Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) (12 page)

‘Chief Inspector, it is not good of me at all, as you are well aware. I have no doubt that much better photographs are at this very moment speeding on their way to you.’

Rose grinned, then the grin faded.

‘What if other friends of yours thought it was Mr Mariot, though?’

She lost colour. ‘That is not possible.’ she said quietly. ‘What reason would these friends have for thinking that?’

‘Suppose someone told them, ma’am.’

‘That is nonsense,’ she said violently. ‘Do you wish to take my fingerprints, Chief Inspector?’ she continued coldly, and was silent as she allowed her fingers to be pressed into powdered blacklead.

‘Just one thing, ma’am,’ Rose said as she was about to leave the room.

She hesitated and reluctantly turned.

‘If it didn’t occur to you that one of your friends might have murdered Mr Mariot, just why did you think it might be Mr Mariot’s corpse? Did he have any reason to commit suicide?’

‘No – yes. I wasn’t thinking clearly,’ she eventually managed to say and he did not press the point. Let her stew, he thought. If she was lying to protect herself or Carstairs, the meat might grow the tenderer for the cooking. All the same, he would put enquiries in hand as to Mariot’s whereabouts.

‘What on earth’s got into you, Laura?’ Oliver asked impatiently, as he escorted her down the stairs for
luncheon. He had never known her so moody.

‘I’ve just seen Chief Inspector Rose, Oliver,’ she told him jerkily.

‘And?’ he asked sharply.

‘He was questioning me about Robert coming back to see me. I had to tell him I thought at one point the corpse was Robert’s.’ She did not look at him.

He groaned. ‘Now he’s going to think that it was pistols at midnight for me and the corpse. Thank you, Laura.’

‘I had no choice.’

‘You could have told him you didn’t love Mariot, and so I had no reason to kill him. That’s true, isn’t it?’

She stared at him and did not answer.

‘Isn’t it?’ he demanded again.

‘Is that what you’d like to think, Oliver?’

‘Of course it’s bally well what I’d like to think. And it’s what I’ve always thought.’ He pulled her round to face him. ‘Aren’t I right?’

‘Whether you’re right or wrong, I didn’t tell the inspector anything about my feelings for Robert.’

‘Why on earth not? Now he’s going to think I slaughtered him in a jealous rage.’

Auguste, coming through the entrance hall on his way to see Egbert, stopped short – Laura glanced at him, but it didn’t stop her crying out, ‘You didn’t kill him, did you, Oliver?’

‘
What
?’ Oliver grabbed her by the wrist to detain her, but she forced herself away. She marched towards the library, a flush on her cheeks.

‘Women!’ muttered Oliver, brushing past Auguste as he strode off in the opposite direction, completely unlike the serene professional bachelor he purported to be.

Four more Tabors, and two guests, succeeded Laura
in submitting to ordeal by fingerprinting. The Dowager extracted most enjoyment from the process.

‘Now what, exactly, will happen to these impressions?’ she enquired earnestly, eyes dancing. ‘Shall they join your Black Museum, dear Chief Inspector?’

‘No, ma’am, rather duller than that. They’ll be disposed of once—’

‘Once the mystery of this poor man is cleared up.’ Her eyes were grave. ‘I hope it is quickly. Tabor Hall is precious to me, as the home loved by my late husband. I cannot bear to see it stained by blood. You will find your murderer quickly, won’t you?’

‘I’ll do my best, ma’am,’ Rose replied gently. ‘Whoever it is.’

Auguste, coming in to find Egbert, all but collided with the Dowager as she left. ‘Ah, Mr Didier,’ she cried, ‘how pleased I am about your poor ear.’

‘Pleased, Lady Tabor?’ Auguste repeated blankly.

‘But of course. Because of it, you are still alive.’ She tripped off along the corridor lined with Tabor faces of the past, specially placed there by her daughter-in-law to impress His Majesty with the Tabors’ pedigree.

‘There’s still our Priscilla to face,’ Egbert told Auguste with some relish for the fray. ‘Not to mention the likeable Mr Alfred.’ But it was Beatrice Janes who next arrived.

‘Of course I don’t mind speaking in front of dearest Auguste,’ she said, turning practised artless eyes on him, as Rose formally asked if she had any objections to his staying. ‘He is related to His Majesty now.’

Auguste allowed himself a brief moment of pride. From apprentice cook in Cannes to Related to Monarchy was indeed an achievement. How impressed his maître Auguste Escoffier, in full reign at the Carlton Hotel in Pall Mall, had been. He had hopes that the maître
might even create a dish for Tatiana, as he had for Dame Nellie Melba.

‘I feel, Chief Inspector,’ Beatrice said, ‘that I ought to correct my earlier statement. I was not with my husband on Saturday night. Naturally I had to say I was, because I
almost
was,’ she explained conspiratorially. ‘Do you understand?’

Rose apparently didn’t.

‘I was with Another Gentleman,’ she was forced to tell him crossly.

‘And he would be?’

‘Oh, Chief Inspector. Do I really have to spell it out? You disappoint me, you really do,’ she said archly. Her fingers plucked nervously at the pale blue
bébé
ribbon adorning her blouse.

‘I think Mrs Janes wishes to convey that she was with His Majesty,’ intervened Auguste tactfully.

‘He would confirm you were with him all night?’ Rose asked, unimpressed, since Auguste had told him long since.

‘Oh, but—’ she hesitated.

‘Don’t you worry, ma’am. I’ve no qualms about asking him. What about your husband?’

What about him indeed? she thought quickly. If Harold had gone off in one of his jealous rages and done something foolish, she wished to be safely distanced from it. Life was too delightful with not only Bertie at her feet, or, rather, at more intimate portions of her body, but other cavaliers swearing they would follow her to the ends of the earth. Life was less delightful when she feared one of them might have interpreted the ends of the earth as Yorkshire. True, that horrid corpse hadn’t looked like anyone she knew, but Harold might well have got the wrong impression.

‘He doesn’t mind,’ she answered sweetly. That wasn’t what the inspector meant, and she knew it. She
managed to convey that any more questions would be detrimental to her fragile composure.

Auguste watched in amusement as Rose placed the chubby rose-pink fingers firmly and squarely in blacklead. So he didn’t like Mrs Janes one little bit.

Lady Tabor’s bosom seemed to enter the room even further in advance of the rest of her body than usual, complemented by the large purple feather that topped her coiffure and flourished forwards like colours borne before a regiment. Only Priscilla could enter, so
completely
attired in formality, Auguste thought half admiringly, half repelled.

‘Were you with your husband continuously after the house had retired, your Ladyship?’ Rose enquired politely.

‘Naturally I was with my husband,’ replied Priscilla haughtily. ‘Whom else did you expect me to be with?’

This was voiced as a rhetorical question and Rose put forward no contenders.

‘Your brother Oscar, your Ladyship.’ Rose pushed forward the photograph Auguste had mentioned to him.

Priscilla turned the glare on Auguste, clearly seeing a traitor. ‘That is a family matter, Mr Didier.’

‘No such thing in a murder enquiry,’ Rose informed her.

‘Indeed. Then pray explain just why poor Oscar is being connected with this so-called murder enquiry, when none of
us
recognised the corpse as being my brother.’ She glanced at the photograph in front of Rose.

‘When was the last time you heard from him?’

‘Shortly after he left here in 1889.’

‘How old would he be now?’

‘I believe fifty-seven. He was older than me.’

‘Could he have come here to ask for money?’

‘Possibly, but he did not. There has been no sign of him, and you have no evidence to the contrary. That photograph is so indistinct it is no evidence at all.’

‘All the same, I’ll have his last known address if you please.’

‘I have none. You may ask Richey for my parents’ address.’ She paused, then added, ‘In fact, were it Oscar, which is highly unlikely, there is a far more likely explanation than that you are obviously contemplating. I trust this will go no further?’ She fixed Auguste with a forbidding eye. ‘When Oscar visited us in ’89, there were a few unfortunate incidents. One concerned a housemaid, another a beater accidentally shot. He then borrowed money from my mother-in-law and from George – against my knowledge – and with the proceeds went to join the gold rush at Cripple Creek.’

‘Successfully?’

‘Highly. He is now very rich, I understand. Unfortunately he gained these riches by controversial means. Instead of digging for nuggets, he salted mines.’

‘He did what?’

‘I understand one buys a worthless claim, puts a few high grade lumps of gold not too far down to raise confidence, and then sells the claim to the first dunderhead who comes along. Unfortunately Oscar was never a good judge of character, and did it once too often. His victim swore revenge and Oscar disappeared. I understand, however, his pursuer is still after him. It is possible that, in lieu of Oscar himself, he might have decided to visit me to seek his lost fortune.’

‘The corpse’s shirt came from New York,’ mentioned Auguste.

‘Then who shot him and why?’ asked Rose unemotionally.

‘I have no idea,’ said Lady Tabor. ‘That is your job, Chief Inspector, not mine.’

‘And so is this, your Ladyship, unfortunately,’ as he introduced an indignant Lady Tabor to the mysteries of fingerprinting.

Her son followed her, sporting a raffish double-breasted spotted waistcoat, a hint of red braces and a gleam of vicious excitement. ‘Ma says she’s told you all about dear Uncle Oscar. She’s still in touch with him, of course. She’s canny, is Ma. Plays her cards close to her chest.’

Not that close, thought Auguste irreverently of the Valkyrie bosom.

‘Personally I still think the corpse is Uncle Oscar. Catch Ma owning up, though.’

‘To murder?’ asked Auguste, startled.

‘Good lord no,’ Alfred said, shocked. ‘But if it was Oscar or someone about to spill the beans on him, the murderer could be old Handsome Harold. Last thing he wants is the gold market rocked by another scandal about salted mines just now when the unions are playing up in Colorado. With South African gold still uncertain because of the war, Colorado is pretty vital. So get rid of him. Much easier. There, what do you think of that?’

‘An excellently thought-out theory, Mr Alfred,’ Rose said genially. ‘Good to see you young folk so willing to assist the police.’

‘Not at all.’ Alfred took this graciously at face value. ‘After all, I’d rather it was old Harold than dear old Cyril.’

Rose eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Your uncle? Why should
he want to murder your Uncle Oscar?’

‘He wouldn’t. But he might well have had a go at old Simpson.’

‘Who?’

‘Colonel Simpson,’ Alfred told him innocently. ‘Didn’t anyone mention him? As Ma always says, Unky Cyrie is a gentleman of distressingly frivolous tastes. Before Gorgeous Gertie, he took a shine to Alluring Alice, daughter of one Colonel Cuthbert Simpson of the British Army in India. Quite smitten was Cyril and so evidently was Alice, for she opened the oven door before she should have, if you take my meaning, and was cooking up a little Cyril. By that time our Cyril had met Gertie, so he turned poor old Alice away without a second thought. The gallant Colonel threatened fire and brimstone – and what was worse to the Tabors, exposure. He lives at Skipton. Fell Hall.’

‘And you think your uncle murdered him?’

Alfred looked shocked. ‘Good God, no. Cyril wouldn’t do a thing like that, except by accident. If it’s him, he might have come here looking for Cyril – but for a murderer my money’s on Carstairs.’

Rose said nothing, but firmly pushed the powdered blacklead towards him.

‘Everyone is very anxious to help,’ he remarked as the door closed behind a newly fingerprinted Alfred. ‘A case of too many cooks, you might say. Where best to hide a piece of straw, Auguste?’

‘In a haystack, Egbert.’

He dined well off chicken and mutton casserole and bilberry pie, after which Egbert announced very casually his intention of having a word, not only with Cyril Tabor, but with Tatiana and Alexander during the afternoon. He wondered if Auguste would fancy
going to Skipton to see whether by any chance Cyril’s gallant colonel were fact. Reluctantly Auguste agreed, since he could think of no valid reason for demanding to be present while Egbert interviewed Tatiana.

His plans, however, were delayed by the unmistakable sound of someone sobbing in the Blue Salon. Cautiously he opened the door, chivalry to the fore, hoping it was not Beatrice Janes. It was not. It was Gertie, who leapt up when she saw him and flung her arms round his neck, while Cyril stood embarrassedly by the window.