Murder Makes an Entree

by Myers, Amy

  ‘James Pegg was stuffed full of opium.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Opium. Auguste tossed and turned in the throes of a waking nightmare. He had gone to bed inescapably aware that he was sharing a house with a murderer, a fact pointed out to him by Rose before they parted last night. Not that he needed reminders.

  ‘It has to be someone from Blue Horizons.’ Including you, Naseby would have added. ‘No one in their senses is going to fill themselves full of opium and jump into the sea surrounded by other people if he seriously intends to commit suicide. It’s hardly possible that any of the Lionisers could have dosed him with opium either. No strangers wandering round your kitchen at Blue Horizons on Thursday, were there?’

  ‘No – yes. Mrs Langham and Mr Michaels came in late in the morning,’ Auguste remembered.

  ‘Did they now? And why was that?’

  ‘They wished to help collect evidence and came to report to me.’ Put into words it sounded very odd to him now.

  Rose regarded him sceptically. ‘Very civic-minded of them, I’m sure. Did they come back with any?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Auguste defiantly. ‘As I told you yesterday, Mr Pipkin had more reason to dislike Sir Thomas than we thought. It is not merely a matter of Shakespeare.’

  ‘Did they have an opportunity to poison Mr Pegg’s food while imparting this information?’ Rose asked somewhat drily.

  Auguste shook his head. ‘I cannot see how. It is true they passed through the kitchens, but how would they know which was to be James’s food? We did not know ourselves.’

  ‘Blowed if I know then.’ Rose sighed heavily. ‘It feels as if we’re still wandering round that maze in circles, getting nowhither; and yet in a funny kind of way I think we’re circling nearer the centre.’ He meant this reassuringly. But for Auguste it was yet another reminder that someone he had been close to for the last few months was a murderer.

  The maze ran through his dreams as he came up against dead ends, ever circling. At the centre, he could see from on high like an all-seeing god, was a St Pierre au gratin, out of which a fresh live John Dory rose displaying its thumb-print of St Peter. Then the Dory turned into Araminta, in the centre of the maze, unattainable, tantalising – smiling.

  With a start he awoke, shivering, glad that the night was over. Reason returned, but the dream left its residue of foreboding. Rose, too, had troubled dreams. He also was reaching after something in vain, but the object of his endeavours was intangible. Something done that should not have been done, or something undone that should have been done. Something remained half-finished, but the more he sought to finish it, the more indefinable it became.

  ‘What are you doing, Egbert?’ came Edith’s sleepy indignant voice. ‘That’s my night bonnet you’re pulling – and my hair.’

  He mumbled some apology, but Edith, deducing that something was awry, forced herself to sit up.

  ‘Are you all right, Egbert? I said that Cumberland sauce was too rich for you.’

  ‘It wasn’t the food; it was the coffee,’ he said, his mind still on Pegg.

  ‘There now, you weren’t so foolish as to drink—’

  ‘The case,’ he explained.

  ‘Oh, the case,’ she said. This explained and excused all. She went back to sleep, saying comfortingly à la Mr Micawber, ‘Something will turn up.’

  ‘Something will turn up.’ Why could he not rid his mind of the conviction that something already had. Something as slippery as wet fish. Something – yes, something to do with France. Cannes? Iron Mask? The Grand Duke? Rose turned over and went to sleep again, this time peacefully.

  Auguste walked six times round the bandstand, watched carefully by a Broadstairs policeman convinced he had a latter-day Fenian bomber before him. Auguste, however, was merely summoning up courage to face the day.

  Having done so, he took a deep breath and walked firmly into the Imperial Hotel past the three newspaper men whose pride in their achievements had increased tenfold with their status of having ‘known about it’ all along. He found his friend taking breakfast early. Rose, determined to remain isolated as far as was possible from the assistance of Inspector Naseby, was still operating from the Imperial, to Mr Multhrop’s almost palpable distress. Multhrop was counting the hours to the moment when the Lionisers would depart from his beloved hotel, in the happy hope that all this murder business would then depart with them. The news that not only Rose but five Lionisers were staying on till the crime was solved was far from welcome. Multhrop seemed to blame Auguste for the entire business. He greeted him with a strangled yelp, as though murder incarnate had walked through his doors, and despatched him as speedily as possible to the breakfast room. Rose was alone, Edith not yet having made her appearance.

  ‘The kippers are fresh,’ was his greeting.

  ‘Thank you, I am not hungry. Some coffee and –’ he’d almost been going to say a brioche – ‘some toast would be delightful.’

  Rose, having been informed by Edith that he had to fortify himself, was battling with kidneys and scrambled eggs, though with little enthusiasm. Auguste looked at the congealing eggs and brown shrivelled kidneys, and shuddered. Personally he had no desire ever to see kidneys again. ‘I’m going to London for the day,’ Rose announced, waving his fork complete with kidney towards Auguste.

  ‘Why?’ enquired Auguste, taken aback.

  ‘For a holiday,’ answered Rose sourly. ‘Naseby arrived, did he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Auguste answered briefly. He had no wish to relive the gloating satisfaction with which Inspector Naseby and his platoon had arrived, sealed off the kitchens and banished the group to the upstairs rooms.

  ‘I want to see that kitchen before Naseby takes it into his head to storm it alone. And I want to see your six friends before I go to London.’ He ate the kidney, then looked as though he wished he hadn’t. ‘You’ve cancelled plans to return to London today?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Auguste bleakly. The owner of Blue Horizons had not been amused to hear that the police were barring entrance to his house, and tried to console himself that the value would go up.

  ‘Our friend certainly knows his poisons,’ remarked Rose, wondering why Multhrop had a picture of three very dead deer on his breakfast-room wall. ‘It wasn’t a fatal dose – not meant to be, I imagine. It was intended to make him drowsy so he wouldn’t be able to swim. And if that didn’t work by itself, then it would be a comparatively simple matter to hold him under. I think it was laudanum – easy enough to get. Wouldn’t take full effect for about an hour, and I suppose our friend thought it would be viewed as an accident while bathing. Now this bathing idea – was it planned early?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Auguste, surprised. ‘They told me at luncheon, but they had decided before.’

  ‘I wonder whose idea it was. Mind you, that wouldn’t be conclusive. Even if it was you, say, Auguste, it doesn’t mean necessarily that you’re the murderer. The murderer could simply have taken advantage of it.’

  ‘Either way, it does not suggest a long-thought-out plan, but something that was necessitated by something that had recently happened. And it could not,’ Auguste added thankfully, ‘be that the murderer heard James ask to see me after bathing.’

  ‘No. Tell me again exactly what you ate.’

  ‘A salade niçoise.’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember those.’ Rose smiled. ‘Difficult to add opium to. Then you had the St Pierre thing.’

  ‘A St Pierre au gratin. Or if people preferred, a fish mayonnaise.’

  ‘Which did Pegg eat?’

  ‘The St Pierre. We all did, I believe. But it made no difference, since we all ate from the same dish,’ Auguste said in despair.

  ‘The same story, eh? Just as in Sir Thomas’s case. And this time we’ve nothing to analyse.’

  ‘I gave the fish mayonnaise to the cat next door,’ said Auguste hopefully. ‘He still survives.’

  ‘Let’s assume it’s the drink then. What did Pegg have?’

/>   ‘I think all save myself and Lord Wittisham drank beer,’ said Auguste disdainfully. Holidays were all very well, but that did not mean one threw one’s palate wide open to insensitive treatment.

  ‘Tea and coffee afterwards?’

  ‘Coffee.’

  ‘Who served it?’

  Auguste thought back. ‘We were in a hurry. Everyone wished to go bathing. The two girls, who were serving that day, left the coffee to settle on the table by the window. We all got up to clear the table and get our own coffee. Anyone could have poisoned anyone’s cup.’

  ‘And been sure the right person got it?’ asked Rose sharply.

  ‘If someone else had been the intended victim, there would surely quickly have been another attempt, or the victim himself would have taken fright. No, I think the murderer succeeded in his aim. Like Mr Punch, he gets his victim every time.’

  ‘You been watching Punch and Judy, Auguste? I wouldn’t have thought that up your street at all.’

  ‘I was not impressed by the violence,’ replied Auguste simply. ‘Especially as there were young children present. “That’s the way to do it,” this monster claims and bangs people over the head with a stick. First the baby, then his wife, then a crocodile, and various other persons. He sticks to his well-tried method. Our murderer kills by poison. Then there is another death. Again poison is part of the plan. Murder can become a habit, do you not agree? The murderers fall in love with their own cleverness at performing a successful murder. Look at Mary Ann Cotton, look at Dr Cream, and others too. I believe there is a pattern to these murders. First one, then another—’

  ‘That reminds me of my dream,’ interrupted Rose suddenly, ‘but I can’t think how. Two murders don’t make a pattern.’

  ‘But with another it may,’ said Auguste soberly.

  ‘You think there’ll be a third? Then the sooner we get to Blue Horizons the better.’

  Naseby was of the same opinion, eager to tour the kitchens and track down incriminating evidence. ‘Not that there’ll be anything there now,’ he announced, marching in ahead of Rose. ‘He had all day yesterday to remove the vital evidence.’

  ‘Nothing in the rest of the house?’ asked Rose, not bothering to enquire who he might be.

  ‘No,’ Naseby said.

  In agony, Auguste watched as they toured the kitchens, picking up his precious knives, sniffing bottles and demanding to know their contents, sifting through herbs and spices, turning over vegetables.

  ‘We’ll have to take all these,’ announced Naseby, gathering up armfuls gleefully.

  ‘But they are food preparations,’ said Auguste, aghast. ‘They are clearly marked Isinglassine, Liebig’s Extract of Beef, and Patt—’

  ‘So they say. Suppose—’ Naseby’s eye was caught. ‘What’s in this cupboard here?’

  ‘This is my own cupboard, with my personal utensils, flavourings, rose-water . . .’ He frowned. ‘Those I do not recognise,’ he said, puzzled, looking at a small group.

  ‘Don’t you indeed, Mr Auguste Didier? Well, I do,’ announced Naseby, snatching one. ‘That’s laudanum, that is,’ he said triumphantly. ‘And that bottle by its side – I think we’ll have that analysed. Wouldn’t it be a coincidence if it were atropine?’

  ‘But that is my cupboard,’ said Auguste, outraged. ‘No one would dare open that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t they indeed?’ Naseby was smug.

  ‘Do you keep it locked, Auguste?’ asked Rose, intervening quietly.

  ‘No, but it is my—’ He stopped. How foolish he was being. It was a murderer they were dealing with.

  ‘You’re partial, Rose. Didier’s clearly—’ Naseby glared.

  ‘Produce me hard evidence, Naseby,’ cut in Rose wearily, ‘then I’ll consider arresting Mr Didier.’

  Rose seemed almost visibly more remote, thought Auguste, sitting uneasily upstairs in the small parlour as they ran through yet again the events of the Thursday luncheon. Naseby had departed with his trophy, leaving one constable on guard outside the kitchen door.

  ‘You ladies served the meal?’ Rose addressed Alice and Emily.

  ‘Yes, but we put it on the table in front of everybody and they helped themselves,’ pointed out Emily anxiously.

  ‘What did people drink at the table?’

  ‘Everyone helped themselves to what they wanted,’ said Alice.

  ‘So it looks like the coffee. Where was Mr Pegg when he got himself some coffee? Anyone remember?’

  A silence, and no one looked up.

  ‘Come on now,’ said Rose impatiently, ‘someone must recollect seeing him pour out coffee.’

  ‘I did,’ said Heinrich suddenly. ‘Emily and I were at the table when he was getting his coffee, and we got up after—’

  ‘Emily was serving with me,’ said Alice indignantly. ‘She wasn’t sitting down; she was clearing.’

  ‘I was at the table anyway,’ said Emily quickly.

  ‘I got my coffee first,’ said Algernon, musing.

  ‘Nah, you didn’t,’ Sid came back at him. ‘I did. I remember because it got grounds in it, and I ’ad to wait. Mr Pegg was behind me, waiting for his, and you was behind ’im.’

  ‘That’s not right,’ said Algernon vehemently. ‘Not that it makes any difference,’ he said lightly. ‘I couldn’t have poisoned his cup because when he was walking back to the table with his, I was still pouring mine out.’

  ‘I say, you know,’ Alfred frowned nervously. ‘I think I was behind Pegg, not you, Peckham. When he turned round, he bumped into me and spilled a bit of his coffee.’

  ‘That wasn’t Thursday, Alfred,’ said Alice instantly, ‘that was the day before. I remember it happening because I was beside you.’

  Auguste was trying to remember where he had been. He couldn’t. It was only two days ago, but getting coffee was an everyday occurrence; the memory of one day was overprinted by the next. Strange that his pupils should remember so clearly.

  ‘There seems to have been a fair old crowd round him one way and another,’ observed Rose. ‘Whose idea was it to go bathing?’ he suddenly shot at them.

  They looked at each other, blankly.

  ‘It was – yes, it was Mr Pegg himself,’ said Emily suddenly. ‘At breakfast time. He said he wanted to go swimming; he’d won a prize at it.’

  There was much discussion, but this was finally agreed to be more or less accurate.

  Algernon’s mind was still on poison. ‘I don’t see why this coffee is so important. Why couldn’t the poison be added at table?’ he asked aggressively. ‘His attention had only to be distracted by Sid, if he was first back with his coffee, and—’

  ‘’Ere. Watch it, me old mate,’ said Sid threateningly.

  ‘Why should I watch it?’ demanded Algernon. ‘You had as much chance as the rest of us to poison Pegg’s food – and Throgmorton’s come to that. You were sitting next to poor old Pegg; you could have added something to his salad to look like dressing perhaps.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about what Mr Pegg ate,’ observed Emily tartly.

  ‘I was opposite him,’ pointed out Algernon quickly.

  Interesting, thought Rose; almost as if they’d forgotten he was there. Like a pack of rats scrabbling for the gang plank. ‘Did any of you know Mr Pegg before he joined the school?’ Heads were shaken.

  ‘And you knew him best, Lord Wittisham?’

  ‘He was my friend,’ stated Alfred once more. ‘We were going into partnership. Why should I kill him?’

  ‘There seems, unless anyone knows to the contrary, only one reason that anyone would want to kill James Pegg, who seems to have been an honest sort of chap from what Mr Didier tells me. And that’s because he knew something incriminating about the murder of Sir Thomas Throgmorton. I’m afraid it’s been my experience that friend or not, that doesn’t stand in the way when the murderer’s own safety is at stake.’

  ‘James Pegg was very quiet at luncheon, Inspector,’ Alice informed him, ‘so it could have been s
o.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ bleated Alfred pathetically, looking to Alice for support.

  ‘You wanted to marry Throgmorton’s daughter,’ pointed out Rose. ‘And threatened him, according to Miss Throgmorton herself.’

  ‘Did I?’ His face went blank. ‘I don’t now, though,’ he explained. ‘I’ve decided to marry Alice.’

  There was a buzz of polite congratulations, though the general consensus was that this was an announcement that could have been made at a more opportune time. Alice’s face flushed with happiness.

  ‘My granny allus says,’ observed Sid, ‘that marriage is like pushing veg through a tammy cloth; if you lets up for a second, you gets a faceful of mush.’

  ‘My granny told me,’ Emily chipped in, ‘that she had a remedy for love-sickness and—’

  ‘And I’m telling you,’ said Rose mildly, ‘that it’s ninety per cent sure that one of you is a murderer. You’re all, no doubt for good reasons, trying to ignore the fact, but just remember, there’s been two murders already. And I have to know which of you it is before you all go down like six – seven,’ looking at Auguste, ‘green bottles. Some of you know a lot more than you seem to want to tell me. I suggest you do some hard thinking, or I’ll arrest the lot of you as accessories.’

  There was silence as Rose walked out. Slowly six pairs of eyes turned accusingly to Auguste. He must be, as the maître, responsible. He must solve it.

  This afternoon Auguste did not desire even Araminta’s company. He required solitude, and distance from the Imperial, from Blue Horizon and its inmates, from Naseby – from everything save his own thoughts.

  Broadstairs was crowded with afternoon promenaders, parasols sprouting like bright toadstools. Auguste walked briskly up past Bleak House, mentally congratulating Mr Dickens again for his dramatic choice of holiday residence, and along the cliff path towards the lighthouse and Kingsgate. Some Gothic follies built by Lord Holland were to be found there, so he had heard; follies seemed to suit his mood at the moment.

  It was not long before he left all but the most intrepid of travellers behind him and he was almost alone on the cliffs, a blaze of pink and mauve with campions, mallow and snapdragons. He breathed in the sea air deeply. This smell was indeed superb. The sea did not smell like this at Cannes. There the blue Mediterranean wooed one softly into its embrace; here there was danger, excitement, it was bracing; all the difference between gentle herbs and heady spices. Here one knew that the tales they told of smugglers were true; men gathered seaweed by day, and by night came the smugglers. Men like Joss Snelling. They came to cliffs already cut away by seaweed hunters and now pinholed with underground passages, tunnelling into them insidiously – like the case he was now engaged upon. Where and how would danger strike next?