Murder Makes an Entree (17 page)

She did not seem to hear him. Mr Punch was about to murder a crocodile with his big stick, since the reptile for some unknown
reason had stolen his sausages. Mr Punch should be grateful, thought Auguste, if they were English sausages.

‘Kill him!’ shouted out Araminta loudly.

‘What did you say?’ enquired Punch.

‘Kill him!’ advised four voices. Auguste and the governess abstained.

The crocodile corpse joined the others. ‘That’s the way to do it,’ said Araminta pleased, as all the puppets came to life
again for a curtain call. She squeezed Auguste’s hand and he quite forgot to repeat his question.

The Literary Lionisers, or those who had survived the damp morning walk to Ramsgate along the sands (in the steps of the great
Dickens on his walk with Hans Christian Andersen), were equally divided as to those who wished no more to do with the Imperial,
Broadstairs or indeed the Lionisers, those to whom the sudden disappearance of their leader was an added bonus, and those
who were determined not to miss what they had already paid for. The latter two groups, just over thirty in all, were walking
purposefully towards Fort House, the object of the afternoon programme. Faced with the sight of the excursionists arriving
in the morning, they had not hesitated. They, too, regardless of the loss of their leader, were intent on being suitably dressed
for Bank Holiday. Boaters, with judicious hat retainers in view of the fickle wind, parasols, and Y and N Diagonal seam corsets
for easier walking (as well as for bicycling) were speedily pulled into service.

Samuel Pipkin was in a most difficult position. In order to assume his new role as leader of the party, his dislike of Dickens
had to be muted, to put it mildly. How far should
his conversion go? Could a few allusions be made to Thackeray? he wondered wistfully; on the whole, he thought not. Gwendolen,
still clad in dark blue, was indefatigably marching with the party next to a most sympathetic lady. She told her that it had
been suggested to her that she should remain behind to rest, but she did not consider her darling Thomas would have approved
of this.

Edith Rose fully agreed.

Angelina walked along the cobbled path to the house, revelling in the damp air blowing in her face. Oliver marched grimly
along behind her. A strong breeze caught the upstanding feathered plumes of her hat and blew it off. Pointing out the value
of hat pins, Oliver fielded it and returned it to her with a bow. She took it. She thanked him stiffly. He caught her eye.
She laughed.

Lord Beddington stomped along in silence. Why did this fellow Dickens want to live on the top of a hill? These writers were
strange folk. Next year he’d try a travellers’ group instead. After all, committees were much the same anywhere. Didn’t matter
about the subject.

Behind them twenty-eight rank and file Lionisers exclaimed and marvelled at the quaint harbour beneath them, their thoughts
torn between Dickens and murder. Some of them indeed were under the impression that Sir Thomas’s disappearance from the scene
was some kind of re-enactment of
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
. Would he reappear perhaps like Edwin Drood himself might have done if Mr Dickens had been spared long enough to conclude
it?

As the party arrived at the small front door of the house, some puffing from the climb, Samuel held up his hand impressively.
‘On top of a breezy hill on the road to Kingsgate,’ he began to quote in low deferential tone, ‘a cornfield between it and
the sea.’ He coughed importantly. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Fort House, known to Bradstonians, as those who live in Broadstairs
are called, as Bleak House.
Although Bleak House in the great novel is in Hertfordshire, many authorities believe the work was planned here.’

‘It was not,’ shouted Gwendolen. ‘Thomas told me—’

Samuel smiled, at last able to mention the revered name. ‘May I refer you to an unimpeachable authority: Mr John Camden Hotten,
author of a biography of Dickens, and also, he paused impressively, a life of Thackeray, refers to it in 1870 as Bleak House.
Obviously Dickens himself so considered it. Look at the splendid sight,’ he waved his hand, just as Mr Blackwell the owner
appeared, but who almost disappeared again when he saw the vast crowd about to troop up and down his narrow staircase and
crowded rooms.

‘This is where the great man sat to write,’ intoned Samuel, as they pushed half a dozen at a time into the small study, with
its huge jutting window overlooking the sea. ‘As he sat here watching the storms, the crashing waves, the evils of the elements,
what better place to plan a tale of dark mystery and murder? Surely here it was that the idea for the famous murder by Lady
Dedlock of the villainous Tulkinghorn was born?’

‘Thomas met his enemy face to face that afternoon too,’ shrilled Gwendolen, determined that her beloved’s name should at least
be represented. No one paid any attention. No one, that is, save Edith Rose who had not, at that time, the least idea who
Thomas might be. But Edith understood her fellow women whether they bought their hats at Bobby’s or in Bond Street.

‘Tell me about it,’ she said, leading Gwendolen firmly downstairs and into the garden where in defiance of the threatened
rain Mr Blackwell had prepared for the serving of tea.

‘Before dinner on that fatal night,’ said Gwendolen between sniffs, ‘we talked of many things. Unpleasant things.’ She was
determined to forget some of them. ‘He told me he had been very upset that day. There were people
staying in the hotel who shouldn’t be there. He wanted to marry me, you know, but his health was not good.’ She took a sidelong
look at Edith to see whether this was going down well. Apparently it was, for Edith was certainly listening. ‘Someone had
told him that if he had his way, he’d like to kill him.’

‘Really?’ said Edith politely.

‘And a few hours later, he did,’ she wailed.

‘
Really
?’ repeated Edith, suddenly all attention, the bobble on her Bobby’s hat bobbing vigorously in sympathy.

‘I am empowered by His Royal Highness to answer any questions on his behalf,’ announced the Prince of Wales’s detective who
had arrived by railway train. ‘His Royal Highness leaves for Sandringham tomorrow, and shortly after for Marienbad.’

The implication was clear, Rose observed. His Royal Highness was not available for comment, except in dire necessity. Restraining
the wish to thank His Royal Highness for his co-operation, Rose asked the detective whether there had been any incidents at
the dining table involving exchange of plates.

‘His Royal Highness gave me no information on this. If it had happened no doubt he would have done.’

‘The dog that did nothing in the night-time, eh?’

‘His Royal Highness gave me no information on dogs.’

Rose sighed. ‘Did His Royal Highness have any conversations with Sir Thomas that might have a bearing on the case?’

‘His Royal Highness gave me no information on this.’

‘Does he have any reason to believe the poison was intended for him?’ Rose asked bluntly.

The detective stiffened. ‘His Royal Highness gave me . . .’ he began, and then became a human being. He had noticed Auguste.
‘There,’ he said angrily, ‘is your assassin. When
I was in performance of my duties, he distinctly told me that the Prince would be poisoned. Did you not?’

‘No,’ said Auguste, glaring at him. ‘And I want to ask
him
if he did anything to my goose.’

‘Atropine. That’s what the analyst thinks. As we thought. It will take him another day or two to confirm it, but he’s pretty
sure. The symptoms confirm it. The dilated pupils, the thirst – all that water and coffee – throat spasms, and a scarlet rash
that’s quite unmistakable, later delirium and hallucinations. They’ve got enough from the stomach alone to kill him twice
over and they’ve still to separate it from the liver and muscles. It goes in the blood, you see.’ Rose glanced at Auguste
who was pale. Stomachs were for
tartes aux pomme
and
cailles aux raisins
, not to be examined in laboratories.

‘Very popular poison out East,’ Rose said hastily. ‘The Indian datura plant is often confused with capsicum apparently. Didn’t
use any capsicums in your meal, did you, Auguste?’

‘If Dickens did not mention them, I did not,’ said Auguste sourly. ‘But atropine is the belladonna plant, is it not? One can
get alcoholic extract of belladonna quite easily. Or do you think I dropped deadly nightshade into the stuffings?’

‘Now, now, Auguste. I have to ask this, you know.’

Auguste stood reproved. He was ashamed of himself. ‘You are right,
mon ami
. I apologise. I do not think it possible that datura, Indian or British, or deadly nightshade invaded our menu.’

‘The analyst would agree with you so far – too big a dose. He thinks it came in the pure stuff, transparent crystals.’

‘But Sir Thomas would notice if there were crunchy crystals in his food,’ Auguste objected.

‘Ah, but these crystals melt in hot water. And,’ Rose
paused, ‘it dissolves easy as anything in alcohol. Suggest anything to you?’

Auguste gulped. ‘Lord Wittisham,’ feeling a traitor.

‘Yes, our Lord Wittisham, whom you thought had met Sir Thomas before.’

‘You think him guilty?’

‘I’ll certainly be questioning him. But there’s a problem. We’ve got preliminary reports on the dishes of the uneaten food
too. Your goose was cleared, Auguste. But the remains of the entrée had enough atropine in it to kill a couple of horses.’

‘Gone,’ said Mr Multhrop disgustedly. ‘Gone, all gone,’ beginning to sound like Lady Audley. He was gloomily looking at his
registration book on Tuesday morning. ‘And with this weather, how can I get replacement bookings? I shall make them pay,’
he announced with satisfaction.

‘Who’s gone, Mr Multhrop?’ asked Rose, suddenly aware that the hotel seemed remarkably empty.

‘Lionisers. Forty of them have booked out. And now all the others have disappeared. I shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see
them again. Just send for my things, they’ll say. It’s happened before.’

‘They’d better be back,’ muttered Rose balefully. ‘Walking round the town, are they?’

‘They
said
,’ intoned Multhrop, the emphasis indicating that this was quite probably a placebo for his benefit, ‘that they were going
to Rochester. They
said
they’d be back for a merry night, whatever that might mean.’ The look on his face suggested it was unlikely they would receive
it at his hands.

Auguste strolled past the clap-boarded boathouse, on to the pier, determined to escape at least briefly from murder. William
and Joe were busily employed, hands in pockets, watching the
Francis Forbes Barton
being winched up the slipway by the old capstan, after a practice launch.

‘Fish,’ Auguste yelled at them. The damp air was full of the smell of fish. Twenty or so fishing boats were moored to the
pierside, fresh from a night’s work.

Joe sucked in his breath. ‘Nothing much today, Mr Didier.’

‘Joe, I see boats, I see baskets, I even see
fish
,’ said Auguste patiently.

‘Only a few whiting.’

‘
Only
a few whiting! My friend, you say only a
merlan
, I say give me your whiting and I will create a masterpiece – a
soufflé de merlan à la Didier
.’

‘’E’s off again, Joe,’ chortled William. ‘Only teasing, Mr Auguste. Dey’ll come up lovely, fried in a bit o’ butter, with
deir tails in deir mouths.’

‘Fried in butter?
Ah non
. Where is the excitement, the flavour? You taste only skin and fat. My pupils learn true cuisine where the soul of the fish
is appreciated.’

‘No sole, Mr Didier, not none.’

‘Naturally not if you cook it with Mrs Marshall’s Coralline pepper, drowned in pints of anchovy sauce. It must be cooked
à la Didier
with the most delicate of white wine sauces or in a soufflé with a touch of parmesan cheese. Then,’ warming to the task,
‘add anchovy sauce, in moderation, as an accompaniment. Ah, the time has come, my friends,’ he informed William and Joe, ‘that
the world shall know what an artiste it has in Auguste Didier and I shall begin with your whiting,
messieurs
.’

‘Fancy dat, Joe,’ said William straightfaced.

It was departing from this grandiose encounter that Rose at last found Auguste, his head still full of exalted plans for the
humble whiting. He was almost running along the pier past the Tartar Frigate Inn, such was his enthusiasm to begin the cooking
lesson, with a large lobster tucked absent-mindedly under his arm. The sight of Egbert brought his thoughts down to ground.

‘Your whiting got anything to teach us in the detective line this morning, Auguste?’

‘The whiting cooked with its tail in its mouth teaches us to think all round a problem,’ answered Auguste, lovingly poking
back one tail that was sprawling over the edge of his basket. ‘It is an important fish. But no,’ he said regretfully, ‘I can
see no direct comparison at the moment between the
merlan
and the death of Sir Thomas Throgmorton.’

‘This entrée of yours, Auguste,’ began Rose carefully, avoiding an out of control hoop hotly pursued by its sailor-suited
owner. ‘Have you thought any more about it?’

‘Indeed I have,
mon ami
,’ said Auguste crossly, still mortified that his entrée should be selected, ‘and I tell you this: it does not make sense.
If Mrs Langham is right, then she, the Prince of Wales and Lord Beddington all ate from the same dish. And so how could it
be poisoned?’

‘She might be lying.’

‘Why would she lie about something so easy to disprove? Why did Lord Beddington not contradict her if he ate no kidneys?’

‘She did mention that Sir Thomas did not like your kidneys,’ said Rose thoughtfully. ‘Atropine has a very bitter taste.’

‘True.’ Auguste looked pleased. ‘So perhaps it is not my sauce, but the atropine he does not like?’ His reputation might yet
be restored. Then he reflected. ‘No, why did the others not notice the taste if it was bitter?’

‘Sir Thomas himself did the serving, there’s no getting away from it. Even if your Mr Pegg added the atropine before he put
the dish down, he could scarcely have avoided poisoning the Prince of Wales as well.’

‘Unless it were just one kidney poisoned,’ offered Auguste doubtfully.

‘Then it was an accident, or someone who didn’t care whom they killed. Or Sir Thomas—’

‘No,’ said Auguste. ‘Do you not think, Egbert, that here we have the
hareng rouge
?’

‘Not a basket of whiting, but a red herring, eh?’

‘Instead of the entrée,’ continued Auguste, brightening with sudden enthusiasm, ‘the poison that killed Sir Thomas was actually
in some other dish.’

‘Or the wine,’ added Rose.

‘But why bother to mislead us?’

‘That’s what we have to find out.’

‘Mudfog, Our Town, Cloisterham – in other words, dear, dear Rochester,’ announced Gwendolen, alighting enthusiastically from
the London, Chatham and Dover Railway and waving her pink umbrella vigorously. She had decided darling Thomas would wish her
to appear at her best and had therefore forsaken dark colours today in favour of her new blue straw hat with the ruched brim,
decorated with tasteful purple roses and osprey feathers. She would feel particularly close to Thomas here in Rochester, she
decided. It was Mr Dickens’s favourite town and described in so many of his books. It was where he spent his last years, here
at Gads’ Hill Place, in the house which he had coveted as a poverty-stricken child.

‘Pickwick,’ she announced. Samuel Pipkin glared at her, then realised that she was not addressing him. ‘The first and the
last of Mr Dickens’s works were aptly set here in Rochester,’ she informed the party, all of whom then turned to her under
the impression she was leading the party, earning another glare from Samuel. It also ignored the fact that most Lionisers
had already heard of Rochester and were aware of the importance of Rochester in the canon of the Great Lion. ‘
Pickwick
and
Edwin Drood
. And here we
are
!’ Her voice ended on a semi-screech of joy as they entered the portals of the Bull Inn to partake of sustenance in the coffee
room, like Mr Pickwick, Mr Snodgrass, Mr Winkle and Mr Tupman before them.

Tiring of the ceaseless flow of enthusiasm from Lionisers, Angelina wandered over to the proudly displayed visitors’ book.

‘Did Pickwick sign himself in?’ asked Oliver, wandering as if by chance after her.

She laughed. ‘No. The visitors seem to be made of sterner stuff. Listen to this poem about
Edwin Drood
: . . . In Jasper’s Gatehouse and with Tope as guide/Explores the old Cathedral, Durdles’ pride/Descends into the Crypt and
even would—’

‘Solve the murder if he could,’ added Oliver, improvising. ‘Who do you think did it?’

There was a sudden hush in the room into which his words fell. Angelina closed the book and returned to her seat, but he pressed
her: ‘Landless, Jasper, suicide?’

‘Oh Drood. I thought you meant—’ Angelina broke off, and the sudden tension in the room subsided. ‘I think it’s Datchery.’

‘Datchery,’ cried Gwendolen delightedly. ‘
That’s
what poor Thomas told me that afternoon. He said he’d just met Mr Datchery. He had come back.’ She looked round for approbation
at this feat of memory but there was none.

Samuel snorted. ‘Datchery indeed. I heard no such thing,’ he said to her.

‘You were eavesdropping. You are no gentleman, sir.’ Gwendolen was bright red, having forgotten his unfortunate presence.

‘You were in a public place and having hysterics,’ said Samuel, stung. ‘What do you expect me to do? Stroll by and pass the
time of day, when you were ranting and raving and threatening—’

‘I was not, you – you
Jasper
, sir,’ she hissed. ‘You wanted to kill poor Thomas in order to further your own beastly ends. You hated my poor darling.’

‘I may have felt like throttling him,’ snarled Samuel, ‘but it wasn’t me threatening to kill him. It was you.’

‘I was not.’

‘You wanted to see him dead, you said,’ he reminded her bluntly.

‘My own death, my own,’ she said quickly, eyes glittering now in the face of danger. ‘A mere turn of phrase.’

‘Perhaps it’s a turn the police would like to know about.’

Rose followed Sid into the small kitchen at Blue Horizons and was immediately enveloped in a paradise of smells, reminiscent
of childhood, the spices of exotic cooking and the warm scents of Provence all rolled into one. It was a smell he had come
to associate with Auguste Didier’s kitchens, and after an hour in Naseby’s company, it was all the more welcome. Rose felt
at home with this smell. Or, rather, not quite at home since Mrs Rose’s kitchen did not smell of herbs and spices and Provence.
Too often it smelled of boiled cabbage and steamed fish. The pupils were standing round the range, from which the delicious
smell of a baking soufflé emanated; they were absorbed in studying whitings, some fried, some boiled. None steamed. On the
table, salads were waiting, prepared for luncheon, and two bottles of wine.

‘It is the sauce
and
the fish, a unified whole, we must consider.’ Auguste was pontificating in that voice he used solely for discussing cuisine,
a mixture of reverence, excitement, practicality and anticipation. ‘True, boiled whiting
alone
is not a dish for a king. But with the right sauce it might be transformed. Who knows? This is the infinite excitement of
cuisine. Now, consider: shrimp, lobster, anchovy, mussel, oyster. I will hear from each of you, if you please, arguments in
favour or against each in turn. Only when we have settled on the perfect sauce will—Ah, Egbert!’ Auguste broke off, none too
pleased to be
interrupted on a mere matter of murder when he had been in a world of his own, exalted by the power of cuisine.

‘I’ve come about the kidneys,’ said Rose practically. ‘If you’ll all take a seat, please.’ Obediently they sat round the kitchen
table. ‘Mr Didier has told you, I am sure, that atropine’s been found in one of the dishes of entrées.’

James folded his arms defiantly as though daring anyone to try to put handcuffs on him.

‘But only vun person was poisoned,’ pointed out Heinrich. ‘How is this?’ There was a note of challenge in his voice.

‘Any suggestions?’ Rose asked, throwing it back to them.

Alice had. ‘I read in my
Harmsworth Magazine
once that a man died because he ate rabbit pie and the rabbit had been eating belladonna. Perhaps that’s how the kidney got
poisoned. A sheep had been eating it and poor Sir Thomas got the wrong one.’

‘It’s possible, Miss Fenwick, but I think the dose—’

‘And I,’ said Auguste eagerly, ‘heard of a man who was poisoned because the coffee he drank was strained through a linen cloth
which months earlier had been soaked in atropine solution, and mistakenly used again. A lesson I attempt to tell my pupils.
Always—’

‘Coffee,’ said Rose meditatively. ‘Ah yes.’

‘The poison could have been added at the table just before Sir Thomas was poisoned,’ ventured Heinrich hopefully. ‘They have
only to lean forward, drop the poison in the dish—’

‘The Prince of Wales perhaps?’

‘
Nein
,’ said Heinrich flushing.

‘Beddington,’ said Algernon. ‘He was leaning his elbows on the table.’

‘Mrs Langham, I feel, is the most likely person from her position opposite Sir Thomas,’ said Alfred brightly.

‘It is possible, yes,’ agreed Rose. ‘The difficulty is that this poison was added in crystal form; to dissolve it you need
hot water or alcohol. It would be difficult to add it in the way you suggest since it would have to be poured.’

‘Alcohol,’ repeated Alfred faintly.

‘It could have been added by someone in the scullery,’ said James, rushing to the defence of Alfred. ‘After Emily had taken
the dish out, anyone
could
have done it.’

‘Why would they do that?’ asked Rose. ‘And why did no one notice it?’

There was a silence.

‘There was a lot of fings going on aht there,’ Sid volunteered at last. ‘You wouldn’t have noticed if the Crahn Jewels was
thrown into the kidneys.’

‘Perhaps. But we think,’ Rose said, ‘it was done to disguise the fact that the poison that killed Sir Thomas was not in the
entrée at all, but in another dish. Probably one later in the meal, and from the timing probably the goose, though perhaps
the soup. One of the peculiarities of atropine is that it acts differently on different people. It can take effect immediately,
but it usually takes twenty minutes or so for the full effects to be felt. Now your meal began at seven thirty and the readings
were due to begin at nine, although Sir Thomas did not begin until a quarter past nine. About what time did they finish eating
the entrée?’

‘About a quarter past eight, Inspector.’ Auguste prided himself on his immaculate memory for all matters concerning meals
for which he was responsible.

‘So if he were poisoned by the entrée, he didn’t display any symptoms for over an hour. That suggests it wasn’t the entrée
or any of the earlier courses.’

Alfred began to look increasingly unhappy.

‘So we must consider the goose, any
entremets
he may have eaten. The goose is the most likely, since it was after that he felt ill and went to his room.’

‘And perhaps took poison there,’ said Auguste eagerly.

‘You’re not thinking straight, Mr Didier,’ Rose chided.
‘Now we’ve found poison in that dish, I think we can rule out any idea of Sir Thomas creeping upstairs to poison himself –
purposely at any rate. Now,’ Rose paused, ‘the coffee and the alcohol. Did Sir Thomas take a brandy, Lord Wittisham?’