Murder Makes an Entree (29 page)

‘I have to thank you, Auguste, once more,’ said Egbert Rose quickly, seeing his distress.

‘Thank Mr Dickens,’ said Auguste with a smile.

‘Araminta,’ Auguste asked, seeing her alone, lovely, desirable, by the dance floor, the band playing a gentle melody of love,
‘may I have this dance?’

‘Oh, Mr Didier.’ She was upset to have to refuse. ‘I am engaged—’

As she spoke, her partner came to claim her, looking somewhat embarrassed. It was Sid.

‘He’s more my age,’ Araminta explained kindly as she floated away in his arms.

Auguste walked slowly home along the deserted seafront. Everyone it seemed had their partner. All save him. He stood gazing
out over the dark ocean, and wondered about himself. What did life hold for him? He had been wrong about Araminta; he had
been wrong about Alice. No more should dreams of women fill his thoughts; only perhaps those of the one he could not have.
But what instead? What remained for him in life?

He listened to the splashing of the waves on the sands. Out there were all the wondrous fishes of the sea, waiting for the
Williams and Josephs of this world. And for the Auguste Didiers. Tomorrow before they departed he would show his pupils how
to cook a true
bourride
of Provence. In art there was refuge, there was peace. Not murder.