Cozy Mysteries : Murder and cake - By Royal Appointment: (Cozy Food Mysteries Women Sleuths Series, Bakery Mystery Books)

by Luna Snow

  “Zat is a very interesting theory Miss Dough. Perhaps you are correct. The mystery body – it makes sense that they could have also been ze thief. Perhaps that is what ze policeman is going to tell us?”

  It was amazing that she actually agreed with anything Jane had said.

  When Alf Jeffries finally arrived just as coffee was being served, Jane thought that he looked rather dapper in his faded jeans and sports jacket, so unlike the man she had met wearing the boiler suit (and been so rude too). She felt her heart start to beat a little quicker as he smiled at her.

  Sandy Jones eat your heart out

  Alf Jeffries stepped forward and cleared his throat. He clearly had something of great importance to tell the gathered group. Everyone looked up from their coffee with interest.

  “I know it has all been a tough few days for you all, being kept inside the Palace for a few days. You have all been very patient and apart from a few minor incidents, we all seem to be unharmed by the events of the last 48 hours.”

  He looked over at poor Mark Taylor before giving Jane a sly wink.

  “I’m very pleased to say that our investigations are now over and you are all free to come and go from the Palace as you please. I don‘t need to tell you that it is Queen Elizabeth’s 90th Birthday celebrations tomorrow, so I will leave you now to get on with your final preparations in peace.”

  There was a universal sigh and look of wonderment from the assembled group.

  “So you have found the killer?”

  Jimmy Hines looked concerned.

  “Not only have we apprehended the killer Mr Hines, but we have also found the stolen tiara”.

  Josephine Lefite gave a slight cough and Cecile looked rather bemused.

  “But where did you find it Inspector and who is the murderer”.

  Alf scratched at his chin.

  “Well, I’m afraid I cannot reveal any of the details to you, but needless to say our investigations are now over and you can get on with your preparations without hindrance tomorrow. I’ll say goodnight to you all.”

  Jane furrowed her forehead. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Alf, can I have a few minutes?”

  The detective looked pleased that she wanted to speak to him, and they walked out of the dining room where they could speak in private.

  “Well Jane, what can I help you with?”

  “I’m just a little confused Alf. This morning you said you didn’t even know who the body was, yet alone the killer and now you are saying that you do know and also that you have now found the tiara. What’s going on?”

  Narrowing his eyes a little he smiled and gave her another small wink.

  “Now that is my plan Jane. I can’t tell you exactly but meet be down here at midnight and perhaps I can then tell you everything. You must wait for me at the top of the stairs. Is that clear? Now I must be getting back. I will see you later I hope?”

  Before he left he tapped his nose.

  “And just keep this between ourselves?”

  Jane nodded as he left. It was all very mysterious. She glanced at her watch. It was only 8pm. There was still time for a little snooze before midnight.

  Chapter Seven

  Jane Dough sat up in bed. It was only 11pm but she was suddenly wide awake. Before dropping off she had managed a few pages of the Sandy Jones novel and had been dreaming about the plot. Something had disturbed her, there was a resonance in the story and she wracked her brain to think what on earth it was. She was sure it was something to do with the body she had found, or that had found her, but she couldn’t quite think straight.

  In her dream she had been seated in the Japanese restaurant with the handsome Max Stephens and the Japanese gentleman, the imposter.

  That was it. Jane Dough almost jumped out of bed. Maybe someone on the kitchen was an imposter? Someone had been murdered and their body dumped in the cupboard and somebody had taken their place. But who?

  She had to find Alf Jeffries and tell him her theory. It might all be rubbish and her imagination running wild, but she was sure she was onto something and convinced that there was an imposter among the group.

  Finding her dressing gown and slippers she slipped them on and set off down the corridor. Alf was usually somewhere about – he wouldn’t be far away and besides he said he would meet her at the top of the stairs at 12 so he wouldn’t be long. She was only wearing her pink pyjamas but she couldn’t wait to get dressed, besides, Alf had already seen her in her night attire and seemed to have liked it.

  The Palace was quiet as she crept down the corridor. It was dark too but she did not want to switch on the lights and call attention to herself. The killer was still at large, of that she was certain, despite what Alf Jeffries had said earlier. There was danger all around.

  Jane paused at the top of the steps leading to the basement kitchen. She should really wait a while for Alf. There was a small shaft of light filtering from under the door at the bottom of the steps and she listened carefully. All was quiet except for a faint shuffling sound. It could be anyone, it could even be Alf.

  Plucking up courage she walked slowly down the stairs, pausing at every few steps to listen. All she could hear was the clambering of her own heart as it beat wildly in her chest, she had never been so afraid.

  At the bottom of the stairs she stopped and wondered what to do for the best. Should she go back up the stairs and wait for Alf, or she could open the door and find out whom on earth was in the kitchen?

  Her nose began to twitch, a sneeze was looking. Stupid stairway, the dogs had been here. Obviously the Queen herself never came down here so cleaning it wasn’t considered a priority. Jane squeezed her nose in order to stifle the sneeze, but it only made things worse. There was nothing she could do about it.

  “Attishooo”

  She almost stopped breathing as she stood stock still outside of the door. The shuffling noise inside ceased. All was silent.

  Jane’s instinct was to turn and run but she found her feet rooted to the spot. The sound of soft footsteps approached the door and she thought she would almost faint with fear as the door slowly swung open.

  “Jane Dough, what a surprise, what on earth are you doing down here?”

  The voice was different but the face was familiar. It was Josephine Lefite without the French accent. In her hand she held a large cake knife.

  “Perhaps you should join me?”

  Jane’s eyes opened in alarm.

  “Erm, I think I will go back to bed. I saw a light that is all, but now I know it is you then that is OK. I will just go back to bed if that is alright with you?”

  The woman narrowed her eyes.

  “I’m afraid that is not alright Jane. You see, you have already seen too much. I think you need to come and have a nice cup of tea with us.”

  Grabbing Jane by the arm she pulled her inside the kitchen and quickly closed the door.

  “I think you have met my partner in crime, Eric Parsons, perhaps you know him better as Cecile?”

  Eric gave her a sly smile as he pulled out a chair from under the table for her to sit in.

  Like Josephine, his French accent had also mysteriously disappeared to be replaced by a gruff Northern accent.

  “Nice to see you again Jane. Now why don’t you sit here and make yourself comfortable, we just want to have a little word with you.”

  As Jane stepped towards the seat she stopped in her tracks. The cake she had made for the Queen’s birthday had been desecrated, or at least the top tier had. It had been removed from the rest of the cakes and lay in a heap of crumbs and icing on the table before her.

  “What on earth have you done to my beautiful cake?”

  Despite being so frightened she felt angry that all of her hard work and effort had been undone. It just didn’t make sense.

  “Well, if you sit down, we will tell you all about it. Let me introduce myself. I am not Josephine Lefite but Julie Dobbs. Now if you will be seated Miss Dough?”

&n
bsp; Jane was forced reluctantly to sit in chair, always aware of the shining steel in the hands of Julie Dobbs.

  “You see Jane, my accomplice Eric and I aren’t really chefs. We are jewel thieves and we broke into the Palace for the sole purpose of stealing the famous tiara. We knew that the real Josephine Lefite was to be working here for the Queen’s celebrations and so when she advertised for an assistant chef in the UK – Eric here applied. Not under his real name of course. He had just been released from prison but had gained a gourmet chef qualification whilst inside. With a forged identity and CV he soon got the job. We made sure there wasn’t any competition. I broke into the Palace and Eric arranged for Josephine and himself to arrive at the Palace early before the others. They were security cleared and shown to their rooms. That was when I was able to sneak into Ms Lefite’s room and dispose of her. We decided to dump her into the store room, in the cupboard – we didn’t think anyone would disturb her there for a while. Nobody had seen Josephine besides the palace Security Guards and I soon replaced the photograph on the security pass. No-one would ever know”

  Jane could hardly believe her ears. She had been right. There had been an imposter among them. Poor Josephine Lefite. Her heart was beating fast. Alf Jeffries would be here shortly and she had to try and play for time, otherwise she could end up like the poor French chef.

  “So what happened to the tiara?”

  “I stole it of course. It wasn’t difficult once I procured one of the security cards. But we had to hide it in a safe place. Once the alert went out that the tiara had been stolen then I knew that all of our rooms and belongings would be searched. We wanted to find a safe place to keep the tiara until the search had taken place and we would then be free to walk away with it. The police would suspect that it would be miles away, but of course it would be here all the time.”

  “But where?”

  Jane Dough looked incredulous.

  Eric and Julie smiled at each other.

  “Show her Eric”.

  Crossing to the mess of cake on the table before her, the young man lifted out a sparkling tiara.

  “Ta Daaa”.

  Jane’s eyes widened.

  “I don’t believe it!”

  The tiara had been hidden in the cake all along.

  The tiara was covered in cake, cream and icing sugar. The diamonds smeared with chocolate.

  “It was the obvious place. We carefully sliced open the top of the cake, put in the tiara and put the cake back together with a bit of extra cream. The top was a little bit cracked, but apart from that it looked perfect. We knew that you would be icing it and wouldn’t have noticed; cakes can crack a little bit as they cool down”.

  Placing her arm on the table Jane surreptitiously glanced at her watch. It was 10 minutes to midnight.

  “So what happens now? I suppose you walk out of here with the tiara and escape. Well you can for all I care. I won’t tell a soul you know. Your secret is safe with me.”

  Jane tried to sound nonchalant.

  Julie Dobbs walked slowly towards Jane, holding the knife menacingly.

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that Jane, you know everything now and it is not just the case of a stolen tiara we are dealing with here but also murder. I have no intention of spending years behind bars and I’m afraid that we cannot leave you behind to talk Jane. “

  The knife was almost at her throat when the door burst open. Her hero had arrived. Not quite a knight in shining armour but Alf Jeffries would do. He held a gun and ordered everyone to freeze.

  “Now drop the knife Julie Dobbs. We know all about you and have heard every word you have been saying to Miss Dough here. You have made your own confession. Now drop the knife and walk away. I have reinforcements and trained marksmen all over the Palace. There is nowhere to run.”

  The woman hesitated slightly and Jane felt the cold steel of the cake knife touch the ample flesh on her neck. It would be quite bizarre for a baker to be murdered by a cake knife. She thought for a moment that she was a goner, but with a sigh of relief she felt the pressure released from her neck as it dropped to the ground and Julie Dobbs stepped back.

  Four armed policemen ran into the room and soon had the two surrounded, guns aimed and pointing at them.

  “Damn you Jane Dough, if it wasn’t for you then we would have escaped”, the woman spat out the words as she and Eric Parsons were escorted away.

  Only Alf and Jane remained and suddenly she found that she was shaking, the shock finally getting to her.

  “Hey are you OK?”

  Alf Jeffries walked over to where Jane was still sitting and put a friendly arm around her shoulder.

  “You have done so well Jane, how can I ever thank you. If you hadn’t been here those two would have got away with the tiara. What made you come down so early; I thought I told you to wait for me at the top of the stairs? Anything could have happened Jane, you were so brave and yet you could have been killed.”

  Jane looked up at him in puzzlement for a moment.

  “But how did you know it was Jane Dobbs?”

  Alf smiled knowingly. Well I wasn’t sure Jane but I had my doubts about the woman calling herself Josephine Lefite. There was that terrible French accent for a start; and she agreed with me when I said that the Eiffel Tower is in the South of France. She would have known that Paris is in the North. And on the night that the tiara was stolen, do you remember that she was wearing black leather training shoes? I thought that very odd when she had supposedly just been woken from her sleep. She had obviously been wearing them when she was creeping around the Palace to steal the tiara. Of course I couldn’t be sure, but you made her confess Jane, you saved the day.”

  Placing his large hand around hers, he picked it up and held it to his lips before kissing it gently.

  “I think I would like to see more of you in the future Jane Dough, if you would like to see me too?”

  Jane smiled and nodded.

  “That would be perfect”.

  Epilogue

  Queen Elizabeth had never known that her tiara had been stole and hidden inside a cake. No-one had wanted to upset her on her big day, but when Jane was finally introduced to her Majesty she couldn’t help but think about all of that cream and chocolate on the twinkling diamonds as she curtseyed.

  Her cake was a huge triumph. She had managed to bake another cake to replace the damaged one and the Queen congratulated her on such a delicious birthday cake. It was so wonderful that she was added at the last moment to the Queen’s Birthday Honours list and made an Order of the British Empire for her services to cake making.

  Very soon it was all over and after saying goodbye to Alf and making arrangements to see him the following week, she set off home to Yorkshire. All the way back on the train she had to pinch herself – the last few days had been like living in a novel.

  Still, she wouldn’t let it go to her head; Jane was a very down to earth woman. All she needed was a nice cup of tea.

  The cat was waiting for her as she opened the door, and lovingly purred as it wound affectionately around her legs.

  “Oh Poppy my love have you missed me? I have so much to tell you.”

  The cat purred back in satisfaction.

  Soon she was seated in her favourite chair with her feet up and a cuppa and biscuit in hand. It was true, there was no place like home. She closed her eyes and started to think about everything that had happened as the cat curled contentedly on her knee.

  She had helped solved a murder, baked a birthday cake for a Queen, found herself a man and been made an OBE, all in less than a week.

  Well, She thought -you can out that in you pipe and smoke it Sandy Jones!

  The End

 

 

  ive.