by Myers, Amy
‘Now, Joseph.’
Slowly, nervously, Joseph Benson extracted the large earthenware jar that filled the coffin-crust, one of a long line of similar crusty products awaiting his attention on the scrubbed deal table. The pie could now be filled. Pork, partridge, pheasant – the stuffings had already been carefully prepared, seasoned with all the subtleties of an English herb garden.
The Duke, to the annoyance of his gamekeeper – and his kitchen staff – had decreed another shooting party, with a picnic lunch, in the interests of keeping his guests diverted. A simple picnic, attended, of course, by ten servants in full regalia, could be guaranteed to amuse the ladies also. Even the Marquise seemed disposed to attend. By such divertissements, when Tuesday arrived, the inquest itself appeared merely another entertainment laid on for their benefit.
The private room of the Drivers Arms, the largest room that could be disposed, for inquests were few and far between in Hollingham, took on an unaccustomed sombreness for the occasion. The last inquest with a jury had been over the old bones found in Amos Pickering’s Three Hump Field and that had been an anticlimax when it was discovered they were a cow’s after all. This one boded more excitement for onlookers. Even the familiar sight of Bill Bunch, the landlord, torn between his desire to make the most of the additional trade and his curiosity in the proceedings failed to still the nervousness in the upper servants as they took their specified places ten minutes before the appointed hour of eleven.
The arrival of the Duke’s party partly dispelled the gloom. Gone were the severe dark walking suits donned by the ladies for accompanying their menfolk to the shoot. The ladies had decided this was a social occasion. Set off by furs, feathers and daring hats, silks and velvets replaced their tweeds and wafts of scent as alien to the Drivers Arms as mint to a Frenchman’s garden. Though their sense of occasion did not permit the gentry to smile, not a heart present but was not lightened by the sight of the ladies’ soft lovely faces. Impossible to imagine that any would sully those lily-white hands with murder.
The array of hats bobbing above the aristocratic faces further unnerved the coroner. A Maidstone solicitor, Jacob Pegrim was more used to Maidstone Gaol and petty town crimes than to the fairyland of Stockbery Towers and he covered up his awkwardness by an excess of sternness. He glared at the four disparate ranks of those facing him: the family, the servants, the relatives – and the merely curious. To his left ten good men and true sat, stiff in their high white collars buttoning with difficulty round unaccustomed chins, and set beneath red faces conscious of the importance of their duty. The interesting task of viewing the body now over, they were waiting for the questioning to begin.
The sight of British justice in action fascinated Auguste. It was impressive. In this room at a public alehouse, presided over by a man he would not notice twice in the street, there was a sense of timelessness and inexorable seeking after truth that was more impressive than the florid impassioned pleas of the courts of Albi. Ethel sat nervously by his side, decorously clad in her Sunday best, shifting uneasily on the hard bench requisitioned from the local schoolroom. His hand crept down reassuringly to press her thigh where it was warm against his. A slight blush on her cheek registered the fact.
Coroner Pegrim seemed to have a fixation on food. Details of Greeves’ last meal were gone through time and time again, with Mrs Hankey, with Jackson, with Hobbs and – finally – with Auguste. All eyes, and notably the coroner’s, were fixed on this foreigner who cooked the food served to The Unfortunate, as the coroner referred to him. There was a marked atmosphere of mistrust. He was French, wasn’t he? No knowing what foreign rubbish he might be putting in the food. The jury therefore listened with great attention to his answering of questions about The Unfortunate’s last meal.
‘Are you aware, Mr – er – Didier, that this aconitia,’ pursued the coroner weightily, ‘is obtainable in wolfsbane, a common garden weed?’
‘Yes, monsieur.’
‘And is it true that you gathered some sorrel for this luncheon, some of which was given to the deceased?’
Ma foi, not again! thought Auguste. He patiently explained that there was no way that wolfsbane could be mistaken for sorrel, that there was no way in which aconitia could reach The Unfortunate’s plate alone, except by design. This last he perceived to have been a mistake, for he was led to confirm also that it was unusual for the maître to gather his own vegetables for a mere servants’ luncheon, and to explain that the sorrel, as were the herbs, was his own special domain. He was glad now he had not told the police about Edward having drunk from the poisoned bottle. It would have set the final seal on his doom.
Wearying at last of the details of food preparations, most of them alien to his jury, who dined on treacle pudding and good Kentish steak and kidney pie with a pint of ale made of the local hops, the coroner turned to The Unfortunate’s family.
‘Twenty-three years married, we was, sir,’ sniffed Mrs Greeves.
‘But you did not live together?’ questioned the coroner disapprovingly. It was a situation entirely alien to him and his faithful Dora.
He was rewarded this time not with a sniff but a glare. ‘Archibald was always concerned to give me a good home. He came to see me regular, Wednesday afternoons.’
Mrs Hankey’s eyes hardened, and she stole a glance at May Fawcett. Her lips were tightly pressed together.
‘And do you have progeny, Mrs Greeves?’ This question had to be reworded before Mrs Greeves could vouchsafe that the progeny consisted of one son, presently, it transpired, in gaol. Auguste smiled. He could not see the point of these questions. But it was amusing none the less to note the rapt attention given to the testimony by May Fawcett and Mrs Hankey, side by side for mutual support.
With the arrival of the police for questioning, Auguste sank back in relief. No more veiled accusations now about the purity of his sorrel purée. He listened complacently while Bladon pontificated on poison discovered in a bottle of brandy, the poison now identified as aconitia.
The coroner’s summing up was brief, suggesting to his jury that a fatal dose of aconitia had arrived in Greeves’ mouth probably through the demon spirit brandy, and the jury retired to the landlord’s parlour for their deliberations. Not for long. They returned to ask a question.
‘Could the poison in this bottle have been added afterwards – to mislead like?’
Sergeant Bladon slowly took in its significance. ‘Could be,’ he said, turning his head to look at Auguste.
Full of self-importance the jury once again retreated, and when they reappeared it was to announce that they found the deceased met with his death by the hand of persons unknown.
Jacob Pegrim, thankful that it had passed off so uncontroversially and that in the excess of enthusiasm his jury had not indicted the Duke, began to repeat the verdict; but the foreman had something to add. ‘Furthermore,’ he added ponderously, ‘we the jury wish to say the cook should be more careful how he prepares his food.’
A definite smirk crossed Sergeant Bladon’s face at this unjury-like pronouncement. Auguste half rose from the seat. Did his ears betray him? By his side Ethel cried out, Auguste already dangling at the end of a rope in her vivid imagination. Her worse fears realised as she saw Sergeant Bladon making his way towards Auguste, she burst out crying, and flung her arms round her loved one. ‘You shan’t take him,’ she cried. ‘Don’t let them take you away, Mr Didier.’
A certain tightening of Mrs Hankey’s lips boded ill for Ethel, and the look on Sergeant Bladon’s face even less well for Auguste.
However his inevitable interview did not go along the lines he expected. For a start, neither Naseby nor the Chief Constable was present. A hopeful sign that he was not immediately for the death cell. He had reasoned, protested, explained it was impossible for food to be polluted by him; pleaded he was not an incompetent fool who went to the garden to seek sorrel and came back with wolfsbane, and then suddenly found the intelligence to conceal his guilt by adding
poison to the brandy – in a different form of course, since the addition of leaves would be noticed – in order to cover his tracks more thoroughly.
‘Oh we know that, Mr Didier,’ said Bladon cheerily.
‘You know that?’ echoed Auguste faintly.
‘’Course you might have, no denying that. Might have been what you was doing when I caught you that night. That book being a red herring, as they say.’
Auguste closed his eyes in momentary despair. Then opened them quickly when Bladon continued: ‘But we don’t think you did. Leastways for the moment, that is,’ he added cautiously. ‘After all, you pointed out about the brandy and how it might’ve been meant for the Duke. ’Course, we’d’ve found out anyway. So that might have bin cleverness on your part. But that, I doubt. Takes an Englishman to think that clever.’
Auguste compressed his lips. ‘But the inquest . . .?’
‘Ah yes,’ said Bladon heavily. ‘Fortunate that. It gives us a freer hand, you see.’
Auguste eyed him indignantly. ‘Et moi? What of my reputation?’
It seemed that the Kent County Police were unmoved by thoughts of Auguste’s reputation. ‘You’ve been very helpful to us, Mr Didier,’ said Bladon kindly. ‘Very helpful.’
‘I am delighted to have been of service,’ he murmured. The sarcasm passed Bladon by. ‘So now it is not the poor silly cook who had the little accident with the sorrel. It is the blackmailer from the other side of the green baize door. Yes?’
Bladon looked cunning. ‘Not blackmail, no. We can’t necessarily go along with that.’
Auguste stared. ‘But you saw the book, this Greeves, he is blackmailing—’
‘All we saw was a list of figures and initials, Mr Didier. It might have been blackmail, it might not.’
‘You also think someone wanted to poison the Duke then? For what? An affair of the heart?’
Bladon was shocked. In his view His Grace was married to his affair of the heart.
‘There’s other motives for getting rid of Greeves besides blackmail, and without bringing His Grace into it,’ said Bladon severely, saying more than he had meant. He turned red. Naseby would have his scalp if he could hear.
‘What?’ asked Auguste. ‘Inspector, these are my colleagues.’
‘Now you know I can’t tell you anything of the sort,’ said Bladon uneasily. ‘I said too much already. I’ll tell you this though. There’s jealousy.’
‘Mrs Hankey?’ asked Auguste. ‘Ah but, Inspector, she would not kill Greeves. He was her one hope for the future.’ Unless, of course, he thought to himself, she had found out about the real Mrs Greeves.
‘I didn’t say Mrs Hankey.’
‘But May wasn’t jealous of Mrs Hankey—’
‘I didn’t say—’
‘Who then?’ Could he mean Chambers? Jealous of Greeves over May Fawcett. But how could Bladon have known? And the problem remained – how could they have done it?
‘Of course,’ said Bladon, annoyed at this dismissal of his revelation, ‘there still ain’t nothing to show you didn’t put the poison in the bottle of brandy yourself, Mr Didier.’
‘Hrumph,’ commented the Duke, in traditional pose, warming his hands before the drawing-room fire.
‘My husband means to say, Monsieur Didier,’ chimed in the Duchess sweetly, ‘that we have every confidence in you. We are quite, quite sure that this is all a dreadful misunderstanding. That it could not possibly have occurred through any fault of yours.’
‘Thank you, Your Grace,’ said Auguste quietly. He had been shaken. Not so much by the revelations of Sergeant Bladon, but at perhaps what he imagined were odd glances thrown at him by the lower servants when he returned to Stockbery Towers in the afternoon. The upper servants were outwardly punctilious in their loyalty naturally, though he detected a slight gleam of malicious pleasure in Cricket’s eyes. Ill news travels fast. The scullery maid was daughter to Joseph Turner, number nine on the jury, the hallboy was second cousin to Matthew Binden up at Roundtree Farm who was brother-in-law to Terence Makepiece, saddlemaker, number six on the jury.
Publicly, at least, the ranks closed round Auguste, now that the trouble had come. Frenchman or not, he was one of them.
Yet the unity that Auguste perceived was a superficial one. No sooner had the jury returned their verdict than the upper servants’ deep unease broke out once more. United they might be together, but individually their hopes, fears and torments surfaced.
May Fawcett, returning from dressing Her Grace for luncheon, was accosted by Frederick Chambers in the front hall, who drew her into the anteroom.
Chambers looked at her ungenerous, selfish face. However could he have thought her beautiful? He gripped her by the shoulder. ‘You told him, didn’t you? You told him about you and me. Laughed about me with him?’
She freed herself and rubbed her shoulder indignantly. ‘No, I didn’t. And what if I did? There ain’t no you and me anyway. As though I’d consider you!’
‘You liked me all right last Servants’ Ball,’ said Chambers hoarsely.
‘No, I—’ May stopped to consider. Archibald was gone now. And she was twenty-eight years old. ‘Yes,’ she said unwillingly, ‘yes, I did, I s’pose.’
‘You knew he was married, didn’t you?’ said Chambers. ‘You found out, didn’t you?’ He was triumphant.
She looked at him in fear. ‘How did you know?’
‘I heard him telling you, May. Laughing at you. I overheard, you see. Did you do him in, May? I wouldn’t have blamed you.’
She looked at him. He was no great catch, but – she put out a hand towards him and large tears began to form in her eyes . . .
It was Hobbs who suffered from the frustration resulting from her need to appeal to hitherto scorned admirers. She always picked an easy target: ‘I don’t expect Mr Greeves liked being told what you thought of him, Mr Hobbs. Did he get time to go to His Grace, like he threatened? Or did he die first? You had a cold, didn’t you, Mr Hobbs . . . Did you use Dr Parkes’ remedy? Make some up . . .?’
‘What are you doing in here, Mr Chambers? Mrs Hankey wouldn’t like it, would she?’
Cricket had stolen up behind him as he stood in front of the medicine cupboard in Mrs Hankey’s storeroom.
Chambers whirled round, his face red. ‘I was just looking, Mr Cricket. Just looking to see how easy it would have been for anyone to come in . . .’
‘Oh yes? Not you yourself was it, looking to see whether the police had taken the bottle away? After all, you had good reason to get rid of him, didn’t you?’
It would give John Cricket great pleasure if the murderer of Mr Greeves could be discovered amongst his colleagues. It was unlikely then that his own link between Greeves and the Duke’s side of the house would emerge.
‘Miss Gubbins, I want a word with you.’
Mrs Hankey bore down upon her, a ship in full sail. ‘I just remembered something Mr Greeves said to me. He said he was going to speak to me about you. Something very serious. What was it, Miss Gubbins? He never got a chance to tell me, poor lamb.’ Her voice was heavy with meaning.
Ethel turned pink, then red. ‘I’m sure I don’t know, Mrs Hankey. And if you’re implying . . .’
‘I’m not implying anything, miss. I just want to know who murdered my Archibald. And it seems to me—’
‘It seems to me that you knew him best, Mrs Hankey. You should know who murdered him.’
Mrs Hankey’s mouth fell open at this assault from unexpected quarter. ‘Me? Know who murdered Mr Greeves?’
Oblivious to these fiery developments, and now dismissed from the Gracious presence, Auguste was returning to the kitchens when he was stopped by Walter Marshall.
‘May I ask a moment of your time?’
Auguste followed him into the library, seldom used at Stockbery Towers for its rightful function. The beautifully bound volumes, including a first edition of Lambarde on Kent, remained pristine and acquired value through their mint condition. Lady J
ane was the only member of the family to disturb the tranquillity of their lives and her excursions were more confined to the lighter end of the bookcases containing the novels and bound copies of The Theatre.
‘We have met before, Mr Didier, have we not?’
Auguste smiled. He had not thought Walter Marshall would remember.
‘At the Savoy last year, monsieur. When I was visiting Monsieur Escoffier.’ Newly arrived to run the kitchens of the new Savoy Hotel, his old maître and dearly beloved mentor Auguste Escoffier had received him. While he was there Walter Marshall had visited the chef’s room, also to renew an acquaintance begun in Nice. It had surprised Auguste at the time for this serious young politician had not struck him as the sort of Englishman who admired French cooking. He had proved to be wrong. Walter Marshall did, and he had liked Auguste. He admired the French willingness to accord honour where it was due, and not to halt at the boundaries of class. He himself found a gate through those boundaries whenever he could; and if there were no gate, he leapt the wall. He was a determined young man.
‘It’s all nonsense of course,’ declared Walter Marshall roundly now. ‘These bumpkins don’t know what they’re talking about.’
After a moment’s surprise at being spoken to as a human being and not as a cog, however vital, in an inferior hierarchy, Auguste shrugged.
‘It is natural,’ he replied. ‘No Englishman, they think, would be so unsporting as to put poison in a man’s victuals; no English lady would even consider such a thing, so it had to be a foreigner. That leaves the Prince Franz, the Marquise, her secretary – and myself. And who is best placed to poison food? Me. The cook. Voilà. The case is solved.’
‘But it is simple enough to prove you had nothing to do with it; or rather, to be accurate, impossible to prove you did—’