. Réjane and other members of the staff: Gertrude and Parsons. Did she truly believe one of them was responsible for the heinous act or was she simply diverting attention away from her husband?

  Mrs. Mayhew was a smart woman and knew how suspicious her husband’s behavior in regard to le peu appeared. She had remarked upon it twice now.

  What did it say about a man’s innocence when even his wife feared he might be guilty, Bea wondered.

  Before she could arrive at a conclusion, Mayhew came back and a few minutes later his wife’s maid rapped lightly on the door. As she entered the room, Kesgrave rose to his feet to give her his seat, but Mrs. Mayhew, unable to bear the thought of a duke standing in her dressing room, jumped up and said Annette must use her chair. A second later, however, she realized that meant returning the duke to his rickety seat, which was also untenable, and she directed her maid to take the recently vacated chair, then urged Kesgrave to assume her own.

  The banker nodded his approval and seconded the antics by insisting Annette had excellent balance, but his wife, worried the observation implied that the duke’s equilibrium was less than exceptional, insisted that Kesgrave return to the wobbly heirloom

  As ingratiating as always, Mr. Mayhew agreed enthusiastically with this revised plan, announcing that his faith in the duke’s balance was absolute, and Kesgrave, no doubt as irritated by their fatuousness as by their servility, shuffled the pair out of the room so that he and Bea could have a candid conversation with the maid. As the door closed in her face, Mrs. Mayhew lauded his practical-minded approach (“With a killer afoot, there is no time to dawdle!”).

  The maid stood silently during the exchange, and Bea, assuming she felt reluctant to sit in their company, urged her to take the seat.

  “We have only a few questions,” she explained. “I trust you know why we are here.”

  Annette—a rail-thin women of modest height, olive skin and a slightly crooked nose—nodded definitively. “Oh, yes, your grace. The whole house knows. Everyone is talking about it.”

  Bea was tempted to ask what the servants were saying, for the ones who were critical of her interference might have the most reason to resent it, but she did not want to start off the interview by appearing to pry excessively. Her first question, therefore, was simply a request that she describe the events of the night before and early morning.

  Concisely, she detailed helping her mistress change into her nightclothes after the party had ended, which was around eleven o’clock. Mrs. Mayhew was in a cheerful mood because of the success of the dinner. Everything had gone according to plan, and their guests had left very well satisfied with the quality of care they had received.

  “She was very chatty and wanted to review every moment of the night, which is not unusual,” Annette explained. “She is always talkative when things go well. After she changed into her nightclothes, she sat down at the table in her dressing room to record a few thoughts in her notebook, reminders to herself about little things that can be improved next time. Then she drank a glass of warm milk and said she would read for a while in bed. She was far too tired, though, the poor lamb, and fell asleep almost immediately. I blew out her candles, dampened the fire and turned in myself. That was around midnight.”

  Bea nodded, as this information conformed with what Mrs. Mayhew had said. “And your bedchamber is where?”

  “Just there,” she said, pointing to a door partially hidden by the wardrobe. “It’s a cozy space. I also perform many of my chores in there. It’s close enough that I can hear Mrs. Mayhew call out for me, but there is also a bell. She rarely uses it because I usually hear her.”

  “Did she use it this morning?” Bea asked with deliberate vagueness.

  Emphatically, Annette shook her head. “You mean when she woke up from her nightmare? Oh, no, not at all. She did not have the ability to think that clearly. She was just terrified, shaking and heaving, and her eyes were blind for a moment. I lit the candle and looked straight at her and I swear she couldn’t see me. It was so awful. I’ve never seen her like that.”

  “Does she have nightmares often?” Bea asked.

  “I wouldn’t say often, but every now and then, yes,” the maid replied cautiously. “But it’s more like a little upset and she rings for me and I read to her in bed for a short while. Usually, she falls back to sleep within a half hour. But this one was so unsettling she couldn’t stay in her bed and requested I read to her in the dressing room with all the candles lit. I think she was afraid if she stayed in bed, she might fall asleep and have the same awful dream. So we remained in the dressing room and I read to her for a couple of hours.”

  Again, this aligned closely with what the other woman said and allowed Bea to remove both women from her list of possible suspects. “Do you recall the time Mrs. Mayhew woke up and when she was ready to go back to sleep?”

  “I do, yes, it was a little after one-thirty when she woke and coming up on four when she felt calm enough to try sleeping again. She was so upset by it all. She hated the fact that we would both lose sleep and kept looking at the clock, as if deeply distressed that it was growing so late. I told her not to worry because she had no reason to get up early in the morning. Of course, we could never have imagined.…” She sighed deeply and let the thought trail off. “Then to awaken to the terrible news. It was devastating.”

  “And what time was that?” Bea asked.

  “Eight-thirty. I dressed myself, then pressed Mrs. Mayhew’s pistache morning dress. At nine fifteen, I went downstairs to collect her tray and that is when I learned what had happened. I rushed upstairs to tell the mistress. She was so distressed, she fainted at once. I think it was the lack of sleep. She was already so tired. I ran to the dressing room to fetch her smelling salts, but I couldn’t find them. I looked everywhere and made such a mess of everything in my frantic search. My wits were a bit scattered by everything, and I flew downstairs in a panic, which upset Mr. Mayhew, who feared his wife might be seriously injured. I told him she had fainted onto the bed, but he was so anxious and I was anxious and it was a relief when Mr. Parsons volunteered to borrow smelling salts from the neighbors. He was a godsend and returned quickly, but the poor lamb…. I am not sure waking her was an act of kindness because she was so deeply disturbed by it all. She cannot believe something so dreadful could happen in her very own home,” she said, looking down at her hands, which were clenched now in her lap. Then she added softly, “None of us can. Everyone is so upset, even Mr. Ste
bbings.”

  Tilting her head curiously, Bea asked who Mr. Stebbings was and why his distress was noteworthy.

  “He’s Mr. Mayhew’s valet, your grace,” Annette replied, “and resented the cheroots.”

  “The cheroots?” Bea said.

  “Every so often, when he was in a particularly generous mood, Mr. Mayhew would give Monsieur Alphonse a cheroot from his personal stock,” the maid explained. “It is a token of his appreciation that he has never extended to Mr. Stebbings, which he considers to be a great personal slight. Or so his numerous complaints in recent months have led me to believe.”

  Bea was not familiar enough with relations with one’s valet to know if this was a legitimate grievance or not. In a more traditional arrangement, he would be ranked higher than the cook, but Mr. Réjane could not be described in such pedestrian terms. He was a master of the culinary arts, an innovator of la grande cuisine and a vital aspect in Mr. Mayhew’s business endeavor. Giving him the odd cheroot did not strike her as outlandish.

  Could Stebbings’s sense of hierarchy be that severe?

  Ah, but to chop off your colleague’s head simply because your employer appeared to favor him?

  It was a decidedly disproportionate response.

  Perhaps seeing doubt on Beatrice’s face, the maid added Mr. Stebbings had got into a fierce argument with Monsieur Alphonse the day before. “He could be heard yelling at him in Mr. Mayhew’s dressing room.”

  The location of the quarrel was quite interesting, for what cause could the chef have to be in his master’s dressing room. “Was is common for Monsieur Alphonse to be there?”

  Annette could not say, as she did not closely monitor the victim’s movements. “But I would not be surprised if he had gone in there before to look for a cheroot. He had a habit of doing whatever he wanted. That, too, might have rubbed Mr. Stebbings the wrong way.”