Murder in the Limelight
Read Murder in the Limelight Online
Authors: Amy Myers
Amy Myers
The second Auguste Didier crime novel
Copyright © 1987 Amy Myers
The right of Amy Myers to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by
Headline Publishing Group in 2013
All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical characters – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4722 1384 6
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
London NW1 3BH
www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
About the Author
Amy Myers was born in Kent. After taking a degree in English Literature, she was director of a London publishing company and is now a writer and a freelance editor. She is married to an American and they live in a Kentish village on the North Downs. As well as writing the hugely popular Auguste Didier crime series, Amy Myers has also written five Kentish sagas, under the name Harriet Hudson, that are also available in ebook from Headline.
Praise for Amy Myers’ previous Victorian crime novels featuring Auguste Didier, also available in ebook from Headline: ‘Wittily written and intricately plotted with some fine characterisation. Perfection’
Best
‘Reading like a cross between Hercule Poirot and Mrs Beeton . . . this feast of entertainment is packed with splendid late-Victorian detail’
Evening Standard
‘What a marvellous tale of Victorian mores and murders this is – an entertaining whodunnit that whets the appetite of mystery lovers and foodies alike’
Kent Today
‘Delightfully written, light, amusing and witty. I look forward to Auguste Didier’s next banquet of delights’
Eastern Daily Press
‘Plenty of fun, along with murder and mystery . . . as brilliantly coloured as a picture postcard’
Dartmouth Chronicle
‘Classically murderous’
Woman’s Own
‘An amusing Victorian whodunnit’ Netta Martin,
Annabel
‘Impossible to put down’
Kent Messenger
‘An intriguing Victorian whodunnit’
Daily Examiner
Also by Amy Myers and available in ebook from Headline
Victorian crime series featuring Auguste Didier
1. Murder in Pug’s Parlour
3. Murder at Plum’s
5. Murder makes an Entrée
6. Murder under the Kissing Bough
7. Murder in the Smokehouse
8. Murder at the Music Hall
And Kentish sagas written under the name Harriet Hudson also available in ebook from Headline
Look for Me by Moonlight
When Nightingales Sang
The Sun in Glory
The Wooing of Katie May
The Girl from Gadsby’s
Auguste Didier, master chef, has been enticed by Robert Archibald to desert Kent and the Duke and Duchess of Stockbery to bring his talents to the Galaxy Theatre in London’s West End. In the two years that have passed, Auguste has all but forgotten he was once suspected of that most foul of crimes – murder.
Then, amid the glamour of the chorus line, the excitement of a first-night opening, and the electric atmosphere of the stage, a killer strikes. And Auguste is drawn once more into a murder investigation.
Watching the petty jealousies and fears that abound in the theatre, he follows each clue with the same fastidious dedication that he applies to his culinary art, and soon uncovers a multitude of motives. But will he catch the killer before there is another death . . .?
For our mother – our loving supercook
The Galaxy resembles in many respects the old Gaiety theatre in the Strand which was closed in 1903 for the construction of the Aldwych. However, whereas the Gaiety was always in the forefront of technical progress, the Galaxy lagged, and by 1894 had not yet installed electrical lighting.
The Gaiety restaurant was over the front Strand entrance of the theatre, extending along to Catherine Street, but Auguste Didier’s domain occupies a ground-floor position on the corner of the Strand and Wellington Street, with its entrance on the corner. The stage door of the Gaiety was in Wellington Street, but the building of the restaurant of the Galaxy necessitated the moving of its stage door to Catherine Street.
The characters of those that work within the Galaxy, in no way correspond to their Gaiety counterparts, except for Robert Archibald whose professional life and approach to it to some extent necessarily overlap those of the redoubtable George Edwardes of the Gaiety, and his predecessor John Hollingshead.
Inspector Egbert Rose’s rough sketch of the Galaxy Theatre and its neighbourhood
It was cold on the Wapping reaches, nor did the task of the two bowler-hatted men, muffled against the enveloping fog, contribute to the raising of their spirits. In the murky gloom of the strand, lit only by the glimmer of the gaslights from the distant roadway, two constables blended into the background, stalwart sentinels, as their confreres from the detective branch went about their grim business.
‘Execution Dock, they called this,’ remarked Rose, rubbing his hands against the cold, which was unseasonal even for late November. Their examination over, they were waiting for the police van, straining their ears for the sound of approaching hooves.
‘Someone’s bin keeping the old tradition going, then,’ commented his companion jovially.
Inspector Egbert Rose of the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard regarded his subordinate with some dislike. His name was Stitch, but Twitch was more like it, in Rose’s opinion. There was a touch of the bloodhound about him; he’d trample over everything and everyone if it would bring promotion closer. He was nice enough in his way, keen, certainly – and clever, sharp as an organ grinder’s monkey. But give Rose a good honest villain any day!
‘Hung ’em down by the water’s edge. Pirates, you see, and traitors. Them that got above themselves, got in their superiors’ way,’ added Rose evilly. ‘You can still feel ’em around on a night like this, can’t you?’
Sergeant Stitch couldn’t, not being the imaginative type. But he believed in humouring inspectors, particularly those as idiosyncratic as Egbert Rose. He was not blind to Rose’s gifts. He was too sharp for that. Rose might not be orthodox, but somehow he’d got the ear of the Commissioner. He’d been one of Williamson’s blue-eyed boys, and even though Williamson was gone that still counted for something. He got results; luck, Stitch thought. But you couldn’t discount luck.
‘You will have your little joke, Inspector,’ he said uneasily.
‘No joke, lad,’ Rose retorted instantly. ‘No joke that threw this poor lass in the water, tied a brick round her, and doubtless went back to his home well satisfied with his night’s work.’
Stitch stared at the bloated, decomposing mass of flesh at their feet. How the inspector could refer to it as a poor lass was beyond him.
‘Three weeks, I’d say, sir.’
‘Longer, lad, longer. Six weeks at least. Probably more.’
The yellow fog was thickening now as the steady clip-clop of hooves at last signified the approach of the van. Out climbed the figure of the police doctor, none too happy at being brought out into the East End yet again. There was always the chance of another Ripper – or even the return of the old one. It had never been proved he was dead, after all.
‘Evening, Inspector. Another suicide?’
‘No,’ said Rose, not taking his eyes from the bundle at his feet. ‘Not suicide. Take a look.’
Dr Crispin stared down with distaste. There was no mistaking this death for suicide. The victim’s hands were bound crosswise and deliberately across the chest in a travesty of a mediaeval effigy.
‘It is disaster! It is tragedy!’ Robert Archibald’s voice boomed out in despair. ‘We shall be ruined. Does no one
care
?’ he moaned.
Up in the flies, the gasman shivered; underneath the stage, the cellar-men paused; high up on the gridiron, the carpenter dropped a hammer. The stage manager shrank back in the wings, and Props disappeared. In her dressing room, Florence Lytton smiled to herself. She had heard it before. They had all heard it before. Robert Archibald was well known for his pre-performance nerves. He had been the same at the run-through on Saturday; tomorrow, for the first night of
Miss Penelope’s Proposal
, he would be worse. No one took it seriously. The play would be a success simply because plays at the Galaxy were always a success, even if
Miss Penelope
were only the second in this new genre of musical comedy.
Only Auguste Didier answered the summons. Not because he truly believed that disaster had struck, but because as a maître chef, he alone could sympathise. Only he could feel the agony that Robert Archibald was enduring. Was not the dress rehearsal of a new play somewhat like the preparation of a huge banquet, where all was laid ready, only awaiting the guests? Was everything perfect? Had something, however apparently trivial, been over-looked? The eye of the master chef, as that of a theatre manager, must be everywhere; it only took the merest detail to go awry and the banquet could be ruined.
So, pausing only for a moment to add a touch of tarragon to perfect a dressing of which the Chevalier d’Albignac himself would not have been ashamed, he left his kitchen in the theatre restaurant to hasten to the auditorium of the Galaxy. Robert Archibald stood in the middle of the pit, his eyes riveted on the set on the dimly-lit stage with an intensity that Auguste recognised – that of the master engrossed in his art.