A Sinister Establishment

by Lynn Messina

  How he had contrived it was the more interesting question, for Parsons did not strike her as lax in his management. His severe demeanor and stiff posture indicated that he would be a vigilant guardian of his domain. And Mr. Mayhew was by all appearances a demanding employer who would expect a certain standard of service.

  “He stole the key on multiple occasions?” Kesgrave asked.

  “Oh, no, not multiple times,” Gertrude said quietly. “He stole it once—he made Parsons his favorite stew, which contained a sleeping draught—and took it to a locksmith, who made a copy. It was a violation, a gross violation. Parsons was in a towering rage when he found out.”

  Bea, darting a look at the duke, who agreed that it was a very gross violation, especially in pursuit of a flawless dish. It would be slightly more understandable, though certainly not forgivable, if something significant was at stake. “When did Parsons find out?”

  Her discomfort increasing, the kitchen maid said yesterday morning. “While organizing the wines for the dinner. He was deciding which would go with each course, and he noticed several bottles of the Château d’Yquem were missing. He knew right away the culprit was Monsieur Alphonse because nobody else would have the nerve to steal from the master’s collection. He did not deny it. He felt no shame at all and argued it was more sinful to deny an artist the tools he needed to craft his creation. After that, it became a very big row. The yelling and screaming—I’ve never seen anyone as angry as Parsons.”

  It required very little imagination for Bea to picture the butler’s rage and still less for her to envision him acting on it. Thoughtfully, she asked the inevitable follow-up question. “Angry enough to kill him?”

  But Gertrude, who had been so recently on the defensive about her own immoderate temper, refused to go on the offensive about someone else’s. “Oh, no, your grace, please, you must not think it. I didn’t want to mention it in the first place because I knew that was what you would think.”

  Even as she shook her head vehemently in denial a thoughtful look came over her face and she conceded it was a serious infraction, for which Parsons, not Monsieur Alphonse, would be held accountable. “There are dozens of butlers in London, aren’t there, who could easily do his job. But a masterful chef is irreplaceable. There is not another like him in all of England. The consequences for Parsons would be horrible if Mr. Mayhew found out. He would be sacked at once, which everyone knows, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his anger had turned violent. But so violent he would kill him? Impossible. He couldn’t have done it. I’m sure of that. Monsieur Alphonse showed no more respect or consideration for him than he did the rest of us, and Parsons did sometimes get riled. But not enough to kill him. Of that, I am sure.”

  She spoke firmly, and yet with each assurance she gave, the conviction in her tone lessened until the final assertion came out almost as a question.

  As far as accusations went, it was an understated one, especially compared with her fellow servants’ efforts, which had lacked subtlety. Indeed, it was so restrained, Bea could not be entirely sure she was pointing her finger at Parsons.

  Oh, but of course she was—and look at how well it had worked. The interview had begun with the kitchen maid withering under Bea’s interest and concluded with Bea’s gaze turned toward another suspect. And Parsons was a very promising one indeed, for he had discovered Monsieur Alphonse and insisted against all reason that his death was merely a horrible accident.

  A dubious claim from the very beginning, it took on a new complexion with the discovery of a significant and well-justified resentment.

  Nevertheless, Bea remained focused on her current interrogation and reviewed with Gertrude her movements the night before. “And when you went up to bed at one, you saw Monsieur Alphonse in the courtyard?”

  “Yes, your grace, yes, I did,” she said firmly. “He was doing a spot of gardening.”

  As she was familiar with the chef’s thorough destruction of the roses, Bea assumed this was a deliberate understatement and regarded her suspect cynically. “A spot of gardening?”

  For the first time since she had entered the room, the maid’s demeanor lightened and she seemed almost to giggle. “Excuse me, your grace, I should have said a lot of gardening, for he was in the process of digging up Mrs. Blewitt’s roses. I know I should not make light of it, for it was very wrong of him to destroy her whole garden, but she is so very possessive of her flowers and treats us all with suspicion any time we get within a foot of them. I can only suppose Monsieur Alphonse decided he’d had enough of her distrust. To be sure, he would have preferred onions, but it was not as if he intended to do the gardening himself,” Gertrude said, then, realizing the incongruity of the statement in the face of evidence to the contrary, she added that rooting up the bushes was much easier than planting them.

  As Bea agreed with this assessment, she nodded and seeking to confirm the housekeeper’s version of events, asked if Mrs. Blewitt had seen what Monsieur Alphonse had done to the garden when she came in to inspect the kitchen.

  “She couldn’t have possibly noticed it then,” Gertrude said, “because the second she did, she would have put a stop to it.”

  Bea, unable to argue with the irrefutable logic, thanked the kitchen maid for her time and asked her to summon Parsons. Visibly relieved, the kitchen maid leaped to her feet, murmured a final, “Yes, your grace,” and fairly ran to the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  Parsons cried.

  ’Twas a disconcerting sight, to be sure—those prominent cheekbones, so judgmental whilst contemplating Beatrice in the corridor, glistening with tears, and his lower lip trembling like that of a naughty child being scolded by his strict governess. And his pointed chin, it bobbed up and down without control as droplets fell freely from his jaw onto the lapel of his jacket, the lines of which were ruined by shoulders rounded with despair.

  It had engulfed him so suddenly, the storm of emotion, and Bea wasn’t even sure what had sparked it. All she had said to the tall man as he’d entered the room was that he may take a seat.

  That was all it had required—a murmured invitation and a slight gesture toward a chair.

  Ah, but obviously that was not all, for he, like Gertrude and Annette and everyone else in the house who had gone before him, knew precisely the purpose of her interview and found the prospect of an interrogation deeply distressing.

  He had, Bea thought, better cause than most to be apprehensive, for the evidence was surely stacked against him. His claim that the chef had perished in an accident was foolish at best and nefarious at worst, and he had a very strong motive for wishing Mr. Réjane ill. Although the chef had done many things to agitate and annoy his colleagues, only his transgression against Parsons had actually threatened a man’s livelihood.

  Just because he appeared guilty, however, did not mean he actually was, and Bea considered how best to proceed. In her experience, butlers did not weep—they intimidated and dismissed, yes, but did not crumble into sobbing heaps—and the thought of offering comfort was at once insufficient and patently absurd. Wrapping her arms around an elephant and murmuring soothingly in its humongous ear would be less preposterous than her trying to console Parsons.

  An invigorating slap on the cheek, perhaps, would remind him of the situation and help him to regain his composure. Uncle Horace had once performed the service for his steward, who was in a lather because he’d spilled ink all over the month’s accounts, rendering them unreadable.

  But surely it would never do for the Duchess of Kesgrave to go around striking the neighbor’s servant, no matter how positive her intent. And although the slap had returned the steward to his senses, her uncle’s hand had left a red mark on the other man’s face, which had troubled her relative so much, his own ability to think was undermined.

  No accounts were balanced that day.

  Maybe a restorative drink, she wondered. A glass of port or madeira?

  Undaunted by the display, Kesgrave addressed the
butler with brisk authority, assuring him that the situation could not be quite as dismal as his behavior indicated. “Calm yourself please and tell us the cause of your agitation.”

  Parsons, reminded of his duty by the sternness of the duke’s tone, straightened his shoulders and managed a respectful response that was interrupted only once by a hiccup.

  Kesgrave nodded and advised the butler to sit down.

  Bea, bracing for another flood, watched in relief as the servant smoothly lowered into the chair and looked at the duke for further instruction. Remnants of his outburst remained on his face, particularly his gray eyes, which were red and damp, but he presented an otherwise composed appearance.

  He was mortified by the breach, Bea knew, for he could not quite bring himself to look directly upon her or the duke. But his voice was steady as he apologized for the appalling display and explained its cause. “I am aware of how the situation appears, and in a moment of unrestrained apprehension, I allowed myself to be overcome. It will not happen again, your grace.”

  Parsons addressed his comment to the duke, but then he tilted his head slightly and spoke directly to Bea, silently acknowledging that it was, first and foremost, her investigation. “Please ask your questions, and I will endeavor to answer them to the best of my ability.”

  His demeanor was so greatly altered from their interaction earlier in the day, Bea could scarcely believe it was the same person. That murder could chasten a Berkeley Square butler demonstrated its insidiousness and why it must be rooted out and not merely buried. “You said you are aware of how the situation appears. How does the situation appear?”

  “I did not like the victim,” Parsons admitted matter-of-factly as he began to list the many facts aligned against him. “I had a vicious row with the victim. I have the physical strength to overcome the victim and harm him. No one can attest to where I was during the time of the incident. I discovered the victim’s body. I told Mr. Mayhew that the victim’s death was an accident. These facts taken together make it appear as if I killed Monsieur Alphonse and then tried to cover it up. I know the staff has informed you of these factors because they resent me for trying to keep the household in order and had a great liking for Monsieur Alphonse, who made them lovely cakes and tarts.”

  Well, yes, Bea thought, the case against him did seem rather solidly made. Fortunately for the butler, she was dubious of solid cases. “Why did you say it was an accident?”

  Although Parsons’s shoulders rounded again and he had to take a deep breath before speaking, his composure held. “I was scared, your grace. When I saw him lying there dead, I panicked. I didn’t mean to lie. It’s just the words came out and I knew what everyone would say so I kept lying. I kept exonerating myself. It was necessary because we’d had an argument the day before, a vicious argument that everyone knew about. I tried to control my temper, I tried very hard, but Monsieur Alphonse’s disregard of the danger he had put me in infuriated me and I yelled. Everyone heard me yelling at him. So I knew they would think I did it. That’s why I said it was an accident. I don’t know if Mr. Mayhew believed me, but he does not like dealing with complications and the murder of his French chef was a very large one. He was grateful, I think, to have an explanation that simplified the situation. The constable was as well. The matter had been resolved, and there seemed like there was no reason to tell the truth.”

  It was a reasonable answer, and Bea had enough empathy to imagine how terrifying it must be to see a corpse and know you were the one to whom the whole staff would point.

  Everyone always cried, “It wasn’t me, I didn’t do it.” But in the end someone had.

  “Very well,” Bea said with in a hint of weariness in her tone, “let’s try this again. Tell me the truth about discovering Monsieur Alphonse’s body, and do not leave out any details this time.”

  Parsons blanched at the instructions and looked fleetingly at Kesgrave, uncertain if he should really make such a grim description to the duchess. Finding nothing to indicate otherwise, he explained that he had awoken at five as usual. “I performed my customary waking activities, dressed and went into the kitchen to reignite the fire so that I may begin to boil water—all that was true. But it was actually in the passageway that I realized something was wrong. My foot kicked an object, and not thinking very much on the matter, I leaned over with the candle and noticed the thing was hairy. I assumed it was a small animal, but when I touched it, it rolled and I realized it was Monsieur Alphonse’s head.”

  He paused here, as if expecting a reaction from Bea—a cry of alarm, perhaps a mild faint of horror—and when he failed to get anything but an encouraging nod, he continued. “It was horrible, horrifying, terrible. I…I dropped it at once and then leaned against the wall for a dozen seconds, trying to stop my heart from racing. Slowly, it occurred to me that the rest of him had to be somewhere, so I raised the light and looked around. It was not far, the body, perched at the entrance of the kitchen. I must have cried out because as I was standing there trying to gather my wits, Thomas, the kitchen boy, appeared. And he looked at me with such terror, as if I had been the one who had done it. I knew then how it would be, the assumptions, the accusations, so I panicked and looked around and saw the le peu, just sitting there, and it seemed so plausible in the moment.”

  Bea, who had only a few days before found herself standing a few feet away from a skewered corpse when the most accomplished gossip in London opened the door and stepped into the hallway, easily imagined the terror he felt. “How did Thomas respond?”

  Calmed slightly by the question, for clearly his story was not going to be dismissed out of hand, Parsons said, “He stared at me with his eyes open wide for a long time, and I thought for sure he was going to call me a liar and all at once I saw myself standing on the gallows, my head inches from the noose. But then he nodded and began to scream and run down the passageway to wake up everyone in the rooms above the stables. As soon as he was gone, I ran to the le peu and moved it closer to the body so the explanation made more sense. In my haste, I tripped over something and knew it was the real murder weapon. I didn’t look, though, I didn’t have time. I just kicked it as hard as I could under the cabinet. I swear I had no idea it was a cleaver. Then I put a tablecloth over the body so that I would not have to stare at it. I am quite ashamed to admit I forgot about the head. I left it lying in the corridor and it was kicked several more times by the staff.”

  It required all her self-control, but Bea managed to not flinch at the image of the head of the greatest chef in all of Europe being knocked around the hallway like a ball in a field. Auguste Alphonse Réjane had been the master of his craft, the creator of an elaborate style of cooking that appealed to bankers and emperors alike, and for what—to suffer a hideous desecration.

  As if the death itself weren’t ghastly enough in its own right.

  Bea was hardly surprised Thomas and the footmen and Mr. Mayhew and subsequently the constable had latched on to the guillotine as a reasonable explanation. In her experience, people who were adjacent to the horrendous crime of murder were always happy to accept the less awful alternative, however improbable it might be.

  Given that the cutting instrument was not actually the culprit, Bea sought to get a sense of what the site of the separation looked like by asking him to describe the cut at the neck.

  Parsons recoiled at the question, and his pointed chin began to flap as he stuttered inarticulately for several seconds before he fell silent. Then he stared blindly, as if focusing on something only he could see, and admitted that he could not possibly say. “It was dark and I chose not to look. I am sorry if that seems cowardly to you.”

  But it did not—of course it did not—and Bea rushed to assure him that he had behaved reasonably, especially with the terror of discovery upon him and a fear of being accused.

  Nevertheless, knowing nothing about the site of the cut made the investigation several times more difficult, and she again regretted not having the opportunity
to examine the corpse.

  There was an easy solution to her dilemma, to be sure, and that was to visit the constable and ask to see the body.

  How easily she could imagine it: the uproar that would cause, the bewilderment on the constable’s face as he tried to figure out if she was sincere in her request or bedeviling him with nonsense.

  No, she decided, that was giving the constable too much credit. He would care nothing about her intentions, tossing her forcefully from the premises and warning her harshly of the rough treatment she should expect if she dared to return.

  Except he would not do that because she was the Duchess of Kesgrave.

  Nobody ejected a duchess.

  The constable would permit her to make her examination, either begrudgingly or with obsequious enthusiasm.

  But it would not end there, of course it would not. Within hours the story would be bandied about in every drawing room in London, and a scathing scandal would ensue.

  It was exactly as Mr. Mayhew had said: The new duchess’s morbid curiosity in decapitated chefs would be mocked and reviled.

  Thanks to the scene at Lord Stirling’s ball, her proclivity was widely known, but it was one thing to convince an older gentleman possibly teetering on the edge of senility to confess to the murder of one’s parents in a crowded ballroom and quite another to deliberately seek out a victim who bore no relation to you. The former could be excused because family matters were frequently messy, and sometimes it was simply impossible to contain them to the confines of one’s front parlor. But it was never acceptable to pester one’s neighbors, especially during a difficult time, which the violent execution of a masterful French chef surely was.

  Bea knew her conduct was so excessively indecorous that even she would be inclined to wonder what could motivate a duchess to behave in such a shockingly ghoulish and inconsiderate manner.

  Even if she was inclined to ignore the ridicule and contempt for the sake of the victim (the greatest chef in Europe!), she could not expose Kesgrave to it. The ton already thought he was the helpless dupe of her cold-blooded scheme to entrap him in marriage. How much worse the pity would be if they knew he’d been shackled to a bride who chose to examine headless corpses?