Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6)

by Myers, Amy

  Auguste Didier was himself again. He was home.

  Fifteen minutes later, Cranton’s kitchen resembled a maypole of flying figures dancing round it, woven into an intricate dance choreographed by a master chef. Maids flew upstairs with eggs and marrow toast, the smell of baking filled the kitchens. A kedgeree was somehow spirited into swift existence with just a hint of Colonel Kenny’s curry paste. Auguste eyed Mrs Marshall’s balefully. Not in his kitchen.

  Auguste flew round the kitchens, a white-gowned banshee of activity, wailing at all and everyone. Breakfast time would no longer present disaster, but what of luncheon? Not to mention this evening’s banquet. He cast an agonised glance at the blackboards. True, they were his menus, but somehow now they looked uninspired, they lacked the true flavour of a Didier banquet. And the ingredients – how could he be sure that man, for assuredly he was no chef, had obtained them correctly? He drew a deep breath. He was the general: he must study the plan of campaign, then inspect the battlefield, and lastly review his troops and send them into battle.

  His eye fell on a few dishes at random, purée of partridge soup, supreme of turkey fillets à l’écarlate, bavarois de marasquin, apples à la crémone, Indian trifle, London syllabub, the sorbets, the ices—Panic seized him. The ices – he had not noticed any. He flew to the ice boxes with sinking heart. As he thought, no sign of ice, no sign of sorbet. Panic momentarily overwhelmed him. He had a matter of hours only. Then he reminded himself firmly that it was for emergencies such as this that Maître Escoffier had trained him.

  ‘Alors,’ he informed his henchmen briskly, ‘we will make junkets, trifles, orange custards – even, yes, Pall Mall Pudding,’ he said triumphantly. Obtaining the recipe from a reluctant Emma Pryde on behalf of Miss Guessings had taken all his considerable arts of blandishment.

  Ovens were lit, scullerymaids rushed cooking pots to the fore, kitchenmaids eagerly sorted ingredients as their new master dictated. Footmen were despatched speedily to Senns High Class Delicacies for missing ingredients. By ten o’clock the kitchen was beginning to show some evidence of order, and work in progress. The banquet, Auguste told himself thankfully, was under way. It could be achieved, and better, oh how much better than it would have been under the direction of Signor Fancelli. He gazed round happily.

  ‘What’s for luncheon, Mr Didier?’ piped up John, his underchef, brightly.

  Quoi?’ asked Auguste impolitely, so taken aback was he.

  John repeated his question, but there was no need. The awful truth had already dawned on the maître chef. He had forgotten luncheon! Should he fall on his sword like Vatel? Or rather his kitchen knife? He had forgotten a meal. Such a thing had never happened before! Truly, he grew old, past his prime, an overhung faisan. He should be put out to grass, donkey that he was. He gazed at John helplessly, wits deserting him.

  ‘I hear your cook has left, Monsieur Didier.’

  Glassy-eyed, Auguste looked up at this interruption and was appalled. Madame la Baronne was descending the steps of the kitchen in an elegant morning dress of blue wool, a high pearl dog collar at her neck. Such demeaning intrusion of guests to the nether regions must not be allowed. But he was past pretence.

  ‘The cook has indeed departed, madame, but as you see, le chef remains.’ He bowed, hoping to impress the Baroness that nothing was amiss.

  He did not succeed.

  She apparently took in the situation at a glance, and strode towards him. ‘Monsieur Didier, I shall require an apron.’

  ‘But madame – you cannot!’ He was appalled. What were the aristocracy coming to?

  ‘Mais pourquoi?’ The elegant eyebrows were raised. ‘I have nothing to do this morning other than to write letters and that does not amuse me. Mademoiselle Gonnet has gone to visit friends, and I am too old to wish continually to add to my store of knowledge by visiting museums.’

  ‘But a baroness to help in the kitchens—’

  ‘I was not always a baroness,’ she said lightly. ‘I was born Thérèse from Orléans. You need have no fear, monsieur. I have read my Brillat-Savarin, my Dumas, and furthermore I have my specialities. The apron, s’il vous plaît, monsieur.’

  Somehow the Baroness inspired confidence. He did not understand her, doubtless there was some mystery attached to her, but he felt instinctively that he could rely on her. If she stated she could achieve miracles, then he was prepared to believe it. In fact, he had little choice with a minimum of forty dishes to prepare for this evening.

  ‘In that case, madame,’ he handed her the apron.

  ‘And the task, monsieur?’

  ‘Luncheon for fifteen.’ By her reaction he would test her.

  ‘And what do your larders possess that can provide the basis for this repast, monsieur?’

  His respect grew. ‘Cold goose, madame, it appears, for a plat rechauffé, and cold beef for another, brawn, salads, and the stockpot at your service.’

  ‘And the desserts?’ Her voice was as brisk as his, as set on the task before her as was he.

  ‘Fruit, madame, would be simplest.’

  She dismissed this. ‘Soufflés.’

  His respect shot up so high he had to reassure himself. ‘You are bold, madame.’

  ‘I achieve what I want, monsieur. And now, pray, let us return to our muttons. Or, in this case, our cooked goose.’ She paused, looked round at the staff and her eyes fell on Mary. ‘I will have you,’ she pronounced, ‘to assist me.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Mary cast a terrified look at Auguste who nodded approvingly. The Baroness, for the moment, could do no wrong.

  This indeed appeared to be the case, for she worked efficiently and tidily so that he ceased to keep a wary eye on her and devoted himself to the banquet. A new spirit of goodwill seemed to be flourishing in the kitchens as the morning wore on, a liveliness of eye and step that had not been apparent before. Ah, this was truly where he belonged.

  By some miracle, at twelve o’clock the Baroness pronounced herself ready for inspection. By now she would have had to have taken a sledgehammer to a delicate sole to earn his disapproval, and before him lay no evidence of that. He stiffened slightly as he saw the goose in a cream sauce, but the subtle taste of simmered garlic and vegetables within it reassured him. He beamed and nodded approval at a chicon gratiné; his eyes rose slightly when he saw spice cloves in the salad dressing, but before he could comment, his eye was drawn to a horror that he could not believe the Baroness capable of. Coralline pepper – furthermore, Mrs Marshall’s coralline pepper – adorning the réhauffé dish of beef in sour cream. True, he was forced to admit, the taste could hardly be faulted, but the end did not always justify the means. An eye must be kept on the Baroness after all.

  ‘I think you deliberately goaded Fancelli into walking out, Auguste,’ announced Maisie crossly, far from pleased at the fait accompli that had resulted in an urgent appeal from him to reconsider her absence from Cranton’s.

  ‘Maisie, Fancelli is no true chef,’ Auguste pleaded. ‘No true chef would leave his guests unprovided for. He left them, Maisie, without making provision for luncheon.’ He overlooked the fact that in the excitement of the moment he also had overlooked it.

  ‘And what am I to do for a chef now?’ she demanded belligerently.

  ‘I will be your chef,’ Auguste announced grandly.

  ‘Splendid. And who will be manager then, while you’re souffléing around the kitchen?’

  ‘I will do that too. And the Baroness has kindly offered to assist. She has experience of hotels, it seems, from before her marriage.’

  Maisie snorted. ‘Fine thing, me organising holidays for gentlefolk who land up having to run them themselves. What a reputation that will give me!’

  ‘It will indeed if I am to be the chef,’ Auguste pointed out mildly.

  ‘Chef? I thought you were the great detective. You’re going to be busy one way and another this afternoon.’

  He looked wildly round. It was a gross dereliction of duty, for he had
found a letter from Egbert in his office instructing him to make full use of the afternoon – and why. But how could he leave the kitchens? That, too, was duty.

  ‘Could you not. .?’

  ‘Yes?’ she asked dangerously.

  ‘Escort our guests to the Tower of London and observe, listen?’

  ‘What for? Want a potted history of the Tower straight from the Beefeater’s mouth?’

  ‘Non. This is très sérieux, Maisie. Listen to what the guests talk of amongst themselves. And in particular, any mention of Brussels.’

  ‘Sprouts?’

  ‘Now you try to provoke me,’ he said crossly. ‘I tell you, Maisie, much depends on this. A murderer must be found, and an assassin, and the Inspector is beginning to think this plot may be connected with Sipido’s failed attempt in April.’

  A short pause. ‘Anything to oblige, Auguste. What would you like me to do if I find him?’ she enquired. ‘Chop his head off on Tower Hill?’

  ‘I wonder if you are aware,’ announced Thomas Harbottle impartially to the party, emboldened by the flamboyance of today’s choice of waistcoat, ‘that if there are no ravens at the Tower, the fortress is doomed?’

  Whether the rest of the party did or not, the Yeoman Warder assigned to it most certainly did and was not going to have his authority undermined by a pipsqueak like this. He puffed out his magnificent chest. They weren’t called Beefeaters for nothing; the roast beef of old England had given him not only a heart of oak but a chest to match.

  ‘This ’ere dungeon,’ he boomed in a voice that had once terrified recruits on army parade – grounds in farflung parts of Her Majesty’s Empire, ‘is known as “Little Ease”, where the arch-villain Guy Fawkes was imprisoned.’

  Curiosity having been satisfied by one journey on the Underground Railway, it had been deemed desirable to hire carriages for the journey to the Tower. Maisie had led her flock across the drawbridge (less the Miss Pembreys who waived eight hundred years of history in favour of an examination of the delightful novelty of the new Tower Bridge) into the Tower precincts, waving her Governor’s Pass to be admitted to regions where visitors were not normally allowed. This gave them the honour of seeing empty rooms in the White Tower in which Sir Walter Raleigh had been imprisoned and the even more dubious honour, in Maisie’s view, of descending to the dungeons. The ladies, except for the Baroness, were not impressed.

  ‘Guy Fawkes – did he not try to blow up Parliament?’ whispered Eva Harbottle to her husband at Maisie’s side as the party left in twos and threes.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Thomas shortly.

  Hello, thought Maisie, why no historical diatribe on the subject?

  ‘What happened to him?’ Eva pressed on, uncharacteristically.

  ‘He was tortured and killed.’

  ‘’E’d be given a medal today,’ guffawed Bowman, turning round. ‘One way to get rid of old Salisbury, eh?’

  ‘But blowing up Parliament meant blowing up the King too, Alfred,’ said Gladys, quite shocked.

  ‘Those days are over, thank goodness,’ put in Maisie brightly, provocatively. ‘No one would want to blow up Her Majesty – or kill poor old Bertie.’

  A sudden stillness – because of her disrespectful reference to the heir to the throne, or for some other reason?

  ‘The Boers would,’ pointed out the Marquis coolly.

  ‘I’d like to see any get near enough to try. A Boer wouldn’t get past Dover,’ said Carruthers.

  ‘Wouldn’t they?’ chortled Bowman. ‘There’s one right here. Your lady wife’s a Boer, isn’t she, Harbottle?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ cried Eva, white in the face, simultaneously with her husband’s ‘Eva’s German.’

  ‘She wasn’t when I saw her in Brussels at the Hôtel Midi. I just realised why I knew you. Eva Kruger was her name then. Related to the great man, are you?’

  ‘It must have been someone else,’ said Harbottle stonily. ‘You have never been to Brussels, have you, Eva?’

  ‘Never,’ said Eva listlessly. ‘Never.’

  ‘I wonder if you are aware that the uncut ruby,’ announced Harbottle loudly, almost defiantly, as the party gathered round the iron cage protecting the crown jewels in the Wakefield Tower and gazed at the Queen’s State crown, ‘is said to have been worn by Henry V on his helmet at the Battle of Agincourt. The large sapphire below is said to have belonged to Edward the Confessor.’

  ‘Why did a priest own it?’ asked Marie-Paul.

  ‘He was a king, madam,’ the Beefeater informed her loudly. ‘One of our great English kings.’

  ‘Then where is his crown?’

  ‘It ain’t here, madam,’ the Beefeater was forced to admit. ‘All the royal jewels and crowns were sold orf after we cut off Charles I’s head.’

  ‘Is this not assassination?’ demanded Eva sulkily.

  The Beefeater looked nonplussed.

  ‘Not when it’s legal, madam,’ Sir John stepped in.

  ‘But it was not legal while the King lived,’ argued Eva, ‘so you say if an assassination is successful it is legal, and if it fails like poor Mr Fawkes’s, it is not legal and you kill them.’

  Sir John turned purple. Harbottle took his wife firmly by the arm. ‘Come, dearest, let us view the Sword of Mercy.’

  Colonel Carruthers was staring long and hard at the St Edward’s Crown. ‘One of my ancestors stole that, you know,’ he announced to the assembly suddenly. ‘Blood, his name was. Blood.’

  The Beefeater edged closer, as did Maisie. This was a sidelight and a half on the Colonel. He coughed, aware of the interest he was causing. He looked round testily for Dalmaine. He had new arguments to present on the Iron Duke’s choice of Waterloo as a battlefield and the damn fellow was nowhere to be found.

  Dalmaine had in fact tired of jewels and was wondering where Rosanna might be. He had left the Wakefield Tower in search of her and found not the object of his desire, but de Castillon, who felt uncomfortable in this English fortress. Why did they still keep it fortified? Surely they no longer expected his government to invade? Or did they? In his view, France had more to worry about than its old enemy England. Even so, a little less stability in England would be no bad thing. The old Queen could not last much longer, and for the French to stir up anti-British sentiment was hardly necessary at the moment. The Boers were doing it for them. He greeted Dalmaine with some pleasure. He did not wish to return empty-handed from this holiday.

  ‘How do you find this climate after Africa, Major Dalmaine?’

  ‘Not to my liking, sir. Miss the sunshine.’

  ‘But there is much rain also, is there not?’

  ‘Not in the Transvaal, sir,’ Dalmaine stared.

  ‘But on the Gold Coast,’ said de Castillon silkily.

  ‘I don’t know about West Africa,’ replied Dalmaine quickly.

  ‘My apologies, Major Dalmaine. Of course it was your brother involved in the Ashanti War of ninety-six, was it not? And did I not hear he went out again this year as a volunteer? No doubt now the Ashantis are subdued once more, he will be returned home. I wonder what may be in his trunk? How my government would like to know where the Stool might be found. Assuredly peace can never come to the Gold Coast while it is absent, and the French see their role as peacemakers. Ah,’ he broke off, ‘Lady Gincrack, how delightful to see you. Dalmaine and I were just discussing the unity of Africa under the wise guardianship of England and France. And Brussels too, of course, Dalmaine,’ he added offhandedly. ‘Don’t forget the Congo. And now tell me, what is this we are looking at, pray?’

  ‘Traitor’s Gate,’ answered Dalmaine unemotionally.

  ‘My dear,’ said Gladys, ‘what a splendid party this is.’ She gazed happily at the Queen’s consort ring and imagined it adorning her own finger. ‘Apart from poor dear Nancy, of course,’ she added hastily.

  ‘Where can Mr Bowman have got to?’ asked Bella innocently.

  ‘He went to talk to that young couple, the Harbottles,�
� said Gladys, trying to hide her disappointment that he had torn himself from her side even for a moment.

  ‘He seems most attached to you,’ said Bella politely.

  Gladys flushed with pleasure. ‘I believe he is,’ she confided. ‘I really think he is.’ She pondered on life in Much Wallop and the greater glories that might lie ahead if she left it. There were still a few days left. It was not beyond the bounds of possibility that tonight, New Year’s Eve, Alfred would propose. Her happiness would be complete. If only Nancy hadn’t come along to complicate matters. How could she have expected to meet someone from Much Wallop in Cranton’s? Poor Nancy. Gladys was genuinely sorry for her death, but there was no doubt it had removed a difficulty. Now no one knew about Much Wallop, least of all Mr Bowman.

  ‘I read that it was here the murder took place,’ Bella was saying conversationally, as Maisie returned to collect her flock.

  Gladys jumped. ‘Murder?’ she repeated fearfully.

  ‘Yes,’ said Maisie. ‘Henry VI.’

  Outside, a plump man in a bowler hat and dark overcoat walked swiftly out of the Tower and disappeared into the anonymity of London. Even had the party from Cranton’s been accustomed to taking notice of cooks, they would hardly have recognised Fancelli without his cook’s hat and apron.

  ‘Drums captured at Blenheim,’ Maisie read out.

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Thérèse stoutly.

  ‘A great British victory.’

  ‘Perhaps the enemy’s books read differently,’ said Thérèse drily.

  ‘History’s an odd thing,’ agreed Maisie. ‘It all depends which side you’re on. Look at Joan of Arc. Heroine where you were born. And we burn her at the stake. And look at Sipido,’ she added innocently, ‘who tried to kill the Prince of Wales at the Gare de Midi in Brussels.’

  ‘De Nord,’ corrected Thérèse absently.

  ‘Oh, you know Brussels do you?’

  The Baroness raised her eyebrows. ‘Naturellement,’ she said coldly. ‘My husband is a diplomat, after all. The poor boy’s deed is obviously known to us.’

  ‘Oh, look at that,’ said Maisie, anxiously pointing at the block on which Lord Lovat lost his head for treason. ‘They’d have put Sipido on that if this were 1747.’