Dead as a Scone (22 page)

The red lamp on the panel flashed yellow.

“We made it, Cha-Cha. Now we have another whole minute to disable the motion detectors.”

Nigel pressed his thumb against a rectangular glass plate. He heard a soft beep as a tiny TV camera behind the glass imaged his thumbprint. The yellow lamp turned to green. A female voice sounded from a small speaker: “Security system disarmed by Nigel Owen. Sunday. Ten twenty-six.”

Yes indeed, madam. Nigel Owen single-handedly vanquished our wizard alarm.

Nigel contemplated the now-benign control panel with annoyance. He had never triggered the museum’s security alarm by accident. He had never even come close to exhausting the two sixty-second grace periods. Yet this morning he felt curiously intimidated by the complex system with its hundreds of sensors. A false alarm would send the Kent police racing to the front door of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum, and he had no desire to increase his aggravation by meeting a new copper.

Nigel felt annoyed enough, thank you very much, that he was about to spend most of his only real day off that week doing someone else’s job. He also knew of no one to blame but himself. Neither Giselle nor Flick had asked him to solve the scone problem.

You volunteered all by your lonesome.

Why had he offered to help? Probably because vague pangs of remorse kept reminding him that he had intentionally ignored two opportunities to do right by Flick Adams. He might have eased Flick’s sequential scoldings—first by DI Pennyman and then by the trustees—if he had repeated what Elspeth said on the day she died. As Iona Saxby had pointedly reminded him, Flick was part of his staff. He owed her a reasonable portion of loyalty and support.

Had he been held back by simple fear—the notion that he might put himself in danger if one of the trustees was really a murderer? Or had it been the concern that the more influential trustees would begin to think of him as a “loose cannon” along with Flick?

In either case, yesterday he had not seen his finest hour.

Nigel unclipped Cha-Cha’s lead. “You’re now free to roam about the museum while I check that the side door is locked.” But the dog didn’t seem in a mood to wander. He trotted alongside as Nigel—pondering the ingredients of scones and tea cakes—ambled back down the hallway.

Cha-Cha unexpectedly yipped twice. Startled, Nigel looked up. Flick Adams stood in the doorway, a key in her hand, a bemused grin on her face.

“Thank goodness I don’t have to make a forty-yard dash to the kiosk,” she said.

“I didn’t expect to meet anyone else here today.” He shut the side door securely and turned the deadbolt. “Especially you. You seemed well and truly knackered yesterday afternoon.”

“I felt kinda guilty dumping the scone problem into your lap. The least I can do is to help you order what’s necessary.”

“Order? I don’t follow you.”

“You said that you would get the baked goods we need for the conference from the Scone King bakery.”

Nigel laughed. “No, I said that the ‘scone king’ will feed the visiting academics.” He paused for effect. “I am the scone king. I intend to do the baking myself.”

“You?”

“Don’t look so astonished. One has to support oneself at university. I worked as a journeyman baker in a baker’s shop for three years and even entertained the idea of becoming a pastry chef.” Nigel added, “If you really want to help today, join me in the kitchen. How are you at baking?”

“Great in theory. I wrote my master’s thesis on the chemistry of yeast in flour-based carbohydrate matrices.”

Nigel needed a moment to decipher Flick’s technical jargon. “In simpler terms, that would be how yeast makes bread dough rise.”

“Exactly. However, my practice needs work. I’m famous in Pennsylvania for my lumpy, misshapen bread.”

“A scullery maid will be of greater use to me this afternoon than an assistant baker. I am sure you have all the skills required to lift, carry, stir, and wash.”

“Why, how kind of you to say so, sir.” She feigned a coy giggle. “Your word is my command.”

Nigel led the way through the World of Tea Map Room and into the Duchess of Bedford Tearoom. They made for the door to the kitchen, on the right side of the tearoom, toward the rear. Earl Grey heard their footsteps and began to chirp; Cha-Cha responded with a delighted yip.

“I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” Nigel said to Flick. “A brief pet stop seems in order.” He crossed the tearoom and removed the tablecloth from Earl’s cage. The bird peered at him, then stretched out a leg.

“Get me a hot cuppa!” it squawked.

“What say a piece of apple instead? Will that do?”

Earl answered with a piercing wolf whistle. Cha-Cha yipped again.

“I take that as a yes,” Nigel said.

He joined Flick in the kitchen, where she had turned on the lights. The polished black-and-white floor tiles and the shiny stainless-steel commercial appliances gleamed beneath several banks of overhead fluorescent lamps.

“As your first assignment,” he said, “see if you can locate Alain Rousseau’s recipe collection. Then we’ll decide what sort of goodies to prepare.”

“The stack of notebooks on Alain’s desk looks promising.” She began to read aloud the labels on the spines. “English Breakfasts…Lunches…Picnics…Appetizers… Entrees…Desserts…here we go” —she tugged a book free from the stack—
“English Afternoon and High Teas.”

To Nigel’s astonishment, Flick began to frown as she flipped through the pages.

“What can be distressing about a book full of recipes?” he asked.

“It made me think of an argument I had with the owner of a tea shop in Pennsylvania, one of those pretentious places that spells shop
s-h-o-p-p-e.
We went at it hammer and tongs for a while.”

“Heaven forefend! I can’t imagine you disagreeing with anyone.”

Flick stuck her tongue out at Nigel. “Our fight was over her menu. She described ‘high tea’ as an elegant afternoon repast enjoyed by the English social elite.”

“Not so. High tea is a workingman’s evening meal.”

“She knew that. But many Americans assume that ‘high’ is short for ‘high class.’ The owner said, ‘It’s not my job to educate guests that high tea is really a supperlike meal served on a high kitchen table rather than on a low tea table.’ ” Flick heaved a sigh. “She didn’t want to argue with paying customers.”

“How shocking. The triumph of business expediency over the truth.” Nigel shifted gears. “Speaking of paying customers—how many academics will descend on us tomorrow?”

“Twenty-two in all. They ordered our complete English cream tea. Four kinds of tea—one Chinese black, one Indian black, one oolong, one green—plus scones, savories, sandwiches, and cakes.” Flick handed the notebook to Nigel. “I phoned Giselle this morning. The replacement chef will brew the tea, provide the savories—probably sausage rolls and a nice Welsh rarebit—and assemble the usual variety of tea sandwiches. Giselle assured me there are ample supplies of Alain’s preserves in the pantry and gallons of clotted cream in the fridge. You are responsible for the scones and the cakes.”

“I still am bewildered by what these learned men and women will chat about while eating my scones. The societal
something
concerning the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.”

“The societal metaphors and allegories inherent in the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.”

“How did you speak those words without retching?” Nigel rolled his eyes. “Tomorrow’s conference may represent the worst example of pompous twaddle I have heard all year.”

Flick laughed. “Professors of literature care about such things.”

“I repeat—pompous twaddle!”

“Aren’t you being a tad judgmental? After all, Lewis Carroll is widely recognized as one of England’s great writers—a man who apparently satirized nineteenth-century England when he wrote
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Besides, remember our chat with Jeremy Strain the other day. We want to encourage academics to use our facilities.”

“Bah humbug! It pains me to serve my delightful scones at such a gathering. However”—he gave an exaggerated sigh—“I propose that we offer two kinds: plain and cinnamon raisin.”

Nigel opened Alain’s notebook but glanced obliquely at Flick. He had had an amusing idea. “You like to dazzle innocent bystanders with facts about food. Let me ask you a question a food chemist probably can’t answer. Do you know where the name scone comes from?”

Flick cleared her throat. “There are several theories. Given the apparent Scottish origin of the scone, some hold the name memorializes the Abbey of Scone, where the kings of Scotland were crowned as they sat on the so-called stone of destiny. Others argue that
scone
comes from
schoonbrot,
Dutch for beautiful bread, and still others that it derives from
sgonn,
a Gaelic word that means shapeless blob.

“But whether pronounced ‘scone’ or ‘scon’—as in northern England and Scotland—the product is technically a quick bread, a bread made without yeast.”

Nigel found it difficult to scowl at Flick’s wry grin. “You can be a world-class wally, Mizz Adams.”

“What’s a wally?”

“A prat.”

“What’s a prat?”

“Look in the mirror.” He let himself smile. “Enough small talk. We have to decide what else I bake for tomorrow. Do you recall if the Mad Hatter served a particular kind of cake to Alice?”

“No cake at all. Alice ate a slice of bread and butter.”

“We can do better than that.” Nigel leafed through the notebook. Alain had neatly glued a typed recipe card in the middle of each page. Each recipe was sized to serve forty-eight people. There would be leftovers of everything Nigel baked, which certainly would please Alain’s temporary replacement. “I propose,” he eventually said, “that we make lemon curd tarts and chocolate pound cake.”

“Sounds yummy. Can we also bake a batch of fairy cakes?”

“If you insist.”

“With raspberry fondant icing?”

“Is there any other sort?”

“The scullery maid would like to ask the journeyman baker a practical question.”

“I feel egalitarian today. Ask what you will.”

“If we bake scones and cakes this afternoon, won’t they be stale by tomorrow?”

“The pound cake, tarts, and fairy cakes will stay fresh overnight in the refrigerator. However, scones are best when served hot from the oven. We will do a classic baker’s fiddle with them.”

Nigel countered Flick’s mystified expression with what he hoped was a shrewd smirk.

“We will prebake the scones today, up to the point when they take on a bit of color. Then we freeze them. The substitute chef can pop them back in the oven tomorrow, a half hour before tea is served. I guarantee they will taste wholly fresh baked.” Nigel lobbed the notebook atop the vast marble-topped preparation table that stood in the middle of the kitchen. “Help me collect the ingredients.”

The door to the pantry was next to a big commercial refrigerator. In traditional English fashion, the pantry had been set four feet into the ground so that it stayed cool during the summer but never froze during the winter. This had been possible because the tearoom and greenhouse were extensions to the museum proper and not built above a full basement like the main building. Flick stood in the open doorway while Nigel—a few steps below—passed up sacks, boxes, bottles, cans, jars, jugs, and the occasional tube.

“That’s the lot,” he finally said.

“When did you make a list of ingredients?”

“I have it all in my head.”

“Show-off!”

“If your hands are free, join me down here.”

“Is there something especially heavy you want me to lift?”

“Actually, you get to choose the three scone toppings that will accompany the clotted cream tomorrow.”

Nigel stepped away from the stairs to make room for Flick. The pantry was a small rectangular room, its walls covered with floor-to-ceiling shelving. The shelves were made of marble, three feet deep and filled to overflowing. The centre aisle was too narrow for two people to stand together side by side. Nigel guided Flick to a shelf filled to capacity with jars of home-canned preserves.

“Aren’t they pretty?” she said.

“Lovely. Pick three.”

“Raspberry for sure.” She peered at the various jars. “Sour cherry conserves sounds tasty. And…
oh my!”

Nigel followed Flick’s line of sight to a row of jars labeled “Lingonberry Preserves.”

The “murder weapon” in Flick’s theory.

He held up one of the jars to a hanging light fixture. “You aren’t suggesting that these preserves contain barbiturates, are you?”

She shook her head. “I’m betting that Elspeth’s poisoner put the drugs in her personal jam pot. That way, no one else was at risk.”

“Ah.”
Assuming, of course, that Elspeth was poisoned.
The jury was still out on that issue.