Murder At The Music Hall: (Auguste Didier Mystery 8)

by Myers, Amy

  ‘Lizzie,’ he asked despairingly, as he rushed to see how great the catering problem was, ‘is this the fault of your love life again?’

  She peered round the corner of the apron she was using to dab her eyes. ‘Oh, Mr Didier. No. It’s me career. I’d decided to go in for that Raine’s Charity. You gets lots of money in St George’s when you marry if you’ve done five unblemished years in service. But how can I? No ’elp. No pies.’

  ‘Where’s Joe?’ asked Auguste briskly.

  ‘Gone back to Ma Bisley. I got sick of him always hanging round, always cheerful, “Do you love me, Lizzie?” when I was trying to work. A woman has the right to work in peace, say I.’

  Auguste let this pass. ‘And Charlie?’

  ‘He had to go too, didn’t he?’

  ‘And the food for this evening?’

  ‘Frederick and me, that’s all. I ain’t done ’is pertaters for the interval, or the fish, or the ’ash.’

  Auguste flew downstairs. No wasting energy on words. What was needed was action. It was fully three-quarters of an hour of frantic preparation before he had breath to ask: ‘Why did Charlie have to go and – ’ a fearful memory came back ‘– why are there no pies?’

  ‘Mr D, you are a wonder,’ Lizzie said appreciatively, surveying his work. She had cheered up. ‘The shop burned down this afternoon.’

  ‘What?’ he shrieked. ‘Mrs Jolly’s shop?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Lizzie, what has happened to Mrs Jolly? She was hurt?’

  She shrugged. ‘Dunno. Happens all time, don’t it? They’ve nowhere else to go. Workhouse, maybe.’

  ‘Do not be foolish, Lizzie. The woman is an artiste. People with genius do not go to workhouses.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ she commented darkly. ‘That’s all you know.’

  She was serious. The terrible possibilities of this fate overwhelmed him. He promptly abandoned his post and Lizzie, in the cause of higher objectives for mankind: the saving of Mrs Jolly. He ran as quickly as he could to what remained of Mrs Jolly’s pie shop.

  Both shop and living quarters were burned out. Inside, moving desultory among charred wreckage, Auguste could see a plump figure, picking up black objects and letting them drop again.

  ‘Charlie,’ he yelled. ‘Let me in.’

  ‘Hop in, Mr D,’ Charles shouted morosely. ‘No winders left.’

  He was right. Once inside, Auguste stood surrounded by destruction. In a twinkle, the shop had disappeared. Gone were the pies of wonder that this morning must have adorned that blackened marble slab, gone the choucroute, the sausages, the tempting cheeses.

  ‘How is your aunt?’ he inquired anxiously.

  ‘Having a cup of char next door but one. It’s next door, now. That one went as well.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘No more shops, Auntie says. Washing, perhaps. Factory work.’

  ‘Factory work?’ Auguste almost screeched. ‘And you?’

  ‘Fancy being a clerk. Nice lot of sitting down,’ Charlie explained. ‘These lady typewriters have a nice life.’

  ‘But the pies—’

  Charlie sighed. ‘Life rises and falls, Mr D. Just like them pies.’

  An idea so fantastic suddenly came to Auguste, he knew instantly that it was the solution, the right solution, the only solution. ‘Charlie, pull down the shutters,’ he ordered him. ‘Lock up this nightmare and take me to your aunt immediately.’ Charlie, he noted, was in the habit of obeying orders, probably because life was easier that way.

  Auguste followed his stout rear into a small terraced house, where he found his quarry sitting in front of the fire, staring at a cold cup of tea. He did not inquire after her health, that could come later. This was more important.

  ‘Mrs Jolly,’ he informed her, ‘your pies are too good for the world to lose. Is the rest of your cuisine of equal standard?’

  ‘No more shops,’ she said listlessly.

  ‘So I’ve been told. What are your specialities, whose recipes do you approve, can you cook a tolerable omelette?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘I makes me own recipes. I took a look at that Mrs Marshall. Didn’t take to her.’

  Auguste warmed to her. Any cook who didn’t take to Mrs Marshall’s recipes was after his own heart.

  ‘You use coralline pepper?’ he ventured cautiously.

  ‘Never. Now, when I was in service—’

  This was too much good fortune. Indeed the heavens were raining manna, or at least the means of making it. ‘So you have not always worked in shops?’

  ‘No more shops.’

  ‘Quite. Now, when you were in service—’

  ‘I worked for Mr Kettner, and then for one of them Grand Dukes—’

  Sometimes there were rewards in life for those that toiled, as he had that day. Auguste sighed: ‘Mrs Jolly, do you like working with people?’

  ‘Yes, if they leave me be.’

  ‘Would you like working for me, even if I did not leave you be all the time? I am married, but my wife is much more reasonable than I. She does not cook, only eats.’

  Mrs Jolly looked at him, and took a long time to answer. ‘You don’t have a shop, do you?’

  ‘I do not. I have a large house which has accommodation and need for a cook.’

  An agonising pause. ‘Maybe I’ll try it. But no opening no shops, mind.’

  The joy was exquisite, like the first night of love. Only one more thing remained to be settled.

  ‘Charlie!’

  ‘Yessir?’

  ‘I have a job for you also. It involves a lot of sitting.’ Charlie looked interested. ‘And eating.’ Even more interested. ‘I, Charlie,’ Auguste continued, ‘am a Johnson in need of a Boswell.’

  ‘What’s a Boswell?’

  ‘A Boswell is you, Charlie.’

  ‘What would I tell Lizzie?’

  ‘Leave Lizzie to me.’

  ‘Lizzie, I have bad news to impart. I am to take Charlie from you. Will it break your heart?’ He had gone straight back, finding Lizzie about to eat her own supper.

  ‘Tell you frankly, Mr D, I’d be glad of it. Sick of ’im hanging round me. I’d like to get on and do the cooking myself.’

  ‘You do not mind the loss of both your swains?’

  ‘Who needs men?’ she observed scornfully, tucking into her mutton chop. ‘Besides,’ she gulped down an inelegant mouthful, ‘that new waiter on the beer has his eye on me.’ She giggled. ‘Frederick’s jealous. Wotcher, Mr Jowitt.’

  Percy arrived simultaneously with Egbert Rose. Auguste flushed guilty, remembering belatedly he had been asked to call at the Yard.

  ‘So this is where you are, Auguste,’ Egbert said, annoyed. ‘Couldn’t believe you’d still be hanging around here, but Tatiana said you weren’t back yet. I came here to tell you our lad is safely locked up and—’

  Percy interrupted. ‘That reminds me. I thought you said you were going to do something about that villain.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. He’s still here.’

  ‘Which villain?’ Rose asked impatiently.

  ‘The one you were after.’

  ‘He’s locked up, Mr Jowitt.’

  ‘I know he is, but he won’t be much longer because I didn’t hit him very hard, because the club broke, and I heard him moving just now. Don’t you think he ought to be let out?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know his name. The one you were after. I told you I’d got the villain locked up,’ Percy said, aggrieved. ‘He is in the cellar outside, where I usually lock bailiffs.’

  ‘I remember,’ Egbert said grimly.

  ‘Perhaps—’ an awful thought occurred to Percy, ‘he is the bailiff. I thought he was your murderer, otherwise I wouldn’t have hit him. I daresay if he’s a bailiff he won’t be too pleased.’

  ‘No doubt about that. Let’s go and unlock him,’ Egbert said resignedly, leading the way with Percy, Auguste and Lizzie following behind.


  ‘I hit him with this,’ Percy said proudly, picking up an object from the ground.

  ‘Pernando’s club,’ said Auguste, laughing, taking it from him. ‘This must have been what he was looking for this evening. I should keep out of his way —aaayee!’

  Percy had unlocked the shed, the door had been violently thrown back from within, knocking Egbert sideways and leaving Auguste face to face with the occupant – and his knife.

  The occupant was Pyotr Gregorin.

  Catlike with murderous eyes which had lit up as they saw their prey, he launched himself forward as Auguste instinctively raised the club, fortunately deflecting the first blow. Percy scuttled out of harm’s way, the club was seized and thrown away, as Auguste, still in the grip of shock, was locked to the enemy for the fatal jab. Egbert, caught on the wrong side, was only now recovering his balance and moving. Lizzie was on the right side. As Gregorin’s arm moved, she jumped lithely on to his back, hauling up his arm, then biting his ear with all the relish of a mutton chop. Auguste, recovering his wits, hit him first in the ribs and then in the place that proved Gregorin’s main case against him, that Auguste was no gentleman.

  He collapsed with Lizzie tumbling after him, and Egbert and Auguste diving for him simultaneously, knocking the knife from his hand. But immediately Gregorin with vicelike strength wriggled from underneath the pile of bodies and out, vaulted over the wall and disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Er, is he a friend of yours?’ Percy cautiously inquired from behind the door.

  ‘No. Just one of the family.’ Auguste helped Lizzie up, supporting her as she staggered slightly. ‘You are hurt, Lizzie?’

  ‘Course not. Only a bruise.’

  ‘Then what,’ he asked quietly, ‘are you crying for?’

  ‘It’s me dress,’ she wailed. ‘It’s torn.’

  ‘I will get you twenty new dresses, Lizzie.’

  ‘No, you won’t. You promised that before, but you never did.’ There was no rancour in her voice. ‘This is me only dress. A manageress has to look smart, don’t she?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow, Lizzie, we shall go shopping. Your new staff will look after the restaurant.’

  ‘What new staff?’ yelped Percy.

  ‘The new staff that I shall be appointing and you will be paying for, Mr Jowitt.’

  ‘Oh. How?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘Out of the reward you will get.’

  ‘For locking up His Majesty’s bailiff? I hardly think—’

  ‘No. For this.’ Auguste picked up the broken club, and twisted off its top.

  Inside was Prince Henry the Navigator’s cross.

  Epilogue

  His Majesty King Edward VII beamed at his three visitors in the Buckingham Palace audience chamber. Chief Inspector Egbert Rose, who was bearing Prince Henry’s cross, dearest Tatiana, his favourite cousin, and—

  ‘You again,’ he said jovially to Auguste.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Mixed up with crime again, I hear.’

  ‘Not intentionally, sir.’

  ‘I should hope not.’ A silence. ‘Not cooking, anyway.’

  ‘Only in my own establishment, sir.’

  ‘Auguste has found us the most excellent cook, Bertie,’ Tatiana informed him. ‘She can even cook Russian dishes.’

  ‘I should give them a miss if I were you, Tati. A lot of beetroot. Turns your skin red. That’s for me, is it?’ turning to Rose.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ Egbert handed over his charge. The King examined it closely. ‘And here is the garnet that fell out, sir. I thought your own staff might wish to replace it.’

  ‘Quite right. That’s that, then,’ the King said.

  ‘It presents a problem to you, Bertie, I fear,’ Tatiana observed sweetly.

  ‘What’s that, Tati?’

  ‘Now that it’s back, you have the problem of whether to return it to Portugal again,’ she pointed out.

  Auguste glanced at her curiously. He knew that look on her face. The last time had been driving back from Lord and Lady Westland’s home, when he had, apparently, eagerly agreed to the purchase of a new motorcar. This time he paid more attention.

  ‘Ah.’ The King thought for a moment. ‘Luckily no one knows it’s been found. It can stay missing and turn up after the King of Portugal has come and gone from here in November.’

  ‘But what of the reward?’ Auguste asked.

  ‘Reward?’

  ‘To the finder of the cross. One Mr Percy Jowitt.’

  ‘Ah.’ The King fidgeted. ‘I suppose— Very well, I’ll see it’s done.’

  ‘Generously, Bertie, as you always do,’ Tatiana said innocently.

  ‘This reputation the British crown has for hoarding is entirely undeserved. The crown is always generous. Or,’ the King added hastily, ‘it will be in this case. That satisfy you?’

  Auguste looked at Tatiana. She nodded slightly. Strange, how wives and husbands come to think alike. ‘Not entirely, sir,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ The King stared at this impudent upstart.

  ‘We’d like to know the true story,’ Tatiana told him.

  The King stopped fulminating. ‘About what?’

  ‘The cross,’ Auguste said quietly.

  ‘You know it.’ When the King spoke in that tone his courtiers quivered.

  Auguste was not a courtier. ‘I think not.’

  The King looked darkly at Tatiana, who was unmoved. ‘Do tell us, Bertie.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can, Bertie. I am your friend and cousin, Auguste is my husband, and he and Chief Inspector Rose have been your loyal servants for many years. Tell us.’

  The shadow of Queen Victoria quivered over her family. Bertie gave in. He chuckled. ‘Follow me.’

  They obeyed as he led them into the corridor, and another, and another, and finally into his study. He opened a drawer. It was empty save for a blue cloth. He twitched it aside to reveal another cloth underneath. On it, worn with time, lay a simple carved wooden crucifix.

  ‘This,’ said the King lovingly, ‘is Prince Henry the Navigator’s cross.’