Murder At The Masque (16 page)

‘
Mon brave
,’ Fouchard began excitedly, if informally, as he ushered Rose into his office. ‘Inspector Chesnais of the Sûreté is on his way here. I think you may know him? He managed to take the evening
rapide
and will be here this
evening. This tells me,’ he added with gusto, ‘that there may be political implications. My friend, this is a grave affair,’ he finished revelling in the thought.

‘Yes, I had the pleasure of meeting the inspector,’ Rose replied. The word pleasure was diplomatic. ‘There’s one thing you should consider, however,’ he added thoughtfully and evilly. ‘If the murder was not political but was connected with the robberies, the robberies are going to continue. Our friend will still want that seventh egg, and the Petrov Diamond into the bargain. It seems to me that you and your men had better be on the alert.’

Fouchard thought this over. He comprehended exactly what Rose had in mind.

‘The Grand Duke’s masked ball,’ he said resignedly. ‘Two weeks from today.’

Rose nodded. ‘I think you’ll need all your forces there if we haven’t nabbed the blighter first.’

Fouchard was not acquainted with the words nab or blighter, but the meaning was starkly clear. ‘Then,’ he said simply, ‘we must make sure we do.’

Thus motivated, they took a cab up the hillside to where the Villa Russe gleamed white in the late morning sunshine, and were shown into the huge morning reception room intended to impress visitors, and succeeding. Decorated in white Carrara marble and gilded bronze, it was based on the Great Throne Room of the Winter Palace, with Rastrelli busts of Romanov ancestors and busts by Rodin of the Grand Duke and Duchess. The Grand Duchess’s was superb. The Grand Duke’s was not, having resulted in something like a cross between the sculptor’s Balzac and a ballet dancer. It was displayed in a somewhat dark corner.

The doors were thrown open and the grand-ducal pair made their entrance. A united front, thought Rose, amused. Whatever had passed between them after their return to the villa the previous evening, no sign of it
remained this morning, at least to the outsider. The Grand Duke muted his usual boisterousness as soon as mention of the murder was made.

‘You find this burglar,’ he commanded, ‘before our ball. It is for my birthday,’ he informed them, pleased, before adding gloomily, ‘I do not wish to find myself a victim of my own dagger.’

‘It is difficult,’ explained the Grand Duchess. ‘We cannot change the ball, because of Igor’s birthday. The day of St Benoit, the 14th March in our Russian calendar, the 26th here. Always we have this problem. When do we celebrate? This year both the 14th and the 26th in the French calendar are in Lent. But I do not think many people will stay away from our ball for this reason.’ The glance she gave her husband suggested he might arrange his birthday more conveniently next time.

Having politely put such questions as they could, and discovered that neither the Grand Duke nor Duchess had observed anything of use to them, Fouchard requested formal permission to interview the servants on duty at the Pavilion the previous day.

‘Servants?’ The Grand Duchess’s brow puckered, in slight surprise, as if forgetting for the moment where they were kept.

‘The Pavilion kitchen door to the corridor faces the study door,’ Rose pointed out. ‘It’s possible one of them might have seen something. Or that they might have noticed whether or not the dagger was lying on its salver while they cleared the tea from the salon.’

They had, however, been forestalled. Auguste was already deep in conversation with the kitchenmaids. Madame Didier, imported once more from retirement, in order that some kind of luncheon might be served, since Boris still seemed glazed by the events of the day before, was bustling round the kitchen, intent on producing a little light luncheon of
rouget à la Niçoise, moules au safran
and
au bergines à la façon Escoffier
.

The latter dish had been taught to her by her son, whose culinary powers, she sometimes conceded, were pas
mal
. All the same, he had much to learn, and she maintained a sharp eye on his creation of the
farci
for the aubergines. Indeed, since most of Auguste’s thoughts were for once more upon detection than upon culinary creation, the food lacked the attention it normally commanded.

‘A few questions only,’ he murmured innocently in answer to the unspoken question writ large upon Rose’s face. It was perfectly obvious he had already been active in discussing the matter on everybody’s mind.

Interrogation in two and a half languages (lapses into Russian between the staff being common) was a complicated process.

‘After Lord Westbourne entered the study, did any of you see anybody go in there after him?’ Fouchard demanded authoritatively.

‘Yes,’ said Boris eagerly. ‘I see
him
.’

‘Besides me,’ Rose said patiently.

Boris’s face fell in disappointment that he had not been of use. ‘The Grand Duke,’ he offered sullenly.

‘I saw the Grand Duke come out,
monsieur
,’ offered the newest kitchenmaid, eyes big as the Sevres saucers she served at teatime. ‘He came through the kitchen, and bumped into me.’ This was an event that would be talked of for the rest of her life.

‘Did not,’ rumbled Boris.

‘You weren’t there, Mr Boris. You’d gone to milk the cow.’

‘It is the cow’s fault,’ he commented and relapsed into silence. What responsibility the cow bore for the murder remained unclear.

‘I saw a lady,’ offered a footman, but could put no name to her.

‘What was she wearing?’ Fouchard asked sharply.

A consultation in Russian took place between the footmen.

‘White,’ came the eventual reply.

As the dagger appeared entirely to have escaped notice while the staff cleared the tea, this remained the only positive information to emerge.

‘So now we hunt the Woman in White,’ said Auguste.

‘Not only Sherlock Holmes, but Wilkie Collins too, eh?’ grunted Rose.

Lady Westbourne, whom Fouchard had generously granted Rose permission to see alone, was at home. She had spent the morning furiously thinking and dressing for the occasion. It was so convenient that it was Lent, and that accordingly she had brought suitably sombre dresses with her; the grey silk with lace would suffice for the moment to give the requisite air of fragility, until her Paris dressmaker was able to dispatch the mandatory black clothes. True, there was a ladies’ tailor in the Boulevard de la Croisette or the English store of Folkett-Browne, or even Madame Verrine in the Rue d’Antibes, but after some thought she decided that their products could not produce the correct effect of helpless widowhood for which she was striving. She needed to be set apart, not accoutred in garments whose origins would be all too familiar to Cannes society.

It was only now therefore that she had had time to consider her feelings over Charles’s demise. In the short term, it was undoubtedly a relief; in the longer term it was highly inconvenient. Widows, however charming, were not so sought after as widowers; and Washington, to whom she was pledged at the moment, lacked the qualifications necessary for a husband, whatever his as yet untested advantages might be as a lover. Morever, should she in her widowed state even consider a lover? Society would not tolerate it. Perhaps she could consider dear Harry as escort only? Or would that too do damage to future matrimonial prospects? It was all very difficult.

Genuine tears came into her eyes. Charles had always been there, she realised, and now he would be there no
longer, solid, reliable and providing. There was a funeral to arrange, solicitors to contact, police to see— Uneasiness crept over her once again as she remembered the unfortunate scenes that had taken place publicly yesterday.
Charles
of all people – going to a woman of the streets. Well, not the streets, from what she had been told, but certainly an ‘unfortunate woman’. She didn’t look in the least unfortunate, Dora was thinking bitterly, as she swept into the morning room where Rose awaited her, derby in hand.

She accepted his expressions of sympathy and gratitude for seeing him, with sweet womanly grace. A lace handkerchief fluttered in trembling fingers as she seated herself.

‘May I ask you, ma’am, whether your husband gave you any clues about the identity of this burglar? He was going to give me, as you know, positive identification, but he never got the chance.’

‘Not a word, Inspector.’ She hesitated. ‘It was awkward, you see,’ she continued winningly. ‘He did not know I had a Fabergé egg. I had only told him about the ruby, for fear of upsetting him. I was so very, very fond of him and Igor was so very long ago and so –
unimportant
,’ she lowered her voice, ‘when I think of dear Charles.’

‘Quite, ma’am. Nevertheless, it seems the eggs might have been important enough to the burglar for him to kill your husband.’

A hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh no. So you could say in a way I
killed
Charles.’

‘No, ma’am,’ Rose stoutly contended, before advancing into a minefield. ‘Nothing to do with you. Even if there hadn’t been your egg, there were six others.’

‘Oh yes, so there were.’ Tremulous smile.

‘I saw it came as a shock to you,’ Rose added carefully, ‘that your husband was a friend of Miss Mimosa.’

At once she was cool, the eyes glittered. ‘No, Inspector, not
friend
. It was some business transaction he was advising her on. My husband never consorted with other women.’ At
once she perceived she was on dangerous ground, since a connection could easily be proved, but she had no option other than to continue. ‘Our marriage was happy; we were like two lovebirds.’

‘Indeed, ma’am. Now, as you fainted, quite natural-like in the study, you threw out some interesting words. “How could he do it?” you said. Who would you be thinking of, ma’am?’

Her face drained of colour, apart from the cosmetics supplied by Messrs Nicholls and Passeron of Nice. ‘Did I?’ Her voice rose. ‘How foolish of me. I meant I thought he had committed suicide, thinking I would be angry at La Belle Mimosa’s statements. How foolish. As if I could be angry with Charles.’ The lace handkerchief was uncurled from its tight little ball and put to proper use.

‘Suicide with a dagger in his back, ma’am?’ Rose had not forgotten her insults of the previous day.

Her face turned ugly. ‘It could have been done,’ she cried sharply. ‘It’s your job to find out who did it if not, Inspector. Not mine. I have far too much to do. The funeral . . .’

‘Good coffee, this,’ said Rose appreciatively as he sipped the strong brew at the small café on the Rue St Antoine. ‘Not that I don’t prefer a nice cup of tea,’ he added hastily. No need to let Auguste think he was flinging his derby over the windmill about France.

‘We have tea here also,’ replied Auguste slightly indignantly.

‘Don’t taste the same,’ pronounced the authority, and proceeded to bring Auguste up to date on his interview with Lady Westbourne and the police inquiries.

‘She was furious enough to stab him – did you see her face after La Belle Mimosa dropped her two pennyworth into the conversation? But women like her aren’t given to running around with daggers. They employ other methods of revenge,’ Rose concluded.

‘But on the spur of the moment,
mon ami
, who knows? And there still remains the Woman in White.’

‘That means finding out what they were all wearing. Not my field. And they’d lie. I can hardly line ’em up on an identity parade like we were in the Mile End Road. The only woman it could not have been was La Belle Mimosa. Unless she went in later of course.’

‘Natalia would remember what the ladies were wearing,’ said Auguste confidently. ‘So how do you progress with your burglar inquiries?’

‘Harry Washington was in London at the right time. So was Cyril Tucker, naturally, and Alfred Hathaway. The Comte de Bonifacio was in Corsica, but Count Trepolov began his winter holidays in London.’

‘The Tsar does not work his guards too hard.’

‘In Trepolov’s case it’s more honour than duty, I gather. Chiefly ceremonial post. Would you want someone like Trepolov if you were in the Tsar’s shoes?’

Auguste shivered. ‘For me, I would not like
at all
to be in the Tsar’s shoes. The people grow restless, so I hear. The Grand Duke is fortunate to live in London.’

A less fortunate fact for Rose, however. ‘I don’t see Cyril Tucker as a burglar; after all, he’s in the Colonial Office. So that leaves Washington, Trepolov and Hathaway for this list. Do you see young Alfred shinning up drainpipes?’

‘
Non
. Nor Trepolov.’

‘Mark you,’ Rose ruminated, ‘don’t you forget that snoozer at the Savoy – he was a Frenchman.’

Auguste laughed. ‘And I recall the elegant Captain Jones who so successfully relieved French ladies of their fortunes in Paris.’

‘
Touché
. Talking of gallant escorts, there’s always Lady Westbourne’s. He could be said to have a motive.’

‘Trepolov again?’ inquired Auguste. ‘But he ceased to be her lover, so I believe, yesterday. And Lady Westbourne clearly has in mind a new lover.’

‘Revenge?’ queried Rose hopefully.

‘Perhaps,’ said Auguste. ‘I think we should visit the gentleman.’

The Prince of Wales too was enjoying a post-prandial cup of coffee in his club, the prestigious Cercle Nautique. Here he felt safe. If he stayed in a private house, he was at the mercy of its owners, who exhibited him like a prize duck; if he stayed at a hotel, every Tom, Dick and Harry under the sun was booking in; if he rented a villa, he had to surround it with half the French police force, which made it highly embarrassing for guests on arrival, especially the more personal ones. The
Cannes Gazette
had its eye on him every minute and lady friends would find their movements followed with such avidity in the social columns that it was abundantly clear to the cognoscenti whom they numbered amongst their very particular friends – a fact which might or might not be welcomed.

He was uneasily aware that sooner or later the police would be making inquiries about old Westbourne. He had had no time for him, but who on earth would want to murder the old codger? Now he came to think of it, Westbourne was probably his own age, but somehow he seemed years older – because he connected him with Mama, he supposed. He had little doubt where Westbourne’s allegiances lay.