Murder At The Masque (26 page)

It was a much magnified Misha, who in real life had been on the small size for a cat. Her replica was six foot high, made of spun meringue and sponge cake. A problem had been posed by the fact that Misha was mainly black, a colour not conducive to the confectioner’s art. But Auguste had decided that this should be some angelic manifestation of Misha in white, with groups of crystallised flowers as eyes and lips. Misha’s little white paws were differentiated by cream tinted pink.

‘Ah,’ cried the Grand Duke suddenly, ‘how can we cut this? It is
Misha
!’ The tears poured down his face as though
the sad day when Misha fell prey to a passing carriage were but yesterday. Luckily his dilemma was solved. Nothing was to be required of him. For suddenly the entire house was plunged into pitch-black.

There were a few stifled screams, muttered oaths from Rose, then a shout: ‘You there, Auguste?’

‘It’s this new-fangled electricity,’ grumbled the Grand Duke. It had clearly happened before. ‘Call for Higgins. He mended it last time.’

Auguste, not so confident as the Grand Duke that this was mere coincidence, managed to find his way to the garden where he extracted a candle and brought it back, supporting it on a supper table. The news had evidently reached Higgins, for his voice was heard outside, promising action. The faces of the guests, standing still, holding on to one another, were eerie in the candlelight. Impossible to see who they were, even had the masks not hidden identity. In the gardens the candles threw out limited avenues of light, figures moving up to the house in the blackness.

Ten minutes later the lights came up and Higgins appeared, toolbox in hand, looking pleased with himself. ‘Done in a jiffy,’ he said to Rose. ‘Right as rain.’

The lights might have been but the jewels were not.

A gendarme ran in white-faced and clutched Fouchard by the arm, shouting, ‘The ghost,
Monsieur l’Inspecteur
.’

‘
Ghost
?’

‘
Masque de Fer
. It was him. He has the jewels.’

Fouchard was racing upstairs, hotly followed by Rose, Auguste and the Grand Duke.

On the desk there was no sign of the chest. There was a bellow of rage from the Grand Duke, incapable of other speech as he stared transfixed at the empty desk. Then suddenly he turned and rushed out again.

‘What’s all this about a ghost?’

‘Glowing,
Monsieur l’Inspecteur
, in the dark, all glowing, in the dark. Then he vanished.’

‘He did not come down the drainpipe,’ said the gendarme detailed for that duty.

‘You stayed there all the time in these ten minutes while the lights were out?’

‘I was outside,
monsieur
,’ said the first gendarme. ‘When the lights went out, I unlocked the door and ran in. It was then I saw it.’ His voice faltered. ‘And for a moment,
monsieur
, I felt fear and ran outside.’

Rose groaned. ‘And our friend escaped down the drainpipe.’

‘
Non, monsieur
. I would have seen a glowing ghost,’ the gendarme from the garden said firmly.

‘And no one ran past you in the room into the corridor?’

‘No,
monsieur
, I would have seen him, would I not?’

‘Never mind the bleeding jewels, look at me.’ La Belle Mimosa stood on the threshold. She had lost all pretensions to ladylikeness as she clutched her ravaged bosom. The dress had been torn, and being low-necked she was able to hold it strategically just a little too low. ‘This bleeding hand shot out in the belvedere and ripped it off.’ This was not the treatment her bosom was accustomed to receiving and she had clearly taken it amiss. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

Slowly Auguste looked out of the window to the belvedere. ‘Inspector Rose,’ he said fearfully. ‘
Where has the Grand Duke gone
?’

Rose went white. ‘Cripes,’ he said, and set off down the stairs.

‘And where is Boris?’ wondered Auguste grimly.

He sped down the staircase and into the ballroom. No Grand Duke. No Boris. Out into the gardens towards the belvedere. But when he got there, there was still no Boris. Only his corpse lying on its back, a knife plunged into its heart.

The candlelight flickered weirdly over the group looking down at the corpse, unable to believe that murder had once again crept up upon them and in such unlikely form. Through the most direct candlelit path from the house came a small phalanx, summoned by a gendarme. Inspector Chesnais led three of Cannes’ five English doctors, the Russian doctor and a French doctor, the latter anxious to assert his claims to priority. Rather reluctantly, they all came to the same verdict: Boris was dead of a stab wound to the heart.

‘Could it be by his own hand?’ asked Auguste, stricken. Boris, that oafish man, his culinary catastrophes, his bullish energy; no more meatballs, no more of the
zakuski
, now silenced in death. Only an hour since he had thought Boris a murderer. Now he was dead.

‘There are no signs of struggle.’ An English doctor peered at the wound. ‘If murdered, it must have been completely unexpected.’

‘Unless he were left-handed, he could not have delivered such a blow himself,’ offered another. ‘He could not have given it the necessary force. Look at the angle of the knife. Suicides don’t as a rule stab through clothing.’

There were general nods of agreement, as the medical fraternity looked at the blood-spattered overall.

‘Would the murderer have signs of blood on him?’ inquired Auguste hopefully. There was little to be seen here with the knife still in the wound.

A doctor shrugged. ‘Very little, if any. If he had pulled the dagger out – it would be different.’

‘Odd,’ said Rose, frowning. ‘Spur-of-the-moment murder, and yet he has time to do that.’ He pointed. The corpse was lying neatly on its back, arms at its sides. ‘That’s suicide out.’

And Auguste’s theory with it. If Boris were a murderer it was possible he’d commit suicide, if he felt they might be on his track. If for instance he’d overheard Auguste telling Rose of his theory, or his discomfiting exposition to the Grand Duke. But this formal arrangement of the body put paid to that idea.

‘Why,’ Auguste pondered, ‘would a murderer spend the time to give such attention to his victim, when he could not know if the lights would go up again quickly, perhaps sending people flocking back to the belvedere? Or indeed he could not know if he might be visible from the house in the darkness. A spur-of-the-moment murder, taking advantage of the dark, of the knife so conveniently provided, and yet a murderer who is not overcome with the enormity of his crime, but one who stays to arrange the body.’

He was smarting with the added humiliation that he had been wrong. Boris was not a murderer, but a victim. I will find out who,
mon brave
, he silently promised, feeling an affection for the old rogue, his iniquities in the cause of cuisine forgotten.

Doctors suddenly scattered like confetti as the Grand Duke charged into their presence, aware that something was going on. No gendarmes were keeping him out of things. The robbery – perhaps they’d found something in the belvedere. He roared in and, aware of the atmosphere first, then the corpse, stopped short.

‘Boris?’ he breathed, turning ashen. ‘Who’d want to do that to old Boris?’ There was quite genuine emotion in his voice. ‘And just now some damned fool’ – he caught sight of Auguste – ‘
you
were telling me old Boris was out to
murder me. That’s what comes of letting cooks out of the kitchen.’

Auguste was silent in humiliation, but the Grand Duke did not dwell on the point.

‘Do you think Boris had anything to do with the theft?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Perhaps he saw the thief?’ There was a note of eagerness in his voice.

‘Why should the thief come down to the belvedere?’ asked Rose practically.

‘Plenty of people seemed to,’ the Grand Duke pointed out. ‘Saw heads bobbing around all over the place between the candles in the gardens.’

‘Who, sir? When?’ Rose asked urgently.

‘Couldn’t see who. Why don’t you ask them?’

‘We shall, sir. No doubt of that.’

‘You don’t intend to search my guests, do you?’ asked the Grand Duke uneasily. ‘It wouldn’t go down too well.’

Nor should murder, was Auguste’s instant thought.

‘If we allow the guests to go home,’ pointed out Rose, ‘your jewels may go with ’em.’

‘Let them go,’ the Grand Duke said quickly. ‘Catch the murderer,’ he went on. ‘More important than jewels. That’s two he’s got now. Who’ll be next?’

‘It may not be the same murderer,’ Auguste pointed out. ‘Perhaps Boris knew something about the jewel thief, and Lord Westbourne was killed for some other reason. Especially if you were the intended victim.’

The Grand Duke glared. ‘I’ve had enough of your ideas. I tell you this, sir. You’re a better cook than detective—’ On this pleasant note he departed with Fouchard and Chesnais for the villa, leaving Auguste and Rose with the corpse, and a gendarme and doctor guarding it.

‘Eighteen years since someone had the bright idea of using fingerprints for identification; and still we’re not using it. I tell you, Auguste, if we were we’d have our murderer, just like that,’ Rose said vehemently. ‘The Bertillon
identification system is all very well, but you’ve got to have a sighting of the villain first.’

Auguste was grateful that Egbert made no mention of his earlier theories about Boris. They were still together, a team. A team that now would discover the truth. Auguste’s honour was at stake.

It took some time to organise the departure of the guests, and it was well into the small hours that investigations were complete. Inspector Chesnais’s were long since over in fact. There was no doubt in his mind.

Chesnais had little time for the niceties of the story told by the gendarme guarding the jewels, which he attributed to the over-rich diet of Provence.

‘You see,’ he told Rose triumphantly, ‘no sooner do I release the Comte de Bonifacio than another murder takes place
and
a theft. This is the fault of Scotland Yard. Fortunately I was here to arrest this monster.’ He paused. ‘I have made an arrest,’ he announced, squeezing every ounce of drama out of the situation.

‘You’ve found the murderer?’ Rose asked doubtfully.

‘I have found the thief and I have no doubt a murderer too.’

‘But—’

‘I have employed the methods of
le maître
Eugène Vidocq. It is simple.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Rose, dread in his heart.

‘I have arrested the Comte de Bonifacio.’

‘For
murder
again?’ Their worst fears were realised.

‘For theft. A charge of murder will no doubt follow.’ Chesnais departed in a blaze of self-importance.

The theft had been committed by the Ghost of the Man in the Iron Mask. Bastide was dressed as the Man in the Iron Mask. The case was proved.

Wearily, after Rose had hastened away with Fouchard, Auguste went into the supper room to gauge the chaos there. Life must after all go on. He must drag in the servants
who, unable to go to bed, were clustered in the kitchens, to clear this wreckage, now Fouchard had given permission. No sign must be left by tomorrow. Thank heavens
Maman
had departed early. Dispiritedly he looked at the uneaten
plats
, the unappetising dirty dishes, the suddenly uninspiring galantine, through a haze of four-o’clock-in-the-morning dejection. Here was Misha, his beloved
pièce montée
, mutilated but hardly touched. So much loving care, and how little it mattered. He rubbed his eyes. He was seeing things. Wasn’t he? He was already dreaming. But he wasn’t.

Between Misha’s front paws lay an old wooden chest on its side. Spilling all around it, cascaded on to the floor, were the Romanov jewels. Her white angelic fur was brightened with flashes of brilliant green, red and turquoise.

But of the Petrov Diamond there was no sign.

Fouchard had resolutely tackled his task of establishing from over 400 people exactly who had visited the belvedere during the supper interval, while Chesnais buzzed around like one of Trepolov’s angry bees brushed off his comb, eager only to enjoy the honey of his labours.

On the Monday a dispirited group gathered once more in the belvedere at the Villa Russe. It no longer contained a corpse; the candleholders and half-burnt candles were sufficient memory of the Saturday night. The Grand Duke was slumped in misery, looking like someone whom events had conspired to outwit. There was a faint air of bewilderment on his face, coupled with unease.

His gardens were full of old candles, the ballroom of straggling palms and dead flowers. Fouchard had said the place might be cleared, but there were no damn staff to do it, what with everyone being interviewed and re-interviewed. And no cook! They’d been forced to send out to the Faisan Dorè for food; that cook they’d hired – no, he was a detective, wasn’t he? – or was he some kind of cook in
London? – anyway, he didn’t seem interested in cooking luncheon, and the guests were all leaving and returning to Paris as soon as possible. Tatiana had left. Didn’t blame her either. Who wanted to stay in a place where your jewels weren’t safe, or your life either come to that? The Sûreté, Scotland Yard, and the Cannes police, and not one of them could lay their hands either on a murderer or, he thought sullenly, a thief. He frowned. He was in a somewhat awkward position.

An uneasy group gathered in the summerhouse, not the least uneasy of them Auguste. Events were getting out of control; he needed a holiday, it seemed, from detection too. How badly had he been misled. His cooking had never before failed to produce the answer to a problem.

Inspector Chesnais had departed for Paris, with a defiant Bastide once more in tow. A thief in Cannes could be left to Fouchard and the Nice Sûreté, but it stood to reason that if the Comte were the thief, then he had – despite what Inspector Rose said – killed Lord Westbourne in order to carry out his dastardly crime. The case was proved.

True, this took no account of why the Comte had left behind most of the jewels, and only taken the Petrov Diamond and the Seventh Egg, but it was not hard for Chesnais to find the answer. ‘
Mon ami
,’ he had loftily told Rose, ‘this was merely his cleverness to throw me off the scent. It would be difficult to escape my eye with the lesser jewels, but the diamond, and the egg, could be hidden in his
hat
!’ He had waited for approving cries but none came.