by Myers, Amy
Fresh from reading The Mystery of the Hansom Cab and fired with detective zeal, Cricket put in brightly: ‘Wouldn’t the plates have remains on them?’
Bladon regarded him sourly. ‘By the time my men got here, Mr Cricket, they’d all been cleared up.’ It was a sore point. Naseby seemed to regard him as personally responsible.
‘The sign of a well-run household, Sergeant Bladon,’ said Mrs Hankey, gratified, mistaking this for a compliment.
‘It sets back our investigations. His Grace is not going to like it. He don’t want his guests disturbed, and now they’ve all got to be interviewed.’
The upper servants were shocked. ‘I don’t see,’ said Hobbs heavily, ‘why His Grace’s guests have to be bothered.’ He would undoubtedly be the one to suffer if His Grace was irritated.
‘Thoroughness,’ said Bladon. ‘That’s what police work is. We have to make enquiries as to whether any of them could have been in a position to poison Mr Greeves’ food.’
Eight pairs of eyes looked shocked. Those beings from another world concerned with murder? Unthinkable. Wasn’t it? ‘But Greeves was murdered here,’ said Chambers, puzzled. ‘Our side.’
Almost a sigh of relief that the other world remained inviolate.
‘Your side of what?’
‘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? B
ladon 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.
There was no response.
Not so gently now, Auguste shook him by the shoulders. ‘Tell me, Edward. You want to go to prison? You want me to go?’ The boy shook his head. ‘Then trust me, and tell me.’
Edward licked his lips nervously. ‘Wasn’t done in the morning-room, Mr Didier. Can’t ’ve bin.’
‘Why not, Edward?’
‘Must have been put in after it got to the pantry. When we were all together. Can’t have bin before.’
‘Why not?’ said Auguste, almost shouting now.
Edward shuffled his feet. ‘’Cos I took a swig of it before dinner. Hadn’t been feeling too good and when I put
s it in the decanter I thought he wouldn’t miss a nip. So I took a drop before we goes to the servants’ hall. Right as rain, I was.’
Auguste’s hands dropped from Edward’s shoulders and he stared at the boy. ‘Then it must have been one of us after all.’
He needed time to think, to let the content of this conversation marinate for a while, to reflect. There must have been a way. Meanwhile – ‘Edward,’ he said urgently. ‘Écoutes, mon enfant. Not a word of this to the good Sergeant Bladon. Not for the moment. Yes?’
Edward Jackson needed no urging.
‘Oh, Mr Didier, I couldn’t.’
‘Auguste, dearest Estelle. You must call me Auguste,’ he breathed softly into her ear, a little brown curl tickling his nose. ‘And yes you could. Why not? It is a simple thing, is it not?’
‘But I don’t like to.’
‘It is to find out who murdered Greeves. You asked me to find out, dearest.’
‘But to—’ She blushed.
‘He is not that unattractive,’ said Auguste.
‘But not like—’ She blushed again and looked modestly down.
‘Of course he is not like me, my precious,’ Auguste murmured tenderly. ‘But just one kiss . . . Like this.’
So it was, just before going off duty from guarding Pug’s Parlour, and being relieved by the Maidstone Constable Tomson, that PC Perkins was overwhelmed by Miss Gubbins not only stopping to speak to him but actually moving very close to him. He was given to understand that she would be only too happy to accompany him to the village dance on her next evening off. Were PC Perkins any more experienced than Ethel herself, he would have recognised Ethel’s brave efforts at flirtation as singularly amateur, but, as he was not, he was gratified indeed to find her pretty face looking up at him admiringly and her lips so close to his, it seemed not so very daring to cover them firmly with his own. Ethel was surprised to find it not the ordeal she had feared, while Constable Perkins was oblivious to all but the wonder of Miss Gubbins.
Auguste had entered the sash window of Greeves’ room with dexterity. It took but a moment to reach the bookcase and to extract the large family bible. He dared not strike a lucifer match and therefore it was by touch he identified the large shape cut out in the middle of the book which accommodated a small notebook comfortably. He slipped it into his hand, and put the bible back on the shelf. As he straightened up, a hand fell on his shoulder. A hand that belonged to a zealous reader of stories of detection, as the path to the distant horizon of promotion.