Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7)

by Myers, Amy

  ‘You’ve released poor Laura?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘I am so glad you have come too, Mr Didier.’ Miriam smiled at him. ‘It is pleasant to have friends to support one at such times.’

  Auguste stumbled out a reply, but she did not wait to hear it.

  ‘I really did have no idea that Charles had married that girl, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Then why did you murder her, ma’am?’

  For a moment the impression of fragility vanished, jolted from her by the unexpectedness of the attack. The real emotions of Miriam Tabor flashed forth like venom. Auguste shuddered, even as they were speedily reinterred.

  ‘Did I?’ she asked vaguely. ‘It was all so long ago.’

  ‘Not so very long ago, ma’am. You were interested enough in the old times to go to check the parish register at Dent. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have believed you didn’t know about the marriage. As it is, I can’t see why you needed to kill Rose Griffin.’

  ‘Can’t you?’ Hardness entered her voice. ‘Can’t you?’

  Savage half rose to her feet, but Miriam waved her impatiently aside.

  ‘I am an old woman in body, Savage, but still young in my heart. I can remember why. I killed Rose Griffin because I hated her, Chief Inspector, and I hate her still. It was clever of you to realise she was murdered. Or is it Mr Didier I have to thank?’ Her gaze rested almost in amusement on Auguste.

  ‘Why did you hate her, Lady Tabor?’ he asked gently. ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘The day I went to her cottage, believing her merely my husband’s mistress. In fact, it seems, I was the mistress. What a quaint thought.’ She laughed, the sound tinkling out over the still room. ‘I had come to make friends, I said, and the foolish girl believed me. I said I wanted to meet her little son, and she called him in from the patch of garden outside. She must come to the Hall and bring him along, I said, to meet his new little brother George. The boy looked like Charlie. And you ask why I hated her!’

  ‘But he had married you, or so you believed. You had nothing to fear, just because he once loved this girl,’ said Auguste, puzzled.

  ‘Once loved? I hated her because he went on loving her. I thought she was just a peasant girl he was amusing himself with, while I was waiting for my baby to arrive. I followed Charlie one day. He was very careful; he didn’t go through the village but along the track leading to Ingleton, then up a footpath through the woods. But when I saw the boy, I realised that he’d known the slut for years.’

  ‘Many men have had mistresses, ma’am, without their wives turning to murder,’ Egbert said steadily.

  ‘He still loved her, although he had me. I could not forgive that,’ Miriam answered, as if in surprise that they could not understand. ‘I went home and that night I told him I knew. He broke down, the fool, and told me he’d make me a good husband, but he’d always loved this Rose person, and would have married her if he could. Even then he was betraying me. He had married her. Oh, he loved me in a fashion, no doubt, after the girl was dead. But even then she came between us. There was always the memory of that boy. I had meant to kill him too.’

  Auguste shivered. The face that he had thought fragile, now displayed only the iron will of ruthlessness, any sensitivity merely for herself.

  ‘I went to see her several times. Took her bonbons and sweetmeats – all quite innocent. And then I took some that weren’t. They were full of hemlock. She’d share them with the child and they’d both die – that’s what I wanted. But the child wasn’t there. She said he’d gone to visit someone, and she looked so triumphant, I feared she guessed what I’d intended. But she died all the same. Charlie was mad with grief. He found out that she’d died when he slipped off to visit her one day. He came back sobbing. All he could discover about the boy was that someone had come to take him away before Rose died. He was never found.’ Satisfaction oozed from the voice that had once seemed charming.

  ‘Until the boy found you,’ Egbert pointed out, ‘over fifty years later. He came here asking for “her Ladyship”, meaning you, though we took it to be your daughter-in-law.’

  ‘He was as big a fool as his mother. Yes, he told me he was Charlie’s bastard, but that he didn’t want anything except to meet his family. He showed me a letter, though there was nothing about a marriage in it. Then George came bursting in with Priscilla, wanting to know what it was all about. He told them, beaming all over his ugly face. They made this agreement to buy him off. But they didn’t know I’d already planned to kill him. “Come along when the family party is on,” I’d already told him. “His Majesty will be here. We’ll give the family a big surprise and introduce you at midnight.” The stupid fool wanted to know if he’d have to dress up and I told him not to worry about clothes as he’d have to climb over a wall because the gates would be guarded, so I would lend him some of Charlie’s. I showed him from the window where the smokehouse was and told him to come there just before midnight and I’d escort him to the house and introduce him to the King. The idiot thought it a wonderful idea.’

  ‘So you admit it was also you who killed Tom Tabor and not your daughter?’

  There was a pause. Auguste felt sickened at the calculations clearly running through her mind, indecision shown on her face.

  ‘Let me make it simple for you, ma’am,’ Egbert continued. ‘You killed him. Your daughter was merely trying to protect you. Like your whole family has been doing ever since you returned to the house and no doubt told Savage what you’d done.’

  Savage stared at him unblinking, unmoved.

  Miriam said nothing, merely smiled.

  ‘We know now your daughter is lying about what happened that night. Mr Didier was looking at a certain piece of art in the smokehouse earlier in the evening and is ready to swear there was no gun on the mantelpiece beneath.’

  The Dowager gazed first in undisguised contempt, then with something like amusement. She shrugged those delicate shoulders.

  ‘I had to kill him,’ she said at last. ‘He was hers, and after all he’d only escaped by chance all those years ago. I left the dance, and instead of going upstairs to where dear Savage would be waiting, I went to the gun room, took the Webley and hid it in the smokehouse until that terrible man arrived. I shot him at precisely twelve o’clock, dropped the gun and came back.’

  ‘How did you get in again, ma’am? The doors were locked.’

  ‘I was once the chatelaine of this house, Chief Inspector; I have a key. I told dear Savage what I had done of course,’ she did not even glance at her, ‘and she insisted on going straight to Priscilla. I was extremely annoyed. I daresay you meant it for the best,’ she added kindly to Savage. ‘I went to bed, and I understand Priscilla and Savage between them concocted some plan to obscure the truth. I believe Savage then woke poor Laura, and rooted out poor Victoria and Alfred. Didn’t you, Savage?’

  ‘If you say so, my lady.’

  ‘So that’s all. I couldn’t let him live, could I?’ Miriam was confident of their understanding. ‘I think – if I might sleep here tonight, I shall be ready for you in the morning, Chief Inspector.’

  Egbert looked at her steadily. ‘Very well, ma’am. If that’s the way you wish it.’ As they left, the quiet was broken by a terrible sound. Not from Miriam. The harsh raucous sobs were Savage’s.

  Yet again Auguste was chilly and unable to sleep. He drew back the curtains, feeling the rush of cold air on his body, and hurriedly shut the window. Outside a cat howled, the trees were dark against the sky, bushes appeared as black indiscernible shapes. The cat yowled again. Auguste firmly drew the curtains, shutting out the menace of the outside world, and climbed back into bed, putting his arm round his sleeping wife. He dozed fitfully, dreaming of fleeing figures, one of which was himself, bounding across the limestone crags of the top of Malham Cave. Before him was Tatiana, arms outstretched, behind him . . .

  He woke up with a jump. The curtains were drawn back, daylight streaming
in, and Tatiana, dressed in a wrap, was standing over him.

  ‘Wake up, Auguste. She’s dead. Egbert wants to see you.’

  No need to ask who. He had told Tatiana everything last night. No need to ask if Egbert had suspected this might happen. Some things were better unspoken. Once the ingredients had been added in their correct order, he had seen the truth. Not Tom, but Rose herself came first. And once that had been established, Miriam obviously became the catalyst of the whole tragic story. Moffat had given him the clue and he had not seen its significance: there had been no trace of the boy when Rose’s body was found. He could not have run away on his own; he must have been sent away because Rose had feared for his life. Amos had mentioned an outcomer asking for her shortly before her death. Surely it must have been Scarface, come to take the boy? And as for poor Tom, who else would have invited him here and killed him the very night the King was dining? Only Miriam, with her casual disregard for detail in her overwhelming hate. Savage would cope with the detail. The servants would always cope with unpleasant details.

  ‘How?’ he asked Egbert, as soon as he had scrambled into his clothes, and burst into Rose’s rooms.

  Egbert shrugged. ‘Sleeping powders. Suffocation,’ and as Auguste looked puzzled, added impatiently, ‘Do you think Savage would let her stand trial? Or maybe she just died of heart failure. It must have been a shock, after all, to be exposed as a double murderess. The doctor’s with her now. Her doctor,’ he emphasised. ‘No need to have police doctors in unless we’re forced to.’

  The last unpleasant detail poor Savage had had to perform.

  ‘Are you quite satisfied with your work, Chief Inspector?’ Priscilla, grey-faced and subdued, came into the room.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. We’ve found out the truth at last.’

  ‘Truth,’ retorted Priscilla bitterly. ‘What is truth?’

  ‘Facts. You all knew your mother-in-law murdered Thomas Tabor; you were all prepared to protect her even to the point of confessing to the crime yourselves.’ Seeing her hesitate, ‘This is between us. I haven’t the evidence – now – to bring charges. Tom Griffin’s death is officially recorded as that of an unknown man, and might stay that way. There’s only one outside person who’d know otherwise, apart from Mr Didier and the police.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No one who need concern you, ma’am. A travelling showman by the name of Blackboots. And no doubt if he were told he could have Tom’s galloper back, he wouldn’t be too curious.’

  Auguste, watching with interest, saw Blackboots instantly dismissed by Priscilla as a person not worthy of note.

  ‘It’ll not occur to him that folks like you could be capable of murder.’

  The irony in his voice escaped Priscilla. ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘And now maybe you’ll tell me something; if you can, that is. Why didn’t your father-in-law marry Rose again after he found out the marriage wasn’t valid in ’44?’

  ‘He did not know where Rose was,’ Priscilla said at last. ‘Either she disappeared at her own wish, or his father intervened and set Rose up in that cottage. By the time he tracked her down to Clapham he was married, or so he thought, to Miriam. He upbraided his father for his part in separating him from Rose, and there were terrible quarrels. His father told him nothing further about the validity of the marriage, but when his mother was dying in 1849, it was on her conscience and she told Charles the marriage had been valid, something he had never thought to check in the pain of losing Rose. It is, I suppose,’ she sounded surprised, as if considering this for the first time, ‘a sad story.’

  ‘It is indeed, ma’am.’

  ‘But that raises another point, Lady Tabor,’ Auguste said, puzzled. ‘If he knew his marriage to your mother-in-law was invalid, why didn’t he marry her once Rose was dead?’

  ‘George was born in March 1847 and the girl did not die until June of that year,’ Priscilla told him unemotionally. ‘So George would still have been illegitimate. It was not at all certain legally that a subsequent marriage could legitimise him. If my mother-in-law had failed to have another son, there would have been no heir.’

  ‘Except poor Tom Griffin, if he could be found.’

  ‘Charles Tabor made every effort to find him, and failed.’

  ‘Even though he knew he was his legal heir?’

  ‘There is more than banquets and balls to an estate and house such as this,’ Priscilla replied stiffly after a moment. ‘There are obligations which at times sit heavily on the heart. The boy could not be found, and beneath my father-in-law’s roof was a child whom the world believed to be his legitimate heir. My father-in-law’s will carefully bequeathed such goods as he could leave independently of the entail to George; as regards what passed under the entail he had to take the risk that one day a claimant might turn up.’

  ‘And now the legitimate heir has turned up, Lady Tabor?’

  ‘As you said, the body is officially that of an unknown man.’ There might have been a note of appeal in her voice.

  ‘Convince me,’ said Rose grimly.

  ‘Did Tom Griffin leave issue?’

  ‘Not that we know of.’

  ‘Then George is his nearest relative.’

  ‘His illegitimate half-brother. He might be entitled to the chattels of the estate. And poor Tom’s galloper. But the estate and title would never pass to him, isn’t that so?’

  Priscilla went white. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, her first sign of weakness.

  ‘Then what are you going to do?’

  ‘His Majesty the King—’

  ‘Wouldn’t touch it and you know it.’

  Priscilla steadied herself. ‘Cui bono, Chief Inspector? Who profits by it if we are ruined? Charles’ one brother left no sons. His father was an only son. Do we have to torture ourselves further?’

  ‘Fortunately it’s not my business, ma’am,’ Rose told her. ‘Murder is. Would you have let your sister-in-law stand trial?’

  ‘She insisted, Chief Inspector. As a woman with such a story, she would have been acquitted, whereas George would have faced death.’

  ‘All for the family name?’

  ‘All for her mother, Chief Inspector.’

  A mother who would cheerfully have allowed such a sacrifice, if she could have got away with it, Auguste reflected grimly.

  ‘Why did you go to such lengths to protect your mother-in-law?’ Auguste asked her. ‘Were you very fond of her?’

  ‘No. I did not like her very much.’

  ‘For the Tabor name?’

  ‘In a way. It was for George. You could say, Chief Inspector, he is like Tom Griffin. Family is very important to him.’

  ‘Of course, there’s no proof the corpse is that of the son born to Rose and Charles Tabor,’ Rose ruminated. ‘No proof the High Court would accept. That’s my opinion, of course. Lawyers might not agree.’

  Priscilla’s voice trembled as she stood up. ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector, Mr Didier.’

  ‘You’re a formidable opponent, Lady Tabor.’

  She inclined her head in acknowledgment. ‘So I am told. It is not always easy. Chief Inspector,’ she added as they rose to go, ‘I think perhaps there might have been another reason my father-in-law did not marry my late mother-in-law again after Rose’s death. It is just possible,’ she paused, ‘that he might not have wanted to.’ Another pause. ‘What did that girl die of, Chief Inspector?’

  It was Auguste who answered. ‘Of love.’

  ‘It’s a funny world, Auguste,’ Rose grunted as they returned to his rooms. ‘When I came here, Priscilla Tabor appeared to be like something out of a Bram Stoker novel, and Miriam Tabor the fair face of the aristocracy. I got it the wrong way round.’

  Auguste made his way to the kitchens to bid farewell. Tomorrow they would be returning to London, to the world of haute cuisine, leaving far behind Yorkshire curd pies and puddings.

  Breckles clapped him on the back. ‘Did I nay say there was an evil eye upon the house?
Mischief only needs a short summer to ripen, so my granny do say.’

  ‘You were right, Mr Breckles,’ agreed Auguste. ‘And so was your crawing hen.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll come to London one day and see your kitchen. I’d like to meet that Mr Escoffier you told me about.’

  ‘He is always honoured to meet true artists.’

  ‘Artist?’ Breckles guffawed. ‘Nay, I’m a cook.’

  ‘An artist. You take the best materials and you turn them into the highest perfection of which they are capable. That is art.’

  ‘Mr Didier,’ said Breckles, pumping his hand, ‘I’ll send thee a Yorkshire Christmas pie. ’Tis my granny’s recipe. I’ll give tha turkey, grouse, fowl, partridge, pigeons—’ he spread his arms wide. ‘And not that crawing hen, neither, but woodcocks, wild fowl.’ His eyes were glazed with excitement. ‘Nutmegs, cloves, mace. All loving one atop t’other in the pie together.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Auguste sincerely, before remembering all too vividly his lack of breakfast. ‘In the meantime, a muffin might suffice.’

  Laura Tabor stepped out of the police carriage before the steps of Tabor Hall and hesitated. The family was not there to welcome her. Oliver Carstairs was.

  ‘Laura!’ He marched purposefully towards her.

  ‘Yes, Oliver.’ Her face was carefully composed. It was a struggle but she managed it.

  ‘What’s this nonsense I’ve been hearing about you?’

  ‘They have dropped charges—’

  ‘Not that. About you still being in love with Mariot.’

  She hesitated. ‘I am.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘It is the truth.’

  ‘It is not, and you know it.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Why then?’

  Her head came up proudly. ‘This family contained a murderer.’

  ‘I don’t intend to marry the family – I’m marrying you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Or I take that carriage and leave now,’ he added, seeing signs of hesitation.

  ‘It’s the police carriage. You can’t.’