Murder At The Masque (22 page)

‘I cannot believe that, Auguste,’ said Natalia sharply. ‘And there’s one other possibility you must consider, if mistaken identity is the question. That it was not the Grand Duke, but someone else the assassin wished to kill.’

‘But who?’

‘The Prince of Wales.’

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was having a wretched holiday. First a cricket match with a murder at the end of it, then having to face Mama. He shrank at the memory of having stood on that platform waiting for the train to pull in, waiting for that small beady-eyed face to peer out of the window and summon him in, haranguing him for five minutes of hell. Then he had to attend the funeral on Mama’s behalf and, worst of all, drag himself all the way to Cimiez (missing a damned good game of baccarat at the home of his friends the Goelets) and tell her all about it. Goodness knows why she didn’t go herself. She liked nothing better than a nice slow walk round a cemetery as a rule. Had he done the murder himself was the unspoken implication of her every word. No one seemed to think he might have been the intended victim, not the murderer, and he wasn’t going to point it out. He was just going to hide in the Cercle Nautique with a certain planned number of expeditions in closed carriages to certain addresses and that was that.

He pondered over how to refuse old Igor’s invitation. Damned if he was going to another event with that lot. Why, suppose he were the intended victim? He’d be laying himself right open to a repeat effort.

‘My dear Igor and Anna,’ he began carefully. ‘It is with the greatest disappointment that I am unable after all to attend . . .’

La Belle Mimosa was out for a parade on the Croisette at the time when all good people and others had decreed was the fashionable time to do so. Driving in her carriage had some advantages – it was far less strain on her Italian kid boots for one thing – but far more fun could be obtained by walking along the boulevard with gentlemen on tenterhooks in case she might acknowledge them while out walking with their wives, and torn as to the etiquette of raising
their hats or not. La Belle Mimosa had made no concessions to Lent, and the ladies loathed her even more for it. Her bright yellow silk dress and parasol could be seen the length of the boulevard. Only Auguste did not notice until in unladylike fashion she placed herself directly in his path and stood still. He bowed.

She looked him up and down and twirled the yellow parasol. ‘Rumpelmayers,’ she suggested. ‘No, too many women. Dull. Take me to the Gray d’ Albion.’

Auguste gulped. He was, after all, a cook, even if a
maître
chef. Then he laughed at himself. He had been too long in England. Here a
maître
chef might dine at the Hôtel Gray d’ Albion as might anyone else.

Whether La Belle Mimosa was his ideal choice of companion was another matter.

‘I am,’ she informed him as they crossed the roadway, ‘without
un ami
at the moment.’

‘Indeed,’ murmured Auguste, wildly wondering whether this called for commiseration or for a firm booking. He was saved from answering by her frank, ‘But then you are the
ami
of Kallinkova – for the moment. She doubtless would not like it and I like her.’ The first smile he had seen on her face flitted briefly across it. ‘I do not like many women, me.’

Outside the Gray d’ Albion she stopped.

‘
Non
,’ she said. ‘I change my mind. We go to my villa.’

Auguste froze. True, tea at the Gray d’ Albion with La Belle Mimosa posed embarrassing problems; tea at her villa opened up even more alarming possibilities. Much was spoken of ladies’ reputations, he thought bitterly, how about men’s – forced between ungallantry and compromise? He wondered for a moment how Egbert had fared in the same circumstances, as he obediently found a hansom and escorted her to the Villa Mimosa. Like Rose before him, he was impressed at her taste. If the ladies adorning the salon were anything to go by, he wondered irrepressibly
what those in her bedroom might be like, quickly suppressing any desire to find out.

‘
Eh bien
,’ she remarked cheerfully, as a severe middle-aged maid brought in tea on Sevres china. ‘I like this English tea custom. I like Englishmen too. I like that Inspector Rose. I wish him for my lover.’

Auguste choked over a mouthful of Earl Grey.

‘Indeed,’ he murmured weakly, wondering how Edith would treat this news.

‘He has good hands,’ the expert pronounced. ‘Whereas you,’ she looked him up and down, ‘your eyes speak much, but do they fulfil their promise? Your body is handsome, but this—’

‘
Madame
,’ Auguste mustered his dignity, ‘your tea is superb.’

She laughed. ‘You think too much of love to love love itself. Happy the lady who wins you, but you will never understand us, I think. Nevertheless, I am willing to try.’

‘
Madame
, I—’ It came out as a strangled yelp.

‘I jest,’ she said soothingly. ‘You could not afford me,’ she added more practically, straight on to: ‘You think I perhaps killed Westbourne, yes?’

‘We think it likely that he was killed by the thief whose name he was to give away.’

‘Ah, the burglar of the Fabergé eggs.’ Her eyes went to the small side table where the egg was carelessly displayed in all its beauty. ‘You are wrong. The burglaries have nothing to do with it,’ she ended dismissively.

‘How can you know?’

‘I know.’

‘How—?’ he said sharply.

She laughed. ‘I will not tell you.’

‘But you must tell us if your egg is to be safe,’ Auguste pleaded.

‘It will be safe,’ she replied scornfully. ‘Ah,
mon ami
,
this I do know. Pah!’ She spat delicately and for no apparent reason into her saucer.

‘So if your egg is safe, we need not guard it if you come to the ball?’ Auguste suggested cunningly.

A moment’s pause. Then: ‘I do come to the ball. I wear my egg.’

‘But does it not worry you?’ Auguste asked puzzled. ‘Don’t you want the egg?’

‘Who would not want a Fabergé egg?’ Her tawny eyes gleamed. ‘Don’t be foolish. If it is stolen, I will know who has it. I will ask him for it back.’

Auguste’s brain reeled. ‘But he may be a murderer. And if you know who it is,
tell
us.’

‘He will not murder me, my friend,’ she replied smugly. ‘And only if it is stolen will I know the thief,’ she added, though Auguste sensed this was more to keep him quiet than to express the truth. ‘I do not wish to slander anyone, do I?’ she added, with a smile as sharp as the diamonds that adorned her.

It was all happening again. The egg, the Petrov Diamond, Fouchard – Auguste reeled in disbelief.

‘Perhaps I did do it,
hein
?’ she asked innocently. ‘You think I am a murderess, Didier?’

‘Where were you after the tea break?’ he muttered. He had a distinct feeling he was being outmanoeuvred.

‘I went to the balcony with Kallinkova. She was the only one who would talk to me,’ La Belle Mimosa replied. The tawny eyes glinted, and looked him up and down. ‘When Natalia finish with you, you come to me,
hein
? I could teach you much, I think.’

Auguste walked back home to recover. He was very puzzled. There was something strange about La Belle Mimosa and her egg. Considering that the thief had come to Cannes to steal it, she was taking it very calmly, for all her explanations. Why did he get the feeling that he and Egbert were dancing to a tune? Marionettes in the hands of La
Belle Mimosa perhaps? Or someone else? By the time he reached the winding road to the fortress and the Rue du Barri, it was growing dark, and he seemed to be the only person on foot. From behind every closed shutter came smells of garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and his footsteps quickened, wondering what
Maman
would have for dinner tonight that would make the rest of the day seem worthwhile. All the elaborate dishes he would be helping to prepare at the Villa Russe for the next two days contained less of the true savour of the south than the comforting
marmite
of
Maman
’s. He turned the corner under the watchtower, where the people of Cannes had watched for the Barbarians coming, so his father used to tell him. He imagined them huddled there, day after day, silently watching the sea for the sight of sails. There had been other visitations too along this coast, St Paul himself some said, and St Patrick of Ireland, the Romans, the Moors, the Piedmontese, all had come and gone, and the independent kingdom of Provence had risen and fallen. Now Provence was part of France. Yet always it would maintain its special quality, that underlying hint of its savage past. Words left over from its Provencal language that had nothing to do with the elegant written French of today.
Lou mes di foui
, they called March in Provençal, the month of madness, for this was the month that the moon had her greatest influence. It was shining not brightly, but enough to give a ghostly luminosity to the buildings that crowded both sides of the narrow street.

Suddenly there it was, right in front of him, fleeing in the dark, a faint glowing figure seeming to float over the ground, hatted and cloaked. Gulping, and resisting the temptation to dive straight into the Rue du Barri, he forced himself to run. Surely that figure was too substantial for a ghost? he argued. Surely you should see through ghosts? No, he recalled other sightings, so real you could have sworn they were alive . . . until they vanished. His echoing footsteps seemed laboured as in a dream, no noise from the
scurrying figure in front. Its footsteps were soundless. In the dim gas light it vanished out of the pool of light into the gloom and was swallowed up. Panting, Auguste raced to the corner convinced he would see it on the next stretch. As he turned there was a figure in front of him and he cannoned into it. It was the old Cannois.

‘Did you see it? Him,
monsieur
?’ he panted, all thoughts of Bastide flying from his mind.

‘It? Him? Who?’ grunted the old man, very peeved.

‘
Masque de Fer, mon brave. Où est il
? The ghost.’

‘No one came here,’ said the Cannois. ‘I heard you running. Who’s that running? I asked. Must be old Iron Mask. But it was you.’

‘He has vanished,’ said Auguste, slowly staring round. Where had he gone? On one side of the road a steep drop too far for a human to jump, on the other a sheer wall rising to the high gardens above.

‘There is one possibility’ – Auguste was still grasping the old Cannois, as if scared that he too might vanish – ‘these steps . . . No, they were lit. He could not have reached the bottom before I got there.’

‘But he is a ghost,
mon fils
,’ pointed out the Cannois in surprise. ‘He has no need to escape. He is a
ghost
.’

Auguste gulped, reason fighting senses. ‘
Eh bien
,’ he said at last with dry mouth. ‘
Monsieur
, I am glad to see you.’

‘Pah,’ retorted the old man.

Inspector Fouchard was not delighted to see the old Cannois, nor did he react well to the realisation that he would now have to approach the Sûreté again with confirmation that their prized capture was probably guiltless. He put Emmeline and the old Cannois through strict interrogation, eventually pointing out in triumph that only Emmeline’s word testified that Bastide accompanied her from the office straight out on to the balcony again and not via the study. ‘Or suppose,
mademoiselle
,’ he said hopefully, ‘you did it together.’

His voice tailed off as eighteen-year-old American innocence stared back at him outraged, with murmurs of Papa. Inspector Fouchard hastily rethought his position and reluctantly agreed to wire the information to Paris. When Auguste had relayed to him the information that La Belle Mimosa’s egg would once again be on display at the masked ball, Inspector Fouchard’s cup was full.

Count Nicolai Trepolov waited, derby in hand, at the railway station on Friday. The Nice Express
rapide
was pulling in and happiness was his. He would taste of the mead of the gods. He would be able to show her his bees.

With a triumphant belch, the train came to a stop and soon from a first-class carriage the beloved figure emerged. His heart swelled with pride. To think: a distant cousin of the Romanovs, and
his
love. And soon she might be his for ever. The thrill of it temporarily ousted the bees from his heart. She was walking towards him. Soon she would be at his side. Oh, the honour. The Princess Tatiana Maniovskaya, soon to be his wife, thus to unite him with the Romanovs for ever.

Another passenger descended from the train, not from the first-class cars however. Inspector Rose had returned to the Riviera, though hardly in such comfort as the Princess. The train was very crowded, and he had not slept at all. He was not alone. With him were Bastide Comte de Bonifacio, and Inspector Chesnais. Bastide had been released grudgingly by the Sûreté with Chesnais insisting that a close watch be kept on him.

Scotland Yard had returned Rose to the battlefield, and his small room at the Paradis seemed almost like home again. Back at Highbury, faced once more by Mrs Rose’s cooking, he had almost forgotten the dining room here, and the smells of its food had faded. Now they rose up in his nostrils, enticingly, and it was some time before he could
move himself from the table to seek out Auguste. Not that he needed to devote much time to the search.

Auguste was a dervish in the centre of a whirlpool. After tomorrow, nothing. I shall not touch a cooking pan till I return to Plum’s. I shall not eat – no, that was too much. Meanwhile forty
entremets
needed to be approved, the bread ordered from the Vienna Bakery, Monsieur Nègre’s supplies of confectionery checked. (How grateful he had been for this large order in Lent.) Here at least others did the cooking, but the strain fell on the master brain – himself. Boris sat despairing mightily but doing nothing.

Rose smiled to himself. He had seen it all before. Would Auguste ever stop? He doubted it.

‘Ah Egbert.’ Auguste ran to him eagerly. ‘You have returned just in time, my friend.’

‘The Factory became worried now that Lord Westbourne’s murder’s wide open again and telegraphed to me in Paris, once they heard the news from the Sûreté. I’m officially on the murder now. Robberies take second place.’