The Best British Mysteries 3 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  ‘Why, that’s no proof at all. You can’t tell one face from another,’ William cried in triumph, seizing it from him. ‘Now, just you look at this carte de visite I got here. Signed on the back: Yr affectionate George.’ He tossed it onto the table and Jonathan and Red immediately made a grab for it. Red won.

  ‘Mind letting me see a pic of my own son, Red?’ Lord Luckens growled.

  ‘That stuffed shirt’s not my pa! He was a silver miner,’ roared Red, reluctantly handing it over.

  ‘Who struck it rich just before he died, enabling my mother to bring me to New York to start a new life,’ William capped him triumphantly.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Red sneered. ‘What do you say, Grandpappy?’

  Grandpappy wasn’t saying anything, but his glare should have been sufficient an answer for most people.

  ‘I know what I say’ Jonathan smirked. ‘If that’s all the proof you’ve got, I rather think I’d win in any contest at law.’

  ‘Oh, they’ve got better proof than this, Jonathan. I explained that to you.’ Lord Luckens recovered his good humour. ‘Too much to be faulted. That’s why we’re here. Two impeccable birth certificates, duly registered in their birth town and in the State registries, one for a child to Mollie Luckens, nee Huggett, dancer, on 20 April ‘72 in San Francisco, one to Amelia Luckens, schoolteacher, nee Bruart, on 13 August ‘72 in Denver, Colorado.’

  ‘I guess that makes me elder brother and the future Lord Luckens, if it comes to our splitting it, Will,’ Red spluttered into his wine.

  ‘I’ll expose you for the bunco-artist you are, long before it comes to that,’ snarled William. ‘You’re no good even as a professional fraud.’

  ‘I’ll expose the pair of you even sooner. We in the Labour party believe in justice for all,’ Jonathan sneered. ‘The courts will make short work of both you incompetent bunglers.’

  ‘Not me, my friend,’ William rejoined. ‘Concentrate on Mr Wyatt Earp here.’

  ‘I prefer to concentrate on this excellent beef. Most interesting flavour to it.’ Jonathan momentarily won Auguste’s approval.

  ‘Call this beef stew?’ growled Red, elegantly holding a piece of meat up with two fingers.

  Auguste in fact called it a beef hare, a dish whose spicings of onion, clove and nutmeg appealed to him.

  ‘Any Leadville chef would get booted out of town for this,’ Red continued in disgust.

  Auguste made an instant decision never to visit Leadville, but refrained from active interference in the conversation in the interests of earning his fee. So far his betting was even on the two rivals, and if there was any tripping up to be done Jonathan Luckens was more than capable of doing it.

  ‘In New York, fortunately, we can appreciate the finer blessings of life.’ One point to William!

  ‘Including money, I’ve no doubt,’ Jonathan quipped. ‘Although both of you have quite an interest in that, don’t you?’

  ‘Pa,’ Red looked soulfully up at the painting, ‘I’m here to get acquainted with my old Grandpappy while there’s still time.’ Minus one to him.

  Auguste had been so entranced by the battle, he realised he had forgotten to worry about whether the potatoes were cooked as the Elizabethan court would have enjoyed this newly discovered delicacy.

  Old Grandpappy growled something Auguste failed to catch, but William and Jonathan both looked pleased. What he did hear was Lord Luckens’ next order: ‘Show them the letters, William.’

  William needed no urging, and produced a small bundle of letters tied with tape. He extracted one, and leaned forward to pass it to Jonathan, but Red was too quick for him and tore it from his hands.

  ‘Can you even read it?’ William asked politely.

  ‘Sure can, when old Red smells a rotten fish. When was this written, yesterday?’ he snorted, waving it in the air.

  ‘Read it out, Red,’ Lord Luckens commanded.

  Red obliged, albeit slowly. ‘My darling Amelia, Denver is just dandy. Wait till you see it. Our claim is sold, and we’ll be rich, just like I promised you. You’ll be strolling along the New York streets before the fall. I’ll be back in Leadville to sort things out, and then we’ll be clip-clopping our way to happiness. Your loving George.’

  ‘My little George.’ Lady Luckens looked pleased. ‘He always had a poetical streak in him. How sad he never reached New York.’

  ‘Sad,’ echoed Miss Twistleden.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Red hooted with glee, ‘but he never reached it because he never intended to go at all. He remained in Leadville, married to my ma, Mollie, until he got run down by that darned wagon.’

  ‘Then how could he have written this letter?’ Miss Twistleden was emboldened to ask.

  ‘Ma’am, he didn’t. Our William here wrote it and the rest.’

  ‘For once I agree with you, Red,’ Jonathan sniggered. ‘It’s a most interesting letter in many ways.’ He picked it up from the table where Red had let it fall, and looked at it with an air of faint amusement.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Lord Luckens said heavily, ‘but I should, I suppose, recognise my own son’s writing?’

  ‘You’d be only too eager to do so, I’m sure,’ Jonathan agreed sweetly.

  Lord Luckens looked at him sharply. ‘My solicitor’s checked it out with a handwriting authority.’

  ‘Then why this charade?’ Jonathan asked politely. ‘Unless —’

  ‘Yes, mister, I got letters too,’ Red drawled. ‘Not so many, ‘cos Pa and Ma were never separated more than the once, when he comes to Leadville from San Francisco in ‘77, and she followed a month later. Pa wasn’t one for writing much - guess he’d have written you more, Grandpappy, if he had been. Look at this.’ He tossed a scrap of yellowing paper onto the table, narrowly avoiding his beer glass (a refinement demanded of the butler, to Auguste’s combined horror and amusement).

  Jonathan picked it up: ‘Moll, miss you, sweetheart. Come to me March. George,’ he read out.

  ‘How thoughtful.’ Lady Luckens’ eyes filled with tears at which her husband growled:

  ‘Time to move, Viola.’

  ‘What the heck for?’ Red demanded. ‘This your quaint English custom of getting rid of the ladies?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Jonathan chortled. ‘An even quainter custom of repairing to the banqueting house for our dessert.’

  ‘In Chuck’s Diner you get the food brought to you.’ Red snapped his fingers at Auguste and the butler. ‘Maybe you fellows could learn a thing or two.’

  ‘Perhaps you could learn even more, Red,’ William said disdainfully. ‘Good manners, perhaps?’

  The banqueting house at Luckens Place was a separate building about two hundred yards from the main house, with one large room, a serving area, and a retiring room. Luckens ancestors stared down in beneficent envy of their descendants’ banquets of elaborate sweetmeats and jellies. Auguste had contented himself for this small gathering with orangeflower and rosewater creams, lettuce suckets, two leaches, candied marigolds, and apricots, raspberry cakes, some preserves and a moulded and iced marchpane centrepiece of the Luckens arms.

  He cast an anxious eye over his work. At least here with a more informal atmosphere he could pass among the guests and keep an eye both on his culinary work and on the two claimants. He was puzzled about the latter, who at the moment seemed to have forgotten their differences, as they demolished his Elizabethan delights with great gusto. No doubt their animated tête-à-tête was comparing them favourably with home fare.

  ‘Blasted titbits,’ Lord Luckens commented on a plate of kissing comfits, presented to him by Auguste. ‘Nothing like a savoury to end a meal.’

  Auguste agreed. It was revolting, in his view, to kill the pleasant afterglow of a meal with strong anchovies or cooked cheese, or kidneys.

  ‘Ever tried hominy grits?’ Red asked, strolling up to them, with one hand busy feeding a slice of the Luckens arms into his mouth. ‘I’ll sure miss it when I get to come here for good.’

  ‘Don’t concern y
ourself, Red.’ William was following hard on his heels. ‘You’ll be on grits for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that, pal.’ Red helped himself to a candied marigold, then elegantly spat it out into his empty glass, which he handed to Auguste.

  ‘I think you both can be sure of it,’ Jonathan remarked complacently. ‘I shall be the next Lord Luckens.’

  ‘How about waiting till I’m dead?’ his present lordship shouted furiously at his guests.

  Lady Luckens’ brow was clouded as she added her own contribution to the conversation. ‘I am a great admirer of our dear Queen, especially in her Jubilee year, but I feel she has enough palaces already. And there’s Osborne, of course.’

  ‘Don’t follow you, Grandmammy.’ Red looked puzzled.

  ‘I believe my aunt refers to the fact that I myself have no heirs and if no others can be traced the estate is likely to revert to the Crown after my death,’ Jonathan explained kindly.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ William declared.

  ‘Dear Victoria,’ Lady Luckens said brightly. ‘How she loves the Isle of Wight. We took our honeymoon there, do you remember, Alfred? We walked to Alum Bay, visited Carisbrooke Castle - ah, the peace. I don’t wonder our dear Queen loves it so.’

  ‘Grandma, I can assure you the Queen will not be the recipient of this estate ever. I myself am married, with a son,’ William said earnestly. ‘Little Jefferson is your great-grandson.’

  ‘Bunkum,’ Red yelled. ‘I’m your grandson, and I can tell you Red Luckens is gonna sire a whole wagonload of kids. No nancies here.’ He smirked at Jonathan. ‘No wife, no heirs, eh?’

  ‘But after meeting you two gentlemen this evening, I am quite sure - forgive me, Uncle - who will be wearing the coronet next,’ Jonathan retorted quietly. ‘I should like a word with you both later.’

  ‘And I’d like a word with younow, Didier.’ Lord Luckens stomped over to him, and drew a reluctant Auguste aside from the marvels of his banquet. ‘That blasted nephew of mine seems to have made his mind up. Have you found out which one’s my grandson yet?’

  Auguste hedged. ‘I’m still assembling ingredients, sir.’

  ‘Eh?’ Lord Luckens had no time for metaphor. ‘I’ve told Red and William we’ll sleep on it. That all right with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Auguste was only too grateful. Such suspicions as he had as to whom was the impostor were vague, swimming around like unwelcome lumps in a béchamel sauce. A night’s sleep would smooth out his thinking, leaving the paste smooth.

  ‘I’ve told Jonathan what you’re here for. Know what he replied?’ Lord Luckens guffawed. ‘I hope his detection is better than his cooking, he said. The beef was surprisingly good, but he’d seldom tasted a worse pie. Don’t worry yourself, Didier. Everyone makes mistakes.’

  Auguste Didier seethed. He never did.

  * * * *

  Auguste woke up suddenly to find firstly that it was still the middle of the night, and secondly that he would not be able to sleep again without paying attention to the demands of nature. He had been pleasantly surprised to find his room was on the guest floor, and not in the servants’ quarters, but he was not so impressed with the chamber pot under his bed. Lord Luckens did not go in for modern inventions like bathrooms, or apparently indoor privies. Somewhere, he decided, one must surely exist, and he went out to prowl in search of it.

  So far as Auguste could tell, there had been little opportunity for Jonathan to beard his elected impostor during the remaining time the gathering had stayed in the banqueting house, and he presumed that Jonathan too had decided to postpone any confrontation until morning. As he walked along the corridor, Auguste was uncomfortably aware of his squeaking footsteps, and the guest rooms were so far from the Queen’s Chamber where Jonathan was sleeping that Auguste wondered whether Red and William had been assigned these rooms deliberately, so that the floorboards would give warning of visitors. There was no sound from either of their rooms, however.

  Reaching a closed door across the corridor without succeeding in his quest, Auguste realised he had reached one of the towers flanking the Queen’s Chamber. Perhaps even now Jonathan was having his ‘word’. Who could tell behind these thick walls? Between Auguste and the chamber lay a six-foot tower room, and any sound would be muffled.

  He took the staircase down to the entrance hall, and here at the foot of the tower his search was rewarded. Nevertheless, a vague anxiety hovered inside him, as, primary mission accomplished in what must surely be the original scorned water closet invented by Sir John Harington for Queen Elizabeth, Auguste returned to bed.

  He awoke hours later to the sounds of disturbance outside his room which reached a crescendo as pounding footsteps passed his door. Perhaps, he told himself hopefully, the housemaid had dropped the water ewer. He snuggled down once more under the inviting blankets, for there was no sign of a housemaid’s ministrations to light a fire in the grate, where last night’s ashes still presented a melancholy picture.

  Then his door flew open, and his host, fully-dressed, stood on the threshold, gibbering: ‘Didier, blasted man’s dead.’

  ‘Dead? Who?’ Auguste sat up in bed. ‘How?’ Auguste’s first thought that adulterated food might well come out of Lord Luckens’ kitchen was dismissed. Yesterday it had been supervised byhim.

  ‘Shot.’

  Auguste stared at him. ‘But who?’

  ‘My blasted sodomite nephew or that’s what he calls himself. I told him he was no part of the Luckens family; lets the side down. He can get up to what he likes in his bed, but women with the vote indeed. Next thing we know there’ll be women in parliament.’

  Lord Luckens brooded on this potential catastrophe for a moment before returning to his present one. ‘Might have killed himself, of course,’ he said hopefully. ‘Just like him, to choose my house.’ He ruminated, then sighed. ‘Unlikely, I grant you. Which one of those two did it? Which one’s the fraud, Didier? This is going to mean having police barging around, and I want to know what’s what before they get here.’

  Auguste leapt from his bed to find his dressing robe. ‘Where was Mr Luckens found?’

  ‘In his bedroom. Where else? If that’s your standard of detection —’

  Auguste did not wait for him to finish his tirade, but followed by his lordship, hurried to the Queen’s Chamber. News had spread quickly, for William and Red were already there, standing one each side of the body.

  ‘Move aside, if you please, gentlemen,’ Auguste said, steeling himself for the ordeal and glad that he had not yet had breakfast.

  Jonathan Luckens, still fully dressed in his evening clothes, lay on his back on the rug by his bed, sightless eyes staring upwards, shot through the temple. One hand hung limply down and on the rug at his side was the gun, a Smith and Wesson. Auguste confirmed the obvious, then turned to his lordship.

  ‘You were right, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s murder. There are no powder burns round the wound or on the hand, as there would be if he had shot himself. In my opinion, he was shot from some feet away.’

  ‘Murder?’ William squeaked in horror.

  Red seemed equally appalled. ‘See here,’ he began.

  ‘Did any of you hear anything?’ Auguste asked.

  ‘Thick walls,’ Lord Luckens said complacently, taking the credit for his ancestors’ masonry.

  ‘A risk though.’ Auguste frowned. ‘Suppose someone had heard; there’s only one passage, and the murderer would have been trapped.’

  ‘Window’s open,’ Lord Luckens snorted. ‘Plenty of footholds on the ivy.’

  Auguste went to look. ‘It is certainly possible, but —’ He broke off, collecting his thoughts as he looked round the room. There seemed nothing unusual, until he opened a bedside drawer. Inside was a pistol.

  ‘What the devil’s that doing there?’ Lord Luckens glared. ‘I don’t leave guns around for my guests to play with. It’s mine all right, but he must have taken it from the gunroom. With good reason, I’
d say.’

  ‘Messieurs,’ Auguste said quietly, not commenting on the ‘good reason’, ‘I suggest that we all retire from this room and that it is locked until the police arrive.’

  William and Red were only too happy to agree, and after some demur Lord Luckens escorted them to the morning room. Heavily panelled in dark wood with only narrow windows and sombre furnishings, this gloomy chamber did little to dispel their sombreness. Even Red was subdued.

  ‘Who do you reckon did it?’ William asked quietly.

  ‘A hobo?’ Red offered feebly. ‘What you folks call a tramp?’

  Lord Luckens snorted. ‘Not blasted likely. Jonathan had discovered which of you is the false claimant to the estate, and he was about to expose you. Took the gun to defend himself when he tackled you. Instead you walked in and shot him. Quite obvious, isn’t it? A child of ten could see that.’